Re: virus: Normativity and Meaning

David McFadzean (morpheus@lucifer.com)
Sun, 21 Feb 1999 19:35:51 -0700

-----Original Message-----
From: KMO <kmo@c-realm.com>
Date: Sunday, February 21, 1999 6:55 PM

><<Joe Dees>>
>
><<People who make normative declarations such as "corporations should
>pay more taxes" are asserting something about the existent state of
>affairs; that it compares unfavorably with their ideal (utopian)
>hypothetical SOA in the described respect.>>
>
>
>Hey, that's good. That gives normative statements truth value without
>recourse to "moral facts." Still, it seems to me that most people do

It does, but then all normative statements are true, even ones that express logically opposite goals.

person A:
"corporations should pay more taxes" = "In my ideal SOA, corporations would pay more taxes" = true for person A

person B:
"corporations should pay less taxes" = "In my ideal SOA, corporations would pay less taxes" = true for person B

>believe that there are moral truths. Even people who are amenable to a
>liberal dose of cultural relativism generally insist on a bedrock of
>universal rights and wrongs. Again, this is my perception, and my
>perceptions are heavily filtered.

I think you are right in that my views would be in the minority. You haven't mentioned which way you would swing on the issue. Still undecided?

David