Wednesday
Etch-a-Sketch
Prof. Volokh (who I've been disagreeing with more than I'd like lately) has a long-standing trope (I remember seeing it very soon after the November elections, I'm sure it has surfaced earlier) that moral claims with religious premises are, even when wrong, not inherently problematic in a debate about what laws should be. His position can be fairly stated as, "Arguments about what the law should be based on moral claims with solely religious grounding may not be disqualified as a categorical rule. Rather, any such argument which one contends is erroneous must be defeated on the merits by getting a larger and/or louder percentage of the voting public (or whomever is enacting laws) to accept your secularly premised argument." I'm pretty sure this is wrong, and also think there is an 80% chance I'm rehashing a previous argument.
I'm going to sketch my argument, and start at the end (take that, King of Hearts): The problem is that arguments based solely in religion simply aren't designed to persuade, while secular arguments could in principle persuade someone who accepts the premises of the religious arguments. The way to get to that conclusion is to grant that reflective equilibrium is possible between principles and the sort of secular moral intuitions which Volokh thinks are no better grounded than religious moral claims, but that reflective equilibrium is impossible with the religion based claims and any broader principles. Bringing in reflective equilibrium is the key step in the argument, but it needs a lot more work to solidify it, or even make it into a real argument. And I'm sleepy.
Also, I'm not contesting Volokh's point about forcing ones moral views on others. Though I might have to make up a way to do so if he wasn't pro-choice.
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I'm going to sketch my argument, and start at the end (take that, King of Hearts): The problem is that arguments based solely in religion simply aren't designed to persuade, while secular arguments could in principle persuade someone who accepts the premises of the religious arguments. The way to get to that conclusion is to grant that reflective equilibrium is possible between principles and the sort of secular moral intuitions which Volokh thinks are no better grounded than religious moral claims, but that reflective equilibrium is impossible with the religion based claims and any broader principles. Bringing in reflective equilibrium is the key step in the argument, but it needs a lot more work to solidify it, or even make it into a real argument. And I'm sleepy.
Also, I'm not contesting Volokh's point about forcing ones moral views on others. Though I might have to make up a way to do so if he wasn't pro-choice.
