[ExI] ethics vs intelligence

[Stefano Vaj]

On 13 September 2012 23:07, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anders' observation that over 50% of moral philosphers think that there can (or must) be such a thing as an objective morality reminds me of the quaint notion that all intelligent life, everywhere in the universe, must be bipedal and have a head on top of its body, with the brain in the head.

I believe that this statistical conclusion to be parochial and biased
in another sense, namely that the professional moral philosophers
considered are a geographical and linguistic subset of a cultural
subset of a contemporary subset of people having reflected on the
foundation of morality.

It suspect that even on a purely human scale most people in history
have implicitely and explicitely adhered to a relativistic view of
morality (and law). I even wrote a book offering the theory that
"objectivism" in this area is really a one-time thing, namely a
byproduct of biblical monotheism, which has survived in the
secularised versions of the same worldview, and that hints to this
effect that can be traced in other ages and cultures are just
artifacts, "optical illusions".

-- 
Stefano Vaj