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Old 07-05-2010, 09:51 AM   #644
TimMason
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Pontoise, France
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I have argued against there being anything that one could point to as a 'natural morality'. That does not mean that I believe that all talk of morality or ethics is useless - simply that without transcendence there is no natural morality.

This said, there clearly exists something that we can describe as 'morality' or 'talk about morality' or, despite what Sparrow says, morally motivated behaviour. Moreover, all this talk and much of this behaviour does have real-world effects. The modern state, its laws, its protections, are all in part shaped by moral concerns. It is because the church set out to curb the excesses of the medieval feudal lords that we today have societies in which the blood-feud is a thing of the past, and in which infanticide is far more rare. It is because the state - at least in some places - was *moralized* that we live longer,healthier lives.
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