Grounded in religion. Grounded in tradition? We have many religions that say similar things, e.g., be good, not bad. Tradition (I include that which works well) may be seen as religion. Societies that work well and thrive have similar traditions (I know this may be weak). That is my 'belief', or opinion. I haven't done the research. As I stated in my previous post, tradition may become religion. This becomes grounding. Don't eat pig! Pig kills! Not eating pig is holy......
I was replying and my argument was wiped out by a MS Windows restart. Divine intervention?
Implicit in a moral system grounded in religion is that morals go beyond simply an agreed upon set of social constructs. There is an objectivity to morals that grounds them in the set of universal standard to just and unjust. More specifically, morally is grounded in the nature or direction of a necessary being, or deity. My point in the earlier post was that secular ethics, philosophically speaking, do not find grounding in a objective moral standard. The problem comes when two secular moral systems collide. How can one assert that their particular set of morals is primary and should be adhered to by others? Rather than talking bout eating pork, which requires a discussion about particular religious traditions and may be beyond the latitude given by the Mod., we could use theft. (1)One group says stealing is bad, (2)another that only stealing from people in their own group is bad. Where does the moral authority (not political or legal) come from to say that (1) can hold (2) accountable to their(1) moral system? Without and universal standard moral authority falls flat in complex situations. Many secular philosophers want to assert objectivity to fundamental moral claims, but have had a difficult time doing so.
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If life does exist elsewhere, it's conditionally true, the condition being proof by the scientific method. I don't know if I've addressed your ideas, or just expressed mine. I hope maybe both. Cheers.
I agree that the question of alien life can be answered in principle even if it cannot be answered practically due to the lack of technology. I would not say it is conditionally true, it is simply true, but we cannot prove it to be so. The point the author makes is that there is a difference between truth and fact. Truth and proof are distinct ideas.