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Just an swer to Elok from the now closed thread:
In terms of myself making normative judgements. I certainy do so. Again, there is a distinction to be made between the physical world which exist outside of and seperate from any human thought, belief, opinion, the world from which our biological nature spring, and the artificial world o meaning human beings created for themselves and act inside of.
Lets think of it as a movie. An actor in a movie has every right to make normative statements about how the movie ought to be, statements which mean something only within the world of the movie. Outside of the movie these normative statements are meaningless and useless. The same is true, I believe, for normative moral judgements. These judgments matter only within the artificial world of meaning human beings have created. They have no use or bearing on the physical world out there. Making a normative statement about the behavior of say animals is nonsensical. They act as they do, saying they ought to act differently is nonsense.
We human beings chose to live within this artificial world of meaning, actors (personas) in this morality play. As a part of this morality play I can chose, and do chose, to make normative statements about how the play should progress, and what can be done to make it better. I don;t though think that these statements are somehow "the Truth" because I accept that they are valid only within this artifical moral play we all inhabit.
GePap: I've heard you make too many normative judgments to believe that you're so free-and-easy about it. Not that I blame you; even Sartre made ethical statements which are nonsensical in his context, apparently without realizing it.
EDIT: Now I've got more time. What I was trying to say (continuing with GePap here) is that moral judgments of the absolute type are too embedded in us to be shrugged off and rewritten by a feat of understanding, as Nietzsche predicted. It's been what, a century since Nietzsche died? And how many forms of new values have been created which do not follow the absolute-value religious type? I can think of only a few: LaVeyan Satanism, and other ideologies of a similar nature. And perhaps Rand's Objectivism, but I don't know what the hell to make of that.
EDIT: Now I've got more time. What I was trying to say (continuing with GePap here) is that moral judgments of the absolute type are too embedded in us to be shrugged off and rewritten by a feat of understanding, as Nietzsche predicted. It's been what, a century since Nietzsche died? And how many forms of new values have been created which do not follow the absolute-value religious type? I can think of only a few: LaVeyan Satanism, and other ideologies of a similar nature. And perhaps Rand's Objectivism, but I don't know what the hell to make of that.
In terms of myself making normative judgements. I certainy do so. Again, there is a distinction to be made between the physical world which exist outside of and seperate from any human thought, belief, opinion, the world from which our biological nature spring, and the artificial world o meaning human beings created for themselves and act inside of.
Lets think of it as a movie. An actor in a movie has every right to make normative statements about how the movie ought to be, statements which mean something only within the world of the movie. Outside of the movie these normative statements are meaningless and useless. The same is true, I believe, for normative moral judgements. These judgments matter only within the artificial world of meaning human beings have created. They have no use or bearing on the physical world out there. Making a normative statement about the behavior of say animals is nonsensical. They act as they do, saying they ought to act differently is nonsense.
We human beings chose to live within this artificial world of meaning, actors (personas) in this morality play. As a part of this morality play I can chose, and do chose, to make normative statements about how the play should progress, and what can be done to make it better. I don;t though think that these statements are somehow "the Truth" because I accept that they are valid only within this artifical moral play we all inhabit.
atheists and agnostics are created by stories like that
its based on a desire to avoid the hypocrisy of expecting and wanting better treatment than what I dish out. Thats different from a desire to avoid conflict for pragmatic reasons... 
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