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The Death of Morality

Making An Effort To Understand

David Wong illustrates moral relativism with some telling examples.

Is it wrong to open gunfire on a crowd of innocent people? Unfortunately we know that not everyone in the world has the same answer to that question. But there is another kind of question that can be asked, no matter which answer is given to the first question. Psychologists Geoffrey Goodwin and John Darley have investigated everyday attitudes about the objectivity of moral judgment (see eg Cognition 106, 2008, and Review of Philosophy and Psychology, published online Dec. 17, 2009). Participants in the studies were laypeople who don’t philosophize for a living and therefore don’t have big theoretical axes to grind.

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