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Peter David Jones's avatar

I might well. It was, for instance a ery blatant case if treating people as means, not ends.

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Stephen Diamond's avatar

Two distinct questions here: 1) is Hanson a moralist? and 2) Does Hanson take an unpopular moral position? You say question 2) has biased or even swallowed question 1).

We've defined "moralist" as someone who uses moral arguments (as opposed to factual arguments robust to moral considerations). In the instance Cahokia brought up, Hanson made a moral argument the fulcrum of decision concerning the welfare of "undesirables." I don't understand the stubbornness in conceding he was a moralist in this instance. This seems to have been embarrassing, which I take to show some element of misdirection. I might call Robin a crypto-moralist.

Surely I see the point that Hanson often appears amoral. An amoral moralist? I can almost see why you see this as some kind of leftist demonization. But as with all good crypto anythings, Hanson's moral position is complex and hardly transparent. I would say he is essentially an agnostic on moral realism. But his moralism on undesirables shows how it is an unusual kind of agnosticism, as he expressly invokes moral uncertainty as an argument.

[Edit.] A more precise term than crypto-moralist is 'estoric moralist.'

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