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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
OK - but how does one reason out morality? It seems to me rather that we share universal ideas of right and wrong and then explain how different policies conform to those universal ideas. Like I said before, we all seem to agree that the well being of the Iraqi people is important. Some people argue that the war, on balance, has made the Iraqi people worse off. Some people argue that on balance the Iraqi people are better off because of the war. But why should we care about the Iraqi people in the first place? Or the debate on affirmative action. One side argues that affirmative action helps African americans improve their situation, where other people argue that affirmative action actually makes African Americans worse off (by increasing prejudice and making people assume they are less qualified in their jobs etc.) but everyone seems to agree that African Americans need to be better off. Why?

I disagree with your idea that we share universal ideas of right and wrong, except in the most abstract way. Take affirmative action. Some people think that the government should not take race into account in any way. Others think that this "neutrality" is a false one. So there is a fundamental disagreement on some level. Presumably they all agree that government action should be fair, but that's not much of an agreement.

I keep meaning to point you to the idea of "incompletely theorized agreements", associated with Cass Sunstein. The basic gist is that we may disagree about fundamental principles but nonetheless be able to agree on specific outcomes. But Lawrence Solum describes it better in that piece I've linked to.