We choose our values

Whatever one may think of Ted Kennedy's politics, it is true that there is a huge difference between what "liberalism" meant for his generation and what it means today. Today's progressivism is technocratic and relativistic, hence very unconfortable with invoking "morality." Since the realm of rationality coincides with the empirical sciences, morality does not reflect any objective reality.

Comments

[siger of brabant]

Your premise that, in the contemporary world, "the realm of rationality coincides with the empirical sciences" is convenient for you, but false. Non-theistic academics in philosophy, the humanities (history, literary studies, classics), the arts, and the non-empirical sciences (mathematics, logic), law, and politics would all consider themselves rational, and I think rightly so, even though not engaged in empirical science. The question of moral realism -- whether there are moral truths independent of subscribers -- is a genuine one for non-believers as well as believers, and something can be objectively true even if it is not the subject of empirical science (e.g. truths of mathematics -- Plato showed this long ago in the Phaedo.)

[Crossroads Cultural Center]

We must be living in two different academic universes...