[This series is part of Section Four, Ethics and the Third Person. An index with links to all parts of the work as they are posted can be found [url=https://forum.evangelicaluniversalist.com/t/sword-to-the-heart-ethics-and-the-third-person/1335/1]here.]
[This series concludes Chapter 36, “Discovered Rational Secular Ethics?”.]
[Entry 1]
But, is this notion, of avowedly interpersonal human relationships, sufficient for objectively ethical grounding?
It may be noticed that this secular, humanistic theory is not in fact judged to be sufficient by any explicit proponent of pragmatic invented ethics and/or discovered non-rational ethics! But then again, is the mere observation of dissent among the secular ranks, something to be inextricably held against a particular theory among those ranks? I would instantly undercut any theistic theory of my own, on a precisely identical ground, if I attempted to appeal to such a mere complaint. For after all, there are religious disagreements as well, are there not?–and far more in number of disagreements, too! Not that any mere appeal to numbers would carry legitimate philosophical weight in this regard, but the point is that the principle for the complaint would be the same in either case. Moreover, an appeal to such a principle could only escape being applied to all disagreements on any topic, by either ignorance, incompetence, or (to put it bluntly) cheating.
Still, neither should the disagreements simply be ignored as if they don’t exist. Perhaps they exist because the proponents detect some viable problems with this special variant of the first general theory.
Indeed, I find, as I consider the issue, that as attractive as this special variant looks, it proceeds by ignoring some fundamental recognitions; especially insofar as the theory excludes reference to the ground of reality on which we depend for our existence.