Friday Philosophy Class

Via Jonah Goldberg at NRO, Matt Yglesias on the supposed absence of objective morality. He starts by quoting Fred Siegel, then adds his own comment:

If, as Michel Foucault told the Berkeley faculty in 1983, "There is no universal criterion which permits us to say, this category of power relations are bad and those are good," then there is no way to prefer a liberal society to fascism, communism, or Islamism.

[Yglesias:] Tragically, I don't have time for a full-throated defense of my meta-ethical views at the moment. But this kind of claim, oft-made, is clearly false. Is there a universal criterion by which I judge whether I like chocolate ice cream better than vanilla ice cream? Presumably not. Is there, therefore no way to prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream? Obiously, no; people are walking around with preferences about this as we speak, and it's fine....

They say there's no weaker form of argument than analogy. But there is--a stupid analogy.

You can read it all, but it won't help.