[IronJack]

Having abandoned an ontological, "is-ought" conception of the world, MacIntyre maintains that society now lacks a foundational vision to guide and order itself. Individualism, reigns supreme.

While normally a champion of individuality, I concede that it is by definition impossible to establish a sense of community among individuals focused entirely on themselves.

The Relativist's response to the question of Right and Wrong is that Right consists of those acts which do no harm to Self or others. Wrong is all else ... an argument which dispenses with the need for any external absolute.

But we know it doesn't work. Because Man has proven himself incapable of judging what causes harm to others -- and even to himself. We are all blinded by our own pride and ambitions, and work hard to justify those things that benefit us, whatever their cost to others.

[OldNavyVet]

Man has proven himself incapable of judging

And so ... ?

[lentulusgracchus]

We are all blinded by our own pride and ambitions, and work hard to justify those things that benefit us, whatever their cost to others.

A stout conservative I admire, a family man with an aircraft-engineering job in the Seattle area, embattled online with the antinomian catamites teeming on Salon's "Table Talk" single-sex marriage threads 10 years ago, once asked, along the same lines, "Who do you have to be, to say 'should'?"