At the beginning of class, a question was posed about arguing with “is” claims. From the question, I have derived my own: Should our moral arguments be to persuade people or to find the truth? We have the right to believe what we want to believe (although we can’t always act upon these beliefs) but we don’t have the right to be correct. If everyone was correct, the world would be chaos. Every valid belief or worldview is supported by morals although not all of- actually, most of-these morals can be proven true. We must admit that our observations shape our “is” claims; our accepted knowledge; current scientific facts which are debatable when new evidence is acquired. Observation, research, and history are the most reliable sources to build facts, but is fact always morally right? No. There would not be an “ought” or “should” if what is was correct.

To encompass several of the topics we have considered throughout the semester, morality, although generally accepted based on culture, religion, and experience, is still consistently wavering in that the more answers we find, the more inquiries we find. If A is morally incorrect, contrary to what we believed in an earlier time, then is B, which is closely related to the previous state of A, now immoral as well? And furthermore, can we assume that C, a new proposition, must now be questioned?

For a tangible example, consider our current topic of meat-eating (one of which I am still researching and wavering in, unashamed). If man was to find, based on a series of convincing and true “is” claims, that meat-eating (A) is morally incorrect, then perhaps the question of other generally accepted customs would be questioned. Maybe…deforestation, no matter how minute. Taking this into consideration, several more moral questions would be posed and the search (as the search for any ultimate truth, whether it is for “is” or “ought) would continue and not end until the world did.