Hi Matt,

Thanks again for the chance to discuss this really interesting issue.  I hope you take these comments (from a random stranger on the internet) in the constructive spirit in which they are intended! 

The basic question, as I see it, is this: can you make out what it means for a system of beliefs to be "radically different" in a way which does not make any reference to the truth or falsity of those beliefs?  If you can't, then the suspicion must remain that it is truth-values that are doing the work.  In your response here, you allude to this distinction, but you don't quite say what it is, and I must admit that I don't quite know what it is.  By way of illustration, consider two sets of foundational beliefs:

B1: Race R is made up of people who are intrinsically inferior to others.
B2: R is made up of people who deserve fewer political rights than everyone else.
B3: R is made up of people who are disgusting and morally corrupt...(etc)

vs.

B4: Race R is made up of people who are intrinsically equal to others.
B5: R is made up of people who deserve the same political rights as everyone else.
B6: R is made up of people who are neither disgusting nor morally corrupt... (etc)

Extend these beliefs further until you end up with an egalitarian and a vicious bigot.  The difficulty is that beliefs B1-B3 are about precisely the same set of people and concern precisely the same property-ascriptions as B4-B6. They are indeed different, but only truth-conditionally.

Anyway, if you've got the time, I'd love to hear more about the distinction between "radically different" and "radically mistaken". It strikes me that something like this distinction must be made and defended if we are to have any hope of sorting out reliable from unreliable moral intuitions. Thanks again,


Nick