"Rationally" deciding ethical conflicts
In the comments, Alex asks how one might respond to a liberal who says that argumentation is the only way to rationally adjudicate an ethical conflict. Let me answer by outlining another way of adjudicating such a conflict, one that was actually used in Europe at times. (I am not advocating this method of proceeding, just demonstrating that it is not less rational than argumentation, on liberals' own terms .) Our premises: 1) The human intellect is the servant of the human will. Unless the will is pure, the intellect will be following the sinful dictates of the will, and therefore will reach false conclusions on moral issues. (This is the position of Augustine, and to some extent of Aquinas.) 2) There is a Supreme Being who is actively involved in the events of humans' lives, and will intervene to see that good triumphs, at least when He is asked to do so. (This roughly describes the way many people in the Middle Ages seemed to understand this sort of thing, although ...