Furthermore, what weakens the claims of moral objectivism to entail a universal set of norms is that moral philosophy is not a formal science, as logic is. On the contrary, moral philosophy is an object-related science concerned with morality as an object, thus making an empirical scientific attitude necessary, thus forcing moral philosophy to base its conclusions upon facts rather than upon formal structures - facts that either validate or falsify a given hypothesis. Given the historical and actual moral diversity, one is thus compelled to ask:Which of the competing systems of values and valuations constitute the objectively right and true set of norms?66 According to what specific principles or standards should the correct normative alternative be determined? Historically, this task has been confused with the search for intrinsic moral truth.The only useful standards hitherto used in philosophy to determine these questions have been evolution and unobservable (or supernatural) realities.67 However, one must make a distinction here between the theoretical issue, the quest for objective morality, and the practical issue, the question of what according to a positive system of morals is right or wrong. If evolution is the objective standard for the determination of objective morality and valuations, then the objective moral standard evolution remains self-referential proving its own validity circularly, which is due to the fact that if evolution of any kind is used to determine whether an historically given set of moral valuations actually is objectively correct or not, then the historical progress of these valuations in turn must be judged from an additional point of departure - that is, judged from an additional evolutionary standpoint. However, the additional standpoint is what the investigation initially sets out to find, which forces an infinite regress making an objective standard impossible a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 263 66 Hägerström, “Moraliska föreställningar,” pp. 27-29; “Moral Propositions,” pp. 77-79. 67 Hägerström, “Moraliska föreställningar,” pp. 29-30; “Moral Propositions,” p. 79. 3. 1. 1 evolut ion
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