Faustus wrote:
I don’t think you understand Rorty. But I’m here to help.

Once, most folks believed that all moral good came from a non-human transcendental source, that big, cosmic super-being known as God. But the existence of the deity has fallen on hard times in academic circles, so during the Enlightenment, the hope was to replace our source of the good with something new and exciting.

In various guises, this new foundation for morality (Reason with a capital R) was still non-human and still transcendental, and thus not exactly amenable to a worldview based rigorously on naturalism, specifically when naturalism tells us that we are animals that evolved. But lots of folks are just fine with a-historical and a-scientific metaphysical underpinnings for their beliefs, so for them this isn’t a problem.

Enter the neo-Pragmatist. He will have none of this. He doesn’t justify The Good by appealing to mysterious transcendental forces, and sees the attempt to jump outside of our skins, our historical time, our culture, and our language as hopelessly misguided. What’s left is us, our culture, and our ability to imaginatively reinvent new ways of being, new ways of getting what we want, new things to think of what’s worth wanting.

This doesn’t leave us empty handed when we confront the Nazi or Islamic fascists of the world, for we can use conversation and our own example to persuade our foe that there are better ways to live. But if we are honest, that persuasion will not consist of some sort of faux-scientific moral proof from mysterious neutral principles shared by all beings.

There is no guarantee of success here, which is why, sadly, warfare may be necessary.

Compare to a case that is exactly parallel in my view (and Rorty’s): if some new predator invades another animal’s niche and threatens it with extinction, what timeless moral principle could the one use to “prove” to the other that this was transcendentally Good or Bad thing?