Grice on "Absolutes"

--- There is an item in the Grice Archive entitled, "Values, Morals, Absolutes, and the Metaphysical", so one has to be careful.

I like the idea of plurarising 'the absolutes'. What are they?

In terms of valuing: consider, 'Say the truth'. Is that a moral absolute? Grice does not think so. So he is pouring scorn on Kant's absolutism. He wants to say that to deem something 'absolute' in morals can't be done unless we bring in some metaphyisical prejudices with us. Only a metaphysical foundation of absolute value has prospects of winning the day.

Grice is reacting to the relativism of the type he saw flourishing in Oxford with J. L. Mackie, and Philippa Foot.