Talk:Moral Zeitgeist

Not Moral Relativism: Don't Merge
The Moral Zeitgeist is not prescriptive: it is an observation. The idea of the Moral Zeitgeist does not specify a theory of morality or a mechanism of the change of morality. Instead, it is an empirical observation based on, say, the history of legal systems.

It seems that Dawkins leans towards an absolute morality. --Matthayichen (talk) 12:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Out of Philosophical Context: Merge
The article implies that the notion is a fairly recent one in ethics. It would help to put it in context with other, similar, but very older positions of moral relativism that Dawkins ignores (for whatever reason). I propose an article merge would be helpful.--85.179.203.248 (talk) 08:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge. Dawkins just gave moral relativism a fancy term. Shashamula (talk) 22:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Dawkins Introduced?
It may very well be that Dawkins "introduced" the public to this combination of words. However, "moral zeitgeist" has a clear meaning by virtue of simply chaining the two words together. So, is it that Dawkins coined this term, introduced it, or introduced it to the public audience (or at least reader's of his book) and his particular interpretation of the meanings inherent in that term? I've been saying moral zeitgeist for over twenty years, but amongst acquaintances (to their annoyance I am sure). I'm certain other have too. Is my point clear? I'm wondering if the phrasing can be a bit less of an implication that Richard Dawkins invented this combination of words or has any jurisdiction over its usage. Perhaps what is said here is already accurate. I'm unsure, but it could be clarified I think. --Davidp (talk) 14:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Deletion
WP:NEO sums up that policy as referring to "A new term doesn't belong in Wikipedia unless there are reliable sources specifically about the term — not just sources which mention it briefly or use it in passing". The book The God Delusion discusses the term (not just mentioning it briefly or using it in passing), and the article itself links to a lecture specifically about Moral Zeitgeist. So it is extremely clear that this article does not meet the requirements of WP:NEO, and so should not be deleted. Additionally this article has been rated to be of mid importance on the importance scale for philosophy - as such it would be a loss to Wikipedia were it deleted. I would ask that RucasHost to be a bit slower and more thoughtful before introducing the deletion template on articles as at least in this case doing so reduces the quality of Wikipedia. --Robhu 11:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)