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What Gamwell does, in effect, is to show that there is a metaphysics of 
distinctively human existence and an ethics corresponding thereto. This he does 
by transcendental arguments from any claim to moral validity to its meta-ethical 
implications or presuppositions, which cannot be denied consistently with 
making or implying any such claim. He then shows how these meta-ethical 
implications or presuppositions in turn imply a minimal ethics, i.e., the universal 
formative principle of communicative respect, which is articulated in certain 
universal human liberties/rights/duties, public as well as private, as well as a 
democratic form of government. 

What Gamwell does, in effect, is to show that there is a metaphysics of distinctively human existence and an ethics corresponding thereto. This he does by transcendental arguments from any claim to moral validity to its meta-ethical implications or presuppositions, which cannot be denied consistently with making or implying any such claim. He then shows how these meta-ethical implications or presuppositions in turn imply a minimal ethics, i.e., the universal formative principle of communicative respect, which is articulated in certain universal human liberties/rights/duties, public as well as private, as well as a democratic form of government. 

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