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Section III: The way that Wreen seeks to explain his view that conventions are normative because of normative uptake from command, to fiat, to convention is first by stating that normativity is natural and inherent to the way we view the world. Wreen fails to go into any further detail as to what normative uptake means and how it would account for this apparent distinction between normativity or a lack thereof between commands, fiats, and conventions. This leaves it up to the reader to do further research to complete Wreens argument and be able to fully understand what it is that he is claiming. So I will take the most common view on what uptake is. This is the hearer's understanding of the intention that is being communicated. Combining this with the definition of normative, which is derived from a standard or norm, you get what I understand to be normative uptake; what the listener interprets a norm to be asking or requiring of them. To further illustrate normative uptake in this context I will go through examples of what this looks like for a command, a fiat, and a convention. Uptake in a command looks like someone giving a command, “Hey, hand me that wrench”, and the listener understands what the command is asking of them. Note there is no room for normativity here as the person is not saying you should do something they are telling you to do something. Uptake in a fiat looks like providing a fiat, “That wrench should be in my hands by now”, and the listener interprets this to mean they need to give them the wrench. Note here there is room for normativity as the statement is not directly calling on the person to hand them the wrench. It is implied that we should give them the wrench, but there are several ways in which we could achieve this. Uptake in a convention looks like someone saying bless you after you sneeze, the normativity here allows us to acknowledge we are not being somehow blessed by someone, but that they are instead excusing our abrupt mishap as it might be considered. Wreen provides a set of examples to further illustrate his view that morality is a convention. He does this by comparing morality to a legal system; both contain rules, principles, and methodological precepts, he says. Positive law, Wreen writes, joins hands with courts, lawyers, district attorneys, legislatures, the police, and much more; which all rest on nothing more than agreements, beliefs, and norms built on said agreements. This is all to say that morality is just the same as another common convention, like the legal system. Wreen then goes on to explain that a system of positive law is capable of progress and reform which has often been the result of internal and external criticism and pressure. He then goes on to explain that legal rightness and wrongness are not matters of public opinion though and rely on rules, principles, cases, and empirical facts that are firmly though conventionally anchored. That being said, Wreen also admits that a valid legal system could still admit laws that others would find immoral or repugnant. The arguments listed above all rely primarily on and relate most closely to Wreen's second premise. For that reason, in the next section, I will be focussing solely on the second premise. I will be going into detail on why I take Wreen's claims to be somewhat counterintuitive and also possibly contradictory. This will leave me with no other option than to reject Wreen's conclusion that moral relativism does not rely on majority rules. Section IV: Wreen's assertion that a convention, in this case, a social convention, is inherently normative. On the surface, it seems like a sound assumption, but after delving into the topic I have found the view to be contradictory to the more widely held belief that a convention cannot be normative. This is based on the fact that convention is desire and behavior-dependent while a norm is desire and behavior independent. This is to say that norms are dependent on the desires and actions of the community. Behavior/desire dependent in this context means that the result or action of people; in other words, the outcome, would be different if the behavior/desire was different. I take something being behavior/desire dependent to look like someone saying it's great that their favorite football team won the championship because depending on the desire of the person the outcome would be different like in the case of the opposing team's fan, it wouldn't be great that the other team won. In the context of Wreen’s argument, this means that a convention is behavior/desire independent meaning conventions are so not because of the will of any individual and are not affected by the actions or desires of an individual. In contrast, a norm is behavior/desire dependent meaning the norm will change depending on the desire or actions of individuals. This is all to say that Wreen’s assertion that conventions are inherently normative is false and thus anything predicated on it is also false. In the next paragraph, I will look at Wreen’s assertion that conventions are inherently normative again and show that even if taken to be true leads to somewhat of a contradiction in terms of Wreen’s conclusion. Another problem I see with Wreens view that a convention is inherently normative is that norms only come to be through the majority of people adhering to the norm. An example of a convention Wreen gives toward the end of his article is spelling, using this example he concludes that writing is thoroughly conventional even though the correctness of spelling was derived informally. This seems in a way contradictory to his view that conventions do not rely on majority rules. In his article Wreen states that spelling in the Shakespearean era was much less defined compared to what it is now. He then says that the changing and narrowing of correctness was not done by surveying the population and instead developed in an informal but structured manner. He says this in an attempt to prove his point that majority rules would be implausible based on the fact that you would need to survey an entire population on each matter to determine what is morally acceptable and what is not. In his attempt to prove such things, he makes a counterpoint to his argument that conventions are not based on majority rules. If conventions were not reliant on the majority to define them then the correctness of spelling would have stayed as it was in the Shakespearean era because there would have been no coordinated effort to define the correct spelling of each word. This is all to say that even if we take what Wreen asserts to be true as true this leads to a contradiction in terms and thus can be seen as false and all claims predicated on it to be false as well, this includes Wreen’s conclusion that moral relativism does not rely on majority rule.