Okay, so the title of my talk, Quiddest Veritas, refers to Pontius Pilots' question to Christ and John's Gospel.

Of course, it's hard to say what exactly Pilots' intentions were in raising this question, what is truth.

Perhaps it was to absolve himself of any of the consequences of his actions. Perhaps it expresses his skepticism

that truth is really all that relevant to the deeply pragmatic and compromised political decisions

he had to make, including the judicial condemnation and execution of what he took to be an innocent

man. Or perhaps it's just a deep skepticism that anyone

can, as Christ says, fair witness to the truth. But however we interpret that scene, one thing

is certain. Pilot's question is a perennial and personal one for all of us. It has not, and it will

never go away.

It's a question that we will inescapably confront again and again precisely because, as

rational animals, that is, creatures with an intellect and will who make judgments, assertions,

and choices, we cannot avoid seeking what is objectively true.

The truth is inescapable for us because even if we try to say that there is no objective truth,

we are thereby trying to say something objectively true.

This reality about us that we seek out and must conform ourselves to the truth in every

sphere of human life is what all forms of relativism, which is the denial of objective truth,

attempt to deny. Now, why should we worry about relativism? Students in my classes, especially my classes and moral theory, which I teach often, are

often scandalized by the idea of making truth claims.

The tacit assumption that they bring into my class is that making moral judgments is a

little bit presumptuous, illiberal, and worst of all, unkind.

Of course, the intelligibility of their objections to making moral truth claims depend upon very serious moral truth claims of their own,

namely that it is truly bad to be illiberal or unkind, that humility is truly good,

...