A Ridiculous Way to Say Nothing

From the most recent NDPR article by Herbert Gintis on J. McKenzie Alexander's The Structural Evolution of Morality:

It is refreshing indeed to find a moral philosopher capable of expressing such elementary, yet widely ignored truths as "our moral beliefs are simultaneously relative to our evolutionary history and our cultural background, but at the same time objectively true" (p. 291). Why objectively true? Because our moral beliefs are just as much a material force in the world as our capacity to metabolize nutrients, and truth in this case means exists.

This is utter gibberish.  Let me paraphrase:

It's wonderful that some philosophers still have the capacity to record the obvious but often overlooked fact that people have moral beliefs and sometimes act in accordance with them.

Nothing was lost in translation. [via Leiter]

Comments

[Noumena]

If this was saying "nothing" or was "utter gibberish", then how could it be either paraphrased or translated into what I take you to intend to be a meaningful English sentence?

[Scott]

Dan,

Please see definition #6 at this link:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nothing

[Mike]

Isn't "utter gibberish" the same thing as "nothing"?
If it takes me 5 paragraphs to make a basic statement that means nothing, isn't that gibberish? Dan? And even if i make ONE statement in that 5 paragraphs, which may be paraphrased in ONE sentence, wouldn't that indicate that the majority of my statement is meaningless? Mike.