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On July 28 2013 03:45 corumjhaelen wrote:
So, stupid question from someone who hasn't read any analytic philosophy ever, what would an error theorist said if I punched him in the face and started to laugh maniacally ?
Maybe, "Ouch."
On July 28 2013 03:58 Nyxisto wrote:
So if i would agree that ethical statements can be true or false given a certain base of principles , but i also also acknowledge that these principles are basically arbitrary that would put me into the "Error theory" category , right?
If their being "arbitrary" means there is no fact of the matter about any starting principles being better than any others, then you are probably an error theorists.
edit: I should be more clear here. By being "better", I mean better with respect to truth, not any other concerns. My statement, more perspicuously, is that none of the starting principle have an advantage when it comes to truth.
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On July 28 2013 03:51 crazyweasel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 03:13 WhiteDog wrote:
I'm a relativist. I don't really understand all the error theory thing.
That it cause problem philosophically doesn't mean much to me, as I come from a sociological background. From a sociological point of view, the theorical talk doesn't mean much.
What we can do on the other side, is see that 1) all mora statement are historic, which means that they are not "natural" ; 2) most individuals have value, moral, taste and judgement that are heavily linked (if not entirely determined by) with their social origin (different social class have different value to be quick). you,re making the mistake here to think that social only comes from social (durkheim's reductionism). but lots of our behaviors are biologically designed while the way they act varies according to the social environnement.(wich is why it is true that morals are heavily link with their social origins.) I heavily think that morals will still follow a tendency or a direction that is somewhat absolute to humanity.
Durkheim is not reductionnist at all, more like an imperialist : he consider that there are fact (social facts) that exist outside of our bodies. And, for him, those specific facts are the object of sociology. He doesn't at all consider that everything that we consider "social" is never touched by biological determinism.
For exemple, I have a desire to live and I am (most likely ?) designed to feel this desire. But society also express a specific contraint on me to prevent me from harming myself and other human beings. That specific contraint is, from Durkheim's point of view, social, as it has a specific existence outside of our my own body (in institutions for exemple).
But I was not taking a theorical stance in this matter. There are tons of works showing how what we consider "absolute" is in fact historic : Norbert Elias work on violence and manners for exemple. As for my second point, I was merely talking about Bourdieu's work (La Distinction) on how our taste and our judgements of value are socially determined. I have a hard time considering that there are moral statements universally accepted throughout the entire history of humanity and by every humans no matter their culture, social class, gender or nationality.
Not to mention, as biology influence society, society also influence biology (something that is always forgotten).
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On July 28 2013 03:58 Nyxisto wrote:
So if i would agree that ethical statements can be true or false given a certain base of principles , but i also also acknowledge that these principles are basically arbitrary that would put me into the "Error theory" category , right?
I don't think think that fits the Error Theory. Error Theory wouldn't allow for moral statements to be true or false based on certain principles (unless you willingly acknowledge those principles to be incorrect). They (the moral statements) are just always false because they're failed attempts at describing the true nature of morality. Assuming there is or might be a true nature of morality would probably end up being Moral Skepticism rather than Error Theory whereas denying it exists completely would end in Error Theory which seems a lot like Moral Nihilism.
I might be understanding it incorrectly though.
What's the difference between Error Theory and Moral Nihilism?
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On July 28 2013 04:13 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 03:58 Nyxisto wrote:
So if i would agree that ethical statements can be true or false given a certain base of principles , but i also also acknowledge that these principles are basically arbitrary that would put me into the "Error theory" category , right? I don't think think that fits the Error Theory. Error Theory wouldn't allow for moral statements to be true or false based on certain principles (unless you willingly acknowledge those principles to be incorrect). They're (moral statements) just always false because they're failed attempts at describing the true nature of morality (if there even is one). I might be understanding it incorrectly though. What's the difference between Error Theory and Moral Nihilism?
'Nihilism' doesn't really have a fully standardized use in contemporary philosophy. You could get away with treating it as identical to Error Theory. But sometimes people also advance nihilism as though it were a prescriptive view. That it is freeing to act on your own desires and ignore the dictates of ethics. This part is not contained in error theory.
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Moral nihilism and Error Theory are similar, but with a slight distinction. Nihilism is the rejection of any meaning or purpose in morals and that intrinsically there is no moral or immoral. Error Theory states that human attempts at morals are always an error because there is no overall moral truth.
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So what would I be most closely categorized as if I am inclined to accept proposition (1) from the Moral Realism section as true, but take an agnostic stance regarding the truth of (2) and (3)?
Just Moral Skeptic since I'm not necessarily rejecting (2) or (3)? Or would I still be an Error Theorist since I'm not accepting them either?
Or would that just be undecided lol
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On July 28 2013 04:13 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 03:58 Nyxisto wrote:
So if i would agree that ethical statements can be true or false given a certain base of principles , but i also also acknowledge that these principles are basically arbitrary that would put me into the "Error theory" category , right? I don't think think that fits the Error Theory. Error Theory wouldn't allow for moral statements to be true or false based on certain principles (unless you willingly acknowledge those principles to be incorrect). They (the moral statements) are just always false because they're failed attempts at describing the true nature of morality. Assuming there is or might be a true nature of morality would probably end up being Moral Skepticism rather than Error Theory whereas denying it exists completely would end in Error Theory which seems a lot like Moral Nihilism.
Basic logic allows statements to be true or false when evaluated against a base of principles.
Error Theory doesn't disagree on that either (not that it can):
Error theory agrees with realism on thesis (1); they take moral statements and beliefs to be truth-evaluable and not mere expressions of feelings.
The distinction is mostly in how the principles came about and how they should be treated, not in the process of evaluating statements against any given set of principles.
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On July 28 2013 04:32 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 04:13 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On July 28 2013 03:58 Nyxisto wrote:
So if i would agree that ethical statements can be true or false given a certain base of principles , but i also also acknowledge that these principles are basically arbitrary that would put me into the "Error theory" category , right? I don't think think that fits the Error Theory. Error Theory wouldn't allow for moral statements to be true or false based on certain principles (unless you willingly acknowledge those principles to be incorrect). They (the moral statements) are just always false because they're failed attempts at describing the true nature of morality. Assuming there is or might be a true nature of morality would probably end up being Moral Skepticism rather than Error Theory whereas denying it exists completely would end in Error Theory which seems a lot like Moral Nihilism. Basic logic allows statements to be true or false when evaluated against a base of principles. Error Theory doesn't disagree on that either (not that it can): Show nested quote +Error theory agrees with realism on thesis (1); they take moral statements and beliefs to be truth-evaluable and not mere expressions of feelings. The distinction is mostly in how the principles came about and how they should be treated, not in the process of evaluating statements against any given set of principles.
Thanks, that clarifies things a bit.
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On July 28 2013 04:30 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
So what would I be most closely categorized as if I am inclined to accept proposition (1) from the Moral Realism section as true, but take an agnostic stance regarding the truth of (2) and (3)?
Just moral skeptic?
A "moral skeptic" (as I've been using the term) would flat out deny (3), not be uncertain about it. I'd call you agnostic among realism, error theory, and moral skepticism.
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I'm still learning but I think true intentions keep you honest + the straightest path cause the least problems + intelligence is your effectiveness. And that's the best way to handle things as a public figure and always having a good answer I guess.
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On July 28 2013 04:03 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 03:52 radscorpion9 wrote:So I guess Sam Harris would be an example of a naturalistic moral realist? I seem to identify with both of their positions. But my god this stuff is complex - I was just reading your links and suddenly I felt like I was reading my math paper on analytic functions  Before you get too comfortable in identifying with Sam Harris' work in ethics, have a look at this link.. At the bottom are more links to a variety of critiques of Harris. Suffice it to say, I don't find his ideas very appealing. Show nested quote +
In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — and not very well — but he claims he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems incredible, and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him.
*A previous version of this post had the word “lying” here, but I was told that my rhetorical flourish might be interpreted as libel. I hope “exaggerating” is sufficiently safe. Now onward to my argument:
I’ll start by saying what the “is/ought” divide is, in case you haven’t heard of this before. It’s an old idea, tracing at least to David Hume, and its gist is that there is no way to reason from facts about the way the world is, to statements about the way the world should be. You can’t derive values from data. I’ll use one example to illustrate and then move on.
Example. It’s a fact that rape occurs in nature — among chimpanzees, for instance; and there are some evolutionary arguments to explain its existence in humans and non-humans alike. But this fact tells us exactly nothing about whether it’s OK to rape people. This is because “natural” doesn’t entail “right” (just as “unnatural” doesn’t necessarily mean wrong) — indeed, the correct answer is that it’s not OK, and this is a judgement we make at the interface of moral philosophy and common sense: it’s not an output of science.
You get the idea. The domain of science is to describe nature, and then to explain its descriptions in terms of deeper patterns or laws. Science cannot tell us how to live. It cannot tell us right and wrong. If a system of thought claims to be doing those things, it cannot be science. If a scientist tells you she has some statements about how you ought to behave, they cannot be scientific statements, and the lab-coat is no longer speaking as a scientist. Questions about “How should we live?” — for better or worse — fall outside the purview of “objective” science. We have to sort them out, messily, by ourselves.
Now: if there were a way to get from “is” to “ought” it would take a work of philosophical genius to lay it out, and Harris’ book is not a work of philosophical genius. I can summarize his argument in a few lines:
1. Morality is “all about” improving the well-being of conscious creatures.
2. Facts about the well-being of conscious creatures are accessible to science.
3. Therefore science can tell us what’s objectively “moral” — that is, it can tell us whether something increases, or decreases, the well-being of conscious creatures.
Here’s the problem. Premise (1) is a philosophical premise. It’s not a fact of science, it’s not a fact of nature, it’s not derivable from science, it’s not derivable from nature: it’s a value judgment. You might think this is a good premise; you might not – and even if you think it’s basically on track, there’s a lot of philosophical work to be done to spell it out. (Exhibit A – how do you define well-being in the first place, “scientifically” or otherwise?)
Have you read Harris' own work, or just this misrepresentation?
Harris is not addressing moral and ethics philosophically, and the is/ought-problem is a non sequitur as far as he's concerned. The Moral Landscape makes the rather trivial claim that medicine can be studied scientifically - despite health being ill defined, and that the desirability of good (whatever that might mean) health is impossible to prove. Just like these philosophical shortcomings don't prevent medicine [what sort of treatments help people recover from different conditions] from improving people's lives, Harris thinks a science of morality [what sorts of individual freedoms, government interferences and customs are conducive to people achieving personal well-being] is equally feasible.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
I'm not actually sure where I fit in. I think my problem is oddly enough, I don't think the terms 'true' and 'false' are clearly enough defined when it comes to ethical statements. I'm probably just not understanding the different stances provided, and/or getting hooked up on semantics.
My stance is such:
(1) Ethical discourse is cognitive (or, fact-stating; or, truth-evaluable). That is, ethical assertions make claims about the world and are capable of being either true or false.[1]
I have no problem with that, ethical assertions make falsible claims, but you need context, you can't make falsible claims if you have nothing to confirm or disprove your assertion with.
(2) Some ethical statements are true.
Here is where I run into problems. I see ethics as a loosely defined set of social behaviours and tendencies, the definition isn't going to be the same for everyone, but our understanding of the term is generally sufficient enough that we can isolate a set of these that is generally accepted as being 'ethics'. So still no problems so far.
So for any social group, we can extract a subset of their behaviours tendencies, that mostly people will agree to be 'ethics'. Not everyone will be in perfect agreement, but we will have enough consensus on which of these behaviours/tendencies count as ethics to say that the idea of ethics is a coherent idea that people generally understand and somewhat agree on.
Once we extract the set of ethics (as fuzzy of a set as this is going to be) for that particular social group, we have a context for evaluating truth of some ethical statements.
For example we will take good ol Western society today, we are pretty familiar with alot of the ethics of that social group
So we make an ethical assertion: 'Murder is wrong'.
So here is the problem:
Western society obviously exists, Western society obviously has a set of ethics, and in the context of Western society's code of ethics, 'Murder is wrong' is obviously true (or at least lets assume it is). This is also not speaker dependant, since Western society, their ethics, and this particular tenet, exists for everyone, eg any speaker can empirically observe Western society to confirm this.
Is this sufficient grounds for 'Murder is wrong' to be true? 'Murder is wrong' is certainly in agreement with the above code of ethics, eg 'in this context the assertion is true' is empirically correct. If you like, murder being ethically wrong would be an empirically observable phenomena.
But if for instance there were another social group, lets say Martians, they are perfectly fine with with murder, heck they encourage it.
So now, we know Western society's set of ethics definitely exists. We know Martian ethics definitely exist (for the sake of argument). We also know that 'Murder is wrong' is definitely true in the context of the former, and definitely not true in the context of the latter. Does that mean 'Murder is wrong' is not true because it is not universal? Is it true because in 1 context, that we definitely know is valid it is true? Is it some Schroedinger's cat of an ethical assertion that is simultaneously true and false?
(3) We know, or are capable of knowing, some ethical truths.
Obviously following from not knowing exactly what qualifies as truth, it's hard to know if we are capable of knowing one.
The crux of the matter seems to be, when you say: some ethical statements are true, what exactly does that mean?
I mean I think given any social group, it would be silly to deny ethics and ethical assertions exist. But are they also allowed to provide the framework to evaluate truth in? Because you need at least some kind of context to be evaluate truth, but inevitably in some contexts it will be true, and some contexts it won't be.
If yes, then I guess I'm a moral realist. If the ethical assertion is considered unevaluable because it depends on context then I guess I'm an expressivist. If an assertion is false unless it is universal then I guess I'm an error theorist.
All 3 theories honestly seem perfectly viable to me, if not essentially all abstractions of the very same idea. It's almost like it all boils down to the exact semantics of 'true', 'truth evaluable' and 'false'.
It seems that the only thing I can't be is a non-naturalist.
Or it may be that I'm just not philosophically inclined, and think that philosophy tends to boil down to semantic problems since so many ideas are so poorly defined.
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this thread is too much for me at this point gonna try to see what people say in this thread to maybe understand it a bit better...
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I think "Megaethics" sounds a lot catchier
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On July 28 2013 05:26 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 04:03 farvacola wrote:On July 28 2013 03:52 radscorpion9 wrote:So I guess Sam Harris would be an example of a naturalistic moral realist? I seem to identify with both of their positions. But my god this stuff is complex - I was just reading your links and suddenly I felt like I was reading my math paper on analytic functions Before you get too comfortable in identifying with Sam Harris' work in ethics, have a look at this link.. At the bottom are more links to a variety of critiques of Harris. Suffice it to say, I don't find his ideas very appealing.
In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — and not very well — but he claims he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems incredible, and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him.
*A previous version of this post had the word “lying” here, but I was told that my rhetorical flourish might be interpreted as libel. I hope “exaggerating” is sufficiently safe. Now onward to my argument:
I’ll start by saying what the “is/ought” divide is, in case you haven’t heard of this before. It’s an old idea, tracing at least to David Hume, and its gist is that there is no way to reason from facts about the way the world is, to statements about the way the world should be. You can’t derive values from data. I’ll use one example to illustrate and then move on.
Example. It’s a fact that rape occurs in nature — among chimpanzees, for instance; and there are some evolutionary arguments to explain its existence in humans and non-humans alike. But this fact tells us exactly nothing about whether it’s OK to rape people. This is because “natural” doesn’t entail “right” (just as “unnatural” doesn’t necessarily mean wrong) — indeed, the correct answer is that it’s not OK, and this is a judgement we make at the interface of moral philosophy and common sense: it’s not an output of science.
You get the idea. The domain of science is to describe nature, and then to explain its descriptions in terms of deeper patterns or laws. Science cannot tell us how to live. It cannot tell us right and wrong. If a system of thought claims to be doing those things, it cannot be science. If a scientist tells you she has some statements about how you ought to behave, they cannot be scientific statements, and the lab-coat is no longer speaking as a scientist. Questions about “How should we live?” — for better or worse — fall outside the purview of “objective” science. We have to sort them out, messily, by ourselves.
Now: if there were a way to get from “is” to “ought” it would take a work of philosophical genius to lay it out, and Harris’ book is not a work of philosophical genius. I can summarize his argument in a few lines:
1. Morality is “all about” improving the well-being of conscious creatures.
2. Facts about the well-being of conscious creatures are accessible to science.
3. Therefore science can tell us what’s objectively “moral” — that is, it can tell us whether something increases, or decreases, the well-being of conscious creatures.
Here’s the problem. Premise (1) is a philosophical premise. It’s not a fact of science, it’s not a fact of nature, it’s not derivable from science, it’s not derivable from nature: it’s a value judgment. You might think this is a good premise; you might not – and even if you think it’s basically on track, there’s a lot of philosophical work to be done to spell it out. (Exhibit A – how do you define well-being in the first place, “scientifically” or otherwise?)
Have you read Harris' own work, or just this misrepresentation? Harris is not addressing moral and ethics philosophically, and the is/ought-problem is a non sequitur as far as he's concerned. The Moral Landscape makes the rather trivial claim that medicine can be studied scientifically - despite health being ill defined, and that the desirability of good (whatever that might mean) health is impossible to prove. Just like these philosophical shortcomings don't prevent medicine [what sort of treatments help people recover from different conditions] from improving people's lives, Harris thinks a science of morality [what sorts of individual freedoms, government interferences and customs are conducive to people achieving personal well-being] is equally feasible.
I've read three of Harris' works, including The Moral Landscape, so let's get that out of the way. One of the issues I take with Harris' argument is nicely illustrated by the disparity present in your medicine comparison. That medicine need not address the nebulous nature of emblematic "good health" in practice does not carry over to a "science of morality" in a coherent manner, in part due to the essential difference in how the two go about "doing" their thing. When a doctor sees a patient and diagnoses a condition, the contours of the accompanying "good/bad health" operation are very streamlined: the context of a given medical scenario tends to supply all that one needs in order to make a prescriptive judgment: i.e. this hurts and I want it to not hurt, therefore fix me. In essence, the diagnosis is the definition of terms; you either want this sickness or you don't, and nebulous value statements with "good/bad" conundrums need not ever enter the picture.
On the other hand, any sort of "science of morality" necessarily includes a certain degree of "openness" in it's prescriptive practice. You said it yourself above, and rightfully so; a description of what a "science of morality" can do must either include something that resembles "personal well-being" or capitulate entirely to the idiosyncrasy of the scenario in question and this is the crux of the issue. Harris and his supporters seem hell bent on making it clear that he is not addressing ethics in a philosophical sense, and yet, the manner with which he illustrates his "science of morality" always returns to a fundamentally philosophical question or it loses meaning entirely in subservience to contextual pragmatics.
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I applaud your excellent post frogrubdown, it was very informative. I am pessimistic about you posting it as a thread though, I'm pretty sure by three pages this discussion will have devolved into three people with an axe to grind repeatedly shouting their preconceptions at each other.
I tried to write my own thoughts, but I kinda feel they ended up rambling and perhaps not very coherent, and I'm not sure I really reached the conclusion I wanted to. I'll put them up in case you want to try and understand and comment, but I'll spoiler them so they're easy to ignore as well.
+ Show Spoiler +Your posts are great, and since this is a topic that I think about a lot I'll post my opinion, and maybe you can tell me where I'd fit amongst the great philosophers of our time.  To begin, in my opinion any meaningful discussion of ethics must assume free will. I'd guess this is standard, but I figured I'd mention it for completeness sake. And I don't want to have to defend assuming free will later. In my opinion free will can be satisfactory established without any assumptions, because in the end it just boils down to semantics, but that's not really relevant here. Moving to ethics. At its core every ethical statement is about choice. No one suggests that an asteroid which hits a planet can be acting unethical, as an asteroid is incapable of choice. But a spaceship captain firing on a planet would be said to be acting unethical, as a spaceship captain would be capable of choice. To put it simply then, my position would be: ethics is the differentiation of choices, whereby they are differentiated according to the degree to which they should or should not be chosen, and simultaneously the degree to which when they are chosen, the chooser should be punished or rewarded. Let me note that at this point, we have made no required statements about our Universe, other than that for ethics to apply it must be one which includes free choice. My argument would be that this is correct, that at its (platonic?) core the only requirement for the idea of ethics is free will. Though I agree that some might not call this core 'ethics', as it is incapable of making any ethical statements seeing as there is literally nothing to base such statements on. Which is why a more full, realised system of ethics as most would realise requires the inclusion of a Universe within which choices are indeed made. The questions of metaethics as discussed here would enter at this point. Best summarised as the following two questions: 1) Can we cognitively (borrowing OP's term) define a set of parameters on which to base an ethical system's differentiation of possible choices, before defining a Universe in which those choices take place? 2) If not, then define our present Universe. Is it possible now? Imo, the problem of the first question is that it requests parameters, while having almost nothing to base such parameters on. Note that at this point we have assumed nothing except free will. Ethics as an idea can be derived from the notion of free will, in essence being inherent to the notion to a degree that its derivation does not require logic (I guess this might be the point where I lose people >_<). The only possible parameter at this point would be 'being'. Existence is a requirement for free will, and as such part of the initial assumption. One could at this point define a parameter that states "Existence > Non-Existence", though one has yet to define whether there will ever be choices in which these two states compete. But the question then arises, though it is possible to define such a parameter, why would it be superior to "Non-Existence > Existence"? There is no basis on which to declare this, unless if one argues that "Existence > Non-Existence" is an inherent property of Existence, but I have a hard time seeing how this could be established without adding assumptions. My current conclusion would be, that it is a choice. Ethics is about choosing, but it is also itself a choice. The choice to declare, for example, "Existence > Non-Existence". And this continues once we define our Universe. Yes we now have countless positions on which to base various parameters, and there are now consequences to the choices made. But how can a property of our Universe make it so there is a single correct system of ethics, when ethics itself exists higher than our Universe and as I just tried to show, has no single correct variant in its core state? I think having defined our Universe, ethics still remains a choice. Each possible system of ethics is a possible choice, and like all choices in our Universe they have consequences. In essence ethics is asking: how do you wish to live your life? and how do you wish others would live their lives? And I think answering those questions is a communal project. People can discuss, debate, and agree upon systems of ethics to implement in their society. And the shape their society takes will be largely dependant on them. I guess what my perhaps somewhat rambling post is trying to say is that I don't think you can find a single a priori value system that lets you define ethics in a single way that everyone will agree on or be insane. But that this does not mean ethics is meaningless. Ethics remains highly meaningful, because the choice for a system of ethics is at its core a choice to make the world a certain way.
Rereading things a bit. I guess the end result would be that I'm an Expressivist? I do not think ethics is (can be) about describing a single objective standard everyone must adhere to or be demonstrably wrong. Because I think 'value' is too nebulous a concept and I've yet to see it objectively defined. But I think ethics is a choice to value specific things, to act accordingly, and to accept the consequences of that. Both at an individual and societal level. Or in other words, a faith. Though I think there's a difference between a faith as a choice, and a faith as a belief in something you consider cognitively true. Though obviously the two are intertwined.
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Wow this thread might actually raise the bar at TL. Nice work. I found the content in the OP very informatively put but I didn't get much of anything new from it. What I mean to say is, I guess I'm disappointed to learn the state of things because I expected there was a bit more going on in fundamental disagreements and not twiddling with details in order to shore up or undermine the dykes. I don't really see any kind of technical work (like footnote 10) illuminating "ought" any better.
I voted Error Theory in the poll because I am skeptical of categorical imperatives, but I'm also skeptical of other things so there may be a better label but I am lacking the education to be aware of it. The suggestion that GGTemplar should go with "agnostic" is interesting because it seems like you can make a strong case that the burden of proof is on realists, so agnosticism is some kind of hopeful mystical undecided category where you don't want to stick with skepticism and give them the benefit of the doubt. Fair, sure, but a curious reluctance of commitment when you are in doubt of any of the three theses the OP deals with.
On that point, I find it interesting that discussions of morality appeal so often to common intuition when going off in the weeds with claims that end up seeming downright silly. I think we can all envision scenarios where each thesis or its negation appeals to our intuitive and everyday exercise of ethical judgement. To me this indicates clearly we need better language, or perhaps just better definitions. The briefly explained schools in the OP have their appeal, at least in various circumstances, but it seems obvious that none of them are a sole explanation of how we commonly experience morality.
I have to cautiously side with doubleupgradeobbies that our poor progress is due to semantic difficulties. I would add to that that there is an epistemic (in the natural facts sense) component. I don't see how you can make claims about universal "oughts", their existence, or their logical wieldiness when the natural terms you're using are not well bounded. When you say "murder is wrong", do you mean killing any human, ever? What is a human? Is a cyborg a human? Is abortion murder? When you say it is wrong, does that mean it ought never to happen? Or just mostly? Are there ever circumstances where it is right to murder, say, a hitler type? Does murder extend beyond humans? Must we be vegetarians then? And you can go on and on with more questions about the boundaries of what is meant by terms, finding gaps where our knowledge of natural facts is just insufficient, to say nothing of the terms which can't even be suitably clarified and bounded.
This is why I must also with a little more confidence side with acrofales in that a pragmatic approach is the only tenable and, for me, conceivable position.
[edit] And yet, farva captures my overall feelings about any moral argument:
On July 28 2013 05:59 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 05:26 Darkwhite wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 farvacola wrote:On July 28 2013 03:52 radscorpion9 wrote:So I guess Sam Harris would be an example of a naturalistic moral realist? I seem to identify with both of their positions. But my god this stuff is complex - I was just reading your links and suddenly I felt like I was reading my math paper on analytic functions Before you get too comfortable in identifying with Sam Harris' work in ethics, have a look at this link.. At the bottom are more links to a variety of critiques of Harris. Suffice it to say, I don't find his ideas very appealing.
In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — and not very well — but he claims he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems incredible, and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him.
*A previous version of this post had the word “lying” here, but I was told that my rhetorical flourish might be interpreted as libel. I hope “exaggerating” is sufficiently safe. Now onward to my argument:
I’ll start by saying what the “is/ought” divide is, in case you haven’t heard of this before. It’s an old idea, tracing at least to David Hume, and its gist is that there is no way to reason from facts about the way the world is, to statements about the way the world should be. You can’t derive values from data. I’ll use one example to illustrate and then move on.
Example. It’s a fact that rape occurs in nature — among chimpanzees, for instance; and there are some evolutionary arguments to explain its existence in humans and non-humans alike. But this fact tells us exactly nothing about whether it’s OK to rape people. This is because “natural” doesn’t entail “right” (just as “unnatural” doesn’t necessarily mean wrong) — indeed, the correct answer is that it’s not OK, and this is a judgement we make at the interface of moral philosophy and common sense: it’s not an output of science.
You get the idea. The domain of science is to describe nature, and then to explain its descriptions in terms of deeper patterns or laws. Science cannot tell us how to live. It cannot tell us right and wrong. If a system of thought claims to be doing those things, it cannot be science. If a scientist tells you she has some statements about how you ought to behave, they cannot be scientific statements, and the lab-coat is no longer speaking as a scientist. Questions about “How should we live?” — for better or worse — fall outside the purview of “objective” science. We have to sort them out, messily, by ourselves.
Now: if there were a way to get from “is” to “ought” it would take a work of philosophical genius to lay it out, and Harris’ book is not a work of philosophical genius. I can summarize his argument in a few lines:
1. Morality is “all about” improving the well-being of conscious creatures.
2. Facts about the well-being of conscious creatures are accessible to science.
3. Therefore science can tell us what’s objectively “moral” — that is, it can tell us whether something increases, or decreases, the well-being of conscious creatures.
Here’s the problem. Premise (1) is a philosophical premise. It’s not a fact of science, it’s not a fact of nature, it’s not derivable from science, it’s not derivable from nature: it’s a value judgment. You might think this is a good premise; you might not – and even if you think it’s basically on track, there’s a lot of philosophical work to be done to spell it out. (Exhibit A – how do you define well-being in the first place, “scientifically” or otherwise?)
Have you read Harris' own work, or just this misrepresentation? Harris is not addressing moral and ethics philosophically, and the is/ought-problem is a non sequitur as far as he's concerned. The Moral Landscape makes the rather trivial claim that medicine can be studied scientifically - despite health being ill defined, and that the desirability of good (whatever that might mean) health is impossible to prove. Just like these philosophical shortcomings don't prevent medicine [what sort of treatments help people recover from different conditions] from improving people's lives, Harris thinks a science of morality [what sorts of individual freedoms, government interferences and customs are conducive to people achieving personal well-being] is equally feasible. I've read three of Harris' works, including The Moral Landscape, so let's get that out of the way. One of the issues I take with Harris' argument is nicely illustrated by the disparity present in your medicine comparison. That medicine need not address the nebulous nature of emblematic "good health" in practice does not carry over to a "science of morality" in a coherent manner, in part due to the essential difference in how the two go about "doing" their thing. When a doctor sees a patient and diagnoses a condition, the contours of the accompanying "good/bad health" operation are very streamlined: the context of a given medical scenario tends to supply all that one needs in order to make a prescriptive judgment: i.e. this hurts and I want it to not hurt, therefore fix me. In essence, the diagnosis is the definition of terms; you either want this sickness or you don't, and nebulous value statements with "good/bad" conundrums need not ever enter the picture. On the other hand, any sort of "science of morality" necessarily includes a certain degree of "openness" in it's prescriptive practice. You said it yourself above, and rightfully so; a description of what a "science of morality" can do must either include something that resembles "personal well-being" or capitulate entirely to the idiosyncrasy of the scenario in question and this is the crux of the issue. Harris and his supporters seem hell bent on making it clear that he is not addressing ethics in a philosophical sense, and yet, the manner with which he illustrates his "science of morality" always returns to a fundamentally philosophical question or it loses meaning entirely in subservience to contextual pragmatics.
[edit 2] And I would echo nadafanboy above, adding that an ethical system, as a set of goals and procedures for sculpting the universe, necessarily asks for natural knowledge. However, you must also ask, of course: if ethics is borne of choices, but seeks to prescribe (obviate choice), where does that leave you?
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sorry but definitions without context are useless ... and once you define the context you realize you've just validated your (1), (2) or (3)s.
i can change the context of any 1, 2, 3s and make from a moral relativist an expressivist
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nadafanboy42 Netherlands. July 28 2013 06:24. Posts 188
Nice post, specially the part where you describe ethics as making choises and i think i have a somewhat similar opinnion.
Voted for expressivism in the poll though the later mentioned moral nihilism would probably fit me better.
I dont think there are objectivly "good" and "bad" things you can do. We not only can not know them, objectivly good and bad things dont exist at all and for me it is all subjective.
The only universal moral i can think of is to do that what raises the entropy the least.
High entropy is bad, low entropy is a little bit less bad. (by my personal choise)
Dont have much more to add,though i would like one of the moral realists to provide at least one ethical truth.
They claim that they exist and that it is possible for humans to know at least some of them, and i am realy curious wich ones they have found so far.
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On July 28 2013 05:59 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 05:26 Darkwhite wrote:On July 28 2013 04:03 farvacola wrote:On July 28 2013 03:52 radscorpion9 wrote:So I guess Sam Harris would be an example of a naturalistic moral realist? I seem to identify with both of their positions. But my god this stuff is complex - I was just reading your links and suddenly I felt like I was reading my math paper on analytic functions Before you get too comfortable in identifying with Sam Harris' work in ethics, have a look at this link.. At the bottom are more links to a variety of critiques of Harris. Suffice it to say, I don't find his ideas very appealing.
In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — and not very well — but he claims he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems incredible, and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him.
*A previous version of this post had the word “lying” here, but I was told that my rhetorical flourish might be interpreted as libel. I hope “exaggerating” is sufficiently safe. Now onward to my argument:
I’ll start by saying what the “is/ought” divide is, in case you haven’t heard of this before. It’s an old idea, tracing at least to David Hume, and its gist is that there is no way to reason from facts about the way the world is, to statements about the way the world should be. You can’t derive values from data. I’ll use one example to illustrate and then move on.
Example. It’s a fact that rape occurs in nature — among chimpanzees, for instance; and there are some evolutionary arguments to explain its existence in humans and non-humans alike. But this fact tells us exactly nothing about whether it’s OK to rape people. This is because “natural” doesn’t entail “right” (just as “unnatural” doesn’t necessarily mean wrong) — indeed, the correct answer is that it’s not OK, and this is a judgement we make at the interface of moral philosophy and common sense: it’s not an output of science.
You get the idea. The domain of science is to describe nature, and then to explain its descriptions in terms of deeper patterns or laws. Science cannot tell us how to live. It cannot tell us right and wrong. If a system of thought claims to be doing those things, it cannot be science. If a scientist tells you she has some statements about how you ought to behave, they cannot be scientific statements, and the lab-coat is no longer speaking as a scientist. Questions about “How should we live?” — for better or worse — fall outside the purview of “objective” science. We have to sort them out, messily, by ourselves.
Now: if there were a way to get from “is” to “ought” it would take a work of philosophical genius to lay it out, and Harris’ book is not a work of philosophical genius. I can summarize his argument in a few lines:
1. Morality is “all about” improving the well-being of conscious creatures.
2. Facts about the well-being of conscious creatures are accessible to science.
3. Therefore science can tell us what’s objectively “moral” — that is, it can tell us whether something increases, or decreases, the well-being of conscious creatures.
Here’s the problem. Premise (1) is a philosophical premise. It’s not a fact of science, it’s not a fact of nature, it’s not derivable from science, it’s not derivable from nature: it’s a value judgment. You might think this is a good premise; you might not – and even if you think it’s basically on track, there’s a lot of philosophical work to be done to spell it out. (Exhibit A – how do you define well-being in the first place, “scientifically” or otherwise?)
Have you read Harris' own work, or just this misrepresentation? Harris is not addressing moral and ethics philosophically, and the is/ought-problem is a non sequitur as far as he's concerned. The Moral Landscape makes the rather trivial claim that medicine can be studied scientifically - despite health being ill defined, and that the desirability of good (whatever that might mean) health is impossible to prove. Just like these philosophical shortcomings don't prevent medicine [what sort of treatments help people recover from different conditions] from improving people's lives, Harris thinks a science of morality [what sorts of individual freedoms, government interferences and customs are conducive to people achieving personal well-being] is equally feasible. I've read three of Harris' works, including The Moral Landscape, so let's get that out of the way. One of the issues I take with Harris' argument is nicely illustrated by the disparity present in your medicine comparison. That medicine need not address the nebulous nature of emblematic "good health" in practice does not carry over to a "science of morality" in a coherent manner, in part due to the essential difference in how the two go about "doing" their thing. When a doctor sees a patient and diagnoses a condition, the contours of the accompanying "good/bad health" operation are very streamlined: the context of a given medical scenario tends to supply all that one needs in order to make a prescriptive judgment: i.e. this hurts and I want it to not hurt, therefore fix me. In essence, the diagnosis is the definition of terms; you either want this sickness or you don't, and nebulous value statements with "good/bad" conundrums need not ever enter the picture. On the other hand, any sort of "science of morality" necessarily includes a certain degree of "openness" in it's prescriptive practice. You said it yourself above, and rightfully so; a description of what a "science of morality" can do must either include something that resembles "personal well-being" or capitulate entirely to the idiosyncrasy of the scenario in question and this is the crux of the issue. Harris and his supporters seem hell bent on making it clear that he is not addressing ethics in a philosophical sense, and yet, the manner with which he illustrates his "science of morality" always returns to a fundamentally philosophical question or it loses meaning entirely in subservience to contextual pragmatics.
Medicine is not that straightforward at all. It involves a lot of difficult cases - does bodily health matter when the brain has flatlined? Is a small risk of serious side effects enough to justify, say vaccinating children? How do we weigh the benefits of longer expected life span against the immediate loss of vision when performing a bilateral enucleation? The context of many medical scenarios falls way short of supplying all that one needs in order to make a prescriptive judgement - say, what are the relative values of keeping your breasts and a lower risk of cancer ten years in the future? You could just as naively reduce questions of moral to I feel unfulfilled and I don't want to feel unfilfilled.
Harris argues that most people mostly agree on what good health entails - even if, for instance, people will disagree on the exact importance of having C-cup breasts, being able to reproduce, running a four-minute mile or living to see your hundredth birthday. Unless you want to get rid of modern medicine, it seems that this is a sufficient basis for an important science.
Similarly, Harris claims that the lack of consensus on what well-being might be and its importance does not prevent the science of morals from pulling its weight. In the first place, practitioners of arranged marriage do not, to my knowledge, argue that suffering is good, but that the practice ultimately pays off by making people's lives better. And at this point, if you can find any way of gauging well-being, not necessarily perfectly, but about as well as we can differentiate between good and bad health, you have opened the door for scientific inquiry.
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EPT
