The Future of Moral Science

[angrysoba]

Eh?
Since you're throwing me within the pile of your opponents in this discussion (I'll be damned if I ever know why), could you elaborate on what do you mean by me "lacking rigor and discipline". Rigor and discipline on what exactly?
(I have a strong suspicion that, despite all the clarifying I've made, you still believe that I'm trying to put forward the same argument that Wowbagger is: That science can and eventually will develop a Moral Science. An argument I never made, and you continuously attacked me for, as if I was making it)

I apologize if I have misunderstood your position and retract my previous posts.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I apologize if I have misunderstood your position and retract my previous posts.

Thank you, I appreciate it

As matter of fact, a while after having had that discussion in this thread, I took a while to go back and re-read the thread from the beginning and found that two of the posters I was agreeing the most with were you and Kevin Lowe.

 

[angrysoba]

Thank you, I appreciate it

As matter of fact, a while after having had that discussion in this thread, I took a while to go back and re-read the thread from the beginning and found that two of the posters I was agreeing the most with were you and Kevin Lowe.

Awwwww, thanks Ron!

 

[phiwum]

There is much wrong here, but I will try to focus on your bizarre inability to recognize the vast, qualitative difference between prediction and norm.

Only in a classic, philosophical sense is the second one "invalid". In the future, they will be considered equivalent by the bulk of academia, for all practical intents and purposes, if my predictions are to be true.

By "classic, philosophical sense," you mean the sense used in logic in all its various academic settings, including mathematics, computer science, etc., I assume. The fact is that, so long as the second argument is (as Tassman and you seem to think) an inductive argument, then its conclusion is merely probable and not certain, given the truth of its premises -- and the degree of probability varies with the strength of the argument. Surely, any deep thinker can see the difference between an argument which establishes the truth of its conclusion and one which merely establishes the probability.

But this is a nitpick. Let's move on to the meat.

Here is a more realistic way to think about it:

I want the hut to be habitable.

The hut will require heating in order be habitable.

If I do not heat the hut, others in the future will recognize my mistake, and will be more likely to heat their own huts.

A completely different argument, and one which is arguably weaker. The causal connection between my failure at one task and the behavior of others at that same task is so weak as to be laughable. The argument now depends that others are observing my behavior, see that the hut never attained habitability, attribute that fact to the lack of heat, later acquired a hut that also lacked heat and adjusted their behavior so that they heated the hut in those situations.

But, of course, we already took for granted that the agent knew the hut required heating in order to be habitable. This is why the classical argument concludes that, so long as the agent is acting rationally (and so long as he wants the hut to be habitable), then he ought to heat it. This information is, presumably, available to all these other hut-owning agents you claim are learning from my mistake, but why they should bother watching me is a mystery. Every rational person recognizes that he ought to do that which is necessary to attain his ends. These other guys don't have to learn it from me.

Your restated argument is honestly a large step in the wrong direction.

I have a choice, today, of being recognized as a person wise enough to heat their own hut, or dumb enough to not do so. But, that choice becomes more likely to take one side (heating the hut), than the other, over time.
Therefore, I ought to heat the hut, and I MOST LIKELY will heat the hut.

It is perhaps the case that you will most likely heat the hut, but that does not mean the statement "I most likely will heat the hut" does all the work of the statement "I ought to heat the hut" --- not even if (and this is a big if) they were derivable in the same circumstances.

The fact is that persons are imperfectly rational. This was, of course, the point of the gambler's fallacy example which you so bizarrely misread (a sequence of coin flips are independent events? Thanks for that fact!). We are so evolved that there are certain fallacies of practical and theoretical reasoning that we tend to make. Based on past observations of human behavior, together with elementary arguments of practicality, one can sometimes conclude the following:

Although Bob should not, in this situation, do X, he nonetheless will probably do X.​

I'm sure you've said something like this before, perhaps watching a favorite sports team whose coach has a history of using a certain kind of bad strategy.

Now, if your account was right and people are evolving so rapidly that they are overcoming the apparent sub-optimal design of their own brains (perhaps in a grand Lamarckian way), then the truth of the ought statement will make the truth of the prediction probable over time. Frankly, I think that's a fairly utopian view of the future progress of human reasoning, but never mind. Even if that is so, there is still a difference between the ought statement, which expresses that the particular action is, in this case, not in the agent's interests, and the prediction, which expresses merely that the particular action is one which the agent tends to choose to do.


In sum:

(1) You have given no reason to believe that, "You ought to do X," is evidence that the probability of doing X is increasing over time, aside from wishful thinking.

(2) You have given no reason to believe that, even if the claim in (1) is true, the distinction between what is rationally required and what is probable is unimportant. You pretend that prediction can supplant evaluation.

 

[phiwum]

You don't get that all morality is subjective, do you?

You don't get that you've said nothing to convince others that this is the only rational conclusion, do you?

I don't think moral subjectivism is a stupid position, but it is not the obviously correct position either. Until you provide an argument that all rational, open-minded parties agree settles the issue in your favor, I think it would be better to stop pretending that "Morality is subjective," is a plain, cold, hard, uncontroversial fact.

 

[phiwum]

Just a reminder about the law of non-contradiction as non(P and non-P). It means at least one of them with strong logic is false. It doesn't mean that the other one therefore is true. Further P means in practice for any given time (and space) and in a given sense that this kind of logic only applies localized for a part of reality.
So here it is reductio ad absurdum for the difference between subjective and objective. Now some of you have to pay attention, because this is logic 101 in part

1. For all humans generalized down to any one given time (and space) and in a given sense nobody(humans) can fly using solely their arms. So I can fly and I can't fly is a contradiction; one of them is by logic false and one can be determined through observation to by false.
2. For all humans generalized down to any one given time (and space) and in a given sense nobody(humans) can think/feel that killing is right. So that I can think/feel that killing is right and can think/feel that killing is not right is a contradiction; one of them is by logic false and one can be determined through observation to by false.

Can anyone spot the difference and explain what relevance it has to the Prime Value and all other attempts as claiming science as being able to determine right and wrong? Anyone?

Hint, apparently morality is in part about the contradiction between X is right and X is not right, but rather wrong. What kind of contradiction is this and what relevance does this have to this quote: ""No one can believe that the same thing can (at the same time) be and not be." It is Aristotle BTW

In all honesty, I've no idea what you're trying to say.

But, "I can think X and I can think ~X," is not a contradiction. First, we have the intentional operator "think", which I take it means "believes". Then we have the word "can" which I take it means "am able to" or "it is possible that I".

Now, it may or may not be an impossibility that "I believe X and I believe ~X." Maybe persons are psychologically incapable of consciously believing an explicit and overt contradiction like this (though, we're certainly capable of believing less obvious contradictory sets of statements).

But, even if "I believe X and I believe ~X" is necessarily false, it does not follow that "I can believe X and I can believe ~X" is necessarily false. At this moment, it is true that I can post this message, and it is also true that I can delete this message, so "I can post it and I can delete it" is true (unless we misread the "and" to indicate a temporal ordering allowing me to first post and then delete), although I cannot do both.

So, anyway, I don't get your point at all.

 

[phiwum]

No they're a result of natural selection. And only science can “explain why our brains are telling us this stuff.” Philosophy can't; it must make do with existing knowledge from which to formulate its premises.

I agree entirely that only science can tell us why our evolved brain structure leads to certain tendencies of belief. That's absolutely right.

But when I'm trying to decide what action is likely to lead to a suitable outcome, I don't really care about what action I'm evolved to most likely choose. I care about efficacy. To be sure, science plays a role here, too, since it discovers causal connections that are essential to my reasoning, but my point is this: I don't care to know "I have evolved to most likely do X." I want to know "Doing Y is likely to attain my goal, and so I ought to do Y."

(Before you respond, let me be explicit: "Doing Y is likely to attain my goal" is indeed something science can say, but the conclusion is what I'm interested in. What should I do? The answer is an ought statement, something you've said (correctly) science cannot yield directly, but simple practical reasoning can, combining an awareness of what we desire with causal propositions which may be contributed by science.)

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

not applicable

 

[phiwum]

[Delete reply to a post deleted by Tommy]

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You don't get that you've said nothing to convince others that this is the only rational conclusion, do you?

I don't think moral subjectivism is a stupid position, but it is not the obviously correct position either. Until you provide an argument that all rational, open-minded parties agree settles the issue in your favor, I think it would be better to stop pretending that "Morality is subjective," is a plain, cold, hard, uncontroversial fact.

Part one:
I can think that I can fly only and solely flapping my arms. That is true. Further it is true that beyond that I can think it, it is a fact, that I can actually do it. I can fly only and solely flapping my arms.

So it that true that I can fly only and solely flapping my arms and what does that have to do with objective and universal?

 

[phiwum]

Part one:
I can think that I can fly only and solely flapping my arms. That is true. Further it is true that beyond that I can think it, it is a fact, that I can actually do it. I can fly only and solely flapping my arms.

So it that true that I can fly only and solely flapping my arms and what does that have to do with objective and universal?

I don't know what you mean by "objective" or "universal" in this context, but here's my guess for the former. You tell me if I'm wrong.

A claim P is objective if and only if there is some set S of possible observations such that any rational and open-minded person who has experienced S and is acquainted with any relevant arguments regarding the truth value of P would know the truth value of P.

For instance, the claim that my garage door is closed is an objective claim, since anyone who observes my garage door at this moment would know the truth value of the statement.

Also, the claim that PA proves 2+2 = 4 is objective, depending on no (physical) observations at all, but simply a familiarity with the concepts of PA, first order logic and provability, as well as the proof (in PA) that 2+2 = 4.

So, let that be our working definition. There might be problems with it, but I think it works tolerably well for our purposes.

In that case, the claim that "Tommy can flap his arms and fly," is certainly an objective claim.

I've no idea what it would mean for a simple statement of matter of fact to be "universal".

I also am not sure yet why you introduced two different claims to the discussion.

(1) It is possible that Tommy believes he can flap his wings and fly.
(2) Tommy can flap his wings and fly.

If you're asking whether (1) is also "objective", I confess I'm not sure.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I don't know what you mean by "objective" or "universal" in this context, but here's my guess for the former. You tell me if I'm wrong.

A claim P is objective if and only if there is some set S of possible observations such that any rational and open-minded person who has experienced S and is acquainted with any relevant arguments regarding the truth value of P would know the truth value of P.

For instance, the claim that my garage door is closed is an objective claim, since anyone who observes my garage door at this moment would know the truth value of the statement.

Also, the claim that PA proves 2+2 = 4 is objective, depending on no (physical) observations at all, but simply a familiarity with the concepts of PA, first order logic and provability, as well as the proof (in PA) that 2+2 = 4.

So, let that be our working definition. There might be problems with it, but I think it works tolerably well for our purposes.

In that case, the claim that "Tommy can flap his arms and fly," is certainly an objective claim.

I've no idea what it would mean for a simple statement of matter of fact to be "universal".

I also am not sure yet why you introduced two different claims to the discussion.

(1) It is possible that Tommy believes he can flap his wings and fly.
(2) Tommy can flap his wings and fly.

If you're asking whether (1) is also "objective", I confess I'm not sure.

Okay, universal is here: "...since anyone who observes my garage door at this moment would know the truth value of the statement."

Agree?

 

[phiwum]

Okay, universal is here: "...since anyone who observes my garage door at this moment would know the truth value of the statement."

Agree?

I see no difference between "universal" and "objective" so far. The two seem redundant.

So, unless you can tell me what "universal" means in this context, and show how it differs from "objective", I suggest that we simply drop the term "universal" for now and proceed with the meaning of "objective" that I introduced.

 

[Tassman]

I agree entirely that only science can tell us why our evolved brain structure leads to certain tendencies of belief. That's absolutely right.

But when I'm trying to decide what action is likely to lead to a suitable outcome, I don't really care about what action I'm evolved to most likely choose. I care about efficacy. To be sure, science plays a role here, too, since it discovers causal connections that are essential to my reasoning, but my point is this: I don't care to know "I have evolved to most likely do X." I want to know "Doing Y is likely to attain my goal, and so I ought to do Y."

Well, IF you want to attain your specific goal you’d best do what’s most likely to achieve it. This need not be based upon an “ought” statement, which has limited application in any event; it can just as readily be the application of factual knowledge via inductive inference that enables you to attain your goal. The all important factual knowledge upon which to base your premises can only be obtained via scientific methodology not philosophical axioms, which are limited to existing knowledge.

(Before you respond, let me be explicit: "Doing Y is likely to attain my goal" is indeed something science can say, but the conclusion is what I'm interested in. What should I do? The answer is an ought statement, something you've said (correctly) science cannot yield directly, but simple practical reasoning can, combining an awareness of what we desire with causal propositions which may be contributed by science.)

Why would you think that an “ought” statement based upon an untested, possibly incorrect, philosophical axiom is more capable of attaining your goal than applying factually based scientific knowledge from which you can inductively infer how to attain your goal with a high level of probability of being correct?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
Why would you think that an “ought” statement based upon an untested, possibly incorrect, philosophical axiom is more capable of attaining your goal than applying factually based scientific knowledge from which you can inductively infer how to attain your goal with a high level of probability of being correct?

You really like your straw man, don't you?

Why do you want to attain a goal?
How do you plan to attain a goal?

Are there any differences in those 2 questions? If no, please give evidence. If yes, please answer the first one as you and no, we can observe... You answer as you, singular, in the following manner: I want to attain a goal, because...

" I want to attain a goal, because..." is what science can't answer. You as you can't observe why you want to attain a goal and thus you can't use science, because science requires observation.

http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science2.html

Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.

If you can't use science to answer why you want to attain a goal, because you can't observe the answer to the why, then what are you in fact doing, when you want to attain a goal for the word "want"? Answer that!

With regards

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hi phiwum

I will try to explain something. English is not my native tongue. I have no proper academic education and I "suck" at writing. Further I have 3 psychiatric diagnoses and they sometimes show up when I have to give long written explanations.

So you can do philosophy? If yes, you can do the following. You can take a claim and find the hidden assumptions and then check the claim for its truth value. So here it goes:

Morality is subjective, because any reason given for acting or any evaluation of an act is not based on observation. There is no observation possible for right and wrong in the moral sense and thus you can't use objective. That is it.

When you start checking, you will notice the following about the difference between objective and subjective. If something is subjective, I can get away with claiming it is objective. If something is objective, I can't do as I please.

With regards

 

[Hlafordlaes]

.... Morality is subjective, because any reason given for acting or any evaluation of an act is not based on observation. There is no observation possible for right and wrong in the moral sense and thus you can't use objective. That is it.

I cannot possibly understand how morality could be associated exclusively with mental states, rather than exhibited behaviors. Indeed, seen this way, what's to say at all? It's my inner experience vs everyone else's, basically.

When we identify and classify behavior as morally good or bad, e.g. according to what subjects report in a study, we can then attempt to find what assumptions/criteria they base those statements on. This would be the way to explore natural or innate moral sense. Like language, any innate capacity such as that will have arbitrary variation among the specific derivations from general principles, so we can attempt to explain the relation of culture to moral belief.

If we on the contrary start with a definition of what is morally good or bad without relation to actual data, it is hard to do science. Philosophy or theology, fine. But not science.

Restricting the above to brain states that correspond to these behaviors only seems to complicate things, at least until a foundation for any moral sense has been fleshed out, and we wish to make confirmation of how such judgment or processing works in very detailed neurological terms, a different sort of question.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I cannot possibly understand how morality could be associated exclusively with mental states, rather than exhibited behaviors. Indeed, seen this way, what's to say at all? It's my inner experience vs everyone else's, basically.

When we identify and classify behavior as morally good or bad, e.g. according to what subjects report in a study, we can then attempt to find what assumptions/criteria they base those statements on. This would be the way to explore natural or innate moral sense. Like language, any innate capacity such as that will have arbitrary variation among the specific derivations from general principles, so we can attempt to explain the relation of culture to moral belief.

If we on the contrary start with a definition of what is morally good or bad without relation to actual data, it is hard to do science. Philosophy or theology, fine. But not science.

Restricting the above to brain states that correspond to these behaviors only seems to complicate things, at least until a foundation for any moral sense has been fleshed out, and we wish to make confirmation of how such judgment or processing works in very detailed neurological terms, a different sort of question.

I will try to answer:

Objective: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective

Observer: a person who sees and notices someone or something
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/observer

Observe: : to watch and sometimes also listen to (someone or something) carefully
: to see and notice (someone or something)
: to make a comment about something you notice
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/observe

Now I am sorry if you don't like nitpicking words, but if you experience something, which you can't see* it can't be objective.

So what does right and wrong look like? I.e. only use observation!
Now if you functionally answer to the effect of that this is irrelevant, because we can observe actual moral data using science or that we can still use science regardless, because it doesn't matter that we can't observe right and wrong, this exchange stops right here. On the other hand if you get what this actually means, you also understand why all behavior is subjective. The reason you act is because of the processes in your brain "assign values" to what outcomes you prefer, but this process is never objective.

And now I will explain to you, how you use science to falsify this claim: Tell us what right and wrong looks like.

*can also involve other sense, but the source is always external. Morality is always internal as it happens in you.

With regards

 

[phiwum]

ETA: Note that first sentence below. "You'd best do..." is, of course, synomous with "You ought", so Tassman is obfuscating, perhaps accidentally, the fact that his own sentence includes a normative component.

Well, IF you want to attain your specific goal you’d best do what’s most likely to achieve it. This need not be based upon an “ought” statement, which has limited application in any event; it can just as readily be the application of factual knowledge via inductive inference that enables you to attain your goal. The all important factual knowledge upon which to base your premises can only be obtained via scientific methodology not philosophical axioms, which are limited to existing knowledge.

My, oh my. All this time and you still don't understand the basic form of the arguments we are discussing. Practical syllogisms are not "based" on ought statements -- that is, such statements do not appear in the premises. Rather, the conclusion of practical deliberation is the realization that a particular action is necessary (or advisable, or I have some reason to pursue it, depending on the nature of the argument).

Look yet again at von Wright's argument.

I want the hut to be habitable.
The hut will not be habitable unless I heat it.
So, I ought to heat the hut.
​

There are two premises. One expresses the fact that I have a desire, something that I want to make or maintain as true. The second is a belief about a causal relation that is relevant to my desire. EVERYONE AGREES THAT SCIENCE IS A GOOD MEANS TO DISCOVERING SUCH FACTS AND I SAID SO IN THE POST YOU JUST RESPONDED TO.

The conclusion expresses the realization that the causal relation in the second premise, together with the fact I have the desire in the first, practically requires that I perform the action which is necessary for my end. This is where the "ought" statement occurs.

Why would you think that an “ought” statement based upon an untested, possibly incorrect, philosophical axiom is more capable of attaining your goal than applying factually based scientific knowledge from which you can inductively infer how to attain your goal with a high level of probability of being correct?

Masterful! A stunning misreading of what I said, which again, explicitly included the fact that science is a reliable means of learning relevant causal relations.

What "philosophical axiom" do you have in mind, dear sir? Please let me know. If you'll have a gander again at the hut example, you will see that neither of the premises nor the conclusion are really philosophical in nature at all.

Oh, and just so we can avoid going round in this stupid circle again, I invite you once more to just initial below and acknowledge that we all agree science is a good way for learning about causes and causal information is an essential and necessary part of practical reasoning. Thanks!

[ ] I understand that everyone recognizes that science is good at causal inference, and that beliefs about causality play an essential role in practical deliberation, and so no one in this thread is claiming that science has no role in practical reasoning.
​

 

[phiwum]

Hi phiwum

I will try to explain something. English is not my native tongue. I have no proper academic education and I "suck" at writing. Further I have 3 psychiatric diagnoses and they sometimes show up when I have to give long written explanations.

I understand that not everyone is used to writing about philosophy, and the fact that English is not a native language makes it more difficult. I'm not trying to punish someone for their difficulties in expressing philosophical ideas. Rather, we have to work together to make the meaning of whatever you say as clear as possible.

So you can do philosophy? If yes, you can do the following. You can take a claim and find the hidden assumptions and then check the claim for its truth value.

I do not particularly care to play guessing games in lieu of actual discussion. I find that it's very difficult to know what someone is trying to say, aside from asking them for clarification. But we can, if you like, look at the following argument.

So here it goes:

Morality is subjective, because any reason given for acting or any evaluation of an act is not based on observation. There is no observation possible for right and wrong in the moral sense and thus you can't use objective. That is it.

The highlighted part does not entail that morality is subjective. You presume that all objective claims are made true by observation. This just isn't so. Analytic claims (such as, "All bachelors are unmarried") are objective, but do not depend on observations. Similarly, mathematical claims[1] are objective, but do not depend on observations.

So, the fact that ethical judgments do not depend on observation is irrelevant to whether they are subjective.

ETA: Perhaps my own definition of objective was misleading. I mentioned a set S of observations, but this set is possibly empty, i.e., observations may be required to converge on the truth for some statements, but not for all statements. I used the example of "2+2 = 4" to hint at this fact, but I should have made it more explicit.

When you start checking, you will notice the following about the difference between objective and subjective. If something is subjective, I can get away with claiming it is objective. If something is objective, I can't do as I please.

With regards

Not sure what you mean by the final paragraph, but I don't think it's relevant to me at present.

[1] Whether mathematical theorems are analytic or not is a matter of some controversy. I take no position.