Submitted by Ma3Ke4Li3 t3_ynt30e in philosophy
The following is an example for an argument for a moral claim.
Value: All random killing is wrong
Fact: X is a random killing
Moral claim: X is wrong
Science can provide insight into the Fact clause here. Therefore, Science helps us determine the claim. However, Science cannot provide justification for the Value clause.
Shermer makes the following assertions in the interview (roughly).
"If you want to know if something is wrong, ask the people". - This just shows what their preference is. It does not entail anything beyond their preference.
"If it is right for you, it is right for everybody". - While most people today would wholeheartedly agree, this maxim too is a value statement. It could be seen as a version of Kant's Categorical Imperative, but, it is (arguably) an axiom rather than anything independently supported by either Reason or Science.
The best understanding I can give to Shermer is that morality is whatever people prefer. Perhaps that is the best we can do, but it is deflationary of morality. If true, morality is not a useful concept. There are only subjective preferences. It also does not solve the problem of how to aggregate opposing preferences.
I think science can be useful for studying what makes people happy/content and what causes the most harm/suffering. In that way, science can help direct your moral framework to actually achieve the greatest good. I agree science can't/shouldn't dictate what that framework is.
>I think science can be useful for studying what makes people happy/content and what causes the most harm/suffering. In that way, science can help direct your moral framework to actually achieve the greatest good.
No it can't, you've also fallen for the naturalistic fallacy. What science can help determine is the the greatest happiness/contentment and least harm/suffering, those are not the same as "good" (or bad, respectively).
Maybe I wasn't clear, but I meant to say exactly what you said.
Yeah morality is more complex than that, for instance you could eat a lot of food for pleasure, except it would bring harm/suffering later in the form of diabetes and bad knees. Generally there are short-term choices and long-term choices. Religions tend to make long-term choices.
No that's not the point. You're talking about practicalities, i.e. predicting the full consequences of an action. (Which only matters for consequentialist ethics anyway).
The fundamental problem is that you cannot simply equate suffering with bad and pleasure with good, it needs to be justified, and it is this justification that science can never provide.
I'd say it's more an is-ought-fallacy, rather than a naturalistic fallacy.
Those are the same.
No, there is a difference. In an is-ought fallacy, the first normative premise is missing, whereas in a naturalistic fallacy, this premise is present but has been transformed into a definition.
>"If it is right for you, it is right for everybody".
If it is right for the surgeon to cut a person open, it is right for everyone to cut a person open.
It is right for me to bathe my child. It is not right for you to bathe my child.
I think consent plays a part here
I don't think that's the way to interpret the claim. Rather, if it's right for the surgeon to operate on a person, it's right for everyone for that surgeon to operate. That is, everyone benefits (however indirectly) from a right action being taken from someone.
I'd rather not get brain surgery from a dental surgeon.
Hey I can’t be operated on because the surgeon is operating on other people
> Science can provide insight into the Fact clause here. Therefore, Science helps us determine the claim.
How many scientists can realize that there are at least two problems here: the meaning of the words "is" and "wrong"?
How many people might form incorrect beliefs (say, a simplistic and inaccurate model of the complexity/truth) as a consequence of science's (potential) mishandling of such discussions (due to not having the necessary background knowledge, and not being able to realize it as a consequence)?
I think Science is flawless here.
Scientists can be heroic but they can certainly be flawed. Even people with high cognitive abilities might be unaware of a whole discipline of thought and may be unaware of their lack of knowledge. They may hold values that they are utterly unaware may be doubtable. They might in some cases have personality issues. Their remarkable success in their own domain may explain their eminence despite their deficiencies. Public media often takes an "either expert or not-expert" attitude that is black and white where the reality is complex.
The value of Science itself is not in question here.
> I think Science is flawless here.
Can you expand on this a bit?
> The value of Science itself is not in question here.
I believe this to be incorrect, as I am questioning the value of science.
>I think Science is flawless here.Can you expand on this a bit?
Without detracting from soft science, I was referring to hard science here. Given its success, I think I need to turn the question back to you. Which part of scientific method do you see a flaw here. Again, I'm not referring to behavior of eminent scientists when speaking outside the strict confines of their field.
>The value of Science itself is not in question here.I believe this to be incorrect, as I am questioning the value of science.
Given that the subject of the thread is values in the normative sense, I think I need to reword that to the "effectiveness" or "truth-orientation in the instrumental sense" instead of "value"
> Given its success, I think I need to turn the question back to you.
No shifting of the burden of proof please.
> Again, I'm not referring to behavior of eminent scientists when speaking outside the strict confines of their field.
So, you disregard any evidence that does not support your beliefs?
> Given that the subject of the thread is values in the normative sense, I think I need to reword that to the "effectiveness" or "truth-orientation in the instrumental sense" instead of "value"
You are welcome to rework your beliefs and restate your claims in a more epistemically sound form if you'd like.
;)
>No shifting of the burden of proof please.
OK. I claim the success of the hard sciences and engineering are the proof of the scientific method.
>So, you disregard any evidence that does not support your beliefs?
Yes. I distinguished between the behavior of some Scientists and the scientific method. Do you believe that all the behavior of any Scientist counts in the evaluation of Science in its idealized form? I propose the "idealized form", while leaving some room for ambiguity, is sufficiently preached in many texts that it have meaningful reference.
> OK. I claim the success of the hard sciences and engineering are the proof of the scientific method.
No moving of the goalposts please.
The established point of contention is this:
>> I think Science is flawless here.
> Can you expand on this a bit?
>> So, you disregard any evidence that does not support your beliefs?
> Yes.
Usually people don't admit such flaws in such a straightforward manner, thanks for your honesty.
> Do you believe that all the behavior of any Scientist counts in the evaluation of Science in its idealized form?
Not in its idealized form....that this is how so many scientific materialists like to represent science (as opposed to its true nature) is but one part of what makes me suspicious of it as an institution that holds so much power in out culture.
> I propose the "idealized form", while leaving some room for ambiguity, is sufficiently preached in many texts that it have meaningful reference.
Exactly.
I hate listening to interviews (as opposed to reading) and generally find science's attempts to be philosophy laughable, however I'm going to touch on this part which I presume is somewhat accurate in depicting the interview:
>"If you want to know if something is wrong, ask the people". - This just shows what their preference is. It does not entail anything beyond their preference.
Preference utilitarianism is a thing. Fwiw my intuition is that right and wrong are ultimately rooted in preferences, even if preference utilitarianism has issues. My point, though, is that identifying preferences is a helpful moral endeavor.
>My point, though, is that identifying preferences is a helpful moral endeavor.
Totally agree. Your Value statement is preference utilitarianism, which might be non-congnitive (no true or false can be assigned), science determines the Fact and what follows is the Moral Claim that we should satisfy that majority preference. Science is critical, but it did not determine the Value.
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How is this circular or at all like Shermer? I don't believe it can establish what is moral on its own, just that it can be a useful process if you otherwise establish that preferences are part of morality.
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> On what grounds are you establishing that preferences are representative of morality? Why, on the grounds that our preferences are often moral!
Completely off-base and made-up. Please don't put words in my mouth.
I believe our preferences are part of the basis of morality for a variety of reasons which are beyond the scope of a discussion of the original post. I'm not going to get roped into a discussion of irrelevant minutiae. My suggestion was that if preferences are part of the basis of morality, the process of uncovering preferences is essential to morality. This is undoubtedly a true syllogism.
>generally find science's attempts to be philosophy laughable
For someone interested in philosophy, these words are very poorly chosen. Science cannot do things and Shermer doesn't represent science. (I suspect most scientists accept Hume's distinction.)
When I say "science's attempts to be philosophy" I don't mean science per se but rather people like Shermer or NDT who think they can plow ahead with science solving everything. It's a common viewpoint in STEM even if it's not scientific.
> It's a common viewpoint in STEM even if it's not scientific.
I think we have an example of a philosopher being out of their depth in a scientific matter. This is an empirical claim and you better have evidence to substantiate it.
>This just shows what their preference is. It does not entail anything beyond their preference.
Hang on, I think this needs expansion. If, for instance, you asked a large group of people whether they were left handed, right handed, or ambidextrous, the result wouldn't just be dismissed as "That's their preference." We don't understand handedness, but we do know that there is some kind of biological imperative on humans which drives both preference for one hand over another and a ~90/10 ratio of right handedness to left handedness across all human populations.
Why can we automatically assume there is no analogous imperative for moral decisions?
There are objective measures of handedness, and lots of people love to claim ambidexterity when they do not possess it.
So there can be nothing of value to be gained, scientifically or otherwise, from subjectively asking people which hand they prefer? That strikes me as false.
We have a strong understanding, for instance, that because raising a child is an intensely resource-heavy endeavor for humans, cheating on a spouse is generally considered unethical. Thus asking people, "Do you think cheating on your spouse is unethical?" will result in responses that align with that understanding. Simply saying, "Well most people say they prefer that their spouses not cheat on them, but we can't assign any value to that finding because we can't determine whether that's true objectively," isn't accurate.
Maybe I'm not understanding the objection. I could sort of see it that assigning a particular meaning for why people answered a moral question in a certain way is itself unscientific - there are several possible explanation why a person could think killing another is morally wrong, for instance, and it would be difficult to say which of them is the scientific explanation for why humans believe killing to be wrong.
But to say that we cannot glean anything broader from asking people moral questions and finding which questions generate strong agreements among people seems incorrect.
> So there can be nothing of value to be gained, scientifically or otherwise, from subjectively asking people which hand they prefer? That strikes me as false.
Do you think if you determine what the majority of people believe about facts like, for example, whether humans are descended from monkeys, that tells you anything about the actual, factual question? If no, why do you think this question should be treated differently from questions about moral facts? If yes, what conclusion do you think we can draw from the fact of the majority belief about the fact of the matter at hand?
I don't necessarily think that the answer people give to a question is correlated with the factual answer to that question, but I do think there may be value in looking for those questions for which consistent answer profiles are given across human populations. In other words: killing is thought of as a taboo basically everywhere you go, which implies that there may be some scientific underpinning to that taboo. Eating pork or beef is thought of as very taboo to some, but very normal to others, implying that the taboo is less scientific than particular.
In the latter scenario, when there is wide variance in the answers across individuals and populations, I think this method is useless in trying to ascertain truth. Another example is one someone else pointed out, the perceived morality of gay marriage. That is very much something that varies across locale and time, which means just asking people whether it's moral cannot answer the question of the truth of its morality.
My thought was that it could be an interesting idea to understand where there are seeming convergences to moral questions in many populations and use those to delve for where there may be certain moral truths. But it sounds like the author would rather apply the method of asking people what they want for basically everything, and that doesn't seem robust at all.
> I don't necessarily think that the answer people give to a question is correlated with the factual answer to that question, but I do think there may be value in looking for those questions for which consistent answer profiles are given across human populations. In other words: killing is thought of as a taboo basically everywhere you go, which implies that there may be some scientific underpinning to that taboo. Eating pork or beef is thought of as very taboo to some, but very normal to others, implying that the taboo is less scientific than particular.
Majority opinion doesn't really seem to be relevant if you just look at history. What's the majority of people going to say about whether the sun orbits earth or indeed earth is flat, if you ask at various points in history? There is no easily visible correlation between the truth of an opinion and whether or not it's the majority opinion, nor the size of the majority holding it.
> We have a strong understanding, for instance, that because raising a child is an intensely resource-heavy endeavor for humans, cheating on a spouse is generally considered unethical.
But if that's the reason cheating is unethical, than it's not unethical to cheat when you have no kids (and no plans to have them).
That would just mean there's a biological imperative towards certain actions. An appeal to nature would not mean it is objectively moral.
Plus, these things change over time. Ask people what they think of gay marriage now versus fifty years ago. If the people truly determine what is moral, then it was morally wrong fifty years ago.
Hmm. And, to be fair to my hypothetical, it was once believed that left-handedness was evil, which is one of the reasons why the word "sinister" has negative connotations to this day.
So that's the error of this line of reasoning: not that there can be no scientific basis for shared human moral values, but that it is impossible to empirically separate those shared moral human values with a scientific underpinning from individual or societal norms, which are subject to change significantly over time.
The problem is that you have a presupposition what morality is, and try to fit scientific answers to that, which is the wrong way around. If we don't assume that, science can help with finding out what people consider moral, and find reasons why they think so. This will produce an empirical understanding on morality similar to what Shermer is talking about.
I would never argue that there *is* not anything beyond their preference. Only that it does not *entail* anything *beyond* their preference. Of course, if you put them in an fMRI, you could see the details that lead them to express their preference, but as far as I can see, that is besides the point.
Why can't morality be a useful concept if it turns out that its fundamental root is people's subjective preferences?
'Subjective' doesn't need to be a pejorative word. Experience matters, and experience is subjective.
It's possible that when people speak of morality, they are speaking of a coherent concept, that, whether they know it or not, turns out to be subjective preferences (or idealised preferences, which is the preferences someone would have if they had idealised conditions, like full relevant knowledge)
Like it literally is preferences, the way water is H2O. People didn't need to know water is H2O to be able to discuss water or do useful things with it.
Yeah, it doesn't solve the problem of how to aggregate opposing preferences. (I do wonder though how opposing idealised preferences could be, if that gets us anywhere.) But that doesn't mean it's not true. It could be possible that it is unsolvable.
You have some great points there.
If A is nothing other than B, then A does not add anything to B. If morality is a function of multiple other phenomena or even a complex or simple function of one phenomenon, then it does work.
This does not address the question of why I should be committed to the other's preference. If morality is just what I prefer for myself, it is tautologous that I prefer what I prefer. If morality is that I should advance your preferences, then that is itself a valid preference of mine or a value that needs justifying.
If your argument is that there are two concepts that we did not realize were, in fact, identical, then we should abandon one. Once there was the morning star and the evening star. Today we just call it Venus.
I have no problem with the subjective.
Water has macro properties that we are familiar with. H2O does not automatically conjure up those properties. If "water" were to slowly slip out of use, I don't think there would be much harm. "H2O" would carry the connotations of wet.
The problem is that people assume that morality does more than preference does. It attempts to point to obligations that your preference places on me. To deny that it does this extra work is a value statement. If you just withdraw assent due to lack of evidence, you are skeptical of morality despite accepting preference.
Your last point is the one that loses me the most sleep. If there is no moral realism over and above preference, then how do we prevent society descending into a game of chicken (as it seems to do every now and then on the international level). You could claim that there is personal utility to all sides to agree to the rules of a game. The rules of the game are justified only by the plausibility of all sides agreeing to them.
> "If it is right for you, it is right for everybody". - While most people today would wholeheartedly agree, this maxim too is a value statement. It could be seen as a version of Kant's Categorical Imperative, but, it is (arguably) an axiom rather than anything independently supported by either Reason or Science.
The basic equality of all moral agents is also quite important for most versions of consequentialism. But yes, it's not universal, Nietzsche is probably the currently most famous dissenter.
Here's an example of 'if it's right for you, it's right for everyone' failing.
In an industrialized society, near-unlimited access to water is frequently (and correctly) considered a human right.
In a nomadic society in a dry climate, it almost definitely should not be.
Morality is a negotiation between people and therefore society at large.
Science will eventually be able to tell us justification for the value clause. It will eventually tell us what parts of the brain function in what way to shape our values. It can already tell us what imbalances result in people holding extremely aberrant values and we can care for those people using drugs or psychotherapy. Furthermore there have been numerous studies done on people of different political values (conservative vs liberal) and we are already building a body of knowledge on how their brains function differently.
TLDR. I believe one day maybe not too far away we will be able to tell exactly why you have some value or another and even change it using drugs or surgery or whatnot.
I find your picture of the future very scary.
Even if you could explain every neuron involved in this value of fearing this future, I would still value it. To explain a value is not to justify it.
Why not though?
If I can prove that a certain flow of ions in a certain region of brain results in a certain belief why isn't that valuable?
It is valuable, but in a different sense. I would learn more given my subjective goal of learning more. But I already assumed that all my goals (whether you call them moral or not) are just configurations of ions, synaptic receptors etc. Nothing in the description has yet justified the value.
If all your goals are synaptic action then so are all your values.
I agree with that too. 100%
Does that tell you anything about whether I should hold these values?
Yes.
It says you may not have any choice but to hold those values and it may not be possible within the laws of physics not hold those values.
I hope you're still around. I wanted to continue our discussion.
I don't think I want to get into Free Will issues right now, unless that is important to you. May I ask you the following question.
Image the following two views:
A. There is nothing over and above the neural description of what it going on when you hold a value.
B. The neural description is all well and good. What matters is that it expresses a linguistic assertion of a value. That value can be justified by some means (disjunction of facts, reason-logic, some higher reality)
I think both you and I hold A. However, I acknowledge that there are people who believe B. My choice of A is a philosophical position about justification of assertions.
Is your position:
I don't believe in "some higher reality" so I don't agree with B.
I believe that what happens in B is merely an emergent phenomena. For example I have a laptop. I call it a laptop. I use the laptop. You understand what I mean when I talk about it. The laptop is a particular arrangement of atoms and an electrochemical reaction that happens in accordance with what's happening inside and outside of it and the laws of nature.
When people refer to consciousness (and values or whatever) they are merely talking about a particular arrangement of atoms undergoing a complex set of electrochemical reactions.
That's it.
I hope you don't mind these delays in my replies. I've been ruminating in the meantime.
My list for B was actually a disjunctive list (facts OR reason-logic OR higher being). So rejecting one of the list does not mean that B is wrong.
But it doesn't really matter. Let's pretend I only gave the "higher being" option and so you don't agree with B.
You seem to say that you accept that there are people who believe B but you believe in A. (Option 1 in the second set of questions).
Preferring A to B is a philosophical position, is it not?
(On the other hand, I may have misunderstood you. Are you arguing for B after all? Does the emergent phenomenon you are referring you actually justify the value? I continue to assume that you don't hold that, but I wanted to raise the possibility just in case.)
>Preferring A to B is a philosophical position, is it not?
I don't think so. I mean maybe the word "prefer" makes it a philosophical issue but the core issue is a scientific one. Many people "prefer" a flat earth theory but whether or not the earth is flat is a scientific question.
> Does the emergent phenomenon you are referring you actually justify the value?
It is a description of what value is or means. You have some value or another because some electrochemical reaction is taking place in your brain. That's what I believe. I don't think you have a "choice" in your values because "you" are just an emergent phenomena from from atoms interacting with each other.
Fair enough. Thank you so much for this little chat.
"Science cannot provide justification for the value clause". Why is this necessary? Isn't the justification simply that we want a better world as opposed from a worse one? And if you don't happen to agree then you're not really getting the whole concept of morality that we are all trying to understand. It's not deflationary of morality, it is what we mean when we say morality.
'Science can't justify Science, that doesn't make it unscientific.' Health can't justify we why want to feel better, but once we admit that we all want to feel better than we can have a Science of medicine. ' if someone comes along and says well I want to continually vomit and live in pain, he isn't offering an argument against the Science of medicine?
I fail to see that problem. To say that Science can't bolster our moral claims is absurd. What else could?
Science is simply our attempt to understand the world. If you want to base your morality off of something else such a religious dogma or whim go for it but you will be inviting suffering, I garuntee it.
> Science cannot provide justification for the value clause". Why is this necessary? Isn't the justification simply that we want a better world as opposed from a worse one?
No. That is not the justification. That introduces the concept of "better" before it has been agreed upon.
The justification needs to explain how science, which provides a descriptive explanation of how morality evolved in human beings, entails a prescriptive statement of how humans ought to be. Morality is not simple stating truths, it's imperative. Something must appeal to action.
>No. That is not the justification. That introduces the concept of "better" before it has been agreed upon.
How would you agree on this outside of science?
Does pain not appeal to action? How is stating an imperative not stating a truth? We can't get ought statements without is statements. We can derive our ought statements inductively from our is statements and that'd all we need to act.
No one else is so confused about morality than a moral philosopher.
If you think it's that black and white you live in a oversimplified world
How can one 'live in a oversimplified world' ? What would an undersimplified world look like?
Your (descriptive) pain does nothing to spur action in me. Of course, my own pain spurs my own action, but I can find no prescriptive reason it should. In fact, the compelling reason to act on my own pain is involuntary. Morality is a question of who we are/how we act precisely when we are given a choice.
If pain in others doesn't spur action in you then we are not talking about the same thing. That is simply what I mean be morality.
You can't find a prescriptive reason why your own pain should spur action? How about because your a living organism and that's what living organisms happen to do.. and so far as I can see that that other person over there is as I am, viola we have morality.
To think that there is a distinction between what we choose, what happens to us is a fundamental flaw in western philosophy. We can move past it and loose nothing from morality.
I didn't say pain in others does not compel me to act. I said the mere description of pain in others does not compel me to act. I am only compelled to act when I decide that I should. Whether that is to placate the uncomfortable feeling of watching someone suffer or simply because I believe it is right, nothing intrinsic to the description itself prescribes a course of action.
But the 'should' act, is in relationship to the 'description' of pain is it not? What is your decision based on if not the description?
That's what I mean by saying all our ought statements can only derive from is statements. And to the degree that science and knowledge generally can tell us about is statements, it can tell us about ought statements.
I'm willing to accept that descriptive statements may be necessary in deciding moral action if you're willing to admit that descriptive statements are not sufficient for deciding moral action. I'm not even sure they are necessary but it's also secondary to the primary point of contention.
I could take that compromise. I want to agree that they are not sufficient, but I can't seem to think of any knowledge that isn't merely a description of reality. Even prescriptive statements are descriptive.
Neat line of inquiry tho.
>Your (descriptive) pain does nothing to spur action in me.
Then you would be a rarity among humans.
Most humans who observe outward obvious indications of suffering are often innately compelled to action. We call this "sympathy", and it even comes with rational justifications.
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