2muchfr33time
2muchfr33time t1_ivdzvhw wrote
Reply to comment by Raven_25 in Michael Shermer argues that science can determine many of our moral values. Morality is aimed at protecting certain human desires, like avoidance of harm (e.g. torture, slavery). Science helps us determine what these desires are and how to best achieve them. by Ma3Ke4Li3
>What scientific claim supports that determining human interests is a scientific endeavor?
In the general, the Modernist understanding of science is that it is the measure of all things. In the specific, the field of sociology (and several others) is explicitly concerned with understanding human interests
2muchfr33time t1_ivfq0qg wrote
Reply to comment by Raven_25 in Michael Shermer argues that science can determine many of our moral values. Morality is aimed at protecting certain human desires, like avoidance of harm (e.g. torture, slavery). Science helps us determine what these desires are and how to best achieve them. by Ma3Ke4Li3
The proposition is absolutely within the realm of science: it can be measured and tested.
A disdain for the 'soft sciences' is an odd thing to encounter in a philosophy forum, but they are scientific: they engage in the iterative system of observation, hypothesis, testing, and analysis which defines science. As for the second point, science is not just concerned with what 'is,' but also why. While science cannot (yet) directly engage with the moral quandary, by engaging with systems scientifically humans can ask better questions and evaluate systems on more concrete grounds than purely qualitative ones.
At the end we have a bit of a paradox: the question of what ought to be escapes our current ability to directly test and measure; however, both the cause and effect of that quandary exist in the real, testable world. This is the role of science, to not merely evaluate decisions to slot into a moral framework, but to expand our understanding of both decision and framework in the pursuit of more complete knowledge.