Exactly. And if philosophers don’t have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?
So when kahneman et al tested hard scientists foe presentation bias, they found them, out of the population, to be uniquely free from it? I don’t recall hearing that result.
I haven’t checked, but I strongly expect that hard scientists would be relatively free of presentation bias in answering well-formed questions (that have universally agreed correct answers) within their domain. Perhaps not totally free, but very little affected by it. I keep returning to the same example: you can’t confuse a mathematician, or a physicist or engineer, by saying “400 out of 600 are white” instead of “200 out of 600 are black”.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?
A problem, or area of study, may require a lot more knowledge than that of simple logic. But it shouldn’t ever be contrary to simple logic.
Even if it’s too simple?
If moral philosophers claim that uniquely of all human fields of knowledge, their requires not just going beyond formal logic but being contrary to it, I’d expect to see some very extraordinary evidence. “We haven’t been able to make progress otherwise” isn’t quite enough; what are the results they’ve accomplished with whatever a-logical theories they’ve built?
Exactly. And if philosophers don’t have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?
The critical question is whether they could have such measures.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?
That’s completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.
The critical question is whether they could have such measures.
Do you mean they might create such measures in the future, and therefore we should keep funding them? But without such measures today, how do we know if they’re moving towards that goal? And what’s the basis for thinking it’s achievable?
That’s completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.
Is there an empirical or objective standard by which the work of moral philosophers is judged for correctness or value, something that can be formulated explicitly? And if not, how can ‘the system’ converge on good results?
Exactly. And if philosophers don’t have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?
I haven’t checked, but I strongly expect that hard scientists would be relatively free of presentation bias in answering well-formed questions (that have universally agreed correct answers) within their domain. Perhaps not totally free, but very little affected by it. I keep returning to the same example: you can’t confuse a mathematician, or a physicist or engineer, by saying “400 out of 600 are white” instead of “200 out of 600 are black”.
What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?
If moral philosophers claim that uniquely of all human fields of knowledge, their requires not just going beyond formal logic but being contrary to it, I’d expect to see some very extraordinary evidence. “We haven’t been able to make progress otherwise” isn’t quite enough; what are the results they’ve accomplished with whatever a-logical theories they’ve built?
The critical question is whether they could have such measures.
That’s completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.
Do you mean they might create such measures in the future, and therefore we should keep funding them? But without such measures today, how do we know if they’re moving towards that goal? And what’s the basis for thinking it’s achievable?
Is there an empirical or objective standard by which the work of moral philosophers is judged for correctness or value, something that can be formulated explicitly? And if not, how can ‘the system’ converge on good results?