Somebody thinking their ethics are human universals requires that they, well, are totally confused about what is universal about humans.
Not at all. Many prominent ethicists and anthropologists and doctors agree that there are human universals. And any particular fact about a being has ethical implications.
For example, humans value continued survival. There are exceptions and caveats, but this is something that occurs in all peoples and amongst nearly all of the population for most of their lives (that last bit you can just about get a priori). Also, drinking antifreeze will kill a person. Thus, “one should not drink antifreeze without a damn good reason” is a human universal.
If these people don’t frequently disagree with others about ethics, they become unemployed.
This group’s opinions on the subject are less correlated with reality than most groups’.
ETA: I have no evidence for this outside of some of their outlandish positions, the reasons for which I have some guesses for but have not looked into, and this is basically a rhetorical argument.
Actually, if anything I think I’d be more likely to believe that the actual job security ethicists enjoy tends to decrease their opinions’ correlation with reality, as compared to the beliefs about their respective fields of others who will be fired if they do a bad job.
If it was intended to be merely a formal argument, compare:
If prominent mathematicians don’t frequently disagree with others about math, they become unemployed.
This group’s opinions on the subject are less correlated with reality than most groups’.
I thought you had an overwhelming point there until my second read. Then I realized that the argument would actually be a reasonable argument if the premise wasn’t bogus. In fact it would be much stronger than the one about ethicists. If mathematicians did have to constantly disagree with other people about maths it would be far better to ask an intelligent amateur about maths than a mathemtician.
You can’t use an analogy to an argument which uses a false premise that would support a false conclusion as a reason why arguments of that form don’t work!
If mathematicians did have to constantly disagree with other people about maths it would be far better to ask an intelligent amateur about maths than a mathemtician.
The best reason I could come up with why someone would think ethicists need to disagree with each other to keep their jobs, is that they need to “publish or perish”. But that applies equally well to other academic fields, like mathematics. If it’s not true of mathematicians, then I’m left with no reason to think it’s true of ethicists.
You appear to have presented the following argument:
If prominent mathematicians don’t frequently disagree with others about math, they become unemployed.
This group’s opinions on the subject are less correlated with reality than most groups’.
… as an argument which would be a bad inference to make even if the premise was true—bad enough as to be worth using as an argument by analogy. You seem to be defending this position even when it is pointed out that the conclusion would obviously follow from the counterfactual premise. This was a time when “Oops” (or perhaps just dropping the point) would have been a better response.
I’d expect “publish or perish” to apply broadly in academic fields, but there are several
broad categories of ways in which one can publish. One can indeed come up with a
disagreement with a view that someone else is promoting, but one can also come up
with a view on an entirely different question than anyone else addresses. In a very
abstract sense, this might count as as disagreement, a kind of claim that the “interesting”
area of a field is located in a different area than existing publications have pointed to,
but this isn’t quite the same thing as claiming that the existing claims about the previously
investigated area are wrong.
Mathematicians—along with scientists—discover new things (what is a proof other than a discovery of a new mathematical property). That’s what their job is. In order for Ethicists to be comparable, wouldn’t they need to discover new ethics?
In order for Ethicists to be comparable, wouldn’t they need to discover new ethics?
Sure, and they do. One out of the three major subfields of ethics is “applied ethics”, which simply analyzes actual or potential circumstances using their expertise in ethics. The space for that is probably as big as the space for mathematical proofs.
So the premise, then, is that the institution of Ethics would come tumbling down if it were not the case that ethicists seemed to have special knowledge that the rest of the populace did not?
if so, I think it again applies equally well to any academic discipline, and is false.
So the premise, then, is that the institution of Ethics would come tumbling down if it were not the case that ethicists seemed to have special knowledge that the rest of the populace did not?
Yes.
applies equally well to any academic discipline
Other academic disciplines are tested against reality because they make “is” statements. Philosophy is in a middle ground, I suppose.
Which reality was it that the ethicists were not correlated with again? Oh, right, making factual claims about universals of human behavior. I don’t disbelieve you.
Somebody thinking their ethics are human universals requires that they, well, are totally confused about what is universal about humans.
Not at all. Many prominent ethicists and anthropologists and doctors agree that there are human universals. And any particular fact about a being has ethical implications.
Was the “Not at all.” some sort of obscure sarcasm?
No. I was disagreeing with your point, and then offering supporting evidence. You took one piece of my evidence and noted that it does not itself constitute a refutation. I don’t know how it is even helpful to point this out; if I thought that piece of evidence constituted a refutation, I would not have needed to say anything else. Also, most arguments do not contain or constitute refutations.
This does not refute. It also does not constitute an argument against the position you are contradicting in the way you seem to be thinking. The sequence of quote → ‘not at all’ → argument is non sequitur. Upon being prompted to take a second look this should be apparent to most readers.
Unless an individual had an ethical system which is “people should behave in accordance to any human universals and all other behaviors are ethically neutral” the fact that there are human universals doesn’t have any particular impact on the claim. Given that a priori humans can’t be going against human universals that particular special case is basically pointless.
I think I’m confused about what your actual claim was. It seemed to be that human universals have nothing to do with ethics. But it’s easy to show that some things that are putatively human universals have something to do with ethics, and a lot of the relevant people think putative human universals have a large role in ethics.
Was it just that ethics is not equivalent to human universals? If so, I agree.
Not at all. Many prominent ethicists and anthropologists and doctors agree that there are human universals. And any particular fact about a being has ethical implications.
For example, humans value continued survival. There are exceptions and caveats, but this is something that occurs in all peoples and amongst nearly all of the population for most of their lives (that last bit you can just about get a priori). Also, drinking antifreeze will kill a person. Thus, “one should not drink antifreeze without a damn good reason” is a human universal.
If these people don’t frequently disagree with others about ethics, they become unemployed.
This group’s opinions on the subject are less correlated with reality than most groups’.
ETA: I have no evidence for this outside of some of their outlandish positions, the reasons for which I have some guesses for but have not looked into, and this is basically a rhetorical argument.
Actually, if anything I think I’d be more likely to believe that the actual job security ethicists enjoy tends to decrease their opinions’ correlation with reality, as compared to the beliefs about their respective fields of others who will be fired if they do a bad job.
I don’t believe this, and am not aware of any evidence that it’s the case.
If it was intended to be merely a formal argument, compare:
ETA: Note that many prominent ethicists are tenured, and so don’t get fired for anything short of overt crime.
I thought you had an overwhelming point there until my second read. Then I realized that the argument would actually be a reasonable argument if the premise wasn’t bogus. In fact it would be much stronger than the one about ethicists. If mathematicians did have to constantly disagree with other people about maths it would be far better to ask an intelligent amateur about maths than a mathemtician.
You can’t use an analogy to an argument which uses a false premise that would support a false conclusion as a reason why arguments of that form don’t work!
The best reason I could come up with why someone would think ethicists need to disagree with each other to keep their jobs, is that they need to “publish or perish”. But that applies equally well to other academic fields, like mathematics. If it’s not true of mathematicians, then I’m left with no reason to think it’s true of ethicists.
You appear to have presented the following argument:
… as an argument which would be a bad inference to make even if the premise was true—bad enough as to be worth using as an argument by analogy. You seem to be defending this position even when it is pointed out that the conclusion would obviously follow from the counterfactual premise. This was a time when “Oops” (or perhaps just dropping the point) would have been a better response.
The premise wasn’t present. Yes, it would be formally valid given some counterfactual premise, but then so would absolutely every possible argument.
I’d expect “publish or perish” to apply broadly in academic fields, but there are several broad categories of ways in which one can publish. One can indeed come up with a disagreement with a view that someone else is promoting, but one can also come up with a view on an entirely different question than anyone else addresses. In a very abstract sense, this might count as as disagreement, a kind of claim that the “interesting” area of a field is located in a different area than existing publications have pointed to, but this isn’t quite the same thing as claiming that the existing claims about the previously investigated area are wrong.
Mathematicians—along with scientists—discover new things (what is a proof other than a discovery of a new mathematical property). That’s what their job is. In order for Ethicists to be comparable, wouldn’t they need to discover new ethics?
Sure, and they do. One out of the three major subfields of ethics is “applied ethics”, which simply analyzes actual or potential circumstances using their expertise in ethics. The space for that is probably as big as the space for mathematical proofs.
I don’t think they need to disagree with each other, only with outsiders.
So the premise, then, is that the institution of Ethics would come tumbling down if it were not the case that ethicists seemed to have special knowledge that the rest of the populace did not?
if so, I think it again applies equally well to any academic discipline, and is false.
Or am I still missing something?
Yes.
Other academic disciplines are tested against reality because they make “is” statements. Philosophy is in a middle ground, I suppose.
Which reality was it that the ethicists were not correlated with again? Oh, right, making factual claims about universals of human behavior. I don’t disbelieve you.
This does not refute!
No duh. Though it does suggest.
Was the “Not at all.” some sort of obscure sarcasm?
EDIT: At time of this comment the quote was entirety of parent—although I would have replied something along those lines anyway I suppose.
No. I was disagreeing with your point, and then offering supporting evidence. You took one piece of my evidence and noted that it does not itself constitute a refutation. I don’t know how it is even helpful to point this out; if I thought that piece of evidence constituted a refutation, I would not have needed to say anything else. Also, most arguments do not contain or constitute refutations.
It seems necessary to strengthen my reply to
Unless an individual had an ethical system which is “people should behave in accordance to any human universals and all other behaviors are ethically neutral” the fact that there are human universals doesn’t have any particular impact on the claim. Given that a priori humans can’t be going against human universals that particular special case is basically pointless.
I think I’m confused about what your actual claim was. It seemed to be that human universals have nothing to do with ethics. But it’s easy to show that some things that are putatively human universals have something to do with ethics, and a lot of the relevant people think putative human universals have a large role in ethics.
Was it just that ethics is not equivalent to human universals? If so, I agree.