How do you get a statement with “shoulds” in it using pure logical inference if none of your axioms (the laws of physics) have “shoulds” in them? And if the laws of physics have “shoulds” in them, how is that different from having a tablet?
Presumably, you get such a statement from the laws of physics, which allow you deduce things about quantities like force, stress, gravity, etc. I see no evidence that the laws of physics allow you to deduce similar things about morality.
No, because the axioms of physics do not contain the word “bridge.”
(Also, note that TheAncientGeek deliberately included the word “should” in his bridge statement, so you just effectively contradicted yourself by saying that a statement involving “should” can be deduced from physics.)
You seem to have conceded that you can get shoulds out of descriptions. The trick seems to be that if there is something you want to achieve, there are things you should and should not do to achieve it.
If the purpose of morality is, for instance, to achieve cooperative outcomes, and avoid conflict over resources, then there are things people should and shouldn’t do to support that. Although something like game theory , rather than physics, would supply the details
How many axioms do you have? Language has thousands of words in it, and logical inference will never result in a statement using words that were not in the axioms.
Notice that this doesn’t prevent us from knowing thousands of true things and employing a vocabulary of thousands of words.
So, just to be clear, I was objecting to this part of TheAncientGeek’s comment:
For instance, if objectivism works in a more math-like way, the a counterintuitive moral truth would be backed by a step-by-step argument leading the reader to the surprising conclusion in the way the reader of maths is led to surprising conclusions like thr Banach Tarski paradox.
My comment was an attempt to point out (in a rhetorical way) that math requires axioms, and you can’t deduce something your axioms don’t imply. After all, there are no universally compelling arguments—and in the case of morality, unless you’re specifically choosing your axioms to have “shoulds” in them from the very start, you can’t deduce “should” statements from them (although that doesn’t stop some people) from trying). You can, of course, have your own personal morality that you adhere to (that’s the part where you choose your axioms to have “shoulds” in them from the beginning), but that’s a fact about you, not about the universe at large. To claim otherwise is to claim that the laws of physics themselves have moral implications, which takes us back to moral realism (i.e. an external tablet of morality).
Your comment is true, of course, but it seems irrelevant to my original objection.
It is not irrelevant. Physics does not contain axioms that have the word “apple” in them, and so you cannot logically go from the axioms of physics to “apples tend to fall if you drop them.” That does not prevent you from making a reasonable argument that if the axioms of physics are true, then apples will fall, and it does not prevent you from arguing for morality.
This is an equivocation. “Apple” is a term we use to refer to a large collection of atoms arranged in a particular manner. The same goes for the word “bridge” that you mentioned in your other comment. The fact that we can talk about such collections of atoms and refer to them using shorthands (“apple”, “bridge”, etc.) does not change the fact that they are still made of atoms, and hence subject to the laws of physics. This fact has precisely no bearing on the issue of whether it is possible to deduce morality from physics.
EDIT: Speaking of whether it’s possible to deduce morality from physics, I actually already linked to (what in my mind is) a fairly compelling argument that it’s not, but I note that you’ve (unsurprisingly) neglected to address that argument entirely.
People spoke of apples before they knew anything about atoms. Someone did discover at sometime that the entities that we call apples are made out of atoms.
If I would have a teleporter and exchange the atoms one-by-one with other atoms it would also stay the same apple. Especially when it comes to bridges I think there are actual bridges that had nearly total atom exchange but as still considered to be the same bridge.
Your comment is true, but it doesn’t address the original issue of whether it is possible to deduce morality from physics. If your intent was to provide a clarification, that’s fine, of course.
“Apple” is not used to refer to a “large collection of atoms” etc. You believe that apples are large collections of atoms; but that is not the meaning of the word. So you are making one of the same mistakes here that you made in the zombie argument.
How do you get a statement with “shoulds” in it using pure logical inference if none of your axioms (the laws of physics) have “shoulds” in them? And if the laws of physics have “shoulds” in them, how is that different from having a tablet?
How do you get a statement about how you should build a bridge so it doesn’t fall down?
Presumably, you get such a statement from the laws of physics, which allow you deduce things about quantities like force, stress, gravity, etc. I see no evidence that the laws of physics allow you to deduce similar things about morality.
No, because the axioms of physics do not contain the word “bridge.”
(Also, note that TheAncientGeek deliberately included the word “should” in his bridge statement, so you just effectively contradicted yourself by saying that a statement involving “should” can be deduced from physics.)
You seem to have conceded that you can get shoulds out of descriptions. The trick seems to be that if there is something you want to achieve, there are things you should and should not do to achieve it.
If the purpose of morality is, for instance, to achieve cooperative outcomes, and avoid conflict over resources, then there are things people should and shouldn’t do to support that. Although something like game theory , rather than physics, would supply the details
.
How many axioms do you have? Language has thousands of words in it, and logical inference will never result in a statement using words that were not in the axioms.
Notice that this doesn’t prevent us from knowing thousands of true things and employing a vocabulary of thousands of words.
Sorry, but I’m not sure what your comment has to do with mine. Please expand.
You asked, “How do you get a statement” etc. I was answering that. In the same way we get all our other statements.
So, just to be clear, I was objecting to this part of TheAncientGeek’s comment:
My comment was an attempt to point out (in a rhetorical way) that math requires axioms, and you can’t deduce something your axioms don’t imply. After all, there are no universally compelling arguments—and in the case of morality, unless you’re specifically choosing your axioms to have “shoulds” in them from the very start, you can’t deduce “should” statements from them (although that doesn’t stop some people) from trying). You can, of course, have your own personal morality that you adhere to (that’s the part where you choose your axioms to have “shoulds” in them from the beginning), but that’s a fact about you, not about the universe at large. To claim otherwise is to claim that the laws of physics themselves have moral implications, which takes us back to moral realism (i.e. an external tablet of morality).
Your comment is true, of course, but it seems irrelevant to my original objection.
It is not irrelevant. Physics does not contain axioms that have the word “apple” in them, and so you cannot logically go from the axioms of physics to “apples tend to fall if you drop them.” That does not prevent you from making a reasonable argument that if the axioms of physics are true, then apples will fall, and it does not prevent you from arguing for morality.
This is an equivocation. “Apple” is a term we use to refer to a large collection of atoms arranged in a particular manner. The same goes for the word “bridge” that you mentioned in your other comment. The fact that we can talk about such collections of atoms and refer to them using shorthands (“apple”, “bridge”, etc.) does not change the fact that they are still made of atoms, and hence subject to the laws of physics. This fact has precisely no bearing on the issue of whether it is possible to deduce morality from physics.
EDIT: Speaking of whether it’s possible to deduce morality from physics, I actually already linked to (what in my mind is) a fairly compelling argument that it’s not, but I note that you’ve (unsurprisingly) neglected to address that argument entirely.
People spoke of apples before they knew anything about atoms. Someone did discover at sometime that the entities that we call apples are made out of atoms.
If I would have a teleporter and exchange the atoms one-by-one with other atoms it would also stay the same apple. Especially when it comes to bridges I think there are actual bridges that had nearly total atom exchange but as still considered to be the same bridge.
Your comment is true, but it doesn’t address the original issue of whether it is possible to deduce morality from physics. If your intent was to provide a clarification, that’s fine, of course.
“Apple” is not used to refer to a “large collection of atoms” etc. You believe that apples are large collections of atoms; but that is not the meaning of the word. So you are making one of the same mistakes here that you made in the zombie argument.