From your SEP link on Moral Realism:
“It is worth noting that, while moral realists are united in their cognitivism and in their rejection of error theories, they disagree among themselves not only about which moral claims are actually true but about what it is about the world that makes those claims true. ”
I think this is good cause for breaking up that 56%. We should not take them as a block merely because (one component of) their conclusions match, if their justifications are conflicting or contradictory. It could still be the case that 90% of expert philosophers reject any given argument for moral realism. (This would be consistent with my view that those arguments are silly.)
I may have noticed this because the post on Logical Rudeness is fresh in my mind.
You are entirely right that the 56% would split up into many subgroups, but I don’t really see how this weakens my point: more philosophers support realist positions than anti-realist ones. For what its worth, the anti-realists are also fragmented in a similar way.
Disagreeing positions don’t add up just because they share a feature. On the contrary, If people offer lots of different contradictory reasons for a conclusion (even if each individual has consistent beliefs) it is a sign that they are rationalizing their position.
If 2⁄3′s of experts support proposition G , 1⁄3 because of reason A while rejecting B, and 1⁄3 because of reason B while rejecting A, and the remaining 1⁄3 reject A and B; then the majority Reject A, and the majority Reject B. G should not be treated as a reasonable majority view.
This should be clear if A is the koran and B is the bible.
If we’re going to add up expert views, we need to add up what experts consider important about a question, not features of their conclusions.
You shouldn’t add up two experts if they would consider each other’s arguments irrational. That’s ignoring their expertise.
Yes James, I’d also appreciate that.
Maybe we should encourage more short top-level posts and comment upgrades to posts. I think that would be great if we could develop a good procedure.
There is a hidden object which is either green, red or blue. Three people have conflicting opinions about its colour, based on different pieces of reasoning. If you are the one who believes it is green, you have to add up the opponents who say not-green, despite the fact that there is no single not-green position (think of the symmetry—otherwise everyone could have too great confidence). The same holds true if these are expert opinions.
The above example is basically as general as possible, so in order for your argument to work it will need to add specifics of some sort.
Also, the Koran/Bible case doesn’t work. By symmetry, the Koran readers can say that they don’t need to add up the Bible readers and the atheists, since they are heterogeneous, so they can keep their belief in the Koran...
In practice all arguments will share some premises and some conclusions, in messy asymmetrical ways.
If the not-greens share a a consistent rationale about why the object cannot be green, then I need to take that into account.
If the red supporter contends that all green and blue objects were lost in the color wars, while the blue supporter contends that all objects are fundamentally blue and besides the color wars never happened, then their opinions roughly cancel each other out. (Barring other reasons for me to view one as more rational than the other.)
I suspect that there are things to be said about islam that both atheists and christians would agree on. That’s a block that a rational muslim should take into account. Our disagreeing conclusions about god are secondary.
If I’m going to update my position because 56% of experts agree on something, then I want to know what I’m going to update to.
BTW, I wish there is a way to upgrade a comment into a post and automatically move all the discussions under the new post as well.
The only reason I can think of to upgrade a comment to a post is to draw attention to it, whether google attention, naturality of external linking, or the attention of the regular readers. In all these cases, it seems to me that it is the duty of the author, who is demanding time from many readers, to spend time summarizing the old discussion and making it easy for new readers to join.
Ignoring their expertise, but counting only popularity. Moderator, does that mean that Less Wrong’s karma system might be modified to take into account why a comment was upvoted?
A valid principle James, but a bad example which might be contested by those more knowledgeable of the matter.
Islam considers itself the best of the revealed religions and jesus is revered as a prophet in Islam.
So, in this case, christians reject the koran, but the muslims do not completely reject the bible.
I’m not sure what might serve as a better example, though. The multiple possible explanations of the present recession may serve as a better example, incase you want to make this a top level post.
What you say is true while the Koran and the Bible are referents, but when A and B become “Mohammed is the last prophet, who brought the full truth of God’s will” and “Jesus was a literal incarnation of God,” (the central beliefs of the religions that hold the respective books sacred) then James’ logic holds.
From your SEP link on Moral Realism: “It is worth noting that, while moral realists are united in their cognitivism and in their rejection of error theories, they disagree among themselves not only about which moral claims are actually true but about what it is about the world that makes those claims true. ”
I think this is good cause for breaking up that 56%. We should not take them as a block merely because (one component of) their conclusions match, if their justifications are conflicting or contradictory. It could still be the case that 90% of expert philosophers reject any given argument for moral realism. (This would be consistent with my view that those arguments are silly.)
I may have noticed this because the post on Logical Rudeness is fresh in my mind.
You are entirely right that the 56% would split up into many subgroups, but I don’t really see how this weakens my point: more philosophers support realist positions than anti-realist ones. For what its worth, the anti-realists are also fragmented in a similar way.
Disagreeing positions don’t add up just because they share a feature. On the contrary, If people offer lots of different contradictory reasons for a conclusion (even if each individual has consistent beliefs) it is a sign that they are rationalizing their position.
If 2⁄3′s of experts support proposition G , 1⁄3 because of reason A while rejecting B, and 1⁄3 because of reason B while rejecting A, and the remaining 1⁄3 reject A and B; then the majority Reject A, and the majority Reject B. G should not be treated as a reasonable majority view.
This should be clear if A is the koran and B is the bible.
If we’re going to add up expert views, we need to add up what experts consider important about a question, not features of their conclusions.
You shouldn’t add up two experts if they would consider each other’s arguments irrational. That’s ignoring their expertise.
I know it might seem difficult to expand this into a top-level post, but if you just want to post it verbatim, I’d say go for it.
Yes James, I’d also appreciate that. Maybe we should encourage more short top-level posts and comment upgrades to posts. I think that would be great if we could develop a good procedure.
This certainly doesn’t work in all cases:
There is a hidden object which is either green, red or blue. Three people have conflicting opinions about its colour, based on different pieces of reasoning. If you are the one who believes it is green, you have to add up the opponents who say not-green, despite the fact that there is no single not-green position (think of the symmetry—otherwise everyone could have too great confidence). The same holds true if these are expert opinions.
The above example is basically as general as possible, so in order for your argument to work it will need to add specifics of some sort.
Also, the Koran/Bible case doesn’t work. By symmetry, the Koran readers can say that they don’t need to add up the Bible readers and the atheists, since they are heterogeneous, so they can keep their belief in the Koran...
In practice all arguments will share some premises and some conclusions, in messy asymmetrical ways.
If the not-greens share a a consistent rationale about why the object cannot be green, then I need to take that into account.
If the red supporter contends that all green and blue objects were lost in the color wars, while the blue supporter contends that all objects are fundamentally blue and besides the color wars never happened, then their opinions roughly cancel each other out. (Barring other reasons for me to view one as more rational than the other.)
I suspect that there are things to be said about islam that both atheists and christians would agree on. That’s a block that a rational muslim should take into account. Our disagreeing conclusions about god are secondary.
If I’m going to update my position because 56% of experts agree on something, then I want to know what I’m going to update to.
This discussion continues here.
BTW, I wish there is a way to upgrade a comment into a post and automatically move all the discussions under the new post as well.
The only reason I can think of to upgrade a comment to a post is to draw attention to it, whether google attention, naturality of external linking, or the attention of the regular readers. In all these cases, it seems to me that it is the duty of the author, who is demanding time from many readers, to spend time summarizing the old discussion and making it easy for new readers to join.
I haven’t heard it put that way before. But your explanation makes it seem obvious!
Ignoring their expertise, but counting only popularity. Moderator, does that mean that Less Wrong’s karma system might be modified to take into account why a comment was upvoted?
A valid principle James, but a bad example which might be contested by those more knowledgeable of the matter.
Islam considers itself the best of the revealed religions and jesus is revered as a prophet in Islam.
So, in this case, christians reject the koran, but the muslims do not completely reject the bible.
I’m not sure what might serve as a better example, though. The multiple possible explanations of the present recession may serve as a better example, incase you want to make this a top level post.
What you say is true while the Koran and the Bible are referents, but when A and B become “Mohammed is the last prophet, who brought the full truth of God’s will” and “Jesus was a literal incarnation of God,” (the central beliefs of the religions that hold the respective books sacred) then James’ logic holds.
This applies very generally when the evidential properties of reference classes are brought up.