Causality isn’t explanation. X caused Y isn’t the issue I was talking about.
For example, the statement “Murder is bad because it is illiberal” is an explanation of why it is bad. It is not a statement about causality.
You may say that “illiberal” is a short cut for various other ideas. And you may claim that eventually that reduce away to causal issues. But that would be reductionism. We do not accept that high level concepts are a mistake or that emergence isn’t important.
Huh? It may be that I haven’t read Logic of Scientific Discovery in a long time, but as far as I remember/can tell, Popper doesn’t care about moral whys like “why is murder bad” at all. That seems to be an issue generally independent of both Bayesian and Popperian epistemology. One could be a Bayesian and be a utilitarian, or a virtue ethicist, or some form of deontologist. What am I missing?
Huh? It may be that I haven’t read Logic of Scientific Discovery in a long time, but as far as I remember/can tell, Popper doesn’t care about moral whys like “why is murder bad” at all.
He doesn’t discuss them in LScD (as far as I remember). He does elsewhere, e.g. in The World of Parmenides. Whether he published moral arguments or not, his epistemology applies to them and works with them—it is general purpose.
Epistemology is about how we get knowledge. Any epistemology which can’t deal with entire categories of knowledge has a big problem. It would mean a second epistemology would be needed for that other category of knowledge. And that would raise questions like: if this second one works where the first failed, why not use it for everything?
Popper’s method does not rely on only empirical criticism but also allows for all types of philosophical criticism. So it’s not restricted to only empirical issues.
There are objective facts about how to live, call them what you will. Or, maybe you’ll say there aren’t. If there are, then it’s not objectively wrong to be a mass murderer. Do you really want to go there into full blown relativism and subjectivism?
Seriously: Morality is in the brain. Murder is “wrong” because I, and people sufficiently similar to me, don’t like it. There’s nothing more objective about it than any of my other opinions and desires. If you can’t even agree on this, then coming here and arguing is hopeless—you might as well be a Christian and try to tell us to believe in God.
Well stated. And I would further add that there are issues with significant minority interests that staunchly disagree with majority opinion. Take the debates on homosexual marriage or abortion. The various sides have such different viewpoints that there isn’t a common ground where any agreeably objective position can be reached. The “we all agree mass murder is wrong” is a cop out, because it implies all moral questions are that black and white. And even then, if it’s such a universal moral, why does it happen in the first place? In the brain based morality model, I can say Dennis Rader’s just a substantially different brain. With universal morality, you’re stuck with the problem of people knowing something is wrong, but doing it anyway.
Causality isn’t explanation. X caused Y isn’t the issue I was talking about.
For example, the statement “Murder is bad because it is illiberal” is an explanation of why it is bad. It is not a statement about causality.
You may say that “illiberal” is a short cut for various other ideas. And you may claim that eventually that reduce away to causal issues. But that would be reductionism. We do not accept that high level concepts are a mistake or that emergence isn’t important.
Huh? It may be that I haven’t read Logic of Scientific Discovery in a long time, but as far as I remember/can tell, Popper doesn’t care about moral whys like “why is murder bad” at all. That seems to be an issue generally independent of both Bayesian and Popperian epistemology. One could be a Bayesian and be a utilitarian, or a virtue ethicist, or some form of deontologist. What am I missing?
He doesn’t discuss them in LScD (as far as I remember). He does elsewhere, e.g. in The World of Parmenides. Whether he published moral arguments or not, his epistemology applies to them and works with them—it is general purpose.
Epistemology is about how we get knowledge. Any epistemology which can’t deal with entire categories of knowledge has a big problem. It would mean a second epistemology would be needed for that other category of knowledge. And that would raise questions like: if this second one works where the first failed, why not use it for everything?
Popper’s method does not rely on only empirical criticism but also allows for all types of philosophical criticism. So it’s not restricted to only empirical issues.
You seem to be assuming that “morality” is a fact about the universe. Most people here think it’s a fact about human minds.
(ie we aren’t moral realists, at least not in the sense that a religious person is).
Yes, morality is objective.
I don’t want to argue terminology.
There are objective facts about how to live, call them what you will. Or, maybe you’ll say there aren’t. If there are, then it’s not objectively wrong to be a mass murderer. Do you really want to go there into full blown relativism and subjectivism?
Well, that’s just like, your opinion, man.
Seriously: Morality is in the brain. Murder is “wrong” because I, and people sufficiently similar to me, don’t like it. There’s nothing more objective about it than any of my other opinions and desires. If you can’t even agree on this, then coming here and arguing is hopeless—you might as well be a Christian and try to tell us to believe in God.
Well stated. And I would further add that there are issues with significant minority interests that staunchly disagree with majority opinion. Take the debates on homosexual marriage or abortion. The various sides have such different viewpoints that there isn’t a common ground where any agreeably objective position can be reached. The “we all agree mass murder is wrong” is a cop out, because it implies all moral questions are that black and white. And even then, if it’s such a universal moral, why does it happen in the first place? In the brain based morality model, I can say Dennis Rader’s just a substantially different brain. With universal morality, you’re stuck with the problem of people knowing something is wrong, but doing it anyway.