Basic scientific methodology—you can’t study what you can’t produce a provisional definition for. Once you have that, you can learn more about what’s defined, but you don’t get anywhere without that starting point.
The first concepts that more less denoted, say, water, may have included things which today we would reject as not water (e.g., possibly clear alcohol), failed to distinguish water from things dissolved in the water, and excluded forms of water (such as steam and ice). The very first definitions of water were probably ostensive definitions (this here is water, that is water) rather than descriptive or explanatory definitions. The definitions were subject to revision as knowledge improved.
Are you willing to accept an ostensive and potentially erroneous definition of morality that may very well be subject to revision as knowledge improves? One is easy enough to supply by listing a bunch of acts currently believed to be evil, then listing a bunch of believed-to-be morally neutral acts, and pointing out that the first group is evil and the second group isn’t. Would that be satisfactory?
Is it an arbitrary grouping, or do we use the label to refer to certain properties that things in that grouping possess?
I think the better question is, do recognized examples of evil have something in common—never mind what we intend by the label. Maybe by the label “water” we initially intended “Chronos’s tears” or some such useless thing. The intention isn’t necessarily of any particular interest. You are interested in scientific inquiry into morality, yes? - seeing as you talk about “scientific methodology.” Science studies the properties of things in themselves independently of whatever nonsense ideas we might have about them; if you want to study our intents then become a philosopher, not a scientist.
Anyway, this question—do examples of evil have something in common—is something for the scientists to answer, no? It doesn’t need to be answered before scientific inquiry begins.
Basic scientific methodology—you can’t study what you can’t produce a provisional definition for. Once you have that, you can learn more about what’s defined, but you don’t get anywhere without that starting point.
The first concepts that more less denoted, say, water, may have included things which today we would reject as not water (e.g., possibly clear alcohol), failed to distinguish water from things dissolved in the water, and excluded forms of water (such as steam and ice). The very first definitions of water were probably ostensive definitions (this here is water, that is water) rather than descriptive or explanatory definitions. The definitions were subject to revision as knowledge improved.
Are you willing to accept an ostensive and potentially erroneous definition of morality that may very well be subject to revision as knowledge improves? One is easy enough to supply by listing a bunch of acts currently believed to be evil, then listing a bunch of believed-to-be morally neutral acts, and pointing out that the first group is evil and the second group isn’t. Would that be satisfactory?
Is it an arbitrary grouping, or do we use the label to refer to certain properties that things in that grouping possess?
I think the better question is, do recognized examples of evil have something in common—never mind what we intend by the label. Maybe by the label “water” we initially intended “Chronos’s tears” or some such useless thing. The intention isn’t necessarily of any particular interest. You are interested in scientific inquiry into morality, yes? - seeing as you talk about “scientific methodology.” Science studies the properties of things in themselves independently of whatever nonsense ideas we might have about them; if you want to study our intents then become a philosopher, not a scientist.
Anyway, this question—do examples of evil have something in common—is something for the scientists to answer, no? It doesn’t need to be answered before scientific inquiry begins.