Phil, in your opinion does the argument you offered for the thesis “There can be no evidence that morality has improved” likewise prove (mutatis mutandis) that there can be no evidence that knowledge can be improved? [EDIT, a few days later: of course I meant “has improved” at the end there. Sorry.]
It looks to me as if it should work as well for that as for your actual thesis: I cannot envisage a scenario in which we would believe that the opinions held by people in the past were better than our present opinions, and stably maintain that belief without changing our opinions. But I’d hazard a guess that you either wouldn’t want to say that we can’t have evidence for improvements in knowledge, or wouldn’t want to draw from that the sorts of conclusions you’ve drawn about morality.
(Actually, I can envisage such a scenario, but (1) it’s kind of a cheat, (2) something very like it would apply to morality too, and (3) it doesn’t apply in the real world to either morality or opinions. The scenario is that our archaeologists somehow find compelling evidence that 8000 years ago there was a technologically advanced society far ahead of ours, but are unable to find out what their scientific theories or engineering techniques were. We would then be pretty sure that they knew a lot of things we don’t; it would be fair to assume that they knew some things that we actually believe to be false. We just wouldn’t know what. Similarly, suppose we somehow found good evidence that our distant ancestors were much nicer than we are to one another, and much happier, and much more prosperous, despite external circumstances very similar to ours and basically identical brain hardware; then I think today’s moral realists would be justified in thinking it likely that those ancestors had better moral values than ours.)
As you might surmise, I think your argument is incorrect. Specifically: (1) I think you confuse negation and reversal. That is, the relevant opposite of “Our values are better than our ancestors’” is not “Our values are worse than our ancestors’” but “Our values are not better than our ancestors’”. (2) I think there are possible circumstances in which we would conclude that our values are worse than our ancestors’ (and, a fortiori, that they aren’t better); see the previous paragraph. (3) If you have evidence for something, then indeed it must be that different evidence would have justified a different conclusion. That doesn’t mean that different evidence would in fact have led you to that different conclusion. So “with such-and-such evidence we ought to have concluded that our values are worse than our ancestors’” is not the same as “with such-and-such evidence we would have concluded that our values are worse than our ancestors’”. It’s the second of those that you’re asking for, and I think it should be the first.
(Note: I am on the whole not a moral realist. I think there is something very dicey about claiming that our values are Objectively Better than our ancestors’. I have no grave objection to the conclusion you’re aiming for. But your argument looks very wrong.)
I cannot envisage a scenario in which we would believe that the opinions held by people in the past were better than our present opinions, and stably maintain that belief without changing our opinions.
Isn’t this part of basis for many of the Abrahmic faiths, and possibly others? The revelation(s) was/were in the past, and the farther we get from those values, the worse off we get.
That’s a similar case to the example I gave, and it has the same features that (I think) make it unhelpful as a defence of Phil’s argument: (1) in that situation, the past opinions that we think were better than our present ones are ones we don’t know (and therefore can’t choose to adopt), and (2) pretty much exactly the same scenario works pretty much exactly as well for values as for opinions.
Phil, in your opinion does the argument you offered for the thesis “There can be no evidence that morality has improved” likewise prove (mutatis mutandis) that there can be no evidence that knowledge can be improved? [EDIT, a few days later: of course I meant “has improved” at the end there. Sorry.]
It looks to me as if it should work as well for that as for your actual thesis: I cannot envisage a scenario in which we would believe that the opinions held by people in the past were better than our present opinions, and stably maintain that belief without changing our opinions. But I’d hazard a guess that you either wouldn’t want to say that we can’t have evidence for improvements in knowledge, or wouldn’t want to draw from that the sorts of conclusions you’ve drawn about morality.
(Actually, I can envisage such a scenario, but (1) it’s kind of a cheat, (2) something very like it would apply to morality too, and (3) it doesn’t apply in the real world to either morality or opinions. The scenario is that our archaeologists somehow find compelling evidence that 8000 years ago there was a technologically advanced society far ahead of ours, but are unable to find out what their scientific theories or engineering techniques were. We would then be pretty sure that they knew a lot of things we don’t; it would be fair to assume that they knew some things that we actually believe to be false. We just wouldn’t know what. Similarly, suppose we somehow found good evidence that our distant ancestors were much nicer than we are to one another, and much happier, and much more prosperous, despite external circumstances very similar to ours and basically identical brain hardware; then I think today’s moral realists would be justified in thinking it likely that those ancestors had better moral values than ours.)
As you might surmise, I think your argument is incorrect. Specifically: (1) I think you confuse negation and reversal. That is, the relevant opposite of “Our values are better than our ancestors’” is not “Our values are worse than our ancestors’” but “Our values are not better than our ancestors’”. (2) I think there are possible circumstances in which we would conclude that our values are worse than our ancestors’ (and, a fortiori, that they aren’t better); see the previous paragraph. (3) If you have evidence for something, then indeed it must be that different evidence would have justified a different conclusion. That doesn’t mean that different evidence would in fact have led you to that different conclusion. So “with such-and-such evidence we ought to have concluded that our values are worse than our ancestors’” is not the same as “with such-and-such evidence we would have concluded that our values are worse than our ancestors’”. It’s the second of those that you’re asking for, and I think it should be the first.
(Note: I am on the whole not a moral realist. I think there is something very dicey about claiming that our values are Objectively Better than our ancestors’. I have no grave objection to the conclusion you’re aiming for. But your argument looks very wrong.)
Isn’t this part of basis for many of the Abrahmic faiths, and possibly others? The revelation(s) was/were in the past, and the farther we get from those values, the worse off we get.
That’s a similar case to the example I gave, and it has the same features that (I think) make it unhelpful as a defence of Phil’s argument: (1) in that situation, the past opinions that we think were better than our present ones are ones we don’t know (and therefore can’t choose to adopt), and (2) pretty much exactly the same scenario works pretty much exactly as well for values as for opinions.