Oh sorry, missed the comments after Robin’s discussing the wisdom of consulting metaethicists about these questions. Suffice to say, Bob’s right that there are some very compelling arguments against Popperian Falsificationism. They are compelling enough, in my opinion, that it’s hard to think that its having fallen out of favor in the philosophical professional represents anything but progress.
Also, here’s a relevant difference between consulting philosophers about metaethical issues and consulting astrologers and theologians about the issues they discuss. With astrologers and theologians, you (I suppose “you” refers to TGGP here, but I’m also describing my opinion on the subject) think there are fundamental methodological problems with the way that they come up with answers to questions—they rely on false premises, and use unreliable forms of reasoning. So, you shouldn’t expect hard thought (which theologians, if not astrologers, have certainly engaged in) in those disciplines to lead to true beliefs. Since you don’t think that your reasoning about theological and astrological matters suffers from these foundational problems, you should trust your own thinking on these matters over that of theologians and astrologers.
However, unless you have similar foundational worries about the methods used by philosophers working in metaethics, you shouldn’t be similarly inclined to trust your conclusions over theirs. Unless you think there’s something systematically wrong with the way they approach things (which it’s hard to see why you’d think if you were unfamiliar with the literature), then you don’t have any reason to think the effort they’ve expended in thinking about the subject is less likely to lead to the truth than the effort you’ve expended (after all, it’s not your job. at the very least, you’ve spent less time thinking about the issues than they have).
I think these observations suggest a general lesson. If you’re going to trust your own opinion over that of those who’ve spent more time thinking about an issue than you have, you should be able to identify some systematic unreliability in the methods that they use to think about the issue.
Oh sorry, missed the comments after Robin’s discussing the wisdom of consulting metaethicists about these questions. Suffice to say, Bob’s right that there are some very compelling arguments against Popperian Falsificationism. They are compelling enough, in my opinion, that it’s hard to think that its having fallen out of favor in the philosophical professional represents anything but progress.
Also, here’s a relevant difference between consulting philosophers about metaethical issues and consulting astrologers and theologians about the issues they discuss. With astrologers and theologians, you (I suppose “you” refers to TGGP here, but I’m also describing my opinion on the subject) think there are fundamental methodological problems with the way that they come up with answers to questions—they rely on false premises, and use unreliable forms of reasoning. So, you shouldn’t expect hard thought (which theologians, if not astrologers, have certainly engaged in) in those disciplines to lead to true beliefs. Since you don’t think that your reasoning about theological and astrological matters suffers from these foundational problems, you should trust your own thinking on these matters over that of theologians and astrologers.
However, unless you have similar foundational worries about the methods used by philosophers working in metaethics, you shouldn’t be similarly inclined to trust your conclusions over theirs. Unless you think there’s something systematically wrong with the way they approach things (which it’s hard to see why you’d think if you were unfamiliar with the literature), then you don’t have any reason to think the effort they’ve expended in thinking about the subject is less likely to lead to the truth than the effort you’ve expended (after all, it’s not your job. at the very least, you’ve spent less time thinking about the issues than they have).
I think these observations suggest a general lesson. If you’re going to trust your own opinion over that of those who’ve spent more time thinking about an issue than you have, you should be able to identify some systematic unreliability in the methods that they use to think about the issue.