You seem to have read my question “how much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands?” as the statement “you put more weight on the folks at home”. But that is descriptive not normative.. it tells you what you do do, not what you should do. Solving ethics involves recognising that the normative question is different to the descriptive question, and solving the normative question.
Thanks for clarifying! In that case thats a way too general normative question to give real purposeful answer. (For example 1,089 % more does not really make any sense).
So are we believing that science is bad, because it can’t answer broad normative questions, or that broad normative questions are bad because science can’t answer them?
That is huge generalisation from one simple general question. Science can inform general normative questions and theres nothing wrong with general normative questions, in general ;). The problem is that this specific question here is pretty meaningless. In general one should put equal weight to everybodys wellbeing. Its easy to poke holes to this answer but the problem is still your question that begs general answers like this.
Its not meaningless in general, just your question: “How much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands” is meaningless to me or atleast not interesting. What do you mean by wellbeing? who are these people? (all people abroad?),Whats “far away”? what do you mean by saying to “put weight on wellbeing”?, whats “home”?
Exactly equal weighting (whatever that means) because we are the same species with the same kind of nervous system and same factors affecting to our wellbeing. If you are going to specify your question further my answer will get more nyanced too.
Its not meaningless in general, just your question: “How much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands” is meaningless to me or atleast not interesting. What do you mean by wellbeing? who are these people? (all people abroad?),Whats “far away”? what do you mean by saying to “put weight on wellbeing”?, whats “home”?
You have already put forward an answer to the question, namely that the wellbeing of everybody near and far counts equally, so your protestation that you don’t understand the terms of the question are not convincing.
The terms are neither completely meaningless nor exactly well defined. You are engaging in a form of Selective Demand for RIgor, where you round off the terms to meaningless or perfectly OK depending on who is using them.
Exactly equal weighting (whatever that means) because we are the same species with the same kind of nervous system and same factors affecting to our wellbeing.
That’s a series of fact. How does it add up to a value?
I have not stated that I do not undestand the terms.This should be very clear. I have stated that the question is not interesting to me because its too general. BUT because you keep insisting I still gave an answer to you while very clearly stating that if you would like to be more specific I could give you even better answer.
How can it add up to value? It can can provide crucial information in meeting those values. Hard distinction between facts and values is illposed. What is a fact free value? In the other hand even our senses and cognition have apriori concepts that affects the process of observing and processing so called value free facts. Welcome to 2017 David Hume.
.This should be very clear. I have stated that the question is not interesting to me because its too general.
But to get to an “interesting”, object-level ethical proposition, you have to solve the general questions first. And you have already taken a stand o one such general question, namely universalism versus tribalism.
It can can provide crucial information in meeting those values.
In conjunction with something else that has’nt been specified? Of course factual information can contribute to evaluative claims, that’s not the hard version of the fact-value problem.
What is a fact free value?
For instance, a decision-theoretic weighting on the desirbiilty a future outcome.
You are partly trying to carve nature in clear categories, and it does not care about your intent doing so. There are general answers to general questions but when being more specific your nice clean and clear general answer can be problematic. Im in no way forced to keep defending universalism if the question is more specific. Good luck solving anything with that kind of conceptual musings from the armchair.
For instance, a decision-theoretic weighting on the desirbiilty a future outcome.
And those utilities on that decision-theoretic weighting are affected in the first place by the actual facts of how our nervous system and cognition is evolved to appreciate these specific values, how our beliefs are in line with the facts of the reality and also hopefully be updated and criticised based on facts too.
You are partly trying to carve nature in clear categories, and it does not care about your intent doing so.
Or yours? You would have been making a consistent case if, throughout this discussion, you had maintained some kind of error theory about ethics, some claim along the lines that he whole subject is imponderable nonsense. Instead you have maintained the inconsistent claims that some completely gneral set of considerations about conceptual clarity undermine everyone else’s case, but not yours.
And those utilities on that decision-theoretic weighting are affected in the first place by the actual facts of how our nervous system and cognition is evolved to appreciate these specific values
So there is such a thing as value, and the answer the fact-value dilemma is to wholeheartedly embrace the naturalistic fallacy?
There are no both necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect foundational general ethical theories. Would be interested hearing your arguments if you think otherwise. Give me an example to refute this. This does not mean that there cant be general guidelines. Contrary to your post there is huge falsifiability demand on my proposition because scientific enquiry can and has to inform what is the right (or better) moral answer. Which leads nicely to G.E. Moores naturalistic fallacy.
So there is such a thing as value, and the answer the fact-value dilemma is to wholeheartedly embrace the naturalistic fallacy?
Im not completely sure that you understand what is the naturalistic fallacy since you even suggest it here. There are many naturalistic approaches to ethics that do not fall into Moores naturalistic fallacy. What these approaches have in common is the argument that science is relevant for ethics, without being an attempt to start from a foundational first moral principles .
Moore’s naturalistic fallacy is aimed towards arguments seeking a foundation to ethics, not to criticize ethicists who do not provide such a foundation. Im not trying to derive foundational ethical principles here if that is not clear already. This is approach where normative inquiry is aimed to tangible problem solving and where a moral problem is not necessary ever completely solved.
There are no both necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect foundational general ethical theories.
True, but irrelevant. You can’t start with the premise that all ethics is imperfect and then immediately conclude your imperfect theory is less imperfect than everyone else’s.
What these approaches have in common is the argument that science is relevant for ethics, without being an attempt to start from a foundational first moral principles And who even said that science is irrelevant?
Pointing out that science is relevant to ethics , without saying anything else, doesn’t buy you anything..not even a theory, let alone a correct one.
Since we agree that this is true, but you still keep insisting that “you have to solve (funny to use this word because this task is still work in progress after thoussands of years) the general questions first get to an “interesting” object-level ethical propositions” as you wrote in the beginning, please put forward your answers to these general questions. Im begging for you to give your foundational ethical arguments.
After this we could really proceed to compare our suggestions and other people could perhaps conclude whose proposition is more or less imperfect. Im very happy to do this and give more structured arguments how science is relevant when answering more specifically to your points.
So far I have not concluded that “my theory is less perfect than everybodys else”. You or anyone else have not even stated a hint of a theory! What I have said is that the question “how much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands” is not interesting to me.
I never wrote the last sentence of your second quote
So far I have not concluded that “my theory is less [im]perfect than everybodys else”.
To state P is to imply “P is true”. If you didn’t think your theory was better, why state it?
You or anyone else have not even stated a hint of a theory!
Anyone else? Any number of people have stated theories. The Catholic Church The Protestant churches.Left wing politics. Right wing politics. ….etc etc etc.
Since we agree that this is true, but you still keep insisting that “you have to solve (funny to use this word because this task is still work in progress after thoussands of years) the general questions first get to an “interesting” object-level ethical propositions” as you wrote in the beginning,
Anyone can state an object-level theory which is just the faith of their ancestors or whatever, and many do. However, you put yourself in a tricky position to do so when your theory boils down to “science solves it”, because science is supposed to be better than everything else for reasons connected to wider rationality...it’s supposed to be on the high ground.
Science as arbitrary, free-floating principles isn’t really science.
please put forward your answers to these general questions. Im begging for you to give your foundational ethical arguments.
Why? To support some claim about ethics? I haven’t made any. To prove that it is possible?
Oh well....
We will be arguing that:-
Ethics fulfils a role in society, and originated as a mutually beneficial way of regulating individual actions to minimise conflict, and solve coordination problems. (“Social Realism”).
No spooky or supernatural entities or properties are required to explain ethics (naturalism is true)
There is no universally correct system of ethics. (Strong moral realism is false)
Multiple ethical constructions are possible...
...but an ethical system can be better or worse adapted to a society’s needs, meaning there are better and worse ethical systems.(Strong ethical relativism is also false...we are promoting a central or compromise position along the realism-relativism axis).
The rival theories of metaethics, deontology, consequentialism and virtue theory, are not really alternatives, but deal with different aspects of ethics.
Therefore the correct theory of metaethics is a kind of hybrid of deontology, consequentialism and virtue theory, as well as a compromise between relativism and realism.(Deontology explains obligation, consequentialism grounds deontology, virtue puts ethics into practice, utilitarianism steers the future direction of society)
PS perhaps you are getting hung up on the idea of perfect proof or solution. When I say you have to solve the general questions, what I mean is that the closer you are to solving them, the better positioned you are to offer answers to the specific questions. In other words, you don’t get to shrug off all responsibility to justify a view just because perfect justification is practically unavailable.
To state P is to imply “P is true”. If you didn’t think your theory was better, why state it?
Im not advocating some big grand theory of ethics but a rational approach to ethical problems given the values we have. I dont think its needed or even possible to solve some big general questions first.
Anyone else? Any number of people have stated theories. The Catholic Church The Protestant churches.Left wing politics. Right wing politics. ….etc etc etc.
In this discussion.
Anyone can state an object-level theory which is just the faith of their ancestors or whatever, and many do. However, you put yourself in a tricky position to do so when your theory boils down to “science solves it”, because science is supposed to be better than everything else for reasons connected to wider rationality...it’s supposed to be on the high ground.
Irrelevant. Given values we have there are better and worse approaches to ethical problems. The answer is not some lipservice slogan “science solves it ” but to give an argument based on synthesized evidence we have related to that specific ethical problem. After this peers can criticise the arguments based on evidence.
Why? To support some claim about ethics? I haven’t made any. To prove that it is possible?
Because you keep insisting that we have to solve some big ethical questions first. When asked repeatedly you try to specify by saying “closer you are solving them” but that does not really mean anything. That is just a mumbo-jumbo. Looking forward to that day when philosophers agree on general ethical theory.
an ethical system can be better or worse adapted to a society’s needs, meaning there are better and worse ethical systems.(Strong ethical relativism is also false...we are promoting a central or compromise position along the realism-relativism axis).
How do you know which system is better or worse? Would you not rank and evaluate different solutions to ethical problems by actually researching the solutions using empirical data had and applying this thing called scientific method?
but a rational approach to ethical problems given the values we have. I dont think its needed or even possible to solve some big general questions first.
You need to understand the meta-level questions in order to solve the right problem in the right way. Applying science to ethics unreflectively, naively, has numerous potentional pitfalls. For instance, the pitfall of treating whatever intuitions evolution has given us as the last word on the subject.
The answer is not some lipservice slogan “science solves it ” but to give an argument based on synthesized evidence we have related to that specific ethical problem.
Repeat three times before breakfast: science is value free. You cannot put together a heap of facts and come
immediately to a conclusion about what is right and wrong. You need to think about how you are bridging the is-ought gap.
Looking forward to that day when philosophers agree on general ethical theory.
At least they see the need to. If you don’t , you just end up jumping to conclusions, like the way you backed universalism without even considering an alternative.
Because you keep insisting that we have to solve some big ethical questions first.
I keep insisting that people think you can solve ethics with science need a meta ethical framework. The many people who have no ethical claims to make are not included.
How do you know which system is better or worse?
If you identify ethics as, in broad terms, fulfilling a functional role, then the answer to that questions is of the same general category as “is this hammer a good hammer”. I am connecting ethical goodness to facts via instrumental goodness—that is how I am approaching the is-ought gap.
ould you not rank and evaluate different solutions to ethical problems by actually researching the solutions using empirical data had and applying this thing called scientific method?
I am not saying : don’t use empiricism, I am saying don’t use it naively.
Science can inform, but hardly solve. How much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands?
Depends what you mean by “solving”.Yeah, this is exactly what the data shows and its called ingroup-outgroup bias.
You seem to have read my question “how much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands?” as the statement “you put more weight on the folks at home”. But that is descriptive not normative.. it tells you what you do do, not what you should do. Solving ethics involves recognising that the normative question is different to the descriptive question, and solving the normative question.
Thanks for clarifying! In that case thats a way too general normative question to give real purposeful answer. (For example 1,089 % more does not really make any sense).
So are we believing that science is bad, because it can’t answer broad normative questions, or that broad normative questions are bad because science can’t answer them?
That is huge generalisation from one simple general question. Science can inform general normative questions and theres nothing wrong with general normative questions, in general ;). The problem is that this specific question here is pretty meaningless. In general one should put equal weight to everybodys wellbeing. Its easy to poke holes to this answer but the problem is still your question that begs general answers like this.
I dont see why the weighting/universality issue is meaningless, particularly on view of the fact that a lot of object level ethics depends on it.
I also dont see why equal weighting is the right answer, mainly because you did not provide any argument.
Its not meaningless in general, just your question: “How much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands” is meaningless to me or atleast not interesting. What do you mean by wellbeing? who are these people? (all people abroad?),Whats “far away”? what do you mean by saying to “put weight on wellbeing”?, whats “home”?
Exactly equal weighting (whatever that means) because we are the same species with the same kind of nervous system and same factors affecting to our wellbeing. If you are going to specify your question further my answer will get more nyanced too.
You have already put forward an answer to the question, namely that the wellbeing of everybody near and far counts equally, so your protestation that you don’t understand the terms of the question are not convincing.
The terms are neither completely meaningless nor exactly well defined. You are engaging in a form of Selective Demand for RIgor, where you round off the terms to meaningless or perfectly OK depending on who is using them.
That’s a series of fact. How does it add up to a value?
I have not stated that I do not undestand the terms.This should be very clear. I have stated that the question is not interesting to me because its too general. BUT because you keep insisting I still gave an answer to you while very clearly stating that if you would like to be more specific I could give you even better answer.
How can it add up to value? It can can provide crucial information in meeting those values. Hard distinction between facts and values is illposed. What is a fact free value? In the other hand even our senses and cognition have apriori concepts that affects the process of observing and processing so called value free facts. Welcome to 2017 David Hume.
But to get to an “interesting”, object-level ethical proposition, you have to solve the general questions first. And you have already taken a stand o one such general question, namely universalism versus tribalism.
In conjunction with something else that has’nt been specified? Of course factual information can contribute to evaluative claims, that’s not the hard version of the fact-value problem.
For instance, a decision-theoretic weighting on the desirbiilty a future outcome.
You are partly trying to carve nature in clear categories, and it does not care about your intent doing so. There are general answers to general questions but when being more specific your nice clean and clear general answer can be problematic. Im in no way forced to keep defending universalism if the question is more specific. Good luck solving anything with that kind of conceptual musings from the armchair.
And those utilities on that decision-theoretic weighting are affected in the first place by the actual facts of how our nervous system and cognition is evolved to appreciate these specific values, how our beliefs are in line with the facts of the reality and also hopefully be updated and criticised based on facts too.
Or yours? You would have been making a consistent case if, throughout this discussion, you had maintained some kind of error theory about ethics, some claim along the lines that he whole subject is imponderable nonsense. Instead you have maintained the inconsistent claims that some completely gneral set of considerations about conceptual clarity undermine everyone else’s case, but not yours.
So there is such a thing as value, and the answer the fact-value dilemma is to wholeheartedly embrace the naturalistic fallacy?
Thanks for your answer. My 20 cents:
There are no both necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect foundational general ethical theories. Would be interested hearing your arguments if you think otherwise. Give me an example to refute this. This does not mean that there cant be general guidelines. Contrary to your post there is huge falsifiability demand on my proposition because scientific enquiry can and has to inform what is the right (or better) moral answer. Which leads nicely to G.E. Moores naturalistic fallacy.
Im not completely sure that you understand what is the naturalistic fallacy since you even suggest it here. There are many naturalistic approaches to ethics that do not fall into Moores naturalistic fallacy. What these approaches have in common is the argument that science is relevant for ethics, without being an attempt to start from a foundational first moral principles .
Moore’s naturalistic fallacy is aimed towards arguments seeking a foundation to ethics, not to criticize ethicists who do not provide such a foundation. Im not trying to derive foundational ethical principles here if that is not clear already. This is approach where normative inquiry is aimed to tangible problem solving and where a moral problem is not necessary ever completely solved.
True, but irrelevant. You can’t start with the premise that all ethics is imperfect and then immediately conclude your imperfect theory is less imperfect than everyone else’s.
Pointing out that science is relevant to ethics , without saying anything else, doesn’t buy you anything..not even a theory, let alone a correct one.
Since we agree that this is true, but you still keep insisting that “you have to solve (funny to use this word because this task is still work in progress after thoussands of years) the general questions first get to an “interesting” object-level ethical propositions” as you wrote in the beginning, please put forward your answers to these general questions. Im begging for you to give your foundational ethical arguments.
After this we could really proceed to compare our suggestions and other people could perhaps conclude whose proposition is more or less imperfect. Im very happy to do this and give more structured arguments how science is relevant when answering more specifically to your points.
So far I have not concluded that “my theory is less perfect than everybodys else”. You or anyone else have not even stated a hint of a theory! What I have said is that the question “how much weighting do you put on the wellbeing of the folks at home versus people in far off lands” is not interesting to me.
I never wrote the last sentence of your second quote
To state P is to imply “P is true”. If you didn’t think your theory was better, why state it?
Anyone else? Any number of people have stated theories. The Catholic Church The Protestant churches.Left wing politics. Right wing politics. ….etc etc etc.
Anyone can state an object-level theory which is just the faith of their ancestors or whatever, and many do. However, you put yourself in a tricky position to do so when your theory boils down to “science solves it”, because science is supposed to be better than everything else for reasons connected to wider rationality...it’s supposed to be on the high ground.
Science as arbitrary, free-floating principles isn’t really science.
Why? To support some claim about ethics? I haven’t made any. To prove that it is possible?
Oh well....
We will be arguing that:-
Ethics fulfils a role in society, and originated as a mutually beneficial way of regulating individual actions to minimise conflict, and solve coordination problems. (“Social Realism”).
No spooky or supernatural entities or properties are required to explain ethics (naturalism is true)
There is no universally correct system of ethics. (Strong moral realism is false)
Multiple ethical constructions are possible...
...but an ethical system can be better or worse adapted to a society’s needs, meaning there are better and worse ethical systems.(Strong ethical relativism is also false...we are promoting a central or compromise position along the realism-relativism axis).
The rival theories of metaethics, deontology, consequentialism and virtue theory, are not really alternatives, but deal with different aspects of ethics.
Therefore the correct theory of metaethics is a kind of hybrid of deontology, consequentialism and virtue theory, as well as a compromise between relativism and realism.(Deontology explains obligation, consequentialism grounds deontology, virtue puts ethics into practice, utilitarianism steers the future direction of society)
PS perhaps you are getting hung up on the idea of perfect proof or solution. When I say you have to solve the general questions, what I mean is that the closer you are to solving them, the better positioned you are to offer answers to the specific questions. In other words, you don’t get to shrug off all responsibility to justify a view just because perfect justification is practically unavailable.
Im not advocating some big grand theory of ethics but a rational approach to ethical problems given the values we have. I dont think its needed or even possible to solve some big general questions first.
In this discussion.
Irrelevant. Given values we have there are better and worse approaches to ethical problems. The answer is not some lipservice slogan “science solves it ” but to give an argument based on synthesized evidence we have related to that specific ethical problem. After this peers can criticise the arguments based on evidence.
Because you keep insisting that we have to solve some big ethical questions first. When asked repeatedly you try to specify by saying “closer you are solving them” but that does not really mean anything. That is just a mumbo-jumbo. Looking forward to that day when philosophers agree on general ethical theory.
How do you know which system is better or worse? Would you not rank and evaluate different solutions to ethical problems by actually researching the solutions using empirical data had and applying this thing called scientific method?
You need to understand the meta-level questions in order to solve the right problem in the right way. Applying science to ethics unreflectively, naively, has numerous potentional pitfalls. For instance, the pitfall of treating whatever intuitions evolution has given us as the last word on the subject.
Repeat three times before breakfast: science is value free. You cannot put together a heap of facts and come immediately to a conclusion about what is right and wrong. You need to think about how you are bridging the is-ought gap.
At least they see the need to. If you don’t , you just end up jumping to conclusions, like the way you backed universalism without even considering an alternative.
I keep insisting that people think you can solve ethics with science need a meta ethical framework. The many people who have no ethical claims to make are not included.
If you identify ethics as, in broad terms, fulfilling a functional role, then the answer to that questions is of the same general category as “is this hammer a good hammer”. I am connecting ethical goodness to facts via instrumental goodness—that is how I am approaching the is-ought gap.
I am not saying : don’t use empiricism, I am saying don’t use it naively.