Yes I can: the context. — charleton

Ah yes, I'd forgotten your supernatural ability to divine a person's deepest intentions from just 6 lines of rhetoric, and with such confidence that even just asking them what they meant to confirm would be a waste of your time. For the rest of us not so magically endowed perhaps you could explain exactly what it was about the context that lead you to uncover Samuel's secrect misogynist agenda.

Firstly, unless you are a mind reader you cannot possibly know what definition he had in mind. Secondly I think you made it quite clear in your comments about the use of the term American Dream, that you set little store by statistics about the usage trends of certain words. Thirdly, seeing as the term was still ambiguous enough at the time of Miller and Swift's instructional on Non-Sexist Writing (1988) to require instruction to the layman, I can't see how it could have dropped out of common usage ten years before then.

You can't even bring yourself to mention women. You have failed this simple test again and again. — charleton

For Christ's sake give the guy a break.

Oxford English Dictionary definition of 'man' - "2A human being of either sex; a person."

My issue is then, how does one arrive to accept positivism as true? Clearly, it is not something that can be empirically determined, granted that it is a philosophical position, and not a scientific one itself. — Agustino

Absolutely, I don't see how it is possible to accept any metaphysical statement as true unless it transpires to be an empirical statement. Even then 'true' is just a temporary label meaning 'usefully predictive for the time being'. Physicalism is a belief which cannot be justified. I think there are logical arguments which lead directly from Physicalism to Naturalism, but they require that one agrees with the authority of logic, which itself is a belief statement.

He does not prove why we ought to think that philosophy is dead. Quite the contrary, he proves how ignorant he is when he, for example, states that Epicurus argued against atomism - Epicurus, of course, being a famous materialist and atomist. — Agustino

This, I think is a common criticism (not entirely unreasonable), but is a type of category error. Peter Van Inwagen said something once along the lines of "the only facts in philosophy are who said what, when". Hawking is without doubt quite ignorant of those facts, but this need have absolutely no bearing on his ability to make rational arguments without begging the question. If philosophy is useless, then why would his ignorance of it minutae be relevant? Philosophers seem quite confident in arguing that science cannot answer questions of morality, for example, without knowing all there is to know about neuroscience.

Why must something be reproducible to be valid? If there is a paper on it, it means that we have the capacity to reproduce results, such as comforting people. But the issue is that people are extremely complex, intractably so, if I may say that, so we have no way to "reproduce" any of this comfort giving when it comes to people. Everyone's situation is different, it's not like we're dealing with atoms, all of which behave in the same predictable ways. The situations with people are extremely complex, so it makes little sense to expect philosophy to provide reproducible results in comforting people. — Agustino

I agree, and I do personally think that a good role for philosophy is to comfort people (although I have some reservations too), and of course if it is to play this role it will not necessarily be able to prove it can do so. The comment I made was not aimed at this proposition. It was meant to point out that the whole of academia, and much amateur philosophy clearly does not see it this way, otherwise there would be no failing as a philosopher.

Yes, if the person in question cannot provide reasons for so believing, then it ought to be treated with derision. Many scientific materialists here have laughable arguments. I've debated a few of them, so I know. You seem to be somewhat more sophisticated than the "God does not exist and religion is a fairy tale" BS of some atheists, so we'll see. But people like Lawrence Krauss (for example) are laughable. They cannot even articulate their position, that's how confused it is. — Agustino

I think perhaps we can agree there are laughably bad reasons for believing something on both sides of the argument, but if it works for them personally, then I don't think we have much authority to dismiss it. I like the justifications for my beliefs to be a certain way, others are happier with less substance to their stories. I'm not sure we're in a position to judge. If someone comes to me wanting to test their justification, their story, then I'm happy to try and persuade them of mine. It helps them with their goal, and it helps me with mine. Laurence Krauss puts his justifications out there with a self-righteousness I find quite unpleasant, but there's been bad blood on both sides so his belligerence is not entirely self-made.

you cannot provide an account for why you choose Scientism over other belief systems, then you are being irrational. You ought to suspend judgement if all positions are equally likely. — Agustino

You are confusing proving with providing an account. I think over the last 15 pages I have provided something of an account of why I am a Naturalist (although that want the intention of my original post). What I don't believe is possible is to prove that my account is correct,and I simply don't believe it is possible to suspend judgement.

I'm not sure what your point is. — unenlightened

The point is not everything can flourish. Potential new species are evolving all the time and if cannot find a niche to exploit (or outcompete a species already there) then they will die out. Expressing our relationship with nature as a duty towards the flourishing of all species we would become obliged to stop evolution by natural selection. Your still only looking at ecosystems as static things and they're not, components naturally come and go in response to environmental changes, we can't become obliged to step in and prevent this.

An ecosystem consisting of bacteria and pollutants is an impoverished ecosystem — unenlightened

Desert ecosystems are impoverished compared to tropical rainforest, native woodland is impoverished compared to meadows; are we obliged then to turn one into the other?

a flourishing ecosystem is complex, diverse, resilient adaptable. — unenlightened

An ecosystem is resilient and adaptable mainly by natural selection killing off those components which no longer suit the new conditions, this is a process directly opposed to the 'flourishing' of individual species.

Again, I find little to dis agree with, except that "...nor limited to supplying us with raw materials." seems to contradict "It's not that we treat nature as 'just' what is useful to us, it's that we don't treat it enough that way." — unenlightened

I simply mean that raw materials are not the only assets nature can supply us. There's tranquility, beauty, a sense of place, the satisfaction of million year old instinct. But it must be as we expect it to be to supply these things. A polluted lake full of oil-consuming bacteria won't do the job, no matter how much the bacteria are 'flourishing'.

Do you see Nietzsche as a philosopher who contributed to our understanding of the world? — Nop

No. The vast majority of people haven’t read Nietzche and they don't seem to be doing markedly worse at living than the tiny minority who have. There are also some people who I have no reason to doubt the intelligence of (Bertrand Russell, for example) who have read Nietzche and still feel their understanding of the world to be completely unaffected by the experience.

Would you dismiss Nietzsche based on this? — Nop

Yes

So to say that bats need insects, and their survival (can I use flourishing?) is dependent on the survival of insects, and therefore is endangered by the excessive use of insecticides is not to indulge in anthropocentric, esoteric human cultural attitudes. It is the way it is. — unenlightened

Yes, but what of the insects? Do they need bats? Maybe you could argue that they need bats to control their numbers so that they don't succumb to disease, but then do the diseases need bats? Either the insects or the diseases are going to be better off (flourish) without the bats. Nature abhors a vacuum. What about the bacteria currently evolving to live off our pollutants, do they not deserve to flourish?

Well if this is true, then bats are not competing with insects, and in general, predators are not competing with prey. — unenlightened

I'm referring here to the constant process of extinction by which natural selection acts, not the predator prey relationship. Predators and prey do not actually compete with one another in an ecological sense. Two identical predators hunting the same prey compete. One slight variation in one organism and one of them must either find a new niche or die out.

If the zeitgeist understands and 'properly costs' the environment, then how is it that insect populations are in steep decline, bird populations are in steep decline, the oceans are full of plastic, fish stocks are in steep decline, and so on and on and on. — unenlightened

The problem is the zeitgeist does not understand the value of the ecosystem it's in. That's the point I'm trying to make. It's not that we treat nature as 'just' what is useful to us, it's that we don't treat it enough that way. We falsely presume nature's utility is as an inexhaustible supply of raw materials and forget that it is neither inexhaustible nor limited to supplying us with raw materials.

mean that they seem to lack the energy, the willingness to delve deeply into problems, without any preconceived notions and pretence of knowledge, without appeals to authority and all the rest of it. — Agustino

Here's the relevance of my facetious summary.

How 'deeply' someone has delved into a problem is a subjective opinion, generally if they haven’t agreed with you yet, they haven't delved deeply enough.

Which notions are 'preconceived' and which are a priori knowledge is a subjective opinion, generally if they come with axioms you don't agree with they're 'preconceived notions', if you agree with them they're justified axioms or fundamental beliefs.

What knowledge claims are 'pretence' is subjective opinion, generally, if it useful to your world view, they are well known facts, if they oppose your world view they are a pretence of fact.

An appeal to authority is only fallacious where the authority is not appropriate to the case. Who decides whether they are appropriate? You do. And how do you decide? If they support your world-view they must be genuine authorities, if they don't they're inappropriate to the case.

"and all the rest of it" follows much the same path. You're projecting your own personal beliefs on others and then presuming there must be something fundamentally wrong when they don't agree.

Your accountant is not failing to take life seriously, he's taking life very seriously, one of his objectives that he's very serious about is getting through his soul-destroying job with the minimum amount of effort, it's just not an objective you approve of, so you try to generalise the problem.

Your web designer, your lawyer, they just want to do what's required to not get fired, they're not interested in doing a good job, and why should they be?

Accusing people of a lack of seriousness presumes you know what their objectives are, such that you can judge how much effort they are putting into achieving it.

All the people you mention aren't necessarily lacking seriousness, they're just not serious about the interactions they're forced (for whatever reason), or otherwise inclined to have with you.

where in the principles of Deep Ecology do you find the unpleasant focus you complain of? — unenlightened

It's this bit

The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman Life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.

That there is a 'value' to non-human life beyond its utility to us I find deeply problematic.

1. It is an assertion that itself goes against the very nature it is attempting to protect which I find uncomfortably anthropocentric. Utility is at the heart of all natural ecosystems, it is how they evolved and the reason for their existence, it is not something to be given second place to some esoteric, deeply human cultural attitude.

2. It is technically impossible for two competing life forms to both 'flourish'. Natural selection ensures that varieties which do not flourish of their own accord die out. If the well-being and flourishing of all life forms has an intrinsic value then nature does not respect that value. Again humans are set up as being somehow above nature in that we can care for it in a way that it does not for itself.

3. It is an appeal to emotion which is unlikely to work. Where action is needed right now, we cannot afford to persue such routes. The natural environment is worth trillions if properly costed, without its proper functioning we will be wiped out as a species. These are languages which the current social zeitgeist already understands, by talk of human superiority undermines the message.

Basically, utility is not a bad thing, it's what nature is built on, it's the reason why ecosystems are so beautifully efficient, it should be celebrated and taught. Deep ecology seems to want to do the opposite.

It's not our business to resolve such conflicts at all, if we even need to conceive it as a conflict. Insects have a right to live, (but not in my hair) and bats also have a right to live, and bats eat insects, so they both need insects to thrive. — unenlightened

This is missing the point, I'm not suggesting that it is our business to resolve such conflicts, I'm suggesting that is a logical conclusion that follows from a sense that nature/animals, have rights and that we should speak for them in some sort of negotiation. We cannot consider nature or animals to have rights in the same way humans do because species kill each other for food/territory. If an animal has a categorical right not to be killed by us just for food/territory, then how does it not have a right not to be killed by it's natural predator/competitor for food/territory?

Insects cannot have a right to live (or at least not one that is acknowledged species-wide, otherwise bats would not be allowed to kill them for food. That's what I meant by the analogy of gutting a rabbit which is not met by your reference to mangoes. Nature is not about rights, it's a competition for resources. There are two main paths to survive the competition, be strongest or co-operate. The problems we face in terms of environmental degradation are entirely the result of us presuming there is only the former, in order to undo the damage we must develop the latter. What I find unpleasant about the deep ecology movement is it focusses only on the former. It implies we've won the competition, we've beaten nature and now we have to teach people to love it so that they look after it in a condescending paternal way. But we cannot win this battle we've set ourselves up for, we must either learn to co-operate or die, it doesn't matter if everyone on earth does so through gritted teeth hating every minute of it, it is simply a necessity of the natural world.

Interesting criticism from someone who is anti religious freedom. — Buxtebuddha

I didn't say it was a criticism. Just a summary. Even as a criticism, it would be criticising the dressing up of promoting a personal moral theory (against which I have no complaint, if its well argued) as some generalisable, objective societal failure.

@Agustino is just listing a set of behaviours he considers reprehensible (not putting enough effort in at work, not investigating certain issues in forum discussions etc) and trying to generalise them into something that sounds universally bad so as to avoid having to actually construct an argument in support of each position which would appeal to a wider group.

I think I've demonstrated over quite some pages, that I'm happy to construct an argument in support of what I believe is a necessary restriction on religious education and would be happy to do so again.

The suggestion is that what humans want, whoever they are, is not the only consideration. At the moment I am more interested in justifying and working out the philosophical implications of this. — unenlightened

Fair enough.

I still think the presumption that we could know what a bat wants is problematic, not just by degree (in that it's hard to be sure but we could make a good guess), but as a matter of autonomy. I'm concerned that the presumption of such knowledge could be used to justify intervention in the autonomy of other creatures where no intervention is warranted.

Also, I'm not sure how this approach helps us to resolve conflict between what different aspects of the ecosystem and wants. How do we consider the wants of both bats and insects when those wants will be contradictory?

The native tribes you mention indeed live as part of an ecosystem, but I don't see any evidence that they know what it needs, nor that they act as custodians in any way beyond their own self interest. I think that truly being part of an ecology means that its needs and yours are inextricably linked. It it our anthropocentric distance that causes the problems we all seem to agree exist. I think what's needed is not further distancing by abstraction, but getting closer to the fact that we need the ecosystems we rely on.

I think too many people have 'communion' with nature in an abstract way and too few have skinned and gutted a rabbit for dinner.

Since your post is quite long, I thought it might help to summarise it for those who are too busy to read the whole thing.

- Why don't people think and act the way I want them to?

As we continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere, aggravate global warming, vast ecological changes (like the acidification of the oceans or spread of parasites and diseases into the northern conifer forests), we are endangering ourselves, as well as many other creatures to whom much is owed. — Bitter Crank

Exactly. This is why I dislike the paternalism of much ecological philosophy. Our very existence is absolutely dependent on our stewardship of the natural world. If we mess up it will spit us out without a second thought. It's neither a negotiation, nor an exchange of rights. It's an absolute imperative to treat the natural world with more respect or else it will destroy us. Our reign has been nothing more than blip in the lifespan of the earth. I don't think it's excessively fanciful to imagine the earth as one living organism, we are a tiny, momentary itch, which will be summarily scratched off if we get too irritating, and we have the audacity to imagine we're part of a negotiation?

I understand. The point I was trying to make is that it's not the 'rights' of the environment that get protected or negotiated, it's still what the humans empowered to speak want of it. Some may want the environment to be nothing but a source of raw materials, others may want to enjoy its aesthetics, its potential for future harvesting, its peace, even knowledge of its mere existence, but all the time its still just humans arguing about what they want from it. No-one is really speaking for it.

In the US, there is a common legal mechanism by which trustees are assigned by the government to speak for the environment. Under the Superfund law, various governmental agencies are authorized to act as Natural Resources Trustees. — T Clark

We have many similar systems here in England. I've had cause to argue with their version of 'what nature wants' on quite a number of occasions.

It's not a problem with infants. We understand their wants and needs as best we can, and speak and act and legislate for them. Sometimes we do the same for refugees that cannot speak our language We know quite well that bats want insects and cave like roosts and so on. We can see how they flourish. — unenlightened

Then ethics is not a negotiation is it? If it is possible to act ethically to someone (or something) whose preferences you have not had a chance to hear, then you're claiming that you can know what other beings want.

Once you've made that claim, you have an ethic without negotiation. How do we deal with the child who insists on that third chocolate, we act not according to their expression of their desire, we act according to what we think they really want.

I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it. Maintaining the acceptable face of moral relativism with other adults, but then implying a paternal 'we know what you really want' with children and the natural world. I had a similar argument on an ethics board discussing a nature conservation project. The conservationists argued moral superiority because they were working for 'nature' restoring a wildflower meadow. I pointed out that the bulk of their proposed work involved bracken clearance. It was clear to me that 'nature' wanted the whole field covered in bracken, and wanted that pretty strongly. It was the humans that wanted the wild flower meadow.

The point is, not all creatures can 'flourish'. Most of them eat each other. Does the gazelle 'want' to to be eaten by the lion? So are we obligated to try and solve the problem? If we could produce cultured meat (a real possibility) are we obliged to feed it to lions. It could be argued that we can see that London don't want to hunt (they only do so when they're hungry), and gazelles don't appear to want to be eaten.

Then do we value bacteria as much as elephants? Are we obligated to actually maximise diversity? That would certainly require us to green the deserts, meadows are more diverse than the native woodland here in England.

Bat's may want insects, but do insects want bats?

so long as we can agree that ethics is a negotiation of values between subjects, — unenlightened

Firstly, I'm thinking this is going to be a problem. If ethics is just a negotiation between subjects, then how does the non-human (non-speaking) world take part in that negotiation?

If we, instead have to speak for them, then what is that compels us to presume their needs would be anything like ours. What does a bat actually want?

I can't see any way of assigning rights (and therefore contingent duties) to the non-human world on the basis of ethics as negotiation. How would we hold animals to account for failing in their responsibility to us, or is the system just one way?

I'm passionatly in favour of fostering a better relationship between humans and the natural world, but I think talk of 'rights and responsibilities' to it just leaves open too much room for people to simply discard the concept on axiomatic grounds and it ends up preaching to the converted.

The question "what is the (morally) right thing to do?" is not a question which cannot be answered by science, it's a question which absolutely can be answered by science. — Pseudonym


Well, your one attempt so far in this conversation has been to replace the question with a different one (which, I contend, science cannot answer either): — SophistiCat

I've written, or responded to, 14 pages of posts , half of which have been about the position that science provide solutions to moral dilemmas. If you're going to continue down this line of personal insult then I've no interest in discussing things with you. I have not made "one attempt" I've expounded at great length exactly why I think the question "what is the (morally) right thing to do?" can be answered by science, if you can't be bothered to read it or engage with any of the arguments, then I've no time for you.

What you should have written, to be consistent with what you were saying earlier, is

"Do members of our species tend to kill our mothers?" — SophistiCat

No, that would just be a description of our actions, not of their consequences. If you want to be pedantic, what I should have written is "Do any of our species kill their own mothers, if they do, what are the consequences on their psychological state, what sort of psychological states do our species strive to achieve and so does a theory that killing ones own mother will lead to desirable psychological states seem useful?" That is what the word 'should' means to me. I can't think of any other meaning of the term without begging the question and presuming that there is some external measure of morality to which we are compelled to aspire. 'Should' is not a categorical word, it is a hypothetical one, Moore showed that pretty conclusively. One 'should' do X if one wishes to achieve y. It simply makes no grammatical or logical sense to ask what one 'should' do without the context of an objective. Ethical naturalism is simply the claim that the objective is already set by our natures and so all that is left to discuss is how best to achieve it in various contexts.

I think we're going round in circles, so I'd like, if it's OK, to return to the claim that I'm making as quite a bit of what you've written is actually arguing against a claim that I've never made (I don't blame you, so many people are putting words in my mouth, it's hard to keep track)

The claim I'm making is not that from first principles, scientific investigation alone can deliver you a world view. I've said countless time that I don't believe it is possible to form any view on the world without some belief statement on which to base everything. To have a scientific view of the world requires a belief in an external mind-independant reality, a belief in the continuity of physical laws into the future (Hume's problem of induction), and a belief in the meaningfulness of logical deduction and inference. Probably others as well.

The point I am making is that this makes 'Scientism' no different from any other philosophical position (which also requires a similar set of fundamental beliefs), and yet it (unlike all other philosophical positions) is treated with derision and hatred.

The other point (unrelated, but we seem to be covering it nonetheless), is that if you are a Physicalist, then it is possible to construct a model of reality by which morality is determinable by science. I've then gone on to explain how that model works if you are a physicalist (and deterministic, although I think the one necessitates the other). If you are a devout believer in Christianity, for example, none of this will be of the slightest interest to you, but then the opinion that we should not have sex before marriage because God said so is not of the slightest interest to me as an atheist either.

Which leads to my third point, that philosophical positions cannot be conclusively argued for or against. If I claim that I have a model which predicts the outcome of some physical event in objective reality (which I simply believe exists) and it does then accurately predict that outcome again and again, you would be crazy to say that my model was useless (you might nonetheless say that). It clearly works.
If, however, you make a metaphysical claim, it cannot be demonstrated to be useful, it cannot be proven to be true and so I could, without any conflict with reason, simply disagree with you. I might have to change the way I disagree with you. I might disagree with you on some grounds which do conflict with logic, but at no point will I be left with no grounds to disagree with you, the field of possible counter-arguments is infinite. This much has been proven by the fact that there has been absolutely no progress on any of the main issues since philosophy began.

This is the point that Chalmers was making (I had listened to the lecture already, but thanks for the reference anyway). That the points themselves are irresolvable, but the arguments for each get better and better, in the opinion of the people making them. I think this is one point where we have definitely got crossed wires, and I'm sure the fault is mine as I didn't see where you were going with your question. I've been arguing that no philosopher is 'better' than any other, that no one of two conflicting world views can be said to be 'better' than another, whereas I think you have been saying that arguments for a particular world view can be 'better' than previous arguments for that same world view, and that they can be made so by having to respond to counter-arguments. This I agree with. Where I disagree (possibly) is the idea that this will ever lead to one of the competing world views having to be abandoned. That hasn't happened in 2000 years of debate, I think it would be irrational to hold the view that it's going to happen in the next 2000 years of debate despite all evidence to the contrary. What will happen is the arguments themselves will get 'better', and this is, I think, What Russell meant by his view that philosophy helps us deal with those areas of life where questions cannot be properly answered (or are meaningless), it helps us give a 'better' account of why we believe a certain fundamental proposition, but it will never demonstrate that proposition to be actual knowledge.

So, to some of the points in your post;

The "something" to a scientific answer is just that the methods of finding the answer have already been agreed on. If everyone agrees on how to go about answering a question and then they go about answering it in that fashion, its completely unsurprising that a lot of agreement is reached. What compels agreement in science is agreement on a broadly characterized method for answering questions and a broad agreement about what sort of thing is allowed to count as an answer. In short, what compels agreement in science is commitment to a paradigm. — PossibleAaran

This just moves the goalposts. Now the question is why do scientists all seem able to broadly agree on a paradigm, but philosophers can't. Are be back to the fact that scientists are just more agreeable than philosophers, or is there something about the scientific paradigm they all agree on which makes it particularly compelling? But that point aside, I still do not agree with your conclusion here.
1. A paradigm does not determine the answers. Deciding that one will determine an hypothesis and test it does not, in of itself, determine what the outcome of those tests will be and yet there is huge agreement that the hypotheses of science have indeed passed the tests. The simple fact that everyone agrees they need to pas those tests does not determine that everyone would agree they have passed those tests. There is still something to be explained in why, when an hypothesis is tested (in a manner all agree it must be), there is broad agreement about whether it has passed that test.
2. I dispute the conclusion that philosophers disagree about the paradigm by which their theories are to be tested. No-one thinks the theory with the most words is best, the nicest handwriting, or the longest conclusion. It's pretty much agreed that the argument which is best is the one with fewest presumptions, fewest logical errors, contradictions etc. There are some marks for succinctness, some for erudition. These are all generally agreed upon principles. If they wern't then it would be impossible to judge philosophy degrees and the whole academic project would be abandoned. Philosophers (as you yourself argue) generally do agree on what constitutes a 'good' theory and what a 'bad' one. They agree almost unanimously on what sort of test a theory must be put to in the same way scientists do (they must do otherwise there would not be a canon of philosophical literature, nor any philosophy degrees, there would just be 'stuff people have said'), and yet they continue to disagree as to which theories have passes that test.

Is any philosophy better than any other? — PossibleAaran

I hope that my opening comments answer this point, I think we've been talking past each other on this to some extent. It is our conclusion on the significance of 'better; or 'worse' arguments that we disagree on, but I won't repeat what I've written above, I think it answers your point here.

Isn't Physical Determinism a Philosophical theory? Doesn't it presuppose another Philosophical Theory - Physicalism about the mind? If so, then the claim you make above presupposes philosophical theories, which by your own admission, are not better or worse than any others. — PossibleAaran

Hopefully, again, my opening comments will address this. I have never claimed that one must never hold a philosophical position. Indeed, I've claimed the exact opposite, that it is impossible to reach any world view without having some fundamental belief statement at its root. My claim is that no amount of argument is ever going to demonstrate that one belief statement is 'better' than another, and yet that is exactly what is being done with 'Scientism'. It is being derided as a belief which is "ridiculous", "naive" "cancerous", and "a pernicious lie", to quote directly from some responses, both here and in academic literature. That is the point I'm making.

I am not trying to prove that Scientism is true, I don't even believe it is possible to prove such a thing, to do so would be to answer a philosophical question about Physicalism and I've just argued that answering such question is (in all likelihood) impossible. All I'm trying to do is demonstrate that it is no less valid a position than any other, that is it not "ridiculous", "naive" "cancerous", and "a pernicious lie".

a question that cannot be answered by science, such as what is the (morally) right thing to do, consequently isn't meaningful or answerable. — SophistiCat

This is just begging the question. The question "what is the (morally) right thing to do?" is not a question which cannot be answered by science, it's a question which absolutely can be answered by science.

No, that's not the question. See, your tactics when in difficulty is to propose some different question that science can answer. This will not do. — SophistiCat

I've directly answered your question, so you can dispense with the weak defamation. Your question was "Do you disagree with any of this?". My answer was in the very first word "No". So where have I proposed some different question in order to avoid answering the one you asked?

So, there's a scientific reason why I might decide to be a scientist - but we can't know what it is. — Wayfarer

Yes, just like there's a scientific answer to the question "will it rain tomorrow", but we can't know what it is. The fact that we can have a damn good guess is pretty important to most transport networks, fisheries and farming. None of these vital industries seem to be making some pedantic complaint about the fact that we can't know for certain whether it will rain tomorrow and so we might as well ask some bearded mystic to guess for us with his crystals.

When there are huge numbers of variables to calculate, the ability of the model to make accurate predictions decreases. Occasionally all these variables have equal contribution to the outcome and the model will be useless, but more often than not, most variable will have only a minor contribution and can be ignored so long as one is prepared to accept the occasional anomaly.

It's possible that a model might simply be too complex to ever be useful (or even known). It's possible that uncertainty at a quantum level might mean some models contain a genuinely random element (although this is far from certain at a macro level).

In some cases, it might even be possible that our brains might be able to make predictions about things that no scientific model has yet been able to. Our brains might already have the model hard-wired into them, but we have yet to see externally which variables it is calculating and how. I can catch a ball faster than I can do the maths calculating its trajectory, for example. But if this were the case, then science would be able to tell us. Put 100 people in a room and see if they can all catch a ball faster than they can do the maths. any claim to 'intuitive' knowledge is relatively easily tested, those that can't be tested must remain opinions, not knowledge claims.

We've been through this already so I'm at a loss to understand why you keep bringing it up. — Pseudonym


Because of what you keep saying. — Wayfarer

Right, I keep saying it, you keep trotting out the same counter argument, I refute the counter argument, then you go silent until the next time I mention it when the whole thing starts again, it's getting really tiresome. If you have anything to say about the actual counter argument I offered I'd be interested to hear it, if not, then let's just presume you disagree on some fundamental axiom and leave it at that. There's little sense in you chiming in every time I mention positivist arguments, just to remind us all that you disagree with them.

No-one is claiming that science can answer all philosophical questions - absolutely no-one. If you can find me a single quote form anyone accused of Scientism to the effect that science can actually answer all questions, then they deserve the pejorative term — Pseudonym


Well, here, for example:

science does not have any comment on matters of quality, other than to say that no other approach can say anything meaningful on the matter either. — Pseudonym — Wayfarer

This doesn't even make sense. The first claim is that no-one is claiming that science can answer all philosophical questions, the second claim is that science posits that no system can say anything meaningful on matters of quality. They're not even related. Let me see if I can make this clear;

Science can answer questions about objective reality

All questions (and therefore answers) that are not about objective reality are not matters which can form knowledge in the public domain, they are private subjective matters.

I can answer whether it is right for me to kill my mother; I consider both the question and the answer to be meaningful; and science has nothing to do with how I come up with the answer. Do you disagree with any of this? — SophistiCat

No. Did I at any point say that one could not have any desires or objectives without science telling you what they are first? If, for some disturbed reason, you actually need to answer the question "should I kill my own mother?" then science is your best tool to give you an answer (and the answer would be no), but if you don't even need to ask the question because you already have a satisfactory answer then what's science got to do with it. Are you suggesting you'd consult a philosophy text to find out the answer instead?

If the question is "should we, as a species, kill our own mothers?" from an academic perspective, then science can answer that question. The best current theory might be - 'No we should not kill our own mothers because our mothers are the source of high levels of oxytocin which we desire, killing others tends to lead to feelings which we find repellent (do not desire), even if right now it might feel good (our mother might have done something awful and we think she deserves it) then later on after we've calmed down repellent feelings will arise, etc..'. For the time being, there's no counter evidence - no large body of people who've killed their own mothers and are living happy fulfilled lives for having done so, so the theory stands.

Of course, no-one needs to ask the question because the answer is not in doubt. No-one needs to ask the question "What will happen if I throw this ball into the air?". Just because everyone already knows it will come back down again, that doesn't mean science can't answer the question in terms of gravity and mass, it just means it doesn't need to.

Do you think there is a scientific reason why some people choose scientific careers, rather than careers in diplomacy or the arts? — Wayfarer

Yes. I'm a determinist (or at least a compatibilist), so I believe there exists a scientific reason why everyone does anything. Whether that reason is sufficiently un-complex for us to ever expound it fully is another matter, but we can eliminate thousands of minor factors whose inclusion would make the model way too complex to actually use, but whose contribution to it's predictive power is only small. Thus we end up with a model which has a reasonably high predictive power but is not 100% accurate because of the minor elements we've ignored for simplicity. It's no different to the way we predict the weather, and that has proven incredibly useful despite its fuzziness.

Everything you’re saying is directly out of A J Ayer, Language Truth and Logic, which insisted that the only meaningful statements were those that can be verified empirically. But when the smoke cleared, it suddenly became obvious that this too is a statement that cannot be empirically verified. It was hoist by its own petard. — Wayfarer

We've been through this already so I'm at a loss to understand why you keep bringing it up. No-one is claiming that science can answer all philosophical questions - absolutely no-one. If you can find me a single quote form anyone accused of Scientism to the effect that science can actually answer all questions, then they deserve the pejorative term. I'd like to see them answer the question I used in my response to PA about Mars's favourite Librettist. The claim is that science can answer all questions to the extent to which they are objectively answerable by any means.

With regards to Ayer's claim (or others like it). Either;

- all metaphysical statements are meaningful (in which case Ayer's must also be meaningful)

- all metaphysical statements must be meaningless (in which case Ayer is right, but this statement itself becomes a paradox, so we'd rather not accept it)

- or, some metaphysical statements are meaningful and others not - In which case there is no logical reason why the number of metaphysical statements which can be meaningful is not one.

Meaning that it is perfectly logical to say that all metaphysical statements are meaningless apart from this metaphysical statement. The evidence for this is the lack of any other metaphysical statements which are meaningful.

The second point is that, scientism is inherently anti-philosophical in nature. It poses as philosophy, and adopts philosophical rhetorics, but ultimately it seeks to undermine philosophy by only admitting what can be definitely known, measured and assessed. The point about the Western philosophical tradition is that there has always been a place for the unknowable, for aporia, questions which really can’t be neatly resolved but need to be asked nonetheless. Whereas scientistic positivism declares all such questions out of bounds. — Wayfarer

Why do questions which cannot be resolved whose answers are unknowable need to be asked?

You then hold that philosophy can only give an answer to the questions I'm interested in, whereas science gives the answers to other questions. — PossibleAaran

I don't really see how this position differs from any of the previous ones in any meaningful sense. If I were to say that drawing cards at random from a deck of playing cards answers basic arithmetic problems, I don't think there's an English speaker in the world who wouldn't recognise this as false. If the question is 2+2=? and I draw a 3 of spades, that has given me an answer, but not the answer, therefore it is incorrect to say that drawing cards answers arithmetic problems. Likewise, if the question is "What is the favourite Librettist of the planet Mars?" however I answer, no-one would say that I have answered such a question despite the fact that I would have undeniably provided an answer, the question clearly has no answer.

So to say science answers all questions, science answers all questions that are answerable, and science answers all questions with the answer as opposed to an answer are all making exactly the same metaphysical claim. They are just further elaborating what is meant by it.

I agree with you, but this isn't Scientism is it? This isn't a controversial doctrine that forum members detest is it? — PossibleAaran

That's pretty much the heart of the whole thread. There isn't anyone (even the likes of Lawrence Krauss) who is saying anything more than I've just said. That science provides us with the best tools to describe objective reality. From scientists like Dawkins, Hawking, or Wolpert, to naturalist philosophers like Rosenberg, Edwards, and Harris, no-one is making any greater claim than this. That, if there is a question that can be meaningfully asked in the public domain, then either science can answer it (provide the answer) or it cannot be answered meaningfully in that domain.

That's why I'm asking the question. What is it about 'Scientism' that isn't just Naturalism (or Physicalism, or even Positivism), and what is it about it that's so detestable? I've certainly had it undeniably confirmed that people hate the position, but I haven’t yet understood why.

Its just the plain empirical fact that philosophers disagree a lot and scientists don't. What puzzles me is that you seem to think that it follows from this that there is no better or worse in philosophy. Everything is equal: — PossibleAaran

Yes, exactly that, and the reasons for it. Scientists don't just agree a lot because they are an amenable bunch, and philosophers don't just disagree a lot because they are particularly cantankerous, so why do scientists agree so manifestly more than philosophers do? Unless you are wanting to claim that it is just coincidence, it must be that there is at least something to a scientific answer which compels agreement, and that something is lacking (or at least in very short supply) in philosophical arguments.

Now, what do we mean by 'better or worse' in that context if not some form of widespread agreement among (to borrow Van Inwagen's term "epistemic peers"? A property we have just concluded philosophy lacks remarkably compared to science?

Some examples. — PossibleAaran

On at least one interpretation of Kant's views, many of his theses contradict orthodox views in physics (about space-time) and psychology (about conceptual diversity). - That is philosophy being replaced by science, there is no 'better' philosophy of space-time, there is just the science of space-time.

Russell held (although it isn't clear whether he was right) that direct realism about perception was in contradiction with the science of perception - As above, it is the science of perception that has replaced direct realism, not another philosophy, and if Russell was wrong, it will be that same science that show him to be, not a new philosophy.

Anselm's original Ontological Argument treats existence as a predicate - a logical mistake. But if you take existence to be a predicate As it is possible to do (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/is-existence-a-predicate/5E5525776149C95CB218AA50463530C7) then his argument can be believed. No-one has been proven 'better or worse' yet.

Many versions of Relativism (I think Richard Rorty's) are contradictory and self-refuting - But Rorty obviously didn't, and he is at least as rational as you or I. There are no arguments that he cannot understand, that you or I could, and yet he has reached the conclusion he has that differs from yours. It is not the case the Rorty's argument here is self refuting, only that it is possible to construct a counter argument. Show me a philosophical position for which it is not possible to construct a counter argument.

Plantinga argues that certain versions of Naturalism are self-refuting. - Again, the (perfectly rational and intellectual) proponents of those versions clearly do not think of them as self-refuting despite having access to the exact same arguments.

Descartes most famously failed to refute his own evil demon hypothesis, because he resorted (accidentally) to helping himself to premises which he himself earlier banned himself from using (there are several interpretations of Descartes and all are fascinating, but he always slips up somewhere). - Absolutely, but not 'better' philosophy has filled in the blanks he was unable to fill.

Russell also failed to reduce mathematics to logic, by his own standards and according to his own interpretation of the issue. - Again, no-one else has succeeded where he failed.

Of course, philosophers will debate with each other whether any of these mistakes has really been made, but that doesn't mean no philosophy is better than any other — PossibleAaran

I really don't see how it can mean anything other. If rational, intelligent people, in possession of exactly the same arguments nonetheless cannot agree, even close to unanimously, that any of those arguments are 'better' or 'worse', then that's about as close as you're ever going to a fact that none of these arguments are 'better' or 'worse'. It is at least close enough to a fact that an unbiased analysis would hold it to be the case for the time being.

The Ethical Naturalism which you are talking about in this post is different to the kind which we spoke about previously. I thought you were advocating a doctrine about the meaning of "moral goodness", since that is the view I know of which goes by that label. — PossibleAaran

Again, I think you're mistaking further elaboration for changing of subject. Ethical Naturalism encompasses "naturalistic forms of moral realism according to which there are objective moral facts and properties and these moral facts and properties are natural facts and properties." - SEP. Ie it is the idea that as morals are natural facts, they can be discovered by science. There is disagreement as to whether they ever will be, but not (as far as I know) over whether they theoretically can be.

What is 'morally good' is a meaningless question in that sense. It becomes a question akin to "what is a whale?" I can provide you with taxonomic reasons why a thing is a whale, but not why such a category exists at all, there are simply a number of 'things' in the world and we've decided to call some of them whales on account of the fact that they share some similarities. There's no single feature of a whale that makes it a whale. Whatever characteristic you pick, there will be the potential for some mutated offspring to be born without such a feature and we would still call it a whale. So it is with 'moral goodness'. There are simply a collection of feelings we have in response to outcomes, some of these we term 'moral goodness' on account of their similarities, but there's no definitive set of features that must be present, just a 'Family Resemblance'.

The question it was supposed to answer was "how should we live?". But it doesn't answer that question. Sticking only with what can be scientifically established, all that can be said is "these are our wants and desires. These are the most efficient ways of achieving them". That doesn't answer the philosophical question at all. — PossibleAaran

As I said earlier, the full claim, as per the normal use of the term 'answer', is only that science can answer questions to which there is an answer. Since we are determined beings without free-will sensu stricto, then the question what 'should' we do is the question of how can we most efficiently achieve our desires. Consider the alternative. Ifnot striving to achieve your desire was an available alternative what would you call the thing that motivated you to take that option? If you freely choose which desires to suppress and which to nurture, what would you call the thing that motivated you do the suppression/nurturing? We can call these motivations whatever you want, but the only question that is relevant to them is how best to achieve them.

Your view isn't that science can answer the philosophical question. Its that the philosophical question doesn't matter. Whether or not the question matters, the fact is that science doesn't answer it, and so we do not here have an instance of science answering a philosophical question. — PossibleAaran

Absolutely. Science also doesn't answer the question of what Juliet thought of Romeo's haircut, or how many years it takes for a unicorn to grow its horn. It won't answer whether we're real, or whether there's a God (in the widest sense). But neither will anything else. These questions are either meaningless or not amenable to evidence of any sort.(under Physicalism), or rely for their evidence on positions which themselves cannot be proven (Intuitionism, Physicalism, Realism, Divine Command)

Neither of these things will help a person who has risen to the level of reflection in which they wonder whether the way they are currently living is the right way to live, or whether there even is such a thing as the right way to live. — PossibleAaran

Exactly. If a rational person is asking both of those two questions, then a rational person can see that the fact that there is sufficient doubt in the latter means that they cannot, with any certainty, answer the former.

Maybe the difference here, though a subtle one, is between an answer to the philosophical questions, and the answer. I could provide you with an answer to the question "what did you have for breakfast this morning?". I could even have that answer analysed philosophically - if I said "a bucket of pigswill', we could say that that was not a good answer, it doesn't accord with experience (not one eats pigswill), nor with intuition (I wouldn't want to eat pigswill); if I said "toast and coffee", that would be a better answer, purely on philosophical grounds. But neither are the answer, I could not possibly know the answer. Even if I had CCTV footage of you having your breakfast, I can only get more sure. But at some point in this increasing certainty, for the sake of linguistic convenience only, we say we've got the answer. That point is the point at which others agree with our results (maybe they check their CCTV footage as well, they ask a snoopy neighbour who watches you every morning and he corroborates), and at which we can repeat our results (CCTV footage is corroborated by direct observation, which is corroborated by thermal imaging, which is corroborated by the fact that two slices of bread are missing etc...). There is no such continual testing and corroboration in philosophy, so it can only ever supply an answer, never the answer.

In a sense, the argument that only science can answer questions in the objective, public domain is actually trivially true and not ground breaking at all. I could have my own justification (an answer) as to why I think you even exist, why I can trust my memory, why I think that because the laws of physics were some way yesterday they will be that way again tomorrow, but these are my private justifications. I might talk with you about them and we could have a very interesting conversation, but at no point in time could I say that my justifications had any better claim to objective truth than yours. They might be more internally consistent than yours, but who's to say that internal consistency is a measure of success?

This is the problem with philosophy answering these question, I've yet to hear anyone talk about how we know when we have an answer. I agree entirely with your list of issues that science cannot speak on (although I disagree about morality, but we'll come to that), but you've not said how you know when philosophy has an answer. Science knows when it has an answer. All the while the theory is being tested and cannot be dis-proven, it is the answer. The moment a test comes along to disprove it, it's no longer the answer. The clever thing about science is it's only ever temporary, it only ever has the answer for the time being. I just don't see the equivalent with philosophy. A few possibilities to get the ball rolling, but I'd be interested to her what you think a measure of success would be;

• The theory matches our intuition - as you've already said with morality, what we call our intuition does not seem to deliver consistent results. maybe reality isn't consistent, but if that's the case, then all we have again is an answer, not the answer. There's no reason to believe your answer will apply to me.
• The theory is internally consistent - This is promising, but if 2000 years of philosophy has shown us anything it's that lots of things can be sufficiently internally consistent to sound plausible. None of this gets at the axioms that are at the heart of the investigations.
• The ability of an argument to persuade - Take a look at the PhilPapers survey, or David Chalmers's lecture in which he presents the results. There's not been an inch of persuasive progress on any of the major questions of philosophy in 2000 years, Almost all are still split 50/50. In fact the only areas where arguments have been more persuasive than others are areas where I suspect you personally (from reading your posts) would disagree. Most philosophers think there isn't a God, and most philosophers think there is a real world external to our minds. If we accept persuasiveness as a measure of the answer, then we should at least all be atheist realists., but we're not.

Personally, I find a lot of use for the idea of philosophy as justification. Stories we can tell ourselves about why we believe what we do so as not to be "crippled with doubt" as Russell put it. But they are just stories, no one is better than any other. Charles Dickens is not a 'better' author than Emily Bronte, and Kant is not a 'better' philosopher than Hume, they're all just offering something, you either like it or you don't, there's no argument to be had as to why one it more 'right' than the other.

Modern ethics is a classic case in point. I'm an ethicist by training so I've read a considerable amount of answers to ethical problems from various angles. I can honestly say that I've not come across a single example of an ethical problem for which the answer we were all looking for cannot be shoe-horned into whatever ethical theory you care to try. Never, in my entire career have I come across a paper from an ardent supporter of any ethical school where they take on a moral dilemma and say "Wow, Kant (or whoever) gives us a really counter-intuitive answer here, I suppose we'd best follow it though", or "Nope, Kant's got nothing on this one, it didn't work". If the answer is counter-intuitive, you can guarantee that some subsequent paper will come along to show how the intuitive answer was right all along. This is why I became convinced by ethical naturalism (although I've always been a moral realist) every ethics paper I've read seems to be working backwards, it seems to be 'trying' to find the answer the author knows already is right in whatever ethical system they're applying.

Basically we seem to start off with a series of moral dilemmas where we know the parameters of the answers we're looking for ("kill the poor" isn't one of them, for example), but we don't know which exact course of action to take form all the ones that seem intuitively to be viable.
We put these dilemmas through various ethical theories of the greatest ethical philosophers of all time.
And we end up with a list of possible answers depending on which particular application of which particular ethics you've applied, that matches almost exactly the list of possible solutions our intuition delivered us at the beginning of the process.
Philosophy has done absolutely nothing to narrow down that list.
What it has done is given us reasons why we might believe in any one of the solutions, which is no small thing, I think it's really important, but it's not answering anything.

Once I accepted this phenomenon as a feature of reality (a simple belief statement, but based on empirical data, as above), then it becomes possible to at least apply science to determine which of the possible solutions might actually deliver the results we're looking for. Science can't tell us what we 'ought' to be looking for, but that doesn't seem to matter. In my experience we're all looking for roughly the same thing anyway. You mention the deontologist who does not believe in "maximising well-being", or the priest who wants only to "do God's will", but in neither case do we end up with anything we didn't know already. Deontology says nothing more than the golden rule, which it has been demonstrated even monkeys know. God's will suffers from (or perhaps benefits from) Plato's concern that God wills it because it is right. In religions, god only seems to will things that communities at the time think are right. Do you think it's a coincidence that God seems a lot less insistent on stoning adulterers and ostracising homosexuals these days?

The biggest problem with understanding ethical naturalism, and I think Harris makes this massive mistake too, is to think that what we want is in any way simple or consistent. 'What we want' is a large collection of vague and brazenly contradictory desires for particular sensations. Mapping those onto the world to work out what actions to take to achieve them is complicated. Our understanding of the world has a huge impact, our understanding of our own desires does too, as does the timescale we ask the question over. I think you've over simplified ethical naturalisms, and so has Harris. It's more like this.

We desire feelings X,Y and Z (an a hundred others, but lets call X,Y and Z the ones we've labelled 'moral objectives'), this is taken to be a brute fact and although we don't know exactly what X,Y and Z are, we can derive then by looking at the common threads of all moral behaviour, looking at brain function and applying evolutionary principles.
We learn that, in the environment we're in, doing A delivers feeling X, doing B delivers feeling Y and doing C delivers feeling Z. Again, we can test these hypotheses by the means above.
So far, so simple, but the trouble comes in three forms;

1. Change the environment and doing A no longer delivers feeling X, so actions that were moral once become less so as the environment changes (they no longer deliver feeling X, our 'moral' objective')
2. Doing A delivers feeling X in the short -term, but feeling Q in the long term (where Q is a feeling we definitely do not want). Humans apply hyperbolic discounting to desires that are in the future, to a varying degree. again this is just a brute fact, not an 'ought'. We just do apply hyperbolic discounting, like it or not.
3. Those pesky 'hundred other' desires, none of which make the slightest effort to be complimentary. We're constantly trying to balance our actions to deliver these feelings we desire despite the fact that they are not remotely complimentary.

These three factors account for all the moral variation you see in the world, different environments delivering different solutions, different levels of hyperbolic discounting and different rational solutions to competing desires. None of this changes the fact that the desires themselves are scientifically falsifiable theories, as are theories about the solutions which best meet all of them over any given time-scale.

Of course, circling back to the first part, if you don't believe in Physicalism in the first place, then all this is rubbish. If you think God made the world, then anything goes. You have to have the fundamental belief in the first place before any of this makes any sense, but personally I think everyone does. I think that's the reason why 'Scientism' is treated with such derision. people are scared it might actually be right.

Capitalists need maximal freedom to operate and so advocate freedom for everyone. — frank

Freedom to what? Freedom is not a thing one can advocate, one had to advocate the freedom to... (something). What is it you think capitalism advocates the freedom to do?

@Michael The conversation I'm having with Harry is about Ethical Naturalism specifically. This thread is about the pejorative use of the term 'Scientism'. I don't want to lose what we've discussed, but no-one's going to find the topic who might be interested in Ethical Naturalism by looking at the thread title or tag. Is there any way Harry's comments and my responses to him could be moved to their own thread?

Why do people say that the decision to tithe or not is a moral one? — Harry Hindu

Because the family resemblance of decisions labelled 'moral' includes things which match the properties of the decision to tithe - namely in this case, it involves the welfare of others, possibly at one's own expense. But like any definition the term is vague. How tall exactly does a tree need to be to not be called a shrub? How many grains of sand are required for it to be a 'pile'? At what stage of hybridisation does a thing cease to be the species it was and start to become a new one? None of these questions have been answered, yet they do not prevent us from using the terms involved. I don't know exactly what determines whether a decision is a moral one or not, I don't think anyone has the authority to decide. I do know a moral decision when faced with one, in most cases. I might have trouble with ambiguous cases, as would anyone with any definition.

The fact that you haven't seems to indicate that you don't intend to be intellectually honest. — Harry Hindu

What makes you think I haven't - because I haven't come up with the answer you think is right, ergo I can't have thought about it properly? This seems to be a unnervingly common position on this thread.
It doesn't matter to me at all what name we give to these types of decision, nor what rules we use to decide which are called 'moral' and which are not. I'm happy to accept your personal definition, the definition of 'the masses' or some dictionary definition of authority. It makes not the least difference to my argument because I argue that we make moral decisions in exactly the same way as we make any other decision, therefore I do not need to define which decisions I'm talking about, i'm talking about them all.

Now it's becoming clear that you're just avoiding the questions.

I asked you whose feelings matter the most? — Harry Hindu

Our own feelings, I thought that was clear from the paragraph you quoted.

We are not already programmed to care about other people's feelings. — Harry Hindu

We categorically, unequivocally are programmed to care about other people's feelings. We have specific neurons in the brain which do just that and no other job, people with those parts of the brain damaged or missing become instantly indifferent to other people's feelings, six month old babies show concern for the welfare of others and think of appropriate solutions to those problems, you will not find a single psychological experiment no matter how contrived that shows we are indifferent to the feelings of others. I'm happy to engage with you and see if we can refine each other's ideas, but I'm not prepared to discuss philosophies based on made up facts. To paraphrase, you are entitled to your own opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts.

If we were then there would never be any moral dilemmas. — Harry Hindu

This is only true if you presume (erroneously) that our desires are complementary. As soon as you understand that our desires are conflicting, you have a model which allows for behaviour that contradicts one desire because it satisfies another. This doesn't mean that the first desire doesn't exist, just that it was, on that occasion, subsumed by the other desire. This happens rationally in the cerebral cortex. Eric Corchesne (the first neuroscientist to work out how to do fMRI scans on babies) directly observed this activity in the brain of six month old babies. He took away a toy, the child recognised the toy had been taken (sensory perception areas lit up), felt several visceral reactions (several areas of emotional response lit up), processed those feelings in the cerebral cortex, and then cried.

Now there are a whole host of problems with fMRI scanning and the relation to brain states, but is is certainly robust enough to tell the difference between visceral activity and cerebral activity. Babies definitely feel several things in response to stimuli, make some kind of rational calculation, and then feel largely only one thing (with associated behaviour).

Whatever theory you have about morality, the feelings we have for others, the way we make decisions, and how our behaviour reflects our desires has to at least fit the facts. They're vague enough to accommodate a huge range of theories at the moment, but not so vague that just anything goes.

Interesting. How does she deal with any duty of care for later generations? They don't have rights so we just screw the planet and let them deal with the fallout? — Benkei

Actually it was Hans Jonas, not Lucy Allais, apologies, I tried to cite from memory, always a risky. Anyway, he doesn't reconcile it at all, he's pretty scathing of all moral systems for their inability to require anything more than a contingent duty to future generations (contingent upon them existing), but without a duty to cause future generations, the contingent duty ceases to have any imperitive power.

His solution, such as there is one, is a vaguely ethical naturalistic stance. We're going to produce a future generation whether we are duty bound to or not. He then derives a duty to them. I tend to go further to say our desire to satisfy their well-being is also a given, and it's the conflict with other given desires that's the problem. It then becomes a conflict resolution problem, not an moral imperitive one. But that's a bit off topic.

Your point about property shows, to my mind, why it is at the heart of the capitalist dilemma. Capitalism (Adam Smith variety) relies on the principle that people will assign a price to a product that ultimately reflects their own self interest in it. It does not properly address the issue of why they must pay a price at all. If the apple is growing wild, why does anyone's self-interested assessment of value even enter into it?

I think the strongest support for capitalism, by which I mean the manner in which it can be applied without internal inconsistencies, is as a means for proscribing non-essential economic activity.

- things become available for ownership either through trade or production (that are not essential to survival)
- respect private ownership (of objects beyond those which are essential to survival)
- respect transfer of ownership (of objects not essential to survival)

Essentially its communism for the means of survival and capitalism for the rest.

This starts to look very tenuous after several generations (if not even after only one) — andrewk

Lucy Allais wrote a good piece about the problems of extending deontological ethics into the future and the past. Essentially, the person whose rights are being respected doesn't exist, either way. If we can give rights to non-existent entities, then we can give rights to fictitious entities, theoretical entities...

Even if we were to assign rights to non-existent entities and somehow curtail the lunacy that could otherwise entail, it still doesn't quite get us round the problem of first acquisition. I feel as though if capitalism wants to put any moral value at all on the ownership of property it has to address the issues of how the property left a state of nature and became owned. Property that is farmed or gardened could become owned by virtue of the labour used to transform it, but that is not without its issues. I suspect the capitalist would also like to retain rights to property not so transformed (hunting estates, for example) and would like some means of resolution over conflicts of ownership from a state of nature (tribal land claims, for example).

Yes, reading your response to Descartes, I think I see where you are going now, something like "for a capitalist, what should capitalism look like morally?". Is that close?

If so, then I would say that such a hypothetical imperative as I've suggested is ideologically necessary. In order for capitalism to allow inheritance, it must detach acquisition of capital from any sense of moral entitlement. The son of an oil tycoon might be an absolutely reprehensible monster, but he would still rightly 'own' what used to be his father's capital. In that sense, it is a necessary rule of capitalism that you simply have a right to own whatever it has become possible for you to own. The question then, is that what caveats does capitalism itself place on this categorical rule?

It's obviously not that such acquisition must be legal (capitalism doesn't have any constraints on changing the law, so current legality can't be prescriptive).

It's also not that such acquisitions must be approved of by democratic society (as you said, state acquisitions would be avoided, regardless of their democratic approval).

So, I think this is the first question, what might be the rules capitalism implies about the acquisition of property?

I'm sorry if I've offended you. I have been called just about every derogatory name under the sun in this thread just for asking the question about why Scientism is used in a derogatory sense, so it riled me to have yet another post take a combatative approach of first presuming I must be a fundamentalist supporter of Scientism "You right away defended the following quote by Putnam:..." and then be subjected to this kind of trick questioning aimed at 'catching me out' rather than constructively laying out your ideas as to what Scientism is and why it is used pejoratively, which is, completely unambiguously, the actual question.

Having said all that, it should serve as an explanation for my snappiness, not an excuse for it, so I apologise for my tone.

The arguments against votes-for-children that I can think of are echoes of the same arguments used against votes for women, Black people in South Africa etc — Cuthbert

Absolutely. One day (soon I hope) we will look back at the way we treated children with the same baffled abhorrence as we now have for the way we treated other races, women, homosexuals etc. I have no issue with transgender individuals, but it does make me sick to hear all the furore that is being made (quite righly) about their rights to wear whatever they feel comfortable in, and (rather more arguably) have their own pronoun, whilst in the same states we hear of children detained against their will for having the wrong haircut and no-one cares. It's a disgrace.

Yes, I think so. I'm a little confused about exactly what you're aiming at here, but is it something like asking whether capitalism makes moral statements? If so, then I think you could only see it as such from an ahistorical perspective. It could only ever provide hypothetical imperatives. If we accept we are where we are, in terms of property ownership, then we should...

- things become available for ownership either through trade or production — Benkei

I'd say the primary problem is here. How do we account for the means of production in this rule? The means of production cannot become available through production (that would lead to an infinite regress), nor can they become available through trade (which has the problem of the uncaused cause).
In reality, all property was either appropriated from a state of Nature, or stolen by force of arms, so to be a consistent ethical theory it would have to either allow for both these things (which I think would clash with a lot of ethics), or account for their historical impact in some way. This is where a moral requirement to compensate the dispossessed comes from.

I was talking about you mentioning that since people agree that tithing is moral, that that makes it moral. — Harry Hindu

I haven't said that (at least not deliberately). I said that tithing is a moral issue, the decision about whether to tithe is one of that group of decisions we label 'moral'. I'm not saying that tithing is a moral act because people say it is. I'm saying the decision whether to tithe or not is a moral one because people say it is. None of this has the slightest bearing on whether we should tithe or not.

I'm appealing to popular agreement to define what kinds of decisions are 'moral' ones, only for the sake of discussions about ethics. To me, they're all just decisions and science can answer them, it's an artefact of those who think morality is something else that some types of decision are put in a special group, I'd almost be happy to do away with the word entirely.

It is relevant because it shows that what is good for one species isn't good for another, and it is based on the way we're designed by natural selection. — Harry Hindu

Absolutely, and what's good for one group is not necessarily good for another competing group. Mostly it's in our best interest to co-operate, occasionally to fight. It's (probably) a conflict between wanting to secure resources for our immediate genetic kin, but not wanting to do so at the expense of making enemies who might threaten then later or killing our slightly less close genetic kin. I don't see how this is evidence of a lack of scientific answer to moral dilemmas, in fact it supports scientific explanations, which favour multiple conflicting desires, over other moral Realisms, which imply one consistent code.

I don't see how science can help you feel better in this situation. — Harry Hindu

I never claimed that science could always make you feel good. If both choices are crap, the best it can do is least crap.

you seem to be forgetting a major aspect of morality - and that is the consequences of your actions on other's feelings, not just your own. That is my point. Whose feelings matter the most? — Harry Hindu

No, the consequences on other people's feelings are often what generate our own feelings. We have mirror neurons which mimic the emotions of others, we literally feel their pain, it's an evolved mechanism, probably to aid co-operation but the jury is still out on that. We're already programmed to care about other people's feelings, it's going to happen anyway. Science can tell us how best to bring about the happiness in others we seem to want to generate (when we're not already sure how to do it).

I'm just missing the facts that would allow me to do that. Wikipedia says there were four 19th Century Indian famines. A fat Wikipedia estimate of the death toll is about 6 million. Where did the estimate of 50 million come from? — frank

It is as specified, the total death toll "from the imposition of colonial export crops", not the Indian famines alone, and it comes from calculations done by historian Mike Davies who puts the figure as between 32 and 61 million, the majority of which could have been avoided had subsistence farming still been in place, and export prices not been set by free markets.

Im only trying to establish a like-for-like comparison. How short a time counts as a single event? How influencial does the regime have to be in the deaths to be classed as 'causing' them? Are we limiting it to actual soldiers and employees of the government, or extending it th policies which put people in a position where they were likely to die (like removing their food source)?

1) To what extent could pin these disasters on poor management? — frank

Difficult, but we'd need to ask the same question of communist regimes.

2) Did racism play a part? — frank

Not a difficult question - yes. Churchill, during the last Indian Famine under British rule described the Indians ad a "beastly race" and declared the famine their own fault.

For the record, I didn't ignore your presentations. I didn't see them. — frank

My apologies for the misrepresentation.

if you will honor the victims of Russian and Chinese communism by openly and honestly admitting how they died, I will honor all those who died directly or indirectly as a result of capitalism. And we'll leave it at that. — frank

Good idea, the killings of the communist regimes were some of the most barbaric and horrific genocides ever carried out and should act as a lesson never to go down those paths again. As should the excesses of imperialism, fascism and trust in the free-market.

Absolutely agree with you about the main points of contention. Personally I see them as indicators of a systemic failure that they do not seem to be resolvable without arbitrary unfairness (if that's not a tautology).

I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll answer your points briefly.

With regards to providing the means of existence, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool 'from each according to their ability to each according to their needs' kind of person, so the issue of some age-specific cut off point at which one is/is not responsible for the material needs of others does not arise. Mostly adults have the greater ability, so should do the greater part of provision, but it's ability, not age that's being judged.

I don't believe in punishment for crime. It has been demonstrated, certainly on my reading of the evidence, that punishment does not work to deter crime. The correct response to crime is to do whatever is most effective to prevent it from happening again. If the crime was committed as a result of immaturity, then action should be taken to raise the child's maturity, if committed out of callousness or sociopathy, then therapy treatment might be appropriate. Either way, the age still is not the determining factor.

With regards to labour laws, there should be no job which is so onerous that we would not want a child to do it (presuming they are willing, keen, and capable, as above). I find the idea of making an adult sit at a desk for 35 hours a week (despite the full knowledge that such restrictions on movement are often fatal in the long term) to be quite repulsive enough without even considering inflicting it on a child. We should have extremely robust labour laws which prevent the exploitation of children and adults alike.

Obviously, many of these issues are an all-or-nothing case (as I believe were some of the issues in our other discussion). Removing child labour laws without changing anything else would be a disaster for children, allowing them to be treated as adults in court without changing our punitive system would be cruel. But I do think some changes are possible within the society we have. Allowing children to vote is one such change, allowing them to work in very strictly controlled types of job is another I would be in favour of, for example.

It would be absurd. Over to me to say exactly why and it's definitely a weakness in my position on this thread. — Cuthbert

Well I'd be interested to hear if you come up with anything. Personally I think it's a crime at the heart of democracy and goes straight to the hypocrisy of such systems. Either there's some criteria for who can vote (in which case we might as well be proactive about it, rather than arbitrary), or everyone with an interest has that right (in which case we can't go excluding whole swathes of the population on the grounds that they'd probably vote for the 'wrong' reasons).

A threshold of understanding seems to be the only justifiable line, and in that case (and that case alone) I can see some argument for an age limit as a purely pragmatic way of indicating the passing of that threshold. But in order for such a threshold to have a claim to moral authority, it would have to be set such that only a few very rare exceptions existed. As it is, I can think of whole swathes of the adult population who have less understanding of the political issues than equally large swathes of the 14 year old population.

Consequently I'm in favour of reducing the voting age to at least 14, possibly 12.