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They can't because they are empirical sciences. They only can find out facts about the world. Philosophy has already shown that moral is not derivable from fac

by wsy 8y ago

They can't because they are empirical sciences. They only can find out facts about the world. Philosophy has already shown that moral is not derivable from facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem.

Koshkin 8y ago
To be clear, I wasn't talking about creating "optimal" moral imperatives (which is impossible and even meaningless), only about finding out why they are the way they are in a particular social group, how they have evolved, etc.
- CM30 8y ago
  That's all very well and good, but it's not really what moral philosophy/ethics is trying to solve. It's about what is right and how society should work, and whether the right thing is say, what brings the most happiness/utility or what's someone's duty as a good person or what not. No, those are not meaningless goals, since they kind of determine how society works/should work, and are often the basis of fair political and legal systems. Here's how it worked in the past doesn't justify it working the same way now, and cultures throughout history have done all sorts of questionable things on the assumption they were in the right. It's the job of moral philosophers to figure out how to move forward from this, figure out what's right for society and go beyond tribalism and instinct.
  - Koshkin 8y ago
    It is indeed meaningless and impossible, because, on the one hand, the spectrum of choices is too large and fuzzy, and, on the other hand, "happiness" cannot be universal, because the interest are naturally in contradiction with one another, so the reason one is happy can make another sad. Which is why we have dura lex for morals. And which is why, for example, a "just" war can be "immoral" or even "criminal" at the same time. The popular saying "No good deed goes unpunished" is an expression of the deep distrust towards any attempts to derive morals from some abstract "first principles."
    - wsy 8y ago
      Your statement sounds quite philosophical. Is it open for discussion, or do you consider it a dogmatic truth? I'd recommend to check out John Rawls and Amartya Sen on how you can reason about a fair society without assuming universal concepts of happiness, and with taking into account everyone's selfishness.
      - Koshkin 8y ago
        Problem is, “fair”, “good”, and “right” are three different things, and what adds to the confusion is that each has a different meaning depending on a context (the size of the social group - down to the individual; relation to other social groups; the point on the timeline - i.e. whether we are speaking about now or the future, etc.) Statistical mechanics avoids complexity of taking into account properties of the individual constituents by shifting attention to the averages, and so, in a sense, must ethics, if it is to be rational. But, again, the properties in question are not well-defined, unfortunately, and so no amount of effort to rationalize them could yield a positive result. Otherwise we’d have moral codes in place of arbitrary laws long ago.
        wsy 8y ago
        I agree that these are different things. I also agree that they are hard to define. I fail to see why that should be a reason not to attempt it. I strongly disagree that our laws are arbitrary. They are very much inspired by, sometimes even directly derived from what philosophers thought about fairness and freedom. I also want to point out that what both of us do here is having a philosophical argument about moral code. It's not a new one, you can find related stances to your own one with respect to morality in Nietzsche, and with respect to meaning of terms and futility of discussion in Wittgenstein. But this is not the whole picture, other philosophers have already reacted to them and advanced the discussion. Like in other areas of knowledge, you better do thorough research first, otherwise you just reinvent the wheel.

by wsy 8y ago

Koshkin 8y ago

To be clear, I wasn't talking about creating "optimal" moral imperatives (which is impossible and even meaningless), only about finding out why they are the way they are in a particular social group, how they have evolved, etc.

CM30 8y ago
That's all very well and good, but it's not really what moral philosophy/ethics is trying to solve. It's about what is right and how society should work, and whether the right thing is say, what brings the most happiness/utility or what's someone's duty as a good person or what not. No, those are not meaningless goals, since they kind of determine how society works/should work, and are often the basis of fair political and legal systems. Here's how it worked in the past doesn't justify it working the same way now, and cultures throughout history have done all sorts of questionable things on the assumption they were in the right. It's the job of moral philosophers to figure out how to move forward from this, figure out what's right for society and go beyond tribalism and instinct.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  It is indeed meaningless and impossible, because, on the one hand, the spectrum of choices is too large and fuzzy, and, on the other hand, "happiness" cannot be universal, because the interest are naturally in contradiction with one another, so the reason one is happy can make another sad. Which is why we have dura lex for morals. And which is why, for example, a "just" war can be "immoral" or even "criminal" at the same time. The popular saying "No good deed goes unpunished" is an expression of the deep distrust towards any attempts to derive morals from some abstract "first principles."
  - wsy 8y ago
    Your statement sounds quite philosophical. Is it open for discussion, or do you consider it a dogmatic truth? I'd recommend to check out John Rawls and Amartya Sen on how you can reason about a fair society without assuming universal concepts of happiness, and with taking into account everyone's selfishness.
    - Koshkin 8y ago
      Problem is, “fair”, “good”, and “right” are three different things, and what adds to the confusion is that each has a different meaning depending on a context (the size of the social group - down to the individual; relation to other social groups; the point on the timeline - i.e. whether we are speaking about now or the future, etc.) Statistical mechanics avoids complexity of taking into account properties of the individual constituents by shifting attention to the averages, and so, in a sense, must ethics, if it is to be rational. But, again, the properties in question are not well-defined, unfortunately, and so no amount of effort to rationalize them could yield a positive result. Otherwise we’d have moral codes in place of arbitrary laws long ago.
      - wsy 8y ago
        I agree that these are different things. I also agree that they are hard to define. I fail to see why that should be a reason not to attempt it. I strongly disagree that our laws are arbitrary. They are very much inspired by, sometimes even directly derived from what philosophers thought about fairness and freedom. I also want to point out that what both of us do here is having a philosophical argument about moral code. It's not a new one, you can find related stances to your own one with respect to morality in Nietzsche, and with respect to meaning of terms and futility of discussion in Wittgenstein. But this is not the whole picture, other philosophers have already reacted to them and advanced the discussion. Like in other areas of knowledge, you better do thorough research first, otherwise you just reinvent the wheel.