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> The methods used in science have to be in some sense rational as well as merely effective Well no, we just need methods leading to verifiable (ie predictiv

by Herring 17y ago

> The methods used in science have to be in some sense rational as well as merely effective Well no, we just need methods leading to verifiable (ie predictive) results. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science Any methods will do, it's the body of knowledge that is important. I'm sure in your scenario we'd want to know the reason why intuition works so well (and there would be a reason), but we'd use it so long as it works. > > Explain how the moral fact in (1) reduces to physical facts [...] You seem to think that they are limited to brain science, but why do you think this? It's human behavior & human preferences, what else could it be? We can watch which parts of the brain light up when doing morality (eg google brain fairness). Even monkeys have a sense of fairness (google). If birds could talk they'd tell you it's a "moral fact" that birds should protect their young. Morality is clearly hardwired through evolution[1]. To see how frustrating this is, imagine you're arguing with people who are sure CPUs work because of "machine spirits." You don't have to be a chip designer to point out obvious circuitry, energy requirements, changes in function due to differing structures/damage, etc but they'll just believe whatever they want without evidence. [1] And biology reduces to physics. Read selfish gene etc if you want to know how morality evolved, but it's clear it did happen.

321abc 17y ago
Physics does not reduce to atomic physics, nor science to physics, nor life to science. -- Erwin Schrödinger
foldr 17y ago
>Well no, we just need methods leading to verifiable (ie predictive) results That is an extremely vague statement, but is basically a statement of the logical positivist notion of the scientific method which is now universally accepted as inadequate. The philosophy of science and the scientific method is a very complicated (and unfinished) subject, and crass statements like this just won't cut it as serious claims about the nature of scientific investigation. If you're interested, the Standford encyclopedia of philosophy gives a good overview of some of these topics (or pick up a copy of "Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge," or look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem) > I'm sure in your scenario we'd want to know the reason why intuition works so well (and there would be a reason) Yes, if in that scenario we knew the reason intuition worked, that might make it rational to use intuition. But a method could be effective even if we didn't know why it worked, and you did not add in any additional criterion of "knowing how it works" in your original statement. Are you sure you actually meant what you said? Regarding the moral issue, you seem to be suggesting that (1) reduces to the fact that humans have a preference for not killing people (as far as I can tell, your vague references to "parts of the brain lighting up" aren't doing any work here, they're just decoration). But of course we all recognize that moral statements are different from statements about preferences -- they are descriptions of what people /should/ do, not what they like to do -- so I don't see that there is a successful reduction here. (Unless you are willing to be a moral nihilist and believe that there are really no facts about what people should do, only facts about what they prefer to do.)
- Herring 17y ago
  > That is an extremely vague statement, but is basically a statement of the logical positivist notion of the scientific method which is now universally accepted as inadequate. That's a fitting statement in a thread about the demise of philosophy. If you go to any lab, they'll tell you they're trying to come up with an accurate model, or trying to create structures with a certain known function. Your name for the process & opinions about it are irrelevant. It should be empirically clear what is happening. > But a method could be effective even if we didn't know why it worked, and you did not add in any additional criterion of "knowing how it works" in your original statement. Are you sure you actually meant what you said? We did chemistry for a long time without an atomic theory, just memorizing which chemicals should be mixed with which. Of course it was rudimentary, but there wasn't a way around that. > But of course we all recognize that moral statements are different from statements about preferences -- they are descriptions of what people /should/ do, not what they like to do -- so I don't see that there is a successful reduction here. They are statements about what people think people should do. If we all had brains like these [1] it would be morally normal to be a sociopath. Again it doesn't matter what you call it (moral nihilism), this is also empirically true. [1] http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18573/ http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18573/
  - foldr 17y ago
    >That's a fitting statement in a thread about the demise of philosophy. If you go to any lab, they'll tell you they're trying to come up with an accurate model, or trying to create structures with a certain known function. Your name for the process & opinions about it are irrelevant. It should be empirically clear what is happening. I can't make sense of any of that, or see how it is relevant to what you were quoting from my post. Are you suggesting that logical positivism is correct, or that it's ok for scientists (and for you) to ignore the philosophy of science, or something else? Vague references to "trying to create structures with a certain known function" are just impossible for me to interpret without some explanation of what they're supposed to mean. >We did chemistry for a long time without an atomic theory, just memorizing which chemicals should be mixed with which. Of course it was rudimentary, but there wasn't a way around that. Again, this seems completely irrelevant to the statement you've quoted. You're confusing a knowledge of how a method works with a knowledge of how chemical reactions work. The chemists methods were (typically) scientific and rational, even though they did not reach a good understanding of chemistry using these methods for quite some time. You seem to be saying that deciding between theories by a coin toss would be scientific if it turned out to be effective (which it might, in principle). But surely effectiveness is not the only criterion we apply. We also require the methods used to be in some sense rational, although (as you would discover if you bothered to read the philosophy of science instead of sneering at it), it is very difficult to figure out exactly what this means. >They are statements about what people think people should do. I don't agree, I think they are simply statements about what people should do. Certainly, if our brains were different we might have different moral beliefs, but that does not imply that those beliefs would be equally correct. (One can imagine a scenario in which everyone has brains which cause them to think that squares are circles, but that wouldn't imply that facts about geometry are merely facts about a consensus of human thought.) I'm not sure what you mean when you say "this is also empirically true." Are you suggesting that it has somehow been /empirically/ established that moral statements are statements about what people think people should do? I don't see which empirical facts about the brain could adjudicate between different positions regarding the nature of moral statements. I am curious, though, why you are so sure that moral facts must be reducible to physical facts. There is no reason whatever to think that this is the case (and though you persistently assert that is is, you never bother to provide any), but this idea really seems to have captured your imagination.

by Herring 17y ago

321abc 17y ago

Physics does not reduce to atomic physics, nor science to physics, nor life to science. -- Erwin Schrödinger

foldr 17y ago

>Well no, we just need methods leading to verifiable (ie predictive) results That is an extremely vague statement, but is basically a statement of the logical positivist notion of the scientific method which is now universally accepted as inadequate. The philosophy of science and the scientific method is a very complicated (and unfinished) subject, and crass statements like this just won't cut it as serious claims about the nature of scientific investigation. If you're interested, the Standford encyclopedia of philosophy gives a good overview of some of these topics (or pick up a copy of "Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge," or look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem) > I'm sure in your scenario we'd want to know the reason why intuition works so well (and there would be a reason) Yes, if in that scenario we knew the reason intuition worked, that might make it rational to use intuition. But a method could be effective even if we didn't know why it worked, and you did not add in any additional criterion of "knowing how it works" in your original statement. Are you sure you actually meant what you said? Regarding the moral issue, you seem to be suggesting that (1) reduces to the fact that humans have a preference for not killing people (as far as I can tell, your vague references to "parts of the brain lighting up" aren't doing any work here, they're just decoration). But of course we all recognize that moral statements are different from statements about preferences -- they are descriptions of what people /should/ do, not what they like to do -- so I don't see that there is a successful reduction here. (Unless you are willing to be a moral nihilist and believe that there are really no facts about what people should do, only facts about what they prefer to do.)

Herring 17y ago
> That is an extremely vague statement, but is basically a statement of the logical positivist notion of the scientific method which is now universally accepted as inadequate. That's a fitting statement in a thread about the demise of philosophy. If you go to any lab, they'll tell you they're trying to come up with an accurate model, or trying to create structures with a certain known function. Your name for the process & opinions about it are irrelevant. It should be empirically clear what is happening. > But a method could be effective even if we didn't know why it worked, and you did not add in any additional criterion of "knowing how it works" in your original statement. Are you sure you actually meant what you said? We did chemistry for a long time without an atomic theory, just memorizing which chemicals should be mixed with which. Of course it was rudimentary, but there wasn't a way around that. > But of course we all recognize that moral statements are different from statements about preferences -- they are descriptions of what people /should/ do, not what they like to do -- so I don't see that there is a successful reduction here. They are statements about what people think people should do. If we all had brains like these [1] it would be morally normal to be a sociopath. Again it doesn't matter what you call it (moral nihilism), this is also empirically true. [1] http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18573/ http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18573/
- foldr 17y ago
  >That's a fitting statement in a thread about the demise of philosophy. If you go to any lab, they'll tell you they're trying to come up with an accurate model, or trying to create structures with a certain known function. Your name for the process & opinions about it are irrelevant. It should be empirically clear what is happening. I can't make sense of any of that, or see how it is relevant to what you were quoting from my post. Are you suggesting that logical positivism is correct, or that it's ok for scientists (and for you) to ignore the philosophy of science, or something else? Vague references to "trying to create structures with a certain known function" are just impossible for me to interpret without some explanation of what they're supposed to mean. >We did chemistry for a long time without an atomic theory, just memorizing which chemicals should be mixed with which. Of course it was rudimentary, but there wasn't a way around that. Again, this seems completely irrelevant to the statement you've quoted. You're confusing a knowledge of how a method works with a knowledge of how chemical reactions work. The chemists methods were (typically) scientific and rational, even though they did not reach a good understanding of chemistry using these methods for quite some time. You seem to be saying that deciding between theories by a coin toss would be scientific if it turned out to be effective (which it might, in principle). But surely effectiveness is not the only criterion we apply. We also require the methods used to be in some sense rational, although (as you would discover if you bothered to read the philosophy of science instead of sneering at it), it is very difficult to figure out exactly what this means. >They are statements about what people think people should do. I don't agree, I think they are simply statements about what people should do. Certainly, if our brains were different we might have different moral beliefs, but that does not imply that those beliefs would be equally correct. (One can imagine a scenario in which everyone has brains which cause them to think that squares are circles, but that wouldn't imply that facts about geometry are merely facts about a consensus of human thought.) I'm not sure what you mean when you say "this is also empirically true." Are you suggesting that it has somehow been /empirically/ established that moral statements are statements about what people think people should do? I don't see which empirical facts about the brain could adjudicate between different positions regarding the nature of moral statements. I am curious, though, why you are so sure that moral facts must be reducible to physical facts. There is no reason whatever to think that this is the case (and though you persistently assert that is is, you never bother to provide any), but this idea really seems to have captured your imagination.