nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson) (01/17/90)
ellis@chips.sri.com (Michael Ellis) posts > You have spoken of a lack of evidence for ethical claims, yet > from what you have said, you sound more and more like some sort of > positivist. It save us all a lot of time if you would tell us just > what you consider to be valid evidence. I asked you once before, > and you did not answer me, so I will ask you again: > >ME> Just what do you mean by "observable facts we can all agree exist"? I would start by evidence of our senses. That should be sufficient for just about anything we are likely to encounter on this newsgroup. In the unlikely event that indirect phenomena, like the existence of alpha particles of electromagnetic wave phenomena becomes an issue then we can all present the evidence for our positions. I maintain that there is no disagreement about these things among us. >ME> If it is your point that rightness or wrongness are not >ME> scientifically verifiable, I am in full agreement with you. And this is the issue. Rightness or wrongness are neither to be found in the evidence of our senses nor are they found within the framework of some intellectual discipline like science, as even Mr. Ellis acknowledges. > You're right, of course. Moral values changed. But why? As regards > slavery, it is pretty obvious from reading literature of the time > that this change was largely caused by a general rational enlightenment. By how do you show that this "rational enlightenment" is closer to the "truth" than any other viewpoint? Granted, it is closer to the value system of our particular culture. > If it is your stance that one must be religious in order to > issue a universal condemnation of slavery, then you are playing > into the hands of the religionists (and the O'ists, for that matter). How? I am saying that a religious belief is one that is taken on faith; that the believer "knows" it to be true even if he can neither show it to you (evidence of senses) nor base it on some more rigorous intellectual framework such as science or mathematics, for instance. > There is something wrong with anyone who seriously offers an > "ethical" position that sees nothing wrong with slavery, > infanticide, and Stalinism. Would you prefer a world with these > horrors? Here Mr. Ellis seems to be saying that what *I* prefer is a valid basis for an ethical system. > It is with intuitions about such things that we come to > philosophy in the first place, just as we come to science with > pretheoretical intuitions about the physical world. ...And here he seems to be saying that *intuition* is a valid basis for an ethical system... > I don't honestly know how I could justify condemnations of these > horrors to any arbitrary person, I would have to know what a > person already accepted, and then try to work out from there. ...And here he seems to be admitting that he has no idea *how* he can construct an ethical system for Everyman. > If it is your position that all we can objectively know are > scientific facts, you are correct that we cannot justify any > ethical statements at all. But then, why should we believe in such > a ridiculous religion as Scientism? It is not a matter of "believing" in science. The scientific method has a good track record of producing useful Real World results and offering a certain predictability about some natural phenomena. Moreover, it seems to be fairly free of cultural prejudices, i.e., Smallpox vaccine seems to work regardless of your religion or even whether you believe in the virus theory of disease. Ministers, rabbis and priests will all fall at a predictable rate if they are pushed off a cliff; I don't ask them to "believe in" or buy into science. Science is not something to "believe in"; it is merely a useful tool which *I* choose to employ where I can. Mr. Ellis is another one of those people who "know" what's right, by gum, and expect all right-thinking people to agree with them. It is precisely this sort of "my value system is better than yours" thinking that results in laws against gun ownership, drugs, prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and a lot of other things that true individualists prefer to make their own choices about. ---Peter
gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu (Gene W. Smith) (01/17/90)
In article <4813c23a.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>, nelson_p@apollo (Peter Nelson) writes: >>ME> Just what do you mean by "observable facts we can all agree exist"? > I would start by evidence of our senses. That should be sufficient > for just about anything we are likely to encounter on this newsgroup. > In the unlikely event that indirect phenomena, like the existence > of alpha particles of electromagnetic wave phenomena becomes an issue > then we can all present the evidence for our positions. I maintain > that there is no disagreement about these things among us. But these issues are settled by making judgements. We make judgements like "General Relativity is the best gravitational theory in the classical limit", even though an infinite number of other theories fit the data just as well. Is this allowed? If it is, why is such a judgement by general consent of those who have studied enough to have an opinion acceptable, but judgements such as "Beethoven is a better composer than Saint-Saens" or "Stalin's policies were morally bankrupt" *not* acceptable? > How? I am saying that a religious belief is one that is taken on faith; > that the believer "knows" it to be true even if he can neither show it > to you (evidence of senses) nor base it on some more rigorous intellectual > framework such as science or mathematics, for instance. What is the basis of these more rigorous intellectual frameworks, however? Your position comes close to saying that if something is obvious to the meanest intellect then it is *ipso facto* false. >Science is not something to "believe in"; it is merely a useful >tool which *I* choose to employ where I can. Since you are unwilling to assert there is any truth in scientific pronouncements, I'm not surprised you think the same of judgements of value. But then why pick on those who believe there is something more to truth than utility? Do you think they are wrong? What do you *mean* by thinking this, if so? Pragmatism is not pragmatic--it fails on its own terms. -- ucbvax!garnet!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 "Last week in a dream I gave a fellow my shirt buttons to differentiate and the fellow ran away with them." -- Engels
jat@hpsemc.HP.COM (Joe Talmadge) (01/18/90)
Michael -- Michael Ellis writes: > I don't honestly know how I could justify condemnations of these > horrors to any arbitrary person, I would have to know what a > person already accepted, and then try to work out from there. Exactly! When a person holds an ethical view, there's no objectively certain principle you can point to and say, "Look here. You're wrong." There isn't much *purely* objective persuasion you can do, especially considering the important role subjective considerations (emotions, etc.) play in ethical judgements. What you can do is show this person that his already-accepted ethical principles lead to a support of your condemnation. Or you can defend your condemnation on the basis of its outcome, and hope this arbitrary person has the same ethical judgement of the outcome as you do. Joe Talmadge "They're not calling it a black billowing jat@hpsemc.hp.com cloud anymore." hplabs!hpda!hpsemc!jat "What are they calling it?" jat%hpsemc@hplabs.HP.COM "The airborne toxic event."
ellis@chips.sri.com (Michael Ellis) (01/19/90)
[This started in alt.individualism; it probably belongs in talk.philosophy] > Peter Nelson >> Michael Ellis >> You have spoken of a lack of evidence for ethical claims, yet >> from what you have said, you sound more and more like some sort of >> positivist. It save us all a lot of time if you would tell us just >> what you consider to be valid evidence. I asked you once before, >> and you did not answer me, so I will ask you again: >>ME> Just what do you mean by "observable facts we can all agree exist"? > I would start by evidence of our senses. That should be sufficient > for just about anything we are likely to encounter on this newsgroup. Not so. Sense data positivism fell by the wayside decades ago, and not because it was inadequate as basis for the human sciences; it was inadequate as a basis for the *hard sciences*. No amount of talk about sense data is equivalent to talk about physical objects out there. There is plenty of disagreement about what the senses can report and what they cannot: I can see falling trees, but can I see that somebody is intending to do something, or that someone has malicious intent, or that someone is in pain, or that doing so-and-so means such-and-such, or that one ought to do so-and-so in such-and-such a social context? Can we see the causes or meanings or reasons or purposes or the natures of things? This kind of stuff, which is offlimits to proper scientific observation, is the basis for everyday interactions between people, and it is the raw data for the human sciences as well, one of which is ethics. > In the unlikely event that indirect phenomena, like the existence > of alpha particles of electromagnetic wave phenomena becomes an issue > then we can all present the evidence for our positions. I maintain > that there is no disagreement about these things among us. And you would be wrong by so maintaining: there are plenty of mental deficients, cranks, religious nuts, and so on, who are unable to grasp scientific methodology or understand critical thinking. We immediately disqualify such people from counting as "rational observers": they lack the appropriate pretheoretical intuitions to be taken seriously. Scientific observation is as value ridden as any other activity, it is just another kind of social act with its own prescriptions about "right" and "wrong" as any other. In order to understand what counts as a good scientific judgement, one must get involved in the scientific community. Minimally, this means reading enough to "get a feel" for the jargon and the scientific way of seeing things, but to understand real science one must also internalie micropractices instilled in physics and chem labs, such as learning to see the right things in microscopes and the right way to fudge one's observations and the right way to inflate one's efforts to get funding and so on. Just as scientific methodologies prescribe answers to the question "How ought we to go about our discipline?", so ethics prescribes answers to the question "What ought we do?". Rejecting Velikovsky's work due to his violations of proper scientific methods is an act of judgement as subjective as any in ethics. >>me> If it is your point that rightness or wrongness are not >>ME> scientifically verifiable, I am in full agreement with you. > And this is the issue. Then there is no issue at all. "Science", in the vulgar sense of the term ("PostGalilean natural philosophy" or "technological science" eg: physics, chemistry, biology, etc..) is just the wrong tool for determining ethical truth (or anything central to human being for that matter), just as the ethics is the wrong tool for determining the truth of statements about physics or chemistry. But that doesn't mean ethics is not a science -- a discipline devoted to the disclusure of truth -- as I pointed out in a previous article. > Rightness or wrongness are neither to > be found in the evidence of our senses nor are they found within > the framework of some intellectual discipline like science, as > even Mr. Ellis acknowledges. I'm not sure I agree that the evidence for ethical truths is absent from the senses or not, as I indicated earlier, nor is it obvious that the evidence for scientific truth can be found there either. Scientific observation is not the same as "relying on the evidence of the senses"; rather, it involves the senses only insofar as they are regimented according to the prescriptions of some conventional scientific practice. We must already share a considerable amount of ideology if we are to agree on what our scientific observations tell us. Secondly, although rightness and wrongness are not evidenced in technological science, there certainly are intellectual disciplines that are concerned with right and wrong. Ethics, for instance. And to a lesser degree, law. These are intellectual disciplines, and they are also sciences in the proper sense of the word. >> You're right, of course. Moral values changed. But why? As regards >> slavery, it is pretty obvious from reading literature of the time >> that this change was largely caused by a general rational enlightenment. > By how do you show that this "rational enlightenment" is closer to the > "truth" than any other viewpoint? Granted, it is closer to the value > system of our particular culture. I cannot really answer that question, but I cannot really answer any number of foundational questions about science either. For instance, how do you show that modern science is closer than to the truth than voodoo or witchcraft to someone who refuses to believe in physical objects? There are many newagers who are that incorrigible. >> If it is your stance that one must be religious in order to >> issue a universal condemnation of slavery, then you are playing >> into the hands of the religionists (and the O'ists, for that matter). > How? I am saying that a religious belief is one that is taken on faith; > that the believer "knows" it to be true even if he can neither show it > to you (evidence of senses) nor base it on some more rigorous intellectual > framework such as science or mathematics, for instance. If reason cannot help us to come closer to the truth about what we ought to do, about how we ought to change the world in which our children will live, about how we ought to treat other people, then we cannot expect reason to help human beings come up with shared goals to make a better world, then so much the worse for reason; it cannot help us with anything that really matters. And this is exactly the reason many people I know turn to religion, especially once they start raising families. And indeed, for a long time, philosophy, the traditional source of rational ethical thought, remained largely silent, especially during its catastrophic positivistic era when it was seen as the "handmaiden of science". Positivists called ethical statemnents "emotive grunts", and thus not a fit topic for the reasonable person to be concerned with. Many people swallowed that line, especially the academics and educators of technology, who puffed themselves up over their newfound roles as supposed guardians of the only truth available to humans It was during this era that Rand appeared; outside of Marxism and religion, Rand was one of the few who put forth overtly ethical thought, and she grounded this in human reason, or so she claimed. I'm not surprised she raked in a lot of believers. >> There is something wrong with anyone who seriously offers an >> "ethical" position that sees nothing wrong with slavery, >> infanticide, and Stalinism. Would you prefer a world with these >> horrors? > Here Mr. Ellis seems to be saying that what *I* prefer is a valid > basis for an ethical system. Pretty sleazy. I didn't say anything of the sort, Peter. >> It is with intuitions about such things that we come to >> philosophy in the first place, just as we come to science with >> pretheoretical intuitions about the physical world. > ...And here he seems to be saying that *intuition* is a valid basis for > an ethical system... Again, I didn't say anything of the sort, although I also agree with what you thought I said. What I said is that philosophy (like any other discipline) must draw on the beginner's pretheoretical intuitions about a subject in order to ultimately lead him into an understanding of a theory and its basis. Without pretheoretical intuitions, one cannot even get started. A person who hadn't the slightest idea what physical objects were would probably be unable to learn physics. But I also agree with your misinterpretation of my words: Intuition is the only possible basis for *any* system of *any* sort. This is easy to see: If somebody thinks something is true, ask "Why?" and keep asking. Sooner or later the regress of reasons will end. A mathematician may point to "self evident axioms". These are the mathematician's intuitions. Similarly, a physical scientist will arrive at the bald assertions about the evidence of the senses and induction (or something else of the sort) that is unprovable and consequently must be asserted to be intuitive or self evident. Ethics is no different: you have to start somewhere. For me as well as for most people, stuff like Stalinism, slavery, and Nazism are pretty good examples of obvious evils. They aren't just things that I don't happen to like, they are as close to objective disvalues as I could imagine. Furthemore, no matter how logically compelling an ethical proof might be, something is just wrong if it demonstrates that Nazism might have been OK. >> I don't honestly know how I could justify condemnations of these >> horrors to any arbitrary person, I would have to know what a >> person already accepted, and then try to work out from there. > ...And here he seems to be admitting that he has no idea *how* he can > construct an ethical system for Everyman. I'm not talking to Everyman, I'm talking to you, Peter. And I thought I was honestly admitting that the ethical project is difficult as hell, one made all the more difficult with people such as yourself who seem to conflate physical science with truth. >> If it is your position that all we can objectively know are >> scientific facts, you are correct that we cannot justify any >> ethical statements at all. But then, why should we believe in such >> a ridiculous religion as Scientism? > It is not a matter of "believing" in science. The scientific method has > a good track record of producing useful Real World results and offering > a certain predictability about some natural phenomena. Moreover, it seems > to be fairly free of cultural prejudices, i.e., Smallpox vaccine seems > to work regardless of your religion or even whether you believe in the > virus theory of disease. Ministers, rabbis and priests will all fall > at a predictable rate if they are pushed off a cliff; I don't ask them > to "believe in" or buy into science. Science is not something to > "believe in"; it is merely a useful tool which *I* choose to employ > where I can. It matters not one whit whether you worship physics books in the privacy of your home or whether you admit nothing other than scientifically verifiable evidence as the only sort fit for intellectual discourse. Either one is Scientism. Why not own up to the fact? You believe in Science. > Mr. Ellis is another one of those people who "know" what's right, by > gum, and expect all right-thinking people to agree with them. It is > precisely this sort of "my value system is better than yours" thinking > that results in laws against gun ownership, drugs, prostitution, > pornography, homosexuality, and a lot of other things that true > individualists prefer to make their own choices about. Value judgements have in the past caused evil; therefore value judgements are evil. By the same argument: Technology has in the past caused evil; therefore technology is evil. Profound, Peter. I am on the verge of putting you in my kill file. Now let's take a close look at whose sort of thinking provides justification for government imposed loss of freedoms. In a recent interaction between you and Phil: Phil>It was MORAL to treat blacks, Chinese, etc. as subhuman in American Phil>50 years ago? You> Again, by the standards of the people doing these things, Yes. Phil>So in Germany in the 30's and 40's it was MORAL to kill Jews, the insane, Phil>and anyone declared by the state to be "unfit"? You> That's right. By their standards it was OK. You have also argued in favor of Stalinism, infanticide, and slavery, wherever they are in accordance with the desires of the powers that be. To date I have claimed that slavery, infanticide, Stalinism, and the Nazism are examples of things that a reasonable person ought to be able to conclude are plainly wrong. Prior to that, I argued that people ought to settle conflicts by reason rather than by force or treachery. This latter claim is about as close to a general principle as I can think of to provide a basis for a rational ethics. -michael
nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson) (01/19/90)
Gene Ward Smith posts... >> In the unlikely event that indirect phenomena, like the existence >> of alpha particles of electromagnetic wave phenomena becomes an issue >> then we can all present the evidence for our positions. I maintain >> that there is no disagreement about these things among us. > > But these issues are settled by making judgements. Wrong. They are settled by making *OBSERVATIONS*. Moreover, the observations are performed inside of a larger discipline called the *experiment*, in which a question is formulated and the significance of the results is anticipated. (e.g., "if this is a nuclear phenomenon then when we do _this_ we should see neutrons" ) Moreover, in science, the individuals involved already share a common set of definitions, axioms, models, etc, which allow the results to be meaningful to all. This condition is NOT met in moral or social philosophy or religion. I claim that this is why science *advances* and the others do not. > We make >judgements like "General Relativity is the best gravitational >theory in the classical limit", even though an infinite number of >other theories fit the data just as well. Is this allowed? If something is still a matter of theoretical debate then we don't consider it a truth. > If it is, why is such a judgement by general consent of those >who have studied enough to have an opinion acceptable, but >judgements such as "Beethoven is a better composer than >Saint-Saens" or "Stalin's policies were morally bankrupt" *not* >acceptable? What do you mean by "acceptable"? Judgements about which scientific theories are true are made by testing and observation. To the extent that the theoretical agrees with the observed we may bless the theory. This is only possible because scientists have a common vocabulary and a common theoretical framework. Theory X may predict particles of a certain mass, velocity and charge and theory Y may predict different values, but at least they agree on the definitions of mass, velocity, and charge. The reason why judgements about composers and politicians are not comparable is because there are no such underpinnings. >>Science is not something to "believe in"; it is merely a useful >>tool which *I* choose to employ where I can. > Since you are unwilling to assert there is any truth in >scientific pronouncements, I'm not surprised you think the same >of judgements of value. I didn't say it wasn't "true", I said I don't take it on faith the way religionists take their truths. > But then why pick on those who believe >there is something more to truth than utility? Do you think they >are wrong? What do you *mean* by thinking this, if so? They might be right as rain, for all anybody knows. There might be flying saucers visiting us every night. Being right is not the point; being able to demonstare it in the Real World is what I'm using as my standard. What do YOU propose as an alternative? > Pragmatism is not pragmatic--it fails on its own terms. Cute slogan, but what does it mean? I would counter it with the tautological: pragmatism is the only thing that works. The bottom line is that moral philosophy, using its methods, has made no demonstrable progress for centuries or perhaps longer. The fact that we have *different* moral values today than a few hundred years ago does not show that moral philosophy is capable of describing the world with any greater precision or accuracy than in the past or that it can predict human conduct any better than in the past. Moreover, the philosophers themselves seem no closer than in the past to agreeing on fundamental terms or models that would make it possible for them to resolve theoretical disputes. There is no reason to believe that the *methodology* employed by most social philosophers actually works. ---Peter