Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
The problem is, something that is good for one set of people may well be bad for another set.
Good and Bad are always relative and conditional. Much like sins.
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Can science reconcile different moral positions?
- Thread starter infrabenji
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The problem is, something that is good for one set of people may well be bad for another set.
Good and Bad are always relative and conditional. Much like sins.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Where is there any assertion that car traffic is good? In my example, it is immaterial as to how anyone values the existence of car traffic.
Objectively, car traffic exists and car accidents occur. The value judgement is on whether or not to employ traffic lights.
I thought balancing competing value interests was called politics, not philosophy.
No, because that we allow car traffic is based on a inter-subjective value system.
As for politics that is subset of philosophy as practically applied morality and ethics.
Let me help you out and give you a fact instead of an opinion. The answer is a resounding NO because that is NOT the job of science. Anyone who thinks that science can do that has no idea what science is
What supports and validates a philosophical position other than scientific findings? Philosophy without scientific verification is simply speculation. Wouldn't you agree?
Who believes science answers everything? Certainly not the scientific community, for there would be nothing to investigate if science already knew everything there was to know.
Perhaps you mean to say that some believe that we can only hold a conclusion with any degree of confidence if it is verified scientifically, which would be the very definition of being rational and realistic.
Certainly you would agree that the work of science is to establish objective data about the world around us, and with that data, draw reasoned conclusions. Those conclusions are held with degrees of confidence, as any conclusion is dependent on the completeness and consistency of the data and the quality of the analysis performed on that data.
Outside of scientific principles and standards, what other disciplines do you suggest provide reliable information about the world and how we function in it?
Metaethics is the consideration of morality from a neutral perspective. Some of it is similar to what you have done, trying to determine the source of moral impulses.
If you mean declare one of two or more mutually exclusive moral imperatives correct, then no, nothing can do that, including philosophy.
Sam Harris might disagree. He refers to the "science of morality."
Ultimately, one's moral position is based in a subjective moral imperative. Mine is a common one - we should promote whatever confers the maximum freedom and opportunity for the largest number (utilitarianism). I can't defend that choice with evidence or argument. It feels intuitively like a good way for a society to organize itself.
But given that starting point, I can apply reason objectively to a subjective starting point to elucidate a system of rules to facilitate that goal, and an empirical approach to evaluating results and tweaking the rules to better achieve the desired goal and eliminate unforeseen undesirable consequences of previous choices. Alcohol prohibition is a classic example. Intended to improve life, it did the opposite, and had to be repealed.
Hume famously pointed out that there is no way to get from is (science) to ought (ethics). "The is/ought problem, as articulated by the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, arises when one makes claims about what ought to be that are based solely on statements about what is." Science can tell you why the sun shines, and what the ramifications of that are, but not how you ought to feel about that. Nor can philosophy/pure reason. A subjective value must be inserted first for either of these to go to work on it.
For your information, the parasympathetic nervous system is a branch of the autonomic nervous system, the other being the sympathetic nervous system. They emerge from different parts of the central nervous system, utilize different neurotansmitters, and often have opposite functions on the glands and organs. Sympathetics to the heart speed its rate, while parasympathetics slow it, all unconsciously and automatically.
The nervous system is divided into central (CNS) and peripheral nervous systems (PNS). The CNS is the brain and spinal cord. The PNS is the autonomic (ANS) and the somatic nervous systems (SNS). The ANS is made up of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
I don't see moral impulses coming from the ANS, which we are only aware of when we feel sensations like butterflies in the stomach. The experience of a conscience almost certainly arises in the cortex of the brain, not peripherally.
Do you like this stuff? I love it. Here's a bit more. The brain is divided according to embryological and functional considerations, The brain ends where the spinal cord begins:
firedragon
Veteran Member
Doesn't matter how car traffic came to be or whether it is good or bad. The value question in the example was regarding a requirement for traffic lights to regulate car traffic. The car traffic objectively exists, for whatever reason. Value choices about traffic lights can be made on objective criteria and subjective preference and have nothing to do with fictional constructs of reality.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well no, car traffic doesn't exist objectively. It exists because humans subjectively choose to build cars.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Okay, let us start simple. To actually build a car is objective. To choose to do so is subjective and that it allows cars to be build and operated is inter-subjective as a subjective agreement enforced by enough people.
The Kilted Heathen
Crow FreyjasmaðR
Systems of Morality are a topic for Philosophy and Ethics, not Science.
And once the many objectively built cars are driving on the road, the resulting traffic is an objective condition.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
And once the many objectively built cars are driving on the road, the resulting traffic is an objective condition.
Yeah, and how to deal with that is subjective in part.
Why? What understanding does philosophy alone bring to the table?
And to bring it full circle, at no point does that subjective choice need to be justified by an artificial construct of reality.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
An understanding of the limits of objective. But since you apparently haven't learned, you seem to think that we must all do as you say, because your subjectivity is the best for us all.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
What makes reality reality is philosophy. And if it is possible to make an artificial construct of reality, then that is how reality works, otherwise humans couldn't make artificial constructs of reality.
How anthropocentric of you. Reality exists independent from the existence of philosophers or anything they may say on the subject.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
So where do philosophers exist? In non-reality?!!