Philosophy Discussion Forums

Belindi wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 4:35 am God-believers believe that knowledge happened and may be learned from a special Book.

No! Only Christian-God-believers - and a few similar religions - believe this.

Belindi wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 11:23 am

CIN wrote: ↑March 7th, 2022, 8:19 pm

Belindi wrote: ↑March 7th, 2022, 5:50 am Keeping promises is a mainstay of civilisation. If nobody could be relied on to keep promises nobody could trust anybody else, from closest family members to the President. Money would no longer be trustworthy and trade would break down.

Very true. But the reason promise-keeping is so highly valued is that most of the time, when people make promises, they're promising something good, and if they don't keep their promise, the good thing doesn't happen (and something bad may happen instead). Promise-keeping is therefore (usually) instrumentally good. It is not intrinsically good.

It's true that good intentions are not always fulfilled. What I wrote was simplistic and I should also have mentioned that my claim depends on an optimistic view of human nature. While it's reasonable to trust the benevolent intentions of husband, mother, sister, wife or child, it's not reasonable to trust that all politicians have benevolent intentions.

It would be optimistic to think that everyone will always keep their promises without any kind of penalty for not doing so. That's why we have contract law.

Belindi wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 11:23 amSo, taking promise-keeping as an example , might we say that the eternal moral truth that underlies promise -keeping is knowledge plus judgement i.e. reason?

Not sure I understand this, possibly because your syntax looks somewhat truncated. A truth is usually stated in the form 'it is true that...' Can you restate your point in that form? Apologies if I'm being obtuse.

Belindi wrote: ↑March 10th, 2022, 6:31 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 4:04 pmYour new formulation isn't logically invalid because you have omitted your conclusion that believers are wrong.

1. Any dogmatic acceptance of a moral code from any source including The Bible might help to enthrone a fanatical dictator.
2. Therefore, dogmatists are wrong.

I take it we agree that (2) does not follow from (1)? The original formulation was something like a slippery slope fallacy.

Moral evil is culturally defined and can't ever be eternally defined. Fair to say the present almost world -wide culture defines evil as unkindness to individuals for the sake of an ideology. Apart from supernatural revelation we will never have an everlasting definition of evil and must rely on Axial Age moral codes.

(2) follows from (1) if wrong is defined as unkindness. You are good at classical logic so why not restate including the above additional premise?

In my opinion the slippery slope fallacy is going to bar your conclusion. Here is one way to put the argument:

1. Any dogmatic acceptance of a moral code from any source including The Bible might help to enthrone a fanatical dictator.
2. Anything that might help to enthrone a fanatical dictator is unkindness to individuals for the sake of an ideology.
3. All unkindness to individuals for the sake of an ideology is evil (or morally wrong).
4. Therefore, anyone who dogmatically accepts a moral code is committing an evil or a moral wrong.

The slippery slope comes in at premises (1) and (2), and I think those would be hard to defend. Usually something which may or may not cause an evil outcome is not said to be evil. If it could be shown that dogmatic acceptance leads to the bad outcome all or most of the time, then perhaps the argument would be sound. Or, the conclusion could be weakened to, "Therefore, Dogmatism increases the possibility of fanatical dictatorships and the evils that accompany them."

(Just for fun, here is the place I heard Sam Harris make a similar argument: <Questioning Sam Harris at 95:41> Somewhere in that video he also specifically claims that the Islamic State is the outcome of that sort of textual dogmatism, but I couldn't find it).

CIN wrote: ↑March 10th, 2022, 7:57 pm

Belindi wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 11:23 am

CIN wrote: ↑March 7th, 2022, 8:19 pm

Belindi wrote: ↑March 7th, 2022, 5:50 am Keeping promises is a mainstay of civilisation. If nobody could be relied on to keep promises nobody could trust anybody else, from closest family members to the President. Money would no longer be trustworthy and trade would break down.

Very true. But the reason promise-keeping is so highly valued is that most of the time, when people make promises, they're promising something good, and if they don't keep their promise, the good thing doesn't happen (and something bad may happen instead). Promise-keeping is therefore (usually) instrumentally good. It is not intrinsically good.

It's true that good intentions are not always fulfilled. What I wrote was simplistic and I should also have mentioned that my claim depends on an optimistic view of human nature. While it's reasonable to trust the benevolent intentions of husband, mother, sister, wife or child, it's not reasonable to trust that all politicians have benevolent intentions.

It would be optimistic to think that everyone will always keep their promises without any kind of penalty for not doing so. That's why we have contract law.

Belindi wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 11:23 amSo, taking promise-keeping as an example , might we say that the eternal moral truth that underlies promise -keeping is knowledge plus judgement i.e. reason?

Not sure I understand this, possibly because your syntax looks somewhat truncated. A truth is usually stated in the form 'it is true that...' Can you restate your point in that form? Apologies if I'm being obtuse.

Sorry.
It may be true that reason , i.e. knowledge plus judgement, is an eternal value. It's not reasonable to betray a person who trusts you because if everyone betrayed everyone else trust would cease to exist.

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:41 pm

CIN wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:02 pm

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 9:32 pm I think CIN makes the false assumption that subjective experiences of pain and pleasure can be quantitatively measured and summed, and since this assumption is false the theory itself is not coherent.

No, I'm only assuming that pleasantness and unpleasantness vary quantitatively (in intensity and duration). I am not making the further assumption that these quantities can be measured by anyone.

If they cannot be measured then no normative utilitarian theory is possible, correct?

The question of what we can know seems to be playing an important role here. I'm not clear whether CIN is ultimately arguing for:

- a utilitarian ethic that justifies torture whenever the torturer considers that the pain inflicted is outweighed by a saving in suffering to others

- abandoning moral discourse altogether because we can never have sufficient knowledge of consequences

- torture as an evil, not as any moral perception of its intrinsic properties, but rather as a working "rule of thumb" in the face of irresolvable uncertainty as to consequences.

CIN wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:02 pmI don't think getting blind drunk is intrinsically evil, I just think it's a stupid thing to do because it could lead to a lot of other problems.

Is anything intrinsically evil ? That you could contrast drunkenness with ?

Or are you saying that the only evil is acts which by their nature are likely to lead to bad consequences, so that drunkenness is evil for the only meaning of "evil" that you acknowledge ?

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 9:32 pmYes, a good woman is a desirable woman. We are using 'desire' in the philosophical sense, not the sexual sense.

To quote Aquinas, "good is that which all things seek after." That is to say that if something is sought then the seeker is perceiving it as good, and if someone believes something to be good then they also believe it to be desirable or worth seeking.

CIN wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:02 pm

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 9:32 pmIf we think that something ought to be done then we call it 'good'.

Even if that is true, it can't give us the meaning of 'good', because we use 'good' of many things that are not actions.

In this thread we are talking about morality, the realm of actions. Good in that sense has to do with what ought to be done. A good act is a desirable act, something which we think ought be done.

Yes and no. I'd put it that "good" in modern English has at least two senses. One meaning "morally good" and the other meaning something like "fit for purpose".

Doing what you ought to do is morally good. But virtue going beyond what you ought to do is also morally good. You might say morally better.

Eg. A good car is one that fulfils your purpose in having a car - gets you from A to B reliably, quickly, comfortably, economically. A good doughnut is one that gives you pleasure in eating it without giving you indigestion or health problems afterwards.

So to say that someone is a good woman is to mean either a woman who generally acts morally, or one who fulfils a man's purpose(s) in having a relationship with a woman. And they're not the same - a relationship with a woman who is significantly more moral than you are could be uncomfortable.

As for being desirable, is there a significant gap between purposes and desires ?

Good_Egg wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 4:19 am

CIN wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 8:12 pm

Good_Egg wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 11:15 am I'm suggesting that if you were to hold the beliefs:

1) torture by the inquisition can be known to be morally wrong
2) the truth or otherwise of propositions about the afterlife cannot in this life be known
3) torture can be justified by good consequences

then your beliefs would be logically inconsistent and therefore one of them must be false.

1) is false, because most present-day humans are not capable of knowing all the consequences of an action.
2) is true.
3) is true.

So your position is that
- the morality of an action is simply the sum of all the goodness and badness of all its consequences
but
- nobody can even know all the consequences of an action, let alone weigh up their goodness/badness

Leading you to the conclusion that we can never know whether any action is right or wrong ? So your answer to any question of morals or ethics is "nobody knows" ?

Yes. But even though we never know if an action is right or wrong, I think we can sometimes make a pretty good estimate. If I beat my wife, it's very unlikely that this will have any long-term beneficial effects that will outweigh the unpleasantness she's having to suffer, so you'd be pretty safe in judging my action to be morally wrong.

Good_Egg wrote: ↑March 11th, 2022, 3:10 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:41 pm

CIN wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:02 pm No, I'm only assuming that pleasantness and unpleasantness vary quantitatively (in intensity and duration). I am not making the further assumption that these quantities can be measured by anyone.

If they cannot be measured then no normative utilitarian theory is possible, correct?

The question of what we can know seems to be playing an important role here. I'm not clear whether CIN is ultimately arguing for:

- a utilitarian ethic that justifies torture whenever the torturer considers that the pain inflicted is outweighed by a saving in suffering to others

- abandoning moral discourse altogether because we can never have sufficient knowledge of consequences

- torture as an evil, not as any moral perception of its intrinsic properties, but rather as a working "rule of thumb" in the face of irresolvable uncertainty as to consequences.

To put it simply: if utils cannot be measured then utilitarianism cannot function or exist. For example, in your first case you are relying on the implicit idea that the torturer can measure utils, which in CIN's system is the measurement of the relative weights of different instances of pleasure and pain. Since CIN rejects the possibility of measuring utils, he cannot consistently support a utilitarian ethic. Uncertainty about consequences takes a back seat, because even if the consequences could be known with certainty, they still could not be measured and weighed.

Good_Egg wrote: ↑March 11th, 2022, 3:10 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 9:32 pmYes, a good woman is a desirable woman. We are using 'desire' in the philosophical sense, not the sexual sense.

To quote Aquinas, "good is that which all things seek after." That is to say that if something is sought then the seeker is perceiving it as good, and if someone believes something to be good then they also believe it to be desirable or worth seeking.

CIN wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 9:02 pm

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 8th, 2022, 9:32 pmIf we think that something ought to be done then we call it 'good'.

Even if that is true, it can't give us the meaning of 'good', because we use 'good' of many things that are not actions.

In this thread we are talking about morality, the realm of actions. Good in that sense has to do with what ought to be done. A good act is a desirable act, something which we think ought be done.

[1] Yes and no. I'd put it that "good" in modern English has at least two senses. One meaning "morally good" and the other meaning something like "fit for purpose".

[2] Doing what you ought to do is morally good. But virtue going beyond what you ought to do is also morally good. You might say morally better.

Eg. A good car is one that fulfils your purpose in having a car - gets you from A to B reliably, quickly, comfortably, economically. A good doughnut is one that gives you pleasure in eating it without giving you indigestion or health problems afterwards.

[3] So to say that someone is a good woman is to mean either a woman who generally acts morally, or one who fulfils a man's purpose(s) in having a relationship with a woman. And they're not the same - a relationship with a woman who is significantly more moral than you are could be uncomfortable.

[4] As for being desirable, is there a significant gap between purposes and desires ?

1. On my view they flow together, for moral good is that which is fit for human purpose and human flourishing. Both hypothetical and categorical imperatives are ordered towards human purpose and human flourishing.

2. Both duty and heroic/gratuitous virtue are fit for human purpose and human flourishing.

3. If a man finds a "morally good" woman undesirable, then he does not perceive her "moral goodness" to be good. Further, most people would readily admit that often what is considered to be morally good is not. Either way, this is merely a matter of an epistemic gap, and the epistemic gap is not limited to "moral goodness." A man might not understand why Einstein's physics is better than Newton's physics, and therefore he may have no desire or inclination towards Einstein's physics. What I've said still holds in both the subjective and objective senses, but in order for a man to desire and appreciate Einstein's physics, he would first need to comprehend why it is good, or why it is better than Newton's physics. It is the same for the woman, supposing she is truly good.

4. I think that what is desired or sought is going to be a much wider category than intentional purposes. For example, humans desire sex and beauty even before forming an intentional purpose with respect to those things. There are also abstractions involved. For example, when I say, "That is a good lion," what I mean is something like, "If I were a lion that is the sort of lion I would desire to be." Concretely what this means is that the lion is a good hunter, or a good protector, or a healthy member of its species.

CIN wrote: ↑March 11th, 2022, 12:03 pm Yes. But even though we never know if an action is right or wrong, I think we can sometimes make a pretty good estimate. If I beat my wife, it's very unlikely that this will have any long-term beneficial effects that will outweigh the unpleasantness she's having to suffer, so you'd be pretty safe in judging my action to be morally wrong.

To say that the pleasure the man derives from beating his wife is outweighed by the pain the wife suffers is to assume that subjective experiences of pleasure and pain can be measured and weighed, and you have explicitly rejected this assumption. You are contradicting yourself.

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmMorality isn't accessible to third person falsification via observation and measurement.

Nor is all of science. String theory isn't falsifiable at present, and perhaps never will be.

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmIf you have a different way which can at least in principle, establish morality is objective, then you need to lay that out, with your definitions and resoning, as the basis for your claim.

If morality isn't all in the mind, then at least some of it must be objective.

I'm not claiming that I have a way to establish that morality is objective; I don't think philosophy is capable of doing that. (Philosophy still hasn't refuted Berkeley.) I'm simply offering a theory.

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmI think Harris is on the right track talking about wellbeing, comparing it to health

I've not read either Harris or Goldstein.

What does Harris mean when he compares wellbeing to health? I should have thought they were the same thing.

CIN

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmMorality isn't accessible to third person falsification via observation and measurement.

Nor is all of science. String theory isn't falsifiable at present, and perhaps never will be.

String theory is grounded in observation and measurement, as all physicalist theories are. It offers a reasoned explanation for what we observe and measure. As I (barely) understand it, it speculates the existence of fundamental vibrating strings rather than particles. The falsifiability problem is one of having the tools to observe and measure at that level.

There is a difference re conscious experience, in that it's 'private', unobservable in its nature. It can't be third person observed and measured in principle, it can't in principle be falsified by that third person method we use to construct our physicalist model of the world. Hence Levine points out the physicalist ''Explanatory Gap''


So can Oughts and Right and Wrong be observed and measured the way physical stuff can, to provide that sort of ''objective'' third person falsifiability? No, these are concepts which you and I believe are grounded in the qualiative nature of private experience.

So if your theory claims morality is objective, you need to offer a different way of establishing what is objective. So far you've talked about the attitude of conscious subjects, which refers to the qualiative nature of a subject's private experience.

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 Ifyou have a different way which can at least in principle, establish morality is objective, then you need to lay that out, with your definitions and resoning, as the basis for your claim.

If morality isn't all in the mind, then at least some of it must be objective.

Where are these parts of oughts and right and wrong then?

I'm not claiming that I have a way to establish that morality is objective; I don't think philosophy is capable of doing that. (Philosophy still hasn't refuted Berkeley.) I'm simply offering a theory.

You should at least have a definition for ''objective'' which can in principle be applied to morality. What is it?

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmI think Harris is on the right track talking about wellbeing, comparing it to health

I've not read either Harris or Goldstein,

What does Harris mean when he compares wellbeing to health? I should have thought they were the same thing.

Harris makes the point that terms like wellbeing and physical health aren't easy to pin down. I'd say they're 'holistic' terms for the intricate, interactive natures of bodies and minds, which I went into. They are the inter-connected 'landscape' in which we identify flourishing and withering, pleasure and pain, and so on.

He argues wellbeing is quasi scientifically third person observable and measurable via observing and measuring the physical neural correlates of consciousness. My view is that for this to be objective in that sense, you have to assume ontological physicalist monism (Identity Theory).

Here's a good summary of Harris's book https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501430/


Here's Goldstein on mattering https://www.edge.org/conversation/rebec ... g-instinct

Shortcuts...

Gertie wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 10:58 am

CIN wrote: ↑March 11th, 2022, 7:43 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmMorality isn't accessible to third person falsification via observation and measurement.

Nor is all of science. String theory isn't falsifiable at present, and perhaps never will be.

String theory is grounded in observation and measurement...

It has often been pointed out to Gertie that science also fails the criterion she claims that morality falls short of. At that point Gertie brings in scare quotes and starts talking about what is "objective" or what we "treat as objective" or some such thing. Further, Gertie uses "objective" and "third person falsifiable" interchangeably.

For example:

Gertie wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 10:58 amSo can Oughts and Right and Wrong be observed and measured the way physical stuff can, to provide that sort of ''objective'' third person falsifiability?

Gertie wrote: ↑August 12th, 2021, 10:23 am...my stated position which specifies the role of inter-subjective comparing of notes, and then goes on to describe how we collectively agree what to treat as objectively true , individual subjective opinion, etc

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 8:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 12:05 pmHow do we decide to bridge this gap between our own private, first person subjective, experiential knowledge, and what we treat as objective knowledge about the real world?

By comparing the content of our own private, first person subjective experience with other subjects.

Again, this is logically invalid. Compounding subjective experiences cannot produce an objective fact. You seem to know this, for you continually talk about "treating." My suggestion would be to not treat non-objective things as objective. Indeed, we are rationally obligated to avoid this mistake, as I pointed out in this post (link).

What Gertie means by "objective" and "third person falsifiable" is nothing more than a theory of knowledge by consensus. She thinks that if an intersubjective consensus obtains, then something is objective, and if an intersubjective consensus does not obtain, then it is not objective. At bottom this is the only difference she can point to between science and morality. Her claim that consensus creates objectivity is obviously a fallacious inference. Some examples:

Gertie wrote: ↑August 12th, 2021, 10:23 amWe give this objective status to third person observable/measurable (physical) stuff because we can check with other and every normally functioning human will agree.

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 8:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 12:05 pmSome things we can check via observation and measurement and agree to treat as 'God's Eye Third Person' objective, because it is reliably inter-subjectively falsifiable.

Intersubjective falsifiability is not objective falsifiability. Your whole approach seems to be based on various equivocations around the concept of objectivity.

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 8:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 12:05 pmBut we're are falsifying our shared third person inter-subjectively agreed model when we treat such knowledge as objective, not reality itself.

Yes, that's right. So my original claim turns out to be true: your view is no more capable of supporting scientific knowledge than moral knowledge.

Here is a simplified version of a very long and tedious discussion of this topic with Gertie:

• Gertie: Morality isn't objective. Science is.
• Leontiskos: Why do you think science is objective?
• Gertie: Science is third person falsifiable.
• Leontiskos: What does that mean, at bottom?
• Gertie: In the end it means that science relies on intersubjective consensus, and a scientific theory is "third person falsified" if and only if that consensus does not obtain.
• Leontiskos: Consensus can't ground knowledge, period. Nor can it create objectivity. Your argument for why science is more objective than morality is formally invalid.

(CIN)

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 1:17 pm Shortcuts...

Gertie wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 10:58 am

CIN wrote: ↑March 11th, 2022, 7:43 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑March 9th, 2022, 12:21 pmMorality isn't accessible to third person falsification via observation and measurement.

Nor is all of science. String theory isn't falsifiable at present, and perhaps never will be.

String theory is grounded in observation and measurement...

It has often been pointed out to Gertie that science also fails the criterion she claims that morality falls short of. At that point Gertie brings in scare quotes and starts talking about what is "objective" or what we "treat as objective" or some such thing. Further, Gertie uses "objective" and "third person falsifiable" interchangeably.

For example:

Gertie wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 10:58 amSo can Oughts and Right and Wrong be observed and measured the way physical stuff can, to provide that sort of ''objective'' third person falsifiability?

Gertie wrote: ↑August 12th, 2021, 10:23 am...my stated position which specifies the role of inter-subjective comparing of notes, and then goes on to describe how we collectively agree what to treat as objectively true , individual subjective opinion, etc

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 8:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 12:05 pmHow do we decide to bridge this gap between our own private, first person subjective, experiential knowledge, and what we treat as objective knowledge about the real world?

By comparing the content of our own private, first person subjective experience with other subjects.

Again, this is logically invalid. Compounding subjective experiences cannot produce an objective fact. You seem to know this, for you continually talk about "treating." My suggestion would be to not treat non-objective things as objective. Indeed, we are rationally obligated to avoid this mistake, as I pointed out in this post (link).

What Gertie means by "objective" and "third person falsifiable" is nothing more than a theory of knowledge by consensus. She thinks that if an intersubjective consensus obtains, then something is objective, and if an intersubjective consensus does not obtain, then it is not objective. At bottom this is the only difference she can point to between science and morality. Her claim that consensus creates objectivity is obviously a fallacious inference. Some examples:

Gertie wrote: ↑August 12th, 2021, 10:23 amWe give this objective status to third person observable/measurable (physical) stuff because we can check with other and every normally functioning human will agree.

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 8:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 12:05 pmSome things we can check via observation and measurement and agree to treat as 'God's Eye Third Person' objective, because it is reliably inter-subjectively falsifiable.

Intersubjective falsifiability is not objective falsifiability. Your whole approach seems to be based on various equivocations around the concept of objectivity.

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 8:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2021, 12:05 pmBut we're are falsifying our shared third person inter-subjectively agreed model when we treat such knowledge as objective, not reality itself.

Yes, that's right. So my original claim turns out to be true: your view is no more capable of supporting scientific knowledge than moral knowledge.

Here is a simplified version of a very long and tedious discussion of this topic with Gertie:

• Gertie: Morality isn't objective. Science is.
• Leontiskos: Why do you think science is objective?
• Gertie: Science is third person falsifiable.
• Leontiskos: What does that mean, at bottom?
• Gertie: In the end it means that science relies on intersubjective consensus, and a scientific theory is "third person falsified" if and only if that consensus does not obtain.
• Leontiskos: Consensus can't ground knowledge, period. Nor can it create objectivity. Your argument for why science is more objective than morality is formally invalid.

(@CIN)

Don't know about your debate, but of course scientific objectivity doesn't work by consensus. It works by third-person proof/falsifiability. Anyone can make the same measurements and then arrive at the same results, irregardless of what that person thinks or what the consensus view is.

Objective morality would require the same thing: anyone should be able to show what is right and what is wrong, irregardless of what that person thinks or what the consensus view is.

Atla wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 2:02 pm

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 1:17 pmWhat Gertie means by "objective" and "third person falsifiable" is nothing more than a theory of knowledge by consensus. She thinks that if an intersubjective consensus obtains, then something is objective, and if an intersubjective consensus does not obtain, then it is not objective. At bottom this is the only difference she can point to between science and morality. Her claim that consensus creates objectivity is obviously a fallacious inference.

Don't know about your debate, but of course scientific objectivity doesn't work by consensus. It works by third-person proof/falsifiability. Anyone can make the same measurements and then arrive at the same results, irregardless of what that person thinks or what the consensus view is.

Objective morality would require the same thing: anyone should be able to show what is right and what is wrong, irregardless of what that person thinks or what the consensus view is.

Good. I agree, and our view is not at all controversial among philosophers of science. It is well accepted that consensus does not ground objectivity.

What I think Gertie (and Peter Hunter) desire is some sort of guarantee. They want a means by which they can guarantee that some proposition is true, objective, and objectively true (as these terms have a tendency to be used interchangeably). Since knowledge of any kind does not provide internal guarantees, Gertie seeks an external guarantee in consensus. If consensus were a valid way of demonstrating objectivity, then there would be an easy method by which the guarantee could be established: a vote or a poll. In a practical way this does hold in some sense, for science operates, practically, by peer review. Nevertheless, it is false to infer from this that consensus qua consensus grounds scientific objectivity.

In that thread Morton correctly pointed to 'confirmability' rather than consensus. I myself would speak about the rational accessibility of objective truths. You speak about being able to "make the same measurements and then arrive at the same results." These are all legitimate ways to think about scientific objectivity, and objectivity in a general sense, although none of them are going to offer the certitude of a guarantee that a unanimous vote will offer. It will always be possible that we are wrong in our consensuses, in our claims about what is true, and in our claims about what we have falsified. There simply are no guarantees which can circumvent that fact, scientific or otherwise.

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 3:44 pm

Atla wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 2:02 pm

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 1:17 pmWhat Gertie means by "objective" and "third person falsifiable" is nothing more than a theory of knowledge by consensus. She thinks that if an intersubjective consensus obtains, then something is objective, and if an intersubjective consensus does not obtain, then it is not objective. At bottom this is the only difference she can point to between science and morality. Her claim that consensus creates objectivity is obviously a fallacious inference.

Don't know about your debate, but of course scientific objectivity doesn't work by consensus. It works by third-person proof/falsifiability. Anyone can make the same measurements and then arrive at the same results, irregardless of what that person thinks or what the consensus view is.

Objective morality would require the same thing: anyone should be able to show what is right and what is wrong, irregardless of what that person thinks or what the consensus view is.

Good. I agree, and our view is not at all controversial among philosophers of science. It is well accepted that consensus does not ground objectivity.

What I think Gertie (and Peter Hunter) desire is some sort of guarantee. They want a means by which they can guarantee that some proposition is true, objective, and objectively true (as these terms have a tendency to be used interchangeably). Since knowledge of any kind does not provide internal guarantees, Gertie seeks an external guarantee in consensus. If consensus were a valid way of demonstrating objectivity, then there would be an easy method by which the guarantee could be established: a vote or a poll. In a practical way this does hold in some sense, for science operates, practically, by peer review. Nevertheless, it is false to infer from this that consensus qua consensus grounds scientific objectivity.

In that thread Morton correctly pointed to 'confirmability' rather than consensus. I myself would speak about the rational accessibility of objective truths. You speak about being able to "make the same measurements and then arrive at the same results." These are all legitimate ways to think about scientific objectivity, and objectivity in a general sense, although none of them are going to offer the certitude of a guarantee that a unanimous vote will offer. It will always be possible that we are wrong in our consensuses, in our claims about what is true, and in our claims about what we have falsified. There simply are no guarantees which can circumvent that fact, scientific or otherwise.

Sure, absolute certainty about anything is never an option (the one exception may be the fact that there is something rather than nothing).

Scientific objectivity is however certain as far as we are able to tell. The same can't be said for morality, unless someone can show a moral truth that's certain as far as we are able to tell.

Atla wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 4:17 pm

Leontiskos wrote: ↑March 12th, 2022, 3:44 pm Good. I agree, and our view is not at all controversial among philosophers of science. It is well accepted that consensus does not ground objectivity.

What I think Gertie (and Peter Hunter) desire is some sort of guarantee. They want a means by which they can guarantee that some proposition is true, objective, and objectively true (as these terms have a tendency to be used interchangeably). Since knowledge of any kind does not provide internal guarantees, Gertie seeks an external guarantee in consensus. If consensus were a valid way of demonstrating objectivity, then there would be an easy method by which the guarantee could be established: a vote or a poll. In a practical way this does hold in some sense, for science operates, practically, by peer review. Nevertheless, it is false to infer from this that consensus qua consensus grounds scientific objectivity.

In that thread Morton correctly pointed to 'confirmability' rather than consensus. I myself would speak about the rational accessibility of objective truths. You speak about being able to "make the same measurements and then arrive at the same results." These are all legitimate ways to think about scientific objectivity, and objectivity in a general sense, although none of them are going to offer the certitude of a guarantee that a unanimous vote will offer. It will always be possible that we are wrong in our consensuses, in our claims about what is true, and in our claims about what we have falsified. There simply are no guarantees which can circumvent that fact, scientific or otherwise.

Sure, absolute certainty about anything is never an option (the one exception may be the fact that there is something rather than nothing).

Scientific objectivity is however certain as far as we are able to tell. The same can't be said for morality, unless someone can show a moral truth that's certain as far as we are able to tell.

But now you are making the same move as Gertie. You are claiming that scientific objectivity is more certain than moral objectivity, while at the same time refraining from circumscribing what kind of certainty scientific objectivity possesses. "Certain as far as we are able to tell" is incredibly vague, and says next to nothing. Science, like morality, has been wrong very often in the past, in very significant ways.

Before having a discussion about moral realism with someone I would want them to affirm 1) That guarantees of certitude are not possible in human knowledge, and 2) That consensus does not ground objectivity, and therefore I am only required to convince my interlocutor, and I am not required to establish a moral consensus.

A third condition is crucially important for those who labor under scientism or semi-scientism, which happens to be most people nowadays. These people would have to explain and justify the level of certitude that science possesses, the level of certitude that is generally acceptable, and the level of certitude that is acceptable for moral claims. Because of their scientism such people tend to misunderstand science and scientific certitude, which then leads them to hold other forms of knowledge to an impossible standard. Gertie and Peter Hunter are two prime examples.