Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Hi Lenny,
First off, I suspect if you read back you'll find I've dealt with almost all of the comments you make already, if not I'll try to do them justice here.
1)
| Quote | But alas, that doesn't answer the question at all. It tells us how MANY people think blondes are hotter than brunettes (at this particular time and place). It might even tell us WHY more people prefer this particular answer over that one (again, at this particular time and place). But that doesn't answer whether blondes really ARE hotter than brunettes.
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This is equivocating on the meaning of words in the question. It is essentially the "no true Scotsman fallacy" writ large. It's rhetorical pissing about and nothing more.
In what sense can the question "Are blondes hotter than brunettes?" be answered without appeal to evidence or reason? Answer: it can't. Complaining that all the information obtained by rational inquiry is merely information about this facet of the issue or that facet of the issue doesn't cut the mustard. That's all the information we can ever get by any means (as I've said before). The "are blondes hotter than brunettes" question is a question about group's or individual's preferences, that is a question studiable by reason. If you want to know the answer to a universal version of that question, then a you are asking something beyond the limits of any mechanism of acquiring knowledge about the universe and b) asking an illogically framed question. My point is, was and has always been that the ONLY information you can get about this question (or indeed any other) derives from rational, reason based investigation of it. Again, I can ask any number of illogical questions "what is the sock preference of my banana tree?" for example. It doesn't mean that I am asking a question that a) means anything, or b) has an answer.
It does not in any way rely on an appeal to post modernist subjective/democratic truth. What it does rely on is the basic realisation of the limits of what we can know about a particular thing by any means, reasoned or otherwise. The question itself is either a question about preferences or it is a meaningless appeal to a universal idea derived solely from the misapplication of a concept. The concept that blondes could be universally hotter than brunettes (i.e. without any appeal to subjective preferences) is a total non sequitur. The concept of hotness relies specifically on subjective preference, ergo it's a question about a subjective issue. Trying to extend that beyond its meaning to objective universality is logically inconsistent.
More than that, if we do various studies and find that blondes are really the preferred female hair colour (or whatever) then we have found out something objective. It's not a democratic truth at all. we have found out which hair colour is more preferred. Therefore on that basis and within those limits we CAN say that blondes are hotter than brunettes. There's the point about limits again. Extending that to "blondes are universally hotter than brunettes" would be fallacious because we don't have the information to say that, and as I mention above, even the question of whether blondes are universally hotter than brunettes is utterly meaningless.
Again, to ram it home: the only useful information that can be gained from answering that question is obtained from rational, reasoned enquiry however that is done.
You then go into EXACTLY the sort of shit Skeptic has been doing which is stamping your foot and repeating by decree that reason cannot answer ethical/moral questions. This is utter shit as I have demonstrated before and will cheerfully do so again. (See below) Oh and incidentally, the equivocation of science and reason when I have made in plainly clear in what sense I am using both words is more than a touch annoying. It's also a strawman.
2) Morals, ethics etc.
First and foremost, by referring me to your pizza boy you have utterly missed the point of what I was saying. Also by asking the question what makes a "scientist's" moral axioms better than anyone else illustrates this too.
I have not said, will not say, and am not saying that my or any scientist's moral axioms are or ever will be better than anyone else's. To even think that I am makes me think you cannot read, and Lenny, I KNOW you can read, so I guess you are playing devil's advocate or you fucked up. (Better than Devil's Advocaat, which is a horrible drink). ;)
All I have said, all I will say, is that morals/ethics etc are explorable by reason and are relative. Nothing more complex than that. I'd also say that they are more examinable than as mere post priori rationalisations of preferences. You and I agree that in questions of morals and ethics there are no objective 100% certain etc answers. What there ARE are objective answers to moral questions within certain moral systems. (I.e. it's a question of propositional logic: given limits X, Y and Z, and goals P, Q and R which of scenarios A and B best sticks within those limits and fulfills those goals) Hence my point about consequentialism above (I was using it as an example, not as a preferred moral system). I can say that within a given system X behaviour is right or wrong based on the axioms and workings of that system. I didn't say that equates to universal right or wrong. And I won't!
Incidentally, something I find amusing is in the first instance (the one of preference of blondes or brunettes) it's you (wrongly) extending subjective ideas beyond their defined limits to objective truths, and then on the moral questions you accuse me (wrongly) of doing just that and take me to task for it. I did laugh about that.
Anyway, back to the res.
As for your Buddhist comments re morals, I totally agree. Only you can answer moral questions for you and you can only answer them for you. However, when one is trying to set up a system of morals for a group, although the same principle applies (morals are after all relative), one can develop a system (not as an authority but as a collaboration. It's not always "authority" vs "whatever" you know Lenny! Bloody commies ;) ) based on reason. Of course one has to set those axioms right at the start somehow, and of course those axioms can be informed by reason and of course it's likely those axioms will be at least partly in error when the kinks and consequences are worked out.
This is the unfortunate area of compromise! If we are going to live together in groups and if we are going to have laws and organisations and social structures and so on and so forth then sadly we are going to have to develop some sort of ethical/moral system. This doesn't imply or mean that that system has to be inflexible or authoritarian, one can after all engage in social contract (the privileges/benefits of group living can be conferred to the individual provided they agree to the contract etc). The axioms that underpin any moral or ethical system are (or at least bloody well should be) open to question, change and debate. The virtues/pitfalls of group living are incidentally a different debate, one eminently informed by reason, observation and not a small amount of evolutionary biology and other scientific data.
Incidentally this is why I would advocate not merely a REASONED approach to moral questions but a SCIENTIFIC approach, because science fundamentally tests everything up to and including its own underpinnings. If there were a better way of acquiring knowledge about the universe than reason (etc) science would incorporate it because science is about most closely modelling what does happen as opposed to imposing what we want to happen on reality. This is a matter of personal preference, within given moral/ethical limits by the way and absolutely NOT an attempt to claim that universal morals/ethics can be derived from it. I mention it merely as an aside.
So again, to ram it home, I am in total agreement Lenny that morals and ethics are relative. I am not in agreement that they are unexplorable by reason and rational enquiry. This does not mean I think that moral/ethical absolutes are definable by reason. They aren't. This means that a) for a given set of moral/ethical axioms/goals it is possible to define (within those limits remember) a specific act as moral/ethical or immoral/unethical. This has no bearing on the universal morality of that specific act because that is an unknowable, illogically framed question. And b) that the axioms/goals with which a moral/ethical system is set up are explorable by recourse to reason, as far as any subjective question can be. As for who decides what is right and wrong? All depends on the system of ethics and morals you develop. If you are developing one system it might be just you, if it's another it might be founding father, if it's another it might be women only etc etc etc. I.e. it is irrelevant to the point I was actually making, not the point you thought (wrongly) I was making.
Incidentally, the only reason people still argue about what makes a good person is because, and I want to be totally clear here, people are fucking idiots. In all these arguments they are working from different sets of unstated axioms. State the axioms outright front and centre and it's dead easy. Keep hiding those axioms, keep forgetting to mention the assumptions you're making and the argument can run and run for all eternity (and will). Moral and ethical philosopher (or at least the bright ones) got over this ages ago and started trying to develop coherent moral/ethical systems from given sets of axioms that were clearly stated. You and I and they might disagree about their choice of axioms and the limitations of their systems, but this does not for one tiny second refute my point which is that these things are open to exploration by reason.
Incidentally again, Skeptic's dumb claim, which you are dangerously close to repeating, is that because we don't have the complete 100% right answer yet (as if such a thing is even acheivable, do you people NE VER read the quotes I provide from Feynman!?!?!?!), it is impossible for reason to explore these issues. That's exactly like me arguing that because we can't fly by flapping our arms yet, heavier than air flight is impossible.
Oh and Lenny, if you read things as a whole rather than snipped bits out, you'd have a) caught the fact that you misrepresented what I did say already, and b) you'd have caught the fact that I mentioned that naive appeals to the Is/Ought fallacy were not required. Dude, I expected a LOT better! Also, the "we can't get a perfect answer so it's all totally like ya know subjective" argument is a big crock of horseshit! We CAN get imperfect answers and we CAN try to make those answers as perfect as we possibly are able. Granted this is not easy and granted we might have to start from some very subjective and pretty shaky axioms, but we can evolve a better set of axioms by referring to their consequences.
3) The arse quakingly annoying and oft repeated false dichotomy between reason and emotion:
For the same reasons you like Star Trek Lenny, it always annoyed me. Why is Spock's logic deemed unemotional? Well I could riff on that subject for a week and I guarantee you I'd mention sexism and the view of women as the "weaker" sex in there! Anyway....
Again unconscious=/=unreasoned. Emotion=/=irrational. I'll remind you, your pizza boy and EVERYONE again that I do not mean "irrational" as it "batshit insane and unreasonable" but I DO mean it in the strict epistemological sense: i.e. logically incoherent.
One's emotional response to some set of circumstances may be totally rational (i.e. logically coherent), derived totally from reason, observation etc. Whether one consciously understands the underpinnings of one's emotions or not is a trivial irrelevance, just like the calculus one does to catch a ball being unconscious is. Emotional responses are both innate and learned, like ball catching ability etc. This does not ring fence off emotion from rational enquiry. Again the imperfection of our answers to complicated issues is not evidence against rational enquiry being capable of getting those answers as far as answer can even be got.
I can only think, with reference to the false dichotomy of of logic being unemotional, that the people who advance this have never done a day's science in their lives. And given some of the people who DO advance this, I know that the previous thought must be a load of old shit! So there must be some other reason, perhaps it's because people think that because reasoning free from passion can be clearer and eaiser on a personal level, thus reason eschews the emotions and thus emotions are not reasoned or reasonable. Bollocks sayeth I! Whilst the former might be true the two latter statements do not follow from it. Classic if A then B therefore if B then A logical fuckwittery.
Either way, the classic Star Trek picture presents just this false dichotomy. Another element to it I think is the appeal to mystery/unconscious. I like X, I don't know why I like X but it sings to my soul etc thus why I like X must be unknowable. Again, logically fallacious crap.
Anyway, I have a) gone on too long AGAIN and b) already dealt with this before. So unless you have anything to present that I haven't already dealt with, I stand by my previous comments.
Cheers
Louis
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Bye.
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