Comments by MPhil

451. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #176346 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 7:43 am

Man, I'm so frustrated right now...
... For all the time I've been studying in Munich now, I was looking for a seminar in philosophy of religion... there was at least one every semester.

But - how could it be different - all are held either by the faculty for catholic theology, or the faculty for the Christian Worldview... ain't it great. Not one by a faculty that is unbiased, like the philosophy-faculty.

Then of course there is an essay-contest: "Faith and Reason - A Contradiction?"... and guess what, by the faculty for the Christian Worldview. The professor who holds that chair used to be the head of the Central Organization of German Catholics.

How extremely frustrating... I have half a mind of just attending one of these courses and piss off the theologian.

This is one reason why I come here... no religious bias. Hard to find at my university, and in Bavaria in general. I'm so sick of this. Just out of spite, I might make my doctorate in philosophy of religion under a non-biased Professor. Have to find one first... guess I will have to leave Germany for that.

I'm fucking sick of this religious bias everywhere. Am I scared? Hell no. Just extremely pissed off and frustrated. This is the 21st century for crying out loud. Why not a chair for Invisible Pink Unicorn theology, or FSM-worldview, or any bloody superstition.

You could build up the whole apologetics of Christianity around that, too - "Why being pink and invisible is not a logical contradiction", "Belief in the FSM is properly basic" etc.

Then I come here today and what do I get to read - flood-myth.

Again, not scared at all - just fucking pissed off right now.

452. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176237 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 1:24 am

MPhil

Thanks! That's great information....any specific writings you would recommend by Mill, Rawls or Scanlon?

Glad I could be of service. If you really want to read these, you've got some heavy reading to do:

Rawls: "A Theory of Justice"; "Justice as Fairness - A Restatement" (in this oder)

Scanlon: "What we owe to each other"

You get a general idea by reading this encyclopedia entry:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/

453. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176229 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 1:02 am

Spinoza,

we can still not agree, and I must insist that it is you who are committing petitio principii:

And that is all I meant by saying that some sentences of the form "S should x." are not moral, and others are...

You squarely fail to demonstrate that. And still fall prey to the general mistake I accused you of several posts ago.

After this post, I am giving up for lack of progress in getting through to you (no offense intended):

... It seems like, you, Mphil, have presupposed an error theorist perspective, and said that it's prima facie irrelevant whether those sentences are different (and also that they really aren't different)... because, you think, in both cases the utterer/adherent is trying to address questions of right and wrong.

No, I am not.

It is simply a matter of plain fact that people who make statements of the form "one ought to do x" are addressing questions of right and wrong. A plain fact of language.

You don't get to say that "questions of right and wrong" are not addressed by statements of the fact "it is morally right to do x". That is a matter of fact of language.

There is no way around this.

But it's exactly my point that in the former case, it's easy to see why the statement itself, the moral judgment "Homosexuality is wrong!" is actually just a confusion, and isn't REALLY an attempt to address questions of right and wrong at all! The reason it's a confusion is that when you probe for justification, and stipulate no dogma allowed, the sophisticated (I mean this literally, in the sense of engaging in sophistry or rhetoric) anti-homosexual will generally try to tack on additional features to homosexual behaviour in an attempt to convince their interlocutor that their initial judgment is correct.

That's your argumentative error. Resorting to dogma, having no real justification is a different category (making the statement justified or unjustified) than the question whether it addresses questions of "what is right and wrong"

Again, fact of language. And fact of psychology. Those people think that Their arguments or their sophistry show substantive justification for their statements. They are mistaken and confused in that: In the fact that there is sufficient justification.

But it is still their morality, still addressing those questions.

Your position amounts to the same as saying
"It is mathematically correct to say that 2 plus 2 equal 5" does not address mathematics.

It does, it makes a totally unjustified assertion.

Furthermore, you are still prespposing a specfic second order theory...

how does that show? In that you are presupposing that something being written in the bible concerning the recommendation and condemnation of certain behaviour has nothing to do with ethics.

It is one thing to establish that it is not sufficient justification for a first order morality, and quite another to deny that this still does address questions of right and wrong - simply in a highly inappropriate manner.
That is just a matter of fact.

If that still isn't clear by now - I give up.

454. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176147 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:08 pm

All in good time...

455. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176145 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Transcendental aesthetic travel, eh? So not only can I be anywhere and everywhere whenever I chose, I will also look gorgeous all the time... nice. Really gotta master that, though I think I've already go the gorgeousness pretty much nailed :P

456. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176136 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 4:54 pm

I forgot:

Secondly, all I said was that the work being done in moral psychology is not NECESSARILY dealing with morality, and that they need to be careful to note that.

This I certainly agree with :) Finally some common ground :)

FreeThink25,

I'm often told that writings on the evolutionary nature of morality are only descriptive morality and not PRESCRIPTIVE morality, which, I guess they find to be evidence that a God is necessary for moral truths to exist.

The theists are right in saying the science can tell us descriptively about morality, but isn't prescriptive.

However, this does in no way - not at all - give them any justification for belief in god, for three reasons:

1)There is no evidence to suggest that metaphysically objective moral values exist

2)Objective moral values are perfectly conceivable without theism, see Plato for example. Since they are supposed to be metaphysical entities, they don't require a creator or indeed a creation, for they are not subject to time.

3)Theistic morality is not objective, but subjective. The values aren't objective, but dependent upon God's will and/or God's supposedly necessary nature. Also see Eutyphro-Dilemma.

You hit upon a very important point in your last two paragraphs: Consequentialism!
There still is an is/ought problem, but we can circumvent it. Once we agree that moral values are social constructs, are not found or discovered, but made and placed upon things, we have already taken the major step.

All that is needed is agreement on the desirability of a certain state, or indeed an argument (such as Mill tried to give and Rawls/Scanlon actually did) that shows that some things are rational for everyone in a society to desire. Thus, these states (or things or whatever) are given value.

Then we can find out what is necessary to achieve them, and that which helps achieve them or instantiates them can then be justifiably called morally good.

The is ought problem still exist, in that it states that you cannot derive a prescriptive statement from a statement about non-prescriptive matters of fact. But Consequentialism doesn't fall prey to that because it recognizes that values are constructs, and are placed upon things by individuals.

457. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175994 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 10:28 am

Anyway - gotta catch a train. Be back sometime tonight if I don't fall asleep, if not I'm certainly back tomorrow.

458. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175991 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 10:25 am

You seem to not want to make a distinction between moral talk (which often involves things that have nothing to do with morality), and morality per se.

You are still using "morality" to refer to something pertaining to actual normativity... but when people condemn homosexuality or being jewish or being black, they are still making judgements about morality, what is right and wrong, good and bad. They fail to refer to any really extant moral values, but the still talk about morality - and this is part of what descriptive ethics describe - what moral values people think there are. They are talking about moral values, their behaviour falls under the phenomenon of morality, whether it is actually "moral behaviour" in a normative sense of "moral" or not.

But that's exactly what's at issue here, so simply stating that "It is still true that everyone is actually talking about moral values." is kind of ridiculous. Especially given that I'm not a Realist.

Doesn't matter - moral values need not be construed as metaphysical entities. One need not even hold that there is a matter of fact about morality. One can - like I - think of moral values as social, intersubjective constructs. One still talking implicitly or explicitly about moral values, about morality.

So this:

No, they aren't actually necessarily talking about moral values. That CLEARLY implies some kind of infallibility in the moral mechanism, whatever it is. And that certainly cannot be right.

is clearly wrong. That implies no kind of infallibility, nothing even remotely approaching objectivity... at it states is that this is intensional language.

Let me state again the most important statement for this point: These people talk about moral values. That is what they intend to refer to, whether as objective moral values in a platonist sense, or as deity-dependent moral values, or as social constructs, or as just intuitive, subjective notions.

Whether they actually manage to refer with that speech successfully to something real is open for debate - the point is they (intensional language) talk about moral values, about right and wrong.

Let me give you an example: "Martians are tiny, black creatures with green, roman-style helmets and big white eyes."
This sentence talks about Martians - but it doesn't manage to refer to something real. Still, the speaker (especially one who beliefs this statement to be true) believes to be referring successfully with the term "Martians", and whether or not this is true, he is still (intensional language) talking about Martians. In this talking about something which we know isn't real - but he keeps on talking about. Just as people are talking about God and Pegasus etc.

Just as when the believers talk about god, that falls under the category of religion, - even though there is nothing to which they successfully refer - when Hitler talked about moral values, and when the pope talks about moral values, that is clearly part of the phenomenon of morality.

By stating "(which often involves things that have nothing to do with morality)", you are showing that you are still applying your own moral framework. From the pope's moral theory, the bible and homosexuality have very much to do with morality - from your first order and second order theory (and mine as well), they don't. But from a descriptive, objective perspective - not any normative view. Both we and the pope are making moral judgements, doing "moral talk", expression moral opinions. Not as "opinions that are moral" or "judgements that are moral" with "moral" meaning "morally right", but with "moral" meaning "pertaining to questions about right and wrong, about what ought and ought not to be done etc".

"Moral" does not mean "morally right" - it is used in that way, but "moral" has a broader reference, namely to "pertaining to questions[...]". The other meaning is properly expressed by "morally right" or "morally correct". And that seems to be the mistake you're making. Conflating the two.

So, no infallibility, no objectivity, no truth implied at all.

And again, the neuroscientists are not just investigating moral talk, but also the brain-activity related to judgements, dispositions, opinions and behaviour pertaining to questions about right and wrong, about ought and ought not etc.

And yes, by saying ""homosexuality is wrong" is just 'moral talk'" and ""murder is wrong" is morality" you are implying a certain second and first order view.

Both are parts of Morality as "the behaviour, speech, judgements, opinions, dispositions etc pertaining to questions about right and wrong".
Because this "moral talk" is addressing these issues, just as yours and mine are - and are by virtue of that no different from what the pope or Hitler does/did.

This is where you think there should be a distinction - but that is not correct or warranted - since the above is entirely objective.

If one were a moral realist with entirely different values from Hitler and the Pope, one still would have to affirm the above - and make the distinctions that Hitler/the pope are simply deluded. Their moral theories, moral judgements and opinions, moral behaviour and dispositions (in the above sense) is just wrong. But it is still part of the phenomenon of morality.
They may have a "lack of morality" in the normative sense - ie lacking THE PROPER moral judgements etc, but they don't have a lack of morality in the descriptive sense at all.

Even a moral anti-realist, someone who sees moral values solely as intersubjective constructs, can say that they had morality in the descriptive sense - everyone does - and that their "moral talk" is part of the phenomenon of morality. But objectively their moral theories are unjustified and incoherent, and (inter)subjectively, their moral theories, judgements, opinions, behaviour is just seriously screwed up and wrong.

These are the real, warranted distinctions - not refusing to apply the term "morality" in its descriptive meaning to such phenomena. In the descriptive meaning of "moral", it applies to everything that "pertains to or attempts to address questions of right and wrong".

And again, the scientists are investigating not only talk, but judgements, opinions, dispositions etc. pertaining to questions of right and wrong.

Especially for a moral anti-realist, morality is nothing more than at most a social construct, implemented solely in moral talk, behaviour, dispositions etc.

They can be coherent or incoherent, epistemically justified or not, but they are still what completely comprises morality for the anti-realist, and moral behaviour for the realist.

459. Two More Fleas

Comment #175872 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 7:20 am

King of NH,

Sorry - this: "I think science has proven that god(s) does not exist to a much better extent than it has proven a table is a table (my table is variably a table, a chair, a bench, a desk, a stool, a shelf, etc.)"

is just not true. "A table is a table" is true a priori. "A is A" is logically true, no matter what.

If on some alternate earth the word "table" would mean what we mean by "cow", "a table is a table" would still be true.

"Table" is a functional definition. When you use your table as as a ramp, it is also a ramp... but as long as it can potentially fully fulfil the function of a table, it is also a table.

But the sentence "A table is a table" is still true no matter what the world is like. It is a logical tautology.

Now, to the more important point:

Since god is supposed to be nonphysical, science cannot prove that god doesn't exist. Logic can - through the arguments from logical impossibility of god. But science cannot. Neither can science disprove the existence of universals, or any metaphysical entities. Science in practice could not even disprove a statement about an empirical matter of fact like "10 million light-years away, there is a tiny spherical object of composition x"

What science can do and does is tell us that the natural phenomena to which "god" was forwarded as an explanation have other, real explanations, or that we are about to develop theories to explain certain phenomena.

Philosophy can (in my opinion) show that god is impossible.
Science and philosophy can show that even if that weren't the case, there is far too little epistemic justification for belief in god. The epistemic probability of god is so incredibly low that there is no justification for that belief at all.

But science disproving god, with "disproving" in the scientific sense? Not really.

460. Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?

Comment #175848 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 6:42 am

Ha ha ha! Indeed, Carto!

461. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175840 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 6:27 am

Carto,

see, just another instance of my sense of humour failing me :)

462. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175817 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:30 am

Thanks for the links, Epeeist.

The first one was very informative... the second one failed the criteria of journalism with the first paragraph, which was very emotional and judgemental - no matter if it is true or not.

It's good to know these things... still, the actual contributions to charities count for a lot, I think.

463. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175809 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:13 am

If Bill Gates had never used a computer, hadn't done what did - hundreds of millions of dollars less would have gone to charities...

The point being: Don't be so quick to judge.

464. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #175779 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 2:40 am

We've had those already... neither of us achieved satisfaction ... We've come to a détente, and I'm quite happy with that :)

465. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #175774 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 2:32 am

You mean citing obscure philosophers and using multi-syllable big words to make a simple point?

To be fair, when it comes to rather difficult matters, using technical terms can be appropriate, and citing people who have been major contributors to the field as well.

You could try to explain quantum theory in laymen's terms, but accuracy would be lost.

And maybe the point isn't always as simple as you may thing.

What I mean, using technical terms and citing philosophers (obscure ones are a different matter :) must not always be pretentiousness.

As for _riverrun_ - I haven't read his posts, so I won't judge - just wanted to make the general point.

466. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175763 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 2:07 am

I'm sorry Spinoza - but it seems you're completely missing my point.

And making some very strong assumptions on your part. Presupposing a correctness of your first order theory - which is clearly unwarranted for the discussion at hand.

I will try (one last time :) to show you what I mean:

The best section to show you what I mean are, I think, these:

That has not been established. That is to take some form of expressivism to be correct a priori. And that is certainly not justifiable a priori.

No, I am not. Not at all. As I said before, I am not discussing first order rightness or wrongness, and am not presupposing any second order position!!!

All you've said here is that moral values (rightness or wrongness) can only be called moral. And then you say that anything falls under that category in virtue of being an approach to problems involving rightness or wrongness.

But that's clearly circular, and doesn't establish anything with regard to when people really ARE talking about moral values, as distinguished from when they are merely indulging their preferences.

Again, you are misconstruing me completely.

You are making a category mistake. I am not presupposing any ethical position.

The fact is that a problem like "what is the solution to equation phi" is not a moral one, and that issues concerning normative statements or judgements are what we call "moral issues".

THAT is what I meant. There are issues involving questions of moral right and wrong, and there are issues who don't. The first are "moral issues" - and any approach to them is part of the phenomenon of morality.

Hitler had moral opinions - we think they're wrong. I don't think there is an objective matter of fact about that, but only an intersubjective one, and that's enough. But my opinion doesn't matter here - I'm not judging right now. These opinions of Hitler's cannot be called anything else than "Hitler's moral judgements, Hitler's moral opinions".

"Moral" here does not mean "right" - and that is, I think, your most basic mistake - it means "pertaining to issues of moral qualities"... whether he was wrong or not, objectively or not is of no importance for the point I am trying to make. This is still part of the phenomenon of morality.

Whether or not we assume that moral judgements and opinions can be right or wrong, makes no difference at all for this matter. They are still judgements and opinions, positions and dispositions and behaviour pertaining to issues, to questions of "what is 'right', what is 'moral'".

They are concerned with that subject. And that is the definition of morality in a non-normative sense.

You cannot deny that the pope's judgements and expressions on issues of "what is right, what is moral" are judgements about morality. That would be ludicrous.

Thus, my definition is not circular at all - as it does not even touch the question of right or wrong.

We can meaningfully ask "what were Hitler's moral judgements?" "What are the pope's first order ethical positions" "What are his second order (metaethical) position"?

These are questions about their moral beliefs. They concern the phenomenon of people having opinions on questions of "right and wrong". They ask these questions and give answers to them (right or wrong, or neither), but by virtue of that, that is per definition part of the phenomenon of morality.

You are making a category mistake in denying my points by stating "but what they think is clearly immoral" or "what they think is clearly mistaken from a metaethical position". That may be so, but that is not what I was asserting. I was asserting something of an entirely different category, and therefore, denying my points on these grounds is a category mistake.

One more thing:

That is, the first case is clearly a case of moralizing talk on the part of a dogmatic idiot engaging in culturally inculcated hatred of that which is "different" (and called abominable).

The second points to something quite a lot more fundamental. If anything is wrong, murder is.

Petitio principii... thus unwarranted. That's your opinion.

Who is to say that there is anything more to morality than opinions, judgements, dispositions, behaviour on questions of "right and wrong"? That would presuppose that there is a fact of the matter, that there are objective moral values - and that has not been established.

But this is still a different matter than what I discussed above. My definition was not circular, because you were interpreting my position as one about first and second order moral "truths" - which was a category mistake.

Ever heard of "descriptive ethics"? Describing the phenomenon of morality.

I don't need to "establish" that there is a descriptive meaning of "moral" and "morality" as well - it's unquestionable. People ask themselves questions of "what is right and wrong" "what is moral" and/or take positions that attempt to answer these questions, or propose answers to them. This is a fact. You may call it as you like, but there is nothing wrong with calling that "morality", the "phenomenon of morality".

You are - it seems - trapped in the normative dimension. There is a descriptive one, too.

Also, I had to chuckle at this:

doesn't establish anything with regard to when people really ARE talking about moral values, as distinguished from when they are merely indulging their preferences.

...especially in connection to what you said about homosexuality and murder, the pope and the fundamentalist muslim.

This is again a petitio principii - you are presupposing that there are objective values, and that if any, the one conforms to that, the other doesn't.

They certainly do think they "ARE talking about moral values" - AND they certainly, as a matter of fact, are ACTUALLY talking about what they judge to be actually, normatively existing moral values...

And you are doing nothing different, - no one is doing anything other than that in such matters... some have a more coherent position, some less coherent positions, some positions are entirely unjustified, others are more justified - but for everyone it is simply a fact that they are talking about what they judge to be actual, normative, moral values.

It may be true (I don't think so) that some are right when they think they are expressing judgements based on actually existing, normative moral values in a metaphysical sense - but that doesn't matter. It is still true that everyone is actually talking about moral values.

IMPORTANT EDIT:This is a matter of intensional speech here. They ARE definitely talking about that... whether they manage to SUCCESSFULLY refer to such things is a different question.

I simply take it that the philosopher who does those things (in a well reasoned way) can be justified in telling the layman when their moral talk is, itself, wrong (and why).

Yes, he can tell the layman where the arguments are inconclusive, where and why the position is epistemically unjustified etc - but can you prove that the values someone assumes are false and that yours are right? Hardly - we can, I think, only show that values are most likely nothing but social constructs, and that some are more compatible with achieving a society in which certain natural qualities (happiness, minimization of suffering, maximization of liberties) are present. The judgement that these are valuable in themselves is another construct, something that cannot be proven to be true, but has to be agreed upon, and can be agreed upon rationally.

467. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175744 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 12:44 am

The assumption that investigation of moral talk and behaviour called moral (by some) can tell us about what morality qua moral judgments, dispositions and behaviour is (as you say), is, I think, not a valid assumption.

1. They're not just investigating "talk" - they look at the brain-activity when making moral judgements, when forming and expressing opinions on moral problems, and the associated behaviour. Therefore, they do investigate what morality qua judgements, dispositions and behaviour is.

Also, in your third paragraph, you forgot to give the other side of the distinction. I think you have a too narrow view of the meaning of the word "morality". When people talk about moral problems, form and express opinions concerning them, make judgements on moral issues - that is part of what "morality" means.

You are - I think - missing the point. There are situations and dimensions that can only be called moral - any question of right and wrong, of moral values etc. Any behaviour, any approach to these things falls under the category of "morality" in virtue of being an approach to moral problems, moral statements etc.

You can't just say that because people have different approaches, mean different things, and talk differently, that this is not part of what "morality" is.

Morality is also a phenomenon. Namely what I outlined above - judgements, opinions, forming and expressing them, dispostions and other behaviour.

"Mere moral talk" is part of the phenomenon of human morality - as approaches to moral issues.

Therefore this "neither of those has anything to do with 'morality' if the word is to have any meaning at all. " is clearly wrong.

You are restricting the term "morality" to apply only to what moral philosophers (or even only moral philosophers of a certain 'denomination'?) do.
That is entirely unwarranted. You are applying moral judgement already to the issue of what counts as part of the phenomenon of morality. That is quite strange in my opinion.

You make it seem as if you think only someone working out a second order and first order ethical theory with a coherent and applicable account of all the theoretical issues is doing something that falls under the category of "morality" at all. Why?
Morality is also, as I do not tire of stating, a phenomenon... different people approach moral issues differently - and the question of "justified or not", "right or wrong approach", is only a fraction of the entire subject.

468. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175734 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 12:18 am

(perhaps we should/could continue this on some sort of Messenger or Facebook chat?... I would be interested in engaging your scepticism about quasi and Cornell realism...)

Difficult at the moment - a lot of studying to do... turing machines, Goedel's incompleteness theorems, recursive algorithms, arithmatization of basic mathematical operations as recursive algorithms for implementation in turing machines, the logic and logical problems of reductionism in philosophy of science, Timothy Williamson's "knowledge and its limits" etc...

Next semester break would be possible :)

I'm not really sure what it tells us about morality per se... rather, it really only seems to shed light on why different people SAY different things are "moral" (ignoring entirely the question of who is right).

What is morality? Morality consistes of judgements , dispositions and other behaviour - the structures of that behaviour. It is certainly interesting to learn how these are implemented, what the role of emotional centres and cognitive centres is, what the role of speech centres is etc. Can tell us a lot about actual morality.

Ethics is not all about "who's right"... mostly it's metaethics and "what is the road to a coherent and successful first order theory"... "who's right" is much too simplistic.

There's so much more to morality. Investigating moral thought and behaviour is certainly interesting and important. It, as I said, tells us a lot about what morality qua moral judgements, dispositions and behaviour is.

469. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175730 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 12:03 am

Spinoza,
ad 1. Oh well, I think I got hung up on the vagueness in your statement. Honest mistake.

ad 3... interesting, but I just cannot see how you would get out of the ontological mess that both quasi-realism and cornell realism get you in (in my opinion)

ad 4 and "boyd is a naturalist" - see, that's it. I don't think the ontological commitments of quasi-realism and cornell-realism are what the proponents think they are, or rather, I don't think they are compatible with naturalism as I see it.

I don't really see that this is incriminating to an error-theorist, since seeing it as such would be begging the question against the premises, which aren't shared after all.

Anyway - you're right, this isn't a philosophy seminar... let's leave it at that :)

470. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175714 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 11:37 pm

...also, Hume is quite as uncontroversial as many seem to think.

471. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175713 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 11:36 pm

Spinoza,

good post, but some small problems:

1.Mackie's anti-realism, namely error-theory, does not fall prey to the Frege-Geach problem. Error-theory is different from pure emotivism or prescriptivism.
The error theory solves the truth-value problem of Geach.

2.The Queerness-argument is not the only one. And it again has several parts. Of specific interest are the ontological and the epistemological one. Even if one does not subscribe to Mackie's ontological critique of moral realism, the epistemological one still holds.

3.I don't think Cornell Realism is a solution, because it again faces the queerness-objection, specifically the epistemological one.

4. Blackburn's solution is more appealing, but I don't think it provides a sufficient justification for rejecting error-theory. Introducing "quasi" makes the whole thing an ontological mess.

:)

472. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175707 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 11:09 pm

jwdink,

I can only give you my perspective as a philosopher, but for what it's worth:

Science is only ever descriptive. If we want a first order ethical theory, this is a normative, prescriptive endeavour, entirely. Not just a "push".

I think any first order moral theory needs to take into account as many relevant facts about human beings (psychological, physiological, social) as it can. That's where science is essential. But the main task is still developing a theory of what these moral values, to which we, in virtue of taking into account all the relevant facts and comparing different strategies, do not rush, are, or rather 'should be', since moral values are constructed, not found.

Only with knowing a lot about human nature can we begin to construct a coherent first order ethical theory that can successfully be applied to any situation.

Still, the main task here is the normative/prescriptive one. I don't think Spinoza thinks that science is entirely useless here.

But he is right in stating, as I have laid out, that knowing the (neuro-)psychological facts about how we make moral judgements etc are irrelevant to the prescriptive task.

473. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175699 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 10:38 pm

Carto,

...the mad but brilliant Prussian, please :)

The will to power was of course a major theme in Nietzsche's thinking... and he did plan to write a book with that title, but his illness made that impossible. His sister Elisabeth Foerster Nietzsche and his fried Peter Gast edited some of his notes and published them as "Der Wille zur Macht". One should also note that his sister fabricated some notes, edited some others together in a way for them to have totally different context-meaning than in their original appearance and generally tinkered with his work... she imposed her own ideas onto her brother's work. And she was very much a friend of Hitler and the Nazis, which is why her tinkering with her brothers work made it far more open to exploitation by the Nazis.

Despicable woman.

Anyway - I do think the moustache was his own. (You just gave me the weird idea of Elisabeth painting moustaches on all his pictures :)

The reason why I think moral and political philosophers would indeed be better at the task you supposed is because it is a task at the centre of which is thinking about moral normativity, not descriptive morality.

The scientists could figure out the descriptive side of moral psychology... which is important for philosophers as well. But the task would still be normative.

Of course the problem is that there is no general fact of the matter about which first-order moral approach is the right one, there would be substantial disagreement between the philosophers. But there are facts of the matter in descriptive morality and descriptive (cognitive neuro-)psychology of morality.
That wouldn't help the scientists one bit though in approaching the normative task.

There are still facts in moral philosophy - the facts that any consequentialist approach requires for example. Or the facts about the content of the moral character of the individual, and of groups of individuals.

I think that if the philosophers were to agree on something like a very detailed Rawls/Scanlon model (with perhaps some utilitarian infusion), they could do the job not perfectly, but better than the scientists.

Perhaps the certainties of scholastic learning (if you refer to the content) were unwarranted certainties? And the murky depths of the 19th century (especially Neitzsche, who was -I think- very correct in his analyses of culture on the brink of modernity and post-modernity) perhaps got it entirely right that there are little certainties, but many social constructs, which comprise the murky depths that they laid bare.

Just a thought.

474. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175651 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Carto,

Nietzche's Der Wille zur Macht

Oh come on you old historiographer, you should know there never was such a book by Nietzsche. That was a fabrication by his sister.

And if you take moral philosophers and political philosophers, I'm actually not at all sure the Not at all.

EDIT: arrg... something stole my brain when I wrote that last sentence... see below for an explanation. :)

475. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175302 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 6:39 am

Steve,

thanks - just sent off my reply :)

476. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175290 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 5:54 am

Carto,

if all else fails, try a different browser... Firefox or Opera preferably. :/

477. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175253 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 2:58 am

Just recently, I was talking to a person who, when the discussion came to the point of religion being a source of violence, and the scriptures recommending violence and other unacceptable things, said:

"Well, it's all a matter of interpretation"... the dialogue then went as follows:

Me:"Of course it is. The only reason European Christianity doesn't torture and kill people anymore is because they assimilated to the moral Zeitgeist. Look at the Islamic theocracies - they haven't had to do that so far."

She:"Right. As I said, you have to interpret scripture correctly, and some are just closer to the truth."

Me: "You're not seriously claiming that just because the interpretation of their holy books of moderates conforms to our ethical standards, it therefore must be closer to a so called 'true interpretation'? How would you know that? What makes you think there is such a thing. Where is the evidence?"

She: "Does everything have to be provable?"

Me: "Not 'provable', but every statement about alleged matters-of-fact about the world has to be testable."

She: "But why?"

Me: "Why? Because otherwise no claim to correctness can ever have any epistemic justification. None at all. I might as well claim that there is an invisible pink unicorn standing right behind you."

She: "Yes, you cannot disprove that!"

Me: "Aside from the fact that I can on logical grounds (No entity can at the same time be 'invisible' and 'pink'), that's the point. There can be no evidence for it. I say it is so - why don't you believe me? Just because of that. If there are statements about alleged facts that need no evidence, what justified your rejection of any such claim. It's all just arbitrary then."

She: "But... but you can't compare god to an invisible pink unicorn."

Me: "Really? Why not. I just did - works great. Now if you'd excuse me - I need a drink."

Needless to say I didn't get through to her.

It's sickening, really.

478. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175252 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 2:44 am

gd_edi,

I would have thought that one's own self is the only entity we 'know' to have subjective consciousness, with all others being automata of various degrees of complexity.

Groan - solipsism?

Bertrand Russell once received a letter from a woman praising solipsism and saying that she was wondering why not more people were of the opinion that solipsism is true.

because a being with consciousness shouldn't appear any different to a robotic automaton with the same behaviour.

That old discussion?

If that is your position, it is merely a matter of semantics. Why not say "If it passes the Turing-test, it's conscious"? If it is indistinguishable from consciousness, it is consciousness.

If you want to be a complete skeptic, that's fine with me, but it won't get you very far. We necessarily adopt the intentional stance towards entities that behave in a certain way.

From a very strict epistemological position, there can be no 100% certain knowledge about anything about the "outside world"... but as many philosophers, including Dennett and the Churchlands have successfully argued - we can't be too sure about our own mind, either.

Also, total scepticism and Berkleyian solipsism suffers from the same problem that the brain-in-a-vat thought-experiment suffers from. The statements of that position cannot refer to something real, because the meaning of the terms are identified in the conceptual scheme of mind-world.

Once we allow for heterophenomenology, and take care not to make unwarranted inferences from the results, there is no problem at all.

Consciousness is a property that certain complex multi-level signal monitoring and processing systems with the capability for self-modification based on this monitoring on processing and a certain fixation to the outside world can have.

Perhaps you were rather talking about qualia?

In any case - I recommend Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" and Paul Churchland's "A neurocomputational perspective"

:)

Cheers,
-Mike

479. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175246 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 2:10 am

MrEmpirical,

I guess you're right - personality tests shouldn't have a middle option... with factual questions it might be the only way to get people to answer them :)

AtheistGirl,

welcome to RDnet. If you are anything like me, you are going to enjoy your stay. Many wonderful discussion, a lot of interesting people, many people on here are extremely valuable resources of information - we have people with degrees in such fields as Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Philosophy - even some who took biblical studies.

And - just so you can't so no one warned you... we get a lot of visits from creationists and just mind-bogglingly stupid theists on here.
On the other hand - there have been many interesting discussions with reasonable theists on here as well.

So, welcome! And - enjoy your stay!

480. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175236 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 1:13 am

Blueboy5,

I protest! The surveys are only for a) christians and b) atheists/non-believers. What about we poor deists?

I guess it's because deist usually aren't dogmatically fixed and emotionally invested in scripture or religion and politics, or perhaps even in the issue of moral value of belief or disbelief (at least those I know personally aren't). Thus, the neural activity when confronted with specific stimuli concerning these things may be less definitive, less valuable for this specific experiment.

... I really don't know. That's just my guess.

481. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175233 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 1:04 am

Prof. Dawkins,

I think we can assume that Sam will have thought of such things himself!

You are very probably correct, sir. Let us hope that most Christians who are made aware of this won't dismiss it because the study is done by a prominent atheist...

Knowing as we do that many of them are not very knowledgeable about science and the scientific method - or distrust science outright - I suspect many of them may falsely suspect bias or trickery because of the fact that Sam is behind it (among others). Can we assume that they are perfectly aware that bias is exactly what scientists do not want, because they want representative results? We know that many of them think Big Science has a conspiracy going when it comes to evolution, so I am skeptical.

Anyway - I am very interested in the results of this study.

Best,
-Michael

482. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175217 by MPhil on May 4, 2008 at 11:14 pm

Done, all four... one question appeared twice... thought the best option in that case would be to use the middle option for both, since one of them surely was mislabelled, actually a different question and will get evaluated as such.

Some questions were phrased inaccurately - like the one asking one's opinion concerning the statement "Jesus was not immortal, and did not ascend into heaven" (or something to that effect)... if one doesn't believe that Jesus ever existed, what should one answer?

The appropriate phrasing would have been "Assuming Jesus existed..." or something to that effect.

Also, why give people 5 options, anyone creating a survey will know that a middle option is extremely attractive and will get less detailed results.

483. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175199 by MPhil on May 4, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Vincent, is it? Don't know why, but it seams to fit.

Strangely, my name - though not Latin in origin - translates into "Who is like god"...

484. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #174814 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Just because I want to get everyone's attention - I'm posting this on every active thread (I hope you'll forgive me)

Guys - take a look at this...

The Vatican has joined forces with Shiite Muslims.
Ridiculous statements, and a direct attack on negative religious freedom:

(be warned - you may throw up in your mouths)

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=88070

If any local newspaper of yours runs this story - send a letter to the editor for publishment. Put it on your blogs and tear it to shreads... raise awareness that this is a dangerous alliance, and a large-scale attack on negative religious freedom, freedom of speech - and it is ludicoursly revisionist history!

485. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #174813 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 3:22 pm

486. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174812 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 3:22 pm

487. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174809 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Guys - take a look at this...

The Vatican has joined forces with Shiite Muslims.
Ridiculous statements, and a direct attack on negative religious freedom:

(be warned - you may throw up in your mouths)

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=88070

488. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174796 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Furthermore, when the Americans and British fire-bombed German cities (and the Americans leveled Japan), they made no distinction between moderate and extreme Germans. They probably killed any number of Germans who hated Hitler.

What does this have to do with the denazification after the war?

The allies couldn't eradicate the mindset completely (nationalism and antisemitism existed and exist everywhere), but they could see to it that it wasn't legal for the state to promote this anymore, that people who committed the crimes went to jail and that openly denying the holocaust and calling upon people to persecute a certain group.

What does the systematic eradication of civilians, the bombing of cities with phosphorous bombs in order to kill as many men, women and children have to do with that? Two wrongs don't make a right.

I fail to see the connection.

489. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174762 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 12:32 pm

I think the quality of education in schools and Universities is the real culprit here. It is the only thing to blame for any amount of attention a retarded movie like this would draw.

The quality of education in schools and Universities is certainly a major factor, but I think the quality of education at home - the fact that many patients don't encourage learning, trusting the scientific method etc. - and that religious parents indoctrinating their children actively encourage compartmentalisation or even straight out denial of the value of science.

That's the real crime - the real problem. How are schools and universities supposed to deal with this? They can try, but inevitably, they will have less and less success than with people educated properly at home, taught proper values.

they should not even be mentioned in one sentence.

Really? How about this sentence, which I think is absolutely true:

"Progress in science has always to a retreat of religion from claims to absolute factuality to metaphor, allegory etc, because the religious cannot face the fact that the claims of their ancient books are shown to be false, so they have to change the goalposts"...?

490. Gods and earthlings

Comment #174729 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 11:11 am

Pitchfork...

I strongly object to that use of the term "philosophy".

There is always philosophy behind science - the demarcation criteria, the basic assumptions of causality, the assumptions about realism, methodological naturalism, assumptions about the nature of evidence, corroboration, falsification - and of course: Ockam's Razor.

Philosophy is a serious and rigorously studied subject, including philosophy of science.

491. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174688 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 8:54 am

if Dawkins (and all atheists for that matter) is right, none of us will ever know

No, people with skills in logic already can know that he's right in believing that there are no deities.

Take a look at the wonderful collection of papers, edited by the Professor of Philosophy Michael Martin, called: "The Impossibility of God"

God is a logical impossibility and therefore could not even exist in principle.

Of course this isn't all. If we disregard this, no atheist would have been a fool, because there still would be absolutely no epistemic justification for belief in the existence of a deity.
_____________

As for Ayn Rand... just a small reiteration of my position, which I explained elsewhere:

Some of her specific political positions may be tenable, but she's a dreadful pseudo-philosopher, and her movement is a cult. Her arguments are abysmal, less for her political than her philosophical views, but still. Her understanding of philosophy is surpassed by every 1st year student. Nozick actually took her on on politics, stating that he agrees with some of her conclusions, but that the arguments for them are worthless. Why he took her on, I don't know. Philosophers should take a similar position towards her than Dawkins does towards taking on the ID pseudo-scientists. Only that here, it's pseudo-philosophy, not pseudo-science.

492. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174264 by MPhil on May 2, 2008 at 12:16 am

I too love Dennett's response to the Mary thought-experiment... but I find the Chinese Room to be a mere semantic problem - by far not as interesting as the Chinese Nation or Mary.

Searle? Brilliant indeed.

I wish I could have studied under Quine, Searle, Mackie or indeed Dennett or Paul Churchland.

Bonzai,

Comte? I always found him suspicious :)
A tortured person can become quite weird indeed.

Anyway, really have to go now... ttyl guys.

493. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174259 by MPhil on May 2, 2008 at 12:04 am

Whoa, robotaholic - that avatar is making me nauseous... IT'S TOO FAAAAAAST!!! :)

494. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174258 by MPhil on May 2, 2008 at 12:03 am

Styrer,

I have always granted philosophers a measure of intellectual respect which your answer to my question seems to refute. I wondered if great thinkers simply were immune to such human and childhood influences, beautifully holding their solitary own, creating their own affirmations and negations of ideas to which they had never yet had any exposure, and all to the better that they had not.

Great Thinkers are human, too... and basic psychological facts hold true of them as well.

There is a German book, Wilhelm Weischedel's "Die philosophische Hintertreppe" (the philosophical backstairs) who shows how the philosophy of various great thinkers is influenced by their personal history. Highly interesting.

Anyway - I think the great philosophers were/are still far less susceptible to brainwashing than an ordinary joe (not because they were or are philosophers, but simply because their psychological nature - and nurture - made them - and thus made them such great philosophers)
Many develop an extremely great intellect but not the ability to apply it to everything... because of indoctrination or a general susceptibility to something of that sort. Other - I think - , like Voltaire, or Kant (whose theism was radically different from anything the church offered) or de la Rochefoucauld, acheive a high level of "mental immunity".

495. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174256 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 11:52 pm

I love consc.net - and don't care for chalmer's position either.

As I said - I have to work out that position first, but I have a feeling such a position between Dennett and the Chuchlands is possible, since in my opinion, the neural network theory is in a broad sense also a functionalist theory - and eliminativism to a reasonable degree is actual in both Dennett and the Churchlands. I find it rather amusing however that it is Dennett who holds a strict Qualia eliminativism, and Paul Churchland who proposes intertheoretic reduction (IMO sucessfully) of at least colour-qualia.

That's what gave me the idea of a position in between the two (three).

Or, as I said, Intentionality as assimilating representation in the neural net.

496. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174252 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 11:48 pm

the "only" was meant only as referring to the duration, not the degree:)

Most courses with a similar degree take longer. But the course of studies only has about 10 students per years, involves writing your own papers from the second week on and is generally very intensive, so its possible, but involves a lot of reading and writing.

497. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174239 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 11:28 pm

Oh, and I just remembered... I had the idea of writing about a possible position regarding philosophy of mind between Dennett and Churchland - which I would still have to construct :)

498. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174236 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 11:22 pm

It's actually not a usual masters, it's an unusual MPhil. I don't study one main and two minor subjects, but two main subjects - philosophy and (Logic and Philosophy of Science). The course is only 4 years and the degree a magister philosophiae.

I plan on writing about philosophy of mind. (Yes, I still got one year to go, but - if I may say so - I was the only one among my fellow students who started this 'elite' course of studies having such an extensive knowledge of philosophy already.)

I would write it about philosophy of atheism... if I wasn't in Munich, and studying under a professor who hold is a catholic and holds a chair where the catholic church has to approve of the candidate :)

So I guess philosophy of mind - possibly about intentionality as representation in the neural network that is the brain. But that might be too technical, I don't know...

499. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174225 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 11:06 pm

Whether she is intelligent enough, despite outstanding grades, to enter either remains to be seen. I was at school with students who achieved top grades right up to A Level but who were not able from there to make much headway.

Oh I know - it's exactly the same with the German Abitur. Though there is definitely a significant correlation between very good grades and intelligence.

Oxbridge usually looks beyond grades to decide whom to admit. These decisions surprise and anger the likes of the witless Gordon Brown, as you may have heard.

I didn't hear of Gordon Brown having a problem with that, but I know of the fact.

Sadly, as a visiting student, you still need a whole bunch of money to afford living and studying there, which is why I didn't bother applying.

I think I will apply for doing my doctorate there... although I would also love to do it somewhere with strong interdisciplinary tradition between the cognitive sciences and philosophy...

anyway,

Would you answer a question, MPhil? Those philosophers who, knowing as much as you about the nuts and bolts of philosophy, come to the conclusion that there is a deity and must do so for a reason. Those others, like yourself, and knowing all the same nuts and bolts, come to an atheistic stance. Would you care to explain to me what separates the two different types of philosopher?

I'm not sure about "two different types." That's just picking out the attribute religious/non-religious because it is of specific interest to us and diving the class of philosophers according to it. You could do the same for any other positions. Why are there so many who think that Functionalism is wrong, or so many who think Hegel was largely correct?

I guess it's because philosophy is such a theoretical field, and has so much to do with definitions. We all have unjustified common-sense beliefs. A philosopher's work often involves trying to justify and strengthen positions that are usually held tacitly or uncritically - although all really innovative philosophy of course did exactly the opposite. As a philosopher your only tools are analyzing positions and constructing arguments (although knowledge of science and/or culture is indispensable in most areas). Thereby you naturally learn to make the best case possible for any position.

I think for most theists, their theism is the result of childhood indoctrination. It is so deeply entrenched that those who take up philosophy use it to justify their theism come what may. Craig, Plantinga and Swinburne are extremely good at this.
Many (including some of my fellow students), do exactly what scientists do - they compartmentalize. They either don't apply their critical thinking to their theism or conveniently don't take it far enough.

And that's almost a natural consequence of successful indoctrination - you have a fear of losing your faith.

But then, for many, the exact opposite is true.
I have heard of only very few (actually, only one, but I'm sure there are more) who got into philosophy as atheists and then became theists... the opposite happens, I think, far more often.

And, as we of course know - society plays a huge role - atheistic philosophers in the middle-ages? Unheard of... why? Because you could only study it after Aquinas and then only at the church, as a cleric.

Nowadays, I still think there are significant correlations between the religiosity of philosophers and the religiosity of the country/state/community in which they live.

So I would say - childhood indoctrination and/or a n irrational need for religion and/or compartmentalization.

500. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174218 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Oh come on - "Brian", "Brain"... typo... or maybe not as sober as I thought? Or perhaps distracted by the thought of a threesome with Emma? Who knows? :)