On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hi Mark, > > Mark: > > In my opinion, a > > culture cannot be wrong about what is moral because it creates the > morality, > > does not interpret it. > > Steve: > If I follow you correctly, your position is that morality is simply a > matter of agreement with a particular society. The only sense in which > we can say anything about the morality of stoning homosexuals is that > societies forbid it and others demand it. > Mark in response: Hi Steve: Well, Steve, I wouldn't use the word simply. But a matter of agreement, yes. This may not mean what you are thinking in terms of triviality. The question then arrises as to where that agreement comes from. This is where your your approach is directed. The agreement is the end result. I do not think that we are totally in control of such agreement which is where the scientific study can come in. But, I certainly wouldn't dismiss the agreement portion of it, whether it has physical or nonphysical roots. There is a certain amount of this agreement that comes from personal interest, so I wouldn't dismiss that either. And again, the question is where does this personal interest come from. Certainly psychology or sociology or even Darwinian logic can create a shape around this. The purpose of scientific inquiry is to construct a shape based on agreed upon measurements. In this way, we can say that science is also an agreement. It is the tools of agreement that is up for debate. What are their source? The system of measurement has to be agreed on. People have tried to construct gauges of happiness, or well-being. Others have used mortality as a measure. It is a complex issue which can be misused by those personally involved in the studies. Objectivity is questionable when the observer is also part of the observed. > > Neither Harris, Pirsig, nor I subscribe to this sort of relativism. > Our claims about morality can have truth-value and be as objective as > our scientific claims. The fact that there is no broad agreement on > morals does not mean that there is no truth of the matter. It just > means that at least some people are wrong. There is more > cross-cultural agreement on the belief that cruelty is wrong than on > the truth of evolution. But amount of agreement or diagreement is > irrelevent to whether or not there is in principle an answer to moral > or scientific questions. > > Morals aren't asserted to be objective in the Platonic sense of > existing independently of human experience. They are not ontologically > objective, but moral truths can be epistemically objective in the > sense that when making such judgments we are not lying to ourselves, > not overly biased in favor of personal interest, etc. Such scientific > objectivity is not understood as not having values but as valuing > reliable chains of evidence that lead us to good conclusions. This > scientific objectivity can be applied to studying morals--determining > what we ought to do so as to maximize wellbeing in a given set of > circumstances. > I do not think I am speaking of relativism, a concept that I find useless. I do think there is progress towards a universally accepted system of morals. However, such a thing must grow, not be created through judgement. Retrospectively it can be studied. Yes, I agree with the Quality position. Some things are obviously better than others. A conscious which dictates, within, the presence of a lie, is one tool at our disposal that is wired within. Many things are not learned through social education and therefore must have fundamental value. Which these are is up for debate, and certainly psychology has not shed any light on this. Placing value on reliable chains, or even the reliability of such chains is a measure. However, projecting such chains into the future is near impossible, especially if many chains are in play. So if the intent is to define what is to be rather than what is, I become a bit leery. No matter how accurate the value, there is always error associated with it. The study we are speaking of is sociology in essence, which, in my opinion, is a very (very) soft science. Accurate model building is ambiguous at best. This is all good and well, dealing theoretically with an important subject of morality. What I have strong feelings about is the misuse of such a model. In today's world the manipulative use of science is at an all time high and growing. The last thing we want to do is apply it to morals. Let's leave that to the philosophers who do not control peoples lives. For this reason alone I dismiss Harris' notion as unacceptable. Cheers, Mark > > Best, > Steve > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
