Intuitionism vs. Evolutionary Psychology (To User)
Gordon G. Sollars
...
> Gordon Sollars:
> >>> Sure, Mark, piece of cake. The method is to see which
> >>> alternative has the greatest positive (or least negative)
> >>> consequence for human welfare.
>
> >> OK -- this is getting somewhere. Note the lack of "good reasons"
> >> here.
> >>
> >> Now -- who decides what's "positive"?
>
> > Any who. "Who" is not especially relevant. The idea of realism is
> > that "standard" or "well placed" observers /all/ report the same
> > thing.
>
> But we don't all report the same thing.
Right. We are not all "standard" or equally "well placed".
> You and I disagreed about
> Nazis and pre-Incan civilizations;
If I am recalling our "Nazi disagreement" correctly, I pointed out
similarities between Nazi and common morality, and showed how the Nazi
had to make the false to fact assertion that Jews were sub-human. We did
not disagree over whether the Nazis were wrong. So far as I remember,
you did not rebut my argument, but only reiterated that you felt Nazis
were evil. (If there was more than this in your reply, I missed it
somehow.) I would have to go back and review the "Inca disagreement".
/Actual/ "moral observers" can disagree because one of them is
/mistaken/. I have repeatedly pointed out, given the complexity of
morality, it is very easy for actual observers to be mistaken.
Of course, actual observers of physical events can be mistaken. When you
propose various ways to decide between one physical hypothesis and
another, you assume that the actual observers on hand will correctly
interpret the result. If one of them does not, you start looking for
explanations why. I think we have the same situation with regard to
moral hypotheses, although I grant that it can be easier to find actual
"moral observers" who disagree.
> Owl and I disagree about whether
> someone is necessarily better off being happy; Bob Kolker and most of
> the world disagree about whether it's OK for a mother to kill her
> baby; and millions of people around the world (most especially in our
> two countries) disagree about the conditions (if any) under which
> abortion is (im)permissible.
I can't speak to your disagreement with Owl on that one. As for Bob, he
could well be the equivalent of, say, color blind as a "moral observer".
However, the abortion issue has all the earmarks one would expect of an
extremely difficult moral problem. Disagreement there is not surprising
at all.
> Yes -- if there is realism, there will be consistency in what is
> observed by "well-placed", "standard" observers. My question is:
> how do we tell if someone is ill-placed or non-standard?
We look to see if they are reasoning incorrectly or are making any
factual errors. This is far more complex than, say, determining if an
observer is color blind, but that's the way it goes.
...
> It can, of course, be that they
> disagree with reality -- but that's *useless* as an operative
> definition because it begs the question as to how we know what is
> real.
Well, I'm not sure that we agree over how important having "operative
definitions" is. However, there is no simple test for uncovering any
incorrect reasoning or any factual error. If that's what is required for
you to accept moral realism as warranted, then I strongly suspect that
you will have no reason to do so. However, I don't think that a physical
realist can get by on purely operational definitions, either.
> > However, most moral issues of any interest are complex enough that
> > sorting things into positive and negative can be extremely
> > difficult, so we are stuck looking for the best evidence ("good
> > reasons") for thinking that X or Y is positive (or negative).
>
> More uselessness. What's a good reason for thinking something is
> positive?
That it promotes well being or flourishing.
> What's a good reason for thinking something is a good
> reason for thinking something is positive?
That it is, in general, correlated with what is positive.
> What's a good reason for
> that? How can we avoid the ultimate justification "Well, *I* like
> it!"?
The knowledge that we can have reasons for liking, and be mistaken about
those reasons, provides a good reason not to be satisfied with such an
"ultimate justification". Is your "ultimate justification" for the
belief in physical realism simply "*I* like it!"?
--
Gordon Sollars
gsol...@pobox.com
Mark Young
>>>> Now -- who decides what's "positive"?
Gordon Sollars:
>>> Any who. "Who" is not especially relevant. The idea of realism is
>>> that "standard" or "well placed" observers /all/ report the same
>>> thing.
Mark Young:
>> But we don't all report the same thing.
Gordon Sollars:
> Right. We are not all "standard" or equally "well placed".
[...irrelevent responses deleted...]
>> Yes -- if there is realism, there will be consistency in what is
>> observed by "well-placed", "standard" observers. My question is:
>> how do we tell if someone is ill-placed or non-standard?
> We look to see if they are reasoning incorrectly or are making any
> factual errors. This is far more complex than, say, determining if
> an observer is color blind, but that's the way it goes.
So which of "reasoning incorrectly" and "factual error" is "ill-placed"
and which is "non-standard"? I don't see any corrspondence here at
all. Reasoning errors in moral realism should correspond to reasoning
errors in physical realism -- errors not of observation but of
assimilation. And "factual errors" under moral realism is just another
way of saying "not right" -- so it does not tell us how to tell who is
not right.
You have not answered the question.
> ...
>> It can, of course, be that they disagree with reality -- but that's
>> *useless* as an operative definition because it begs the question as
>> to how we know what is real.
> Well, I'm not sure that we agree over how important having "operative
> definitions" is. However, there is no simple test for uncovering any
> incorrect reasoning or any factual error. If that's what is required
> for you to accept moral realism as warranted, then I strongly suspect
> that you will have no reason to do so.
That's not it. That's not nearly it. That's not even close to being
in the same state as the ballpark we're playing in. E.T., phone home.
> However, I don't think that a physical realist can get by on purely
> operational definitions, either.
Physical realists started with operational definitions and built a
complex edifice of physics on them. There is very little need for
operational definitions any more because the theory has out-stripped
the observations. We're in the position of needing to build huge
physical devices to try to get observations to settle questions that
various theories raise. All built on operational definitions.
>>> However, most moral issues of any interest are complex enough that
>>> sorting things into positive and negative can be extremely
>>> difficult, so we are stuck looking for the best evidence ("good
>>> reasons") for thinking that X or Y is positive (or negative).
>> More uselessness. What's a good reason for thinking something is
>> positive?
> That it promotes well being or flourishing.
Like pulling hens' teeth, i tell ya.
What's a good reason for thinking that the promotion of well being or
flourishing is positive?
[...]
>> How can we avoid the ultimate justification "Well, *I* like it!"?
> The knowledge that we can have reasons for liking, and be mistaken
> about those reasons, provides a good reason not to be satisfied with
> such an "ultimate justification".
You don't need a reason to like pleasure. A reason for liking
something is that it is pleasurable in itself or that it will
eventually lead to pleasure. That's pretty much analytic. You may be
mistaken about something leading to pleasure, but you cannot be
mistaken about whether something is pleasurable.
When determining what is positive, how can we avoid the ultimate
justification -- "this is pleasurable"? (That is what I was trying to
get at -- sorry for not being clear.)
> Is your "ultimate justification" for the belief in physical realism
> simply "*I* like it!"?
No, and you have no good reason for asking me that.
...mark young
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