Just found your site today. It is awesome. I am very happy to see that intellectuals of your caliber are self producing quality product. Keep up the good work
and keep well.

John

Haven’t been visiting your blog for sometime. Work has kept me busy.

The thing is, the video on RA is good except that when you ended that you might be wrong, I am left thinking you are a moral relativist. Are you?

I think moral relativism is wrong simply because when we apply the statement: “Truth is relative.” to the statement itself, it self-destruct.

Your statement makes sense only in the largest sense of things, that being, we are always at the tragic state of knowing anything at the deepest possible level.

Please clarify. By the way, how old are you? You look young. :-)

some quotes form your post above:
“I do think there are ethics(or an ‘ethical world’* in my metaphor)”
“I think with science as with ethics the job’s the same: there is something here, let’s try to figure out how it works.”

I am not sure what you are saying about “moral realism” anymore. Either moral terms are meaningful and refer to the world, or do not. It sounds like you are arguing both ways.

If there is a “human nature” as defined by culture or DNA or something that really doesn’t give ethics a foundation per se. Further if we can “draw our own conclusions” how is it not just moral relativism. Maybe i draw the conclusion that you don’t have a right to life because you aren’t related to me. By what rights can you argue, it’s my moral experience!

if we “only have our experiences in the ‘ethical world’ and the words of others” as you put it. However that still jumps the is/ought distinction at best, and at worst begs what the foundation of that moral world is.

All I was getting at is science says hey, there’s a world here, let’s try to figure out in as much detail as we can how it works. The fact that we can act in the same world makes this study quite precise.
Likewise I’m saying I do think there are ethics(or an ‘ethical world’* in my metaphor). It’s a lot harder to figure out with no shared world to point at and say ‘that’ is what i mean**. Because of this it is nowhere near as precise as science, and we need to take anything we get from it with a larger grain of salt.
We only have our personal experiences in the ‘ethical world’ and the words others use to describe their experiences. But this doesn’t free us from trying to figure out what’s happening. We can make progress with the tools at our disposal, and I think have made progress(for the most part). I think we are ethically required to strive for such progress.

I think with science as with ethics the job’s the same: there is something here, let’s try to figure out how it works. To do this we need to use induction rather than deduction, because anything we believe could be wrong, even more in the ethical world than the physical.

*By ethical world I mean such things as empathy, sympathy, fairness, altruism etc
** While there’s no world to point at, I think the ethical world we try to feel out as humans is largely the same(barring significant mental disorders etc), and it’s got its origins in human genes and the cultures which human genes created. We just experience some different parts of that ethical world, draw our own conclusions about what we experienced, and thus give rise to the differences of opinions we have about what is or isn’t ethical.

With regards to the scientific method and ethics. Science is based upon an empirical foundation, ethics not so much. You mention something like this with regards to the way we can justify science through result repetition and coherence. Ethics however has NO “result” to replicate, nor coherence standard unless we assume a standard prior to our actions.

What I have in mind here is that if you want to say that ethics is “working” you must mean that it is getting some desired reaction. Something like a Millian maximization of utility etc. However, that isn’t actually resting ethical claims on a sort of falsifiable method, but rather their effacacy in achieving a “ultimate standard.” seeing as how that standard is the thing at issue this at best railroading toward begging the entire matter.

You and Al mention things like empathy, altruism, etc. However, my entire point is that you are assuming those are good, then saying we can approximate them with science. However morality isn’t necessarily “readily apparent” to everyone, as evidenced by some people thing it’s OK to marry 12 year old girls etc. We DO have moral disagreement, even on fundamental matters such as the foundation of morality (happiness,rights, etc.)

As such I once again ask, why accept anything other than moral relativism (other than the fact that it is a joke?)

As a side note with regards to making claims about the real world in philosophy. Logic, yeah, it has to be true, and that’s a claim about the real world. Also the Frege-Russel program showed that math is true about the “real world” using philosophy… but who’s counting.

Another side note. Desmond from lost played Jesus in a movie… WTF?!?!