Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
OK, I was a bit confused by the fact that you used the statement in a reply to me. We’re easily confused, Jock and I …
NYT article on Donald Knuth (paywalled):
If you claim to know about computers, but do not know who Knuth is, then shame on you.
I still have no idea what you mean by “objectivity”. You say it’s a “desirable goal,” and that it would be “useful for politicians” and that it “starts with social behavior” but what is it?
Incidentally, you actually DID suggest it was complete consensus in an earlier post, but if you now indicate that you don’t think that it is that, fine. But you need to tell us what you think it is.
Thanks.
Here’s what I wonder — could a young budding Donald Knuth even get tenure in today’s world?
I think we put too much value on narrow specialization, and we fail to adequately value the “big picture” people such as Knuth.
I have no idea what qualifies someone for tenure in the field of computer science. But there are a helluva lot of papers listed in his CV on what seems to be applied mathematics, including applying it to analysis of algorithms, of course.
A noun that I don’t use much, if at all. The adjective “objective” has a clear meaning to me. Bruce linked to something regarding scientific objectivity that makes complete sense to me.
I’d mention again that objectivity involves ascertaining facts – aspects of reality that can be measured and confirmed. The dating of the Turin Shroud comes to mind. Samples were supplied to several highly-credentialed labs for carbon dating; the results were similar. I’d say that was an exercise in objectivity. Was the result not also a consensus?
Consensus and objectivity are related in my view. It would be difficult to arrive at a consensus on climate change without an objective look at the data.
OK, that’s helpful. (But where did Bruce write that and what’s the link?) According to the product version, (roughly) something is objective if it is true. According to the process version, something is objective if it follows scientific procedures.
The obvious problem with that (and maybe the author of the excerpt discusses it) is that it seems pretty clear that something could be objective 1 but not be derived from objectivity 2 and something could be derived from objectivity 2 and not be objective 1. So when one says, e.g., moral or prudential statements are not objective, if one means they don’t derive from objectivity 2 (scientific procedures), that’s kind of ho-hum, nobody (except maybe Spencer and that type) ever suggested they did. I think those who deny the objectivity of such statements definitely mean more than THAT. If you don’t, that’s fine….but….ho-hum.
You don’t read all my posts? I am hurt.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/
Yes, but I think that is the whole point of separating the two. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
I read the author as saying science must be process objective but that product objectivity involves the separate question of the correctness of scientific realism. And I think that is precisely the case: the two questions are separate issues.
For example, ethics could be process objective but without any need for an ontology (seems I have run across on idea possibly on those lines somewhere else…).
And of course people like van Fraassen think science can be process objective without any need to commit to the truth of scientific statements about unobservables. And Quantum Bayesianists go further to say quantum entities do not exist, but without impugning the process objectivity of quantum science.
Thanks for reposting that. I have looked at that article before, I didn’t realize that was from the SEP: just forgot.
Well, that science is process objective is true by definition here (so ho-hum). And claims that product objectivity cannot include moral truths depend not only on the truth of scientific realism but on there being no true statements that aren’t reducible to scientific statements. But those who think that there are objective moral truths need not (and generally won’t) agree with that.
What can I say? What you find soporific, I find interesting.
Maybe that is why I have trouble sleeping and am awake way to early. Or maybe I just like Bachman Turner Overdrive (lyrics under show more).
Far, far from your musical tastes, I suspect (going by your CD).
Good, because there are no moral truths in my humble opinion.
You find it interesting that it follows from
“X”=df. red thing
that
All Xs are red
Well, OK, if you say so.
Because you think there are no moral truths it’s good that those who think that there are objective moral truths don’t believe that every truth is empirical? Why is that?
Don’t know what that means.
walto,
PS, maybe I should point out that “truth” is the problem.
I agree with you. But that’s what you said.
How is truth the problem? And what is it a problem for?
I don’t think it is a thing, really. Statements can have a level of accuracy but not be categorised as true or false. Language isn’t precise enough. I blame Zoroastrianism..
How do you link a youtube video so it shows here like in the “no comment” thread? It it possible to link a video in a post in the same way?
Rumraket,
I thought I said “there are no moral truths in my humble opinion”. And I said that because I don’t think “there are moral truths” is an accurate statement.
@ Rumraket. I just right-clicked on the selected video screen, copied the embed code and pasted into the above comment. Is that OK for what you need?
How about that one?
Look a little more closely.
I think it’s fairly accurate.
At?
Doesn’t seem to work?
Rumraket,
That might be due to difference in permissions. I’ll check.
Rumraket,
Yes it’s a permissions issue. I’ll have a look to see if I can change something. If you want me to edit in your video in the meantime, just PM me the embed code
What about people who think that objective moral truths are just empirical statements in a peculiar form? Just as “don’t touch the fire!” amounts to “if you were to touch the fire, you would get burned”, it’s tempting to think of moral prescriptions as subjunctives about what is harmful and beneficial. That could be cashed out in lots of different ways, and not all of them depend the simplistic empiricism that utilitarians assumed. For one thing, non-Aristotelian virtue ethicists like Epicurus, Spinoza, and Mencius could easily be interpreted as having a view like that.
🙂
My point is that virtue ethics gives us a way of thinking about objective moral truths that aren’t non-natural and don’t amount to anything authoritarian.
Yes, I don’t want to deny that some people do hold views like that–or that can be interpreted that way. I was just pointing out that a lot of philosophers since Hume have simply denied that ethical statements are empirical (including the guy in your name here)!
I don’t know much about virtue ethics–although I started a book by Richard Kraut I quite liked and that I’d like to go back to at some point. When I was teaching at Framingham State, that’s all the chairman of the dept taught. I asked him once if he discussed G.E. Moore or intuitionism generally, and he looked at me like I was crazy. Just virtue ethics in his classes. Period. And his students love him.
But not true.
And I take it your claim that it’s fairly accurate isn’t true either. (Ditto for the claim that it’s neither fairly accurate, completely accurate, fairly inaccurate nor false.) That seems a very far-fetched view to me.
And that it seems far-fetched to me seems to me to be true (not just kinda true, whatever that is)–whether it actually IS far-fetched or not.
Yes, Kant is a paradigm of someone who denies that ethical truths are empirical. But I think he was wrong about that (and much else besides). My own views are probably somewhere between Spinoza and Kant on a whole range of issues. I suppose — to be very sketchy about it all — I tend to think that a lot of what Spinoza says about the world could be re-conceptualized as high-level claims about the metaphysics of physics, and so (in Kantian terms) synthetic a posteriori, and that a lot of what Kant says about the mind could be re-conceptualized as cognitive science (hence also synthetic a posteriori). I think that very little is analytic — though I do endorse an analytic/synthetic distinction and an a priori/a posteriori distinction, suitably relativized and historicized in ways that would horrify Kant (but not C. I. Lewis, Sellars, or Foucault).
I think that virtue ethics is perfectly suited for undergrad education. Metaethics is interesting and all but I wouldn’t teach it at the undergrad level. I do think there’s an interesting question about what the meta-ethics would need to be in order for virtue ethics to work, and there are lots of folks who work on that, but when it comes to what works as effective undergrad pedagogy, my view is to stick to what grabs them where they’re at in their cognitive development.
Depends what “true” means. I reject the true/false dichotomy and suggest degrees of accuracy as a better description of how we grasp reality.
walto,
I deflected to musical tastes in my reply partly because I wanted to avoid another discussion of objective morality at TSZ and partly because I thought extended discussions should not be held in Sandbox.
But maybe hiding the discussion here will turn out to be an effective way to keep it limited to people who have studied the philosophy? Let’s see…
In any event, for me objective process is about charactering truth-seeking modes of inquiry, so as a general issue it’s probably more closely related to the fact/opinion thread than an objective morality thread.
ETA: I am aware that speaking about truth-seeking moral inquiry raises the issue of non-cognitivism. I think there is an interesting discussion of how process objectivity in moral inquiry might relate to that.
Assuming this was not a reply à la Mung*:
I think I said process objectivity would help with the demarcation problem by characterizing science. I guess that could be read as saying it is a necessary condition for scientific activity, and hence has to be part of any if and only if defintion of science.
But even assuming that science is a concept that must be defined with necessary and sufficient conditions,. I would still see my logic as going the other way: The set of conditions used to provide an iff definition for science must include process objectivity. Maybe a cultural relativist about science would object to that?
——————————-
* A response à la Mung is a breif, unlear quote or link meant for dramatic effect or ironic humor and not for serious reply. Or at least, that is how I define the phrase.
I was referring to the way in which YOU use (or at least said you used–you probably actually don’t) the word “true,” natch. You’ve said that, strictly speaking, nothing is true. I believed that you believe that. Of course, that was yesterday, so who knows now?
Anyhow, that position implies that your alleged beliefs–including that one–aren’t true themselves. It seems to me a bad position to be in. I recognize, however, that you’re quite comfortable sloshing around in those types of waters.
As I’ve said before, I think it would behoove you to have fewer theories.
Bruce, you wrote this:
If so, holding that science is objective2 can’t be too exciting–it’s been defined that way!. That sort of objectivity thus has to be a “necessary condition for science activity.” However, as I’ve said, although there are (at least) the exceptions KN mentions above. it is quite common for moral theorists not to care about moral claims not being subject to empirical verification (sciency). For them, the interesting question has to be how those claims fare wrt objectivity1.
But should we believe him? Does he actually conduct his life in a way that reflects his belief that nothing is true?
And of course, one has to wonder what is the purpose or meaning of making a statement that nothing is true if it’s not true.
All truths are moral because all truths ought to be believed.
That’s not correct. There are lots of “oughts” besides moral oughts.
But I did not say all oughts are moral oughts. What I said is that all truths are moral.
Your claim that all truths are moral because they ought to be believed relies on the premise that the ‘ought-ness’ of belief is a moral ought. And that’s what I’m questioning. Epistemic norms are a distinct species of norm, just as semantic and syntactic norms are.
All truths are moral because all truths ought to be believed( despite the fact all oughts not moral)
Exactly.
Like anyone, I’m entitled to change my mind in the light of new evidence or contrary opinion.
Indeed they are murky. I am still curious as to what you think “truth” is.
Just the one Mrs Wembley. I doubt there is a coherent concept called truth. I’m open to persuasion otherwise.
What does that mean? What is truth (to you)?
Well, indeed. Someone has to have ago at replacing religious authority with something, well, more sustainable.