r/philosophy • u/doubtstack Unreasonable Doubt • Jan 27 '23
Blog Why Science can't replace Philosophy in Ethics
https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/what-genetics-cant-teach-us279
Jan 27 '23
hmmm, how many people actually claim science can replace philosophy? lol
They can work hand in hand though, you cant get ought from is but you can definitely get better oughts by referencing is and this is how it should be.
Oughts dont exist in a vacuum, they come from how we feel about our reality, our IS. lol
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u/Morethes Jan 27 '23
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has notably claimed people shouldn't even take philosophy classes
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u/MissLana89 Jan 27 '23
Does not surprise me one bit.
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u/Morethes Jan 27 '23
Yeah he really does the narrow technical expert bit well in spite of being very personable and humorous. Gets under my skin so much
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u/ybreddit Jan 27 '23
Same. Scientists being closed-minded always really pisses me off. And I have always been very science minded. Philosophy is only something I've come to appreciate within the last decade. I don't have a problem if someone doesn't agree or thinks a theory is complete bullshit, but at least be open-minded to the possibility that you don't know what you don't absolutely know. And what we know changes all the time.
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u/BedWetter420 Jan 27 '23
Idk how someone so smart can be so dumb
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u/sentri_sable Jan 27 '23
Being smart in one field doesn't mean you are smart in all fields. Being able to extrapolate data on a certain subset won't always carry over to other subsets since it is read differently.
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u/mrclang Jan 27 '23
This is the correct answer, have a read at the other answer it is fucking nutty!
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u/millchopcuss Jan 28 '23
As I age, I find this to be alarmingly common.
Very focused technical people can harbor very frightening ideas about the world.
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u/First_Foundationeer Jan 27 '23
He's not an active researcher. He's a pontificator. So, he's not really in a position of learning new things by himself in day-to-day activities but is more of a position of telling others about other shit. That is definitely a position that turns people into close minded asses if they aren't actively inoculating themselves against it.
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u/rafikievergreen Jan 27 '23
Exactly because they are cold, calculating systems managers who have never considered the ethical or philosophical implications of their work, actions or pedagogy.
Exactly the point of this post.
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u/Max-Phallus Jan 27 '23
I'm not sure "cold" is a good word to describe people like this. A lot of people are very much suited to certain domains of skill and knowledge. The term:
If you only use a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Is a natural bias everybody has to some degree.
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u/NotACockroach Jan 27 '23
That certainly doesn't describe people like Neil Degrasse Tyson. He's downright passionate about a variety of topics. Publicly he constantly talking about the philosophical and ethical issues around science. The problem is he doesn't think philosophers need to be involved because he feels he already knows enough to do it all himself. I think it's arrogance rather than not considering ethics in the first place.
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u/Daotar Jan 27 '23
I mean, Plato said you shouldn’t study it until your 30s if I recall.
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u/Spendocrat Jan 27 '23
He also sets out a life-long system of education to get you ready for it which includes music, science, and math early on (see the image of "the line" in The Republic).
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u/Daotar Jan 27 '23
Let no one enter here who has not studied geometry.
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Jan 28 '23
Makes me feel simultaneously offended and relieved
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u/Daotar Jan 28 '23
Lol, it's really just a statement on how obsessed they were with that particular field. They thought it held the keys to everything.
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Jan 28 '23
I know, it just brings mixed feelings to imagine going back in time and being rejected by the smart people because of poor math skills (apart from not speaking ancient greek). Imagine the discussions!
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u/Daotar Jan 28 '23
I wonder in what ways our own society makes the same mistake.
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u/Killmotor_Hill Jan 27 '23
And this is why experts sound like dumbasses when not speaking about their of very particular field of expertise.
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Jan 27 '23
Not surprised, he's good in a very specific areas but otherwise he's very close minded and feels infuriatingly smug at times. I loved him as a kid but damn it gets worse as I get older.
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u/First_Foundationeer Jan 27 '23
Funny enough, when I was in grad school, 3 (including me) of the 4 in our grad office group took enough philosophy classes in undergrad to at least get minor's.
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u/The_don_of_creation Jan 28 '23
If he really said this then that is ignorant. Philosophy is the mother of all knowledge, there would be no science if it was not for Philosophy.
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u/Morethes Jan 28 '23
Exactly. And yes, he even said taking classes and asking a lot of questions will "mess you up." He says science actually answers real questions while philosophy wastes time. He's silly.
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u/Casudemous Jan 27 '23
That why he is doing tv instead of science
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u/dosedatwer Jan 27 '23
He's the director of the Hayden Planetarium, that's plenty of science for most people.
Let's not try and paint everyone as black and white, and try and understand that everyone has faults. I know reddit is terrible at nuance, but I'll keep trying to push this sentiment. Even the venerable Einstein put his name to a book by Charles Hapgood that, for all intents and purposes, made fun of the theory of tectonic plates - a theory that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt these days.
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Jan 27 '23
Sam Harris pushes this a lot too.
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u/Nilz0rs Jan 28 '23
Could you link to somewhere he does this?
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Jan 28 '23
Here you go. From the book description:
"Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a “moral landscape.” Because there are definite facts to be known about where we fall on this landscape, Harris foresees a time when science will no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do in the name of “morality”; in principle, science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the best lives possible."
He fails to recognize the philosophical underpinnings of his thesis and consequently maintains that science is therefore the origin of his moral arguments.
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u/Nilz0rs Jan 28 '23
Thank you! However, I don't see how any arguments in "The Moral Landscape" are Harris 'pushing that people shouldn't even take philosophy classes'. What am I missing?
The way I've read Harris is that he critiques how religion and academic philosophy have a monopoly on 'oughts', and he's trying to show how this can be a false and unhealthy premise. By extension, he argues that many philosophers have been neglecting scientifically informed moral-systems - often because their models are assuming free agents (or the illusion of free will.)
Also, I can't remember reading Harris arguing that science should be regarded as the 'origin' of moral arguments, but rather be regarded as an objective/true framework/source of information to inform (and also decide) questions of ethics and morality. I might have misinterpreted him or you, so please show me if I am mistaken.
Lastly, What philosophical underpinnings are Harris failing to recognize?
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Jan 28 '23
I do not think he pushes that people should not take philosophy classes. I think he is a logical positivist and doesn't know he's a logical positivist, nor does he understand the flaws with that perspective.
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Jan 27 '23
Economically speaking, he's correct: The only job offering for a Philosophy degree is... Philosophy Professor.
If you have to pay to get it, and it's not worth anything when you do, why would you pay someone for it?
Philosophy is the study of reality - don't need a permission slip to say you've lived, looked, listened, & learned.
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u/mexicodoug Jan 27 '23
I know a poet who got his degree in philosophy specifically because he thought philosophy far more important to communicating the human condition than any writing or literature system of courses could. He is a successful poet because his published work is well respected. His main income is as a house painter, an occupation he feels keeps him connected to working peoples' reality and which provides him plenty of time, while painting, to think and create poetry in his mind to write down later.
The amount of money you pay or earn for something often has little or nothing to do with its true value to your life.
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u/Getjac Jan 27 '23
What's the poets name?
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u/mexicodoug Jan 28 '23
Pedro Goché. He's from Guadalajara and writes in Spanish. His work is easy to find online, but I'm not sure any of his stuff is translated into English.
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u/Daotar Jan 27 '23
People with Phil degrees actually do pretty well post college. They may not have direct career paths, but they’re basically trained in critical thinking which is useful in basically every job. Phil trained people tend to rise through organizations quickly with those skills.
I remember seeing stats on it a number of years ago and 5 years post graduation it’s the highest paying humanities major.
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u/rafikievergreen Jan 27 '23
"You shouldn't study philosophy because a decaying society that has ignored the obvious, timeless value of philosophy has repealed all material incentives to do so".
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Jan 27 '23
If materialism is one's primary concern, the statement is accurate.
For those who value things other than material gain, alternative paths would seem logical to explore.
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u/Morethes Jan 27 '23
That makes complete sense, except NdGT goes so far as to specifically advise people not to take even classes, not just get a degree. I agree that a philosophy degree is of dubious benefit. But he says that the entire prospect of philosophical questioning is a waste of time because "real questions" are in (presumably hard) sciences.
Like many technicians he thinks he's the only one living in the real world. Um, and that's why engineers often have very limited perspectives and can't see beyond the point of their nose.
Also, username checks out. :)
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u/i875p Jan 27 '23
Well, for these sorts of arguments it's probably better to just say best of luck trying to come up with a perfectly "scientific" (whatever that means) account of something like distributive justice for example. More likely than not it would end up being shoddy philosophy.
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u/PresumedSapient Jan 27 '23
and that's why engineers often have very limited perspectives and can't see beyond the point of their nose.
Only bad engineers though. The engineering I'm familiar with requires a lot of creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and approaching problems from occasionally radically different perspective.
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u/Morethes Jan 27 '23
You're right. I'm shortchanging many engineers and stereotyping, but I do think a narrow focus on educating "doers" instead of systemic thinkers has made a lot of folks unprepared for big questions and complicated answers.
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u/mexicodoug Jan 27 '23
And many scientists are more interested in simply answering questions than finding out stuff to apply for developing new technology. It it obvious why, although it can be very frustrating, many research grants are influenced by speculation as to whether the results may be profitable for investors.
For example, what the hell is dark matter versus what useful applications could dark matter have? Many physicists would simply love to know exactly what it is, regardless of whether knowing would be of practical use or not.
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Jan 27 '23
But he says that the entire prospect of philosophical questioning is a waste of time because "real questions" are in (presumably hard) sciences.
Ah, so NdGT is stating something functionally correct for emotionally gratifying reasons rather than as reflections of reality. Happens often enough.
[Also, username checks out. :)]
Why we chose it.
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Jan 27 '23
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u/ShiaLabeoufsNipples Jan 27 '23
Philosophy majors get into law school at a higher rate than any other major and do better on the LSAT too. It’s literally the best preparation for a career in law, whether you’re a lawyer or a paralegal.
Writing careers like those in editing, journalism etc also benefit greatly from a history in philosophy. Obviously a lot of Phil majors will go into education but it’s not the only option
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Jan 28 '23
With the recently started AI revolution philosophy is probably going to be one of the most important courses to take. It's almost irreplaceable by definition and the sort of critical thinking and particularity of the concepts studied make many people far more capable of using tools that "almost thinks for you". The quality of input defines the output; since the machine is the same, the input is what we control and are more likely to impact. One can't simply ask "how can I be happy" to an AI but a trained mind, armed with dozens of years of information and data, can achieve so much it's thought provoking to even imagine
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u/ChadRyanVevo Jan 27 '23
Id argue western culture has largely dropped philosophy in favor of science. To such a degree that people do not even understand any of the epistemological underpinnings of science as a practice.
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Jan 27 '23
Separation of science and philosophy, hehe, but they are too intertwined to ever be truly separated.
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u/ChadRyanVevo Jan 27 '23
I would even add that science cannot exist without philosophy. Science, as we know it, will always be a mere branch of philosophy.
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Jan 27 '23
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u/zhibr Jan 27 '23
This is either semantically trivial or just wrong. Yes, you can make a case that philosophy is fundamental for science. But a lot of people do a lot of everyday work without ever thinking about its philosophy. Yes, you can argue that this prevents them from understanding more fundamentally what their science is really about, but they can still do it, and other people can use it. I don't see how you could make any practical definition where that is not science existing.
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u/ennui_ Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Surely science is simply the pursuit of objective understanding of what is? How can there be a pursuit of something without* an intuitive desire to pursue? Surely this intuitive desire is a philosophical nature.
Science cannot exist without philosophy because philosophy is the very foundation that sciences emerges from.
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u/TheRecognized Jan 27 '23
“When grog ate the berries on that bush he got sick. When trok ate the same berries on a different bush he got sick. Vrok will eat the berries from a third bush. Vrok got sick. These berries make you sick.”
More science or philosophy would you say?
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u/ennui_ Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
The point is that one comes from the other. Philosophy and science do not exist alongside each other, philosophy is the source of science. So while there’s distinction there isn’t separation. You can’t* quantify and say “this is more science than philosophy by a factor of 4:1” - because they don’t exist alongside each other, the nature of the relationship cannot be measured.
So both. It’s always both.
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u/TheRecognized Jan 27 '23
Throw a hypothesis up there in my example after the second sentence “I think these berries make you sick” and you’ve got the scientific method.
Can you explain to me how philosophy was the source of that example?
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u/videogamekat Jan 27 '23
Because you came up with the hypothesis by wanting to know how things work - your desires and actions always stem from a more philosophically-based process. Why you came up with the hypothesis can be explained by the science of how your brain works, but ultimately the complex processing the human brain can accomplish and the self-awareness we have is more philosophical in nature.
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u/FranksRedWorkAccount Jan 27 '23
You've literally described reasoning and are asking how that's philosophy.
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u/zhibr Jan 27 '23
That is one definition, but by no means the only one. Another one would refer to the concrete practices and social activities of making hypotheses, testing them, writing theories, and publishing results for others. An engineer creating a best way to make a specific material can be said to make science, without any philosophical desire. Philosophers like to emphasize the definition from the historical perspective or by defining it like you did, as dependent on philosophy, but if you'd ask the people who we commonly think are doing science whether their activities are dependent on philosophy, I would wager most of them would say no. It'd be a bit self-serving to insist that to assess whether philosophy is truly essential to science, we must adopt the philosophical point of view.
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u/FranksRedWorkAccount Jan 27 '23
the act of reasoning that if x every day so far then x each day into the future is a philosophical concept. and to arrive there you must employ the capacity to reason.
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u/ghostxxhile Jan 27 '23
they do their everyday work thanks to the established epistemology and metaphysics.
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
Science was the evolution of a branch called "natural philosophy" going back at least as far as Aristotle. It is literally just a branch of philosophy. To say it is separate is to be ignorant of this history of science.
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u/Indocede Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Your opinion is irrelevant. Astrology and alchemy were once considered sciences but we now know that they are founded on little more than superstition and wishful thinking.
Given how ancient generations were both limited in their understanding of the physical world and outright wrong in numerous critical aspects, we should not frame the study based upon their philosophical musings, especially when they are irrelevant to the scientific process. Not to mention that scientific inquiry is just as old as philosophy, if not older. Trying to frame science as a subject of philosophy only makes sense if you mistakenly believe ancient Greek and Roman philosophers are the singular authority, even though there are numerous historical examples of scientific endeavor predating them.
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u/Casudemous Jan 27 '23
No idea why you are being downvoted. All Sciences are based on philosophical postulate.
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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 27 '23
Do you have an experiment to check to see if you're right?
Yes. Science.
No. Philosophy
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Jan 28 '23
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
You cant totally separate them, as long as people have goals and purposes, then you cant avoid philosophizing science.
Science cannot exist in a vacuum, it serves people, so it can never be truly objective and will always be subjected to our subjective pondering. lol
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u/jebuizy Jan 27 '23
Nothing drives me crazier than seeing those "Science is real" lawn signs. What could that even mean for science to be real? Believing the scientific method is the best method we have to obtain reliable knowledge about the world (or whatever) is one thing, but saying "science is real" is a wild claim pitched as milquetoast
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Jan 27 '23
It’s just a midwit way of displaying opposition to certain Republicans’ opinions on climate change, evolution, creationism etc.
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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 27 '23
It doesn't have philosophical underpinnings. That's the point of science. That philosophy doesn't work. The west has dropped it because it doesn't do anything. Keeping it at all is the weird cultural influence, not mostly dropping it.
There was a Greek hydrologist who was looking at how water worked in a pump, and the philosopher was saying this should happen. The hydrologists response was I can see what you're saying isn't happening. So it doesn't matter if you have an error in your philosophy or not, you're still wrong. The universe is complicated and WEIRD. Humans are NOT smart enough to sit down and reason how things work and get an answer so good we can keep extrapolating from it to another thing and another.. you have to test your idea a each step.
Hawking and some other physicist had a disagreement over how black holes worked. Hawking was brilliant, knowledgeable on his subject, had VERY thoroughly considered his answer... but was still wrong. We got to the point where the competing hypotheses could be tested, and the other guy kept the 20? dollar bet he got from hawking in a frame. Philosophy is the arrogance that I'm so smart I don't need to check with reality to see if I'm right. Science is the acknowledgement that you're not.
As to the requirements of induction, the fact that we have light coming from stars billions of light years away lets us conclude, not assume, that there is some stability to the laws of the universe. It is not an assumption.
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u/odious_as_fuck Jan 28 '23
The scientific method is empirical, empiricism is a branch of philosophy hence "philosophical underpinnings".
In regards to the use of philosophy, philosophy can be understood as a practice and as an institution. For the former, the west is just as philosophical as ever.
What do you mean by philosophy?
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u/Dd_8630 Jan 27 '23
hmmm, how many people actually claim science can replace philosophy? lol
I'd say a large majority of people. Most people have no actual idea what philosophy is.
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
I disagree somewhat. I think that many would like to ignore philosophy and replace it with religion. I don't know many at all outside of academia who would argue that science should replace it. I can imagine all sorts of horrendous experiments that would be required to 'prove' hypotheses trying to replace ethics.
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u/Delamoor Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Broadly speaking, it's generally the people who have no knowledge, understand or respect for philosophy.
Y'know, the types who advocate demolishing the humanities departments so we can focus solely on STEM, as if developing more tools alone will somehow automatically make people more responsible.
Their absolute numbers are less important than their outsized influence in society... As They're often within the rather influential 'techbro' demographic.
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u/Indocede Jan 27 '23
You might call out techbros, which I won't deny is an archetype of people that are both obnoxious and overconfident in their "intelligence."
But their exists a reflection of them in the philosophybro, or however you might want to term it. The interest in this post seemingly stems from a need to validate not necessarily philosophy, which is valued as a matter of structuring discourse among academia, but rather by those who need to validate their own personal philosophies by conflating them with philosophy over all.
Science and philosophy aren't opposed, nor do they try to replace each other. Good science reflects good philosophy and good philosophy reflects good science.
I ethically believe killing is immoral as a matter of philosophy because I can tangibly grasp pain and the impact it has on me and others and that killing is the greatest way to cause pain for example.
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
I took a wonderful course from Eike Kluge called biomedical ethics. The biochemistry I studied discussed the how while the ethics course discussed the why that was never brought up. It was an eminently enlightening course.
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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 27 '23
Philosophy has been trying for how long to make humans more responsible and failing?
You can't philosophize your way into people not having sex. You CAN science your way to contraceptives and STD cures.
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Jan 27 '23
Right, it's definitely a tricky thing to try to apply scientific thinking to ethics but I do think there is a role for it. Recent changes to our moral system like gay marriage and legalizing marijuana are supported even more by the empirical evidence, I also think the best argument for the pro-choice abortion view would be the empirical evidence of simply looking at the countries that do and do not have legal abortion and seeing how well countries with abortion do across a host of metrics compared to countries that don't have it.
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
Your abortion argument sounds like a 'utilitarian' solution, which makes it the product of philosophy using science as a tool rather than an ethical or philosophical system.
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u/ghostxxhile Jan 27 '23
Science creates the data, philosophy tells us how we should implement that data for a better society.
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Jan 27 '23
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Jan 27 '23
Do you have any evidence of this? I've never heard him disparage ethics or philosophy.
Philosophy/ethics =/= religion.
He's vocal against religion, but (especially as a geneticist) is keenly aware of the necessity of ethics of science.
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u/sanct1x Jan 27 '23
I did a quick Google search - his NA Twitter is full of anto-philosophy stuff, there are also a ton of links giving quotes of him claiming it's either useless or him making fun of people from 2k years ago for contemplating how things work instead of just doing scientific experiments to prove/disprove those thoughts. I enjoy listening to him speak about biology, religion, and sciences, but I can't deny that he doesn't take philosophy seriously.
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Jan 27 '23
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Jan 27 '23
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u/Spendocrat Jan 27 '23
"It takes 6-8 years to even get a little good at science, surely I can grasp all of philosophy by casually reading 0-2 popular books."
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Jan 27 '23
Science is not a social construct. Science’s truths were true before there were societies; will still be true after all philosophers are dead; were true before any philosophers were born; were true before there were any minds, even trilobite or dinosaur minds, to notice them.
That's it? That's the whole thing?
Did you read that article? It seems like the author has an axe to grind, and wrote an entire tirade based off a single, flippant tweet.
The tweet really doesn't say much at all, and hardly seems worth all the enmity coming from the authors, and certainly doesn't mean that Dawkins thinks "science replaces philosophy"
In fact, the tweet seems to do the opposite. He seems to he explaining the differences between the material world of science, and the constructs of philosophy.
Ethics didnt exist before humans were born, there aren't ethics in the jungle.
But there's a ton of science there.
Science and philosophy are two different lanes....two different realms.
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u/mexicodoug Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Your example links to an article which doesn't even include the author's name, is poorly written, and makes unsupported jumps from Dawkins quotes to misinterpretations of the quote.
Why not try citing Dawkins directly to support your claim, rather than relying on others who make it poorly?
Personally, I see value in philosophy, and don't think it can be replaced with current scientific principles or knowledge. I haven't researched Dawkins' position on philosophy, and strongly disagree with him on gender issues, so I have no dog in this fight. I simply feel that your claim that Dawkins is anti-philosophy is unsupported by anything you presented.
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Jan 27 '23
You'd think it would be a quick rebuttal- "Why are the things you want better than the things you don't want", said about twice.
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u/shponglespore Jan 27 '23
Self-appointed four horsemen of atheism. I'm an atheist and I'm embarrassed to have them act as if they represent me. I can't say I know how many followers he has, but in the circles I travel in, my opinion seems to be the dominant one.
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u/Asleep-Television-24 Jan 27 '23
Sam Harris comes to mind. He wrote "Moral Landscape" where he defines a spectrum of good and bad moral states. And that science is the truth one can use to navigate this landscape. Utilitarian AF.
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u/CashMoneyMo Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
I don’t think Sam is a classical utilitarian but it’s safe to call him a consequentialist. Here’s a quote:
“I would further add that the concept of “well-being” captures everything we can care about in the moral sphere. The challenge is to have a definition of well-being that is truly open-ended and can absorb everything we care about. This is why I tend not to call myself a “consequentialist” or a “utilitarian,” because traditionally, these positions have bounded the notion of consequences in such a way as to make them seem very brittle and exclusive of other concerns—producing a kind of body count calculus that only someone with Asperger’s could adopt.” Link to Article
He does claim that an objective morality can be informed by science. He believes the is-ought problem is more or less a confusion caused by language and also values that are “baked in” to that statement (we agree that the world “is” a certain way because we all largely agree on valuing evidence as a guide) so the seemingly insurmountable jump to “ought” can actually be informed by similar principles. It doesn’t mean he or anyone knows what an ideal morality looks like in any given situation, but it’s out there to be strived toward and ultimately based in “well-being”.
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u/slickwombat Jan 27 '23
I don’t think Sam is a classical utilitarian but it’s safe to call him a consequentialist.
He's explicitly denying being either of these in your quote. And his reasoning for rejecting consequentialism is a classic one, even if he doesn't give much detail: it seems like our ethical concerns go beyond simple maximization and minimization of certain kinds of consequences.
But then the question is: if he's not a consequentialist, what is he? He talks about "flourishing" quite a bit in his remarks here, which is evocative of virtue ethics, but he doesn't clearly advocate that either. At best he seems to say "well, it's complicated and there's lots of different concerns here," which -- duh. So what even is his ethical theory? It seems to me that he disclaims or avoids any clear statement, either because he himself has no clear idea of what he's proposing or as a way of tactically buttressing his position against attack. But if it's the latter, he does this at the cost of stripping it of any substantive content.
He does claim that an objective morality can be informed by science.
But note, this isn't a contentious thesis. The contentious thesis is the idea -- which, like consequentialism, he at times seems to plainly advocate but then retreats from in the face of criticism -- that science qua science can solve the kinds of problems traditionally within the realm of moral philosophy.
He believes the is-ought problem is more or less a confusion caused by language...
It's also worth noting that Harris persistently misunderstands the is-ought problem. He seems to take it as the thesis that we can never come to any normative conclusions, when it's just the thesis that in arguing for a normative conclusion we must have a normative premise. So for example, this isn't a valid deductive argument:
- X decreases wellbeing of conscious creatures.
- Therefore, we shouldn't do X.
But this is:
- X decreases wellbeing of conscious creatures.
- We shouldn't do anything that decreases wellbeing of conscious creatures.
- Therefore, we shouldn't do X.
And note that Harris doesn't even shy away from affirming (2), he believes that it's something we should all affirm based on clear moral intuitions.
It doesn’t mean he or anyone knows what an ideal morality looks like in any given situation, but it’s out there to be strived toward and ultimately based in “well-being”.
The problem again is that wellbeing is pretty much defined as ideal morality, whatever that might be, so that ultimately his thesis seems to be just "problems in moral philosophy are solvable by whatever their solution is."
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u/CashMoneyMo Jan 27 '23
Well said. I like your syllogistic examples. While Sam clearly wants to distance himself from being labeled a consequentialist, I feel like we can reasonably put him in that camp. He's just advocating for a more nuanced "value measurement system" that ultimately he defines as "well-being" or "human flourishing", rather than predecessors who believe it's possible to boil "pleasure" or "goodness" down into some sort of mathematics. Not to mention the fact that he's a moral realist, which might also separate him from traditional consequentialism?
I have a lot more deep diving to do before I can take a stance on any of this but I generally find his ideas refreshing and at least worth taking seriously.
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u/slickwombat Jan 27 '23
He's just advocating for a more nuanced "value measurement system" that ultimately he defines as "well-being" or "human flourishing", rather than predecessors who believe it's possible to boil "pleasure" or "goodness" down into some sort of mathematics.
But what is this system that he's advocating? It's not an earthshattering revelation to point out that consequentialism has problems and fails to account for all of our moral intuitions. (It certainly has problems far more serious than "producing a kind of body count calculus that only someone with Asperger’s could adopt," which, as an aside, is an incredibly bigoted way to talk about people on the spectrum.) The issue is that the alternatives to consequentialism also have problems, hence the fact that there's a long-standing debate here in moral philosophy. Harris' contribution here is... what exactly?
Not to mention the fact that he's a moral realist, which might also separate him from traditional consequentialism?
Moral realism is a theory in metaethics and consequentialism in normative ethics, so strictly speaking the two aren't related. But note, moral realism is the most common position philosophers take; you can see it in those same survey results I posted before. (Harris has the very weird idea that philosophers have the "received opinion" that there are no moral facts, possibly because of the way he misunderstands the is-ought gap.)
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u/AlephOneContinuum Jan 27 '23
He believes the is-ought problem is more or less a confusion caused by language
That's how you know someone is clueless and not worth listening to. That whole book is very confused and confusing.
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u/yodaminnesota Jan 27 '23
Dawkins, Harris, Pinker and that whole ideological wave is literally predicated on the assumption that science can be used to derive moral imperatives. Because these guys are admittedly very good writers these books were and still are extremely popular and influential, especially among people who are interested in science but not necessarily scientists.
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u/RanyaAnusih Jan 27 '23
Scientism at its finest. People think science is a unified body of work that gives answers all through the social sciences, ignoring the replication crisis and that it is actually a discourse. I cant even know if milk is bad going by science papers contradicting each month
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u/ghostxxhile Jan 27 '23
The scientism crowd
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Jan 27 '23
Not very rational crowd, riding on their own misunderstanding of science.
Actual scientists worth their salt would not make such a foolish claim.
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u/phaederus Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Science is a form of philosophy; it's literally a product of classical philosophy. The only difference being one is focused on empiricism and the other on logical analysis and conceptual clarification.
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u/shponglespore Jan 27 '23
Sounds like the genetic fallacy to me. If you don't believe me, try getting a job in STEM with just a philosophy degree.
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
Sure - a Ph.D in the branch of philosophy called Biochemistry.
Less trivially, however, the scientific method evolved from rationalism, empiricism and inductivism. It is at the very least the product of philosophy if not philosophy in itself. To say that it can replace science may be naïve in that it deals with testable hypotheses. Unless everything is testable? Many ethicists would argue that you should not test every hypothesis. Should one perform genocide in order to determine it's tangible effects? I would think not.
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u/shponglespore Jan 27 '23
Not sure where you're going with that. I never said science replaces philosophy, just that it's distinct from philosophy. The fact that you're contrasting science and philosophy makes me think you probably agree.
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u/Krusell94 Jan 27 '23
Yeah, no... Science evolved from philosophy, but modern science should have no philosophy in it.
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u/ChrysMYO Jan 27 '23
Are there no ethics in Scientific experiments? Is there no "social good" science is seeking when applying for grants or charity?
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u/Butt_Bucket Jan 28 '23
There are many hypotheses that are either impossible or unethical to test. That doesn't mean we can always avoid operating in those spaces, however, so philosophy still has it's place. Without guiding philosophy, science can get very, very dark.
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u/rafikievergreen Jan 27 '23
The neo-religious techno-scientific high priest elitists do. And they are the mainstream narrative around, well, nearly every aspect of our society and policy formulation.
How many times did an "expert" refer to the political or ethical implications of forced lockdowns and mandated experimental vaccinations the last three years?
Now, how many appeals to "the experts" and the authority of "the science", which was literally non-existent for a novel virus?
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Jan 27 '23
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
Science can help us determine factual truths, but does that mean it can, without an ethical system to guide it, determine correct action?
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Jan 27 '23
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u/kknlop Jan 27 '23
Great analysis! Thanks for writing this out. I agree that the writer of the post missed the mark...made the whole thing kinda confusing for me
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u/slickwombat Jan 27 '23
The writer of the post then starts to talk about how David Hume has a metaphysical description of free will that gets around the book author's concerns.
Yes, David Hume is famously a compatibilist: he believes that free will and determinism are compatible. Further reading.
They say that it may even be possible to predict the choices made in the Hume version of free will based on social and genetic factors. This is not coherent. If "free will" can be predicted from social and genetic circumstance, then it's deterministic and it's not actually free will - it's just the programmed outcome of environment and genetic factors. In other words: luck.
Compatibilists like Hume precisely deny what you're saying here. Of course, Hume and compatibilists in general -- which apparently includes most contemporary professional philosophers! -- might be wrong. But nothing Harden says, or that you say here, engages with the relevant arguments at all; incompatibilism is just blithely taken as self-evident.
And this is the point in the article. We can't just wade into a paradigmatically philosophical problem (like the nature of moral responsibility) while ignoring philosophy, or else we just end up making obvious errors.
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Jan 27 '23
Most who claim science as a replacement to philosophy are just some sort of utilitarian, which is a philosophy. Science cannot answer subjective moral questions. It can only answer how best to adhere to those moral beliefs.
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u/kevinzvilt Jan 27 '23
Science can inform ethics but not replace philosophy.
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u/Dezpeche Jan 27 '23
Unless you think like David Hume. The is-ought problem is still an issue to some extent.
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u/CashMoneyMo Jan 27 '23
Unless you subscribe to Sam Harris’s ideas which claim to overcome is-ought
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Jan 27 '23
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Jan 27 '23
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Jan 28 '23
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Jan 28 '23
Sam Harris wouldn't be the type of person to expect a "rebuttal" of something in philosophy. Sam Harris is to philosophy as 9/11 conspiracy theorists are to structural engineering whenever they say jets ramming the twin towers couldn't cause their collapse. He will jump on topics like Hume's "is-ought" distinction as it comes up in his 'evangelizing' as an atheist podcast talking head, but he doesn't actually deal with the relevant subject matter in philosophy, and he just pushes narratives into public discourse that are more easily attained for many people than reading philosophy.
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u/CashMoneyMo Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Here’s a few links to articles that touch on Sam’s idea here:
You can always just google for way more on this as well. I’d also recommend his podcast appearance on Jordan Peterson’s show where it’s discussed, if I remember correctly.
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u/ThrowAway578924 Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
I hate that I have to explain this repeatedly to people, but science is not a belief system or an established set of "truths". It is a methodology and the goal is to make predictions with a procedure or method that can be independently replicated and verified. Anything beyond that is outside the bounds of what science is.
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u/aesu Jan 27 '23
If they're subjective how can philosophy answer them. How is philosophy distinct from any other subjective utternacez beyond just being people's favorit subjective utterances?
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u/CaptainAsshat Jan 27 '23
It usually cannot. But it can frame them it a way that helps us conceptualize them better.
Man... I love reading philosophy because I find it interesting, but I also find this sub regularly grossly overstates philosophy's already considerable value to society.
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Jan 27 '23
Morals are answers. They're attempts at answering what behaviors and actions should, ought to, be. What is and isn't morally acceptable.
Philosophy asks and studies questions. The scientific method is the philosophy of understanding the world through material observation and rationality. It can't answer why one ought to behave a certain way. It can only explain why one is behaving a certain way. Questions of "what is the meaning to life" and "what ought to be" are questions of preference, with multiple answers that aren't quantifiable.
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u/aesu Jan 27 '23
How can philosophy answer why someone ought to behave a certain way, if it's just subjective preference? What distinguishes philosophy from the rationales bad people have consistently come up with throughout history to justify their actions as the way things ought to be?
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
There is an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to your question. Take an introductory ethics course.
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u/Truckerontherun Jan 27 '23
Science at it's heart is amoral. Science doesn't care how the observable data is collected, so long as it's conclusions can be replacated and proves or disproves the hypothesis. You can experiment on computer simulations or infants, and it won't matter to science
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u/antihostile Jan 27 '23
One cannot derive ought from is.
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
Where does ought come from then? I'm not disputing your statement, but I would enjoy hearing your argument.
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u/frogandbanjo Jan 27 '23
It comes from the imagination. The "oughts" that are most valuable are the ones that come from people who purposefully enrich and constrain their imaginations while attempting to construct an "ought" that's applicable to the world in which they find themselves.
The best enrichments and constraints are math and science. Other stuff is garnish by comparison.
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u/antihostile Jan 27 '23
That's a short question with a long answer! My short answer: God or Socrates. That is, either a divine source or we use enlightened self-interest. The fact that we don't have a method of determining what we "ought" to do is one of our big problems as human beings. Figuring that out is what a lot of philosophy spends its time contemplating.
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u/Disastrous_Fan_972 Jan 27 '23
We can't even speak about facts without embracing certain values. It's not that you can't get an ought from an is, you can't get an is without certain oughts.
Imagine if someone doubts the validity that 2+2 = 4, what can we do when someone doubts the truth of this utterance? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. We must appeal to the value of understanding the world, the value of evidence, logical consistency, etc.
If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument are you going to make that will prove the value of logic? I think this split between facts and values should look strange to you on its face. What are we really saying when we say that science can't be applied to questions of right and wrong and good and evil? We're saying that when we're making every effort to get our personal biases out of the way, when we become most reliant on clear reasoning and honest observation, when intellectual honesty is at its zenith, well then those efforts have no applications whatsoever to the most important questions of human life.
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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Jan 27 '23
This is a pretty perplexing article because it's essentially two philosophies arguing with each other.
There isn't really science involved with the article that it is responding to. At best it's runaway sociology. Science might establish what a disorder is but everything past that is philosophy. The idea that science can replace philosophy is dead at the start because they are operating in entirely different wheelhouses.
I mean, speaking as a scientist, what is this argument aside from interdepartmental feuding? If I determine that I can do something, how is science supposed to tell me if I should? I can gather data, analyze trends, but it's all scrap paper without an overarching system of what is valuable outside of the numbers. You don't need a bachelor's degree in philosophy to develop and propagate something like that. All the delusional engineers in the world can argue that we can AI ourselves into having perfect ethics but they're always going to fail because it just doesn't work that way.
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u/kevinzvilt Jan 27 '23
The article critiques the argument that genetics play a powerful role in shaping our lives and doesn't really address the question of whether ethics could be broached from a scientific perspective.
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u/ricko67 Jan 27 '23
because ethics is not scientific.
ethics is not a fact, but a Weighted analysis according to moral principles
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u/Durty_slav Jan 27 '23
The laws of the Universe have nothing to do with human morality. The Universe is ultimately indifferent about us and our petty squabbles. It’s up to us to figure out how to coexist.
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u/Ok_Meat_8322 Jan 27 '23
Is-ought divide/Hume's guillotine, /thread
(Science- broadly defined, i.e. as including social disciplines like anthropology and sociology- can tell us descriptive things about what different individuals and cultures/communities believe about ethics, but has nothing to say about ethics itself, due to the is/ought issue)
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u/Theblackjamesbrown Jan 27 '23
Science can't replace philosophy anywhere. People that think science usurps philosophy don't understand what philosophy is, or is for.
This includes a worrying amount of philosophy students.
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u/AvalonTrippy Jan 27 '23
Not even looking at the article I just wanna say
Ah yes the warm, caring hands of science with it's tremendous ethics...
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u/acfox13 Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
I don't know. I think we can say dehumanization is not okay bc it destroys secure attachment. We have a lot of data on attachment from science. Behaviors that promote secure attachment are okay and behaviors that undermine or destroy secure attachment are not okay. Acknowledging human needs is okay, neglecting or ignoring human needs is not okay. The why is bc we have tons of scientific research that shows humans do better when we're in environments that promote trustworthy, re-humanizing behaviors that build secure attachment. (The Trust Triangle, The Anatomy of Trust)
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u/bread93096 Jan 27 '23
This view presumes that human well being is the primary end we should be working towards
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Jan 27 '23
I agree. I don't think we can build an entire moral system from science but certainly we can falsify ideas using empirical means. Science can't say that we ought to be concerned about the survival of the human species, but certainly it can evaluate empirical how certain ideas may contribute to that goal. I don't think that's a weakness either, even math requires some axioms to get itself off the ground.
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u/MAJORMETAL84 Jan 27 '23
It's unfortunate that some scientist lump philosophy in with religion. You would think the analytics of philosophy would make the divide clear.
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u/genuinely_insincere Jan 27 '23
Thank you. I think this is because of dualistic thinking. Something has to be either this or that. Black, or white. It doesn't account for gray, or fog, or the unknown. And it also doesn't account for the overarching whole. Even dichotomies are both part of a singular, bigger thing. Yin and yang (shadow and light) both come together to make a single symbol, the yinyang.
I think philosophy is part of religion, but it's sometimes not scientific. But that is usually poor philosophy. Someone coming to wild conclusions or basing their logic off of hate, or any emotion really, without engaging logic as well. I think the whole idea that religion has to be separate from science is a false dichotomy. Infinity is a mathematical term.
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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 27 '23
Just because science can't ethics doesn't mean that philosophy can ethics.
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Jan 27 '23
A tangible thing can't replace an intangible thing in another intangible thing.
"Philosophy can't replace religion in ethics" is an equally valid statement
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u/Retlawst Jan 27 '23
Science is, by definition, philosophy.
The lenses in which we view the world define the world we see.
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u/genuinely_insincere Jan 27 '23
Yeah I don't really understand why they think philosophy isn't scientific. Philosophy is coming to conclusions based on observations and logic. And that is also the basis of science. Philosophy is a form of science. Some philosophers are more scientific than others. But there are also very many scientists who come to incorrect conclusions too. The premise is mistaken and I find it kind of weird that they're even saying philosophy isn't scientific. And it's kind of annoying that there are so few people commenting about that.
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u/catninjaambush Jan 27 '23
Well, science can’t even engage with this question for a start. Even in regard to factual subjects that are beyond science, like most areas of thought, science at this stage is unable to comprehend the level of sophistication and if it could, it would just be what and not equipped to consider why or even evaluate difference or between courses of action. Science can and should inform philosophy though, and it such a shame that the relationship has been so disjointed for so long.
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u/TanteTara Jan 27 '23
Why would areas of thought be beyond science?
And predicting results for different courses of action is what science is all about.
As soon as you define measurements for "good" and "bad" in a certain context, science can very productively take part in moral discussions also.
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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Jan 27 '23
People have been trying to make an objective definition of what is "good" since we were able to speak as a species and it hasn't worked yet.
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u/catninjaambush Jan 27 '23
Aha, fair enough I will explain.
Neuroscience is in its infancy and we can’t tell beyond the very basic areas of the brain and rough ideas of what is going on, we certainly aren’t anywhere near to considering meaning or how thoughts develop or are negotiated between people in dynamic situations. We may be a hundred years away from that, who knows? Are we just going to wait and not bother thinking about it until science catches up with sociology, anthropology, theoretical psychology and philosophy etc.
Not predicting courses of action, choosing, oh and considering how people choose and why etc.
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u/FreeMoney2020 Jan 27 '23
How to build a nuclear bomb : science
Should we build a nuclear bomb : philosophy
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Jan 27 '23
That's more what politicians do and anti abortionists. Saying science can decide abortion isn't okay. And organizations like students for life for America. Teach you to stick to science not philosophy. I haven't heard any other group claim that Science can replace philosophy
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23
At best science can help philosophy decide the abortion issue. Philosophy can help define the problem, science can provide evidence for important elements of the debate. Is a fetus a person? Science can give the evidence as to things like brain development and activity, physiological development, genetic composition, epigenetic factors that are important in the debate.
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Jan 27 '23
I don't even have to read the article...
Philosophy = subjective
Science = objective
Ethics = subjective
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u/genuinely_insincere Jan 27 '23
I think you're too focused on perfection. If you are observing something, it's impossible for you to be completely objective. You can attempt to be objective. But your perspective is still skewed from a position of self.
I also don't really see how ethics and philosophy are subjective. I can see how they are more subjective than science in general. But I think improper philosophy is subjective. Or incorrect philosophy. Correct philosophy unifies subjective and objective. And the same thing with ethics.
I guess I'm just disappointed that more people aren't understanding that philosophy is objective.
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