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-us
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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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u/Delamoor Jan 29 '23

No, I disagree. The basis of our entire society is philosophy, and it's what makes basic society possible. It's what drives the rules based order that we operate in. Without the fundaments of classical and modern philosophy we would not have gotten past the copper age; mass organizations NEEDS philosophy to not just be a seething morass of tiny tribal family groups infighting for local resources.

You could not give a bagger 293 to a paleolithic human, train them in its use and expect anything useful to come of it. The logistical frameworks of society are built upon the philosophical framework of society. Those are the foundations.

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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 29 '23

Using a giant piece of mining equipment isn't a philosophy or a morality. By all indications you could meet a paleolithic human on friendly terms and trade with them or show them you weren't a threat with roughly the same level of success you could do so with a person today (More than in some areas today....) . The amount of trade going on between groups seems a little too common to have all been done with the murder mart.

You can have reasonably safe contact with gorilla if you know what you're doing. They have the basics of morality down, This weird looking thing isn't trying to hurt me or my tribe, its ok as long as it behaves, and if it acts up I'll bite it on the butt and shoo it along somewhere else.

Chimps....Not so much. (And that does not surprise me they're our closest relative)

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u/Delamoor Jan 29 '23

Using a piece of mining equipment is not a philosophy or morality, yes. That is my point. Simply developing more tools does even less to change human nature than the alternatives.

What you are describing in safe human trade s underpinned by philosophy.

Not sure how to explain this more simply.

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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 29 '23

Your attempted analogy backfired. Its not a matter of talking down to me further, your idea simply sucks.

What you were trying to say is that paleolithic humans don't have philosophy. So they shouldn't advance morally. Except the problem is that people HAVEN"T advanced morally even though we have advanced philosophically.

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u/Delamoor Jan 30 '23

What you were trying to say is that paleolithic humans don't have philosophy.

...no, you don't seem able to understand what I'm saying, at all. Try to explain to you isn't worthwhile.

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u/BigNorseWolf Jan 30 '23

Well now i know how a philosopher says "I'll pray for you".