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mdebellis t1_ivfdbex wrote

I agree with a few things in this article although I don't think in the way the author intends. I've said before that IMO there is no major difference between science and philosophy. The difference is that what we call philosophy are topics where science is very immature such as the study of human ethics. Similarly, I think that there is no one "scientific method" but rather science is a combination of various methods such as peer review, data analysis, theory development, mathematical analysis, experimentation, falsifiable hypotheses, etc. For some disciplines (e.g., physics and chemistry) we can use all of these tools for others (e.g., psychology and even history) we can only use some. We use as many as we can for any problem. Some will object that for example it is impossible to do experiments regarding history but in fact I've seen various experiments done to attempt to answer questions such as "Where was the battle of Cannae actually fought?" or "what was Greek fire?".

I also think there is no question that science can apply to the study of ethics. Moral Origins by Christopher Boehm, Moral Minds by Marc Hauser, and a paper I wrote based on some of Hauser's ideas and research in evolutionary psychology: https://www.michaeldebellis.com/post/umg_ontology

I also think that there is a lot of overlap between good science and being (what I consider) a good person such as rationality, accessing arguments rather than the status of those who make them and so on. But (as I argue in my paper) there is one fundamental difference between what we consider morality and what we consider science. That is that morality is about value judgements. There are many scientific theories that can make one feel uneasy. Saying "if X is true then Y is true and Y is something I consider fundamentally immoral regardless of any arguments" is not a valid scientific argument. This is what Hume called the Is-Ought problem. We can't go from the domain of analyzing the universe (is statements) to what is moral and right (ought statements). Thus, any coherent moral system must start with at least one axiom that says I value X because I value X. E.g., a Utilitarian values maximizing well being. If you ask them why, although they may attempt at an explanation, what it really comes down to will always be that there is some core value (ought statement) that they take as a given. That's the fundamental difference between morality and science. Science strives for objectivity, morality can still strive for rationality and coherence but ultimately morality must be founded on some core axiom(s).

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