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by paulryanrogers
1708 days ago
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> But this discussion ... it’s about whether the normative science of ethics can have any nontrivial conclusions without an objective foundation What is a more objective foundation than independently verified, experimental evidence? > The limitations of human reasoning are one of the reasons I’m convinced a correct ethics must have a superhuman author. So the apparent presence of this limitation is evidence of a higher power? How can you be sure that what you consider 'correct' ethics is objectively good? |
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This sounds like the classic is-ought problem. Experiment can, up to epistemological and ontological limits, only tell us about what is. It cannot tell us about what ought to be. If it appears to you that it can then you’re implicitly slipping in an additional ethical premise.
> So the apparent presence of this limitation is evidence of a higher power? How can you be sure that what you consider 'correct' ethics is objectively good?
I can’t. That’s one of the limitations of abductive reasoning. Unlike deduction it cannot reach absolutely certain conclusions. And if I could this entire thread would be moot. As for correct ethics, I accept Peirce’s view that ethics, like logic, is a normative science. Just as logic is defined to be the normative science of what is true or false, ethics is defined to be the normative science of what is good or bad. Hence my question about whether or not that science is trivial and admits whatever conclusions anyone says it does, or not.