I have addressed it onin, you just choose to not allow it.


So choose a moral issue you will allow and I'll show you how it works.

 

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Name something that you consider to be immoral and prove how science is used to arrive at the conclusion it is immoral.


It is a given that science is used to help predict the outcome so I am not interested in that.

 

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I will agree to disagree. I'm not invested in making any more posts on it.

 

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Ethicists use a concept called 'happiness' to express the rightness or wrongness of any moral act. If something is shown scientifically or logically to produce less 'happiness' through the act, it is considered immoral. I'll give you an example of this in action. My friend Paul is a world renowed ethicists and we were have dinner at Morton's when the subject of farm raised cows came up (probably something to do with the steaks we were enjoying). To my surprise he had already given this some thought and analyzed the data. He said that cow happiness was a net zero due to farm raising. Each cow born on a farm raises the potential happiness of all cow-kind and and eating one lowers it by the same amount. Since the cows on the farm would never have been born without the farm's existence, the farm practice is not immoral, as long as the cows are treated well (mistreating them would lower cow happiness too much and the whole act would be immoral). His data showed that by USDA standards most cow farms do treat their cows well, therefor cow farms are moral.

 

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So the claim is that happieness = good. How does science help you reach this knowledge?


The rest of your post is science informing the decision as I previously talked about. I agree it is needed as I have already pointed out multiple times.

 

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This where you keep avoiding the inevitable and obvious central point, knowledge informs everything, even moral decisions.


So what is important is to know where you get your knowledge. Is it good reliable sources, or some guy saying he talks to god.


It really is that simple.

 

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I have not ignored that at all and I have brought it up multiple times. You are still not answering my question.


I am under the impression we are in general agreement with regard to informing moral choices but you have told me nothing about how one arrives at moral knowledge itself.


As for what method is the best, I say whatever works.

 

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/facepalm


It's like you don't even really read what other people say.


Once again: science cannot tell you whether killing another human being is a moral decision because that depends on inherently subjective and unverifiable assumptions about the value of human life which cannot be quantified scientifically.


Once you already know what value you assign to human life science can help determine whether what you want to do is going to produce results in line with your valuation. But it can't produce that valuation itself.


Your example about happiness is a perfect example to illustrate why what you're saying doesn't make any sense. You define "happiness" as "good" but there is no way to verify that scientifically. It's just an unproven assumption. Once you make that unproven moral assumption science can tell you what actions will produce it and what actions won't. Science doesn't tell that "happiness = good."

Again, what else would you use but knowledge to assign a value to any moral evaluation? You don't know right from wrong until somebody gives you some idea something might be right or wrong. That idea you are given is information, so what information are you going to trust?

 

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Judging from your posts, I certainly wouldn't trust you when you say "science tells us happiness = good!" because you can't back it up at all.


In order to make any decision we need both information and a set of inherently unverifiable assumptions about the world. Most people make these assumptions based on experience. Being happy feels good, being sad feels bad. So we decide "happy = good."


But maybe "happy" isn't good. Maybe it's the opposite. We have no way to know and science can't help us a bit.


Science is a superior tool for gathering information about what the effects of a choice will be. It is no better than any other tool for determining which choice to make once you know the effects of each option.


Consider a situation where you have Choice A and Choice B.


Science can help us figure out that Choice A will generate 1 billion dollars of profit but cost 15 human lives. Science can also help us figure out Choice B will result in no profit but no lives lost.


Science can't tell us which choice to make. That depends on our individual unverifiable assumption about the value of human life.