Oh please, everything Enk has actually had the balls to comment on is a given. ie science informs moral decisions.


What he is too chicken shit to comment on is moral knowledge or the assumption of what is right and wrong and where this actually comes from.

 

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but it comes from one of the places he already talked about. Denying that seems kind of silly. I respect the idea that some very few ideals about right and wrong may be instinctual. but given we can learn past that I'm not even sure how relevant that is.

 

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It seems super relevant to his take home of "be aware of how you make your decisions."


Enkidu is trying to claim science is all we need. That's obviously nonsense because you couldn't make any choices at all if you only relied on science because you'd have no idea what a good outcome is in the first place.

I suppose I am following better because as an adult I reevaluated my entire moral compass.

Let's say you are trying to decide if generally killing another person for your own gain is bad. You can just decide that the bible is a good source of moral direction and believe that. or you can think about how killing someone for your own gain would make you feel. What would be the impact on them, and what would be the impact on others and then try to define a solution from that. but ultimately good feelings are the only things you have to go on. Either good feelings or some substitute for them that you have decided are more important. But whatever you decide has been learned, and then how you apply that to moral decisions is learned as well.

Like I said I'm surprised you guys are arguing it, because it is true even for the most dogmatic religious thinker.

 

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I will reword the issue for you.


What is the imperative and how do we achieve it?


Science can never tell us what the imperative is but it is absolutely critical to achieving it.


Science tells us that we are born with the foundation of this imperative, self interest and empathy. Everything else is just variations off of that base.

 

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but how we decide what the imperative is is learned. And that's all enkidork is saying. You want to get mired in the hows and whats of specific decisions so you can poke holes in the stimulus or the result of the decision, but making the decision is going to be a requirement no matter what. And the possibilities for how one makes that decision are the same as how one makes any decision.

 

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It is not established through science. One cannot prove some act is morally good or bad.


I am not denying that people are taught good and bad. I am pointing out the nature of mankind. I am stating facts and you are trying to argue against them.


/boggle

 

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That's the whole point being made. I am not interested in this argument about born vs learned so I can't comment on that. To me the funny thing about this thread is Enkidu insisting science is all we need to make moral decisions and then flailing about for 100 posts showing how stupid an assertion that is.

but can't good feelings be the basis of a scientific evaluation? Can't deciding good feelings ARE in fact a good baseline use good scientific evaluation?

You honestly believe it can't? That we are just arbitrarily choosing something and have no hope of applying any level of reason to that judgement?

 

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I don't really understand these sentences.


The point is there is no way to scientifically show that happiness is good. You have to just assume it. There's no way to design an experiment to test your assumption.


Once you've made some fundamental assumptions not susceptible to scientific proof, you can find out how to act to promote those assumptions using the scientific method.