Moral-o-meter
I think that philosophy in general has problems with falsifiability. Philosophers rarely if ever argue on each other's terms, or concede their opponents' premises. What would even happen if philosophers specified the evidence it would take to dissuade them?
It reminds me of my empirical theory of ethics. If someone could produce a cogent argument that hypocrisy was viable, I would be dissuaded. When Robert Wright did this in The Moral Animal, I was dissuaded — and admittedly dismayed.
How would falsifiability work with the idea that ethics were subjective or objective? I think that most people think that at least to some degree ethics is subjective. So to hard-core realists, I ask you, what evidence would it take to convince you that you were wrong?
I have to be an anti-realist, although I don't think I'm a very hard-line one. I think that ethics inheres in subjects, but I don't think that that makes it arbitrary. But a realist can rightly ask me, what evidence would it take to convince me I was wrong?
That's a very good question. I'm not sure what observation you could produce in principle that could be interpreted as “real” ethics. But I will take the trouble to construct what I would consider to be a convincing counterexample.
First, you would have to provide evidence of a cross-cultural moral belief. That is, the belief would have to be shared by all cultures. You should be able to travel to some faraway region of the world and find that the people there also share that belief.
It would not be enough, however, simply to show the presence of this belief. You would also have to show that the reason for this belief was not instinctive. If the belief were the result of evolved instinct, it would still be subjective.
On the other hand, consider what happens when the visual centre of the brain reacts to light. You can point to a clear physical stimulus that is eliciting a neurological response. And, of course, once you discover that stimulus, you can create a machine that will respond to it as well. Hence, we have photometers that are independent of our biological senses. Accordingly, if ethics is “real”, you should be able to construct a moral-o-meter. You should be able to identify a physical moral stimulus in the world. You should be able to show how this moral stimulus affects the “moral” sensory centre of the brain. And you also have to show how you have rigged the moral-o-meter to detect this moral stimulus in the absence of a human being. This is getting the moral realist to put her money where her mouth is!
It reminds me of my empirical theory of ethics. If someone could produce a cogent argument that hypocrisy was viable, I would be dissuaded. When Robert Wright did this in The Moral Animal, I was dissuaded — and admittedly dismayed.
How would falsifiability work with the idea that ethics were subjective or objective? I think that most people think that at least to some degree ethics is subjective. So to hard-core realists, I ask you, what evidence would it take to convince you that you were wrong?
I have to be an anti-realist, although I don't think I'm a very hard-line one. I think that ethics inheres in subjects, but I don't think that that makes it arbitrary. But a realist can rightly ask me, what evidence would it take to convince me I was wrong?
That's a very good question. I'm not sure what observation you could produce in principle that could be interpreted as “real” ethics. But I will take the trouble to construct what I would consider to be a convincing counterexample.
First, you would have to provide evidence of a cross-cultural moral belief. That is, the belief would have to be shared by all cultures. You should be able to travel to some faraway region of the world and find that the people there also share that belief.
It would not be enough, however, simply to show the presence of this belief. You would also have to show that the reason for this belief was not instinctive. If the belief were the result of evolved instinct, it would still be subjective.
On the other hand, consider what happens when the visual centre of the brain reacts to light. You can point to a clear physical stimulus that is eliciting a neurological response. And, of course, once you discover that stimulus, you can create a machine that will respond to it as well. Hence, we have photometers that are independent of our biological senses. Accordingly, if ethics is “real”, you should be able to construct a moral-o-meter. You should be able to identify a physical moral stimulus in the world. You should be able to show how this moral stimulus affects the “moral” sensory centre of the brain. And you also have to show how you have rigged the moral-o-meter to detect this moral stimulus in the absence of a human being. This is getting the moral realist to put her money where her mouth is!
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