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Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Proving things isn't the point of definitions

By Massimo Pigliucci
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. It seems that my colleague and friend Julia Galef has indeed been bewitched by language, so I’ll try some philosophy to rescue her.
Julia seems to be unaware of the fact that there is more than one type of definition out there. Particularly, in philosophy one makes the distinction between a linguistic and a conceptual definition. (For a nice introduction to this topic, see section 1.1 of A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, by Normand Baillargeon, the text I use in my introductory course on critical reasoning).
Linguistic definitions are the sort of things for which dictionaries are very useful. If you wanted to know, say, what a quadruped is, you would simply look it up and find something along the lines of: “A quadruped is a four-footed animal,” and that would be that. No arguing required.
Now suppose you are interested in the meaning of justice. You can still look the word up in the dictionary, but in this case such a move would only be the beginning of the discussion, not the end. That’s because what you need is a conceptual definition, and that’s the territory of philosophy.
Let’s use one of Julia’s examples to make the difference more clear. Julia is quite right when she says that if one defines God as “the unknown” that such a definition is completely unhelpful. Not only do we already have a word for “unknown” (it’s, as Julia sardonically points out, “unknown”), but we have now created a pseudo-problem, namely how to investigate the properties of God — we can’t, because, by definition, it is unknowable.
But in fact few people actually define God as the unknown. For instance, the common concept of God in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition is of a being who is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Now that is something a philosopher can sink his teeth into, as John Mackie famously did in his essay on “Evil and Omnipotence,” still today a masterful and devastating criticism of the very concept of the J-C-M god.
The same goes for morality. Julia accuses me of sneaking in (“double-dipping”) a prescriptive stance into a descriptive definition. But the point is that definitions, again, come in two varieties, one of which (the linguistic) is indeed descriptive, the other (the conceptual) is prescriptive. There is no possible confusion as long as we keep this basic distinction in mind.
For instance, contra Julia, morality is not usually defined as the set of actions that augment human flourishing (that was my definition during our previous debate). A typical descriptive-linguistic definition of morality is this: “Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” There is little disagreement possible here, since this is the way in which, according to dictionaries, people tend to use the term morality. Nowhere in there does anything about human flourishing appear.
So, when I said that I define a moral action as one that augments human flourishing, I was using a conceptual definition, which is open to both debate (one can reasonably reject that particular concept of morality) and needs to be unpacked (what exactly does one mean by “human flourishing”?). For instance, an Ayn Randian could argue that moral actions are those that increase one’s own welfare, and indeed for such a person my concept of morality would be im-moral! As for flourishing, that is why I referred readers to Aristotle’s virtue ethics, which is a way to unpack the concept by introducing and elaborating upon the ancient Greeks’ idea of “eudaimonia,” or happiness in the broad sense of a good and just life.
Of course Julia (or anybody else) can still disagree with my concept of morality, but that disagreement simply can’t be swept away by saying that it is all a matter of definitions (or “semantics,” a word that has gotten far too bad a reputation in common discourse, considering that it is defined — descriptively — as “relating to meaning in language and logic,” and is therefore crucial to understanding what we are talking about).
There is another way of looking at the issue of definitions and their multiple meanings. In the course of our debate on morality I brought up a parallel between ethics and mathematics. I hasten to say that this is a parallel, not an exact equivalence. I am not saying that ethics is precisely like mathematics. Indeed, the reason for my analogy was my criticism of Sam Harris’s claim that the only moral facts are scientific (i.e., empirical) facts. Part of my counter-argument was that we can derive non-arbitrary notions (which I still wouldn’t call “facts”) in wholly non-empirical ways, for instance in logic and mathematics, so that one cannot simply assume that if there are non-arbitrary notions in ethics they must be the same sort of facts with which science deals.
The reason that point is pertinent to this exchange with Julia is because of her contention that every claim needs support. Yet, mathematical theorems and logical proofs begin with generally unsupported claims — they are called axioms or assumptions. The theorem or proof is then developed by provisionally accepting that the axioms or assumptions are true and proceeding to examine what follows via deductive logic. Yes, one can always go back and examine the validity of axioms and assumptions, but that’s a different project that needs to be pursued separately. Moreover, 20th century attempts at meta-mathematics and meta-logic (i.e., at establishing self-consistent foundations for math and logic) have failed, and yet we do not reject either math or logic. (For a clear and entertaining take on that intellectual pursuit, check this out.)
Similarly, questions of meta-ethics (i.e., how do we justify ethical systems and reasoning to begin with) are distinct from discussions of the logical consequences of a small set of assumptions about ethics. Regardless of what the ultimate foundations of ethics may be, it makes a difference whether you look at an ethical problem from the point of view of a virtue ethicist, a deontologist, a consequentialist, or even a moral relativist.
Indeed, one could go a step further and turn the tables on Julia’s (and Harris’s) favored sacred cow: science itself. A quick look at an introductory text in philosophy of science will show that meta-science faces serious issues of its own, which cannot be resolved empirically (i.e., within science itself), just like math, logic and ethics (and dare I say, art?) cannot solve their own issues from within their own confines.
For instance, much of science is done by inductive (as opposed to deductive) reasoning. Yet Hume pointed out two and a half centuries ago that induction cannot be reasonably justified! Nobody so far has been able to give an account of induction that resolves Hume’s problem. You would think that scientists are spending many sleepless nights worrying about the fact that everything they have done cannot be rationally justified, but they don’t, and for a good reason: the problem of induction is an interesting philosophical issue (and there are plenty of really smart solutions that have been proposed — by philosophers), but does not really concern the everyday practice of science. As this xkcd cartoon aptly puts it, “Science works, bitches!” and from a pragmatic standpoint, that’s enough.
In the same way, we are not going to throw out math, logic, or ethics just because meta discussions of those topics seem to constantly get us into trouble. Hume would have approved retaining science, math, logic and ethics regardless of their respective foundational problems. But he would have simply smiled if someone rushed to him with a dictionary in hand to tell him that the problem of induction is all just a matter of definitions.

114 comments:

  1. Very interesting and edifying discussion. I hope to read Julia's response. But there's something that I don't understand, what do you say, then, to someone (like an objectivist) that rejects your normative definition of ethics? Is there an argument to support such definition or it all boils down to a "well, thas your opinion"?

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  2. Daneel, Julia's take is on the previous post. As for what to say to an objectivist, good question. I think a couple of venues are available. One is to consider different assumptions about what constitutes morality as different sets of axioms in math. You can then derive logically consistent consequences within each system, but the choice between the two systems comes down to accepting or rejecting the assumptions.

    The second option is more naturalistic, and would start with an analysis of human beings as social primates, which brings us to consider that human flourishing is likely the result of a balance between individualism and societal concerns - which would amount to a naturalistic rejection of the objectivist position. I do take this route against objectivists (and, for that matter, against marxists, who are also guilty of ignoring or caricaturing human nature, in their case by overemphasizing the social at the expense of the individual).

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  3. "For instance, much of science is done by inductive (as opposed to deductive) reasoning. Yet Hume pointed out two and a half centuries ago that induction cannot be reasonably justified!"

    Why is this a problem? Science uses deduction as well. I'm an experimental biologist but I do mathematical modeling from time to time. This is very common. Scientists are not "spending many sleepless nights worrying about the fact that everything they have done cannot be rationally justified" because induction is not "everything that they have done."

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  4. optical, the point is that at some point you have to couple your deductions with inductions, if you are doing science at all. As soon as you do that, any rational justification falls because of Hume's problem. I was an experimental biologist too, and never had any sleepless nights over this, but that's not to mean that there isn't an actual issue here.

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  5. Massimo, let's start by talking about your point that definitions "come in two varieties, one of which (the linguistic) is indeed descriptive, the other (the conceptual) is prescriptive."

    First, let me just clarify something for the benefit of other readers who might be confused as I was -- you're using the word "prescriptive" here to refer to "How a word should be defined," not to refer (in this particular example about morality) to "How people should behave." Right? Just wanted to make that clear (and please correct me if I misunderstood).

    So when you say your definition of "moral" as "augmenting human flourishing" is a prescriptive definition, you mean that this is what the word "moral" should mean, right? But it doesn't make sense to talk about what a word should mean (as distinct from what it does, in practice, mean when people use it). I can't even conceive of how one could defend why a word "should" mean X instead of Y. And you don't give a defense, you just say you're taking it as axiomatic.

    Can you clarify for me?

    (Also, a side note: Why do you say, "contra Julia, morality is not usually defined as the set of actions that augment human flourishing"? I never said morality was usually defined that way; I said you defined it that way.)

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  6. Hume's "problem of induction" is another of those "problems" which are not problems, but which it seems philosophers delight in debating. William James was not a very exacting thinker, but I believe he was quite right to note that a difference which makes no difference is no difference.

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  7. ciceronianus, with all due respect to James, if one doesn't see a problem with Hume's take about induction one is not understanding Hume. The pragmatic answer is irrelevant, since Hume isn't saying that we shouldn't use induction in practice, he is saying that it is hard to find a rational justification for it. There is a huge difference between the two, if one pays attention.

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  8. Julia, fair point about your use of the moral = increases human flourishing (though that isn't only *my* conceptual definition, it is shared by virtue ethicists, and to a large extent by utilitarians - and my point in bringing that up is that this definition is not linguistic, see my post for a linguistic definition of morality).

    The problem is that you seem to be allergic to the word "should." In English "should" has many connotations, just like many other words, and the one we are talking about when we talk of definitions is not a connotation of moral force.

    A prescriptive definition means that one is proposing a way to use a particular term, in a particular context. I prefer the term conceptual to prescriptive, though, precisely to avoid this sort of confusion. Still, if the discussion pertains to that particular context then one "should" use the proposed meaning or challenge it, but the discussion cannot be settled simply by looking up the meaning.

    When I define moral as augmenting human flourishing I am proposing a conceptual (as opposed to linguistic) definition of moral. I also make an argument for it: it reflects a reasonable understanding of human nature (other than psychopaths, most people seem to wish to increase flourishing in a sense similar to that envisaged by Aristotle, which includes not just individual advantage, but a functional and just society within which one can be secure and happy).

    You can think of my definition as an axiom, but just like in math and logic, axioms themselves can be subjected to scrutiny, so one can debate whether to accept or reject my definition. The point is that if one accepts it, then certain things follow about what our behavior "should" (moral, this time!) be.

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  9. Massimo--

    It seems to me that a conceptual definition is not a way of clarifying the meaning of terms. Rather, it is an assertion that, for some odd reason, we have decided to call a "definition". Julia has suggested that you have tried to sneak in concept-concept equivalences or relationships by making seemingly benign word-concept equivalences. And when you outline a "prescriptive definition", you're essentially just doing what Julia suggested you were: making assertions about reality but calling them definitions. When you make the "prescriptive definition" that "morality" means "the maximization of human flourishing", you're not at all outlining how terms are to be used in order to clarify discourse. By contrast, you're saying "there is something that is good, and that thing is flourishing".

    Regarding Mathematics, Science, and foundations: it's true, I can't justify the foundations of our epistemology. I can't justify the most fundamental axioms of mathematics or show that it makes sense to generalize from experience, etc. There are lots of quirky problems in the foundations of science that I just can't solve and I have to sort of just accept science and math's problems and use them anyway.

    You're right that the abstractness of ethics does not make it an irrational, arbitrary enterprise. But the problem with ethics, as opposed to science or math, is that it does not actually help as understand reality, either in the empirical or abstract sense. As I pointed out in my replies to Julia's post, moral beliefs are really evolved tools for regulating human behavior within our complex societies. Science and math help me get at the truth, or at least, they do if they're not fundamentally flawed at the bottom (and I admit, I just assume they're not). But ethical claims don't help me understand the world at all, nor do they seem to have value as abstract ideas in the way that mathematical ideas do.

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  10. Ritchie, I'm surprised you think ethics doesn't help you understand reality. It helps me *greatly* to understand the reality of human relations, which is the most important reality for everyday life.

    As for your comment regarding conceptual definitions, well, all I can do is to repeat that this is a pretty standard distinction that is at the basis of much philosophical work. One can shrug (as I assume Julia will) and dismiss the whole enterprise as irrelevant, but I think one would miss a lot by not engaging with that way of thinking.

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  11. Massimo--

    Moral psychology helps me understand human relations, because it describes how human beings develop, hold, and act upon moral beliefs. Moral psychology describes a social phenomenon, aiding my understanding of human relations. But this is totally distinct from moral assertions themselves; these are not descriptive, and I do not see how a non-descriptive assertion can have explanatory value.

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  12. Who said anything about explanatory value? I was talking about reasoning through different ways of negotiating human relations, as opposed to just doing what your psychology tells you to do. Are we or are we not capable of rational thought, not just emotional/instinctual response?

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  13. Shorter Massimo: Julia's observation that we simply redefine words to suit our intentions is completely correct, but that is how philosophy works. Okay, that was a very snarky way of putting it, but her point that you must not hide your redefinition, that you must not supposed that every listener is aware of your sleight of hand, is the minimum that we should agree on.

    I like the way the "Trends in" flotilla of science journals is dealing with the issue, forcing its authors to have a definition box at the beginning of each manuscript, so that it is easier for the lay reader understand the text - but also easier for the pro to notice if the authors are playing with word meanings.

    Apart from that, the last part of your post is an interesting read. I love it how you try to eat your cake and have it too: first you admit that no discipline, not even your preferred examples of logic and math, can be justified from within themselves; and then, lest we conclude that this undermines your enterprise of regularly scheduled scientist-bashings, you snipe at Julia and Harris for considering science a "sacred cow", which, while I cannot judge Harris' position, is at best a caricature of the position of Julia or your preferred scientistist punching-balls. And then you conclude with saying that we can accept science pragmatically, which, combined with the fact that all other areas of rational inquiry apart from science do not deal with the actual existence of objects and processes in the actual world, undermines your arguments against Coyne once again. Weird.

    A bit of a side issue, but as for: the common concept of God in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition is of a being who is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, this is not what a straightforward reading of the bible or the actual practice of belief suggest. At least the god of the Jews and Christians is none of the three O's, which is why I am perpetually puzzled why anybody would waste tremendous energy on showing the three O's to be logically impossible.

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  14. Hi! RE: "For instance, much of science is done by inductive (as opposed to deductive) reasoning."

    If you could offer a couple of examples of the use of induction in the Germ Theory of Disease that would help me understand. Or say does the working of a microscope fail once one truly understands that the (inductive?) science upon which it is based is .. well .. what, false, irrational, arational ???

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  15. A few things...

    # Hume's Thing
    I think it's important to keep in mind that Hume wasn't trying to undermine the use of induction for empirical investigation, but to undermine rationalists (particularly the natural theology variety) who thought the mind could sort everything out on its own. "Fine," said Hume, "if you're so smart, then explain how causation works." (not an actual quote.)

    Because few were prepared to say that causation was nonsense just because it evaded explanation, Hume demonstrated, by example, that it was better to be honest about the limits of one's understanding than to be lured into a belief in nonsense because something too important to be denied - like "too big to fail" - must be properly underwritten. For example, God in enlightenment Europe. I don't think Hume opposed belief in God so much as the twisted logic invented to support that particular belief.

    # More Irrational Knowledge
    To Massimo's examples of knowledge without certain foundations, I would add conventional knowledge. For no other reason than it is more broadly accessible. A common example is the distance between home plate and first base in baseball. There are reasons why it is at the distance it is: far enough away that the batter is sometimes caught out, but close enough that the average batter sometimes makes it to first safely. There are other reasons too, but none of them entail an exact distance. The distance is one that just seems to work, and fulfills all the conditions. It could be a foot closer to home or a foot farther from it, and it would be just as good as long as it was always the same. The width of sidewalks are the same. We use conventional knowledge all the time.

    # @Julia regarding conceptual definitions
    I have the opposite problem you do. When you say, "it doesn't make sense to talk about what a word should mean," I find prescription is not only unavoidable, but that it's folly to seek its end. As if no amount of analyses will produce results. Words have different meanings, and a speaker must prescribe that meaning unto his utterance, and we listeners must somehow figure out which possible meaning the word is intended to purport. Which witch is which? And even if a word doesn't have multiple meanings, its single meaning merely contains more words that themselves might have multiple meanings, and yet further words promising some future end to our quest for singular clarity. Ultimately, it seems likely that the only purpose of this endless game of words is to dance around concepts that we are incapable of producing for inspection, in the faint hope that someone else might stumble into the same concept.

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  16. Mr. Pigliucci,

    Though you quoted Wittgenstein, proliferating definitions, including for the word "definition", may frustrate the kind of plain language Wittgenstein wished for. Ambiguity is too often the justification for jargon, even if the jargon fails as badly as "quadrupedal" to decrease the length or ambiguity of "four-footed".

    Wikipedia says: "Like other words, the term definition has subtly different meanings in different contexts. A definition may be descriptive of the general use meaning, or stipulative of the speaker's immediate intentional meaning. For example, in formal languages like mathematics, a 'stipulative' definition guides a specific discussion. A descriptive definition can be shown to be "right" or "wrong" by comparison to general usage, but a stipulative definition can only be disproved by showing a logical contradiction."

    The longer the list of accepted/common/standard definitions (definientia) for a given word (definiendum), the less useful the word for exact expression and argument. Ambiguity may be good for poets and propagandists, but not for communicators trying to encode meaning in such a way that it can be decoded the same way by anyone.

    When words are too ambiguous for a particular purpose we must either explicitly stipulate the intended definition (common practice in legal documents) or choose a less ambiguous word or phrase. However, adding a new definition of our own is about the worst tack one can take. It is linguistic dilution if not pollution.

    Explicit disambiguation of terms is simply de rigueur in serious rational discourse. Unfortunately, a well-specified argument is not necessarily any more persuasive than a fuzzy-but-colorful one for many people, and is seldom as much fun to craft.

    Julia's point about implicit associations and biases (on both sides of any conversation) is fundamental.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  17. Massimo,

    Either your definition corresponds (at least approximately) to what people normally mean by the word "moral" or it doesn't. Julia, Ritchie and I are saying that it doesn't. You seem to agree, but you don't think it matters. The problem is that, if you're not using "moral" (and other terms of moral judgement) in their normal sense, then you're not talking about the same subject as other people are talking about when they use these terms. You've changed the subject.

    By analogy, suppose we agree to discuss the properties of water, but you define "water" to mean "mercury" and then argue that "water is a metal". You've changed the subject of discussion while misleadingly giving the surface impression of discussing the original subject (and possibly helping yourself to some of the connotations of the word "water").

    Now it's true that the meanings of words can be complex, and with a difficult word like "moral" any definition will only approximately capture its normal meaning. Moreover, in selecting a definition which is useful for their purposes, philosophers may reasonably sacrifice some degree of correspondence to normal usage. But the fact remains that, if your definition departs too far from normal usage (as we say yours does) then you have changed the subject.

    P.S. I've been unable to find an explanation of the distinction between "linguistic" and "conceptual" definitions. If you are going to rely on this distinction, would you please explain it carefully.

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  18. P.S. Massimo, there are some passages in your post which suggest you and Julia may be talking at cross-purposes. Let me respond to those:

    A typical descriptive-linguistic definition of morality is this: “Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” There is little disagreement possible here, since this is the way in which, according to dictionaries, people tend to use the term morality. Nowhere in there does anything about human flourishing appear.

    The dispute is over the meaning of normative moral terms, like "moral", "right", "wrong", etc. This definition of morality does not address that issue. (And note that "moral" can have at least two distinct senses. It can be a normative term, but it can also mean "pertaining to the subject of morality", as in the expressions "moral term" and "moral philosophy".)

    So, when I said that I define a moral action as one that augments human flourishing, I was using a conceptual definition, which is open to both debate (one can reasonably reject that particular concept of morality) and needs to be unpacked (what exactly does one mean by “human flourishing”?). For instance, an Ayn Randian could argue that moral actions are those that increase one’s own welfare, and indeed for such a person my concept of morality would be im-moral!

    I'm not sure you're being sufficiently careful to distinguish between definitions and substantive claims. Is the Ayn Randian claiming (as a matter of fact) that moral actions are the ones that increase one's own welfare, or defining "moral actions" to mean those actions that increase one's own welfare? Do you see the difference?

    If you and the Ayn Randian are defining the word "moral" differently, and if you're consistent in understanding "moral" in accordance with the definitions you've each given, then you're not necessarily in substantive disagreement. You may simply be talking at cross-purposes, because you're speaking a different language.

    Of course Julia (or anybody else) can still disagree with my concept of morality, but that disagreement simply can’t be swept away by saying that it is all a matter of definitions...

    Again, I think you may be blurring important distinctions by using the terms "concept" and "morality". It's your definition of the normative term "moral" that we are objecting to.

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  19. Massimo, you replied to Julia as follows:

    When I define moral as augmenting human flourishing I am proposing a conceptual (as opposed to linguistic) definition of moral. I also make an argument for it: it reflects a reasonable understanding of human nature (other than psychopaths, most people seem to wish to increase flourishing in a sense similar to that envisaged by Aristotle, which includes not just individual advantage, but a functional and just society within which one can be secure and happy).

    How do the facts of human nature support your definition? The relevant facts here are facts about what people mean and understand when they use or hear the word "moral".

    One pretty obvious fact is that people usually use the word "moral" in a normative (e.g. prescriptive) way. Yet your definition utterly fails to capture this element of the word's usage. Consider the claim. By your definition, "charity is moral" just means "charity is conducive to well-being". But that claim contains no normative element. It doesn't prescribe charity.

    Moreover, most people would understand "it's moral to do what is conducive to well-being" as a meaningful, non-tautological claim, whether or not they agree with it. Yet your definition reduces this claim to a tautology. Again, your definition does not correspond to the way the word is actually understood.

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  20. Poor Richard, there is nothing incoherent in the concepts of flourishing, eudaimonia, utility and so on. They are the bedrocks of centuries of philosophy, and if you can *show* that they are incoherent I'm sure you can find an excellent position at Harvard or Cambridge, on the spot.

    Richard,

    > Either your definition corresponds (at least approximately) to what people normally mean by the word "moral" or it doesn't <

    Please re-read my post. My point was exactly that there are two kinds of definition at play here, so your dichotomy is a false one.

    > I've been unable to find an explanation of the distinction between "linguistic" and "conceptual" definitions. <

    It's in the post, complete with a reference to a book for further examples.

    czrpb, the germ theory of disease, like most scientific theories, aims at predicting - even approximately - future events. If so, it relies on several principles of induction, like the continuity of causality and the uniformity of nature. Hume's point was that such principles cannot be defended rationally.

    Alex,

    > her point that you must not hide your redefinition, that you must not supposed that every listener is aware of your sleight of hand <

    I'm getting increasingly tired by people on this blog accusing me of sleight of hand, trickery and so on. It's good to have honest intellectual disagreements - this is why I spend so much time writing on this blog for - but it doesn't help to question people's motives unless one has actual evidence of nefarious ones.

    There was *no* slight of hand at all. There are two types of definitions at play, and Julia is too quick at dismissing conceptual issues based on a linguistic reading, thereby confusing the two types of definition. Period.

    > I love it how you try to eat your cake and have it too: first you admit that no discipline, not even your preferred examples of logic and math, can be justified from within themselves ... <

    Do you actually have a substantial disagreement here? Do you disagree that foundational issues arise not just for ethics and philosophy but also for math, logic and science? Didn't think so. My point is simply that some people on this blog and elsewhere are the ones who wish to have their cake and eat it too. They keep dismissing philosophy and ethics on the ground of foundational issues, but seem to want to keep untouched math and especially science, which suffer from the same issues. Talk about sleight of hand.

    > undermines your arguments against Coyne once again <

    What does Jerry have to do with it? He wasn't even mentioned in the post. Someone seems to have developed a fixation...

    > this is not what a straightforward reading of the bible or the actual practice of belief suggest <

    Then you might want to go beyond a "straightforward" reading. Most theologians within all three traditions, and certainly Christian apologetics ever since Aquinas, seems to accept the three O's. But I'm sure you have solid theological arguments to show enlighten us otherwise.

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  21. Massimo wrote:

    Please re-read my post. My point was exactly that there are two kinds of definition at play here, so your dichotomy is a false one.

    How is it a false dichotomy? Whichever type of definition you are giving, either it corresponds (at least approximately) to what people normally mean by the word "moral" or it doesn't. No false dichotomy there. The question is whether such correspondence matters. My argument was that it does, and you've simply ignored my argument. Please re-read my post.

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  22. "Are we or are we not capable of rational thought [about ethics], not just emotional/instinctual response?"

    Massimo, if you agree with Hume that reason is the slave of the passions -that it is not contrary to reason to prefer...- then the answer is that we are *not*. We are not in fact ultimately capable of rationally justifying our natural moral sentiments -even though we might polish them, as he would put it. Similar foundational problem with induction, as you point out. This doesn't mean nihilism nor, I think, that this is the end of the metaethical discussion or even that something like Aristotelian ethics or utilitarianism doesn't capture what's involved in the concept of morality. But it definitely undermines the assumption that morality can somehow be derived from first principles, axioms and "conceptual" definitions, which was I think Julia's concern.

    I wonder if it's just that the kind of Aristotelian (I hesitate to say, continental) metaethics you are trying to do belongs to a different language game, one in which these questions simply do not arise. I see the role of moral philosphy here as trying to bridge the gap between common sense and science and there might not be one way of doing it.

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  23. incredulidadracional, Aristotelian virtue ethics is not a type of metaethics. Metaethical discourse is separate (see link in my post), and yes difficult. My point in bringing that up is the blindness of people who use metadiscourse as a trump card not realizing that their own favorite pet suffers from the same problem...

    Richard, I re-read your post, and I still think you are presenting us with a false dichotomy. First of all, there are degrees of correspondence with "what people mean." Second, which people? Are we talking about common definitions, technical definitions, or what? Since there are many choices, any dichotomy is a false one.

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  24. Massimo: a few things.

    1) Why the arbitrary identification of morality to *human* flourishing? Sam Harris' link of morality to conscious creatures' flourishing encompasses your definition without running into problems with defining marginal cases. It even allows for explaining morality in terms of people falsely thought to exist, such as gods.

    2) " I define a moral action as one that augments human flourishing"

    "Poor Richard, there is nothing incoherent in the concepts of flourishing, eudaimonia, utility and so on. They are the bedrocks of centuries of philosophy, and if you can *show* that they are incoherent I'm sure you can find an excellent position at Harvard or Cambridge, on the spot."

    Your (elucidation of what people ought to mean to be internally consistent with the) definition of morality depends on defining "human flourishing". However, I am highly skeptical that you can demonstrate that the paradoxes of utilitarianism/human flourishing can be unraveled. If you can, you'll get Richard's chair.

    I am, however, highly sympathetic of your link between how mathematics and ethical systems work.

    The way mathematics works is like a sale. The mathematician says: "Buy now! A set of wholly consistent theorems corresponding to an astonishing degree to how the world (or electrical system, or whatever) appears! Yours for the low low price of accepting five (or however many) axioms!" So too, by assuming axioms that resolve the paradoxes in your definition, we could arrive at a single system of morality.

    Such a framework applied to morality would, I believe, still leave us in Julia's conception of the world. This is because we have no empirical reason to prefer one set of assumptions (required for your definition to be coherent) over another (alternately required for your definition to be coherent). This would be true even if your definition were coherent without assumptions, and we had no empirical reason to prefer the morality so produced over one requiring arbitrary assumptions. However, it is all the more glaring since your morality can't even get off the ground without patching up its subsidiary definition of flourishing, and is at sea over why one repair kit (arbitrary resolutions of underlying paradoxes) could be preferred over another.

    3) "Indeed, the reason for my analogy was my criticism of Sam Harris’s claim that the only moral facts are scientific (i.e., empirical) facts. Part of my counter-argument was that we can derive non-arbitrary notions (which I still wouldn’t call “facts”) in wholly non-empirical ways..."

    So Harris argues that only moral facts are empirical, and you counter by saying that there are non-empirical non-facts? I suspect you merely worded this poorly or I am missing something.

    4) It's Julia who wants to talk about what you are doing in defining morality as you do. Her raising the issue of definitions was a demand that you actually do that. Instead of making your case, you merely defend your right to make your case rather than have your argument dismissed as mere semantics. But you never adequately make the case.

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  25. Brian,

    > Why the arbitrary identification of morality to *human* flourishing? Sam Harris' link of morality to conscious creatures' flourishing <

    Because I'm not convinced that the concept of morality expands to non-conscious animals (as far as I know, we are the only ones, with the possible exception of some chimps - unless you meant sentient, which is a broader concept). At any rate, only humans can talk and think about morality.

    > I am highly skeptical that you can demonstrate that the paradoxes of utilitarianism/human flourishing can be unraveled. <

    There is a huge literature on utilitarianism, and I actually think utilitarians have done a darn good job at responding to many objections. Take a look at the Stanford Encyclopedia as an entry point, if you are interested. I still maintain that there are better reasons to be a virtue ethicist, but the contradictions that Richard is referring to only apply to a superficial caricature of utilitarianism.

    > This is because we have no empirical reason to prefer one set of assumptions (required for your definition to be coherent) over another (alternately required for your definition to be coherent). <

    No, but we do have reasons. As I maintained on several occasions, reason is broader than science - which is why philosophy, logic and math can do a lot of work without empirical facts (especially in the case of the latter two).

    > it is all the more glaring since your morality can't even get off the ground without patching up its subsidiary definition of flourishing, and is at sea over why one repair kit (arbitrary resolutions of underlying paradoxes) could be preferred over another. <

    The concept of flourishing has been explored at length in the technical literature, and it doesn't seem to me to require much patching up (incidentally, it is the same concept to which Harris helps himself, though he doesn't use the term if I recall correctly). As for repair kits and so on, let's not get carried away with the metaphor. Again, similar objections can be raised to *any* foundational project, ethics is in no particularly fast sinking boat.

    > So Harris argues that only moral facts are empirical, and you counter by saying that there are non-empirical non-facts? I suspect you merely worded this poorly or I am missing something. <

    That's your wording, not mine. If you want examples of non-empirical non-facts that happen to be true just loo at any mathematical theorem or logical proposition.

    > Instead of making your case, you merely defend your right to make your case rather than have your argument dismissed as mere semantics. <

    This post is a response to Julia's point about definitions. I already made my case about ethics on several posts here, one of which is linked from this entry.

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  26. "contra Julia, morality is not usually defined as the set of actions that augment human flourishing"

    What the hell is that Massimo? She did not say that, YOU SAID THAT.

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  27. The claim that only monkeys are the other conscious animal is very strange, I'm not sure what evidence that would be based upon.

    By consciousness I (and most other psychologists and neuroscientists studying the topic) mean awareness, the ability to have perceptual experience such as seeing a sunset or taste of a banana.

    The thalamocortical and brain-stem systems likely responsible for mediating this in humans extend much further than primates. Perhaps you are conflating higher-level propositional thought with consciousness. The anthropologists and philosophers sometimes make that mistake, but it is way far out there fringe.

    And because it is likely that all conscious animals experience pain, why not include them in the moral sphere?

    And even though plants can't feel pain, they can flourish. Just ask my wife what it's like to come home to a bunch of nonflourishing plants.

    And if you accept that plants can flourish, which it seems you should, what about HIV? Should that flourish?

    I like using the idea of flourishing as one of many relevant considerations when thinking about how we ought to behave. It seems on the right track, but it seems your implementation has a lot of details you need to think through more clearly.

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  28. Richard, I re-read your post, and I still think you are presenting us with a false dichotomy. First of all, there are degrees of correspondence with "what people mean." Second, which people? Are we talking about common definitions, technical definitions, or what? Since there are many choices, any dichotomy is a false one.

    Massimo,

    On the first point, I never claimed it was a strict dichotomy. In using the expression "at least approximately" I recognised that there there can be degrees of correspondence. But clearly some definitions can be so lacking in correspondence to what people mean that we can reasonably say they don't correspond. If you define "water" to mean "mercury" or "love", it's reasonable to say that your definition does not correspond to what people usually mean by "water".

    On the second point, I'm talking about what people usually mean by "moral", not how the word usually gets defined. I'm not appealing to any dictionary definitions. As to which people, I mean ordinary people making typical moral claims. Sure, sometimes more than one significantly different meaning of a word is in common use. I've already identified two meanings of "moral": a normative one which is used in making moral claims (like "giving to charity is moral" or "murder is immoral"), and one which roughly means "pertaining to the subject of morality". The one we're concerned with here is the former.

    Perhaps you want to argue that there are multiple normative meanings of "moral" in common use. I would disagree. There is no doubt some variation across the population, but I don't think it's significant enough for the variations to count as separate meanings. In any case, I deny that your definition corresponds to any meaning that is in common use. By analogy, there is more than one meaning of "water" in common use, but I don't think any of them corresponds to the definition that "water" means "mercury" or "love".

    It's true that some people say an action is moral iff it augments human flourishing (or something of that sort), while others say an action is moral iff it's commanded by God, and still others have other basic moral views. You seem to be taking such statements as different definitions of "moral". I'm saying that they are not definitions; they are substantive claims about what type of actions happen to be moral, and that all these claimants are using the word "moral" to mean roughly the same thing.

    (continued...)

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  29. (...continued)

    Consider another analogy:
    1. An object is bouyant iff it floats in water.
    2. An object is bouyant iff its density is less than that of water.

    Statement #1 is a definition of "bouyant". "Bouyant" means (roughly) "floats in water". Statement #2 is a substantive claim about what kind of objects happen to be bouyant. It doesn't tell us the meaning of "bouyant".

    When people say an action is moral iff it augments human flourishing, or an action is moral iff it's commanded by God, I say they are making a statement of type #2 (a substantive claim) but you're wrongly interpreting it as a statement of type #1 (a definition).

    Notice that there is no grammatical difference between statements #1 and #2 that identifies ones as the definition. But we can tell which is the definition because we already know the meaning of "bouyant". In the case of the word "moral" we have difficulty saying what the word "moral" means, and so can easily confuse a substantive claim for a definition.

    If you take the position that people with different basic moral views (like an action is moral iff it augments human flourishing, or an action is moral iff it's commanded by God) are using the word "moral" to mean different things, then you will probably say that there are multiple meanings of "moral" in use. In that case you will presumably say that your definition corresponds to one common meaning but not all common meanings. Is that your position?

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  30. Massimo Pigliucci said... "Poor Richard, there is nothing incoherent in the concepts of flourishing, eudaimonia, utility and so on. They are the bedrocks of centuries of philosophy..."

    Unfortunately, philosophers have not had much information about biology or the brain until recently, so we have not just centuries but millennia of brilliant but false or irrelevant "bedrock" to cut through.

    Per dictionary.com: "coherent...3. having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design."

    Concepts of goodness, morality, utility, flourishing, etc. are incoherent in that they are generalizations that subsume huge, complex, and diverse collections of data structures, data types, and algorithms swirling around in each person's virtual (neural) reality. There is no known coherent design or structure of this dynamic neural content. It is accumulated, manipulated, and interpreted in a highly ad hoc and dynamic fashion. Much of the content is inconsistent, incoherent, and even contradictory. The bulk of this content is hidden from us inside neural and biological "black boxes".

    Any given stimulus, state, or neural artifact may get labeled good one moment and bad the next. Thoughts, emotions, thoughts about emotions, and emotions about thoughts are highly and recursively entangled with sense perceptions, memories, and yet-uncharacterized neural processes above and below the threshold of conscious awareness and attention.

    Its as if we each had multiple black boxes full of billions of beads, baubles, and mementos we had collected over our lifetimes that represented "goodness".

    Goodness, morality, utility, etc. are incoherent in the sense that I cannot meaningfully characterize my boxes or compare my boxes to your boxes by gross external criteria like size, shape, weight, etc. nor even by our recollections of the contents. At the very least we have to pour out all the boxes, sort the contents, and compare buttons to bottle caps.

    I consider myself a utilitarian (or maybe a neo-utilitarian) but I consider "goodness" and utility to be a massively complex function of many highly entangled biological, neural, social, and environmental processes, much of which has yet to be adequately modeled. We know just enough to know that goodness and utility can and should be based on empirical science rather than pure reason or blind faith.

    If I still haven't "shown" incoherence inside the current generalizations of goodness, utility, or flourishing (both personal and interpersonal) to your satisfaction yet, then please suggest some criteria.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  31. UnBeguiled, THERE IS NO REASON TO SHOUT! I conceded that point to Julia in one of my earlier responses, but nothing substantial hinges on that issue. We still disagree both about definitions in general and about morality in particular.

    Eric, I don't want to turn this into a discussion of consciousness, which has been explored in other posts. No, plants do not flourish, they flower (trust me, I'm a botanist). Perhaps we are confusing here the sphere of moral discourse with the sphere of moral concern. I agree that the latter should be much larger than just human beings, but human beings are the only ones that can even think about morality. Moreover, it is not immediately clear how far the sphere of our moral concern should extend, as your own example of the HIV virus clearly shows: I'd say, from a humanist perspective, fuck the virus all the way to extinction, I have no moral qualms about that.

    Richard, the whole point of my post was that conceptual definitions are important, but that they require some sophistication to be discussed, so no, I am not referring to lay people's definitions of morality. At any rate, your own distinction between god-based common concepts of morality and human welfare-based ones undermines your points that a) there isn't more than one common definition of morality, and b) a large number of people do not think of morality in terms of human welfare (or, as philosophers put it, flourishing). Your example of water is entirely besides the point, except of course that there is a distinction between the technical and the common definition of water, and that that distinction matters if one is interested in studying water (as opposed to just drinking it).

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  32. Poor Richard, be careful not to get too caught up into postmodernism. The fact that *some* aspects of what people consider good change with times and culture doesn't mean that there are no invariants. I submit, for instance, that the principle that it is not acceptable to kill members of your group at random is an invariant, and that avoiding such scenario is a universal good shared by human beings (and other primates).

    Cultural variation is both important and interesting, but to claim that it makes any attempt at talking about ethics incoherent is simply bizarre.

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  33. Hi! Thx! (I did not mean to sound like an ass! Sorry about that.) You said: "czrpb, the germ theory of disease, like most scientific theories, aims at predicting - even approximately - future events. If so, it relies on several principles of induction, like the continuity of causality and the uniformity of nature. Hume's point was that such principles cannot be defended rationally."

    Let me ask this: Say I have a button beside a window into a room in front of me. The window only affords a view of part of the room, meaning I can not see the walls: sides and top/bottom, only a part of the back wall. When I push the button a blue ball drops from the top of my view in the window to and through the bottom. I do this 100 times. I predict that if I push the button again the same thing will happen, and it does; over and over. That is the inductive part right? Now say I tear about the walls around the button, I follow the gears and levers and such, leading into the room where I find a basket of blue balls (connected to a blue ball making machine; allow me a bit of leaway, please! grin!) and all the simple machinery so that pushing the button causes a trap-door to open and 1 blue ball to fall out. At this point, from this perspective, is it not deductive reasoning I use when I state that pushing the button causes a ball to fall? I mean I have seen and investigated and proven(?) how gears, levers, pulleys and such work. Ignoring for the moment asking about the matter that makes up the simply physical machinery, if I go off and re-build the same setup and stand outside the window, pushing the button, watching blue balls fall by I deductively(?) know why right?

    This seems to me the same as say the classic example of: 'Will the sun rise tomorrow?' Starting with the iron laws of physics (again leaway for the moment), the sun will rise as there is nothing else it can do. Sure, we can push into more micro-levels asking questions, having to make, what seems to me, inductive arguments. But the "larger" question seems to have been answered without induction. (Kinda like your talk about axioms: Given the axioms of say Newtons laws, we can deduce things; such as how to fly a space probe to Jupiter: Using other planetary bodies *will* cause the probe to be forced onto a path towards Jupiter.) Or say when I use a microscope: I look at a slide and see all manner of cells. They do things. I record what different cells do. I look away. I look back and they are still doing the things they do. Look away, look back, look away, look back: They are still doing their things. Using optics as axioms I can deduce things: Like how penicillin can kill bacteria. At this point where is the induction?

    Anyway, hopefully my comment is clear even if it is a very long one, so if you read this far thanks!!

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  34. I experience what I consciously perceive, yet am conscious that perception is experienced, while at the same time perceive the experience of consciousness. Am I exclusively human in the bargain, or am I only experiencing the ability to confabulate what other creatures feel?
    Whatever I exist as, have viruses and such not contributed to my genetic makeup? Can I determine with mathematical precision that viruses and other noxious forms should no longer be encouraged to exist, let alone to flourish?

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  35. Okay, I'm going to weigh in contra Massimo. Sorry, Massimo.

    Okay, so we have this "conceptual" definition of "moral". This is *not* the lay person's definition of "moral" (Massimo, two posts above).
    So, to avoid confusion, let's call it "schmoral".
    So something is schmoral iff it augments human flourishing (or whatever). This is now a straightforward linguistic definition: "schmoral" is a new word I made up, an "empty symbol" so I can define it uncontroversially to be whatever I want.
    Now, schmoral seems like a perfectly useful concept. I'm sure it has it's place in ethical discussion, but I'm not sure that there is a conceptual link to "moral". Certainly, they don't seem to be inter-substituatble.

    Consider the following inference, that I think most people would accept:
    1. It is the moral thing to do X.
    2. You should do X.

    Compare with:
    1. It is the schmoral thing to do X.
    2. You should do X.

    The second unpacks to
    1. It would augment human flourishing to do X.
    2. You should do X.

    Now, if I really don't want to do X, I think I could quite legitimately say "So what?" to someone who argued in the latter way. It might make me selfish, but if I (say) cared about noone's flourishing but my own, I would find the latter argument totally unconvincing.
    In the former case, I think the inference is valid just in virtue of what "moral" means. If my selfish self wanted to disagree, he'd be obliged to deny 1.

    Now, if you say that my selfish self is in fact a "psychopath", then you reduce your claim to triviality. All you'll have shown is that IF you care about human flourishing, THEN you ought to do things that augment it. As it happens, I think this is the best you can do with morality, but it's disingenuous to call it moral realism.

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  36. Massimo Pigliucci said..."Poor Richard, be careful not to get too caught up into postmodernism. The fact that *some* aspects of what people consider good change with times and culture doesn't mean that there are no invariants. I submit, for instance, that the principle that it is not acceptable to kill members of your group at random is an invariant, and that avoiding such scenario is a universal good shared by human beings (and other primates).

    I don't necessarily dispute the value any particular moral rule, past or present, on its face, but assert the incoherence of rules if you can't explain and justify them empirically.

    Massimo Pigliucci said..."Cultural variation is both important and interesting, but to claim that it makes any attempt at talking about ethics incoherent is simply bizarre."

    I haven't really been addressing cultural variation at all. I acknowledge the biological and cultural sources of our moral sentiments, but I question the pace at which current life sciences are incorporated into philosophy and ethics. I suspect that philosophy may be slow to take up new information from life sciences for the same reasons that politics and religion are.

    I didn't mean to say that "any attempt at talking about ethics" is incoherent (that would be bizarre since I am talking about ethics right now), but that any conclusions are incoherent if you can't "show your work" without huge gaps where the empirical data and mechanisms should be.

    (Prior to very recent life science information, most reasoning about ethics might as well be based on observations of earth, air, fire, and water, if not supernatural agencies.)

    In my view, ethics, utility, etc. must be largely based on empirically derived bio-neural systems models to meet the needs of a secular and egalitarian society poised on the brink of many unprecedented and simultaneous crises. Is that "post-modernism"?

    However you label it, much of the philosophical "bedrock" of the past may soon be under water.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  37. Massimo,

    Since you clearly lack the time and/or inclination to read my posts properly, I'll waste no more time arguing with you. I just hope you'll pay more attention to Julia's posts.

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  38. Richard, sorry you feel I didn't pay enough attention (welcome to the club, that's pretty often my own feeling about some people commenting on my posts), but surely you realize that there is one of me and dozens, sometimes hundreds of comments to read and respond to. The fact that I picked on yours several times in this thread indicates that I value them.

    Michael, all of that is good (though please don't use loaded words like disingenuous, I am NOT trying to cheat anyone here), and of course one can simply be unmoved by the moral argument. But this isn't special to moral arguments. One can be unmoved by the laws of physics as well, ignore gravity and jump out of a window. Surely that doesn't prove that the law of gravity doesn't exist. I think there is a constant confusion here - which Julia incurs too repeatedly - between a moral argument (which is meant to persuade via reason) and something that might somehow magically compel people to act morally. The latter doesn't exist, which is why we have prisons and hospital wards for the insane.

    Poor Richard, your definition of incoherence seems strange to me. If one "can't show one's work" at best one is making an incomplete argument, not an incoherent one. And the work has been done, by me in summary and lay fashion, by professional moral philosophers in large volumes that need to be engaged if you seriously want to show that they are flawed. Your demand for empirical neuro-testability confuses empirical facts with reasoned discourse. The latter can be informed, but is not necessarily determined, by empirical facts. Philosophical discussions are not settled by empirical evidence (though, again, the latter can inform them), for reasons similar to those that make empirical facts irrelevant in logic or math. As I said earlier, rational discourse is more than just science, and there is a persistent tendency by some readers to simply equate the two.

    czrpb, no problem. Your example is a good one, but it still falls short of Hume's argument near the end. When you say that the sun will rise tomorrow because of the laws of physics, that is begging the question: how do you know that the laws of physics will be the same tomorrow? Because they have been so in the past - which is an inductive argument...

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  39. I actually think the problem of induction is fairly easily dealt with, without making circular assumptions about how "statistics works because it has in the past..." merely by making a correction to how we construct the reference class of possibilities which removes a prejudice that people have when they make it. Maybe I'll write about it soon, as it would be a bit involved.

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  40. Massimo--

    First off, it's getting annoying for you to keep saying things like "it's getting annoying that people keep accusing me of deception". When we accuse you of deceptive phrasing, you act like we're accusing you of perjury or some other crime. We're accusing you of deception in a technical and philosophical sense. It's normal in analytic philosophy to analyze arguments at the level of terminology in order to see whether the terms have been used in valid, meaningful ways and to see whether or not the desired conclusion has really been reached. There is a field in which people don't pay careful attention to the subtleties of terminology; it's called "continental philosophy", where the term "violence" is used in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with blood, gore, or combat, but is instead taken to mean something like "revolutionary thinking".

    I am pretty sure I understand what you mean by the term "conceptual definition", but the problem is that you have merely told us the technical name for a certain way of making a claim. Up till now, I have thought of definitions as tools for enabling discussion that work by creating term-concept equivalences. A conceptual definition is so different from a linguistic definition that it strikes me as odd to view them as similar things. If you say "I define 'morality' as to mean '...'" and by this you do not mean to create a term-concept equivalence but instead wish to denote a concept-concept relationship, you're not doing anything even close to defining a term. If you use a conceptual definition like "'morality' means 'increases eudaimonia'", you are not really referring to the word "morality" but simply using it. Based on your exposition in this post, it seems that linguistic definitions tell us how words are used, while conceptual definitions are really just uses of words to state principles.

    I find your discussion of meta issues and fundamentals unconvincing because you don't seem too discriminating with regards to the fundamentals of different fields. You, after all, dismiss one heavily-practiced field, Theology, because of a foundational issue. There is tons of scholarship describing how God is, works, affects the world, etc, but you object to it because Theology is a tower without a base. It really is the case that foundational issues can be so severe that they topple whole fields.

    And I think Julia, myself, et al are attacking the base of ethics in a way that would not easily apply to math and science: we are attacking the usefulness of ethical concepts as ways of describing reality-at-large. Whatever foundational issues Math and Science have, it seems that they have great power at describing things. But my charge is precisely that moral concepts don't elucidate our view of reality at large. Math and Science help me understand; morality doesn't.

    Reading your last reply, I don't see how moral philosophy outside of moral psychology helps one understand human life. And if you're meaning to say "my question is, can I rationally decide what to do?" then I will respond, as I have argued in another thread, that while rational thinking can tell you how to get what you desire, it cannot tell you what to desire.

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  41. Hi! You said: "... but it still falls short of Hume's argument near the end. ... that is begging the question: how do you know that the laws of physics will be the same tomorrow?"

    Great! The reply I had in mind that was coming was quite similar! That means I *might* (and only "might") understand a *bit*.

    So, I just looked up the half-life of iron(56), and read: "Stable". (Does that mean what I think it means?) So, taking any of the levers or pulleys or gears made of iron I *know* that they are "there" when I am not looking at them, and will impact each other and cause each other to move in deducible ways.

    So, I guess I am wondering if we have proven axioms of physics at the macro(?) level from which we can deduce cause and effect. But we have gotten far enough to push into the super-micro (quantum): At this level we only have probability right? And if you will forgive me that is kinda like induction (The electron is likely to be here and much less likely to be there: Oh look! It is there. [Look away and look back.] Still there. [Look away and look back.] Ack! It is gone!)

    Or asked this way: Do we believe atoms exist and act as they do inductively or "just" declare their existence and behavior (based on observation?) and therefore they can be axiomatic in the universe allowing for deduction?

    Why does this not sufficiently resolve the issue? (Hahaha! At this point, references to other material, web citations, books, etc where I can learn more would be a happily acceptable reply! wink!)

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  42. Massimo said:
    No, plants do not flourish, they flower (trust me, I'm a botanist).

    lol If flourishing were a technical term, well defined, then you might get away with that sleight of hand. However, it would be a mangling of ordinary usage, at the very least, to say that plants can't flourish. Compare my dried out fungus-infected oak tree to my hearty green-leafed well hydrated rose bush. Tell me one isn't flourishing.

    Then you repeat what I thought was a mistype:
    Perhaps we are confusing here the sphere of moral discourse with the sphere of moral concern. I agree that the latter should be much larger than just human beings, but human beings are the only ones that can even think about morality.

    Yes, but that is a different topic. Using your definition, there is no restriction on torturing puppies because they are not humans. My claim is, who cares if said puppies can't reason morally? I'm sure there are mentally disabled people who can't reason morally but that doesn't mean we can torture them.

    Then, obviously the question becomes where the line is drawn. Since obviously it isn't just people (contra your original definition), where is the nonarbitrary line for what can flourish and what can't? Again, clearly not only animals that can engage in abstract propositional thought about morality.

    Perhaps pain feeling is one nonarbitrary demarcation.

    But then I would want to add more dimensions to my moral philosophy, e.g., one that would allow me to justify not eradicating species because I want to increase my profits in the coffee industry (even if said extinction only improved human flourishing).

    It isn't clear whether you are saying you think your prescriptive definition establishes a necessary condition, sufficient condition, or both, or neither, on what counts as moral.

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  43. Massimo,

    Thanks for your polite reply to my rather brusque comment. "A kind word turneth away wrath" is a motto I appreciate but find it difficult to act on. ;-)

    ...but surely you realize that there is one of me and dozens, sometimes hundreds of comments to read and respond to.

    Sure, and that's one of the reasons I concluded it was a waste of time to continue. Might I suggest that you don't need to respond to so many comments. In fact doing so is counter-productive, because it means you don't have time to deal adequately with the strongest arguments, particularly Julia's. It often seems that, for lack of time, you are looking for excuses to dismiss people's arguments quickly instead of making a serious attempt to understand them.

    I think there is a right and a wrong answer in your dispute with Julia, and I'd like to think that two people committed to rational thinking should be able to settle on which one is right. But the unfortunate fact is that even people committed to rational thinking are rarely open to persuasion once they've become convinced that they're right. That seems to be a fact of human nature. In my judgement the main problem is that, when people are convinced they're right, they don't take the opposing argument seriously enough to make the investment of time and effort needed to understand an argument that goes against one's intuitions. This tendency is exacerbated by the fact that natural language is vague and ambiguous, and people often don't express themselves as clearly as they might, so multiple interpretations are often possible. If you're convinced the other person is wrong you're more likely to accept the first interpretation that comes to mind, even if it makes their argument a poor one, whereas a more charitable and thorough approach might lead you to question that interpretation and keep looking until you find the meaning they intended. These issues are particularly to the fore in philosophical discussions, where the question often turns on the meanings of words that we take for granted but are actually quite tricky.

    So, for what it's worth, I would like to see you spend far more time in careful consideration of Julia's arguments, and on much more careful wording of your own posts. If that means you don't have the time to respond to other commenters at all, I think that would be a cost easily worth paying. In fact I for one would prefer you not to respond at all to anyone whose arguments you don't have the time to do justice to. That sort of response generates more heat than light, and there's already far too much of that on the Internet. It's not what I hope to see from a site called "Rationally Speaking".

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  44. Eric, flourishing *is* a technical term within virtue ethics, you can look up the relevant literature. And if you do, you'll see that Aristotle would not condone the torturing of puppies because it diminishes one's own humanity. The fact that there isn't a sharp line somewhere doesn't mean one cannot make distinctions. Once again, the hell with the HIV virus.

    czrpb, your new example of atom/ and electrons raises a whole different problem, that of unobservables in science. Nobody has ever since atoms or electrons, they are theoretical postulates that account for certain observable behaviors of matter. Whether they correspond to real objects or not is up for discussion. If you are interested in this, look up the literature on realism vs. anti-realism in philosophy of science. The problem of induction still remains, however, any time science wishes to make general statements that are supposed to be true in the future.

    Ritchie, sorry man, but this is my blog and I can complain as much as I like. I still think you were rude, and you should (moral) apologize. Not that I'm holding my breadth, of course. My objections to bringing up foundational issues remains in place despite your reply. Theology doesn't have a foundational problem, theology has a problem of substance: it is much reasoning about absolutely nothing. As for the difference between ethics on the one hand and math/logic/science on the other, I agree that ethics isn't about "describing the world at large." Why did you ever think it was? It's about prescriptions, not descriptions. At any rate, neither math nor logic "describe the world at large," unless you are a Platonist who thinks that mathematical objects and logical propositions are in some sense "out there" (a position that I don't actually dismiss, but that I'm pretty sure you will find unpalatable.

    Richard, I think you want too much from a blog. I pick some comments to respond to because I want to provide an interactive experience to our readers, and because I learn in the process (despite you conviction that I am apparently not open to learning). But this is still a non-technical forum for informal discussions, not an academic peer reviewed journal. I know this is my blog and so I'm biased, but read other blogs, and I honestly think that the level of substance that Julia, Michael and I put into this thing is far higher than most other stuff out there.

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  45. Professor:

    I think I understand what Hume is saying well enough. I question, though, whether there is any actual problem to be solved, in the case of induction or in other so-called problems, like that of other minds. When addressing an issue makes no difference to what we do, how we live, how we interact with each other and the rest of the universe, the issue doesn't seem significant in any meaninful sense, not does it seem to relate to any problem that need concern us.

    We've debated these problems for many years, and no doubt will continue to do so. Problems which are not problems are particularly hard to solve.

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  46. 1. How are you defining flourishing?

    2. Saying torturing puppies is bad because it hurts human dignity seems nutty. It's like reading an old vivisectionist thoughts on animal cruelty.

    For what it's worth, Anagnostopoulos, Companion to Aristotle Volume 42 said '[F]lourishing is, I think too organic or biological a notion to be a good translation [of eudamonia]'. Aristotle thought only humans (and gods) could flourish. Why would you wrap such strange notions into your philosophy of ethics, given that you seem to have naturalistic dispositions?

    3. In your prescriptive definition are you saying think promoting human flourishing is necessary, sufficient, neither, or both for something to be moral?

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  47. ciceronianus, I think your position is too extreme. If only things that make a difference in our lives are worth discussing, then much basic science goes out the window, since it answers our curiosity rather than make a difference. Same for much of math, all of art, and so on.

    Eric, I wrote before that of course I consider myself a neo-Aristotelian, I don't need to follow to the letter what Aristotle says. But yes, I consider human flourishing both necessary and sufficient to live an ethical life. And I really don't care whether my argument sound one way or another, I think animal cruelty debases human beings, so it decreases their eudaimonia, so it needs to be avoided. As for my definition of flourishing, it would take a separate post, but broadly I think of it as the (many, not mutually exclusive) set of ways of conducting life so that one is living well (both mentally and physically), engaging in constructive pursuits, and living in harmony with other human beings and with the natural world.

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  48. Massimo Pigliucci said... "Poor Richard, your definition of incoherence seems strange to me. If one "can't show one's work" at best one is making an incomplete argument, not an incoherent one."

    My argument goes off the rails and into the weeds if I place too much importance on the word "incoherence". The concept of incoherence may be a bit incoherent itself. But my comment about gaps in "showing the work" was only an off-hand way of summarizing a number of ideas you have not responded to.

    My main point is that both goodness and reason arise from bio-physical reality and this is not yet adequately factored into existing philosophical discourse.

    Massimo Pigliucci said... "Your demand for empirical neuro-testability confuses empirical facts with reasoned discourse."

    My argument is that philosophical discourse is properly the combination of empirical facts and reason, and that the past and current body of the discourse has been far to light on the empirical side of the balance.

    Some philosophers recognize this in the metaphor about angels dancing on the head of a pin. Recognizing the problem and correcting it are two different things, and philosophers and scientists (if there is a difference) have not until very recently had the wherewithal to really do much about it.

    Flourishing can not be intelligently discussed without being highly informed by such things as biology, ecology, social science, and perhaps especially things like psychoneuroimmunology.

    That is why I submit that Aristotle was a brilliant man but didn't and couldn't know much more about flourishing than he knew about chemistry, physics, and biology at the time.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  49. Hi! You said: "Nobody has ever since[seen?] atoms or electrons, they are theoretical postulates that account for certain observable behaviors of matter."

    Oh! I did not actually realize atoms are still deemed theoretical! So let me finish our little discussion with: Are cells considered real? We of course can not see them. We see them through a microscope. We do not doubt their existence do we? We know(?) the workings of a microscope prove their existence right? I had though all those high tech microscopes had given us "images" (on a computer screen of course!) that we can now consider the atom "real" in the same way?

    If not, why? Is it, then, even possible to "see" atoms like we see cells? Or does most of science believe cells are theoretical constructs too?

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  50. Eric, flourishing *is* a technical term within virtue ethics, you can look up the relevant literature. And if you do, you'll see that Aristotle would not condone the torturing of puppies because it diminishes one's own humanity.

    I looked up some of those terms in Wikipedia to give me a general overview and I still wonder if something's missing. I had a neighbour who really enjoyed having cats but she had some mental difficulties which meant she would neglect to feed and care for them. By giving her cats, it made her happy, so should this outweigh the probability that the cats would suffer?

    What if someone believed that one animal was competing with us for a food species - wolves eating "our" sheep, seals or whales eating "our" fish. Do we have a duty to maximise the food available for others to prevent starvation and so kill all the competitors, or do they also have some right to life?

    The example in wikipedia talked about "virtues" in the sense that an animal had a "purpose" which it should fulfil, the example being that the virtue of a racehorse is speed. But racing horses can injure or kill the horse and speed seems only to benefit humans, I can't shake the feeling that this is viewed through very human-centric lens.

    After all, from the view of E coli, the virtue of a human is warmth and shelter. From the view of a house cat, the virtue of a human is food and attention so anything which might take us from the house unnecessarily is immoral.

    As for my definition of flourishing, it would take a separate post, but broadly I think of it as the (many, not mutually exclusive) set of ways of conducting life so that one is living well (both mentally and physically), engaging in constructive pursuits, and living in harmony with other human beings and with the natural world.

    My problem with that is it seems too motherhood and applie pie. How do we resolve conflicts? It's all fine to say we should live in harmony, but the natural world is not in harmony with any species and never will be. How do we (how can we) justify knocking down forests to build houses, drag netting to gather food, spraying pesticides to protect crops, even something as simple as taking antibiotics means you're out of harmony. Can one morally justify eating meat? What about keeping dairy cattle, given their miserable living conditions? You said that torturing puppies is wrong because it diminishes our humanity, but many industrial food animals lead lives which could/should be described as torture if we didn't kill and eat them. What is our obligation here?

    I also wonder about "constructive pursuits", and how flexible the definition is. Would living a few years as a surf bum be immoral since it's not constructive and about as hedonistic as you can get? It sounds like watching Iron Man 2 is actually immoral, instead of just not recommended.

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  51. Massimo Pigliucci said... "Philosophical discussions are not settled by empirical evidence (though, again, the latter can inform them), for reasons similar to those that make empirical facts irrelevant in logic or math."

    Hmm. The distinction between informing and settling a philosophical discussion is a very interesting one. How settled can a discussion be if not adequately informed?

    Logic and math are meaningless and could not exist without a physical world and a fairly advanced neo-cortex. On a wild tangent... triangles and equations come from the same place as unicorns and angels--a brain that analyzes, generalizes, synthesizes, etc. data that arise from interaction of the brain's own material and activity with the world.

    I would agree that all the facts in the world do not constitute an argument or a theory, but our powers of reasoning arise from properties of the natural world and not in some vacuum. There is no such thing as "pure reason".

    All the things that philosophers do spring from things that neurons and molecules do. Philosophy that is not as informed as humanly possible by empirical facts is a fools errand.

    To return to my main thesis about morality, goodness, utility, etc. ...

    Goodness makes no sense at all outside of a neo-cortex, but even in a neo-cortex it can be incoherent and incongruous with relevant facts.

    Goodness and utility can only be calculated from facts regardless of how the facts are weighted and interpreted and how the calculations are done.

    There is all the difference in the world, both for individuals and groups, between causal, ad hoc, narrow self-interest (special utility), calculated from some subset of available facts, (as in the case of the subjective calculations of goodness or utility of an average three year old child, for example); and enlightened self-interest (general utility), calculated from all the facts known to humanity.

    Goodness, utility, flourishing, etc. are complex, composite things. The more we tease apart all the constituents the better we can measure them, reason about them, and perhaps even begin to engineer them with some competence.

    Teasing apart goodness or flourishing into their constituent parts is now a job that science can participate in.

    Are individual value judgments and passions (but one subset of data about goodness or flourishing) a subject for science? Absolutely.

    Is "freedom" a subject for science? Absolutely.

    Is "justice" a subject for science? Absolutely.

    Can we trust either current science or philosophy to offer the last word on any of these matters? Absolutely not.

    I lament the separation of philosophy and natural science, but I understand that science was long silent and dark on many matters concerning nature and human experience. The pressure for religion and philosophy to forge ahead of empirical evidence and find answers to human questions is understandable. I can't say it was a waste of time because there was little alternative. But philosophy has been out there ahead of natural science so long it has developed some bad habits (thinking about matters apart from matter) which I think are getting in the way of both science and philosophy today.

    I'm neither a professional scientist nor a professional philosopher, but on behalf of the common man I may be entitled to ask: Is it time for science and philosophy to re-merge?

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  52. Massimo, whether it's a blog or a more formal medium, what's the point of responding to arguments if you don't make sufficient effort to understand them? I find your attitude extremely disappointing, and to be honest I think you're very far from living up to your blog title of "Rationally Speaking". Thank goodness Julia is here to redress the balance. At least one kind thing I can say to you is that you made a wise choice of co-blogger.

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  53. Richard, I do think I took your arguments seriously, I just don't find them convincing, and I do think I provided serious responses. I guess we'll have to disagree on that. Glad you like Julia, at least.

    Tyro, Wikipedia isn't a good source for this stuff. If you want to take a serious look around, check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I don't want to turn this into a discussion of what the right thing to do is in a number of specific cases, that wasn't the point of the post at all. But when you talk about "the view of E. coli," well, if we are talking about moral stances obviously there is no such thing as the view of anything but conscious animals who can think about morality...

    czrpb, we can see cells, we can't see atoms or electrons (the latter even in principle, I'm afraid).

    Poor Richard, math and logic wouldn't exist as activities without humans thinking about it, but they are most definitely *not* in the same category of unicorns. They don't seem to be quite that arbitrary. And I agree with much else you say, if you read carefully my posts here I always advocate that philosophy be informed by empirical evidence, it's just that empirical evidence is insufficient to determine our values. And it is simply not the case that philosophers haven't factored that in! For years papers in ethics very much have taken into account what neurobiology can contribute, and there have been several papers co-authored by philosophers and neurobiologists.

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  54. Massimo: Thanks for entertaining my ignorance! grin!

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  55. czrbp,

    If not, why? Is it, then, even possible to "see" atoms like we see cells? Or does most of science believe cells are theoretical constructs too?

    As counter-intuitive and unappealing as it seems, Massimo is right that essentially all of science is built upon induction. Some of your examples did involve deduction but the axioms upon which the deduction works are only established using induction, so it's wheels within wheels.

    Pirsig came up with a good example of induction in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (if I remember correctly). If you're riding your bike and go over a bump and hear a squeak, you might suspect a cause but it could be a co-incidence. A second bump brings the same squeak. And again and again. You don't think the squeak caused the bump and you start to suspect that the bump caused the squeak and as time goes on your confidence may increase. but how much of this confidence is warranted, what have we really learned, could things change at any moment, how many bump-squeaks are necessary to say that the bump causes the squeak? Since we lack the n=0 case, we are floundering a bit.

    The same thing happens with atoms. We fire a proton at a sheet of gold foil and we get a characteristic scattering and we say this was caused by atoms. We develop ever more elaborate tests and theories and get ever more confirmations but this is just adding more f(n+1) cases. Science is filled with examples of times when one new observation shows that our theories need dramatic changes (eg: newton's gravity, the luminiferous aether).

    I know I feel pretty confident in cell theory and microscopes let us see real cells but all of this relies on theories of light, optics and chemistry which are themselves built on induction and so could, theoretically, be overthrown by new discoveries. I don't believe they will be and I don't think Massimo is saying he believes it either, but nevertheless it's a possibility which is impossible to quantify.

    I do think that this whole discussion is a massive tu quoque to distract from definitions & morality but what the hell, it's an interesting distraction :)

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  56. Ritchie the Bear said...while rational thinking can tell you how to get what you desire, it cannot tell you what to desire."

    Why not? That seems unjustifiably categorical to me. Can I not desire that rational thinking tell me what to desire, if not in full, at least in part?

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  57. But when you talk about "the view of E. coli," well, if we are talking about moral stances obviously there is no such thing as the view of anything but conscious animals who can think about morality...

    Obviously (well, obvious to me) I brought up E coli as an example of how the 'purpose' and essential virtues of an organism aren't objective but vary depending on perspective. I doubt that the virtues of humans would be the same if we asked a human, a chimp, an endangered rhino, a blue whale or a house cat. Saying that this isn't an issue if they can't reason about morality sounds like a cop-out as we weren't using our moral philosophers to determine their purpose/virtues, so there's not reason why we need their moral philosophers to determine our purpose/virtues.

    I was instead asking why humans should have the privileged perspective and the lives and purpose of all other animals should be contingent on how they impact our lives. Why should it matter how well they reason about morals, isn't their capacity to feel, interact and potentially suffer value enough? Maybe their mere uniqueness is value enough?

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  58. Tyro, yes, different priorities for different species. But of course moral discourse is limited to humans because we are the only ones that seem to have a concept of morality to begin with. Hence the centrality of humans to ethical discourse. As I said before, this doesn't imply callous disregard for the interests of other species.

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  59. Every organism tries to do the right thing. That's by analogy the definition of an organism. So in their own world, with its limited set of options, each organism makes assessments of its experiences from a moral code of conduct.

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  60. "...I'm not convinced that the concept of morality expands to non-conscious animals (as far as I know, we are the only ones, with the possible exception of some chimps)...only humans can talk and think about morality."

    That wouldn't surprise me, if true. But the broader definition contains yours and is more flexible in whom it can refer to. Are any chimps human?

    "... the contradictions that Richard is referring to only apply to a superficial caricature of utilitarianism."

    I did not see him refer to any contradictions. I was referring to the difficulty of weighing different types of goods and evils against each other, such that a world with a given amount of resources supporting 1 million people can't be compared to one with the same resources supporting 100 billion possessing little more than the opportunity to be alive. I reject involuntary organ donor type criticisms of utilitarianism.

    "...it is the same concept to which Harris helps himself, though he doesn't use the term if I recall correctly."

    Actually, he often does. You quote him saying it here: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/04/about-sam-harris-claim-that-science-can.html

    "If you want examples of non-empirical non-facts that happen to be true just (look) at any mathematical theorem or logical proposition."

    My objection was that your counter-argument was a non sequitur, not that entities whose existence you cited aren't real. Alternatively, it looks like equivocation.

    Sam: The only Fm are Fe.
    Massimo: But see NAN, which are Fm and not Fe.
    Sam: Dagnabit!
    Massimo (aside): Hehe, NAN aren't even F at all!
    Sam: Wait a second...

    "...similar objections can be raised to *any* foundational project, ethics is in no particularly fast sinking boat."

    It's not a sinking boat, it's a jet airplane with no engines. My position is that it is a glider, and you should stop trying to call it a jet airplane.

    The crucial difference may be that Julia says the Tooth Fairy does not exist, and you say the Tooth Fairy is really peoples' mothers.

    I will explain both metaphors below, though I hope they are clear in context.


    (continued...)

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  61. (...continued)

    "...I define a moral action as one that augments human flourishing..."

    People have arguments about what true morality is in which they are open to being persuaded and believe they can persuade others. this means that is being discussed is not what people already think, but about what they ought to think. Yet when people use a term, they already have something in mind. What is going on is that each preconceived definition is malleable, though not infinitely so. If you tell a child the Easter Bunny is really a person in a disguise, you make sense. Tell him that the Easter Bunny was born in Corsica, conquered most of Western and Central Europe in the first decade of the 19th century, and is not really named the Easter Bunny, but rather Napoleon, and you are no longer talking about the Easter Bunny.

    The question is: how much violence are you doing to others' conception of the term "moral", (not to mention "define")?

    People know of the existence of utilitarianism, and of the idea that many people think the highest good has primarily to do with human flourishing in aggregate. Yet they generally reject any allied system as their preferred moral approach because (I think) they: a) see it as having unresolved internal contradictions (unlike other systems) and/or b) such a system does not supply the transition from is to ought (whether or not such a thing is possible) that is inherent in "morality".

    You are arguing against relativism, so no comparison to another system has been necessary. That's fine.

    Because of problem a), I say the jet plane has no engine. Possibly unlike Julia, I see great value in the project of treating the study of ethics like the study of math, largely because people can be easily entrapped with/concede the validity of relevant axioms. These are the engines that make the system work. I'm not positive, but I think your discussion of meta-ethics may have been your waving of the white flag on this issue. Would you concede that you are a meta-ethical relativist? If so, you and Julia (and I) might not disagree here (other than if there is an important difference between an ethical relativist and a meta-ethical relativist).

    Turning to problem b), I and many other commentators believe you have overstepped your bounds. Your system might be the closest thing that is both true and logically consistent to what people mean by morality, but that does not mean that it deserves the name. It does not even address the is/ought problem, and is therefore not worthy of being called moral. Even if your facts (including non-arbitrary, non-empirical notions) are correct, the most we can conclude is that there is no morality as people think of it. Likewise, we do not say that Zeus is really clouds. We say he is not real. Clouds that make lightning are real.

    From my limited understanding of your position, Julia's position, and Sam Harris' position, I think my position is most similar to that of Harris'. You can scientifically explain what people believe and why (in theory). You can create many different ethical systems (as you say) dependent on the acceptance of axioms for which people have no valid philosophical or meta-philosophical reason to accept (as Julia says). Finally, you can figure out which, if any, would be consistent with individuals' deeply felt or well thought out core beliefs. Practically speaking, that's enough.

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  62. Hi Tyro! You said: "I know I feel pretty confident in cell theory and microscopes let us see real cells but all of this relies on theories of light, optics and chemistry which are themselves built on induction and so could, theoretically, be overthrown by new discoveries."

    Without creating a huge comment: Are you a Realist w/r/t your own existence? If not, do you act in any way as if you do or might not exist? I mean speaking of morality&ethics: Why do you have any at all and are not just a nihilist? (If you answer that above, sorry, I will re-read the whole comment thread.)

    (Actually I have changed my mind on creating a long'ish comment! wink!) I assume you have come to some sort of decision on a set of morals/ethics to live by -- even if you do not believe there are/can be objective ones (metaethics right?) -- and you act on them deductively: Why is it not the case that the laws of physics are the same and from there we can deduce things?

    Even the "New Atheists" are not 100% certain right? Harris w/r/t to morality does not say that "human flourishing" (by his definition) is 100% "R/right", correct? But, they will accuse one of sophism (in the modern sense) if one tells them: "You know you can not really *prove* anything, so why should I believe anything?"

    I guess I thought that "Science" was an attractor method/process towards "Truth"; and in some cases we are 'so close' to "Truth" that you have to push into the extremes of logic (Godel yes?) and reality/space (quantum) to be able to declare: 'Yes .. BUT you never can *really* know that the moon there is *really* there or that you are *really* seeing it or that you even *really* exist!'

    (Uggh! I hope that was somewhat coherent! wink!)

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  63. Massimo Pigliucci said... "Poor Richard, math and logic wouldn't exist as activities without humans thinking about it, but they are most definitely *not* in the same category of unicorns. They don't seem to be quite that arbitrary.

    Whether things are in the same category depends on how you define the category. A category might be "things that are designed by the brain based on its existing data arranged in a novel but meaningful way to meed some important human need".

    Unicorns didn't originate with juvenile literature and were not at all arbitrary. Mythology was one of the precursors of science and philosophy.

    Massimo Pigliucci said... "empirical evidence is insufficient to determine our values.

    Empirical evidence is essential to all knowledge, but narrowly construed it might be insufficient. My point is that philosophy, ethics, and certainly this blog thread, has had too little evidence to work with thus far. To that point you say:

    "And it is simply not the case that philosophers haven't factored that in! For years papers in ethics very much have taken into account what neurobiology can contribute, and there have been several papers co-authored by philosophers and neurobiologists."

    "Factoring it in" is too vague. The debate should be about a proper balance or threshold for empirical adequacy.

    I have a similar criticism of science when I feel it is too theoretical--say 1% fact and 190% theory. In science the problem is strongly offset by the bulk of hard science. In philosophy, not.

    The kind of papers you mention are important (I'd appreciate citations to any that are online) but are relatively few and represent a thin frontier. We are far from bringing a critical mass of science to bear on the discourse on ethics. We need a paradigm shift.

    The present discussion thread is a case in point. No one seems to think that science can 1) explain our values or 2) prescribe what they should be. This has been true as a practical matter in the past, but it is entirely wrong- headed today. Science may never be self-sufficient in this capacity but it should now be the dog rather than the tail in this hunt.

    Put another way, it is time for a complete make-over in the discourse on ethics, putting science and data at the core.

    You told Tyro "I don't want to turn this into a discussion of what the right thing to do is in a number of specific cases." I wouldn't want you to turn this thread exclusively in that direction, but a reluctance to go in that direction at all is troubling. If we are to begin putting data first, the data must come from specific questions and cases. My whole orientation on this issue comes from encountering facts, not arguments.

    I'm new to this website, but so far I'm not learning anything here about how science informs philosophy or vice versa. That's what I came here, on advice, looking for.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack2010

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  64. Massimo Pigliucci said "...moral discourse is limited to humans because we are the only ones that seem to have a concept of morality to begin with. Hence the centrality of humans to ethical discourse.

    Are you saying that "moral discourse is limited to humans" in the sense that we are the only ones who can actively participate in the discourse, or because we are the only things germane to it?

    I think you mean the former, but 1) that seems hardly worth saying and 2) you've said a few things that seem to lean towards the latter.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  65. But of course moral discourse is limited to humans because we are the only ones that seem to have a concept of morality to begin with. Hence the centrality of humans to ethical discourse.

    For the sake of argument, I'll grant that we are the only ones with a concept of morality (though it's not clear that this is actually true).

    How do we go from that to deciding how to weigh our interests against the interest of other species? You say that we shouldn't torture puppies not because puppies have feelings or because it's wrong to cause suffering to others but because it indirectly reduces our humanity which implies that if we could reduce our feelings towards puppies or if we could derive some benefit from the torture to counterweight the problem then everything would be peachy keen. I used the industrial farming example for a reason - animals are suffering and it probably would "reduce the humanity" of some people, yet we derive a benefit from it - the convenience and pleasure of meat on our plates. Is this moral, and how can we judge?

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  66. Hi Massimo,
    I'm a mathematician, and would like to comment on your comparison of
    morality to math. You are absolutely correct that math is still
    valuable even though it relies on axioms that we cannot prove.

    What makes math useful is that it allows us to conclude that if a
    system has one particular set of properties, then it must also have a
    certain other set of properties. For instance, if a system satisfies
    the sufficient axioms for arithmetic, then you can prove that it must
    also have all other properties of arithmetic. This holds without ever having to prove that 1+1=2 is really an objectively true statement or that any physically existing system satisfies the axioms.

    In practice, once we have discovered real world systems that share properties of the mathematical concepts we have constructed (or, alternatively, after we construct mathematical concepts which capture important properties of real world systems), we can dispense with the real system for the time being and prove things about the mathematical one with confidence that the resulting conclusions will still have bearing on the real system. This is in large part what makes math so useful. For instance, the act of adding balls to a bag behaves like addition with respect to the quantity of balls that end up in the bag. Hence, we can identify adding one ball and then adding two balls to an empty bag with the concept 1+2 and we can let math take over at that point and use it to demonstrate that the quantity in the bag is now 3. It is unnecessary to make the connection between ball adding and arithmetic if we are only dealing with 3 balls, but if we are adding 1712 balls and then 149 balls, it is a lot easier to figure out what is going to happen using numbers representing ball quantities than using real balls. I discuss these issues in much greater depth in an article about whether math is true:

    http://www.clockbackward.com/2009/01/18/is-math-true

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  67. To relate my above comment to your debate with Julia, there is absolutely nothing wrong with defining the symbol "morality" to mean "the set of actions that augment human flourishing" and then proving (using existing empirical data, logic, experiments, or other means) which actions tend to increase human flourishing (and therefore which actions are "moral" by definition). However, the same goal could be achieved by simply asking the question "what increases human flourishing?" without involving the word "morality" at all, and a lot of confusion would be avoided, such as all the other baggage that is attached to that word. Hence, it seems to me that it only makes sense (from a practical standpoint) to say that "morality is what increases human flourishing" if you mean it not as a straight definition, but as a claim.

    Claiming that morality (where I'm referring now to a concept morality, rather than just the word "morality") is "what increases human flourishing" requires making a strong tacit assumption, namely that morality is an actually existent (though obviously not physically existent) "thing" which one should follow (though why one should follow it needs explanation). Only if we assume or prove that objective morality exists (i.e. there are rules that all people should follow, universally and without exception) does it make sense to make a claim about what morality (referring now to this universal) actually is. Once that assumption is made, we can interpret "morality is what increases human flourishing" as a claim of equivalence between the (true, objective, universal) morality and those actions which increase flourishing.

    In conclusion, my opinion is that if you want to talk about what increases human flourishing, then leave the word "morality" out of it because you are just going to be confusing people. If, on the other hand, you want to show that morality (the concept) is equivalent to human flourishing, then for clarity, you should state the assumption that that universal morality exists at all, or at least provide an argument to back up that idea, because without it the claim of equivalence is not just wrong but meaningless. I also think it is essential to make it clear which form one is using. When a person mixes the two uses of "morality is human flourishing" in one essay (i.e. the definitional form and the equivalence one) without making it explicit whenever the definition is switching, it takes a confusing subject and makes it incomprehensible.

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  68. How science helps persuade me what to want or not want:

    1. Science helps me calculate the odds of getting/achieving a thing.

    2. Science helps me anticipate the consequences of an action/inaction.

    3. Science helps me see and sort out my own desires, motives, and biases (especially those that are unconscious or irrational).

    In addition, science gives me tools to help me change my values and desires when that's what I want.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  69. Hi! You said: "Philosophical discussions are not settled by empirical evidence (though, again, the latter can inform them), for reasons similar to those that make empirical facts irrelevant in logic or math. As I said earlier, rational discourse is more than just science, and there is a persistent tendency by some readers to simply equate the two."

    I want to object to this specific statement, which might be inappropriate within the wider discussion (if so tell me!)

    Of course on a level sure:

    1. All whales are fish.
    2. Some people are whales.
    C. Some people are fish.

    Is true logically (right?!? wink!). But false for a whole host of reasons if this is going to be applied in/to the real world.

    So, yes "rational discourse is more than just science" until it gets applied outside the mental "world" yes? At which point, some (many? all?) "logical discourses" can/could in fact be settled by "empirical facts" via science, no?

    To wit, this is why I would agree with Poor Richard (and Sam Harris, if I understand either correctly): Science will have something to say definitively on morality: Any philosophical discussion that wants to be realized will have to take into account facts, settled by science.

    (Rational discourse: "People want to be happy. Blinding people makes them happy. We should blind people." Logically rational (yes?), but real world .. not so much. Please tell me where I am being silly.)

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  70. Too many comments, people, and believe it or not, I have a life ;-) Just a few quick remarks on a sample of comments (yeah, Richard, I'm sure I didn't give it enough attention):

    czrpb, your syllogism is valid, but of course you can reject both premise 1 and 2, which means that the conclusion does not follow. Remember, I never said that philosophy shouldn't be informed by science, only that science under-determines philosophical questions.

    Poor Richard: you still need to *think* about your values, a task for which science can hep, but that leaves plenty of room for rational analysis - i.e., for philosophy.

    ClockBackward, I appreciate your comments, but frankly I doubt that many people (outside of Julia and of her vocal supporters on this blog) will get confused by the use of the term morality associated with the phrase "augmenting human flourishing." It seems pretty easily intelligible to me.

    Tyro, how would *you* (or Julia) go about answering those questions? This post isn't about how I or any other virtue ethicist would resolve specific moral issues, it is about the different meanings of the word "definition." If we keep broadening the scope of the discussion pretty soon this is going to turn into a lengthy treatise on metaethics.

    Poor Richard, I'm saying both of those things, but more importantly that it is entirely up to humans to define the sphere of moral obligations.

    Brian, if those are the two choices, I think that to say that the Tooth Fairy is really your mother is a lot more informative than to say that she doesn't exist.

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  71. Hi! You said: "Too many comments, people, ... If we keep broadening the scope of the discussion pretty soon this is going to turn into a lengthy treatise on metaethics."

    Hey Man! Your words moved us to respond! grin! Thx from me at least (I will try to shut up now -- wink!)

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  72. Apparently the internet ate my continuation, so this will have to do.

    "Brian, if those are the two choices, I think that to say that the Tooth Fairy is really your mother is a lot more informative than to say that she doesn't exist."

    As anyone who has ever played 20 questions knows, a falsehood can be more informative than a technically true statement. That doesn't make it true.

    In the Tooth Fairy example, I hope we can agree that exchanging goodies for fallen baby teeth is an essential characteristic. Other properties are not essential, such as being female, so it would make sense to talk about a Tooth Fairy who is really male, if a male sprite did the tooth exchanging. However, I insist, and most would (the dictionaries do) that it is also an essential property of such a being to be supernatural. "The Tooth Fairy is not real" gives no information, while "Your mother is the Tooth Fairy of the house" tells you who did the switch, while leaving a misleading impression about your mothers' nature. Arguably the later is more informative. It is not true, because to take away the Tooth Fairy's supernatural nature would do almost as much violence to the definition as saying she collects bottle caps, not teeth, or collects nothing at all, but is an accountant.

    Our two choices are "there is no true morality" and "true morality is augmenting human flourishing", and I agree the latter may be more informative (note my use of the word "true" to avoid unclarity/the fallacy of equivocation).

    Since people's idea of a moral action, of doing good rather than bad, has "should" (complying with a resolution to the is/ought problem) as an essential component, and your definition does not even address the problem, it cannot be called morality. Its best claim to the crown is merely the death of all legitimate heirs to the throne. But it is a bastard of a definition.

    "I doubt that many people (outside of Julia and of her vocal supporters on this blog) will get confused by the use of the term morality associated with the phrase "augmenting human flourishing." It seems pretty easily intelligible to me."

    That can be tested. It seems like the use of a logical fallacy to Julia and commentators here, who seem like a pretty bright bunch.

    "Too many comments, people, and believe it or not, I have a life ;-)"

    If you found someone who agreed with you, you could share the burden and refer to their comments occasionally. This would be particularly helpful for your cause here since one point of discussion is how clear you were and are being. It's hard to convince people you were being clear when *they* were the ones who misunderstood, and I sympathize. Yet because of this, an ally would be not just another voice offering like arguments, but evidence in and of itself. Its absence is also noted.

    "If we keep broadening the scope of the discussion pretty soon this is going to turn into a lengthy treatise on metaethics."

    That is inevitable when one party is suspected of sequestering a miracle necessary for his theory to work in an area nominally outside the scope of discussion.
    http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/pages/gallery.php

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  73. Massimo, I don't think your analogy between mathematical and moral axioms holds up.

    The reason we assume the mathematical axioms we do is because they allow us to derive true conclusions about real things in the world. We could certainly pick other axioms, but they would not be as useful to us for our desired end, i.e., understanding the world we live in.

    But why is your proposed "we should augment human flourishing" axiom useful? Well, it allows us to derive lots of conclusions about how we should act in various situations, with the end result of augmenting human flourishing. But that just begs the question. Who said augmenting human flourishing should be our desired end? What could you possibly say to convince someone that your axiom is useful, if he didn't already share your belief that the goal of morality should be augmenting human flourishing?

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  74. I'll be curious to read Massimo's answer to Julia's question about axioms.

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  75. "Massimo, I don't think your analogy between mathematical and moral axioms holds up."

    I think that's the only important part of his argument that works.

    "We could certainly pick other axioms, but they would not be as useful to us for our desired end, i.e., understanding the world we live in."

    We could, but would we? Do we? Not often, not deliberately. Not most of us.

    "Who said augmenting human flourishing should be our desired end?"

    People actually frequently assert such an end, even without knowing sound (meta)-philosophical reasons to. Other times, they construct moral systems implicitly assuming the truth of this (as applied to sentient beings' flourishing, not human, with varied attention to different beings and a nod to an imaginary Person).

    Science can describe that, how, and why people do this, though not why they should. This can be enough to answer a great many difficulties. Science stands in for meta-philosophy. As I interpret it, Massimo derides this idea in his critiques of Sam Harris.

    "What could you possibly say to convince someone that your axiom is useful, if he didn't already share your belief that the goal of morality should be augmenting human flourishing?"

    If you knew them well, a controlled environment, con men, pharmacists/psychiatrists and torturers could convince them of just about anything. It would be quite unfair of you to spot them a lifetime of bias and prejudice without allowing their inquisitor offsetting power. Alternatively, you could sequester them in a prison or mental hospital. Alternatively, you could cease to care about the answer to such a ridiculous question.

    If the majority of people were such that they didn't care about both others' well being...there'd just be proportionately more psychopaths, and all the consequences that would entail, nothing more or less than that. Perhaps they'd have institutions for the empathic, whom they'd entrust to make laws. Or maybe they'd chemically alter us to remove our empathy. Who knows. It's interesting to speculate about, but it does not reveal any flaw in the axiomatic mathematical metaphor. They simply generally wouldn't accept axioms that we largely do.

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  76. Mr. Pigliucci, I feel guilty making further comments on my thesis about morality since you reminded us your post was about definitions. I will try to wind it up and return to your original topic.

    But...

    Brian quoted somebody saying "If you want examples of non-empirical non-facts that happen to be true just (look) at any mathematical theorem or logical proposition."

    Hold on.

    Bearing ClockBackward's comments in mind, mathematical, logical, and philosophical systems/rules that matter to me are those that map to the real, material world. In my opinion, any such systems probably arose in the first place from empirical facts such as the results of adding and subtracting balls from a bag. If then the inventor of ball arithmetic went wild adding theorems and methods that could not be applied to the real world I would loose interest in the system (or at least the non-reality-conforming parts of it). I'm just that kind of guy.

    Tyro makes the same point with his syllogism.

    My preferred framework for morality is utility, and utility as I conceive it requires far more statistics than theory. I think I could probably express my theoretical framework for utility in 2000 words or less. I have only been *thinking* about it for a few weeks; but, as I see it, it would take many years or decades to gather the desired quantity and variety of data. Although further thinking would need to go into data collection, database design, algorithm/calculation design, etc. here and there along the way, I think overall I can characterize my concept of utility as data-intensive and theory-light.

    Although the original concept of utility comes from philosophy as an ethical system and it has recently taken root in economics, I see it (at least in prospect) as hard science. In fact, I see the knowledge of general utility as the holy grail for science. Its much more important than black holes or the big bang.

    Finally, on the issue of non-human values and values that humans assign to non-human things, in my utility framework there is little difference between facts about humans and all other facts. But one may adjust the weight of various data-sets to favor average human happiness, total human body mass, or cockroach population. The consequences of every change in weighting would be seen across all species and ecosystems.

    The philosophical objection is of course that all the ethical issues/questions/dilemmas still remain regardless of all these facts. Should we maximize wealth, education, body mass, or what?

    A question that few philosophers might think to ask is what might be the effect of everyone having the same comprehensive, coherent information about the detailed consequences of so many choices?

    Anyone, including those who held the reins of power, could use such information as they pleased, but I submit that our consciousness and our desires might be radically changed by the information and by the process of collecting and organizing it.

    I think that proposition could be tested by experimental psychologists fairly easily.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  77. Argumentum Massimo, definition:
    1. I'm right by association: appropriating famous person quote (bonus points for Wittgenstein).
    2. Condescending tone
    3. Privileging philosophy insider practices: "There is no possible confusion as long as we keep this basic distinction in mind." Well, not everybody has this so-called basic distinction in mind, so there is confusion.
    4. Using Latin and Greek to impress.
    5. Elitist: "“semantics,” a word that has gotten far too bad a reputation in common discourse". No, common discourse is different, but not worse than, philosophical discourse.
    6. Roping logic and math into the question.
    7. Meta-this, meta-that.
    8. See number 1. Negative bonus points, Hume is too easy.

    As for definitions (sacred cow), are you saying Julia and Harris hold science itself above reproach? As in not amenable to criticism? As in pointing out mistakes and errors? As in something wrong? As in your standard philosophical arguments.

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  78. Tyro, how would *you* (or Julia) go about answering those questions? This post isn't about how I or any other virtue ethicist would resolve specific moral issues, it is about the different meanings of the word "definition."

    Massimo - the OP covered a *lot* of ground, from definitions to morals to philosophy of science and the discussion meandered even further. If there was a single point that you wanted to focus on, it's lost on me.

    I don't intend to present a moral philosophy but I know a few things that I'd look for. For a start, I think any moral system that I could support must start with a foundation of reducing (or at least not increasing!) suffering in humans and other animals. I don't have a problem with a bias towards humans (I am a human after all) but we are an animal and the other animals weren't put here to serve our needs. On the contrary, because we have more power & reasoning abilities, we should take special care for how we impact their lives.

    Elements like human flourishing is something that should be built on a foundation of co-existence with other humans and other animals.

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  79. Clockbackward,

    Good comments. I followed your link, and much appreciated your post on mathematical "truth". (I've added your blog to my RSS list.) I agree with what you wrote, but would offer a slightly different way of looking at things. I would say that mathematical axioms serve as definitions of mathematical terms/symbols, not as substantive propositions. So they can only be true in the sense that they correspond (to a greater or lesser degree) with how those terms are already used. It's not surprising that there are multiple possible axiomatizations consistent with usage, because meanings are not precisely determined by usage. That's true of both natural language and maths. I think this can be seen as a particular case of the underdetermination of theory by observation. Insofar as an axiomatization is claimed to represent the normal meanings of mathematical terms it can be seen as a theory about the usage of those terms.

    Of course, one can also knowingly stipulate axioms that don't correspond to existing usage. This would be the equivalent of a "stipulative" definition. But the resulting formal system would not be maths as we know it. If it was sufficiently similar to existing mathematical usage, we might call it an alternative mathematical system. But it would be important not to conflate it with standard mathematics. That's analogous to what Massimo is doing when he redefines "moral" to mean something quite different from its pre-existing usage. It's analogous to giving a new axiomatization in which "x" (the multiply symbol) means "add the operands and subtract 1", and then saying that "2x3=4". This statement would be true given the new axiom (it follows from the axioms), but pointlessly confusing.

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  80. Brian, I beg to differ, it matters a lot whether the tooth fairy is a supernatural agent or your mother, both in principle and in practice. You seem to be making the same mistake Julia repeats a lot: "should" is not a magical word with magical powers. It simply means that IF our goal is to increase human flourishing THEN we should act in such and such way, which I (and plenty of others) call moral. Of course one can reject the part following the IF statement (the premise) and be done with it. Then I would call that person immoral according to my concept of morality. And no, my concept is not arbitrary because I can show that human beings tend to act in a way that does in fact increase their flourishing, and moreover that it is good for them when they do. (The latter two parts coming out of anthropology and psychology respectively.)

    Julia, where did you get the idea that mathematical axioms are put in place because they yield conclusions about natural objects? That is not true both historically and for most math that is done today.

    Poor Richards, *you* may be interested only in those mathematical applications that concern the real world, but that's not what math is about - see my comment above to Julia.

    Norwegian Shooter: whatever.

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  81. Its seems to me that there is a disparity between meta-science, and all the other "meta". One can consider existance to be selfconsistant even when the models about reality are not (i.e science). The problem with divorcing some concepts with reality (morals, mathematics, arts, etc) is that when we found such models to be inconsistant, there is no deeper pillar that make them selfconsistant again.

    This is why, in my view, we end up considering a few propositions in those models brute facts, or axioms, moral precepts, etc, in order to make the model appear to be consistant and a thing itself apart from existance (or nature or w/e you call it).

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  82. Julia wrote:

    The reason we assume the mathematical axioms we do is because they allow us to derive true conclusions about real things in the world. We could certainly pick other axioms, but they would not be as useful to us for our desired end, i.e., understanding the world we live in.

    I'd like to elaborate on this. As I see it, humans initially adopted the mathematical practices they did because those proved effective in the real world (not just for understanding the world, but also for manipulating it). Later those mathematical practices were extended in various ways, often because they were practically effective, but sometimes just for academic interest. Evetually some theorists came along and axiomatized those mathematical practices, i.e. they formally defined the language of mathematics.

    Different axiomatizations (different mathematical languages) may be useful for different purposes. Mathematicians have changed the axioms of Euclidean geometry to produce various systems of non-Euclidean geometry. As I understand it these systems (or at least one of them) are better than Euclidean geometry for describing reality in the light of general relativity. Theorems which are true in one geometry (i.e. follow from one set of axioms) may not be true in another, so it's important not to conflate geometries. What Massimo is doing is analogous to taking a theorem from one geometry and assuming it's true in another.

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  83. Richard, I was with you right until the last sentence, then you lost me. I most certainly am not assuming that the axioms of one system are valid in another, my analogy between ethics and math is limited to show that there are enterprises where we can apply rigorous logical reasoning and come up with non-arbitrary conclusions, and yet these enterprises have no need of any empirical input. Period. This is in response to the scientistic group on this blog who seems to equate science with rationality, evidently forgetting (indeed, in some cases actively denying!) that math and logic are not sciences, though they are certainly useful to science. Similarly, philosophy is different from science, even though of course philosophical reasoning needs to be informed by the best science we have available. I keep being astounded at how apparently difficult these pretty obvious points seem to be for some people, and I attribute that not to stupidity but to a philosophical (!) pre-commitment to scientism.

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  84. "Brian, I beg to differ, it matters a lot whether the tooth fairy is a supernatural agent or your mother, both in principle and in practice."

    These words give no indication you understood what I wrote. I can most charitably reconstruct them to read something like:

    "Brian, I am in full agreement that it matters a lot whether the term "tooth fairy" only can refer to a supernatural agent or can be validly stretched to include your mother, both in principle and in practice. I beg to differ in that I think the term may be stretched that far, both in principle and in practice."

    (Alternately, "Brian, I beg to differ, it does not matter whether the tooth fairy is a supernatural agent or your mother, either in principle and in practice.")

    I would then reply that it was a metaphor, and regardless of the elasticity of "tooth fairy" and our disagreement or agreement regarding it, the central point is that we may similarly disagree about the elasticity of "moral(ity)". Such disagreement would be at least partially open to scientific inquiry to resolve the fact of the matter. Is it merely Julia and a small self selected sample of respondents who unanimously disagree with you, or is it something more?

    The crux of the disagreement might be whether or not "moral" entails an ought that is (by definition/from linguistic consensus) more than just enhancing human flourishing. Deriding the notion of such a thing by saying that, like magic, it isn't real is *irrelevant* as to whether it is part of the definition or not. If no real thing can meet the demands of the definition, we will simply be forced to concede that the defined thing is fictional. E.g. YHVH.

    "And no, my concept is not arbitrary because I can show that human beings tend to act in a way that does in fact increase their flourishing, and moreover that it is good for them when they do. (The latter two parts coming out of anthropology and psychology respectively.)"

    I think I see now why you have so provincially been defining things exclusively in human terms. It is to make the direction taken in this step seem less arbitrary.

    How "human beings tend to act" is the salvation of something like your general position, and I have been advocating that in the face of Julia's objections. My objections have to do with my philosophical skepticism (amenable to revision by evidence) that good can *always* be measured in fungible units even in *theory* (how could one weigh contentment elation? Boredom against pain? Widespread opportunity to live and think among billions in an overcrowded world against fewer people enjoying far more resources devoted to each person?). In practice humans *arbitrarily* resolve such problems, so you can still apply quasi-mathematical, proposition-based ethical theories. Even if they didn't, the moral landscape would be a coherent concept with which to falsify systems on the grounds that another system is superior in each important category.

    However, there is the complication that people resolve such questions differently-and letting other beings into the loop (how do you weigh dolphin good against people good?) merely exposes the arbitrariness present without, I think, having added to it.

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  85. Hi! Tyro said: "Pirsig came up with a good example of induction in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (if I remember correctly). If you're riding your bike and go over a bump and hear a squeak, you might suspect a cause but it could be a co-incidence. A second bump brings the same squeak. And again and again. ... but how much of this confidence is warranted, what have we really learned, could things change at any moment, how many bump-squeaks are necessary to say that the bump causes the squeak?"

    Assuming we know nothing/little about the details of our motorcycle, I agree. But once we have taken apart the motorcycle, it seems to me that can deduce that the impact of the bump is causing something within the cycle to impinge on another and squeaking: We *know* the bump causes the squeaking.

    We might no know why and what exactly, but that would be because of lack of data: If we had continuous measurements of the cycle during the bump we would know how all parts of the cycle were affected by the bump thus knowing that the bump caused the squeak and exactly how. It seems to me we are at this point in the "real" world (again, flying probes to Jupiter).

    Of course, we have continued to take apart our cycle into the quantum level and guess what?!! Ack! Things are strange: But *ONLY* at the quantum level (my limited understanding). So perhaps Hume/induction returns when we are discussing this level.

    I guess I just do not get it: Billiards is not a game of inference: I hit the ball at another ball at a particular velocity and I can deduce what will happen on that table: Where in the real world is it that is not like the billiard table? Another example: When I take a drink to quench my thirst I may believe it will do so because it has always does so, but we know *why* it does and that it *will* do so. (Seems to me that is!)

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  86. Brian, hmm, I'm really not sure any more of what point you are trying to make. The metaphor of the tooth fairy doesn't suffer from elasticity problems, whatever that means. Either the tooth fairy is your mother, or it is a supernatural agent, and it makes a difference which you believe. But at this point I lost the relevance of this to morality.

    As for invoking a unanimity of judgment against my positions on this thread, surely you know that's a weak one. First off, this is obviously a self-selected sample. This blog receives over 6000 hits per post, and only a handful of people - usually those who disagree - leave comments. Should we then assume that the majority agrees with me? Or perhaps we should expand the circle to professional philosophers, most of whom would find Julia's arguments ill informed? And since when arguments are settled by majority rule anyway?

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  87. Massimo Pigliucci wrote: "Julia, where did you get the idea that mathematical axioms are put in place because they yield conclusions about natural objects? That is not true both historically and for most math that is done today."

    That is not factual. From Pythagoras to Euclid to Newton to Einstein mathematics has largely been driven by the desire to understand and represent the material world.

    The origin of math is lost in pre-history but I dare say it began with observations of material objects and the importance of material objects and their behavior continues to be its raison d'etre today.

    Massimo Pigliucci wrote: "Poor Richards, *you* may be interested only in those mathematical applications that concern the real world, but that's not what math is about - see my comment above to Julia.

    I understand that some part of the math community is fond of the notion of "pure" math but to me it is the same and as silly as "pure reason" or "pure logic".

    For those who are devoted to this purity I have a suggestion. Why contaminate your art by using pen and paper, chalkboard, computer, speech, colleagues, etc.?

    Get yourself a sensory deprivation tank with intravenous feeding provisions and do your thing there.

    (You have called some of my comments bizarre so I couldn't help indulging in a little reductio ad absurdum where it seemed so fitting.)

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  88. Brian said... "My objections have to do with my philosophical skepticism (amenable to revision by evidence) that good can *always* be measured in fungible units even in *theory* (how could one weigh contentment elation? Boredom against pain?...) In practice humans *arbitrarily* resolve such problems, so you can still apply quasi-mathematical, proposition-based ethical theories.

    I love the wording of measuring good in "fungible units". That is a better way of putting what I was grasping at with "moral coherence" and "one-to-one correspondence" of goods.

    Undoubtedly this is a central issue in morality from a modern utilitarian perspective. Without a utilitarian calculus (we need a Newton or Einstein of utility) we wind up with the moral equivalent of trading Manhattan for $26 worth of glass beads.

    Do you see the quest for a moral calculus as an onerous but incumbent work in progress or as folly?

    What do you mean when you say humans *arbitrarily* solve these problems--do you just mean some human arbiter makes the calculations, or do you mean that the calculations themselves are "capricious; unreasonable; unsupported" (dictionary.com)?

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  89. Massimo—

    It seems to me that conceptual definitions serve as augmentations of linguistic definitions by describing them more precisely as the findings of a specific discipline would allow. This is at least the impression the Wikipedia page gives, and Wikipedia is—despite what some of its detractors claim—actually a very strong reference tool. The Wikipedia page says this about the conceptual definition of the meter in modern physics:

    “For example, a theoretical definition of the length of a metre is "the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second". This is based on the first postulate of special relativity theory that the speed of light in vacuum is the same to all inertial observers, i.e. is a constant.”

    Physics has consistently upheld special relativity, meaning that special relativity is quite strong science, meaning that this conceptual definition enhances our discourse. But, of course, if special relativity were not such strong science, the validity of the definition would disintegrate. A conceptual definition gets its strength from the strength of the findings that underpin the definition.

    In this way, conceptual definitions relate valid findings in specific disciplines to vernacular concepts. For example, the above definition of the meter strongly related to the vernacular concept of the meter.

    Although she has not phrased it in this way, I think that Julia could (and would) charge that your conceptual definition of “morality” as “the maximization of human flourishing” (or something similar) does not successfully relate the findings of a specific field, Philosophy, to the vernacular concept of morality. It’s certainly not the case that Philosophers have found the common concept of morality to really be referring to the maximization of human flourishing. Moral skepticism in meta-ethics is a seriously considered position with carefully-argued tracts in its favor.

    So it seems to me that in order for your use of a conceptual definition of morality to make sense, you would still have to show that the maximization of flourishing corresponds strongly to the general human notion of morality.

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  90. "Either the tooth fairy is your mother, or it is a supernatural agent..."

    There is no tooth fairy (now I know I'm on a philosophy blog).

    TOOTH FAIRY
    : a fairy believed by children to leave money while they sleep in exchange for a tooth that has come out

    FAIRY
    1: a mythical being of folklore and romance usually having diminutive human form and magic powers

    (from m-w.com)

    *MY* mother is not a mythical being of folklore.

    Calling mothers tooth fairies is at least potentially breaking the term by using it in an idiosyncratic way. Likewise, calling stamp collecting sprites "tooth fairies" is stretching the term. Calling elephants "tooth fairies" is much further out of bounds.

    "The metaphor of the tooth fairy doesn't suffer from elasticity problems, whatever that means."

    "Elasticity" as I used it means that a found fairy who trades money for teeth may conceivably be larger than usually imagined while still deserving the moniker. *Possibly*, there is flexibility with this term as to whether the tooth taker need be supernatural-you think there is. That's fine, it's simply a test case.

    This was a simple example, but we can ask what people mean by "moral" as well. I, I think among the others here, assert that to most people it by *definition* means, at minimum, something with the force of a higher ought/should than flourishing. You're telling us something a few strides short of: "The tooth fairy is really an elephant! It's really a he and not a she, he doesn't have magic, is quite large, doesn't want teeth or have money to buy them with, and is confined to a zoo enclosure. You can test that the elephant is there scientifically, see its giant pile of poop? Let's run some tests!" Well, thank you very much.

    Brian: "Is it merely Julia and a small self selected sample of respondents who unanimously disagree with you, or is it something more?"

    Massimo: "As for invoking a unanimity of judgment against my positions on this thread, surely you know that's a weak one. First off, this is obviously a self-selected sample."

    As I said.

    "Or perhaps we should expand the circle to professional philosophers, most of whom would find Julia's arguments ill informed? And since when arguments are settled by majority rule anyway?"

    (You mean narrow the circle.) I'm not advocating for a majority vote. I'm asking for clarification in general and in particular am wondering how widespread your definition of "moral" is, since no one else seems to share it.

    I'm wondering how much of your argument depends upon the listener importing meaning from the other uses of the terms you use. The conversation would have been different if you had said from the outset:

    ""Morality" as you conceive of it (peasants!) can never be achieved since the best "should" available is as follows: that people often act towards flourishing, which is good for them (and other science/philosophy). I recognize that (in the poverty of your ignorance and the insufficiency of your definitions!) you had required a more compelling obligator than that in your definition of morality. It therefore makes sense to say, as Julia does, that we should be moral skeptics.

    "That being said, we can accomplish more than Julia thinks, which we can do with a combination of scientific and philosophical knowledge. As Sam Harris says...(begins choking on own vomit at the words. Continues speaking after being revived some time later)...we can describe the human condition, define human flourishing, and in theory tell people how they could be philosophically consistent with this goal they have generally already arbitrarily chosen. People's evil actions tend to come from misunderstanding of what most constitutes human flourishing, not a bare desire to do harm. Reason can potentially fill in these gaps for us."

    Is that what you meant?

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  91. czprb,

    When you explain how we know certain things, try asking yourself "how do we know that" to the components of the answer. With a motorbike, we might see a spring that has come lose and is rubbing against some metal so that a bump causes a compression and a squeak. But how do we know that springs compress, and how do we know that two metals make noise? Better yet, how do we know the things in the past will continue to work like this into the future?

    The way induction works in mathematics is to establish f(n) holds where n = 0, then to show that if f(n) is true for n >= 0, then f(n+1) must also hold. With science, we're guessing at f(), we don't have a base case, and we don't know that f(n+1) necessarily follows from f(n), all we know is that when we keep testing for different n's, our results agree with f(). We don't *know* that this will continue, we don't know what (if any) boundary cases may exist, we don't know if our chosen f() is, like Newton's gravity, a specialized case or a generalized case.

    Take one more example: the boiling point of water. We know now that this varies with pressure but before testing under different pressures, we didn't have any way of knowing that. We could conduct any number of tests and see that the boiling point of water was 100C and feel very confident this wouldn't change, yet if we moved our lab to a new location at a different altitude, suddenly everything would change. We think we're keeping all variables the same but they never really are and in theory, the change could be significant.

    Then there are things like the uniformity of nature - principles which have, so far, been very successful but which could change in the future. I don't know how or why, I don't think they will, but because we can never know what all of the laws governing the universe really are, it *could* change.

    Again, I have to stress that this looks like a huge diversion. We have no reason to think this is a problem, our working theories are never wholly wrong but at worst become special cases and there are no examples of people trying to overthow science because of induction. It reminds me of the reaction to calculus and dividing by infinities - it sounds absurd, makes little sense and according to some theories it shouldn't work but damnit it does. OTOH, the definition shifting has been shown to be a real, present issue so I have no clue why Massimo brought it up, unless it's some sort of defence reaction - attack science whenever philosophers are criticized.

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  92. Massimo Pigliucci said "...philosophy is different from science, even though of course philosophical reasoning needs to be informed by the best science we have available. I keep being astounded at how apparently difficult these pretty obvious points seem to be for some people, and I attribute that not to stupidity but to a philosophical (!) pre-commitment to scientism.

    I assume the difference between science and the pejorative "scientism" is that the scientismist (unlike the scientist?) denies the existence of the "uncharted territory". If so, I am not a good scientismist. I even lament the uncanny human navigation skills that sometimes get lost in the age of charts.

    However, I do think the scientific method and natural science are the pre-eminent framework and corpus of human knowledge; and that other paradigms of knowledge I have studied/practiced (such as shamanism, for example) are subordinate if not necessarily inferior in particular content.

    I do not consider this a philosophical judgment--simply a pragmatic one based on empirical evidence of utility. If I am lost in the Sonoran Desert, I'd still prefer a Yaqui guide to a scientist or philosopher.

    Mr. Pigliucci, Julia, or anyone: do you have a position on the merging or re-fusion of science and philosophy?

    What are the distinctions between the definitions of science and philosophy and which distinctions should be discarded or preserved? What would be gained or lost on either side?

    I am very interested in interdisciplinary work including both scientists and philosophers. Does anyone know of online sources?

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010"

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  93. czrpb said... I guess I just do not get it: Billiards is not a game of inference: I hit the ball at another ball at a particular velocity and I can deduce what will happen on that table: Where in the real world is it that is not like the billiard table?

    czrpb, I like your hard-headed pragmatism.

    What if we found an area where many philosophies/epistemologies (positivism, phenominalism, analytic philosophy, utilitarianism, natural science, etc.), overlapped?

    I might define that sweet spot as the area of high pragmatic utility.

    "By their fruits ye shall know them."

    Which reminds me, I've heard rumblings of an induction/deduction controversy with a thinly-veiled anti-science tone coming from the fundamentalist/creationist right for some time.

    I hope rational, secular progressives who may have maverick, contrarian urges don't get sucked into this black hole of nihilism.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  94. czrpb,

    I just thought of another, possibly easier way to think about the problem of induction. Do you know what affirming the consequent is? A valid logical argument might go:

    A: X implies Y
    B: X
    C: therefore Y

    Affirming the consequent, an invalid argument, goes:

    A: X implies Y
    B: Y
    C: therefore X

    What we do in science is we postulate a theory X, we make predictions Y1, Y2,... and then we make observations. If Y1 and Y2 hold, we say... Well, what do we say? We say that X hasn't been falsified because logically that's all we can say. We know that if X is true then Y1 must be true, so if Y1 isn't true, then X can't be true. But if Y1 is true, then X may or not be true. And this is where we find a problem, because all we can do is keep making observations Y1...YN but this can never absolutely prove X because this is a logical fallacy.

    What we have is a case where our theories X are very successful at making predictions, we rely on them for all sorts of practical applications but we lack the ability to say that our theories are a fact. At any point, theoretically, we may learn that our theory X is false and replace it with X', some new theory which explains all of the old observations plus the new ones.

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  95. Massimo,

    It's clear I'm not the only person here who has noticed that you're just not listening. Your inattention is most obvious when you echo back something someone has said, but with significant words switched. For example, at one point I specifically made a distinction between definitions and meanings, but you echoed back to me a version of what I was saying with "meanings" replaced by "definitions", making nonsense of what I was saying. In my last post, where I wrote "theorem", you echoed back "axioms", which completely changed my meaning. Other times, you focus on some superficial point while completely overlooking the substance of the argument, such as in your response to Clockbackward.

    Of course we all make such mistakes occasionally. I know I do. But those of us who are serious about rational discussion try hard to avoid it. You, on the other hand, are constantly making such mistakes, making it quite obvious that you're not paying anything like sufficient attention. (Maybe the fact that you are--I assume--not a native English speaker has something to do with it. If my assumption is correct I have great admiration for your command of English. But if you're less than 100% fluent that's all the more reason to pay extra attention.)

    Sorry to be so blunt, but I still have a naive faith in the possibility of rational persuasion, and I can't help feeling that some progress could be made if only you would start listening.

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  96. I'm finding some of the comments in this thread obnoxious, like the last ones from Norwegian Shooter and RichardW. Shooter's "Argumentum Massimo" is not even an ingenious insult. And RichardW's suggestion that Massimo makes many philosophical mistakes because English is his second language...seriously, what the living fuck? Massimo doesn't make philosophical errors because he's an immigrant from Italy, he makes them because he doesn't spend enough time thinking the issues through deeply and rationally. Massimo's command of the English language is significantly better than than of most Americans. It is on par with my English professors here at UW. End of goddamn story.

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  97. Hi! Tyro said: "And this is where we find a problem, because all we can do is keep making observations Y1...YN but this can never absolutely prove X because this is a logical fallacy. ... but we lack the ability to say that our theories are a fact." and earlier: "I know I feel pretty confident in cell theory and microscopes let us see real cells but all of this relies on theories of light, optics and chemistry which are themselves built on induction and so could, theoretically, be overthrown by new discoveries."

    I love this! And that is extremely clear. So -- to channel Parmenides (though I am not scholar) -- the atoms that make up things are not real (where "real" == "proven to be true"), therefore the cell(s) you see in the microscope is not real, therefore the body (yours) from which the cell came is not real! So are you an anti-realist? Do you doubt your own existence?

    If so, I doubt you (or anyone who says they are) really do. IMHO, if you really "owned" up to such a belief system you would be some sort of cross between Uli Kunkel (the nihilist) and Marvin (the robot)! wink!

    Finally, I think it is pretty thin gruel to reply with: "I act as if I am real and that is good enough." or "Why should it matter if I am real?" etc: Why would not you answer a child's (yours perhaps) question of "Why is the sky blue?" with "Sky? What sky? Oh that! Well, you know it just might not really exist." or "Some people think it is because . But no one really knows; anything really." (Fortunately, I do not consider this to be you since I do not believe you really are an anti-realist: A rock that comes flying at your head will cause you to duck no matter what! grin!)

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  98. Mr. Pigliucci,

    Like RichardW, I think your responses to comments sometimes seem to indicate a pretty cursory reading.

    Unlike RichardW, I am surprised that you and Julia comment as much and as thoughtfully as you do considering the scope of your activities.

    Unlike you, I'm retired with plenty of time.

    The posts and the interaction of the moderators here and the quality of the comments generally exceed my expectations.

    In appreciation,

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  99. Sorry, did not have any time for two days.

    Massimo:

    it doesn't help to question people's motives unless one has actual evidence of nefarious ones.

    That was probably poorly phrased, as I did not mean to imply that you use conscious trickery; indeed you have been quite clear about your definitions in the debate about morals (while on the other side, for example, I find it excessively hard to nail down what your definition of supernatural is, but I assume no nefarious purpose). I simply do not understand what exactly you can disagree with in Julia's piece: no matter if there are one or ten types of definitions at play, it would still help to be open about what your definition is at the moment, and it is important not to carry over hidden connotations from one type to the next.

    Do you actually have a substantial disagreement here? Do you disagree that foundational issues arise not just for ethics and philosophy but also for math, logic and science? Didn't think so. My point is simply that some people on this blog and elsewhere are the ones who wish to have their cake and eat it too. They keep dismissing philosophy and ethics on the ground of foundational issues, but seem to want to keep untouched math and especially science, which suffer from the same issues. Talk about sleight of hand.

    Okay, so I misunderstood part of your point against 'scientism' apparently - I thought you were arguing that science had foundational issues that other areas of inquiry don't have. Fine, I get it now. But you are severely mistaken if you think that any serious scientist is unaware of the foundational issues of his or her discipline, or that anybody except for that weird anti-humanities commenter you had a few months back is dismissing philosophy, or that you can fault the atheist scientist with pointing out how unsophisticatedly they rely on science in their inferences just because it works, and then turn around and say yourself that we should pragmatically rely on science because it works.

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  100. The thing is, science is the only method of rational inquiry that deals with the existence of objects or processes in the world around us (OoPitWau). Take any other: math, logic, moral philosophy - can any of them actually demonstrate, even with years of effort, whether I currently have a key in my left pocket or not? Thought so; that is a scientific question, because the key is one of the OoPitWau. Now if you want to argue, as Michael and you do, that science has nothing to say on supernatural OoPitWau, you can reasonably do that in two ways: either there is another form of rational inquiry that deals with OoPitWau and is better suited to those of them that are supernatural, and we have just seen that there is none. Or, and that seems to be your modus operandi, you can redefine the word "science" in such a narrow way that makes you right by default, but unfortunately leaves 95% of all currently working scientists scratching their heads why they are not scientists, and notably you have never clarified what they would be instead. Which neatly brings us to the relevance of all that for Julia's essay: definitions.

    What does Jerry have to do with it? He wasn't even mentioned in the post. Someone seems to have developed a fixation...

    I have no adequate words to reply to that, except perhaps: projection? Yes, I came back to the topic of the scope of scientific research, but I hope I have made clear in the previous paragraph why I consider the issue of definitions highly relevant there, and not only for moral philosophy. And now I am going to drop it for this thread, although it is very tempting to point and laugh at Crane's truly abysmal opinion piece in the thread under Michael's picks.

    But I'm sure you have solid theological arguments to show enlighten us otherwise.

    Woe is me, I have no theological arguments! Just like I have none on unicorn physiology, and for precisely the same reasons. I have, however, once read a newspaper interview with two prominent German theologians in which the journalist was flabberghasted five sentences in to find that none of the two actually believed in the existence of god, which just goes to show.

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  101. czrpb,

    So -- to channel Parmenides (though I am not scholar) -- the atoms that make up things are not real (where "real" == "proven to be true"), therefore the cell(s) you see in the microscope is not real, therefore the body (yours) from which the cell came is not real! So are you an anti-realist? Do you doubt your own existence?

    I've tried to make it clear at the end that I don't think this is a big problem and that I have a high degree of confidence in our theories. Virtually none of our theories can be proven true in the strictest sense though some have been confirmed so often that it would be perverse to say we have any doubt except in this lofty, ivory tower philosophical sense. So no, I don't doubt that the cells we observe in the microscope are real and I don't doubt my existence. I'm not sure where you're getting this from.

    I'm just observing that our high degree of confidence has a shaky theoretical foundation even while it has outstanding pragmatic success. These are the facts, like it or not.

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  102. Dr. Pigliucci,

    I want to thank you for taking the time to maintain this blog and provide the thoughtful interaction you do. I have really appreciated it, and have found what you write to be very thought-provoking. I have come to understand science and philosophy better since I started reading. Given the attacks you incur by engaging in this sort of outreach, I just thought someone should express some gratitude. I would wager that most of those reading have a similar feeling, some commenters notwithstanding.

    Thanks,
    Mel

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  103. Massimo:

    Just saw this, belatedly:

    my analogy between ethics and math is limited to show that there are enterprises where we can apply rigorous logical reasoning and come up with non-arbitrary conclusions, and yet these enterprises have no need of any empirical input. Period. This is in response to the scientistic group on this blog who seems to equate science with rationality, evidently forgetting (indeed, in some cases actively denying!) that math and logic are not sciences, though they are certainly useful to science. Similarly, philosophy is different from science, even though of course philosophical reasoning needs to be informed by the best science we have available. I keep being astounded at how apparently difficult these pretty obvious points seem to be for some people, and I attribute that not to stupidity but to a philosophical (!) pre-commitment to scientism.

    Most of this is not to be denied, of course, but I really wonder who you are talking about. As mentioned above, I remember one (in numbers: 1!) commenter a few months back who bragged that the humanities were being pushed back and had essentially been shown to be nothing but unfounded exchanges of personal ideologies. And I also remember pointing out how stupid that is, and that there are many interesting questions that you cannot answer with science no matter how many thermocyclers or electron microscopes you throw at them.

    But I would really like to see an eminent scientist or even only a regular visitor to your blog say that philosophy has no legitimacy as a form of rational inquiry, or that rationality is the same as science, but I doubt that will ever happen.

    No, the real difference between you and certain commenters that you have complained about is simply what types of empirical inquiry are considered science, with the opinions ranging from all to, apparently on your side, the idea that it is only science if you have an extremely narrow focus, use loads of statistics and complicated technical terms, and wear a lab coat, and of course you are only allowed to work with fully formulated hypotheses with proposed mechanisms of action. But you never say what, if not science, all the rest of science is. You are fond of saying "science is not just a collection of facts." Agreed! But if you look carefully at that sentence, it contains a "not just", indicating quite clearly and correctly that science is also a collection of facts, or let us say observations, which math and logic, as non-sciences, don't really use or even need, obviously without them therefore becoming obsolete.

    (I also like this blog very much and appreciate the effort you and your friends are putting into it, even if I may seem overly critical. But as you have observed yourself, one tends to comment particularly often where one disagrees, and it can probably be assumed that you yourself would not consider your blog particularly useful if all the comments could be reduced to "bravo!".)

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  104. Poor Richard,

    Like you, I'm retired, and I appreciate that Massimo probably doesn't have nearly as much time to spare for Internet discussion as you or I. But philosophy is difficult and requires more than cursory attention. I just can't see the point of Massimo responding to so many people if it means he can't pay sufficient attention even to his co-blogger, Julia, whose original argument he still hasn't addressed, or apparently even understood. If my carping will just sting him into going back and re-reading her OP more carefully, than perhaps it won't have been for nothing.

    Anyway, I'm sure I must be sounding like a scratched record by now. So I'll say no more.

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  105. Poor Richard, Mel,

    thanks for the appreciation, it is much appreciated.

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  106. Whatever indeed. Do you realize that having to explain PhD-exclusive concepts to the unwashed masses is a bug, not a feature? And that it sounds just like sophisticated theologians complaining that their critics don't understand sophisticated theology?

    BTW, I appreciate you too. Seriously, thanks for putting yourself out there.

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  107. Just to chime in, I also really appreciate the time and energy Massimo puts into Rationally Speaking -- not to mention his graciousness in inviting me into his own blog and allowing me free rein to challenge his arguments.

    I generally assume it goes without saying, but it's probably worth reiterating from time to time! Thanks, Massimo.

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  108. Hi! Tyro said: "I'm not sure where you're getting this from."

    I know and am sorry. Let me explain my frustration (though not really with anyone here so much): I agree with Sam Harris that there are moral "facts". The ones I think exist I believe have the same degree of "Truth" as atoms: My understand of Harris -- and certainly what I believe -- is that happiness is "real" and is the ultimate desire. (I happen to also agree with Massimo about "human flourishing"; which I believe is the way to happiness.)

    Therefore, what twists my knickers is when someone denies this with: "Hey! Even physics can not say what is real! Atoms you know are not real. So certainly there are no moral truths or moral reality."

    Well, great. Frack you too. Seriously: Why do people give that reply?

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  109. czrpb said: "...what twists my knickers is when someone denies [that happiness is real] with: "Hey! Even physics can not say what is real!"

    I agree--that's not a satisfying argument.

    For me what makes happiness (or flourishing) not unreal, but impractical, as a basis for ethics is a lack of specificity and metrics.

    We need a "chemistry" of happiness.

    First, happiness/flourishing is not one thing but a complex composite of compound things--so we need a periodic table and a taxonomy of the various elements and compounds that can be combined to constitute happiness.

    Second, for each component or property of happiness we need appropriate weights and measures.

    Third, we need some basis for making the units of the various constituents fungible so that units of x can be substituted for f(x) units of y.

    I have said this in a half-dozen different ways but no one seems to find any merit or take any interest in this approach.

    Am I crazy?

    PR

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  110. Hi Poor Richard! I do agree that continuous enlargement of the "chemistry" is a good thing. My understand of Harris is that recent technology is helping w/ this. I also believe that Bentham was basically right: Happiness is pleasure. We can debate the pleasure of what: Being able to fulfill one's aims/desires perhaps? I really do not need too much more.

    I also believe that -- as JS Mills suggested I believe -- humans have tried out a number of social arrangements and many of those can be reasonably said to be less conducive to the happiness of those involved. Obviously I am thing of authoritarian societies. So, for me, I do not really need "chemistry" to come many conclusions about how society ought to be arranged.

    So: Am I crazy (too)?!?

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  111. czrpb said..."Happiness is pleasure. We can debate the pleasure of what: Being able to fulfill one's aims/desires perhaps?"

    Wikipedia: "Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu" ("good" or "well being") and "daimōn" ("spirit" or "minor deity", used by extension to mean one's lot or fortune).[1] Although popular usage of the term happiness refers to a state of mind, related to joy or pleasure,[2] eudaimonia rarely has such connotations"

    happiness/flourishing/eudaimonia = utility

    A BRIEF TAXONOMY OF FLOURISHING (UTILITY)

    I. Happiness

    A. oxytocin
    B. amygdala excitation (fMRI)
    C. genital arousal
    D. full belly
    E. response to verbal reinforcement ("Well done, Joe")
    F. homeostasis
    G. absence of stress or other happiness inhibitors
    H. Whatever--you get the idea

    II. Health (many dimensions/components)

    III. Safety (ditto)

    IV. Freedom/constraint (ditto)

    V. Information

    A. Info about consequences of alternative choices, thoughts, or behaviors

    1. short-term consequences
    2. long-term consequences

    B. Self-knowledge

    1. implicit associations and biases
    2. conscious values/beliefs
    3. strengths and weaknesses
    4. habits
    5. effective/ineffective reinforcement history
    6. whatever

    VI. Social matrix factors affecting well-being

    VII. Duration of life and quality of life factors

    VIII. Contribution to flourishing of others (including ecosystem impacts)

    This is just off the top of my head. But I'm not a real philosopher.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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  112. Hi Poor Richard! I like it all!

    This seems to me to include some understanding from a number of philosophies such as: Utilitarianism (I), Stoicism (II, V.B, VI, VIII), Virtue (V.B.4?), Determinism (V.B.5?).

    I pretty much wrap this up as a sort of humanistic Naturalism, to which I am sure is obvious I am partial.

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  113. Thanks, czrpb!

    I'm glad I managed to articulate the thesis in a way that makes sense to someone.

    I also draw consciously from consequentialism, phenominalsim, perspectivism, and pragmatism and probably unconsciously from others, not to mention the biology, chemistry, math, economics, etc.

    The only appropriate name I can think of for this "smorgasbord" is GENERAL UTILITY.

    I like "utility" because it ties in with the philosophy, the biology, the behavior, and the cost/benefit computations.

    So far my rendering of General Utility is sketchy, hypothetical, and naive on may levels.

    Constructive criticism and feedback from my betters is what I blog for.

    Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

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