Scientific Morality?

[Moros]

There is no morality in science, only ethics.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Why? What is morally good about health? Be objective and scientific.

I told you that science cannot by itself justify a moral standard, so being "scientific" is entirely besides the point. Science will only help us to understand how values and principles may impact our health. It takes a philosophical understanding to deal with such concepts as morality. I am not scientistic (see meaning 2) about ethics.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

Science is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Agreed, which is why science can never replace philosophy.

It's a simple matter of the "is-ought" problem -- values are derived not from the actual state of reality, but from human desire.

I personally think the "is-ought" problem is one of the great mistakes in the history of philosophy.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[SimplyMe]

Psychologists don't (as far as I know) prescribe drugs or do the research to develop them so any advances there (and I don't believe drugging millions of school kids is an advance) can't be ascribed to them. The history of psychology and sociology is the history of junk science. Medical doctors who entered the field also participated in the frauds. Freud, Kinsley and Margaret Mead, pushed as pioneers and credible researchers for decades have all been discredited. The latter two faked their research (as did Ernst Haeckel, an acolyte and friend of Darwinist who pioneered in using junk science to reform society). Freud was nothing more than a con man. His "therapy" which bilked tens of thousands out of serious money, has been proven to be worse than useless. We have MRIs and CAT scans now. We know mothers and unconscious desires are not the causes of various mental pathologies.

Psychologists can't prescribe drugs but psychiatrists are medical doctors (at least in the US) and do both prescribe medicines and participate in the research of the drugs. Ritalin, and similar drugs, though IMO over prescribed today do make a dramatic difference in the people that use them. We could also talk about the thousands of hysterectomies that were needlessly performed over the past 50 years, and the millions of dollars some doctors have made from them; yet the basic science behind a hysterectomy is good and needed, even if it has been abused. Though possibly in 50 years people will talk of how stupid we were to knowingly surgically remove parts of people for something which can be cured as easily as cancer and what quacks those doctors were. Does the fact that medical science once firmly believed in using leaches to pull "bad blood" out of a sick patient discredit all of medical science today?

As for Freud, while there are theories of his that are flawed, he still advanced the science. His ideas of psycho-therapy is still the basis for therapy (both psychologists and psychiatrists) today and he developed the idea of "defence mechanisms". While Freud is (and always has been) controversial, he is not as disproven as you indicate.

Kinsey was not a therapist or sociologist, but rather a biologist and entomologist and thus has no place in this discussion. Strangely, despite how I often hear from some on the right here how his theories are suspect, I've seen those same people use some of his research to "prove" their own ideas. Margaret Mead was an anthropologist, again not a psychologist.

 

[quatona]

Do you feel that we can be moral through scientific understanding?

Generally, I would say no.
Science describes, whilst the point of morals is to prescribe.
You would have to put up moral axioms first in order to derive a particular morality from observations. Depending on these moral axioms, people may come to completely different results although all of them acknowledge the scientific observations.

What is moral is all that promotes mental and physical health.

Yes, that would be such a moral axioms as mentioned above.
Let alone that it is (in this form) so unprecise that it is almost meaninglessness, it may not be agreed upon as the basic moral axiom.

It seems that most morals are determined already by this standard.

Although most morals seem not to violate this axiom I doubt that they are determined by it.

Yeah psychology and the medical field isn't at the point to determine every single little thing that could be damaging to mental and physical health, but if it got there would science be a good standard for morality?

I´m a bit confused now. You started asking whether it´s possible to derive morality from science, now you ask whether the result would be a good one. Good if applying which moral standards?

Political science, sociology, etc. could all contribute to our determination of morality. We study the trends of what caused the downfall of civilizations and societies and we can see what not to do.

Another axiom being the basis here, paraphrased: "The purpose of morality is to keep civilizations and societies running." Not that I would necessarily disagree, yet, it´s still the moral factor (and not the the scientific results).
On another note: We would first have to agree how to measure a downfall of a society. Furthermore, we would have to establish another moral axiom first in order to proceed like this: If a society/civilization/culture survives successfully due to exploiting other societies/civilizations/cultures - would that be a good thing?

I know it's very vague, but wondering what your thoughts are.

For several reasons I think this approach doesn´t lead us anywhere.
I agree, though, that once a person has established his ethical standards, observations and science can help him to live up to them.

 

[Technocrat]

It's important to remember that science is a means of describing the natural world. As someone said, it's descriptive, not normative. Ethics is a branch of philosohy and it seeks to prescribe what one ought to do or how one ought to live.

Science, however, can be a valuable tool in helping us understand the facts of ethical dilemmas, or more importantly, I think science ought be used (and the subsequent technology) to improve humanity and human lives according to Utilitarian principles.

In a way, I am a proponent of modern Liberal Eugenics, or essentially the use of voluntary gene therapy, selective abortion, genetic engineering, and technological modification (as it becomes available) to improve the quality of life for people. Science should be to make people happier and provide for welfare interests.

It's not entirely correct to say that all forms of Eugenics are immoral or that even all forms are junk science; that's simply untrue. Some forms of it were and are. Breeding Eugenics (which really isn't all forms of Eugenics) doesn't have to be immoral at all; we already select mates according to a form of selective breeding, but we just use a different mechanism and set of endgoals.

Also, the process or idea of Eugenics is no more invalid than modern animal husbandry or plant science that does pretty much the same thing. However, forced, this process is bad, and if not done so with caution, can backfire. However, the Liberal Eugenics branch doesn't resemble, really, much of old-school Eugenics at all. We already today engage in that.

 

[Maxwell511]

There are no moral standards to be found in nature.

Aren't we not part of nature?

 

[michabo]

Aren't we not part of nature?

And what moral standards can you derive from us?

 

[Maxwell511]

And what moral standards can you derive from us?

I don't think that we derive them, we create them.

 

[michabo]

I don't think that we derive them, we create them.

Exactly. We can't look to science or nature to tell us what moral code to use, or which moral system is correct. We must create the systems ourselves, and then we must decide for ourselves which is best. No moral system is any more valid than any other, and science can't help us sort through them.

 

[MrSluagh]

There is a natural basis for morality, or at least parts of it: we're social animals, and thus have a strong herd instinct. This is not to say that herd instinct is or should be the only basis of morality. You don't have to look very far to see that instinct and natural things aren't necessarily best.

What I don't understand is a line of reasoning used by some Christians that seems to go:

1. Morality is irrational.
2. Therefore, my irrational moral system is correct.

The fact that morality doesn't have a scientific basis does not mean it shouldn't be analyzed critically.

 

[Kahalachan]

Ok to address the fact science addresses how things work.

This is true. We understand the success of our evolution is due to cooperation and greater intellectual capacity.

So we continue with the trend of cooperation and helping each other survive.

This is going by the line of reasoning that what has helped us survive as a species will continue to allow us to survive.

Science doesn't say directly that we should perpetuate our species, but the trend of our applied science is to do so.

Logically, I suppose I can try and say that we are all living humans and to do anything that would cause us to be dead humans would be an attempt to force a contradiction. Living human and ~living human. But errrrr......that doesn't work so well.

I can say it would be complete folly to allow ourselves to be subject to physical and mental harm, and science could not even exist if we didn't choose to cooperate in some form to begin with. So science is subject to that which has given birth to it, and can be used to perpetuate its existence.

 

[MoonlessNight]

Science answers questions about how the world is, how the world works, and how the world could be. I don't really see how morality fits into that equation. Morality is about how we should act, what type of world we should strive for, what is the best good and all that fun stuff. It can be very useful for getting you to some end, but it doesn't tell you what end to try for or whether your attempts at reaching that end are moral.

It's a bit like asking whether we can get morality from history. You could try, but ultimately that's not the sort of question that history offers.

That's not to say, however, that reason doesn't play a part in morality. It plays the biggest part in morality.

 

[michabo]

This is true. We understand the success of our evolution is due to cooperation and greater intellectual capacity.

What does it mean to say that "our evolution" is "successful"?

I can say it would be complete folly to allow ourselves to be subject to physical and mental harm, and science could not even exist if we didn't choose to cooperate in some form to begin with.

If we are only interested in the preservation of science, we should remove (ahem) those humans who don't contribute to science but who still use our resources.

 

[MoonlessNight]

There is a natural basis for morality, or at least parts of it: we're social animals, and thus have a strong herd instinct. This is not to say that herd instinct is or should be the only basis of morality. You don't have to look very far to see that instinct and natural things aren't necessarily best.

What I don't understand is a line of reasoning used by some Christians that seems to go:

1. Morality is irrational.
2. Therefore, my irrational moral system is correct.

The fact that morality doesn't have a scientific basis does not mean it shouldn't be analyzed critically.

I don't even know why they would want to say that Morality is irrational in the first place. Sure, it isn't scientific, but lots of things are rational and yet not scientific.

 

[nadroj1985]

I personally think the "is-ought" problem is one of the great mistakes in the history of philosophy.

Interesting.... how so? I've always thought it was practically self-evident.

 

[CSmrw]

I don't even know why they would want to say that Morality is irrational in the first place. Sure, it isn't scientific, but lots of things are rational and yet not scientific.

Not necessarily dissagreeing yet, but a couple of examples?