Scientific Morality?

[Kahalachan]

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

What is moral is all that promotes mental and physical health. It seems that most morals are determined already by this standard.

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?

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.

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

 

[Voegelin]

Very popular idea in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. While researching social darwinism this month, I ran across a brief account in a print edition of "The Lancet" (Feb 26, 1938) which touched on the subject. An excerpt:

Medicine, Eugenics and Sociology

. . . Prof Ryle's definition of the goal of medicine today is "the preservation of and the planning for the greatest possible health, happiness and efficiency for the greatest number by prophylactic measures, including eugenics and social reorganization". . .(Prof Ryle) visualised the formation of a national council embodying a triple alliance between medicine, eugenics and sociology . . . (and) the modification of the medical curriculum in order to emphasise all preventive aspects, especially the preservation of health by nutritional and other social reforms, and by application of genetic studies to eugenic education and legislation. . . .

Sir Walter Langdon-Brown hinted that the patient's predilection for the "curing doctor" was natural and would not soon be overcome . . .

The May 7, 1938 edition of "The Lancet" has another interesting article: "Sterilisation of the Mentally Unfit in Denmark":

On June 1st, 1929, the first Danish law providing for the voluntary sterilisation of the mentally unfit came into force . . .some 300 women and 100 men have been sterilised . . .the overwhelming majority of these cases represented debilitas mentalis and so far no idiots and only a few imbeciles have been sterilised. . .The indication for castration was always some sex abnormality which had led to two or more criminal acts in relation to women or children or of a homosexual character . . .castration eradicates sex impluses . . .nearly all (of those castrated) expressed satisfaction with the operation, many of them explaining that they felt more at ease now. . .

Sociology and psychology are no more advanced today than they were in 1938. Their biases are less obvious is all. Prejudices are tempered to the times. In 1938, those who castrated men with low IQ or homosexuals arrested for what were most likely minor offenses (and might not be offenses at all today) and those who wanted to breed humans like animals were considered enlightened and progressive. The medical journals from the 1920s and 1930s are full of this stuff. It stopped for one reason: Nazi Germany took it and displayed the end result for all to see.

I suggest we don't try it again.

Note: no link as the excerpts are from the print edition. That volume is over 1,300 pages long. Fair Use should cover the brief excerpts above.

 

[CSmrw]

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

What is moral is all that promotes mental and physical health. It seems that most morals are determined already by this standard.

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?

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.

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

Morality has to come from the individual's sense of community. Science can explain why that is, but it can't create an environment where you must act on it. SCience can show you why it's better for all if yo udo, but it can't make you do it. Science can show you how to build an airplane, but it can't build one for you, or make you want to fly. Science is only ever a tool. I see people use the word like they would "God" or "Allah". It's not a religion, or a sect. It's a scale, a hammer and a nail. You use it to do things, not the other way around.

 

[Eryk]

Political science, sociology, etc. could all contribute to our determination of morality.

There are many historical, philosophical, social, psychological, and biological studies of altruism. The topic is so vast one hardly knows where to begin.

Samuel Oliner, Kristen Renwick Monroe, and many others have published studies on the psychology of holocaust rescuers. What emerges is the integration of the values of universal compassion into the identity of the rescuers--a sense of self that, they believed, clarified their duties and constrained their moral choices. There was typically little or no hesitation, no existential anguish, in the decision to help.

Studies of universal altruism won't tell us what is right, but they can show us the moral psychology of the righteous and the social factors that encourage and inhibit compassion.

 

[Eudaimonist]

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

What is moral is all that promotes mental and physical health. It seems that most morals are determined already by this standard.

This is at root a philosophical standard. I think that science can usefully inform philosophy to help it examine and devise moral values, but I don't think that science can ever provide and justify a moral standard all by itself.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[michabo]

There are no moral standards to be found in nature. Everything we think of as moral is contradicted in nature, and successfully too.

However, we can decide on our own moral standards, and use the scientific method to compare different alternative means of upholding this standard. For example, if we determine that certain addictive drugs are harmful and we view individual and societal harm as bad, then we can investigate different means of preventing and dealing with this harm.

Nothing in science can tell us which decision to make, but it can help us understand what the tradeoffs and consequences are.

 

[Eryk]

There are no moral standards to be found in nature. Everything we think of as moral is contradicted in nature, and successfully too.

Well there are some, atheists included, who find moral standards in logic. Moral Realism is the meta-ethical view that moral facts exist, they are in some sense mind-independent, and they are already known. Paul Bloomfield developed an ontology for morality that models the property of being morally good on the property of being physically healthy.

If you look into research linking compassion with positive psychosocial health outcomes, and alienation with traumatic stress, you will indeed find moral standards in nature. Love is what makes life meaningful, and a meaningless life is intolerable. It's a fact of life.

 

[michabo]

Well there are some, atheists included, who find moral standards in logic.

Logic is amoral.

Paul Bloomfield developed an ontology for morality that models the property of being morally good on the property of being physically healthy.

Nothing in science or nature tells us that being physically healthy is morally good. That was Bloomfield's decision alone.

If you look into research linking compassion with positive psychosocial health outcomes, and alienation with traumatic stress, you will indeed find moral standards in nature. Love is what makes life meaningful, and a meaningless life is intolerable. It's a fact of life.

It is not a fact of life. You may decide that love makes your life meaningful, and you may decide that a meaningless life is intolerable. But this doesn't make it a fact. Even if a majority of people would agree with you, it doesn't make it a fact.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Nothing in science or nature tells us that being physically healthy is morally good.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about this. I think that facts of reality regarding human life and its needs give rise to precisely this conclusion, though I don't think it is limited to physical health. I'd include psychological health as well.

As I said, though, I think this is a philosophical conclusion informed by science, not something that science alone can tell us.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[michabo]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about this. I think that facts of reality regarding human life and its needs give rise to precisely this conclusion, though I don't think it is limited to physical health. I'd include psychological health as well.

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

 

[SimplyMe]

Very popular idea in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. While researching social darwinism this month, I ran across a brief account in a print edition of "The Lancet" (Feb 26, 1938) which touched on the subject. An excerpt:



The May 7, 1938 edition of "The Lancet" has another interesting article: "Sterilisation of the Mentally Unfit in Denmark":

Okay, I'm aware that there were doctors and others that believed in Eugenics in the first half of the 20th Century (the Lancet is the UK Medical Journal).

Sociology and psychology are no more advanced today than they were in 1938. Their biases are less obvious is all.

This claim is unprovable. There have actually been a great many advances in psychology in the last 50 to 100 years. We now have drugs that help with many mental diseases, allowing those suffering from the disease to recover more quickly or to lead normal lives despite their disease. Additionally, there are many treatments that are no longer common as treatments today, in fact are now viewed as barbaric (electroshock therapy comes to mind, and again often used on homosexuals), that were common 50 years ago.

If you want to claim that psychology hasn't advanced because there are still diseases they do not understand and possibly have the wrong cure, then using that idea also would show that medical science still hasn't advanced. Or to quote McCoy from Star Trek IV (when they came back to 1970's Earth) when he learned a woman was waiting for dialysis, "Dialysis? What is this, the Dark Ages?"

Prejudices are tempered to the times. In 1938, those who castrated men with low IQ or homosexuals arrested for what were most likely minor offenses (and might not be offenses at all today) and those who wanted to breed humans like animals were considered enlightened and progressive. The medical journals from the 1920s and 1930s are full of this stuff. It stopped for one reason: Nazi Germany took it and displayed the end result for all to see.

I suggest we don't try it again.

Note: no link as the excerpts are from the print edition. That volume is over 1,300 pages long. Fair Use should cover the brief excerpts above.

Yet, I've seen and heard many Christians (and others) support castration or chemical castration as a punishment/cure for people convicted of sex offenses (and homosexuality 40 years ago was a criminal offense). Further, you again are talking of medical journals and nothing about psychology or sociology, further, you are claiming that Eugenics is no longer a scientific belief, so I'm not sure how the idea of Eugenics has anything to do with your trying to claim sociology or psychology hasn't advanced in the last 50 years.

 

[Eryk]

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

*butting in* When an act of charity nourishes the recipient and psychologically fulfils the donor, the change from starving to healthy is real, and so is the joy in voluntary giving. The onus is on you to show that these things aren't desirable. The assertion is so at odds with experience it's either trans-humanly brilliant or gratuitously contrarian.

 

[michabo]

When an act of charity nourishes the recipient and psychologically fulfils the donor, the change from starving to healthy is real, and so is the joy in voluntary giving. The onus is on you to show that these things aren't desirable.

There's no onus on me to show that these aren't moral.

Why shoud health alone be moral?

At what costs?

For individuals or groups or societies or ecosystems?

Mental or physical?

Until we reproduce or after?

The assertion is so at odds with experience it's either trans-humanly brilliant or gratuitously contrarian.

Neither. We can gather nothing of morality from observation. We must make up our own rules. It so happens that, in humans, most people feel better when they share.

But not all. This alone invalidates the claim.

To take it further, we need only observe that morality is a means of telling us what should happen, or what is better to do. This encapsulates the observation that, for any given moral system, there are actions which are immoral. But the people which do the immoral acts still think it is in their best interest, and makes themselves happier to do these acts!

The very basis for morality is to decide what "should" happen. Why do you think health or happiness "should" be the case? Why is this "better"? Why does suffering not teach us humility, does death not teach us to value life, does adversity cause us to learn more and to develop? Health for all is immoral.

(Not that I necessarily believe it, but one can make a case for a moral system which promotes unhappiness and poor health for many, using the same reasoning as you use for your moral system.)

 

[nadroj1985]

I'm with michabo. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's a simple matter of the "is-ought" problem -- values are derived not from the actual state of reality, but from human desire. People convince themselves that science can give us an objective morality only because they value science a great deal, and desire to make it more powerful than it ever possibly could be.

 

[Voegelin]

Yet, I've seen and heard many Christians (and others) support castration or chemical castration as a punishment/cure for people convicted of sex offenses (and homosexuality 40 years ago was a criminal offense). Further, you again are talking of medical journals and nothing about psychology or sociology, further, you are claiming that Eugenics is no longer a scientific belief, so I'm not sure how the idea of Eugenics has anything to do with your trying to claim sociology or psychology hasn't advanced in the last 50 years.[/FONT]

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.

 

[Eryk]

The history of psychology and sociology is the history of junk science.

Gee, all those corporations wasting millions on market research because they don't know that social psychology is bunk. They've learned nothing useful about consumer behavior and there's no way to prove that one advertisement is more effective than another. We're on the cutting edge of a paradigm revolution here.

 

[MrSluagh]

First off, will people please drop the social Darwinism and eugenics straw men? Both are examples of bad science, not badly used science.

Social Darwinism assumes that immitating a natural phenomenon will lead produce positive results. You might as well use the flight patterns of birds to plan your day. Wait, people used to do that! It was called "augury". Is augury science?

Eugenics reduces genetic diversity and causes inbreeding. Even if you ignore that, the social consequences of eugenics outweigh any practical gains. Eugenicists tended to ignore this fact. Taking social consequences into account is not ignoring science. That's why we have the social sciences.

 

[MrSluagh]

On the original topic...

Yes, science is useful for morality. Science is useful for most things. Science can give us new knowledge to test our morality against. Wondering whether your government's system for punishing criminals is helpful, or could be improved? Want to know whether certain methods child rearing are good? Psychologists and sociologists work non-stop to find out both. (Don't tell me that the amount of disagreement among them invalidates their studies. There are also a lot of contradictory opinions on Bible-based parenting and justice. Does that, in and of itself, invalidate the Bible?)

Science is not useful for establishing basic moral principles. However, it is useful for analyzing and modifying them. There's no reason to assume that your morality is good, just because it's what you're used to. How can you say you're in the right if you haven't asked:

1. What am I trying to accomplish with my moral code?
2. How does my moral code serve those goals?
3. Are there any situations in which my code would work against my goals?
4. What assumptions does my code make that contradict my goal?
5. What assumptions does my goal make that contradict my code?

Science (that is to say, empirical observation and critical analysis, not some strange religion about scowling men in lab coats and glasses) is useful for answering the last three questions, but not the first two.

 

[MrSluagh]

There's no onus on me to show that these aren't moral.

Why shoud health alone be moral?

At what costs?

For individuals or groups or societies or ecosystems?

Mental or physical?

Until we reproduce or after?

The fact that difficult questions are involved does not mean they should go unexamined.

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.

1. Famous research in Field X was fraudulent.
2. Therefore, Field X is fraudulent.

1. Famous proponents of Field X were frauds.
2. Therefore, Field X is fraudulent.

This is both an ad hominem and a converse fallacy of accident.

 

[michabo]

The fact that difficult questions are involved does not mean they should go unexamined.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't examine them. I just meant to say that the simple position of "healthy is good" is not enough to let us answer these questions, even assuming that "healthy is good" was somehow objectively verifiable.

Then there would be all of the harder trade-offs, where there is a tragedy of the commons, as we all try to be healthy and we exhaust our resources. Or we acknowledge that our health must come at the expense of others, even if it is just at the expense of other animals.

Nature offers us no objective means to answer any of these questions.