[RawJoh1]

Originally Posted by shamrock92

Vaguely. (I think ethics should be conducted in one's own attic.)

Ah OK. I was going to joke that it's no surprise you're at Cambridge, but then I remembered that you're not at university, and you're not even applying for philosophy! (that's right, right?)

(personally, I can't think of anything more depressing than your view of philosophy, but I guess the areas I'm most interested in are areas of first order theorising - normative political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and [some areas of] epistemology)

[shamrock92]

Originally Posted by RawJoh1

Ah OK. I was going to joke that it's no surprise you're at Cambridge, but then I remembered that you're not at university, and you're not even applying for philosophy! (that's right, right?)

Applying for Physics & Philosophy.

Originally Posted by RawJoh1

(personally, I can't think of anything more depressing than your view of philosophy, but I guess the areas I'm most interested in are areas of first order theorising - normative political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and [some areas of] epistemology)

Well, for all practical purposes, I don't think it makes much difference. Under my interpretation, philosophy is concerned with questions of the form "What does it mean to say X?" That doesn't mean that one can't debate "issues"; it just means that the fundamentals of the debate is rooted in an analysis of language.

Ethics and Political Philosophy is fine, I think; I just don't think it can be practiced particularly productively on an academic level, except to clarify one's individual intuitions. In terms of making progress in developing universal standards and "rationally persuading" other people, I don't think it works.

[tomheppy]

I keep getting the nagging feeling that Shamrock is absolutely right. But you could say the same about mathematics, that it is just deriving answers from definitions but is made interesting because of the finite capability of the human mind (this is what Ayer said if I am right). Perhaps philosophy is the same.

[tomheppy]

Originally Posted by shamrock92

Applying for Physics & Philosophy.



In terms of making progress in developing universal standards and "rationally persuading" other people, I don't think it works.

Surely some people have more rational views than others? I agree that ultimately you can't rationally persuade someone that murder is wrong but the vast majority of people agree that certain basic actions are wrong and that one explanation of this wrongness fits more coherently into their other beliefs? I always have a suspicion that ethics is somehow descriptive in that it just tries to explain basic moral intuitions consistently and argue that different theories do this better than each other.

[birdsong1]

Originally Posted by tomheppy

I keep getting the nagging feeling that Shamrock is absolutely right. But you could say the same about mathematics, that it is just deriving answers from definitions but is made interesting because of the finite capability of the human mind (this is what Ayer said if I am right). Perhaps philosophy is the same.

Well, in maths, at least the logic being used is the same across the board; with ethics, the logic is either fuzzy, or the assumptions are so specific that no one else agrees with them

[Melancholy]

Originally Posted by shamrock92

Philosophy does not rest on logic, really. Disputes arise because people mean different things by what they say, and because they are confused about what a word really means. Take the clichéd debate about freewill: Do we have freewill? It is acknowledged that this is really a debate about what "freewill" means. Those who say we do have freewill do so because they are operating on a different definition of the word to those who don't. Either someone is confused, or we mean different things.

Much of philosophy (e.g. ethics) goes out the window on this view.

I am fond of this interpretation. I guess in terms of ethics we can limit ourselves to saying that an act has good consequences or that a person has good intentions or a good will. I suppose "good" and other such terms can be further defined. It seems sensible to define what we mean in clear terms - especially when it comes to morality.

[Kolya]

Originally Posted by shamrock92

Philosophy does not rest on logic, really. Disputes arise because people mean different things by what they say, and because they are confused about what a word really means. Take the clichéd debate about freewill: Do we have freewill? It is acknowledged that this is really a debate about what "freewill" means. Those who say we do have freewill do so because they are operating on a different definition of the word to those who don't. Either someone is confused, or we mean different things.

Much of philosophy (e.g. ethics) goes out the window on this view.

How would that view resolve an ethical question like "Should my pregnant wife have an abortion?" As you have outlined it, your position resolves situations about what is the case; however, it isn't obvious how it resolves philosophical questions about what we ought to do.

[Kolya]

Originally Posted by Melancholy

I am fond of this interpretation. I guess in terms of ethics we can limit ourselves to saying that an act has good consequences or that a person has good intentions or a good will. I suppose "good" and other such terms can be further defined. It seems sensible to define what we mean in clear terms - especially when it comes to morality.

While clear definitions are a necessary condition for a good position, it is still something of a stretch to consider them a sufficient condition for a good position. If I've begun with clear definitions then I can move on to constructing a sequence of logical consequences from my premises; I don't simply state my clear definitions, click print, and jolly down to the pub earlier than usual.

[Melancholy]

Originally Posted by Kolya

While clear definitions are a necessary condition for a good position, it is still something of a stretch to consider them a sufficient condition for a good position. If I've begun with clear definitions then I can move on to constructing a sequence of logical consequences from my premises; I don't simply state my clear definitions, click print, and jolly down to the pub earlier than usual.

Agreed, but I don't think that's what Shamrock is suggesting. I think he/she is correct in saying that Philosophy is largely disputed because of incompatible definitions rather than incorrect logical inferences/deductions/implications. I'm certainly not saying that most important philosophical questions are reduced to merely defining the concept under discussion and printing out the subjective definition, though defining the concept and mapping their definitions to a logically valid concluding statement is important.

How would that view resolve an ethical question like "Should my pregnant wife have an abortion?" As you have outlined it, your position resolves situations about what is the case; however, it isn't obvious how it resolves philosophical questions about what we ought to do.

Shamrock conceded that this linguistically-focussed interpretation throws ethics out the window. If one defines morality (the best intention? a good will? the best outcome in terms of pain?) and merely reduces the question to what is "good" for the foetus and what is "good" for the parent (defining good as far as one needs to examine it), and so forth, then you can get quite far.

But I agree that it doesn't sufficiently deal with moral questions about what we ought to do but rather is just a useful tool for examining metaphysical realities. Moral philosophy seems to be based more upon intuitions gained from thought-experiments and subsequently generalising the maxim.

[shamrock92]

Originally Posted by tomheppy

Surely some people have more rational views than others? I agree that ultimately you can't rationally persuade someone that murder is wrong but the vast majority of people agree that certain basic actions are wrong and that one explanation of this wrongness fits more coherently into their other beliefs? I always have a suspicion that ethics is somehow descriptive in that it just tries to explain basic moral intuitions consistently and argue that different theories do this better than each other.

Some people can have a more consistent ethical system, perhaps; ethics might have the limited role of pointing out inconsistencies in particular moral codes. Still, my thing rejects the kind of "systemic philosophy" that seems to be underlying this approach.

[shamrock92]

Originally Posted by Kolya

How would that view resolve an ethical question like "Should my pregnant wife have an abortion?" As you have outlined it, your position resolves situations about what is the case; however, it isn't obvious how it resolves philosophical questions about what we ought to do.

Under my view, this debate would reduce to one about "What does it mean to say of an action that one 'should' do it?"

[tomheppy]

Originally Posted by shamrock92

Under my view, this debate would reduce to one about "What does it mean to say of an action that one 'should' do it?"

Right, meta-ethics. I assume you reject moral realism, then?

[shamrock92]

Originally Posted by tomheppy

Right, meta-ethics.

Not necessarily, I wouldn't have thought. Presumably, a large part of conventional ethics is trying to spell out (albeit in a convoluted way) what "good" is.

Originally Posted by tomheppy

I assume you reject moral realism, then?

I'm not really sure now, though that would be my default position. The idea of dividing beliefs into "factual beliefs", "emotional beliefs", "rational beliefs" etc. seems a bit sixth-form-philosophy-ish to me; and some people have (convincingly) expressed skepticism about the meaningfulness of such distinctions at all. I'll have to think a bit more about that one.