Freedomain Radio

I've recently gotten into philosophy and a specific 'chapter' of philosophy that sticks out at me is Ethical/Moral Philosophy. For this reason I've started watching this series (Intro To Philosophy 5: Ethics), I realise it is a couple of years old but I was wondering if someone could clear some stuff up.

Numerous times through out the series it is said that ethics, to be valid, must be consistent. In the 4th video the comparison is made of someone saying water flows downstream on Tuesdays but up stream on Wednesdays. The reason the scientfic community doesn't rush out and rethink their previous theories about this is because it is inconsistent and physics must be consistent, physics based examples like this are made a number of times throughout the series but the comparison between ethics and biology (a science where inconsistancy is allowed, e.g. mutations) is also made, even regarding inconsistancies. I believe the example given was a horse born with 2 heads does not invalidate the entire concept of organisms much like an exception in ethical beliefs does not invalidate the ethical belief. This to me seems inconsistent.

Another thing I'd like to ask is about the justification of comparing sciences (which are emperical and obviously existent in the real world) and ethics. I have yet to watch the rest of the series (I'm on episode 4 right now) so perhaps this is mentioned, if so I apologise.

I may be compleletly wrong about my inconsistancy 'hole' and if so I apolagise, its late and I'm tired. Any feedback is greatly appreciated,

S.

 Hi Seachmall!

I understand that metaphors can sometimes be more confusing than helpful, I struggle with some of Stef's myself sometimes (shhh.... ). Were there metaphors in the video that did make sense to you? are you having trouble understanding the concepts because of the metaphors? or is this simply an excersize in understanding the similarities between science and philosophy?

It sounds to me as though you got tripped up on arguing to yourself about the metaphors rather than the core ideas?

If you are interested in just talking about the science I'd be happy to because that's of particular interest to me. Do you have a science background too?

Hey,

Its more to do with the contradictions the 2 examples appear to make. He explains it must be consistent but then says their are exceptions, i.e. a break in consistency. I'm probably just nitpicking regarding the examples provided but I'm still confused regarding the meaning of such examples as I explained in the second line. I also realise that using scienctific concepts is the best was to discuss philosophy because it gives sound structure to your arguments and if they break the scientific structure they probably defy logic or atleast cannot be argued succesfully.

I don't have a science background per se as I am still in school and probably won't be following it up in college/university.

Thanks for the response,

S.

hey! So i'm not sure exactly what the context of the water uphill or the two headed horse metaphor was (feel free to provide it if you'd like to discuss it specifically) but I may be able to speak a bit about science in general that may help you:

Science provides a model of reality. A model is an abstraction that can be used to form hypotheses and to run experiments. A model is really about simplifying and removing variables so that the relivant parts (the ones you are interested in) are isolated; remove too many variables and your model is meaningless (it coarse a representation), leave too many in and your model may be too complex (you may not be able to clearly see a pattern or predict results).

So by definition a model is always wrong...it is not reality it is an abstraction. Science is a vast collection of these models (theories, laws, hypotheses) that in aggregate make a very good representation of the reality we live in (and some that we don't live in). The work that is done in science is always disproving past theories and replacing them with models that are a better fit to reality. If science were correct (in the absolute sense) there would be no more need for scientists because we would have a perfect model of reality that we could rely on to give us correct predictions of all future possibilities. this of course will never be the case.

The cool part about science then is that we do not need to believe any of it at all. Scientists have a method that is used over and over to disprove and create better models. so it is not the models themselves that is the science but it is the method that scientists use to reach conclusions about reality that power their models (equations, hypotheses, theories, etc).

So bringing it back to your point, depending on the model you are using, you can both have consistant predictable behavior, and exceptions to that behavior. Einstein's theories of relativity did not help much in explaining gravity that we experience all the time consistantly but they did explain the exceptions. An engineer working out details of a new car engine that will never travel in deep space or have to use the gravity of a star or planet to change speed or direction will certainly not care about Einstein's theories in this context and use equations which are a more crude model of reality. So Einstein's theories approximate reality much more exactly and thus enabled science to move forward in a very real and meaningful way, and did disprove the "laws" of gravity as they were understood at the time, BUT Einstein's theory is just as "wrong" as Newton's it is just the best thing we've got so far. So for the situation of the engineer building the car, using Newton's wrong theory is ok, because what he is trying to predict is within the assumption's of Newton's model. If the car was sent into deep space it would certainly be easy to see the inconsistancies, but here on earth it provides a clear predictable consistant behavior.

In essence, Science at it's very core is about exceptions to consistant and predictable behavior.

nedsferatu:

In essence, Science at it's very core is about exceptions to consistant and predictable behavior.

Thanks,

S.