Ethics is a Science (domain of knowledge)

Great Debates
61

First, I will say that I agree with 'most everything Voyager has said. (Not that I actually disagree with any particular point, but there are a few I would have phrased a little differently.) In particular, I agree that study-systematically is not synonymous with science and that philosophy is most definitely not science. Second, I will say, coberst, that Voyager is one of the most level and insightful participants on this Board. (I’ve only been a member for a year, but was a lurker for much longer than that.) You would be well served to take his comments seriously. He generally knows what he’s talking about, while I don’t always agree with him (though I do here).

That said, let’s return to the OP. You asserted a proposition, coberst, with which I and others have disagreed. I don’t think ethics is a science, nor that it lends itself to the scientific method. Let’s test that with reference to an example. There was a discussion here recently, Murder or Heroism? or ? This is a classic ethical dilemma. A doctor and two nurses in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina appear to have euthanized four terminally ill patients who could not be evacuated. The question is, did they do the right thing? I posit that this question can be approached logically, even systematically (my analysis appears in the thread), but not scientifically. Presumably you disagree. Please explain, taking this as a test case.

62

Voyager

I would first like to discuss the matter of my seeming to be condescending. I suspect you say that because my replies are often somewhat in the form of a formal essay.

I am a self-learner and I often write essays as a method for learning. When I write these essays I try to write in a formal and precise manner because it is my way of examining my understanding. Self-learning is a solitary operation.

As a result of this practice my computer has hundreds of such essays and quite often I pull out one of these essays to reply because that essay represents the best I have to offer on the matter.

Am I correct or do you have some other reason for making the accusation?

63

PBear

Physics can be studied as a natural science, as a domain of knowledge, as many other things. Just as I can study you as a student, a parent, a professional, a thinker, etc. Because you fit into all these different categories does not mean that you must be just like the people in that particular category but only that you must share with them some necessary and sufficient conditions.

I think that ethics unlike physics is a matter that very often involves many differing points of view. Many ethical problems involve economics, religion, law, etc. whereas all physics problems are solved within the particular paradigm of that natural science. When physicists study a problem they all sing from the same hymn book.

64

I stand by my request. You’re saying something - it’s not clear what - about ethics and science. It would be helpful if you could illustrate by example. Take the ethical dilemma I linked and explain how it can be resolved scientifically. Or describe the ethical system you would use to resolve the dilemma and explain what is scientific about it.

65

Resolving the dilemma scientifically can’t be done. What can be done is scientifically study the human processes involved in different groups of people when they address the dilemma. In other words, the scientist is studying the person, not the dilemma.

Feel free to, as I do, ignore the buzzphrase of “domain of knowledge.”

66

Thanks for actually responding. That’s a big improvement.

If you followed the accepted practice of lurking before posting, you’d notice that original posts (OPs) are sometimes essay-like, but responses never are. Responses can be long (mine are usually too long) but they should specifically respond to the point being made. Cutting and pasting from an essay can almost never do that.

Point two is that even essays should be written for a specific target audience. If you are writing a paper for a computer science conference, for instance, you would never define algorithm, since your audience would know what it is. You should read enough threads to get a sense of the level of knowledge of Dopers, which is quite high, especially in GD. Maybe you defined algorithm to set the definition in your own mind, but posting it here came across as you feeling the need to educate us illiterate masses about it.

Learning by writing essays is fine, but if you really want to get it you’ll test your thoughts against others . Debate sharpens thoughts wonderfully, and no one is too smart or too famous to benefit from having to defend his or her ideas.

In case you’re wondering if this contradicts my John Mashey principle, it doesn’t. Challenging John Mashey is fine - assuming that John Mashey doesn’t know anything about UNIX isn’t.

Now, I’m looking forward to some responses from you.

67

Hmm, I think law and to some extent religion is based on ethics, not the other way around. But the differing points of view is precisely the issue. In physics, though there are many ways of addressing the problem, the test to see if the problem has been solved in always the same. In ethics, the measure of success depends on your point of view, which is why it seems impossible to determine which ethical system is best. An economic system designed with the ethical goal of equalizing outcomes will look a lot different from one designed to maximize capitalistic freedom. Even if we could design an experiment to fairly compare these two systems, you would not get agreement on which result was best.

68

Voyager

I think that if you want to discuss this matter further we should start a new thread because this is straying far from the original post.
Kuhn points out that when paradigms separate individuals within a science they often have very difficult times communicating because a paradigm is a way of seeing.

A particular science is confined to a paradigm. Perhaps individuals break from that paradigm and join with another group.

As you are a computer scientist and thus an expert at algorithms I must, nevertheless, dispute your comments that “algorithms have little to do with science”.

I do not know what definition computer science uses but Webster says “Algorithm—a procedure for solving a math problem in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation: a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end esp. by computer”.

I am a retired engineer and I know how physics, chemistry, and engineering are taught and they are taught as a series of algorithms that are learned as a step by step process for solving all problems. Every exam consists in the student responding to the test questions with a step by step series of mathematical equations for solving the exam questions. The exams often did not even use numbers; the student was required to show each mathematical step in the solution.

Exam scores were based upon the student recognizing how to set up the answer in this manner and if significant steps were missing from the solution the grade reflected the displeasure of the grader.

The background training a student learns in any of the natural sciences that I am familiar with learns the paradigms and algorithms of that paradigm. None of the courses I took were given in a narrative fashion. Almost every class period consisted of the professor working out on the blackboard the complete algorithm for the problems the students had with their homework; this was followed by the professor constructing a complete set for the new material.

The following quotations I have taken from chapter IV “Normal Science as Puzzle Solving”
of Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”.:

“Perhaps the most striking feature of the normal research problems we have just encountered is how little they aim to produce major novelties, conceptual or phenomenal.”

“the man who succeeds proves himself an expert puzzle-solver,”

“puzzles are,…that special category of problems that can test ingenuity or skill in solution”

“though intrinsic value is no criterion for puzzle, the assured existence of a solution is.”

“a paradigm can, or for that matter, even insulate the community from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle form,…”

“one of the reasons why normal science seems to progress so rapidly is that its practitioners concentrate on problems that only their own lack of ingenuity should keep them from solving.”

“to classify as a puzzle,…there must also be rules that limit both the nature of acceptable solutions and the steps by which they are to be obtained.”

All hypotheses are designed to be proven false. That is what a hypothesis is all about. Inductive reasoning works not because truth can be proven but that untruth can be proven.

Hopper specifies that a criterion of a scientific statement is that it can be proven false.

The fact that the Michaelson-Morley experiment proved that the theory regarding the either was an error was what awakened Einstein and others, I guess, as to the inherent weakness in Newton’s laws of gravity.

The paradigm does determine what the answer to the experiment must be and if the scientist does not produce that, the paradigm demands that scientist must repeat it until s/he does, or unless s/he is prepared to question the paradigm that individual loses prestige in the group.

When work was done on the DNA analysis of the human genome if those tests showed a result that was significantly off what the theory of natural selection dictates those scientists would have to go back and run the tests until they did or be disgraced unless they could show somehow that the theory of natural selection, the paradigm under which they worked, was in error.