I got most of my adult education in community college. And although I have no regrets, I sometimes wonder if you miss something there. I mean, it is all too assembly-line in the way they try to educate you. Anyways, this has nothing to do with my question. My question…
In community college philosophy (for me at least), they touch on every meta-ethical theory. But they largely settle on the noncognivist/emotivist theory: ethics are the product of the human mind (which I guess is true–IANAScientist:)). I guess since this is what most philosophers believe, they figure there is no need to burden us with useless information. But I once got a study guide in the book store that said something interesting. People who believe in the objective/naturalist view (forgive me if I am not using the correct terms–it has been a while), assume ethical statements are “reducible” to another science–PSYCHOLOGY.
I guess for ethics to be objective, they have to be derived from another science. But how is ethics “reducible” to psychology? I mean what do they mean, and how does this theory work? And (my guess): does this have something to do with “hedonism”?
I know I have asked a mouthful. But still, please try to keep your brief and simple:). Thank you in advance to all who reply:)
I don’t know what the phrase “’*reducible’ to psychology” *means. You could say biology is reducible to physics but it doesn’t seem to be the right analogy.
I am a layman in ethics and evolution but I think there is argument that ethics is an evolved adaptation in human behavior. Perhaps then one can consider a description of behavior to be psychology.
The way I heard it freshman year, it’s that philosophy is reducible to psychology, and psychology is reducible to biology, and biology is reducible to chemistry, and chemistry is reducible to physics, and physics is reducible to math, and math is reducible to – philosophy.
I think they mean that ethics are basically the product of moral intuitions, not some abstract set of principles. And like any instinct, moral intuitions are the product of psychology and evolution - that’s why we, for example, naturally separate people into insiders and outsiders, and care more about things that help “our tribe” (family, ethnic group, country, species) against the “other tribe.”
That’s cute but sounds like graffiti in the bathroom wall down the hallway from Phil. 101.
People have made arguments for the reduction of physical sciences, but physics is not reducible to math. In no way could you ever start with math and derive any physical laws. Math is a tool of physics but is an abstraction, not a physical science.
I am about 97% certain that that is not what most contemporary philosophers believe (although it is possible that 50 or 60 years ago it might have been the most widely accepted ethical theory). If you were told this, you were badly taught.
At best, that is a highly misleading oversimplification. One doctrine that is very widely (I don’t say universally) accepted in ethics, is that “ought” (i.e., moral claims or principles) cannot be derived from “is” (i.e., factual statements about how the world is). From this it follows that ethics cannot be reduced to any science.
Indeed, if someone does sincerely maintain that ethics can reduced to psychology, that can usually be understood as a disguised way of saying that ethics is an illusion: that there are no real moral facts, and no objective right or wrong. That is a defensible view, but it is not at all what most people will mean when they refer to an “objective/naturalist” ethical viewpoint (indeed, it is virtually the opposite).
While I don’t really agree with the statement, it is perfectly defensible and accurate insofar as it goes. You are foolish to confuse reduction to induction: that you cannot derive the specific rules for our universe at this stage of development from pure mathematical principles is true and irrelevant. All rules in physics can be defined as pure mathematics, and using mathematics you can create an arbitrary number of possible physical systems. Likewise, all rules in Chemistry can be defined as pure Physics, and by altering the physics conditions you can create and arbitrary variety of chemical rules.
Most of the arguments about ethics seem to be about whether an ethical system is just socially constructed, created by people in response to inherited cultural notions and traditions and ultimately lacking in any content that could not have been quite different, perhaps diametrically opposite; or if, instead, there IS something inherently & structurally THERE in the human condition that anchors ethical systems.
(Very few people argue that culture, tradition, & the happenstance of random subjectivities playing out over time play NO ROLE AT ALL in the development & maintenance of ethical systems, it’s mostly about whether or not there’s any “core” to it that isn’t dismissable in that vein)
Psychology is not a monolithic perspective, so to say that something can be “reduced to Psychology” is not very elucidating; it could be interpreted to mean “ethics can be reduced to a set of rules about hard-wired permanent human nature and how certain immutable drives & urges are manifested and socially organized” but it could also be interpreted as meaning “the reasons for a given person’s embrace of a given ethical system can be explained away by such considerations as their need for group membership and approval, their need to view their own local & personal situation and their own behavior in the best possible light, and/or by their identification with certain figures who weigh importantly in their psychological life who hold to those values”.
I’m not sure I’ve gathered the meanings of your terms correctly, so I’ll just go through them briefly to explain how I understand them:
Non-cognitivism is a theory that basically argues ‘ethics’ does not really exist. It’s a form of irrealism about ethics, concluding that there is no such things as moral properties or moral facts. But rather than take that one step further and say that moral statements are false, like error theorists do, non-cognitivism says that moral statements are neither true nor false, they are basically just expressions of desires. So when you say “Do not kill!”, what you really mean is “I don’t like killing!”. Wikipedia article here, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article here (Stanford is excellent for questions about philosophy by the way, although sometimes it tends to dive straight in at the deep end a bit).
Ethical naturalism generally argues that moral properties can be reduced to natural ones, while ethical non-naturalism argues that they cannot (although what it means for one theory to “reduce” to another is also pretty controversial). Stanford article distinguishing ethical naturalism and non-naturalism is here.
I think you’re with me up to this point, and your question is what people mean when they argue that ethics are natural, and that the natural properties they can be reduced to are those of psychology, right? Nagel’s definition of a theory reduction in that article above is that, “Theory 1 is reduced to Theory 2 just in case the laws of Theory 2 are derivable from those of Theory 1”. So the question is, are the laws of morality derivable from the laws of psychology?
Personally I take a non-cognitivist-type view about morality: I don’t think it objectively exists. I agree with Richard Dawkins that morality is essentially a product of evolution; that having certain sympathies for those similar to us confers a survival advantage. I’m also skeptical about whether to treat psychology as a “natural science” in the strict sense required here: I think psychology is too vague to be treated as a natural science like physics or chemistry, and ultimately I think psychology is reducible to neuroscience. So I don’t think there are real laws of morality, and I certainly don’t think they can be reduced to the laws of psychology (if there are any). But if anyone else knows of, or can think of, defenses for the position that “morality is natural, and reducible to psychology” then please enlighten us.
Said personalization was something you did. There was no personal attack levied. Getting offended by a rhetorical flourish is, well, foolish. Especially on a board where we’re allowed to belittle as long as we do it with sarcasm.
Of course I did no such thing. The phrase “You are foolish” is a personal attack and neither sarcasm nor rhetoric. Omitting it from your sentence would have left the substantive meaning intact. And where did you get your ideas about what is allowed on this board?
If you want to refute a statement, that is what we’re here for, but belittling is never acceptable.
Here’s an ethical question: “Am I morally required to rape and kill my own mother or am I morally required to not rape and kill her?”
According to the theory you mentioned, since the most emotionally difficult choice would be to rape and kill her, the answer given by that theory is “You are morally required to rape and kill your own mother.”
Of course, arguably even more emotionally difficult would be to rape and kill my entire family–so I guess that’s what your theory says I’m morally required to do.
