Also, this line of argument struck me as a sneaky piece of Dark Arts, though in all likelihood unintentional:
Countering the counterargument that morality is too imprecise to be treated by science, he [Sam Harris] makes an excellent comparison: “healthy” is not a precisely defined concept, but no one is crazy enough to utter that medicine cannot answer questions of health.
Actually, in the overwhelming majority of cases, “healthy” is a very precisely and uncontroversially defined concept. Nobody would claim that I became healthier if I started coughing blood, lost control of a limb, or developed chronic headaches.
However, observe one area where the concept of “health” is actually imprecise and controversial, namely mental health. And guess what: there are many smart and eminently sane people questioning whether, to what extent, and in what situations medicine can legitimately answer questions of health in this area. (I recommend this recent interview with Gary Greenberg as an excellent example.) Moreover, in this area, there are plenty of questions where both ideological and venal interests interfere with the discussion, and as a result, it’s undeniable that at least some corruption of science has taken place, and that supposedly scientific documents like the DSM are laden with judgments that reflect these influences rather than any real scientific knowledge.
So, it seems to me that properly considered, this example actually undermines the case it was supposed to support.
Nobody would claim that I became healthier if I started coughing blood, lost control of a limb, or developed chronic headaches.
Nobody would claim that I became more moral if I started stealing, killed two people for money, or turned into a notorious liar. That there are conditions uncontroversially classified as disease doesn’t mean that the boundary is strict and precise.
I don’t see how this answers my objection. I’ll try to restate my main point in a more clear form.
The claim that “‘healthy’ is not a precisely defined concept, but no one is crazy enough to utter that medicine cannot answer questions of health” is, while superficially plausible, in fact false under the interpretation relevant for this discussion. Namely, the claim is true only for those issues where the concept of “health” is precise and uncontroversial. In situations where the concept of “health” is imprecise and a matter of dispute, there are sane and knowledgeable people who plausibly dispute that medicine can legitimately answer questions of health in those particular situations. Thus, what superficially looks like a lucid analogy is in fact a rhetorical sleight of hand.
(Also, I’d say that by any reasonable measure, questions of health vs. disease are typically much more clear-cut than moral questions. The appearance of coughing or headaches, ceteris paribus, represents an unambiguous reduction of health; on the other hand, even killing requires significant qualifications to be universally recognized as evil. But my main objection stands regardless of whether you agree with this.)
Its easier to tell that something is unhealthy than if its optimally healthy. Coughing up blood is worse than not doing so, but is good stamina better than increased alertness?
(I’d posit that) Most moral arguments are over if something is immoral or not, and I think that a lot of times those can be related to facts.
You’re right that people often wonder whether something is moral as if it were a binary question, but they should be concerned about precisely how good or bad various actions or policies are, because all actions have opportunity costs.
It makes little sense to say “it is immoral for teachers to beat schoolchildren” without considering the effects of not beating schoolchildren.
I am not sure whether I can fully agree, although I see your point more clearly now. To give one example, we had a discussion about deafness recently. One of the disputed question was whether the deaf are “sick” or “a linguistic minority”. If deafness can be easily cured in all instances (and this is purely a question of medicine), then the “linguistic minority” stance would be hardly defensible. Anyway, there are questions which medicine certainly can answer (typically—what are the causes, can the condition be cured, what are the side effects of the treatment) pertaining to conditions whose qualification as disease is disputed by reasonable people.
The idea that someone who is fat is unhealthy isn’t obvious. Science has shown that they’re more likely suffer from heart disease among other things. Because of this, nearly everyone agrees that being fat is bad.
I’m confused. It looks like the original post is arguing that science can answer some moral questions, and using the health analogy to advance this claim. In that case, pointing out that science can’t answer all health issues but only some, even if true, does not undercut the original argument.
Perhaps the fields of psychology and ethics both exhibit a continuum of objectivity of a similar nature. If this is the case, then as surely as psychology is helpful, so could be a well constructed formal theory of ethical action. Certainly moral solutions are not clear cut, and many factors can play in to choosing how to act.
An Ethical system qua normative claims is effectively a system of heuristics for effecting an outcome. The normative claims represent our physical (neurological) response to external consequences, and there is definite interplay between situational parameters that weight the decision to act in one way or another. Many people, for instance, claim it is wrong to murder one person to save another, but various factors can come in to play that alter the weight of that conviction. For instance, it is generally considered acceptable to kill an attacker when it is necessary to prevent him/her from killing you.
I am not convinced that is is not possible to effectively model average (or any augmentation of) human morality, and I think that it is also likely that if we could do this we might be able to more effectively sort out which actions to take given certain parameters. However, like a healthy psyche, a healthy morality is defined via social standards. Due to that, it will not be absolute, but rather goal relative. As far as I can tell, a healthy psyche is most generally one that allows for adherence to the most commonly held social conventions for what is of value and how that which is valuable is acceptably obtained.
As long a certain basic reactions to certain consequences of one’s actions are nearly universally accepted (and this seems to be the case when it comes to very basic questions of morality), I think that it is reasonable in theory (though I am fuzzy about how one might work out the details) to think that we could model moral decision making in such a way that it could effectively help us to make practical decisions to yield optimal results.
Nobody would claim that I became more moral if I started stealing, killed two people for money, or turned into a notorious liar.
Nobody except every single person that ever lived. I call bullshit on this entire thread. Pretty much every culture supports these in some contexts and condones in some other contexts, with contexts differing between cultures.
Even today we have ridiculously many contexts in which killing another human being is considered morally acceptable, and consequentially equivalent inaction resulting in someone’s death hardly triggers any moral reaction at all.
Could moral absolutists name even a single action that is universally condoned by every culture? (just don’t try implicitly answering with moral context, “intentional killing” would be an acceptable answer if it was true, “murder” would not)
Did you deliberately choose the least favourable interpretation of what I have written? I have specifically included “for money” as a qualifier for universally immoral killing, which you have ignored. My point wasn’t that killing is universally immoral, but that there are patterns of behaviour whose immorality isn’t disputed by reasonable people. But fine, I think I can take your reply literally too. Do you really claim that every single person would condone if I killed two strangers and took their money? That’s just ridiculous.
I also don’t take the cultural relativist argument, especially in the context of the debate. I tried to support the idea that morality is more or less as well uniquely and precisely defined as health. Of course there are cultures which have unusual moralities, but there are cultures with unusual notions of health too (e.g. the Hinduists celebrating various physical deformities). But if you are steering the argument in this direction, please tell me in what culture I am morally entitled to kill my neighbour just because I want to occupy his house.
Yes. Morals are made of a completely different substance from anything else, including concepts about the empirical world like “health.” Fuzzy concepts about “morality” and fuzzy concepts about how to classify things based on their empirical features are not even the same type of fuzziness. This is philosophy 101.
Fuzzy concepts about “morality” and fuzzy concepts about how to classify things based on their empirical features are not even the same type of fuzziness. This is philosophy 101.
It probably is Philosophy 101. But in Philosophy 202 you go back and review the overlap and interaction of the two.
May I just remark that we are not libertarian deontologists, but rather determinist consequentialists; mental illness can be bad in many ways: Patient zerself can express that it is undesirable (many developmentally handicapped people are aware of their disability), patient’s peers and loved ones can express that it is undesirable (my uncle is manic depressive and only admitted so to himself in his early fourties), the mental illness can have negative repercussions to society (treatment costs, damages caused by the patient), a prospective mother can express that having a child with a disorder is undesirable, etc.
Mental illness is illness, right there in the name is the first clue. Most patients will upon realising they have a disorder want it gone, if for no other reason than to fit in. Classifying what things are disorders and which aren’t is just looking at the consequences of it and making a cost benefit analysis.
Also, this line of argument struck me as a sneaky piece of Dark Arts, though in all likelihood unintentional:
Actually, in the overwhelming majority of cases, “healthy” is a very precisely and uncontroversially defined concept. Nobody would claim that I became healthier if I started coughing blood, lost control of a limb, or developed chronic headaches.
However, observe one area where the concept of “health” is actually imprecise and controversial, namely mental health. And guess what: there are many smart and eminently sane people questioning whether, to what extent, and in what situations medicine can legitimately answer questions of health in this area. (I recommend this recent interview with Gary Greenberg as an excellent example.) Moreover, in this area, there are plenty of questions where both ideological and venal interests interfere with the discussion, and as a result, it’s undeniable that at least some corruption of science has taken place, and that supposedly scientific documents like the DSM are laden with judgments that reflect these influences rather than any real scientific knowledge.
So, it seems to me that properly considered, this example actually undermines the case it was supposed to support.
Nobody would claim that I became more moral if I started stealing, killed two people for money, or turned into a notorious liar. That there are conditions uncontroversially classified as disease doesn’t mean that the boundary is strict and precise.
I don’t see how this answers my objection. I’ll try to restate my main point in a more clear form.
The claim that “‘healthy’ is not a precisely defined concept, but no one is crazy enough to utter that medicine cannot answer questions of health” is, while superficially plausible, in fact false under the interpretation relevant for this discussion. Namely, the claim is true only for those issues where the concept of “health” is precise and uncontroversial. In situations where the concept of “health” is imprecise and a matter of dispute, there are sane and knowledgeable people who plausibly dispute that medicine can legitimately answer questions of health in those particular situations. Thus, what superficially looks like a lucid analogy is in fact a rhetorical sleight of hand.
(Also, I’d say that by any reasonable measure, questions of health vs. disease are typically much more clear-cut than moral questions. The appearance of coughing or headaches, ceteris paribus, represents an unambiguous reduction of health; on the other hand, even killing requires significant qualifications to be universally recognized as evil. But my main objection stands regardless of whether you agree with this.)
Its easier to tell that something is unhealthy than if its optimally healthy. Coughing up blood is worse than not doing so, but is good stamina better than increased alertness?
(I’d posit that) Most moral arguments are over if something is immoral or not, and I think that a lot of times those can be related to facts.
You’re right that people often wonder whether something is moral as if it were a binary question, but they should be concerned about precisely how good or bad various actions or policies are, because all actions have opportunity costs.
It makes little sense to say “it is immoral for teachers to beat schoolchildren” without considering the effects of not beating schoolchildren.
I am not sure whether I can fully agree, although I see your point more clearly now. To give one example, we had a discussion about deafness recently. One of the disputed question was whether the deaf are “sick” or “a linguistic minority”. If deafness can be easily cured in all instances (and this is purely a question of medicine), then the “linguistic minority” stance would be hardly defensible. Anyway, there are questions which medicine certainly can answer (typically—what are the causes, can the condition be cured, what are the side effects of the treatment) pertaining to conditions whose qualification as disease is disputed by reasonable people.
The idea that someone who is fat is unhealthy isn’t obvious. Science has shown that they’re more likely suffer from heart disease among other things. Because of this, nearly everyone agrees that being fat is bad.
I’m confused. It looks like the original post is arguing that science can answer some moral questions, and using the health analogy to advance this claim. In that case, pointing out that science can’t answer all health issues but only some, even if true, does not undercut the original argument.
Perhaps the fields of psychology and ethics both exhibit a continuum of objectivity of a similar nature. If this is the case, then as surely as psychology is helpful, so could be a well constructed formal theory of ethical action. Certainly moral solutions are not clear cut, and many factors can play in to choosing how to act.
An Ethical system qua normative claims is effectively a system of heuristics for effecting an outcome. The normative claims represent our physical (neurological) response to external consequences, and there is definite interplay between situational parameters that weight the decision to act in one way or another. Many people, for instance, claim it is wrong to murder one person to save another, but various factors can come in to play that alter the weight of that conviction. For instance, it is generally considered acceptable to kill an attacker when it is necessary to prevent him/her from killing you.
I am not convinced that is is not possible to effectively model average (or any augmentation of) human morality, and I think that it is also likely that if we could do this we might be able to more effectively sort out which actions to take given certain parameters. However, like a healthy psyche, a healthy morality is defined via social standards. Due to that, it will not be absolute, but rather goal relative. As far as I can tell, a healthy psyche is most generally one that allows for adherence to the most commonly held social conventions for what is of value and how that which is valuable is acceptably obtained.
As long a certain basic reactions to certain consequences of one’s actions are nearly universally accepted (and this seems to be the case when it comes to very basic questions of morality), I think that it is reasonable in theory (though I am fuzzy about how one might work out the details) to think that we could model moral decision making in such a way that it could effectively help us to make practical decisions to yield optimal results.
Nobody except every single person that ever lived. I call bullshit on this entire thread. Pretty much every culture supports these in some contexts and condones in some other contexts, with contexts differing between cultures.
Even today we have ridiculously many contexts in which killing another human being is considered morally acceptable, and consequentially equivalent inaction resulting in someone’s death hardly triggers any moral reaction at all.
Could moral absolutists name even a single action that is universally condoned by every culture? (just don’t try implicitly answering with moral context, “intentional killing” would be an acceptable answer if it was true, “murder” would not)
Did you deliberately choose the least favourable interpretation of what I have written? I have specifically included “for money” as a qualifier for universally immoral killing, which you have ignored. My point wasn’t that killing is universally immoral, but that there are patterns of behaviour whose immorality isn’t disputed by reasonable people. But fine, I think I can take your reply literally too. Do you really claim that every single person would condone if I killed two strangers and took their money? That’s just ridiculous.
I also don’t take the cultural relativist argument, especially in the context of the debate. I tried to support the idea that morality is more or less as well uniquely and precisely defined as health. Of course there are cultures which have unusual moralities, but there are cultures with unusual notions of health too (e.g. the Hinduists celebrating various physical deformities). But if you are steering the argument in this direction, please tell me in what culture I am morally entitled to kill my neighbour just because I want to occupy his house.
There are at least 20 million human beings paid to kill other human beings when right now.
Moral context in which this happens is hardly unusual.
Uh, … breathing?
Or am I taking the question too literally here? :)
To avoid looking far, Socrates considered it morally obligatory to stop breathing, and living for that matter, by drinking hemlock. There seems to be agreement that he could just as easily flee from Athens, so it was a moral choice, not something he was forced to do.
It’s all relative.
Yes. Morals are made of a completely different substance from anything else, including concepts about the empirical world like “health.” Fuzzy concepts about “morality” and fuzzy concepts about how to classify things based on their empirical features are not even the same type of fuzziness. This is philosophy 101.
It probably is Philosophy 101. But in Philosophy 202 you go back and review the overlap and interaction of the two.
May I just remark that we are not libertarian deontologists, but rather determinist consequentialists; mental illness can be bad in many ways: Patient zerself can express that it is undesirable (many developmentally handicapped people are aware of their disability), patient’s peers and loved ones can express that it is undesirable (my uncle is manic depressive and only admitted so to himself in his early fourties), the mental illness can have negative repercussions to society (treatment costs, damages caused by the patient), a prospective mother can express that having a child with a disorder is undesirable, etc.
Mental illness is illness, right there in the name is the first clue. Most patients will upon realising they have a disorder want it gone, if for no other reason than to fit in. Classifying what things are disorders and which aren’t is just looking at the consequences of it and making a cost benefit analysis.
Thanks for pointing this out. I’m sorry to say that I was fooled by this.