Jef Allbright wrote:
>
> peterdjones wrote:
>
>> Moral and natural laws.
>>
>>
>> An investigation of natural laws, and, in parallel, a defence of
>> ethical objectivism.The objectivity, to at least some extent, of
>> science will be assumed; the sceptic may differ, but there is no
>> convincing some people).
>
> <snip>
>
>> As ethical objectivism is a work-in-progress there are many variants,
>> and a considerable literature discussing which is the correct one.
>
> I agree with the thrust of this post and I think there are a few key
> concepts which can further clarify thinking on this subject:
>
> (1) Although moral assessment is inherently subjective--being relative
> to internal values--all rational agents share some values in common due
> to sharing a common evolutionary heritage or even more fundamentally,
> being subject to the same physical laws of the universe.
>
> (2) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is "good" is
> what is assessed to promote the agent's values into the future.
>
> (3) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is "better" is
> what is assessed as "good" over increasing scope.
>
> (4) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is increasingly
> "right" or moral, is decision-making assessed as promoting increasingly
> shared values over increasing scope of agents and interactions.
>
>> From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be no objective
> morality, nor any absolute morality, it is reasonable to expect
> increasing agreement on the relative morality of actions within an
> expanding context. Further, similar to the entropic arrow of time, we
> can conceive of an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting
> forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values (survivors of
> coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly
> effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what works,
> extracted from regularities in the environment.)
>
> Further, from this theory of metaethics we can derive a practical system
> of social decision-making based on (1) increasing fine-grained knowledge
> of shared values, and (2) application of increasingly effective
> principles, selected with regard to models of probable outcomes in a
> Rawlsian mode of broad rather than narrow self-interest.
>
> I apologize for the extremely terse and sparse nature of this outline,
> but I wanted to contribute these keystones despite lacking the time to
> provide expanded background, examples, justifications, or
> clarifications. I hope that these seeds of thought may contribute to a
> flourishing garden both on and offlist.
>
> - Jef
Well said! I agree almost completely - I'm a little uncertain about (3) and (4) above and the meaning of "scope". Together with the qualifications of Peter Jones regarding the lack of universal agreement on even the best supported theories of science, you have provided a good outline of the development of ethics in a way parallel with the scientific development of knowledge.
There's a good paper on the relation facts and values by Oliver Curry which bears on many of the above points:
http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04234247.pdf
Brent Meeker
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Received on Wed Dec 20 2006 - 14:35:46 PST