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| CMR80606 |
 Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:57 am Post subject: notions of truth without reference to morality? |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 17 Nov 2009
Posts: 64
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The following is something i've been thinking about a lot lately and i've been trying to hammer it into some sort of coherent argument, but i could use some help....
-That we can only perceive reality as a product of our perception indicates that any description of reality depends on the accuracy of our perception. So any description of reality must involve some assumption, because we can't judge the accuracy of our perception except by means of our perception.
-So human concepts of integrity are intrinsically a part of any description of reality: any description of reality involves first taking up a moral position about what may constitute integrity in assumptions.
....I'm pretty convinced of the first statment above, but the second whiffs strongly of relativism which i'm also pretty sure is rejected by most philosophers these days. Is there anything in it whatsoever or is it just claptrap?
What i'm stuck on is that materialist/empiricist philosophy appears by this argument to take up a moral position as to how an accurate representation of reality may be formulated, while the arguments that follow from that position dismiss any other moral position as having no basis in reality. I'm not saying that first principles or self-evident truths are unreasonable, i'm just wondering whether they can/should be considered moral positions in themselves.
Anyway, where i was going with this was...
-The epistemology of science mitigates for this by making as few assumptions as possible, on the basis that fewer assumptions = higher integrity. But this can still be considered a moral position in terms of what constitutes integrity.
-It is therefore reasonable to claim that to consider objectively derived and empirically confirmed knowledge as representing the highest form of integrity as a generalisation about any notion of truth rather than just in terms of a description of reality, is an article of faith and personal morality.
.....but all this is cobbled together from recent discussions here and half remembered stuff i read ages ago, and i can't remember the sources or even whether i was reading originals or refutations of positions or commentary or summaries or what. Anyway i've become completely lost in my own waffle, and i'm not sure where to look to understand better. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 4180
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How did "moral position" jump in there? I can see that some position is necessary, but why must it have a moral quality? You could flip a coin, or continue tradition, or whatever.
Are you showing how science could have a personal moral surreptitiously woven into it?
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A pong by any other name is still a pong. -williampinn |
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| CMR80606 |
| Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:36 am Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 17 Nov 2009
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| Pong wrote: |
How did "moral position" jump in there? I can see that some position is necessary, but why must it have a moral quality? You could flip a coin, or continue tradition, or whatever.
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But the basis of any assumption is still a like/dislike response, isn't it? It's an emotional response, a human response. To determine the 'reasonableness' of an assumption always boils down in the end to saying 'it's reasonable because it's reasonable'. Maybe i can't call this a moral position, i don't know.
| Pong wrote: |
Are you showing how science could have a personal moral surreptitiously woven into it? |
Maybe not the philosophy of science in itself, but rather the generalisation by a person that the philosophy of science is the best way to determine any value of truth in all cases seems to me to be a moral position. |
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