How could you ever get an ‘is’ statement without ‘ought’ statements to dictate what you accept as evidence?

Very interesting…

I don't think that's the way to interpret the claim. Rather, if it's right for the surgeon to operate on a person, it's right for everyone for that surgeon to operate. That is, everyone benefits (however indirectly) from a right action being taken from someone.

On r/skeptic, a lot of skeptics consider him more of a reflexive contrarian than an actual skeptic, citing his disbelief in climate change long after the evidence was in.

[deleted]

Yes, but the status of being artificially created is different than naturally created. Thus there is a difference.

I know right! If it was possible I would get wired up in a heartbeat

Shermer got his ass handed to him by Pgluicci on a video i watched way back. The guy isn't that great at philosophy tbh

[deleted]

Does anyone take Michael Shermer serious as a philosopher? He defines himself as a skeptic probably because he is still recovering from leaving evangelicalism. I’d guess his whole purpose of arguing that morality can be determined by science to me is still just a reaction to his Xevangelic identity. I’m not even saying I disagree with him but wearing an identity too strongly doesn’t seem to help one’s epistemology.

You're not. That's not where the divide exists.

Is are facts.

Ought are decisions, or intentions if you like.

They are not the same thing at all.

Facts, naturally, may inform decisions, but they do not and cannot dictate them.

Because that isn't how we want to feel? And happiness is how we want to feel.

[removed]

> if you don't receive something of greater or equal value to what you sacrificed, it's a failed experiment.

This is part of the issue. No test can determine value or goodness, which is purely subjective. As explained in the article, the objective can provide the means, but the ends are within the realm of the subjective self.

There is no one way to be human that is to be measured against, but is the individual's responsibility to determine.

People disagree what/if moral facts are. But it seems pretty hard to argue they are no different from empirical facts (what was being called is statements).

If pain in others doesn't spur action in you then we are not talking about the same thing. That is simply what I mean be morality.

You can't find a prescriptive reason why your own pain should spur action? How about because your a living organism and that's what living organisms happen to do.. and so far as I can see that that other person over there is as I am, viola we have morality.

To think that there is a distinction between what we choose, what happens to us is a fundamental flaw in western philosophy. We can move past it and loose nothing from morality.

What else could be used to inform an ought statement other than something which is ultimately a type of fact?

>No. That is not the justification. That introduces the concept of "better" before it has been agreed upon.

How would you agree on this outside of science?

Morality is a negotiation between people and therefore society at large.

Science will eventually be able to tell us justification for the value clause. It will eventually tell us what parts of the brain function in what way to shape our values. It can already tell us what imbalances result in people holding extremely aberrant values and we can care for those people using drugs or psychotherapy. Furthermore there have been numerous studies done on people of different political values (conservative vs liberal) and we are already building a body of knowledge on how their brains function differently.

TLDR. I believe one day maybe not too far away we will be able to tell exactly why you have some value or another and even change it using drugs or surgery or whatnot.

No one really denies that is statements can be relevant or even necessary for moral evaluation, just that they aren’t sufficient.

That is a better concept. But it isn't what he means. Or what he said or wrote.

How can one 'live in a oversimplified world' ? What would an undersimplified world look like?

Not someone, everybody. Not X, goodness. And not me—I've already done my tests—you.

You are testing for a transcendental quality of being. It applies equally to everybody, just like gravity or thermal radiation.

So, alright, I'll design the first test for you. I won't full out define goodness, but the test itself will sort of reveal that.

You need to give up something valuable to you to someone who needs it.

An underlying idea here is that goodness requires sacrifice. Simply giving up something you don't value won't work. Another underlying idea is that need takes precedence over want. Giving someone else something that they want is nice, but not necessarily good.

What do people need? They need food, water, clothes and shelter. That's the bare minimum, so your best bet will be one of those things.

You have to do this because you recognize the value of the person you help.

An underlying idea here is goodness requires appreciation for otherness.

In the course of one full day (sure, I will risk putting a time limit on it, even if that's not the best policy, I can't imagine you doing the experiment otherwise), if you don't receive something of greater or equal value to what you sacrificed, it's a failed experiment.

An underlying idea here is that goodness isn't a one way street. It doesn't mean martyrdom. Reciprocity is also a quality of goodness.

However, the reward shouldn't come from the act itself (feeling good) or the person whom you help. The reward should come from something seemingly unrelated.

It needs to come from something seemingly unrelated because you are not looking for emergent local phenomena. You're looking for laws of nature.

Now, correlation doesn't prove causation, right, so you need to not only be able to repeat this test, but you also need to try to disprove other possible causes of the reward.

That means that, if the first test is a success, try doing the good deed and then isolating yourself. If the reward comes anyway, you might want to start looking deeper into what it means to be human and perhaps designing even more tests. If it doesn't work, at least you will have tested for the existence of a transcendental reciprocal goodness with a one day time limit.

Your (descriptive) pain does nothing to spur action in me. Of course, my own pain spurs my own action, but I can find no prescriptive reason it should. In fact, the compelling reason to act on my own pain is involuntary. Morality is a question of who we are/how we act precisely when we are given a choice.

If you think it's that black and white you live in a oversimplified world