HughRistik comments on Morality and relativistic vertigo - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Academian 12 October 2010 02:00AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 12 October 2010 06:23:08AM *  8 points [-]

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.

Comment author: HughRistik 12 October 2010 09:27:31PM *  1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: wedrifid 15 October 2010 06:00:28AM 3 points [-]

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.