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wedrifid comments on If reductionism is the hammer, what nails are out there? - Less Wrong
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What about ethics? It seems that many people think there is some 'moral bedrock' somewhere -- but is there really such a thing?
To me it seems that ethical questions are really about the tension between our knee-jerk moral intuitions and ethical frameworks (utilitarianism, deontology etc.). Increasingly elaborate theories are built out of the urge to somehow make our 'moral compass' seem logical, until someone comes up with some clever example where the theory somehow conflicts with our intuitions...
I know moral relativism is not universally popular, but can reductionism/rationalism lead to anything else?
No. Next? :P
(Ok, to be fair ethics is actually a really good example. Quite possibly the best example, given that most of the other critical things are approximately reduced already. Just not that particular ethical question.)
Apply reductionism to itself.
Or to "rationalism".
Or, to pick one currently popular example, to "blackmail".
It seems to me that people often struggle to come up with a technical definition of some word which captures the "essence" of a concept. One particular example which I have some experience with is the definition of "life". This activity can generate considerable emotion, and I don't think that the reductionist explanation of "natural kinds" quite applies to this kind of dispute.
Maybe not reductionism vs essentialism in quite the way that Anna intends. But close enough to create confusion. In fact, I might advise Anna to attempt a taxonomy of different kinds of "essence" and different kinds of "reduction" so as to dispel some of the confusion.