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TheAncientGeek comments on Philosophy professors fail on basic philosophy problems - Less Wrong Discussion

16 Post author: shminux 15 July 2015 06:41PM

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Comment author: TheAncientGeek 17 July 2015 06:49:49PM -1 points [-]

Exactly. And if philosophers don't have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?

The critical question is whether they could have such measures.

You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it's biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,

What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?

That's completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 July 2015 09:13:39PM 1 point [-]

The critical question is whether they could have such measures.

Do you mean they might create such measures in the future, and therefore we should keep funding them? But without such measures today, how do we know if they're moving towards that goal? And what's the basis for thinking it's achievable?

That's completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.

Is there an empirical or objective standard by which the work of moral philosophers is judged for correctness or value, something that can be formulated explicitly? And if not, how can 'the system' converge on good results?

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