Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:59 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:34 am
There are no fact-in-itself!
Views?
you know my views on what I consider your binary view here being incorrect. But let's assume you are correct that there are not facts about reality per se that exist without us for the sake of argument.
Here's the problem. For many of these facts about reality, the ones that we could call is facts, humans will find the same ones. Some may be up for grabs. But take pretty much every human on the planet and ask them if there is a cat in the living room and they will agree. That there is this living feline there on the sofa.
The point is you do not raise more deeper questions about the reality of the 'fact' like this example, of the cat on the sofa.
With philosophy rigor we need to note the following reality for all normal people,
1. From the common sense perspective, there is a cat [animal] on the sofa. This is based on common human perception which is not reliable, i.e. vulnerable to illusion.
2. From the linguistic perspective, there is the fact of the cat on the sofa as a feature of reality, a state of affairs, or the cat that is the case.
3. To be more precise, from the science and biology perspective as justified
empirically, there is a cat [animal] on the sofa. But note this is only a fact conditioned upon the Scientific and Biology framework and knowledge [FSK].
You will note it cannot be a fact by itself, except be qualified to the FSK.
4. From the chemistry FSK, that is a fact of a cluster of molecules on the sofa which is also a bundle of molecules.
Again it cannot be a fact by itself, except be qualified to the chemistry FSK
5. If we dig deeper, from the chemistry and physics FSK, that fact of a cat from common sense and biology is merely a bundle of atoms.
6. If we dig more deeper, from the chemistry and physics FSK, that fact of a cat from common sense and biology is merely a bundle of atoms. Again it cannot be a fact by itself, except be qualified to the chemistry and physics FSK.
7. If we dig more deeper, from the physics FSK, that fact of a cat from common sense and biology is merely a cluster of moving electrons and nucleus with proton. Again it cannot be a fact by itself, except be qualified to the physics FSK.
8. If we dig more deeper, from the Quantum-Physics FSK, that fact of a cat from common sense and biology is merely a cluster of quarks or sub-atomic particles. Again it cannot be a fact by itself, except be qualified to the Quantum-physics FSK.
9. If we dig more deeper, from the Quantum-Physics FSK, that fact of a cat from common sense and biology is a cluster that could either be particles or waves depending on the human interaction with it. Again it cannot be a fact by itself, except be qualified to the Quantum-Physics Wave Collapse Function FSK.
As you can see from the above, there is no ultimate reality to what is the cat on the sofa, but it imperative has to be qualified to its respective FSK which is sustained by humans.
So there is no fact-in-itself i.e. exists by itself that is independent of human entanglement.
A fact is always entangled with human activities.
Do you insist, 'the cat is on the sofa' as above is the only fact by itself?
or
there are only facts which are
fact-by-its-FSK which inevitably entangle with human activities.
But ask them how this feline should be treated and we get different moral facts. There will be differences in degree and kind. If it is a 13 year old girl and you will also get a radically different set of moral facts
with no possible testing and translating possible to bring these views togehter.
You could also eliminate the language problem - gato vs cat - and make something out of clay. Name it for your UN gathering of test subjects 'goob'. Then ask them if a goob is on the table. They will all agree. Even if there are prepositional differences between languages they will all point at goob.
Then ask them about abortion.
If someone says goob is not on the table, I can see if he needs glasses or shift his position in the room so that the light from the window is not coming into his eyes such that he finds it hard to see goob on the table. There are steps I can take to get him to see that goob is on the table.
But value differences cannot be argued away. Not when the axioms are different.
Just as I cannot convince the Indian man that Bach is better than R. D. Burman. I mean, sometimes I might be able to. It is not that aesthetics and morals are always fixed. But values can come down to root differences that never need shift. I have no tools for temperment and taste.
Some people actually feel more at home in a world at war, for example. Argue until you are blue in the face.
The views on the treatment of the cat are not moral fact.
It is only a fact that they are expressing their views, but their views expressed are merely opinions and beliefs, thus not moral facts.
The
principle is; whatever are moral facts must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a moral framework and system.
A possible moral fact in this case could be
"
universally no humans ought to torture cats'
which must be justified as a Justified True Moral Fact.
I am not going into the details of this except to point out the principle.