is/ought, final answer

[FlashDangerpants]

Scientific method applies to observable measurable phenomena. Scince doesn't need to bridge the is/ough gap because it doesn't attempt to describe oughts, so it derives ISes from ISes.

Tell that to your doctor next time they recommend treatment.
Or the guy designing the brakes for your car.

You are anthropomorphising science and this applied scientist is laughing in your idiotic face.

Attacking reductionism by reducing it is about as stupid as Philosophy gets.

Doctors derive their ethical standards from the society they inhabit, not from the science. Same goes for any other examples you want to incorporate.

You're a scientist today are you? You were a policeman yesterday. Will you be a zebra tomorrow?

[Skepdick]

Doctors derive their ethical standards from the society they inhabit, not from the science. Same goes for any other examples you want to incorporate.

Derive their ethical standards? From what? Thin air?

I think you meant to say that they learn their ethical standards by induction and/or abduction.

Last I checked induction was the poster child of science, not philosophy.

You're a scientist today are you? You were a policeman yesterday. Will you be a zebra tomorrow?

You understand that "scientist", "policeman" and "philosopher" are just descriptions of what one DOES. Yes?

You are aware that people can DO more than one thing, yes?

Oh, never mind. I forgot your brain shuts down when I take away all your neat boxes/categories.

[FlashDangerpants]

Doctors derive their ethical standards from the society they inhabit, not from the science. Same goes for any other examples you want to incorporate.

Derive their ethical standards? From what? Thin air?

Don't you mean mean that they learn their ethical standards by induction and/or abduction?

God no. The point of all this is that such methods don't apply very usefully to the fundamentals of ethical decision making. Heuristics and mimetics are vastly more applicable.

In other words we mostly decide what to do by doing the similar things to what found worked for us before, and we get our values overwhelmingly by copying those around us. This explains how we ended up with a moral landscape that can't be rationally described without simply ignoring large and important sections. It's a jigsaw that only fits if you throw away half the pieces, and everyone who ever says they've completed it is trying to make you look away from the trash can.

The most that you can get done with logic in these matters is to assess certain moral claims for consistency with other moral claims. But the search for logical undergarments of the entire edifice has been a two thousand year snipe hunt, and if you want to kick off a two thousand year snipe hunt for empirical scientific foundations of what it means for an action to be morally right or wrong, well you were warned before you started, but you do you.

You're a scientist today are you? You were a policeman yesterday. Will you be a zebra tomorrow?

You understand that "scientist", "policeman" and "philosopher" are just descriptions of what one DOES. Yes?

You are aware that people can DO more than one thing, yes?

Oh, never mind. I forgot your brain shuts down when I take away all your neat boxes/categories.

Ok mister submarine astronaut.

[FlashDangerpants]

Are you trying to say that OUGHTs aren't possible or that they come from somewhere else than ISes? Because neither possibility is possible.

I'm questioning what it actually means to apply the predicate "exists" to an ought. You guys are saying they do exist, but that seems to be just an article of faith.

[Skepdick]

God no. The point of all this is that such methods don't apply very usefully to the fundamentals of ethical decision making. Heuristics and mimetics are vastly more applicable.

Look darling, that's a lot of wing flapping.

If society has ethical standards and and fundamental ethical decision making, then where did society inhabit its ethical standards from?

You sure started deducing from that premise without telling anybody how you acquired it.

In other words we mostly decide what to do by doing the similar things to what found worked for us before

You are confusing strategies with goals/values. Nobody mostly cured COVID-19 by doing what we did before.

If that worked there wouldn't be a pandemic and we wouldn't have had to use mRNA for the first time.

, and we get our values overwhelmingly by copying those around us.

And those you are copying your values from copied their values from... ?

It sure sounds like you are saying that our values propagate through the system beyond the control of any individual.

This explains how we ended up with a moral landscape that can't be rationally described without simply ignoring large and important sections.

Well make up your mind. Do you want to describe the land-scape or the decision-making that produces the landscape?

It's a jigsaw that only fits if you throw away half the pieces, and everyone who ever says they've completed it is trying to make you look away from the trash can.

No shit. Because it doesn't fit in a single mind. You don't have enough memory given the complexity of the system.

The most that you can get done with logic in these matters is to assess certain moral claims for consistency with other moral claims.

Horseshit. The most I can do is to do A/B testing on mRNA vaccines and compare the outcome of the two cohorts.

And to a non-idiot the better choice is obvious.

But the search for logical undergarments of the entire edifice has been a two thousand year snipe hunt, and if you want to kick off a two thousand year snipe hunt for empirical scientific foundations of what it means for an action to be morally right or wrong, well you were warned before you started, but you do you.

I don't want to do ANY of that. YOU want to do that and you are trying to make me want to do that.

I am outright saying it: Fuck the foundationalist pursuit.

And look! You've even contradicted yourself. What it means for an action to be morally right or wrong is learned empirically. By socialisation. And then one exercises some of their own judgment on the matter.

Ok mister submarine astronaut.

Ok idiot.

[FlashDangerpants]

But the search for logical undergarments of the entire edifice has been a two thousand year snipe hunt, and if you want to kick off a two thousand year snipe hunt for empirical scientific foundations of what it means for an action to be morally right or wrong, well you were warned before you started, but you do you.

I don't want to do ANY of that. YOU want to do that and you are trying to make me want to do that.

I am outright saying it: Fuck the foundationalist pursuit.

Then you have no useful role in any of this conversation. A moral theory that justifies "moral fact" by simply ignoring what makes a thing morally right or wrong is a complete chocolate teapot.

[Skepdick]

Then you have no useful role in any of this conversation. A moral theory that justifies "moral fact" by simply ignoring what makes a thing morally right or wrong is a complete chocolate teapot.

If my role isn't useful then neither is yours.

The problem of justification is the foundational problem of epistemology.

Seems you have yourself a bootstrapping problem ala Baron Münchhausen.

[FlashDangerpants]

Then you have no useful role in any of this conversation. A moral theory that justifies "moral fact" by simply ignoring what makes a thing morally right or wrong is a complete chocolate teapot.

If my role isn't useful then neither is yours.

The problem of justification is the foundational problem of epistemology.

Seems you have yourself a chicken&egg problem.

Lucky for me that I am one of those moral antirealists then, otherwise that does sound like it would be tricky.

[Skepdick]

Lucky for me that I am one of those moral antirealists then, otherwise that does sound like it would be tricky.

Unlucky for you, no amount of philosophical re-interpretation/re-description and re-positioning can overcome the fundamental limits of epistemology.

If you are going to demand justification from a moral anti-realist PoV, then least you could do is furnish us with the moral antirealist theory of moral justification.

Or you could just say "I am just an asshole who is intentionally setting you up for failure." <--- Skepdick's theory of Philosophy

[FlashDangerpants]

Lucky for me that I am one of those moral antirealists then, otherwise that does sound like it would be tricky.

Unlucky for you, no amount of philosophical re-interpretation/re-description and re-positioning can overcome the fundamental limits of epistemology.

If you are going to demand justification from a moral anti-realist PoV, then least you could do is furnish us with the moral antirealist theory of moral justification.

Or you could just say "I am just an asshole who is intentionally setting you up for failure." <--- Skepdick's theory of Philosophy

The limits of epistemology seem to be something I am fine with. An antirealist theory of moral justification can be as simple as moral precepts aren't really justified in any unified sense.

I devote little time to setting you up to fail Skepdick and I wouldn't object to you succeeding. But that jigsaw thing wasn't a cunning trap that I laid groundwork for like the one where the coyote hides a hole in the ground under a pile of birdseed. All I did was tell you that grand theories all fail by discarding half the thing they are supposed to describe, and then in the next paragraph I told you what to discard to prove my point. Birdseed would be a hat on a hat when your target is known for seeng a hole and throwing himself down it.

[Skepdick]

The limits of epistemology seem to be something I am fine with. An antirealist theory of moral justification can be as simple as moral precepts aren't really justified in any unified sense.

So when a self-proclaimed moral anti-realist demands justification for a moral theory, their request can be fulfilled how exactly?

Curious, because if you know that moral percepts can't be justified then you wouldn't ask the question. But you did... so?

All I did was tell you that grand theories all fail by discarding half the thing they are supposed to describe,

So you have observed the incompleteness of language. You want a medal for that? Or are you happy to leverage Godel's knowledge and accept that
you can have consistency OR completeness, but not both.

, and then in the next paragraph I told you what to discard to prove my point.

And in doing so you proved mine. So we are proving each other's points. We are such amazing point-provers!

Do you want to invite more of your friends to the circle jerk?

Birdseed would be a hat on a hat when your target is known for seeng a hole and throwing himself down it.

What? Like Philosophers have been doing for 3000 years in pursuit of foundations?

[FlashDangerpants]

The limits of epistemology seem to be something I am fine with. An antirealist theory of moral justification can be as simple as moral precepts aren't really justified in any unified sense.

So when a self-proclaimed moral anti-realist demands justification for a moral theory, their request can be fulfilled how exactly?

Getting an ought from an is would be a start. Getting an ought from another ought and then saying that's just as good as getting an ought from an is seems to be a failing strategy though.

[Skepdick]

Getting an ought from an is would be a start. Getting an ought from another ought and then saying that's just as good as getting an ought from an is seems to be a failing strategy though.

I do believe you require a justified grand theory of "failure" to be able to make the seemingly grand claims you making; and it seems it should be accompanied by the justified grand theory of "acceptable vs unacceptable ought derivations".

And while we are seeding... the justified grand theory of acceptability and unacceptability.

Agh, hell! I might as well fill up up the shopping cart... If a goal is not an IS, then what the hell is it?

[FlashDangerpants]

Getting an ought from an is would be a start. Getting an ought from another ought and then saying that's just as good as getting an ought from an is seems to be a failing strategy though.

I do believe you require a justified grand theory of "failure" to be able to make the seemingly grand claims you making; and it seems it should be accompanied by the justified grand theory of "acceptable vs unacceptable ought derivations".

And while we are seeding... the justified grand theory of acceptability and unacceptability.

Agh, hell! I might as well fill up up the shopping cart... If a goal is not an IS, then what the hell is it?

It doesn't seem all that grand to note that deriving an ought from another ought is not the same as deriving an ought from an is.

Much like your narcissistic frenemy there, I'm wondering if you have understood what purpose the act of deriving an ought from an is actually supposed to serve?

The purpose is to arrive at global objective oughts. Nobody cares if you describe your subjective inconsequential opinions and dispositions as 'ISes', just like we don't care if you have a bucket list of oughts taped to your fridge reminding you climb Kilimanjaro one day.

This is a debate about what grounds you have for telling me that the contents of my moral beliefs are factually mistaken when they don't correspond to yours, and your fridge has no say in the matter.

[Peter Holmes]

The purpose is to arrive at global objective oughts. Nobody cares if you describe your subjective inconsequential opinions and dispositions as 'ISes', just like we don't care if you have a bucket list of oughts taped to your fridge reminding you climb Kilimanjaro one day.

This is a debate about what grounds you have for telling me that the contents of my moral beliefs are factually mistaken when they don't correspond to yours, and your fridge has no say in the matter.

Nice one.

Epistemological anti-foundationalism is as misguided as epistemological foundationalism, and for exactly the same reason. And anyway, pending evidence for the claim that moral assertions are cognitive - that there are moral facts - knowledge isn't the issue.