I still feel these people are talking past each other a bit. That beneath it all there isn’t much disagreement.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/05/03/you-cant-derive-ought-from-is/

From here, I really appreciated the way in which you followed the logical progression from specific/momentary goals to larger and larger over-riding general/lasting goals. And I actually like your parallel of the ‘goal-source-regress’ (if I can put it like that) and the ‘causality/contingency-regress’.

Our epistemic certainty as to these things (what/who is the last cause, is there such a thing as an un-caused cause? & is there a goal or goals that is/are simply unquestionable and/or just self-evidently ‘good’?) will always be less than 100%. But I think that we can be epistemically justified in claiming at least some kind of other-than-omniscient ‘knowledge’ of God’s desires/goals (and of God being the ‘uncaused cause’). The infinite regress(es) points to an infinite source.

For me (and this is where I challenge many of my fellow believers), belief in a God as the ultimate Cause and ultimate source of goals/desires does not mean that we call off all thinking/study/research as to causality or ethics.

‘Good’ is inherently bound up in goal-appropriateness. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as ‘good’ which does not in some way relate to a goal. Another way to say ‘good’ would be ‘goal-appropriate’ with ‘all things considered’ tacked on at the end. Do you agree with this? If not, provide an example of ‘good’ without implicit reference to a desire or goal of some kind.

If we can agree on this definition of ‘good’ then you surely should be able to see that when combining all of Fido’s goals we can aggregate them overall and use the scientific method to determine which set of actions will be most ‘goal-appropriate’ (i.e. ‘good’).

We can do the same with food. We have desires for all kinds of different food, some of which can be harmful to us. Using the same methodology we can see which desires ought to be suppressed or moderated if we are to achieve the goal of healthiness. We can also use science to show us the most goal-appropriate course of action if we set a goal of poisoning ourselves.

“Yeah but how does science determine whether it’s better to be healthy or poison ourselves?” you repeat.

Well, let’s factor in some other goals. Science will have nothing to say about it otherwise. How about a goal of avoiding suffering? Or of living for a long time? Now we can see a conflict with the poisoning course of action and can say that it is not goal-appropriate to eat, say, arsenic.

Is living and not suffering a ‘good’ goal to have? I don’t know of any other goals that contradict this at the grand scale. You may believe that you get this goal from God. Perhaps living and suffering is only good because there is an entity out there more powerful than us who desires it so. But then why is it good that God would want us to live and not suffer? Just like the uncaused-cause issues of creationism I’m willing to bet that you’re satisfied to stop the questioning right there. But I think it’s reasonable to say that we could have stopped and been satisfied with the explanation that the goal of living and not suffering comes from our in-built evolutionary and developmental responses, without which we would probably not be here to even talk about it.

Perhaps you should take the opportunity to define what it is you think ‘good’ is.

For example, how do we know that “All desires are ‘good’ in isolation.”?? Surely a ‘scientific’ analysis of desires must be ‘objective’ and/or indifferent regarding good-ness/bad-ness?

1 Fido likes meat
2 Fido likes dog-community
3 Fido likes to eat fellow dogs

It is not a ‘scientific’ necessity that Fido fulfilling desires 1 & 2 is ‘better’ than fulfilling only desire 3. It IS a philosophical (indeed probably hedonistic – at this basic/simplistic level, of course) judgement.

Why not ask “What desires should Fido suppress if he is to have the least happiness?” We could reason just as ‘scientifically’ in that direction too. “Satisfying the most desires” is not a scientifically derived goal.

One example would be the basic goal of survival and ‘flourishing’. Science helps us achieve our goal of survival in the same way that technology (eye contacts, for example) helps us achieve our goal of seeing better. But the goal itself is discerned apart from *science*.

But Dale, no one has claimed that science sets our goals for us. You seem to be just not getting this point and I’m starting to wonder if it’s intentional. Almost all of your comment is based on this false premise.

…when we already have a desire/goal that is thought to be ‘good’, then science helps us realise that desire/goal

Exactly! All desires are ‘good’ in isolation. Fido likes to eat meat. Good. Fido likes to have friends. Good. Fido likes to eat his friends. Good. But, wait, that last one conflicts with the other two. What desires should Fido suppress if he is to have the maximal happiness? Easy, don’t eat your friends, there is other food available.

We are using simple observations about Fido’s desires/goals and using simple logic to see which balance will satisfy the most desires.

Dale, religious revelation is immune to reason. If you don’t believe that simply find some other religion and try to reason with them about their particular religious revelation.

I do just that all the time, and find (as you’d expect) points of agreement and disagreement – what was your point? More specifically are you implying that anything less than 100% agreement concerning religion across humanity necessitates a broad-brush sweeping of all religious belief into the rubbish bin of ‘invalid/unnecessary ideas’?

I don’t understand what you mean by religious revelation not being absent from the most atheistic of moral factoring.

I’m trying to get past the casual, easy dismissalistic language describing some distinction between ‘pure’ reasoned, ‘scientifically based’ moral reasoning on one hand, and ‘superstitious’, ‘irrational’, ‘if-you-say-so’, ‘anti-science’ dogma on the other. We all believe things about the world that are and will never be ‘scientifically’ proven. Indeed, the belief that beliefs are better when ‘scientifically validated’ (as if all beliefs even could be) is itself a rather interesting and non-scientific (i.e. philosophical) belief. More below…

Perhaps some concrete examples would help here? Care to provide some so that we can analyse them and perhaps try to discover where these ‘basic’ goals may have come from? And perhaps whether the scientific process may be of use instead of simply taking things on authority.

One example would be the basic goal of survival and ‘flourishing’. Science helps us achieve our goal of survival in the same way that technology (eye contacts, for example) helps us achieve our goal of seeing better. But the goal itself is discerned apart from *science*.
Another example would be cases where we don’t dare perform certain experiments as they would be immoral. I’m thinking here of the ‘experiments’ performed at Nazi concentration camps, and (more controversially) the sexuality experiments performed on young children by Kinsey. Sure, some suped-up fMRI scan might give us supplementary images of the brain activity which accompanies the state of emotional/psychological trauma that these experiment victims sufferred, but the judgement that emotional trauma is ‘bad’ is not itself ‘scientific’.

1. Many people used to believe that Negroes were not human and therefore it was morally OK to keep them as beasts of burden. This was perhaps more to do with natural in-group prejudices than anything else but observation of their suffering and the piecing together of human ancestry allowed for an awakening of public awareness which contributed to the anti-slavery movement.

sorry, I honestly missed the part where *science* showed slavery to be wrong. Again, our definition of ‘science’ may be a central point to clarify.

2. Many people currently believe that cows, sheep and chickens are animals and so not worthy of consideration when it comes to the issue of suffering. Science shows us that animals *do* in fact suffer and can be used to guide our actions especially when we ourselves desire for creatures not to suffer unnecessarily. This moral issue is still in progress. Almost everyone doesn’t like the idea of animals suffering but some give it less thought than others.

Again, I missed how *science* helped us realise/decide anything about how much animal suffering (or what kind – if any at all) is OK or not. And also, again, we surely knew that animals suffered by simply watching/listening to them die? Science did not suddenly reveal that animals suffer.
And your statement (“Science …can be used to guide our actions especially when we ourselves desire for creatures not to suffer unnecessarily.”) is telling: when we already have a desire/goal that is thought to be ‘good’, then science helps us realise that desire/goal.

This also relates to your later comment (” the process of science can be used to shed light on the facts of the environment and can even potentially be used to make recommendation when you factor in all of our desires (which include the desire to eat meat as well as a desire to not cause suffering).”).

In both of these cases people can pick and choose their morality from the vast array of stories available in various scriptures and can with equal conviction land on either side of the fence.

The same is true for any source of morality – like reason. I could say:
“In both of these cases people can pick and choose their morality from the vast array of lines of reasoning available in various intellectual contexts and can with equal conviction land on either side of the fence.”

The data/facts of Life (like scripture) require interpretation. Skill in interpretation (a.k.a. wisdom) is a must.

I don’t understand what you mean by religious revelation not being absent from the most atheistic of moral factoring.

We all accept as ‘given’ and ‘basic’ some pretty common goals, and we all value some basic desires are ‘good’, and these judgements are pure ‘hunches’ that no scientific observations/descriptions could clear up

Perhaps some concrete examples would help here? Care to provide some so that we can analyse them and perhaps try to discover where these ‘basic’ goals may have come from? And perhaps whether the scientific process may be of use instead of simply taking things on authority.

We didn’t need to know the intricate details of the human body to have good, certain, ‘hunches’ about many moral points

And once again I must reply with a verbatim copy and paste of what I said in comment #14:
“No one has claimed that moral creatures have always used science to guide them. The claim is that science *can* be used to guide us and that it’s *not* exclusive to religions. It’s analogous to me making the claim that we’ll make better food choices if we use science whereupon you come back with the complaint that people were eating fruit long before science was used.”

I’d like to see an example of how *science* (and I mean science in some definable sense, as opposed to some general notions of the collective activity of human observation of the world, etc.) helps us ‘access’ or ‘guide’ our moral decisions any measurable way better than (i.e.) before we had science?

Sure, I’ll provide two examples:

1. Many people used to believe that Negroes were not human and therefore it was morally OK to keep them as beasts of burden. This was perhaps more to do with natural in-group prejudices than anything else but observation of their suffering and the piecing together of human ancestry allowed for an awakening of public awareness which contributed to the anti-slavery movement. This moral issue is pretty much done and dusted but there was once a time when our ancestors thought it perfectly normal to have slaves.

2. Many people currently believe that cows, sheep and chickens are animals and so not worthy of consideration when it comes to the issue of suffering. Science shows us that animals *do* in fact suffer and can be used to guide our actions especially when we ourselves desire for creatures not to suffer unnecessarily. This moral issue is still in progress. Almost everyone doesn’t like the idea of animals suffering but some give it less thought than others. Perhaps there will come a time in the future when our grand children will look back on us in much the same way we do with our slave-trading ancestors.

In both these cases the process of science can be used to shed light on the facts of the environment and can even potentially be used to make recommendation when you factor in all of our desires (which include the desire to eat meat as well as a desire to not cause suffering).

In both of these cases people can pick and choose their morality from the vast array of stories available in various scriptures and can with equal conviction land on either side of the fence.

I don’t think that “religious revelation” is a) opposed to reason, or b) absent from the most atheistic of moral factoring. We all accept as ‘given’ and ‘basic’ some pretty common goals, and we all value some basic desires are ‘good’, and these judgements are pure ‘hunches’ that no scientific observations/descriptions could clear up. We didn’t need to know the intricate details of the human body to have good, certain, ‘hunches’ about many moral points.

I’d like to see an example of how *science* (and I mean science in some definable sense, as opposed to some general notions of the collective activity of human observation of the world, etc.) helps us ‘access’ or ‘guide’ our moral decisions any measurable way better than (i.e.) before we had science?

Our definition of ‘science’ could well be a key point in this conversation…