Unless of course you are in fact relying on the ethicists to bring in that vital element of observation which you seem reluctant to engage in yourself.
I'm not convinced that naturalistic ethics are impossible; I find it plausible that a sufficiently ingenious thinker might find a way around the is/ought problem, and a philosophy professor I respected in undergrad (and continue to do so) was a big proponent of naturalistic ethics, but I can't quite see how they'd work and it doesn't strike me as the most obvious place to turn for an account of moral normativity. I just can't see how any amount of observation can tell us how we ought to act; at most, it can tell us how we do act or provide us with hypothetical imperatives.
You may if you wish consider this pure prejudice, but I struggle and ultimately fail to understand (and I do mean understand in a very fundamental way) how anyone can hold a belief that is not founded on empirical observation. I am aware that some people do, many of them rational and logical people, but it is not something that I can in any way equate with or understand. You were brought up by a feminist and I was brought up by a scientist.
My arguments against positivism aren't particularly new or exciting, mostly just to note that the positivist truth-criterion isn't empirically observable. Most positivists seem to either take certain assumptions by faith, for example that science can describe reality and truth is a function of doing so (although some positivists are also instrumentalists) and that only claims which derive from empirical observation are meaningful, in which case they fall into metaphysics (and inconsistent ones at that!) or else they are quietists, who eschew talk of the truth of positivism and take it as manifested in the action, in which case they are mystics. I suppose you can say that your inability to hold a belief in non-empirical propositions to be simply a result of your genes and/or brain chemistry, and not an intellectual position at all, but it's my prejudice that that's a rather cheap trick. (And again, seems to disavow personal responsibility and autonomy in a way I find very disturbing; is this the source of our disagreements over how to interpret various cases of rape and quasi-rape?)
It's not feminist ethics wouldn't turn to the world in order to make ethical claims; it absolutely would--that's the very heart and soul of feminist standpoint theory. But by doing so it's going to be operating on certain meta-ethical assumptions which are not empirical.
I'm interested in turning it around: why do you follow whatever principles you do? If it's to fit in within the dominant norms of your time and country, why do you find this valuable? If it's just because that's what you feel like doing at the moment, why do you think that's okay? Do you just perform random actions because your brain chemistry tells you to?
no subject
I'm not convinced that naturalistic ethics are impossible; I find it plausible that a sufficiently ingenious thinker might find a way around the is/ought problem, and a philosophy professor I respected in undergrad (and continue to do so) was a big proponent of naturalistic ethics, but I can't quite see how they'd work and it doesn't strike me as the most obvious place to turn for an account of moral normativity. I just can't see how any amount of observation can tell us how we ought to act; at most, it can tell us how we do act or provide us with hypothetical imperatives.
You may if you wish consider this pure prejudice, but I struggle and ultimately fail to understand (and I do mean understand in a very fundamental way) how anyone can hold a belief that is not founded on empirical observation. I am aware that some people do, many of them rational and logical people, but it is not something that I can in any way equate with or understand. You were brought up by a feminist and I was brought up by a scientist.
My arguments against positivism aren't particularly new or exciting, mostly just to note that the positivist truth-criterion isn't empirically observable. Most positivists seem to either take certain assumptions by faith, for example that science can describe reality and truth is a function of doing so (although some positivists are also instrumentalists) and that only claims which derive from empirical observation are meaningful, in which case they fall into metaphysics (and inconsistent ones at that!) or else they are quietists, who eschew talk of the truth of positivism and take it as manifested in the action, in which case they are mystics. I suppose you can say that your inability to hold a belief in non-empirical propositions to be simply a result of your genes and/or brain chemistry, and not an intellectual position at all, but it's my prejudice that that's a rather cheap trick. (And again, seems to disavow personal responsibility and autonomy in a way I find very disturbing; is this the source of our disagreements over how to interpret various cases of rape and quasi-rape?)
It's not feminist ethics wouldn't turn to the world in order to make ethical claims; it absolutely would--that's the very heart and soul of feminist standpoint theory. But by doing so it's going to be operating on certain meta-ethical assumptions which are not empirical.
I'm interested in turning it around: why do you follow whatever principles you do? If it's to fit in within the dominant norms of your time and country, why do you find this valuable? If it's just because that's what you feel like doing at the moment, why do you think that's okay? Do you just perform random actions because your brain chemistry tells you to?