Comment by kitbrennan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kitbrennan | Hacker News Reader

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> its continually losing ground to science in every area and its methods are questionable at best

Philosophy is a very broad school and many areas do not lose out to science. While science helps answer such things as the free will debate, it cannot answer the question of morality or the debate over how to govern society correctly.

Often science can bring us closer to understanding the world but not provide an answer on how to act. The classic example is abortion. Science can tell us when the heartbeat starts, or brainwaves begin firing, or when we feel pain; but it cannot begin to answer whether it is ok to take a life before/after any of those biological points - that is where philosophy comes in.

I'd go as far as arguing that it is one of the most practical disciplines. It gave me answers on how to act rather than relying on pure feeling. Too many of us support the same political parties as our parents or having the same moral code as our peers, without questioning whether that is actually the ideal way to act. These philosophical arguments go to the heart of society, morality, politics and law.

Science can settle (or at least inform) a debate over how to govern society correctly if you define certain tangible features or goals that a correct society should have. If you agree upfront that a correct society should seek to e.g. maximize individual happiness, or maximize economic output, or whatever, there are scientific arguments that would support one policy over another.

It's also worth noting that a lot of what Aristotle (as opposed to Plato) as well as many of the Pre-Socratics actually wrote about would today be considered scientific topics. Aristotle speculated about physics and natural systems using abstract reasoning. Many of his conclusions are empirically falsifiable and have been falsified. It's simply that empiricism itself as an epistemological tool had not yet been fully appreciated in Classical Greece.

> If you agree upfront that a correct society should seek to e.g. maximize individual happiness, or maximize economic output, or whatever, there are scientific arguments that would support one policy over another.

These are both utilitarian concessions, building upon a philosophical model of the Right in terms of a maximized final Good.

You may be able to find a "scientific" answer within them (Bentham did exactly that), but you'll be hard pressed to conclude that such an answer is reasonable in any of the ways that we would expect a theory of perfect government to be.

>maximize individual happiness

But even this goal falls apart at the abortion debate. When the argument is about whether or not you are killing a human, then there are very different paths to maximizing individual happiness depending on the conclusion.

> If you agree upfront that a correct society should seek to e.g. maximize individual happiness, or maximize economic output, or whatever, there are scientific arguments that would support one policy over another.

And that's the key. How do you define what a 'correct' society should seek to do? What might make some people materially/'objectively' better off may also make them miserable. What makes people happier may make the world worse by encouraging people to 'waste' their lives on meaningless things (like say, virtual reality experiences). What makes most lives better might make a lot of other people happy (the utilitarian issue).

Science cannot say what the goal you're trying to achieve is. That's where philosophy comes in.

>it cannot answer the question of morality

Sure it can, moral realists make empirical claims. Science can test them.

How do you test the claim that murder is wrong, or that happiness is the chief human good?

I think "Hm. Would I like to be murdered? Do I like to be happy?" And I answer. Its a simple question to a biological entity, easily answered. Maybe a survey, or even a lie-detector while taking a quiz, or hey! even murder a few people and see how they like it.

You've answered questions about yourself, not questions about the acts or principles themselves.

You may not like to be murdered, but someone who is terminally ill and suffering might. Is it okay to murder them then, even if they can't explicitly ask you to? Should I murder one person to save five? What about four, three, or two? What about one to save a more "important" person? What about children?

You may like to be happy, but what is happiness? Is it simple pleasure, or is that too "piggish"? Is it a flourishing life? Is it egoistic? Can your happiness be said to be "right" if it makes others unhappy?

I am skeptical that any scientific inquiry can ever provide compelling (i.e., consistent and universalizable) answers to these questions. That's not because scientific inquiry is flawed, but because they're just not scientific questions -- they require a different toolbox.

Regarding the abortion point: I agree that science cannot answer the question regarding morality of abortion, but can philosophy answer it? In my view, philosophy can at best provide certainty of the kind "If you hold these moral values as correct, then option Y is not compatible with these values", but how can you "prove" scientifically that a certain value is correct?

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