Ethics is a messy territory, and I ordinarily do not enjoy discussing it. I have my reasons, and most of them revolve around the apparent fact that argument really doesn't get us very far, if anywhere. Some of us are more firm in our opinions than others, but morality seems to be one of those particularly difficult areas. Have you ever tried to convince someone that their idea of what is the 'right thing to do' is, in fact, wrong? You'll usually get either people who find it difficult to abandon their own perspective, or people who are too eager to do so. You don't meet too many of us who are only sort of morally opinionated.
I myself am something of a difficult case (to myself, at least). I would very much like to tell you that I have solid moral opinions, but my immediate thoughts and reactions to ethical matters lead me to believe that I am far more relativistic (relativism, in case anyone isn't familiar with it, is the view that there is no absolute truth to morality...i.e., it's relative). This isn't to say that I don't find it appalling when someone rapes or murders another person, or abuses an animal - I very much do. I am, however, uncomfortable with making the claim that anything I could, in a given situation, consider to be 'right' or 'wrong' will hold true in every such case.
Immanuel Kant would disagree with my last sentiment quite adamantly. Kant is one of the thinkers for whom I have an immeasurable amount of respect, and someone whose work I think everyone should expose themselves to at least once (if for no better reason, to appreciate his genius - and I don't make light of that word). He's famous for his work in many areas of philosophy, but most people arguably know him for his ethical stance. He came up with a refined version of the 'Golden Rule,' which he calls the Categorical Imperative. Kant is unfortunately notorious for coining obscure, cryptic phrases to express a pretty simple idea, so fear not...the Categorical Imperative isn't complicated. Basically, it means that everyone should behave such that they would want every one of their actions to become universal law. In other words, if you do X in Y situation, you believe so strongly that this was the correct action that you think everyone should do X in Y situation. This certainly seems to be a failsafe against knowing the right thing to do and apathetically choosing a lesser action, and I find it to be beautiful in its optimism. But optimism it has, and maybe a little too much. It seems a little too demanding, doesn't it? For one very selfish reason, it basically excludes any of the fun, irresponsible behaviors in which we're all so fond of indulging. It also asks a little too much of us in terms of rationality. Few of us rationally decide to say something cruel to a friend when angry with them - we do these things because, overcome with emotion, we are unable to reason through to the consequences, and act accordingly.
An important point to make about Kant's view is that it's a rule-based ethics. We're familiar with rules, and barring obvious conflicts amongst them, they're usually pretty easy to understand. But that's a very important trouble - rules can, in some cases, conflict with one another (for example, referencing traffic laws, if you're parked just in front of a no-turns red light and an ambulance needs by, you of course roll through and get out of the way, as you're obligated to do...but in doing so, you broke a different law). Moreover rules don't necessarily provide us with all the answers - indeed, how could they? They're broad and general, and only apply to so many specific situations. This argument is posed quite eloquently by Aristotle, whose own view (along with many of the Greeks) was such that one's moral constitution is determined not through adherence to a rule-based ethics, but through his/her actions in particular situations. In other words, the judgments you make and the subsequent actions you decide upon determine your moral quality. If you see fit to break a generally accepted rule, and do so for a reason good enough to abandon the rule, you're in good (if not better) shape.
Then, of course, we have the relativists. These come in all shapes and sizes, but one of the more popular among them has got to be Nietzsche. Nietzsche is, however, fairly misunderstood. Many take his statements at face-value and never really read any of his writings, which are pretty straightforward and yet far more complex than one might be inclined to assume. Yes, Nietzsche was a nihilist. No, Nietzsche was no fan of religion. No, Nietzsche did not believe that there was any objective truth to morality. This does not, however, mean that he had no use for moral notions. Quite the contrary, Nietzsche had a sort of hedonistic stance. He felt, to a large extent, that one should do one's very best at satisfying his or her personal needs - if at the expense of others, it's of little consequence. This is, however, Nietzsche's own opinion, which he makes quite clear. It's not so much a 'this is the truth' so much as a presentation of his take on the matter, and he couldn't have cared less whether you took it or left it. Nietzsche, like Aristotle, didn't care for adherence to a rule-based ethics, but he takes it a step further. Whereas Aristotle felt that one could achieve moral greatness, Nietzsche, as far as my understanding goes, had no use for such a concept. The only greatness, to Nietzsche, was greatness of the sort expressed by power and influence. Morals, of course, can get in the way of such things, which is largely why Nietzsche spent such a great deal of time and energy denouncing them.
For the sake of brevity, I've outlined only three views I find to be pretty big in the history of philosophy - though these views very much apply in modernity, I think. Additionally, I was, as most discussions of philosophers using less than a book's worth of material tend to be, extremely oversimplified. Hopefully, it made for an interesting discussion, though. I highly recommend reading any of these people mentioned, though certainly Kant and Nietzsche are more entertaining writers than Aristotle.
The take-home point? I have no idea. As I said, I'm no fan of discussing morality in any ambitious sense. We all have at least a general idea of what we tend to think of a given situation, but producing your own moral theory is no ea
Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Scientifique
Science is, to a large extent, tragically misunderstood. The misunderstanding, however, isn't crucial or crippling in its nature or scope - it's merely conceptual, as I see it - but a conceptual confusion is often indicative of and capable of producing some more fundamental difficulties. It's certainly not my particular area of expertise to explain to anyone what overhanging theories dominate the playing field of, say, chemical theory today, but I think people fail to understand certain goals, methods, and applications of scientific research. I'm going to try, in my hopelessly ill-informed state, to explain what I mean, why this is a problem, and how we can fix it.
First and foremost, a scientific theory is descriptive in nature rather than prescriptive. While this seems obvious if seriously considered, I feel that it's often not seriously considered. When asked to explain why a certain scientific theory (or, if well established enough, law) - let's say gravity - is true, many will appeal to the person who discovered, formulated, and applied it. But why did this person cook up this theory? What question was he or she trying to answer? In Newton's case, he reasoned that something must be drawing objects toward the ground, and was dissatisfied with Aristotle's conception (which held that, in a nutshell, things composed of earth were drawn to the earth - ridiculous to us, yes, but this was the best available explanation at the time).
What's important to note here is that Newton did not really discover anything - rather, he described something. The law of gravity was not floating around in space waiting for someone to grab onto it - it was created by a man toward the end of describing an observable phenomenon. This is not, of course, to discredit Newton. Contrarily, I find it more impressive that someone could formulate such a theory rather than pick it off of some idea tree. People are sometimes a bit jolted by this idea, but it really isn't too strange to us. When we're children, we explain things in ways that we now find silly in light of our newer, better explanations. However, our newer explanations aren't necessarily the right ones (truthfully, nothing we postulate is likely totally true - we have cognitive limits, i.e., we can only grasp so much about a given thing at a given moment). The bottom line is that this description rather than discovery concept is the way it happens. Euclidean Geometry stood for a very, very long time, and it's what we still use in our day-to-day dealings with length, angles, and other such measurements. But we've found out relatively recently that Euclidean Geometry just isn't true in all cases. If you find this little tidbit interesting, I highly recommend reading up on it...very cool stuff.
Second, science does not prove things, but seeks to disprove. The fact that it often does more or less prove a theorem to be the case (to our knowledge) is highly convenient icing on the cake. Anyone familiar with experimental procedure past high school science class can tell you that the vast majority of serious experiments are set up such that you are not explicitly setting out to prove an experimental hypothesis, but to disprove a null hypothesis. In other words, your null hypothesis states that there is no significant finding in your data, and you are trying to prove that wrong. This may seem like a nit-picky thing to discuss, but it is very, very important if conceived of in full scope.
Take medicine for example. We've grown accustomed to this deterministic view of the practice of medicine in a way that, when we get sick, we want to go see a doctor, and we're quite sure that she will know exactly what we have, and exactly what to give us to treat it. And if she doesn't know exactly what to do...well...we get a bit flabbergasted, and maybe a little upset. But why? The answer, I think, is that we have this implicit expectation of science - this misunderstanding I'm talking about. We fail to realize that any sort of science attempts to rule out alternative explanations in choosing the best one - once the best answer to a given question or set of questions is found, it can be kept ready for when those sorts of questions arise. But it isn't always that easy; especially in medicine. Doctors don't run dozens of tests on people for fun. Moreover, how many times have you had several tests over the course of an hour or two, finally resulting in the doctor giving you an antibiotic because your "white blood cell count is high," or something like that? This often means you have some sort of infection, and they don't know what, so they gave you the Swiss Army Knife of drugs in hopes of it doing something (and kudos to antibiotics...they really do work wonders).
Finally, we need to understand that science carries with it an array of assumptions. I'll be as brief as possible here, because I could go on for pages, but it's worth mentioning. For one, it assumes there are truths in the world of experience to be found, and that we can come to understand them. It also assumes that the scientific method (observe, experiment, report) is the best way to go about this. This is, in no way, me railing against the scientific enterprise or the medical community (though I occasionally do, for very different reasons). I'm instead frustrated with people who expect researchers and doctors to have all the answers. In terms of whittling down all the available information in all the possible causal relationships in this world, we are a very long way from having even a big chunk of the answers. Science is a tool of discovery, but it's more accurate to think of it as a magnifying glass than some all-encompassing database. We often find new information and have to change our conception of the world around us, and even sometimes our most fundamental assumptions. This should not be discouraging, in my opinion, and is the main reason I feel that scientific inquiry is truly distinguished from, say, intuitive learning. The point of science is to revise itself when mistaken - and you can rest assured that it is mistaken quite often.
First and foremost, a scientific theory is descriptive in nature rather than prescriptive. While this seems obvious if seriously considered, I feel that it's often not seriously considered. When asked to explain why a certain scientific theory (or, if well established enough, law) - let's say gravity - is true, many will appeal to the person who discovered, formulated, and applied it. But why did this person cook up this theory? What question was he or she trying to answer? In Newton's case, he reasoned that something must be drawing objects toward the ground, and was dissatisfied with Aristotle's conception (which held that, in a nutshell, things composed of earth were drawn to the earth - ridiculous to us, yes, but this was the best available explanation at the time).
What's important to note here is that Newton did not really discover anything - rather, he described something. The law of gravity was not floating around in space waiting for someone to grab onto it - it was created by a man toward the end of describing an observable phenomenon. This is not, of course, to discredit Newton. Contrarily, I find it more impressive that someone could formulate such a theory rather than pick it off of some idea tree. People are sometimes a bit jolted by this idea, but it really isn't too strange to us. When we're children, we explain things in ways that we now find silly in light of our newer, better explanations. However, our newer explanations aren't necessarily the right ones (truthfully, nothing we postulate is likely totally true - we have cognitive limits, i.e., we can only grasp so much about a given thing at a given moment). The bottom line is that this description rather than discovery concept is the way it happens. Euclidean Geometry stood for a very, very long time, and it's what we still use in our day-to-day dealings with length, angles, and other such measurements. But we've found out relatively recently that Euclidean Geometry just isn't true in all cases. If you find this little tidbit interesting, I highly recommend reading up on it...very cool stuff.
Second, science does not prove things, but seeks to disprove. The fact that it often does more or less prove a theorem to be the case (to our knowledge) is highly convenient icing on the cake. Anyone familiar with experimental procedure past high school science class can tell you that the vast majority of serious experiments are set up such that you are not explicitly setting out to prove an experimental hypothesis, but to disprove a null hypothesis. In other words, your null hypothesis states that there is no significant finding in your data, and you are trying to prove that wrong. This may seem like a nit-picky thing to discuss, but it is very, very important if conceived of in full scope.
Take medicine for example. We've grown accustomed to this deterministic view of the practice of medicine in a way that, when we get sick, we want to go see a doctor, and we're quite sure that she will know exactly what we have, and exactly what to give us to treat it. And if she doesn't know exactly what to do...well...we get a bit flabbergasted, and maybe a little upset. But why? The answer, I think, is that we have this implicit expectation of science - this misunderstanding I'm talking about. We fail to realize that any sort of science attempts to rule out alternative explanations in choosing the best one - once the best answer to a given question or set of questions is found, it can be kept ready for when those sorts of questions arise. But it isn't always that easy; especially in medicine. Doctors don't run dozens of tests on people for fun. Moreover, how many times have you had several tests over the course of an hour or two, finally resulting in the doctor giving you an antibiotic because your "white blood cell count is high," or something like that? This often means you have some sort of infection, and they don't know what, so they gave you the Swiss Army Knife of drugs in hopes of it doing something (and kudos to antibiotics...they really do work wonders).
Finally, we need to understand that science carries with it an array of assumptions. I'll be as brief as possible here, because I could go on for pages, but it's worth mentioning. For one, it assumes there are truths in the world of experience to be found, and that we can come to understand them. It also assumes that the scientific method (observe, experiment, report) is the best way to go about this. This is, in no way, me railing against the scientific enterprise or the medical community (though I occasionally do, for very different reasons). I'm instead frustrated with people who expect researchers and doctors to have all the answers. In terms of whittling down all the available information in all the possible causal relationships in this world, we are a very long way from having even a big chunk of the answers. Science is a tool of discovery, but it's more accurate to think of it as a magnifying glass than some all-encompassing database. We often find new information and have to change our conception of the world around us, and even sometimes our most fundamental assumptions. This should not be discouraging, in my opinion, and is the main reason I feel that scientific inquiry is truly distinguished from, say, intuitive learning. The point of science is to revise itself when mistaken - and you can rest assured that it is mistaken quite often.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
