Well, I'll be happy to talk about my research and it's relevance to physics if you want, though it's probably self-explanatory.
And I'd ask you to read again at my position -- I said that I found ethics has no absolute grounding, and merely prudential application.
Yes, I would agree with that. I think that the only people who can claim it has an absolute grounding are theists who believe ethics comes from a perfect deity. Of course, I don't believe their claim, but they usually make it honestly AFAICT. Any non-theistic person who wants to claim an absolute basis for ethics is going to find themselves in a very sticky situation.
This does not mean a radical subjectivity, but more of a moderate one -- I don't think everyone can engage in an ethical free-for-all, though I do think it is largely based on societal beliefs, (not to be confused with a sort of cultural-subjectivity -- I think this is impossible in a globalized world) both shallow and deep. I also think that neither a deontological approach nor a consequentialist approach is adequate (Though I lean towards consequentialism). Basically, ethics to me are too complicated and nuanced to be encapsulated by a specific ethical theory, so I think the project is futile.
Wossup mit der fancy jargon? Can we have in Ingrish kthnx? Try to treat it like a "public understanding of
science philosophy" exercise.
Having done a bit of Googling, I'd say I'm definitely inclined towards
consequentialism as far as ethics per se goes, but I realise that in practice any legal system for a society has to be largely
deontological, but in practice legality and ethics aren't necessarily the same thing at all, even if they should coincide in a perfect system.
And yes, I realise it's not something that can be summed up in a few basic rules.
For instance, take the generally accepted moral law that we should not kill each other. Now I think that this maxim cannot be grounded in anything, seeing as we don't know enough about our lives to understand what death means. Nevertheless, shallowly, I think it is morally wrong for practical reasons (such as people get really angry and pissed off when you do it, and you don't want to die so don't kill others, and generally society believes in the fundamental human right to life.)
Ok, now we're getting somewhere. My view is a bit different to yours (don't faint from shock hey).
I'd say the reason it can't be grounded has nothing to do with what death means. From my perspective, that's too airy fairy and completely misses the central point. IMO, the central point is that if you want absolute grounding for that maxim, you have to step outside a merely human and instinctive point of view. Once you do that, there is nothing special about our species. You said on the first page of this thread that people had to be careful to not end up arguing that killing a person was the same as killing anything else. I'd say that if you want to approach this honestly, you have to
start by saying that killing a person is no different to killing anything else. After all, to a crocodile we're just more meat on the hoof. In an asteroid impact, there wont be any discrimination on the grounds of species.
However, any tool is defined by its purpose. If you want to drive nails, you want a hammer that has a flat face. If the face is conical, the tool is useless. IMO, ethics is basically a tool that is used for the purpose of getting a workable society. Since humans are not purely logical creatures (and not wanting to die is a good example of this, since logically it doesn't matter either way) then any effective system of ethics is going to rely to some extent on the deliberate introduction of fundamental illogicalities. So, although there is no
intrinsic difference between killing a human and killing anything else, there can be a benefit in
assigning a difference.
Again, I'm not an ethical researcher, so I don't really stand firm on the claims I've made. I don't, as an area of study, research ethics. I'm not really sure how to escape cultural relativity in terms of ethics, so this is probably why I haven't bothered.
Yup. Take "human rights" or "fundamental rights" or "natural rights" or whatever you want to call them. Some people try to pretend they're absolute, which is fine if you're a theist. Otherwise, I think it has to be admitted that they are social constructs. I'm somewhat bemused when non-theistic people try to assert that these things are not merely social constructs.
I understand that the reason for such assertions is to add emphasis to certain things that are regarded as of primary importance, and to attempt to safeguard them, but I still think that any honest appraisal has to see them as social constructs.
I think an ethical system can follow quite naturally from fundamental assumed principles, and hence that system will not be arbitrary, but the fundamental principles need to be there first in order for an ethical system to get off the ground.
Well the system can be consistent once the principles are assumed, but I think it's going to be hard to show that the principles themselves are not arbitrary.
Again, I tend to lean towards a deontological approach -- that the fundamental principles should be ones that lead to an ethical system that promotes happiness for the most -- but there are obvious cases where it does not work.
Yeah I tend the other way, simply because it seems that whatever rules you can come up with there will always be some situation where they fail.
Topic: Philosophers advocate killing newborns