Lee Daniel Crocker wrote,
>He discovered
>that the best way to do that is often to play nice; that does
>nothing to support whether "playing nice" is or isn't a worthy
>goal in its own right.
> "A scientific approach to making decisions together with other
> people, acting in the public sphere would, I imagine, eliminate
> biases which interfere with obtaining the most successful decisions."
>
>He imagines, indeed, because that statement is so utterly 180-
>degrees opposite of reality that its consequences can only exist
>in his imagination.
Not quite, because to the degree people do eliminate biases by relying on a scientific approach to making decisions, they succeed more than people who make decisions based on personal biases.
> We can confidently reason that this premise
>will not lead us to rational conclusions about ethics.
Only if we allow our confidence to exceed our imagination.
> Premises
>more in tune with reality are likely to lead to better results.
Exactly. That explains the scientific link of moralism to biology (as per Richard Dawkins' essays on the subject).
>Those premises most useful for ethical reasoning are those about
>human desires: not lofty, theoretical, ideological desires like
>peace and progress, but simple ones like food and sex that we can
>observe the reality of directly. What other realistic base can
>there be?
Certainly not what we "ought" to do versus what we "can" do, because (obviously) we don't _want_ to do everything that we _can_ do.
Science still provides the most complete answers to the questions humans pose for themselves.
Cheers,
--J. R.