Re: How do you calm down the hot-heads?

From: Alex F. Bokov (bokov@uthscsa.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 12:37:53 MDT

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    Robbie and Rafal... you are slinging the term 'morality' back and forth
    unexamined as if it's an objective concept you both agree on and merely
    disagree on the details of implementation. I recently posted something
    on the Genomics Yahoogroup that has just become relevant here...

    ----------
    One of the problems plaguing the field of ethics is a pair of
    contradictory assumptions at its very core:

    "Some things are right and some things are wrong, and we need to know
    the difference."

    "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion."

    I propose that ethics should be redefined as...

    "An ontology for clearly stating what your particular system of axioms
    is, coming to logical conclusions/decisions based on these axioms, and
    communicating your axioms and your process of reasoning based on them to
    others."

    Here's an example of how this more honest and rigorous approach to
    ethics would work:

    Bob is a Christian. Bob states his axioms.

    "I hold the following beliefs to be axiomatic-- God exists, and the
    Bible expresses God's will. In places where the Bible is not clear, the
    literal interpretation is to favored."

    Bob then states his conclusions.

    "Based on what is written in the Bible, killing humans is wrong, unborn
    fetuses are human, and therefore abortion is wrong."

    Jane is a secular humanist. Jane does not share Bob's axioms, but
    aknowledges that they are axioms and not directly subject to debate. She
    can do the following, though...

    a) She can point out contradictions within Bob's chosen set of axioms,
    forcing him to assign priorities to the various axioms he holds.

    b) She can challenge the chain of reasoning leading from Bob's axioms
    (the Bible expresses God's will) to Bob's conclusions (abortion is wrong).

    c) If the above approaches both fail, Jane and Bob can agree to disagree.

    Note that in the event of c), this disagreement isn't always peaceful,
    unfortunately. As an extreme example, if Bob's axioms were to explicitly
    include the statement "Blow up abortion clinics" and Jane was an
    owner/employee/customer of an abortion clinic, then Bob and Jane will
    inevitably find themselves in conflict at whatever level permitted by
    the society they exist in and their level of commitment to their
    respective axioms. But at least Bob, Jane, and any bystanders would have
    a clear idea of what specifically the conflict was about... and whether
    or not the underlying issue has been resolved, voiding the conflict. For
    example, if safe and inexpensive removal/storage/transplantation of
    embryos became possible, Bob and Jane would no longer have reason to
    quarrel-- after all, Bob never stated that "Sex without intent to
    procreate is wrong" and Jane never stated that "fetuses must be killed".

    Instead of this, ethics debates today seem to rely on appeal to
    authority and some kind of imaginary universal concept of right and
    wrong. It's FRAUDULENT to use value-implying terms without first clearly
    identifying your values so your audience can make up their own minds as
    to whether your idea of "right", "good", "natural", and "humane"
    corresponds to their own. The approach I've outlined above will help
    expose individuals who are trying to conceal their own agenda underneath
    some kind of blanket "consensus" or "prevailing social norms".

    There should be something equivalent to Godwin's Law that gets triggered
    when someone talks about 'morality' without saying exactly what that
    word signifies to them.

    PS: The original purpose of this thread was to figure out how not to get
    the crack-pot treatment from fellow scientists at a vulnerable, early
    point in our careers. But what the heck, ethics is an interesting and
    important topic too.

    -- 
                                    --Sincerely, Alex F. Bokov
                                      Department of Physiology
                                      UTHSCSA
    ------------------------------------------------------------
    "I think the guy who believes death is a natural part of
    life should get the seat with the broken seat-belt."
    


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