Re: "Morality?" - Composite Reply
Gary Lloyd (tmethod@gatecom.com)
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 06:22:41 -0400 (EDT)
At 09:18 PM 10/7/97 -0700, extropians@extropy.org wrote:
>> Science is the middle path between the harsh tyranny of unquestionable
"truth"
>> and the useless undisprovability of "subjective" reality. Science states
that
>> there exists an objective reality, but we do not know what it is. My ethical
>> system makes the same statement with respect to morality.
>
>A noble goal to be sure, but by what method can you test this morality
>for its correspondence to the objective standard? I know how to
>evaluate statements about reality: they must be meaningful, falsifiable
>by observation, and must have wihstood many observations without such
>a falsification. The standard of judgment is simple: my senses.
>
>How does one falsify a moral hypothesis? How does one observe the
>result of a moral experiment? How can others replicate my experiment?
>
>And be clear what I mean here: I do not wish to test an action; the
>results of an action /are/ easily testable against the outcome I
>desire. I wish to test an hypothesis about which outcome I should
>desire, independent of any action to achieve it.
You should desire species survival, without which we wouldn't be having this
discussion.
Gary
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When the boot of government is on your neck,
it doesn't matter if it's left or right.