From: ekr@squick.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla)
Subject: Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is
Organization: EIT
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In article <1r3le9$mlj@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>In article <1r22qp$4sk@squick.eitech.com> ekr@squick.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>#In article <1r0m89$r0o@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>#>In article <1qvu33$jk3@kyle.eitech.com> ekr@kyle.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>#>#>If almost all people agree that the sun exists (in the usual, uncritical sense),
>#>#>and almost all people agree that  a deal is bad,  it's a reasonable 
>#>#>conclusion that the sun really does exist, and that the deal really is bad.
>#>#I disagree completely. Until rather recently, most people did not
>#>#believe in evolution or the possibility of the atom bomb. Popular
>#>#opinion is notoriously wrong about matters of fact.
>#>True, but nevertheless the basis of all "matters of fact" is overwhelming
>#>popular opinion, and some overwhelming popular opinion *is* fact ("the
>#>sun shines").  If it were not so, physics would be a personal matter,
>#>assumed to be different for each of us.  There would be YourGravity and
>#>MyGravity and no theoretical framework to encompass them and predict
>#>both.  
>#This is simply complete nonsense. The basis for 'matters of fact' is,
>#if any class of opinion, the majority of INFORMED popular opinion
>#for some value of informed. I would really hate to base my knowledge
>#of, for instance, QM on what the overwhelming popular opinion is.
>The *basis*, Eric, is people peering at the world and saying what
>they see.  I'm talking about uninterpreted facts - observations.  _People_
>do those.  Agreement on some observations is a prerequisite for a theory
>that is more than personal.
Yes, that's true, but you have to be clear exactly what is
an uninterpreted observation. It's pretty low level stuff.
'The sun shines' is already a LOT higher level than that. We
can agree that 'I perceive brightness' perhaps.

>#>Now I take an experience of good/evil to be every bit as raw a fact as an
>#>experience of pain, or vision.
>#That might seem like a good first pass guess, but it turns out to
>#be a pretty cruddy way to look at things, because we all seem to
>#have rather different opinions (experiences) about what is good
>#and evil, while we seem to be able to agree on what the meter says.
>You're not comparing apples with apples.  If we all look at the same meter,
>we'll agree.  If we're all in the same situation, that's when we'll
>agree on fundamental values, if at all.  People who say that nobody agrees on
>values to the same extent that they agree on trivial observations seem
>to be unaware of the extent of agreement on either.
Huh? What do you mean 'all in the same situation?' Let's take me
and Dennis Kriz as examples. We're in pretty different situations,
but I think we can agree as to whether it's day or night. I don't
think we can agree as to whether or not abortion is morally
acceptable. Yet we are certainly in the same difference of
situations with respect to each other. Looks like weasel-words
to me, Frank. 

>#I don't see that it's any evidence at all.
>#As I point out above, I'm really not interested very much in
>#what the popular opinion is. I'm prepared to trust--to some extent--
>#the popular opinion about direct matters of physical observation
>#because by and large they accord with my own. However, if everyone
>#else said the dial read 1.5 and it looked like a 3 to me, I would
>#hope that I would believe myself. I.e. believing other people about
>#these matters seems to have a reasonable probability of predicting
>#what I would believe if I observed myself, but the possibility exists
>#that it is not. Since I know from observation that others disagree
>#with me about what is good, I believe I can discount popular opinion
>#about 'good' from the beginning as a predictor of my opinion.
>#I would say that the fact that it seems almost impossible to get
>#people to agree on what is good in a really large number of situations
>#is probably the best evidence that objective morality is bogus, actually.
>Firstly, if everyone else said the dial was 1.5 and I saw 3, I'd check
>my lens prescription.
That's up to you, I guess.

>  Secondly, your observation that people
>disagree shows nothing - people may be looking at different things,
>by virtue of being in different situations.  If I look at an elephant, I'll 
>see an elephant.  That doesn't imply that you will see an elephant if you 
>look at an iguana.
This 'different situations' stuff is pretty confusing, Frank. How
do we decide if we are in the same situation? You mind explaining?

>    Thirdly, I question your assumption that when
>people disagree about how to achieve fundamental or secondary goals, that 
>they therefore do not have the same fundamental goals (that seems to be the 
>disagreement you refer to).
Huh? I don't think so. I think that people disagree about
fundamental goals.

-Ekr

-- 
Eric Rescorla                                     ekr@eitech.com
             Would you buy used code from this man?
        
