May | 2013 | Ethical Realism

May 26, 2013

Can ethics be a scientific domain?

Filed under: epistemology,philosophy — JW Gray @ 2:59 am
Tags: moral facts, moral realism, morality, science

Science has occasionally appropriated philosophical fields. Physics and psychology were originally discussed by philosophers rather than scientists. Right now ethics is considered to be a philosophical domain, but we could imagine science taking over the field. Will ethics ever be taught in a science class? Will we learn right and wrong from natural science?

People who reject that we could one day have a moral science generally do so due to skepticism, the gap between facts and values, and the is-ought fallacy. I will respond to these concerns and explain why I don’t think any of them are conclusive. (more…)

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May 13, 2013

Logically Valid Arguments

Filed under: epistemology,philosophy — JW Gray @ 10:28 pm
Tags: argumentation, logic, validity

A formal logic class or textbook should teach us ways to know when an argument has a valid argument form, and that can take a significant amount of time to learn. I encourage everyone to learn formal logic one way or another because it is of central significance to rational argumentation, and it is not something we spontaneously understand instinctively or through personal experience. Perhaps the first philosopher to understand formal logic and the importance of validity was Aristotle, and philosophers would have liked to understand it sooner. It was a great achievement because it can be so difficult to figure out on our own. Even so, we can learn a lot about valid argument form very quickly. I will explain why we need to make sure our deductive arguments are valid, give examples of valid argument forms, and explain how we can improve our arguments. (more…)

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May 5, 2013

The Problem of Evil & Objective Morality

Filed under: philosophy — JW Gray @ 12:54 pm
Tags: atheism, evil, god, religion

The problem of evil refers to the fact that certain traditional views of theism involve contradictory beliefs. The problem is that God should be willing and able to make sure evil doesn’t exist, but evil exists. Some theists argue that atheists can’t reject the existence of God based on the problem of evil because atheists would then have to assume objective morality exists, but objective morality requires God. I will argue that the theist’s argument is irrelevant in consideration of one argument against one type of traditional theism, but it is somewhat relevant against another. Even so, both arguments are unsound. (more…)

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May 2, 2013

Cognitive Bias & Informal Fallacies

Filed under: philosophy — JW Gray @ 8:14 am
Tags: ad hominem, cognitive bias, confirmation bias, critical thinking, halo effect, hasty generalization, informal fallacies, logic, one-sidedness, outcome bias, suppressed evidence

Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow, which is about the psychological research concerning cognitive bias. Kahneman could very well be the leading expert concerning cognitive bias at this point in time. His research concerns how people reason and why people often reason poorly, and it has some important implications for critical thinking. I will describe three cognitive biases that he discussed in his book, and explain how they relate to logical fallacies. (more…)

Ethical Realism