When a man says "this is good in itself," he seems to be making a statement, just as much as if he had said "this is square" or "this is sweet." I believe this to be a mistake. I think that what the man really means is: "I wish everybody to desire this," or rather "Would that everybody desired this." If what he ways is interpreted as a statement , it is merely an affirmation of his own personal wish; if, on the other hand, it is interpreted in a general way, it states nothing, but merely desires something. The wish, as an occurrence, is personal, but what it desires is universal. It is, I think, this curious interlocking of the particular and the universal which has caused so much confusion in ethics.
The matter may perhaps become clearer by contrasting an ethical sentence with one which makes a statement. If I say "all Chinese are Buddhists," I can be refuted by the production of a Chinese Christian or Mohammedan. If I say "I believe that all Chinese are Buddhists," I cannot be refuted by any evidence from China, but only by evidence that I do not believe what I say; for what I am asserting is only something about my own state of mind. If, now, a philosopher says "Beauty is good," I may interpret him as meaning either "Would that everybody loved the beautiful" (which corresponds to "all Chinese are Buddhists") or "I wish that everybody loved the beautiful" (which corresponds to "I believe that all Chinese are Buddhists"). The first of these makes no assertion, but expresses a wish; since it affirms nothing, it is logically impossible that there should be evidence for or against it, or for it to possess either truth or falsehood. The second sentence, instead of being merely optative, does make a statement, but it is one about the philosopher's state of mind, and it could only be refuted by evidence that he does not have the wish that he says he has. This second sentence does not belong to ethics, but to psychology or biography. The first sentence, which does belong to ethics, expresses a desire for something, but asserts nothing.
Ethics, if the above analysis is correct, contains no statements, whether true or false, but consists of desires of a certain general kind, namely such as are concerned with the desires of mankind in general - and of gods, angels, and devils, if they exist. Science can discuss the causes of desires, and the means for realizing them, but it cannot contain any genuinely ethical sentences, because it is concerned with what is true or false.
From Science and Ethics By Bertrand Russell, In Religion and Science (Oxford University Press, 1961)
see http://www.solstice.us/russell/science-ethics.html
Via a comment and link from Wes George at 'Ecology and Ethics (Part 1)'
see
GLOBAL WARMING - SEX TOYS -
CARBON EMISSIONS TRADING is like scratching your back with a dildo – SOMEHOW it just doesn’t feel right. Blind Freddy can see the sums just don’t add up!
Last month “the world’s best thinkers” at the Copenhagen Consensus reported on a PRIORITISED list of solutions to combat the biggest challenges facing the planet.
Their findings included, research showing that even the most extreme carbon emission reductions would have an undetectable effect on warming.
The truth is… the damage cost of carbon in about $2 per Tonne - not $20 to $50 as reported by media.
SAVE YOUR BILLIONS – direct it to where it will do the most good today rather than tilting at windmills for tomorrow. For example – address malnutrition and malaria cheaply today and save millions from death. The brain dead dilemma is – wasting trillions for naught effect with carbon trading or spend two bob today to iron-in doable good.
Carbon cap and trade is extremely costly and will have negligible effect on future climate.
The net effect of emissions trading will have the worst impacts on the poorest people.
WHAT IS REALLY NEEDED IS SMARTER TECHNOLOGY.
WAKE-UP AND BE COUNTED NOW.
MOPPING UP THE LAST CRUMBS OF AN ANTIQUATED PARADIGM –
CLIMATE NO CHANGE
Who will speak for science when the barbarian is already inside the gate?
Science today, that triumph of humanity over primitive superstition, that monument to the
evolutionary miracle of the human brain, is now being debased by barbarians.
The Church of green warming religions is very big in Christian Europe. Everyday anythings are now blamed on warming and reported uncritically by media. The dumbed-down, trumped-up science is the modern religious medicine used to mesmerise the masses. Institutionalised across the globe, politicians and activists of all persuasions, present their arguments in terms of what ‘the trumped-up science’ is telling them to do. The so called “world’s best thinkers” have grabbed and promoted this moral agenda emphasising sinful behaviour change over technological innovation - purchasing the absolution of carbon offsets for their sins.
Climate environmentalism is a political mission with a religious agenda, offering disciples the delicious prospect of being in the right and running things under the motherhood banner of saving the planet - very attractive to the young and fearful old. Activists demand the high moral ground, with an epitaph chanting “O Mother Earth… pardon me for trampling on you.” Any movement enforcing this degree of moral certitude is a sign of uncertain things to come.
The science of future climate is in its infancy and is multi-disciplinary, no one branch knows the whole story. The truth is - climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable and modellers don’t expect to do well. We are being asked to take irreversible actions today, to produce un-testable postulates for tomorrow, based on computer simulated predictions in excess of 100 years. Very iffy stuff! When the Western world became increasingly pessimistic about Man’s carbon footprint, science was hijacked to decode nature’s message. The more scientists research global climate, the more we learn how much they don’t know. The more alarmists talk, the more we realize they know even less.
We live on a majestically dynamic planet with intertwining complexes. Scenarios for future climate involve natural equations of infinite variables. Fluctuation in the Sun’s intensity is arguably the controlling factor in Earth’s climate. To assume human induced carbon emissions alone will significantly alter predictions is pretentious pseudo-science. Advocating carbon change will change the way you live, but will not change future climate. It’s a blatant tax on breathing. To accept the mantra of evil carbon is to invite the death of nationalism to dinner.
That’s the thing about history…when you live it, you’re rarely there. Real science is alive and lives in time. It is what it is. Not what it should have been or would have been. It is what it is. So enjoy the journey, because the destination may not be that great. Look at the best educated generation in history… all dressed up with nowhere to go. Superstition is the mantra of the day. Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Science, that once esteemed bastion of knowledge and fertile pillar to truth, has been neutered into the floppy-dick instrument of global politics and vested activists. Not only does the censorship of science render it impotent, it also looses its ability to objectively inform the public, producing an atmosphere of deafness towards insight and freedoms. What is at risk is not the climate but freedom. Today we live in the most censored of times.
Is it not high time we entered a dialogue to awaken an audience to the enveloping clouds of non-news that invade our everyday? “Global warming” is only a vehicle that exemplifies part of the way the system works. It is the insidious procession of the erosion of human rights through the co-verted use of selective censorship, that we should be most interested in. Climate science is in the van-guard of such a procession.
The scientific method is not perfect but it does “sophisticate the superstition” and provides a method upon which to gauge progress and proximity of truth. The funnelling of science to deliver a prescribed outcome happens everywhere everyday. In the past, science has arguably aided well for prescribed beneficial outcomes. But the stakes are sky high and connived in the case of global warming.
The western world is not going to cripple itself to iron-out injustice. The moral or philosophical question here is, does the end justify the means or the start of a slippery slope? The real question is, what will they pick on next using “science” to substantiate their stance?
Thanks Spanglo,
It is an excellent point. The vacuous E-word has annoyed me for a long time, as does the B-word ("biodiversity"). It was a pleasure to read some clear thinking. Should we send a copy to all journalists and politicians?
Davey,
McKitrick makes a good point about kids and the environment.
http://ross.mckitrick.googlepages.com/RM.AM.pdf
Louis,
We must be kind to the poor boy. He is still trying to fit the real world to his Fortran model. That is why I am encouraging him to read more widely, and inquire more into the complexity of things, the mixture of order and chaos which makes the world so interesting. Shhh! I think he is busy on another thread at present. His profane abuse is a sign of some deeper disorder, probably connected with his early childhood. I just watched the movie 'Monsieur Ibrahim' for the second time - perhaps Luke needs a Sufi mentor. Do you think Omar Sharif is still available?
Davey Gam
could you not also have added "Po faced" in your accurate description of his Lukishness?
I do think Po Faced would be very apt, which then gives way to some other appearance when the florid insults explode from his govt. supplied computer keyboard.
Luke,
You sound like a straight-laced, prune-faced Popperian, with roots further back in Carnap and the Vienna Circle, and even Bertrand Russell, with his symbolic logic.
Try reading Paul Feyerabend, or perhaps Finnegan's Wake. The twiddley bits entwined in the straight bits, that's what matters, to be sure now.
Actually, I have noticed you have the capacity for twiddleys - don't let it wither away through an overdose of fusty Fortran. Take a look at the Book of Kells. If you cannot tear yourself away from computer algorithms, think of Mandelbrot's Monster.
Then think about ecology, ethics, politics, and - wait for it - climate.
Immanuel Kant has already settled the issue of knowledge and ethics. None of this discussion discloses new issues. The Categorical Moral Imperitave has it nailed down completely.
Of course, Thomas Aquinas nailed a good bit of that down before him: God comprehends the universe, and what humans have most in common with divinity is intellect.
If passion were the chiefest virtue of humanity, we'd be best-off as worms and snails. Comprehension and a true love for truth (also called 'philosophy' by Greeks and others) is the only thing--for Kant and Aquinas and Aristotle--that nears us closer to the Humanitarian ideal, or closer to what the Divine Architect has established.
The alternative is... well, likely the "deep green" approach, where humans are disposable fauna.
So tedious ....