Comment on unleash your humanities
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days agoApplied ethics is not ‘what feels like it would be the most correct thing to do?’, it’s writing professional codes of conduct, establishing criteria for who should be allowed to get an organ transplant, who should be considered for parole, what scientific experiments should be allowed to happen, if I listed everything affected by the study of ethics I’d be here all day.
I don’t want a random schmuck who’s never thought about any of this for more than 5 minutes writing any of that, and I sure as shit don’t want people voting on it. That’s how you end up with abortion bans.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
I’m pretty sure a lot of professional philosophers would agree on abortion bans, while a schmuck like myself agree on “mothers choice”… So…
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
You’re pretty sure based on what? Even self-proclaimed pro-life philosophers admit their position is rare. Ethics itself easily argues in favor of abortion but not against it, which is one reason it’s available in virtually every secular state.
You are starting from your conclusion (philosophy isn’t worth funding) and working backwards to make that fit any new evidence presented to you.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Not really. I’m just presenting arguments I have always had about philosophy not being a science.
Even if rare, not a single philosopher could make an experiment or present me a scientific theory that would prove that abortion is right or wrong. So the opinion of a single philosopher is as good as any other, and as good as mine for this matter.
Most modern philosophers are left wing, so yes, most philosophers would agree that left-wing morals are right, and that would present an opportunity for left-wing people to say that global morality should be decided by philosophers. I’m left wing myself but I’m against tricks and lies, even if they “benefit the cause”. And even if considering philosophers the moral light of our society would benefit me (as I mainly agree on most modern philosophers views) I personally consider it to be a false statement.
The not funding thing is on the air, yet. I’m just convinced is not a science, is more like literature and other forms of personal expression. And for me the argument would be founding all equally or none. And of course I don’t agree on giving any philosopher a position of authority on morals “just” for being a philosopher in the same way I would give a scientist an authority position in science just for being a scientist (once again, because the whole thing of science is that it’s subjected to experiments and falsifiability.
I don’t even want to diss philosophers. I enjoy reading philosophy a lot. But just as I enjoy reading any other kind of literature. I have respect for Liu Cixin (for instance) but I wouldn’t give him an special position in telling people what to do just because he writes good books that make you think.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
And now you’ve moved your goalposts; first it was ‘convince me philosophy deserves government funding,’ now it’s ’philosophy isn’t a hard science and can’t show me on a graph why abortion is wrong’.
If you just don’t like the humanities receiving government funds, just say so instead of doing this song and dance about how it’s really about science and equality.