(September 6, 2012 at 9:57 am)discordianpope Wrote: That's just ignoring the problem. Completely. How would science settle the question of competing oughts? Science doesn't deal with oughts it deals with what is, with facts not values. It is the very move to teleology which gets around the problem precisely by reintroducing an aristotelian approach to science, which included oughts. The only person I know of who has taken this route is Alasdair MacIntyre, a Roman Catholic Thomistic philosopher. It's not the kind of thing most naturalists would want to sign up to. Without the inbuilt oughts of aristotelianism, even if science can tell us everything about what "is" in the world there will always be a conceptual gap concerning questions of oughts.
Are you sure about that? I see sciences dealing with "oughts" everyday. Economics deals with measures that ought to be taken t maximize productivity. Political sciences deal with what a government's policy ought to be. Medical sciences deal with what ought to be the best course of treatment for patients. Applied sciences deal with what ought to be done to create most stable structures (civil engineering) or most efficient machines (mechanical).
I don't see any inbuilt oughts of aristoteleanism in these cases and there are competing oughts here as well - such as between patient's life and quality of life or a structure's stability and cost efficiency. However, the conceptual gap between is and ought have been bridged very well in these cases.
(September 6, 2012 at 9:57 am)discordianpope Wrote: As for the other stuff, well, if you aren't a dualist, the quibble about psychology versus biology (neuroscience) seems a strange one to me.
Can every aspect of human psychology be explained by neuroscience? If not, then here is your answer.
