well i guess it's just that you're not reading. the claim was that moral disputes can't be solved by science ALONE. no one said science couldn't help clear up the muck -- as in provide better evidence or facts or what have you. but the problem boils down to this: theories are always underdetermined by the facts. not even to mention that for every "conclusive" study there can be 10 more that conclude something to the contrary.
finally, i certainly don't want to live in a world where moral decision making is handed over to wankers sitting around telling everyone that the answer to this or that moral problem is--voila!--solved because some people with alphabet soup after their names said so. having actual debates and discussions about the issue, as dennis redmond recently argued, requires that people actually participate in and substantively participate in politics, that they think through them, take positions, argue and defend them, change them if persuaded otherwise, and have a better sense of why the issues are important. otherwise, simply making decisions solely on the basis of scientific findings leads to what the frankfurt buoyz feared: authoritarianism
what you end up with is the democratic equivalent of internet hoaxes: people forwarding to everyone they know some peition to be signed or virus alert because it "looks" authoritative and was probably passed on by someone with alphabet soup after their name! all because people don't understand how the internet/email works technologically.
At 11:45 AM 2/3/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>Fair enough, but this is not at all inconsistent with the point I am
making. With
>respect to a large number of moral disputes there is agreement on ultimate
values or
>moral principles. However this does not mean that there are not moral
disputes among
>people who share these values and principles, disputes that may be solved
by science or
>reference to empirical facts. Indeed if the basis for morality is certain
moral
>sentiments and sympathy as philosophers such as Hume suggest it would seem
that only
>facts plus ultimate appeal to these sentiments could solve moral disputes.
> Moral disputes are disputes about what we ought to do. They are
practical in that
>they are about how we ought to act, not about theory per se or what is.
They are often
>solved
>not by some ultimate discusion of the good or the right but about what is
the case.
>Claiming that disputes are not moral disputes if there is underlying moral
agreement
>results in it being stipulatively true that probably the vast majority of
what we now
>call moral disputes will not be such. I find this departure from ordinary
discourse
>unhelpful and it certainly will not stop ordinary folk ( and everyone
else I expect)
>from discussion these issues in terms of what
>ought to be done.
> Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
>gcf at panix.com wrote:
>
>> Ken Hanly:
>> > On what grounds does Habermas claim that science cannot be an arbiter
of moral
>> > disputes? Is this just a logical consequence of its being in a
separate "sphere"?
>> > I doubt that science can settle all moral disputes but it certainly
could settle
>> > some....
>>
>> At some point you reach intuitive, non-instrumental
>> evaluations. There, science can't tell you what to value
>> unless you arbitrarily decide to evaluate it into a
>> moral arbiter.
>>
>> Gordon
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