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I can't believe this thread hasn't taken off, Wonder!

I wouldn't call that position "widely held" at all, btw. *Some* thinkers have opined thusly, but by no means a majority.

There may be some questions which demonstrably have no answer (and even they aren't meaningless), but questions about morality are not among them.

How can it be a question at all if it has no possibility of being answered?

Moral propositions are figments of ovine minds.....

Widely held in the scientific community.As integral to the empiracle method of inquiry.
Would you elaborate your post,please?

How indeed?

In my thinking is, it isn't one. The whole idea of a question is to illicit information by querying something. To illicit information is to invite answers. So, what doesn't invite answers isn't a question..........(even if this is an over simplified explaination).

For a long time--at least a century--it has been widely held that Moral Propositions--the assertion that this is good or that is evil--are nothing more than statements of preference.
This in keeping with the premise that a question with No POSSIBILITY of being answered is not a question at all,but reducable to nonsense.

Anyone?[/quoteI
If you don't think it is evil it is not. Everyone's truth is true to them.

I think you just summarized Sartre Kierkegaard and a whole drove of '60s Hippies.

I *think* you're saying that many (or most?) scientists who've weighed in on the question are positivists, and as such believe that non-empirical truths are impossible; therefore, moral propositions cannot be demonstrated to be true, since they involve more than empirical assertions?

I would reply that the vast majority of scientists have no particular view on this, since they aren't, by and large, concerned with philosophic questions. The primary advocates of positivism have been philosophers, not scientists.

But be that as it may...a core pertinent question is whether or not empirical truths are the only valid truths. Clearly not, since that assertion is itself non-empirical.

I know of no logical proof that questions of morality are unresolvable. I don't believe any serious thinker would maintain that. In the absence of such a proof, the possibility of moral truths cannot be denied.

I don't believe in either good or evil, just sets of circumstances with endless explainations.

Hard to believe that Sartre, who campaigned powerfully against what he perceived as injustice (e.g., he participated in a tribunal intended to condemn US war crimes) would sign off on the idea that evil exists solely in the eye of the beholder.

Kierkegaard was a complex thinker with a Christian background whose ideas about good and evil couldn't even remotely be summarized as the simplistic "If you don't think it is evil it is not. Everyone's truth is true to them."

You are misstaken about Logical Positivism and the Philosopy of Science.Modern Experimental Psychology draws heavily from Wittgenstein,Carnap etc It was a divergence from the Existetilists and others who wanted to salvage Ethics as a field of inquiry after it was dismissed by the Empiracists.
Various thinkers have tried to "proove"moral Imperatives.It always hinges on what you are willing to assume up front.Keep in mind that Empiracism proceeds by Induction.Moral debate Presumes...



TRUTH is an obsolete notion in experimental science

When the man loses the moral, also lost the respect of others....

Any belief system "presumes," including Empiricism. It is impossible to isolate any system - scientific or otherwise - from basic propositions/assumptions.

For example, the idea that "truth is an obsolete notion" assumes its own truth. That's why any claims of that kind are easily dismissible.

Have no idea what you're talking about here (and suspect you don't, either), since Wittgenstein's views on science and philosophy largely informs the views of modern positivists.

Now I know why we have laws... If someone prefers to do what is evil to me but good to them... I'm in big trouble...

Empiracism is based on measurement and the avoidence of presumption.An ideal perhaps.
Progress in a research endeavor is stated mathematically and requires "Predictive"validity.The only "validity"that is useful in my opinion.
"Truth"is an obsolete notion in the sense that it is no longer used in scientific literature,having given way to correlation,confidence intervals and the like.Wittgenstein's analysis of ordinary language had a lot to do with with there-formatting of the language of science.
Not a "claim" but a matter of history.

Finally,disagreeing with you in no way demonstrates that one doesn't know what he is talking about.I had thought better of you than that.

Let's try an illustration just to see if interest in the thread continues.Most folks would agree that Murder is morally wrong.
But that is validation by consensus and not a proof.Unless we agree to accept consensus as proof which few would do.

Prove to me that Murder is wrong.
Or prove to me that chocolate is good.

Are both propositions merely statements of preference?
Anyone?Ambrose?.....Where are G.Bodhi And Cusp?They could get into this.

Nothing is all good or all bad, life isn't full of absolute black and white. Murdering someone innocent in cold blood is wrong, but let's say a man murders the man who raped his daughter. Is he wrong? By law, yes...but by morality, and whose?

Chocolate has proven health benefits for raising seratonin and dopamine levels, thereby reducing stress levels. However, it also contains refined sugars which raise insulin and triglyceride levels, thereby being detrimental to one's health simultaneously.

The claim that Empiricism (please note spelling) is based on measurement requires the assumption that measurement is evidence. How do you go about measuring that assumption?

Similarly, your belief in mathematical validity is based on an ontological assumption - that is, you're assuming it's truth. Please prove that your assumption is true.

Probabilistic evaluations of reality are likewise based on the assumption that probabilistic evaluations are true.

What I'm saying is that statement decrying truth "as an obsolete notion" are logically undercutting their own claims - that is, these kinds of statements are making a claim about truth while at the same time denying that it is possible to make such claims.

This is why I consider them to be worthless. Wittgenstein ran into that same problem; as far as I'm concerned, the core of his philosophy is invalid since its conclusions are contradicted by its central premise. In later life he (apparently) tried to wriggle around that contradiction - demonstrating that he was aware of the problem - but that's another and highly technical story that would be best reserved for a philosophy list.

Wonder, I have my suspicions about your knowledge because you've made statements - for example, about Sartre and Kierkegaard - that are either false or extremely simplistic. Your assessment of modern science abandoning the notion of truth is also simplistic if not outright false. They simply are proffering a different brand of truth. I'd be interested to see if you can buttress that claim with some quotes of scientist-thinkers who say "there is no truth." I believe you'll come up empty-handed.