mercredi 11 juillet 2018

By Gregory Turner


Most people see morals as the innate ability to know what is wrong and right while others see morality as rules that were artificially set up by the big leaders in society to incorporate peace and order. One of the more interesting philosophies regarding morality is the Boydian philosophy. This one establishes that morality does exist and tries to explain it from a scientific point of view.

This philosophical field is based on the arguments of scientific realism of philosopher Richard Boyd. According to Boyd, moral realism is very similar to scientific realism in a sense that science has already existed for many years and has just been given a label and explored. Similarly, humans already have an inborn sense of what is good and bad and should just be explored.

With that said, Boyd states that scientific realism is probably true. He also argues that scientific realism and moral realism work very similarly which must mean that moral realism is also probably true. That in itself tells readers that morality must be approached openly to know of its existence.

To further illustrate, take a look at the atom, which is the basic building block of everything in the world. The atom, when theorized of its existence, could not be seen by the naked eye nor could it be felt using the other 4 senses as well even though scientists believed they exist. Years down the road, scientists created a special microscope for seeing atoms and were able to see them.

To put that in context, it can be said that morality is pretty much like the atom in its early days. Everyone knows it is there and everyone knew that it is integral to the growth of society, but nobody could ever prove that it is there because it cannot be seen. This is why Boyd says that it may be possible that there could be moral entities that can help shape its existence.

His principle states that scientific realism delves in tackling the so called unknown and labeling them. For many years, scientific theories and principles have worked for people which is why they are followed and used to prove some truths. It is only later on that full scientific evidence can prove the existence of scientific entities and could solidify some theories as truth.

This is why Boyd always questions what evidence of morality would look like because there is not any visible evidence. It is also a question of how would people experiment to get the evidence of moral realism in society. After all, it was established earlier that morality is there and just needs to be proven through the same scientific process. The process of proving it though, is another story.

Basically, this is what Boyd is trying to point out when he argues about morality. As there is no evidence discounting it, it is really open for debate as to whether it exists or not. However, Boyd toys with the idea that if scientific realism is real, then moral realism must be real too.




About the Author:



0 commentaires:

Enregistrer un commentaire

Copyright © writing prompts | Powered by Blogger
Design by N.Design Studio | Blogger Theme by NewBloggerThemes.com