[lit-ideas] Re: Reductive vs. Reductionist
- From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 20:38:10 +0900
Small change of subject, possibly too tangential. Walter, Donal, I would
like to hear what you each, from your own perspectives, make of this
description of the thinking of Michael
Oakeshott.<http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/oakeshott-vs-america-112/>
John
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 7:21 PM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> *To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
> *Sent:* Monday, 4 March 2013, 20:50
> *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Reductive vs. Reductionist
>
> >Why would we need a "metaphysical explanation" of the irreducibility of
> moral
> rightness to (empirical) facts? >
>
> As we have survived without one, "need" may not be the right word:
> nevertheless without some such explanation, the irreducibility is left
> unexplained. At the end of my post I made the point that it may be in the
> very character of 'irreducibility' that it cannot be explained - but that
> itself does not amount to an explanation either.
>
>
> >I ask this, in part, because I don't know what
> such an explanation would look like.>
>
> Neither do I. But not knowing what an answer would look like does not make
> a question illegitimate or vacuous. Perhaps the 'problem(s) of
> consciousness' might be raised here by way of comparison. There is a
> problem in giving an explanation for 'consciousness' (if we take it as
> irreducible to physical brain states, as Popper does): this problem does
> not mean consciousness is reducible to biology, chemistry and physics,
> though doubtless this problem is one of the motivations for taking the view
> that a mental state is to be identified in some way with a physical brain
> state. In Popper's view this problem is not going to be solved any time
> soon (if ever) - though of course a kind of pseudo-solution of explaining
> consciousness away in terms of something unconscious like a physical brain
> state, or of trying to produce an 'identity' theory of mind and brain, is
> already with us.
>
> In Popper's view the universe is full of miraculous events that defy full
> scientific explanation - some of these are even more miraculous than
> others. The emergence of human consciousness is one of these most
> miraculous events - though, as above, we can deny this by attempting to
> explain human consciousness away in terms of its identity with brain states
> or as an epiphenomenon (though such explaining away also takes away the
> evolutionary function of consciousness and so clashes with a Darwinian
> understanding of the evolution of the brain and mind).
>
> Do we "need" a better explanation for the emergence of consciousness than
> saying that at a certain stage of brain evolution it emerged?
> Intellectually, yes: and the absence of such an explanation - even if we
> don't know what it would look like - should not be viewed with a dismissive
> shrug because we don't know what such an explanation would look like.
>
> In Popper's schema there is irreducible emergence from physics to
> chemistry to biology - but even beyond the natural sciences there is
> irreducible emergence of a World 2 from this World 1 of physics and
> chemistry and biology. We may give a partial explanation of this emergence
> both by explaining the evolutionary advantages of a World 2 and by
> explaining how certain World 1 developments [in the evolution of brains]
> may give rise to consciousness. But there is still much unexplained.
>
> In Popper's view full human consciousness depends also on World 3: and we
> can give a partial explanation of the emergence of World 3 both by
> explaining the evolutionary advantages conferred by World 3 and by
> explaining how certain World 2 developments [in the evolution of mental
> states, both conscious and unconscious] may give rise to a World 3. But
> there is still much unexplained.
>
> From Popper's POV what we may be prone to is an illusion that we have
> explained much more than we have. Or that what there is to be explained is
> co-terminous with what we have explained or may easily enough explain in
> due course. In Popper's view we should not assume that what there is to be
> explained is co-terminous with our ability to explain - after all, the
> world and its evolution was there to be explained long before humans
> evolved to see the existence of the world and its evolution as
> problematical in terms of its explanation, and the conjectural character of
> our knowledge should warn us against the complacent view that there is no
> more to the universe than we are capable of understanding.
>
> In this schema, morality emerges only after the emergence of World 2. Its
> status is World 2 dependent - without mental states, especially conscious
> ones,
> there could be no genuine 'morality'.
>
> But if morality is World 2 dependent its status is at least as
> metaphysically problematic as that of World 2. Indeed, its status is
> perhaps more problematic than that of mental states generally - for these
> we might account for in terms of evolutionary advantage and in terms of
> some merely 'factual matrix': but what is the right moral action, given
> conscious reflection, may not be what confers any evolutionary advantage.
>
> It seems to me the above goes some way beyond Hume's 'naturalistic
> fallacy'. Pointing out a 'NF' does not amount to an explanation of the
> status of morals: indeed, pointing out a 'NF' does not explain why it is
> fallacy in the more fundamental sense which is raised when we ask
> questions like what is the explanation of the "irreducibility of moral
> rightness to (empirical) facts"? [I would leave out the qualifier
> 'empirical', for the facts on which we make moral decisions may not be
> 'empirical' in any strict sense.] The 'NF' provides an argument for the
> irreducibility but not an explanation of it. Even as an argument it is
> inconclusive, and its weight depends on a broader metaphysics within which
> that irreducibility may be more fully explained and its importance made
> clearer.
>
> Donal
> London
>
>
>
>
>
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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