Re: Re: Objectivity

On Sun, May 13, 2007, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: [hackers-il] Re: Objectivity":
> > Well, you forget that that alleged physical world is percieved by us
> > using nothing but our senses which are both fallible and go through
> > subjective filters, so any observation you might make about the
> > physical world might not be the same as one I make about it. And then
> > again it might.
> >
> > I only see the world through my own eyes.
> 
> Well, as I see it, "The Truth is Out There". Objective reality exists. People 
> can be misled to believe something about it that is not true. And if they are 
> hallucinating or under hypnosis, etc. may believe something completely 
> different. However, the reality is still shared, and one can verify what 
> indeed happens or happened.

In this discussion, you guys digressed from the philosophical area of Ethics
which was previously discussed, into Metaphysics, namely Ontology (what
entities really exist) and Epistemology (how can we know anything about these
entities). I think that its problematic, even dangerous, to confuse these
subjects. The fact that you believe in "objective reality" doesn't immediately
imply a certain choice of Ethics.

Let me give you a simple example: your choice of Ethics apparently hinges on
the axiom "it is wrong to deny a human's biological needs", expanded into a
full ethical system using some sort of Utilitarian [1] method. But how does
this choice stem from your "objective reality" understanding of metaphysics? 
I believe it doesn't. Who says we should use your axiom and not, for example,
one that gives meaning also to the biological needs of other creatures, not
just humans? Who said we should use a Utilitarian ethic, and not something
else (Preference Utilitarianism, Deontological Ethics, or whatever)? And even
if we're to use your axiom (paraphrased by me), perhaps we should take it
literally to imply that a person's biological need is to have his kin
procreate, so Gingis Khan's biological need was to kill his enemies and let
his own people procreate? (to this day, you can see a lot of Mongolian-looking
people in Iran, and other places you wouldn't expect to see them).

[1] If you don't know what this, or other capitalized word in my mail, means,
feel free to look it up in your favorite source of information.

> No, there is exactly one reality, and we all share it. We can probably never 
> be certain of what really happened or what are actually the facts, but we can 
> be sure that they are shared among us all. Either I have a copy of a book 
> called "How to Cook Everything" on my shelf next to me now, or I don't. You 
> can come to my house and verify it. Similarly, either Mao is responsible for 
> killing tens of millions of people or he was not.

Even if there is one "reality" (in the sense of Ontology), there may be more
than one way to understand it (in the sense of Epistomology), and certainly
more than one way to put a "value judgements" on it (in the sense of Ethics).

For example, in the book of "reality", you can find that Mao, Stalin, Hitler
and Churchill, all caused millions of people to be killed. So are these 4
people all the same? We can't dispute the "reality" that in each of these
people's leadership, millions of people got killed. But we can dispute the
way we look at it - e.g., the obvious objection to what I just said is to
say "yes, but please look at *why* these people did it", and we can fish
up more nuggets of "reality", such as "Hitler killed 6 million innocent Jews"
and "Churchill went to war to stop Hitler". Exactly which of these nuggets
of reality you pick when you describe each of these 4 individuals is what
Arik called the "subjective reality". For one, Stalin might be someone who
"Caused 20 million russians to be killed in WWII, and afterward had 3 million
killed and caused the rest of the russian become misrable". For another
person Stalin might be someone who "Courageously stopped Hitler, and tried
to bring about better equality in the USSR". This is not different reality -
it's different interpretation of the same reality.

And these different intrpretations can bring to different moral judgement -
if you take the first interpretation, Stalin is "guilty", an unethical
mass-murderer. If you use the second, Stalin is ethical, and his actions
the lesser of two evils.

Of course, even if you look at the same reality, and the same interpretation
of reality, even then you can use different systems of ethics to give the
same actions different moral judgements. I think I gave plenty enough examples
of this.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Sunday, May 13 2007, 25 Iyyar 5767
nyh-TS7m/[email protected]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Topologist, n.: A person who cannot tell
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |a doughnut from a coffee mug.