David White – I do not believe the empiricist can make any such claims as were made in your post as none of those claims are empirically demonstrable. The essential point of this entire string (apart from the religious conversation) is that “pure empiricism” is an impossible position: Mises demonstrated it and every thinker, by the process of their thinking affirms it. As a result, metaphysical claims are being made by every empiricist which cannot be empirically validated. The beginning of Human Action is masterful in handling this philosophical truth.

“In the empiricist view, ethics is conduct favored consistently enough throughout a society to be expressed as a code of principles. It reaches its precise form in each culture according to historical circumstance. The codes, whether adjudged good or evil by outsiders, play an important role in determining which cultures flourish and which decline. … The empiricist argument holds that if we explore the biological roots of moral behavior, and explain their material origins and biases, we should be able to fashion a wise and enduring ethical consensus. The current expansion of scientific inquiry into the deeper processes of human thought makes this venture feasible.”

“[E]thical precepts…are more likely to be products of the brain and the culture. From the consilient perspective of the natural sciences, they are no more than principles of the social contract hardened into rules and dictates — behavioral codes that members of a society fervently wish others to follow and are themselves willing to accept for the common good. Precepts are the extreme on a scale of agreements that range from casual assent, to public sentiment, to law, to that part of the cannon considered sacred and unalterable. … What have been thought of as moral sentiments are now taken to mean moral instincts (as defined by the modern behavioral sciences), subject to judgment according to their consequences.”

“Now suppose that human propensities to cooperate or defect are heritable: some people are innately more cooperative, others less so. In this respect moral aptitude would simply be like almost all other mental traits studied to date. … To the heritability of moral aptitude add the abundant evidence of history that cooperative individuals generally survive longer and leave more offspring. Following that reasoning, in the course of evolutionary history genes predisposing people toward cooperative behavior would have come to predominate in the human population as a whole. Such a process repeated through thousands of generations inevitably gave rise to moral sentiments.”

Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say there would be no right or wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat or is it not? If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God that made this world, or could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up — a line which I often thought was a very plausible one — that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.

Do you remember what you wrote to me when I wrote that I treated the people around me well because I wanted to be treated well? Your contemp for someone living by the “Golden Rule” was astounding.

I could not care less about your book. The more you talk about your book being right when all other books are wrong, the further you get from any basis for me to listen to you at all.

I asked you for a test for what you say is right in front of me. You give me platitudes and bald assertions, like the gods planted the dinosaur bones 6,000 years ago and then changed the rate of radioactive decay to “test our faith”. It is you who are telling me that I must believe the incredible. There is nothing “incredible” about nature, it’s all very mundane and natural. By definition. Pi always was 3.141592654…, even when people thought the gods ordained that it be 3.

The source of all this argument is very likely the vast scales of time involved, scales that elude human context. The idea of natural selection enabling big changes is simply foreign to minds locked into mere human terms of “years”.

Especially minds deadend by dogma, chained by hypocrisy, and so wrapped up in their own illusions of superiority to the rest of nature that they cannot contemplate their own irrelevance. “There has to be an afterlife, I’m too wonderful for death to be actual death!” Again, the sin of pride.

It would give me great pleasure if I actually believe you when you said, “one last thing”. The sin of pride won’t let you walk away, unless this very challenge goads you into doing so. Interesting experiment on my part, ne?

And the evidence for God? The incredible design in nature, the actions of good and evil, the Bible (study it scientifically), the presuppositional nature of reality (quantum mechanics?), etc. It’s all around you Curt. It’s your framework that’s controlling the “evidence” not the other way around.

And you can’t function with the idea that “society defines evil”. You know there are better and worse societies: some societies live in utter darkness, to believe any other way is to accept any “socially approved” actions as equally valid – which is a complete win for the propagation of evil.

Many scientists stand amazed at the result: a LOSS of respect for truth and science. But that is the natural result. If there’s no real good and evil (thus no God), there’s no reason to hold fast difficult truth over pleasurable falsity, and the race to the bottom, started by “redefining” evil contrary to God’s laws, is on.

That fact was a major failing (and a strength in some ways) of Mises “wertfrei” … his analysis is not value free, it chooses apriori logic over other methods of truth … note it contains an assumption that contradicts the “purely” empirical scientific worldview: that our minds are structured to understand and observe using logic. But Mises position was consistent. A position a lot of scientists hold is not: science relies on apriori presuppositional thinking. Mises was honest in admitting it. Many scientists are not honest in admitting they are making metaphysical claims about the nature of knowledge.

I stated in response to your email that playing well with others, what you call “good”, is a human survival mechanism and is therefore easily explainable, like the division of labor, because the people who do so prosper and reproduce, thus passing on those tendencies to their descendants as what you call the sense of good and evil. You called me a fool. I enjoyed your “You cannot prove you were born” quip too, especially since you have yet to offer any testable evidence that your gods exist at all. All you do is spend your time spewing unsupported assertions at the top of your lungs with your fingers in your ears so you cannot hear anyone else’s words.

You’re right, the realm of truth is bigger than what has yet been determined by scientific inquiry. That doesn’t mean you’re right. It means YOU DON’T KNOW, and neither do I. Your belief is not knowledge. Stating your beliefs louder doesn’t make them true.

And your “Depends what you mean”… You made a specific statement that morality and observation cannot separately exist. When challenged, you backpeddle with “depends”.

Regardless of someones world view, the sun is either shining or it’s not. Morality has nothing what so ever to do with it. Morality is a subjective judgement about what someone does with that knowledge. Go ahead and declare that morality is absolute because your book says so, I’ll go find a book that says it isn’t and cancel you out.

Then observation becomes moral because man decides on a worldview in which to place the knowledge he receives. The framework itself is a moral question, because the more facts are integrated, the more implications for man’s life and his relationships to other men arise.

The opposite attitude is to downscale the cognitive framework which destroys the ability for comprehensive understanding … a moral choice in itself.

What justifies this claim? If I observe the sun is shining, does morality play a part in that?

Juan – the assertion that moral philosophy and physical reality are separate may be a false assumption — after all knowledge is intrinsically tied with morality, as no conscious observation can take place without morality playing a part. Man ascribes meaning to events, and “meaning” immediately has an interplay with morality. That fact is something that I think Mises philosophical base was very weak in, and Rothbard was stronger (Rothbard was very honest in the implications of his philosophy).

My rant was along these lines :

“Panphysicalism teaches that the procedures of physics are the only
scientific method of all branches of science. It denies that any essential
differences exist between the natural sciences and the sciences of human
action. This denial lies behind the panphysicalists’ slogan “unified science”.
Sense experience, which conveys to man his information about physical
events, provides him also with all information about the behavior of his
fellow men. Study of the way his fellows react to various stimuli does not
differ essentially from study of the way other objects react. ”
(Theory & History p.243)

Natural philosophy(physics) and the sciences(*) of human action(moral
philosophy) are two separate things. Physics is Human Action. Human Action IS NOT Physics.

(*)’Science’ is a confusing word. In the end, you’ll reach Philosophy.

“What comes first” is not a moral question. It is a factual one. In Austrian economic terms, the starting point is that humans act.

Questioning a factual statement because it may or may not be moral is what started this whole thread. The so-called scientists in the original article ignored data that contradicted their preconceptions. They believed the data to be immoral? Sure, I’ll throw that word in without thinking just as you have.

If you go back and read what I actually wrote, instead of constantly mistaking what I wrote for what you want to think I wrote, you will see that I never said the gods don’t exist. I said that, so far, this universe consists of demonstrable, repeatable, testable laws of physical interaction. The universe is comprehensible. I asked you for such a determinant, factual test for the existence of the gods, you did not provide one.

If you wish to assert that the gods are beyond systematic enquiry, that’s fine too. Just don’t expect me to be converted by that line of argument.

I remember a wonderful medieval wood-cut graphic, of a traveler poking his head out through the side of the “world” and seeing crystal spheres, stars, the sun and moon, and behind him a flat, enclosed earth.

I echo that image by saying that outside of the envelope of demonstrable, repeatable, testable phenomena could indeed be anything at all including gods. Believe anything you want, please allow me the same courticy.

To assert that socialism was based upon cold, heartless scientific inquiry is also false. Socialism is based upon the false assumptions that there is no dis-utility of labor; that people do not make decisions in their own best interests; that the wealthy get that way by robbing the poor in a zero-sum game of “economics”.

Were there any actual scientific inquiry within socialism about socialism, the results of the demonstrable, repeatable and testable effects of various policies would (if honestly followed) lead to no socialism at all.

Please look up the word “science”, I think you are deeply confused about what it means.

No, but he does say, Austrians haven’t convinced the mainstream, so give it up and become mainstream.

Indeed, who ever said zero was a number either? Nothing can be quantified as pure nullity any more than anything can be said to be pure infinity.

Both appear to me to be irrational quasi-numbers. They also, however, appear to be each other’s ultimate limit, and as such are probably two “halves” of something else entirely–maybe not a number, but then again maybe all numbers…

There are two branches of philosophy :

MORAL Philosophy on one hand and NATURAL philosophy on the other.

Natural philosophy is basically physics. Chemistry for instance, is a specialized
kind of physics.

Natural philosophy is based on the principle of mass-energy conservation, or “you can’t
create something out of nothing”. Mathematics is the perfect tool for physics because it
reflects (or should reflect) this conservation principle.

So, questions like the ‘origin’ of the universe and ridiculous myths like the big ben(bang)
do not belong to natural philosophy.

“Mechanical Science” is indeed natural philosophy and that’s the way it should be. The ‘physical’
universe is a mechanical, deterministic universe. But God-Heisenberg and QM said…Rubbish.

Any speculation related to Man, Free Will, their origins, etc. is Moral Philosophy. The science
of human action is moral philosophy. Apriorism is Moral Philosophy. And the list goes on.

With incredible arrogance and stupidity, scientism tries to ‘bridge’ moral and natural philosphy
and so introduce non-determinism in physics and UN-free-will in human action. And the outcome is…
Well, check the history of the 20th century.

Also, there’s a reasonable mix of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ and that’s Deism. Deism and Agnosticism
seem to me the positions that best suit classical liberalism…I think that Jefferson and Paine were Deists ?

Cheers

Outside of the “envelope” of demonstrable fact, you can believe anything you want. Crystal spheres, titans, turtles, vengeful desert gods, hairy thunderers or cosmic muffins. It is your choice.

Please leave me mine.

Relating this back to economics, as Roger tries to do, “we” keep pushing back the envelope of direct knowledge. To do so honestly, we also need to look at phenomena that don’t fit what we expect to happen. Ignoring data merely because it doesn’t fit what we expect is dishonesty in the extreme.

However, human beings tend to cling to what gives them warm fuzzy feelings, thus the Federal Reserve was not abolished in 1930 when it was clear that the Fed didn’t accomplish it’s primary stated job, which was preventing recessions and depressions. Of course, if government were held to that standard there wouldn’t be any government, but I get ahead of myself.

That’s what makes it science. Science is not philosophy nor economics nor theology. This is becoming an argument over semantics.

So if it’s not a natural cause, then it’s either artificial or supernatural. If it’s supernatural, then by definition it’s beyond science. If it’s artificial — directed by finite power — then it’ll become science once we find the little green men who accidentally created the universe, or sneezed it into existence, or whatever it may be.

Most supernatural causes have been explained naturalistically over time. The only threat to God is if man uses God to explain the natural world; the only threat to Faith is if man tries to find evidence supporting his faith (after all, it’s no longer a sign of faith if you have proof; proof replaces faith with fact).

We can’t explain to some satisfaction the origin of living matter or the universe itself beyond some arcane hypotheses. You can posit supernatural influences as the first causes here, but you run the risk of having to shrink God further if we ever do find natural cause for such quests — just as the medieval God shrank continually before the we found natural explanations for things we still call “Acts of God”.

God doesn’t fit within the praxeological paradigm. God doesn’t fit within the scientific paradigm. If this forum supported vector drawings I’d make a Venn diagram for you to try to understand this. Science is not hindered by the “natural causes only” prinicple; science is DEFINED by that principle.

Perhaps the problem here is that many people inappropriately attempt to incorporate the natural world into their theological pradigm. God is Faith; evidence destroys faith.