From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: The Enduring Rand (was: Re: Theory?)
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 15:57:26 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Nov18.144049.23238@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>pn> Peter Nelson
>
>pn> A prerequisite for "doing what's best in the long run" is being able to
>    predict what long-term effects your actions will have. I challenge you
>    to prove that you can make such predictions accurately.
>
>  Try looking at it this way -- all fields, science included, suffer from
>  the lack of omniscience that all humans have. However, just because you
>  cannot tell me *exactly* what the weather is going to be in New York City
>  on July 4, 1993, does not mean science is useless. Likewise, just because
>  I cannot predict *exactly* what the effects of an ethical system based on
>  individual rights and rational humans are going to be does not mean it's
>  useless. 
>
>  Since science has an "out" with chaos theory, and ultimately, the HUP, why
>  can't ethical systems have a similar "out"? 

  But science also has "ins" -- it has a clear track record of being able 
  to apply theory to something *prior* to demonstrating it in reality.
  For instance controlled fission.   Or the existence of positrons.
  Or the existence of helium on earth.   Or the ability to apply 
  laws of motion to reliably place a spacecraft in orbit around a 
  distant planet.  And so forth.

  I don't see that ethical systems have any such track record --
  that is I don't see any evidence that an ethical system can 
  predict in advance the outcome of some choice -- at least not
  in a way which distinguishes it from competing ethical systems.
  If I plan and commit the perfect murder in order to achieve
  some gain for myself, I see no evidence that Randianism can 
  predict the result with any better precision than pragmatism
  or some theologically-based ethical system.



>  Besides, why all the emphasis on *prediction*? Why not use historical anal-
>  ysis instead, or in addition to, prediction? It's obvious that the ethical
>  system (such as it was) of the Soviet Union was a horrendous failure, so
>  that's one data point we can use.

  Historical analysis fails for the same reason that Aristotelian
  thinking failed to produce modern science.   There is a limit
  on how much you can glean from a situation by just observing and
  thinking about it.   The whole concept of the *experiment* is
  that you can construct it so that you can isolate the variables
  you're trying to study.    There is no meaningful way that we 
  can isolate which of the zillions of cultural, political, or
  historical (or other) factors resulted in the USSR's particular
  form of demise.   An ethics based on this becomes nothing more
  than idle speculation.   There's no way to reach closure on it.
  The ability to reach closure is where science has it all over 
  these other epistemologies.


>  If you're looking for some grand formula that you can use to predict the
>  behavior of whole societies, you won't ever find it. Similarly, if you're
>  looking for some grand formula to predict the weather at any given place
>  at any given time, you won't ever find it. 

  Except that in the case of weather I presume that the precision with
  with our models match reality continues to improve, i.e., our ability
  to predict the weather 24 hours from now is probably better now than
  it was in 1967, and that was probably better than in 1942.   I don't
  see any evidence of this in ethical philosophy  -- i.e., people
  seem to be debating the same issues they were 2500 years ago.
                                                           
  All that science consists of is a conceptual theoretical model    
  that is continuously being compared against reality in careful
  experiments and observations in order to refine the model.  
  "Scientific progress" consists of gaining a better and better 
  match between the model and reality.   But this is only possible 
  because the scientific model is expressed in sufficiently clear
  and rigorous terms so when we do that comparison we know how close
  we came.    If my model says I should produce 1 gram of precipitate
  and I get 800 milligrams this tells me more than if my model says
  I should generate "some" precipitate.

  Ethical models are too fuzzy to KNOW when they're getting close.


---peter


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