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From: Immortalist on 16 Jul 2010 19:21
On Jul 16, 4:11 am, Zerkon <Z...(a)erkonx.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:17:11 -0700, Immortalista wrote:
> > I see many people try and disguise a value judgment as some sort of fact
> > ...
>
> > Programs of the brain.
>
> LOL!!

Well, it is an old old book, but I read it two times the first feww
days after it was released in 1978. At the time some anthropology
books were becoming like the religion of nature and humanity, and this
was one of the first brain books that followed suite. Then E.O. Wilson
came out with the end all of anthro religions; On Human Nature

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Nature-Edward-O-Wilson/dp/067463442X

Then Harris ended the very idea with this one which no one could beat
from then on as a religion of nature and human.

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Kind-Where-Came-Going/dp/0060919906/

Most important books but now they are disappearing from public
libraries, time goes on and humans suffer cultural amnesia..
From: Immortalist on 16 Jul 2010 19:24
On Jul 16, 4:54 am, "Daniel T." <danie...(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
> Immortalista <extro...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I see many people try and disguise a value judgment as some sort of
> > fact or just a value free description. How can one tell when someone
> > is explaining some facts or just trying you to get interested in what
> > he or she likes? You know, how some people insist that it is factual
> > that certain kinds of music is better than others.
>
> >  Value judgements include
> >  statements about what is
> >  good and what people
> >  ought to do.
>
> >  They contrast with statements
> >  of fact, whose acceptance
> >  does not (necessarily)
> >  entail action.
>
> > 'It is raining' is merely factual. 'You ought not to hit that child'
> > implies a value judgement. One way of putting this is that value
> > statements are prescriptive, not purely descriptive (Hare 1963).
>
> > Another terminology is that;
>
> >  value statements are practical,
> >  while purely factual statements
> >  are theoretical (Quinton 1973).
>
> > Programs of the brain.
> > J. Z. Young 1978
> >http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198575459/
>
> What about "that smells nice" and "that smells bad"?
>
> It turns out that these are not value judgments at all, they are
> statements of fact. (http://www.pnas.org/content/97/20/10712.full)
>
> Who's to say how many more of these so-called value judgements will fall
> to science?

Pretty good. I would normally paste something like this to make a
similar point;

....we are endowed with a moral faculty that delivers judgments of
right and wrong based on unconsciously operative and inaccessible
principles of action. The theory posits a universal moral grammar,
built into the brains of all humans. The grammar is a set of
principles that operate on the basis of the causes and consequences of
action. Thus, in the same way that we are endowed with a language
faculty that consists of a universal toolkit for building possible
languages, we are also endowed with a moral faculty that consists of a
universal toolkit for building possible moral systems.

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/11/marc-hauser-mor.html

Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal
Sense of Right and Wrong - by Marc Hauser
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minds-Nature-Designed-Universal/dp/0060780703
From: Immortalist on 16 Jul 2010 19:30
On Jul 16, 4:10 pm, "Daniel T." <danie...(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
> jigo <reti...(a)home.com> wrote:
> > Daniel T. wrote:
> > > Immortalista <extro...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > I see many people try and disguise a value judgment as some sort
> > > > of fact or just a value free description. How can one tell when
> > > > someone is explaining some facts or just trying you to get
> > > > interested in what he or she likes? You know, how some people
> > > > insist that it is factual that certain kinds of music is better
> > > > than others.
>
> > > > Value judgements include statements about what is good and what
> > > > people ought to do.
>
> > > > They contrast with statements of fact, whose acceptance does not
> > > > (necessarily) entail action.
>
> > > > 'It is raining' is merely factual. 'You ought not to hit that
> > > > child' implies a value judgement. One way of putting this is that
> > > > value statements are prescriptive, not purely descriptive (Hare
> > > > 1963).
>
> > > > Another terminology is that;
>
> > > > value statements are practical, while purely factual statements
> > > > are theoretical (Quinton 1973).
>
> > > > Programs of the brain. J. Z. Young 1978
> > > >http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198575459/
>
> > > What about "that smells nice" and "that smells bad"?
>
> > > It turns out that these are not value judgments at all, they are
> > > statements of fact. (http://www.pnas.org/content/97/20/10712.full)
>
> > > Who's to say how many more of these so-called value judgements will
> > > fall to science?
>
> > Smelling nice or bad are questions of fact depending on the
> > characteristics of the smeller. That is subjective but still has a
> > factual answer; it's different in kind from questions of "should."
>
> "Should" assumes a goal, given a particular goal, it is generally quite
> objective as to what actions will further that goal and what actions
> will not.

What if it is an inborn "drive" or "instinct" of course adjusted in
strength by the environment, but the should would be identical to -it
feels better to consider smells this way- -it is "easier" to consider
smells this way-.
From: dorayme on 16 Jul 2010 20:30
In article
<daniel_t-2BD514.07544316072010(a)70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.net>,
"Daniel T." <daniel_t(a)earthlink.net> wrote:

> What about "that smells nice" and "that smells bad"?
>
> It turns out that these are not value judgments at all, they are
> statements of fact. (http://www.pnas.org/content/97/20/10712.full)
>

It hardly needs the heavy guns of science to support *these*
cases as people stating facts. If you are going to go this way,
we know people differ in their impressions and that this is
likely to be due to all sorts of memory associations and hard
wired chemistry.

But note that it is a bit more complicated: the truth of such
claims seem to depend not just on how it seems to the sayer but
often there is an implied "and it will seem nice to others".

> Who's to say how many more of these so-called value judgements will fall
> to science?

Science might persuade philosophers to abandon their fixed
analyses but these would be merely psychological persausions, not
logical argument.

--
dorayme
From: dorayme on 17 Jul 2010 00:14
In article <4c41295d$0$2874$607ed4bc(a)cv.net>,
jigo <retired(a)home.com> wrote:

> choosing a goal involves a value judgment--why *should* that
> particular goal be chosen. Now there are a lot of reasonable goals (like
> trying to preserve one's life), but they still can't be established in
> the same way that we verify facts.

Consider also that some goals are simply not *chosen*, they are
just there, they just arise out of instinct or by causes other
than reasons.

--
dorayme
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