wtorek, 10 lipca 2018

Moral Realism And The Boydian Philosophy

By Gregory Turner


Morality has always been a pretty hot topic for debate, especially when the concept of good and bad being innate or created by society is being argued about. For one group, morality is something artificial and just made by man while the other group believes morality is already existent but just discovered by humans. One philosophy that supports the latter is known as the Boydian philosophy.

This philosophical field is based on the arguments of scientific realism of philosopher Richard Boyd. According to Boyd, moral realism is very similar to scientific realism in a sense that science has already existed for many years and has just been given a label and explored. Similarly, humans already have an inborn sense of what is good and bad and should just be explored.

Boyd follows the logic that if scientific realism is probably true, then moral realism must also probably be true too. So with that statement, Boyd actually concludes that moral realism is probably true. He bases this on the analogy that they are very similar in context.

Something as small as an atom, for instance, is there in theory but could never be seen nor heard. However, scientists still used the concept of an atom because atoms filled in the missing piece of what would be the building blocks of all things. It was only years later that scientists were able to observe the atom through an atom microscope that was created.

While Boyd does not really aim to trump anti moral realists, his claim is that there is definitely evidence of the existence of moral realism. He questions what moral realism evidence would look or feel like if morality could somehow be discovered and observed through the naked eye. His claim is to be open minded moral realists that should see how moral realism could prove to be a positive argument.

Going back to scientific realism, science is mostly just about creating theories and proving them through experimentation, evidence gathering, and other methods of coming up with proof to back up the theory. Now, the thing about scientific entities is that it fills in certain gaps that most people would find hard to explain, such as the atom or germs for that matter. They do work which means they do exist but they must only be proven by scientific evidence before they become scientific truth.

In that sense, there is a possibility that a moral entity exists, just like how scientific entities also do exist. The reason to believe that is because morality is already working for the society and has already been an embedded part of people for many decades. However, it is really hard to prove or measure its existence because it is really hard to see or observe them the same way germs can be observed. This does not mean it is not there though.

Basically, this is what Boyd is trying to point out when he argues about morality. As there is no evidence discounting it, it is really open for debate as to whether it exists or not. However, Boyd toys with the idea that if scientific realism is real, then moral realism must be real too.




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