Prof. Thomas Hurka, one of the most astute and original philosophers currently working in the field, complains that there doesn’t seem to be any alternative way of proceeding. Construed as an expression of the sentiment shared by the ethicists who sympathize with this way of doing philosophy, the complaint is valuable insofar as it accurately reflects the existing moral consensus (as Sinnott-Armstrong observed, “the most common way of arguing for intuitionism is to rule out its alternatives”). Understood as a justification of the methodology of moral intuitionism, by contrast, the complaint strikes me as unconvincing. It would certainly be great if humans came to the world equipped with reliable faculties of moral cognition. Yet, lacking further argumentation suggesting that this is actually the case, such a hope cannot be more than that. As Jeremy Bentham (who dismissed intuitionism as a form of “ipsedixitism”) once observed, “want is not supply; hunger is not bread.”

All communication beyond that of pure mathematics becomes historicized son, and that’s a fact. Sense perception is not an idea, it’s a limitation: deal with it.

“T. Scrivener,
You’re not describing philosophy, but formal logic. Analytic philosophy says they’re the same thing, discounting other philosophies. That claim is bullshit.”

Seth would be well advised to read about the fields I mention ( the philosophy of mathematics the philosophy of biology, ontology, the philosophy of computer science, the philosophy of psychology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of quantum physics, the philosophy of chemistry etc). Most of these don’t really concern formal logic any more than any other field of analytic philosophy. Here’s a hint Seth, actually read what you want to criticise, why not start here.

http://www.hyle.org/- Philosophy of chemistry journal.
http://www.duke.edu/philosophy/bio/papers.html- Philosophy of biology papers.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ppox/research/index.html- Philosophy of physics research.
http://pcs.essex.ac.uk/- Philosophy of computer science
http://www.hfac.uh.edu/cogsci/spp/spphp.html- Philosophy of psychology
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/MainMath.htm- Philosophy of mathematics

Emerson, for someone so amazingly confident, doesn’t seem to understand even the basic vocabulary. The debate between teleological and deontological models of ethics is primarily a debate in normative ethics, not one in meta-ethics. Meta-ethics is the study of the epistemology, metaphysics and language of ethics, it almost always doesn’t directly concern what we should and should not do, like the debate between teleological and deontological ethics.

The suggestion that the kind of ethical thought represented by these thought experiments doesn’t have any implications for praxis is simply wrong. Based on thought experiments much like these I believe that:

Exactly, I don’t know if any analogy is perfect but J.Thomson’s analogy is flawed and to correct it say instead, by going to a concert you have a small but real chance that you will cause both you and the world famous violinist to be kidnapped and the violinist attached to you for 9months as in the original analogy. You consented to going to the concert even though you had full knowledge this may happen, with the result of which you have put an innocent life in this situation and at your mercy.

BTW the violinist was healthy before you decided to go to the concert.

You put the violinist there so unless you wish to undermine personal responsibility you are obliged to stay attached.

So Adam we should be able to dump an infant in the dumpster anyway as Peter Singer has pointed out we inconsistently apply the personhood criteria as they don’t have functional personhood. So if we to in fact treat post natal human non-persons i.e. infants, the severely mentally handicapped and some impaired elderly we could kill experiment and use them as body banks.

A friend of mine has Slavoj Zizek living in his basement.
What should he do?

OR – to have 12 ducks following you everywhere all the time, quacking.

When I see people with analytical training talking about ethics, I do not see an intelligen,t contexted discussion of any of the many real ethical problems that there are. What I always see is this same kind of hypothetical quibbling, and normally it’s inconclusive, and often it has the effect discrediting people who actually do primary ethics (talk about live issues). When there’s a conclusion, usually it’s a meta-ethical one, but usually it’s not even that; often it’s a meta-meta-ethical conclusion: “Whether or not deontic ethics requires X in this case, it does not do so for reason y”.

Why can’t ethicists and metaethicists take their examples from plausible real-world cases? Why can’t they address actual substantive ethical questions? Where does the idea come from that it is necessary to abstract ethical thinking from actuality in order to make it valid? Where does the idea come from that actual ethical cases are a contaminant in ethical philosophy, the way they are in physics?

And guys, quit snarking and whining about “analytic-philophy-bashing”. You guys are the winners. You control the departments. Analytic philosophy is your cash cow, but it does have its enemies.

I don’t even object to fanciful hypothetical examples, or abstract meta-ethics, per se. It’s just too prevalent and dominant, and often it’s silly, and sometimes it’s effectively nihilistic.

Would someone who took a solid course in introductory ethics, and accepted its premises and conclusions, end up an ethically better person? As far as I can tell, he probably wouldn’t. But shouldn’t he?