Harman presents the argument that we never have any evidence for or against any moral claim and that moral “facts” serve no purpose regarding the explanation of making observations unlike scientific facts do. In this essay, I will argue why I believe that Harman’s argument is ultimately successful, successful being that it is convincing of its conclusion. I will accomplish this by first paraphrasing Harman’s premises in an understandable manner. Next, I intend to provide a possible attack that could be used to show how Harman’s argument fails and alter my focus on to why that attack should not succeed as well as delivering a counter-argument to ensure my argument is not one-sided. Finally, I will provide a proper conclusion that summarizes
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Such as civilians in a moral observation, scientists can (and have, I’m sure) witness the exact same occurrence yet disagree on the theoretical interpretation of it. With the endless amount of possible solutions that could occur in the science world, it’s plausible for two scientists to draw different conclusions. For example, they might bump heads on exactly which theory best explains their observation… which is extremely similar to a disagreement with moral observations. Morally, two people can observe the same thing happen at the same time, yet still have opposing views as to what theory the observation supports. Using the animal abuse example aforementioned, two people can observe kids torturing a cat and come up with two different moral theories on the treatment of animals. This is a strong attack, yet it still fails to take down the main argument for one main reason. They just cannot be comparable. Harman even stated that although subtle, this point is of the utmost importance. Scientists test their theories and hypotheses against the actual world that we all roam, not their minds. With moral judgments, what happens is a direct shift to moral judgment. You literally just see that it is wrong, no reasoning necessary as it is a direct observation of the act being wrong. Therefore, it is blatantly illogical to compare perceiving what’s right and wrong to perceiving basic scientific facts such as colors or shapes. You cannot physically point to wrongness or rightness in the way that you can to the properties of an actual object, such as its size or
Such as civilians in a moral observation, scientists can (and have, I’m sure) witness the exact same occurrence yet disagree on the theoretical interpretation of it. With the endless amount of possible solutions that could occur in the science world, it’s plausible for two scientists to draw different conclusions. For example, they might bump heads on exactly which theory best explains their observation… which is extremely similar to a disagreement with moral observations. Morally, two people can observe the same thing happen at the same time, yet still have opposing views as to what theory the observation supports. Using the animal abuse example aforementioned, two people can observe kids torturing a cat and come up with two different moral theories on the treatment of animals. This is a strong attack, yet it still fails to take down the main argument for one main reason. They just cannot be comparable. Harman even stated that although subtle, this point is of the utmost importance. Scientists test their theories and hypotheses against the actual world that we all roam, not their minds. With moral judgments, what happens is a direct shift to moral judgment. You literally just see that it is wrong, no reasoning necessary as it is a direct observation of the act being wrong. Therefore, it is blatantly illogical to compare perceiving what’s right and wrong to perceiving basic scientific facts such as colors or shapes. You cannot physically point to wrongness or rightness in the way that you can to the properties of an actual object, such as its size or