Case in point from the interesting interview with Rebecca Goldstein noted a couple of weeks ago:
Philosophical advances in epistemology and in ethics profoundly shape our points of view. We don’t see them precisely because we see with them. It’s like the fish who responds to the question “How’s the water today?” with “Water? What’s water?” When people hold the view, for example, that science has discovered that simultaneity is not absolute, as counter-intuitive as that seems, or that chattel slavery is an abomination, which once also had seemed counter-intuitive, they don’t realize the laborious philosophical reasoning that had laid the groundwork for their views. It takes philosophical work to claim that science can correct our fundamental views of the way the world is. It takes philosophical work to claim that we can discover, without consulting any holy books (that in fact sanction slavery), truths about the way humans can and can’t be treated. Philosophy is committed to the view that we can use human reason to come to ethical conclusions, overcoming biases, tradition, and religious authority.
Where is the evidence, though, that careful philosophical argument explains why people accept the conclusions of physics or the wrongness of chattel slavery? I can't think of any.
Recent Comments