D&D General Some thoughts on Moral Philosophies in D&D

[Mind of tempest]

I think the philosopher Osbourne summed it up thusly:

There are no indisputable truths
And there ain't no fountain of youth
Each night when the day is through,
I don't ask much
I just want you

explain I do not get it?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

explain I do not get it?

It's a joke - the lyrics are from an Ozzy Osbourne song (the lead singer from Black Sabbath).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think the philosopher Osbourne summed it up thusly:

There are no indisputable truths

Isn't that an indisputable truth, then?

Technically true, failure to disprove a falsifiable scientific theory doesn't (by extension) make the theory more likely to be true.

Falsifiability otherwise holds though. There is no such thing as 'scientific fact'; only theory (which by extension, must remain falsifiable in order to be scientific).

Falsifiability is pretty weak, actually. The Duhem-Quine thesis, for example, may not be a fatal flaw, but it's a pretty bad one. There's also the issue of falsifiability depending on the scientific community being able to achieve consensus on what counts as falsifying evidence. The two of them together isn't good.

Then there's the issue of falsifiability not actually looking like how people do science in several different ways. Scientists often cling to theories because they have desirable properties and only "defect" to a new theory when the old one has become totally untenable; scientists often conduct science without the goal of testing for any particular thing, and only derive testable claims after; scientists almost always use either frequentist or Bayesian understanding of probability, which is (explicitly) incompatible with Popper's perspective (because falsificationism explicitly rejects any concept of corroboration, but both frequentist and Bayesian probability interpretations are about our confidence that the available evidence supports a particular belief). As a practical description of how "good science" is done, falsificationism has generally failed, and despite its superficial popularity among scientists (many of whom have no idea this concept has a name, let alone that Popper was so influential to it), serious scientists usually don't make their choices about hypotheses, evidence, experimental design, or evidence analysis in ways that are compatible with falsification of any kind.

And note, I say all of this as someone whose primary area of study IS physics. I just also studied philosophy because I love both things. (I am of course nowhere near as much of an expert as other people in the thread.)

Finally, with all that said...I'm really not sure how we got onto this really seriously divergent tangent? Because this doesn't have the slightest thing to do with what we were talking about just a page ago, which is whether telling lies is harmful to anyone.

You seem to be committed to a pretty hard version of relativism: that ethical statements (and, based on other stuff you've said, potentially all statements...) can only be said to have any meaning relative to a specific context and, as a result, no action can ever be called "wrong" in any context-free sense. A thesis that is...not going to go over well with most non-relativists, who tend to hold there are at least a few things that are either actually true (moral realism) or in some other way universal even if not facts in the proper sense (e.g. sentimentalism).

 

[Steampunkette]

It is a bit annoying that when asked to stop talking about Theology in a D&D Cosmology in a thread about D&D Heroic Character Morality structures the conversation has instead moved to Epistemology in general with a heavy focus on scientific understanding of reality...

But at least it won't get the thread closed when it hits a real-world Religious Allegory...

 

[Remathilis]

Isn't that an indisputable truth, then? .

Not sure, but I think it falls into the realm of "This sentence is false." Paradox.

 

[Umbran]

I am?

Which philosophical tradition am I steeped in exactly?

It doesn't matter, exactly. Modern western culture is steeped in several, so you are probably a mish-mash. However, philosophies that believe in total honesty are rather out of vogue, and you actively questioned the harm due to lies, so it was a pretty safe guess.

In the philosophy of science something that is falsifiable technically is something you can only attempt to prove to be false. It's not the same as something that is true (because something that is true, is not falsifiable).

Not quite correct. A thing is falsifiable if it is "contradicted by a statement that is logically possible." Or, more practically, a thing is falsifiable if we can imagine a test that could possibly disprove it.

"All swans are white," is falsifiable, in that "Here is a black swan" is not a logically impossible statement. "All men are mortal," is not falsifiable, because the statement, "Here is an immortal man," cannot be made. I can say, "Here is a guy who has been alive throughout history," or "Here is a person who heals from all wounds we can throw at him." But to show him truly immortal requires waiting until the end of Time itself, after which we are not present to make the statement. Thus, we can never assert a person as immortal, so mortality is non-falsifiable.

Now, the point about the statement being logically possible becomes important, because we must understand what logic actually is before we fully understand falsifiability.

Logic is a system through which we can take true statements, and through some operations, we can deduce other true statements. "Given A, B, and C are true-> some operations -> D is true."
We can use this to determine the truth value of other statements - If we have the assertion E, we then say, "Given A, B, and C -> some operations -> D. If D = E, then E is also true. If D!=E, then E is false."

However, note that we still need true statements A, B, and C to begin with. Without them, we can use the operations of logic to compare the truth value of two statements - I can determine if D equals E, or if D does not equal E. I can know if they have the same truth value, or different truth values, but not what those values are.

A, B, and C are axioms. They are assumed to be true by the logical operations. Their truth cannot be determined by the logical operations. At best, we can determine that the set of axioms is not consistent - that they cannot all be true at the same time. But, we cannot tell which one might be false.

So, the Peano Axioms define the arithmetic properties of the natural numbers. It is by the Peano axioms that we know that 1 + 1 = 2 (in values - whether you express this in decimal or binary or whatever is irrelevant to the logic). Given the axioms, that 1 + 1 = 2 is not falsifiable, as no logical statement to contradict this can exist.

However, there are other axioms.

We can create a consistent (indeed, a trivial and pretty much useless) set of axioms, in which 1 + 1 = 0. GIVEN THE AXIOMS, this is not falsifiable, as no logical statement to contradict it can exist.

So, we have two statements - 1+1=2, and 1+1=0 - and both are true, and both are non-falsifiable. But you don't take one to say the other is false, because they are based in different sets of axioms. They are different number systems, and crossing them is a misapplication of logic. Logic only applies internally to the set of axioms.

This is why I said that moral philosophy systems were a lot like formal logic - they also have axioms. These are assumed to be true. You cannot use your axioms to prove that another's are false - the logic of moral philosophy only works internally. What you consider to be "good" or "evil" or "harm" depends on your axioms, your base definitions of morality. And yours may be different someone else's, and they lead you to different results. But, yours doesn't disprove theirs logically. The logical statements we'd use for falsifiability depend on the axioms, they don't apply to the axioms.

Up above, I mentioned that we can have a definition of a number system in which 1+1=0. I also said this was trivial, and pretty much useless. But, "useless" is a subjective term. We, on Earth, here, in this universe, have little to which that number system constructively applies (honestly, I've only seen it used in discussions very like this one). Most arguments of moral philosophy come down to such opinions. The issue isn't actually about absolute truth, but about applicability.

Or, you know, you can just watch The Good Place, and get pretty much the same result as this post...

 

[Umbran]

Well. I know if I don’t lie about how beautiful my wife looks in the morning that there will be a lot of harm directed my way and to alot of property i worked my butt of for.

Yes, well, a proper Stoic or Cynic would say that your property is meaningless, so harm to it isn't relevant, and indeed, your attachment to things is a significant source of unhappiness, and you should really Marie Kondo the lot.

Also, your wife's vanity in this regard is not a virtue, and is thus also a source of unhappiness, and she should be led to understand your love for her transcends her mere physical appearance.

See how well that flies

 

[Mind of tempest]

It doesn't matter, exactly. Modern western culture is steeped in several, so you are probably a mish-mash. However, philosophies that believe in total honesty are rather out of vogue, and you actively questioned the harm due to lies, so it was a pretty safe guess.



Not quite correct. A thing is falsifiable if it is "contradicted by a statement that is logically possible." Or, more practically, a thing is falsifiable if we can imagine a test that could possibly disprove it.

"All swans are white," is falsifiable, in that "Here is a black swan" is not a logically impossible statement. "All men are mortal," is not falsifiable, because the statement, "Here is an immortal man," cannot be made. I can say, "Here is a guy who has been alive throughout history," or "Here is a person who heals from all wounds we can throw at him." But to show him truly immortal requires waiting until the end of Time itself, after which we are not present to make the statement. Thus, we can never assert a person as immortal, so mortality is non-falsifiable.

Now, the point about the statement being logically possible becomes important, because we must understand what logic actually is before we fully understand falsifiability.

Logic is a system through which we can take true statements, and through some operations, we can deduce other true statements. "Given A, B, and C are true-> some operations -> D is true."
We can use this to determine the truth value of other statements - If we have the assertion E, we then say, "Given A, B, and C -> some operations -> D. If D = E, then E is also true. If D!=E, then E is false."

However, note that we still need true statements A, B, and C to begin with. Without them, we can use the operations of logic to compare the truth value of two statements - I can determine if D equals E, or if D does not equal E. I can know if they have the same truth value, or different truth values, but not what those values are.

A, B, and C are axioms. They are assumed to be true by the logical operations. Their truth cannot be determined by the logical operations. At best, we can determine that the set of axioms is not consistent - that they cannot all be true at the same time. But, we cannot tell which one might be false.

So, the Peano Axioms define the arithmetic properties of the natural numbers. It is by the Peano axioms that we know that 1 + 1 = 2 (in values - whether you express this in decimal or binary or whatever is irrelevant to the logic). Given the axioms, that 1 + 1 = 2 is not falsifiable, as no logical statement to contradict this can exist.

However, there are other axioms.

We can create a consistent (indeed, a trivial and pretty much useless) set of axioms, in which 1 + 1 = 0. GIVEN THE AXIOMS, this is not falsifiable, as no logical statement to contradict it can exist.

So, we have two statements - 1+1=2, and 1+1=0 - and both are true, and both are non-falsifiable. But you don't take one to say the other is false, because they are based in different sets of axioms. They are different number systems, and crossing them is a misapplication of logic. Logic only applies internally to the set of axioms.

This is why I said that moral philosophy systems were a lot like formal logic - they also have axioms. These are assumed to be true. You cannot use your axioms to prove that another's are false - the logic of moral philosophy only works internally. What you consider to be "good" or "evil" or "harm" depends on your axioms, your base definitions of morality. And yours may be different someone else's, and they lead you to different results. But, yours doesn't disprove theirs logically. The logical statements we'd use for falsifiability depend on the axioms, they don't apply to the axioms.

Up above, I mentioned that we can have a definition of a number system in which 1+1=0. I also said this was trivial, and pretty much useless. But, "useless" is a subjective term. We, on Earth, here, in this universe, have little to which that number system constructively applies (honestly, I've only seen it used in discussions very like this one). Most arguments of moral philosophy come down to such opinions. The issue isn't actually about absolute truth, but about applicability.

Or, you know, you can just watch The Good Place, and get pretty much the same result as this post...

can you define applicability?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

At some point, is anyone going to bring this back to D&D?

...the thread isn't really hopping until someone tries to apply Gödel to the 5e rules.

 

[TwoSix]

At some point, is anyone going to bring this back to D&D?

...the thread isn't really hopping until someone tries to apply Gödel to the 5e rules.

Something something paladins?