I must be high
Fascinating, Mr. Wong. I need to consider the article more, but my initial reaction to the notion of using the scientific method to prove something is absolutely moral or immoral is that presently, that is impossible. We simply haven't enough data.
The thing is that I go with
species as a general basis for morality. Not the "king of the hill" or "last species standing" notion; those things are obviously unhealthy for the species. Look at it through a
Thelemic lens:
Do what thou wilt may be the whole of the law, but without rational consideration, it becomes unhealthy. Rape and murder sprees? Why not? Do what thou wilt, after all. Except that rape and murder sprees generally end with a person unable to do what they would: in prison, or perhaps dead. In a group dynamic, the same principle applies through natural consequence. We can certainly do what we will and would, but, and I'm not claiming we're there yet,
imagine pollution
as an extinction-level event. Humanity could literally pollute its environment to the point that the planet can no longer sustain the species. This seems a bad outcome for the species. Considering that we seem to have an influence over our evolution unheard of among other species, that is to say we can choose certain things that ants, slugs, or even the beloved bonobos and chimpanzees cannot. What would it require for ants or slugs to pollute the world to such a point that they couldn't survive? Would nature itself, by its checks and balances throughout time, even allow such an outcome? We humans could definitely choose extinction. We've even designed weapons that would add up to the same. Warfare, anyone?
What about polluting the whales to death, or the spotted owls? For instance, and I can't find the reference right now, so I'll call it apocryphal: The story goes that a certain year of Les Paul guitar (1959, I think) is the greatest electric guitar ever made, and this is because of a combination of factors not the least of which are tone and sustain. There is a specific reason, though, why there will never be another guitar bearing its unique characteristics. I'm told, and read a couple paragraphs several years ago, that the wood for the '59 came from a specific grove of ash trees in South America, and that, well, all of the trees were destroyed before anyone realized they didn't grow anywhere else. Now, that's hardly the worst sin in the world, and a certain degree of ignorance is forgivable inasmuch as anyone can claim the right to judge. Making such a mistake again, however, would seem immoral, a kind of greed that endangers humanity itself: if we destroy enough species, around the world faster than nature can fill in the gaps, it would be bad for
our species.
It is my philosophical belief, and therefore in some applicable sense my assertion that science would eventually show, that nature is not extraneous and that all things in nature have their place. Without certain things, the Universe is incomplete. Nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes.
The functional problem is that humanity itself is a finite creature, both individually and as a species. We can never know specifically the purpose of existence--or the will of God, or the determination of the Ultimate Math, or, you know, whatever--and therefore can only estimate and hypothesize. Can God make a stone that is too heavy for Him to lift? Can a computer be built to contain the entire Universe in theory without collapsing into paradoxical loop? There are certain things we just cannot do. We cannot look with awe and wonder through naked eyes upon our own faces. We haven't enough capacity, and, in theory, simply cannot have enough, to calculate every factor in the Universe at once. All that space and time we don't know and haven't seen. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that compared to the whole of existence, our finite aspect is insufficient to contain it all. Consider the ratio, though.
In scientifically determining morality, our estimates are so rough as to be generally useless, and therefore relegated to the realm of ethics, which depends, inasmuch as we can confirm, wholly on our own existence and condition.
We haven't enough data, and we cannot collect enough actual data. It will be interesting, however, when the math is tight and data plentiful enough to mathematically assert ethical propriety. At that point, I think the mathematicians will be taken outside and shot. Very few hearts would not break at such a realization that there is a determined order to the Universe, and it has nothing to do with God. (And I'm including a good number of identifying atheists, too.)
But morality itself? That would seem to be a holy grail or godhead for scientific inquiry that, like any religion, can be bent to will.
Okay, I'll stop now. Er, sorry.
:m:
