Saturday, July 7, 2018

The Boydian Philosophy Approach To Morality

By Gregory Turner


Morality has always been a pretty hot topic for debate, especially when the concept of good and bad being innate or created by society is being argued about. For one group, morality is something artificial and just made by man while the other group believes morality is already existent but just discovered by humans. One philosophy that supports the latter is known as the Boydian philosophy.

Richard Boyd explains this concept through his belief that scientific realism itself is true. The principle of morality in the Boydian point of view is that moral realism and scientific realism are actually very similar. Because of their similarity, they can be compared with each other with one being able to prove that the other is true.

The basic premise of Boyd is very simple. He states that scientific realism is most likely true. If scientific realism is most likely true, then moral realism is also most likely true since they are in a very similar context.

Take for example, the presence of atoms as the building blocks of everything. Scientists believed in the presence of atoms even though they couldn't be seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled. Later on, scientists then were able to create an atom microscope and then were able to observe atoms and how they moved using this brand new piece of technology.

To put that in context, it can be said that morality is pretty much like the atom in its early days. Everyone knows it is there and everyone knew that it is integral to the growth of society, but nobody could ever prove that it is there because it cannot be seen. This is why Boyd says that it may be possible that there could be moral entities that can help shape its existence.

Going back to scientific realism, science is mostly just about creating theories and proving them through experimentation, evidence gathering, and other methods of coming up with proof to back up the theory. Now, the thing about scientific entities is that it fills in certain gaps that most people would find hard to explain, such as the atom or germs for that matter. They do work which means they do exist but they must only be proven by scientific evidence before they become scientific truth.

In that sense, there is a possibility that a moral entity exists, just like how scientific entities also do exist. The reason to believe that is because morality is already working for the society and has already been an embedded part of people for many decades. However, it is really hard to prove or measure its existence because it is really hard to see or observe them the same way germs can be observed. This does not mean it is not there though.

Basically, this is what Boyd is trying to point out when he argues about morality. As there is no evidence discounting it, it is really open for debate as to whether it exists or not. However, Boyd toys with the idea that if scientific realism is real, then moral realism must be real too.




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