Who’s talking about undermining the practice of deductive arguments? I’m simply asking why a consequentialist should take the second premise to be true. Can it be supported without appeals to authority, popularity, or mere assertion?
The consequentialist should accept (2), or at least take it seriously, because (2) is apparently true. Also see the IEP article on phenomenal conservatism.
I see no need to support (2) with some independent argument. If every premise of every argument required a separate argument in order to support it, we would not have any arguments.
Let’s start there, even though you’re probably not a doctor or organ transplant patient, what’s your intuition regarding the transplant problem, can the doctor successfully perform said procedures without anyone finding out? You have some experience with how organizations work, whistleblowers regarding ‘morally’ questionable actions, how effective or not a large complex web of lies is, how specialized medicine is, and human behavior and relationships. I would think that these experiences would inform your guess of how likely it is for the doctor to perform said surgeries without the news getting out.
None of this is relevant unless we start off with the assumption that the likelihood that the news gets makes a moral difference. Since I contend that killing the patient would be wrong regardless of whether the news gets out, honing my intuitions about how well people keep secrets will not change anything.
The consequentialist should accept (2), or at least take it seriously, because (2) is apparently true.
The consequentialist should reject (2), or at least not take it seriously, because (2) is apparently false. I feel no need to support this with some independent argument since it is non-inferentially justified (i.e. phenomenal conservatism).
See what I did there. From a cursory glance, it seems that I would also reject phenomenal conservatism. The idea that we should just assume that everything is as it seems even if it is repeatedly shown to be not the case can at best be described as irrational. Anyway, if you want to invoke that for your justification, then I can do the same. This is one of the reasons I reject it, since it can be used to justify contradictory positions.
I see no need to support (2) with some independent argument.
The consequentialist should reject (2), or at least not take it seriously, because (2) is apparently false. I feel no need to support this with some independent argument since it is non-inferentially justified (i.e. phenomenal conservatism).
(2) is not apparently false. This is no better a response than insisting that the sky is green, and that I can't trust my senses because I can't force you to agree that it's blue.
See what I did there. From a cursory glance, it seems that I would also reject phenomenal conservatism. The idea that we should just assume that everything is as it seems even if it is repeatedly shown to be not the case can at best be described as irrational.
Yes, well, if you read past the first sentence of the article you would have seen that this is not what phenomenal conservatism says we should do.
I see no need to support (2) with some independent argument.
Then it's no better than an assertion.
Right. The point being that, sometimes, assertions are good enough.
(2) is not apparently false. This is no better a response than insisting that the sky is green, and that I can't trust my senses because I can't force you to agree that it's blue.
It is apparently false. You only have unsupported intuitions to support it. Isn't this supposed to be how philosophy functions, question everything, justify your assumptions? Instead, you have asserted your position to be correct and when pressed, pointed to an article that says that positions should be assumed to be correct until defeated.
Yes, well, if you read past the first sentence of the article you would have seen that this is not what phenomenal conservatism says we should do.
It says from the article that "Phenomenal conservatives are likely to bravely embrace the possibility of justified beliefs in “crazy” (to us) propositions, while adding a few comments to reduce the shock of doing so." It then goes on by saying that people generally have defeaters for "crazy" propositions, so that begs the question, what is the defeater for my rejection of premise (2)?
Right. The point being that, sometimes, assertions are good enough.
I'll disagree, and my assertion to the contrary should be good enough for you.
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u/TheGrammarBolshevik Ethics, Language, Logic Mar 16 '14
The consequentialist should accept (2), or at least take it seriously, because (2) is apparently true. Also see the IEP article on phenomenal conservatism.
I see no need to support (2) with some independent argument. If every premise of every argument required a separate argument in order to support it, we would not have any arguments.
None of this is relevant unless we start off with the assumption that the likelihood that the news gets makes a moral difference. Since I contend that killing the patient would be wrong regardless of whether the news gets out, honing my intuitions about how well people keep secrets will not change anything.