Good and Evil: Universals?

[smoothmoniker]

Originally posted by juju
Morals work best when everyone agrees on them. But that doesn't change the fact that they're completely made-up. Can you scientifically prove that morals exist?

Juju, that's a categorical fallacy. Scientific proofs are proper to the realm of physical things, and their interactions (mass, energy, chemical properties).

Universals are not the proper subjects of the scientific method. To assume that something is only true if it is scientifically provable is to exclude vast portions of the edifice of human knowledge.

A correllary example is the idea of Redness. It is a universal, existing without being defined in its extant participants. A red apple is not Redness, it merely adheres to, and exhibits the property of the universal. There is no way to scientifically prove the existence of the universal; the most you can say is that when certain factors combine (pigments, light frequencies, etc.), the property of redness obtains in that object. You've said nothing about the universal itself. Yet the universal exists, apart from any object that exhibits its properties.

As a further extension, if a certain person does not see the color red, does not understand it, and does not believe it exists, we do not assume that the unversal is therefore not valid. Instead, we assume that the person is color blind. The individual experience of the universal does not condition the existance of the universal.

to sum up,
1) Universals are not the proper subject of the scientific method, only the objects that obtain to the properties of the universal.
2) Universals are not conditioned by the objects that exhibit their properties.
3) A universal is not conditioned by the perception (or lack therof) of it.
4) Norah Jones, still not the next Ella.

-sm