Interesting, I didn't you take the stance "I do not think science will ever be able to say anything about fundamental values". My stance has recently been:
-Scientific inquiry is the only revealer of truth -Philosphy (and similar lines) are only "human approximations" to these truths -Some problems/questions are currently untenable to science, and some of these may remain forever untenable due to complexity issues. -Where unable, science should be replaced with philosophical/etc arguments.
An example of a philosophical approximation would be "Everyone has a right to their life". This works most of the time, but perhaps there are some extreme cases where it does not. Building from that as an axiom, you can go further and try to address more problems
Your example of the kitten vs human lives is perhaps one of those we are unable to process currently, so we should look to philosophy instead. The above axiom would be relevant here, but then you could claim other axioms such as "all life is sacred". In the end, it seems like it would essentially be a popularity contest between axioms.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 02:32 pm (UTC)-Scientific inquiry is the only revealer of truth
-Philosphy (and similar lines) are only "human approximations" to these truths
-Some problems/questions are currently untenable to science, and some of these may remain forever untenable due to complexity issues.
-Where unable, science should be replaced with philosophical/etc arguments.
An example of a philosophical approximation would be "Everyone has a right to their life". This works most of the time, but perhaps there are some extreme cases where it does not. Building from that as an axiom, you can go further and try to address more problems
Your example of the kitten vs human lives is perhaps one of those we are unable to process currently, so we should look to philosophy instead. The above axiom would be relevant here, but then you could claim other axioms such as "all life is sacred". In the end, it seems like it would essentially be a popularity contest between axioms.