Tuesday, July 10, 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.

The person behind this philosophical body of thought is the philosopher Richard Boyd. Boyd is an avid believer in the existence of scientific realism. He is also a believer of moral realism because he believes that the two are actually very similar in the way that they are treated by people and how they are found to be 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.

Boyd puts morality in the same light as scientific entities which could be theorized to exist but have to be discovered. Of course, his argument is by no means a way to discount anti moral realism. It is more for the purpose of looking at morality with an open mind and discussing how it is possible to argue moral realism.

Now, according to the theory and experiment based approach of the scientific method, a scientific concept is first created with a hypothesis then a theory. The next step is to create experiments and try to gather as much evidence there is to try and prove the theory correct. If the theory has been proven to be correct, then it will evidently become a 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.

With that said, Boydian principles suggest that an open mind is needed to view morality in such a light. Relating it to scientific entities, moral entities may work the same way as well. So if scientific entities are just waiting to be discovered but are already there, then moral entities are also waiting to be discovered too, if they do exist.




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