Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Unit 4 (Deontology-part one) Assignment
Discussion Blog: 1st
3 students, give an example of an empirical and a metaphysical
statement, and explain what makes one empirical and the other
metaphysical; 2nd 3 students, what does Kant mean by a “good will”?; and last 4 or so students, what does Kant mean by “duty”?
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The difference between a metaphysical and empirical statement is that a metaphysical statement is theoretical and not learned through trial where an empirical statement is learned through experience and not by hand. An example of a metaphysical statement would be most statements in chemistry. Atoms are a metaphysical statement. Nothing, besides maybe the most advanced SEM’s, can see atoms. This is then metaphysics because if we accept the idea of atoms a lot of equations and theories on how the universe works can start to apply. An empirical statement would be a coach telling their players how to play, assuming the coach has played the sport. The coach has practical knowledge. He or she has been in the same position of the athletes and is now using knowledge that was gained from either trial and error or gained from another coach and giving it to their players. It is hard to say which kind of approach is better. Both have their merits in different situations. There are somethings that just have to be learned with hands on experience. A soldier can spend his whole life in a classroom reading about tactics from “The art of war” but never be a good soldier because there is so much about war that has to be learned not taught. An even more extreme example is a kid that is placed in front of a T.V. to learn how to be human through watching what other people are doing will never be a fully functioning human without being around and interacting with other humans. On the other hand a miner or mining company that just goes out and starts digging holes and does this for 30 years may get a lot of good empirical knowledge but overall his abilities to find gold or other precious metals will be less than that of a mining engineer who goes in with metaphysical experience and has a plan and math to work with.
ReplyDeleteAn empirical statements are based on the observation or experience a person has. That experience doesn't automatically make their statement necessarily correct either. They can still be proven wrong by further observation. Let's say someone is saying that because every apple that they've ever seen or ate was red, so all apples are probably red. The first part could of this statement could be true, but the conclusion is incorrect because the observations leading to the conclusion are wrong. Because if that person is shown a green apple, and then that statement is incorrect and is proven wrong.
ReplyDeleteMetaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that surrounding it. Metaphysics statement primary focused on trying to explain how the way things are in the physical world. with anything in so far as it has act of existence. However, metaphysics is not concerned with examining the physical properties of things that exist in our world, but instead is, the study of the unnatural world and to define the unknown. an example of metaphysics would be one, what we discussed in class about rather or not we believe atoms are real every one believes they are real but no one has seen them. the same could go hand and hand with if some one says they believe in god or some sort of higher spirt based off their own past experience but someone who doesn't experience those same feeling or experienced more then often doesn't believe the same and there is no method to prove or disprove this.
I completely agree with your observation of the flaws in empirical statements. They are based off observation and observations can be wrong. Before the scientific method pretty much everything was just based off observation and what made sense. Examples like the earth being flat or the earth being the center of the universe would make sense if you are just using observational techniques. With the advent of the scientific method and metaphysical techniques that prove things we can’t see, seeing is no longer believing but now science and math are believing. No longer is something right just because it is the simplest answer but because it can be proven with the scientific method.
DeleteI agree with your statement that observations can be wrong but I would also have to say that there can be things that you can’t learn without doing. For example, a person can study welding and knows the process maybe they never run a bead in their life. It doesn’t mean they know how to weld only that they understand what process is taking place. Another thing to add would be that humans are very observant creatures; we will learn something every day just by doing anything throughout the day. I believe that without both ways a person can never truly know exactly what is going on.
DeleteEmpirical and metaphysical statements are complete opposites the empirical statement is learned by experience. While metaphysical statements are learned without physically seeing it. A widely believe metaphysical statement would in chemistry. Many things that happen in chemistry are not seen by the eye but by a computers simulation. Metaphysical statements are used when something cannot be explained by something that is known. An example of an empirical statement could be a construction worker. If a person goes into the work for and builds houses for 30 years, they would have learned by seeing and doing, therefore making it empirical. The argument about which one is better between the two may arise. However, I believe it would be impossible to choice between the two, because without both a person can never fully understand what is be done. While learning the empirical way there would be many “tricks of the trade” that would help. Going back to the construction worker they would learn the best way to make a board fit just right. The person that goes to school for construction would learn the most structurally sound building. One important point to bring up is that most people will do the metaphysical way to understand what is happening before they try to do it themselves. This gives the person the best possible solution for an example take the construction worker if they were to go to school first and design a house to withstand enormous amounts of wind and rain. Then if they were to build this houses for a long time would allow them to learn all the “tricks of the trade”.
ReplyDeleteYour facts about empirical and metaphysic statements I concur with. Your discussion actually helped me understand it a little better. One thing in particular I liked was the analogy to construction workers for empirical. You talked about “the tricks of the trade” this is perfect example. Someone who learned construction in the classroom would not have as much experience as a worker who had the same amount of time in the field. I personally worked road construction last summer. There was so much stuff I picked up on just from working three months that could never be learned in the classroom.
DeleteGood will huh? Something we all have a vague idea about but being able to say that it is this one defined thing would be a fib. First I would like to give some definitions in my point of view about will, duty and moral duty that will help guide this conversation about ‘good will’. Will is “what you would like to do”, duty is “what you think you should do” and moral duty is “What you should do” (based on a priori morality). To help define good will, I will use the passage by Kant when he talks about the man who is happy and trying to make others happy. That is not good will as he has no motive to not do such things as he himself is in that position, his will is saying he wants to and he believes his duty is to do so. Rather, the man who is unhappy and actively makes others happy is goodwill, as morality has guided him to do the right thing and help another out when he himself needs help from another as well. The unhappy man making others happy probably does not will himself to do this as he himself is not happy but he feels his duty is to do so. This is what I believe Kant defines as ‘good will’ to be the ability to act to moral duties although your will should say to not due to individual circumstances but does because of the occupation of a good will.
ReplyDeleteKant talks about three virtues in his work Metaphysics they are perfectly good will, reason or rationality and Duty or action. First I would like to define what good will means to me as just a normal guy. To me good will means being using every part of yourself for good, thoughts and actions. Kant says there is only one good in the whole spectrum and that is a good will. Everything else can be turned to an evil for example wit and courage can turn into degradation and arrogance. Kant says that these good things also create bad things so they are not “inherently good”. He then goes on to state that passions, self-control and other good characteristics can be used for evil purposes. “ For without the principles of a good will they can become extremely evil, and the cold-bloodedness of a villain makes him not only far more dangerous but also immediately more abominable in our eyes than he would have been held without it.” This backs up his earlier statement that good will is the only true good. One statement that caught my eye was in the first paragraph “talents of the mind” this made me think about all the different talents a mind could have. Just to reiterate what Kant thinks of good will is: If 2 people have the same particular “talents of the mind” the only difference between the hero and the villain is good will, the hero of course having the good will.
ReplyDeleteI like the thought about thinking about a villain and how the only difference between the hero and villain with the same ‘talents of the mind’ is the fact that the hero has a good will. This made me think instantly of the crisis that is arising in the middle-east. The thing is that we look at them as villains the same way that they look at us as villains. So who is the right villain? How can one say that our negative actions that caused for their believe of us being villains is wrong compared to the negative actions they have taken that makes us believe they are the villain?
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