I forget exactly who said this (and I'm probably paraphrasing), but I live by it: *claims of total objectivity represent an abdication of responsibility*
I've had the exact same problem with social scientists. When they play the "oh, we're just neutral observers" game they're pulling a power move, pretending that ideas like "democracy" and "civilization" don't derive from a particular, non-universal perspective.
They never like it when I respond by asking why we bother with such trifles at all. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, humans and our petty concerns might not matter at all. The fact that we rightfully care about human rights is a function of not wanting to be more miserable than we've got to be.
But there are opportunity costs involved in caring about one thing more than another. Thermodynamics is a cruel god, requiring that energy be used to achieve anything, after which it is degraded, potential forever gone. Who is truly, in an objective and impartial sense, rightfully able to say which patterns of matter are intrinsically better than others?
Every time a political scientist argues that democratic rules and norms need to be obeyed, they're making a value judgement. Economists who rely on a specific conception of private property rights enforced by the state for their theory to work do the same. But boy do they hate being called on it!
There are obviously some in the bioethics and philosophy communities who would like to ground ethical norms and obligations in universals, but I'm not one. I take a more pragmatic view, that our rules and norms are mechanisms to promote more efficient or functional human relations... but they can and must be continually questioned and updated, although slowly, to make sure that they remain pertinent. And that requires justification grounded in reason arguments and data, not through recourse to authority.
I forget exactly who said this (and I'm probably paraphrasing), but I live by it: *claims of total objectivity represent an abdication of responsibility*
I've had the exact same problem with social scientists. When they play the "oh, we're just neutral observers" game they're pulling a power move, pretending that ideas like "democracy" and "civilization" don't derive from a particular, non-universal perspective.
They never like it when I respond by asking why we bother with such trifles at all. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, humans and our petty concerns might not matter at all. The fact that we rightfully care about human rights is a function of not wanting to be more miserable than we've got to be.
But there are opportunity costs involved in caring about one thing more than another. Thermodynamics is a cruel god, requiring that energy be used to achieve anything, after which it is degraded, potential forever gone. Who is truly, in an objective and impartial sense, rightfully able to say which patterns of matter are intrinsically better than others?
Every time a political scientist argues that democratic rules and norms need to be obeyed, they're making a value judgement. Economists who rely on a specific conception of private property rights enforced by the state for their theory to work do the same. But boy do they hate being called on it!
There are obviously some in the bioethics and philosophy communities who would like to ground ethical norms and obligations in universals, but I'm not one. I take a more pragmatic view, that our rules and norms are mechanisms to promote more efficient or functional human relations... but they can and must be continually questioned and updated, although slowly, to make sure that they remain pertinent. And that requires justification grounded in reason arguments and data, not through recourse to authority.