Dr Nick Mercer
1. Explain the logical positivism principle and how it leads Ayer to reject claims about values, God, and the afterlife.
The cornerstone of LP beliefs was the principle of verification. This claims that a statement only has meaning if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. An analytic statement is true (or false) just in virtue of the meaning of the words; “a bachelor is an unmarried man” is an analytically true, while “a square has three sides” is analytically false. A statement is empirically verifiable if empirical evidence would go towards establishing that the statement is true or false. For example, if I say “The moon is made of green cheese”, we can check this by scientific investigation. If I say “The universe has 600 trillion planets”, we can’t check this by scientific investigation in practice, but we can do so in principle. We know how to show whether it is true or false, so it is “verifiable” even if we can’t verify it.
The principle of verification entails that claims about values, about what is right or wrong are meaningless. They are neither true nor false because they do not actually state anything. If I say “murder is wrong”, this is not analytic, nor can any empirical investigation show this. We can show that murder causes grief and pain, or that it is often done out of anger. But we cannot demonstrate, in the same way, that is wrong.
2. What objection to logical positivism is based on ethics?
“Statements of value” are empirical propositions – they are statements about our psychology or sociology.
For instance, let’s try a though experiment. This one is from Jonathan Haidt. Julie and Mark are brother and sister and they go up to a cabin they know and spend the night there. While spending the night there they have sex with each other, Julie in on the pill and Mark uses a condom so there is no chance that Julie will have a baby. The next morning they felt pretty good, they don’t feel shameful at all. Is what they did
The cornerstone of LP beliefs was the principle of verification. This claims that a statement only has meaning if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. An analytic statement is true (or false) just in virtue of the meaning of the words; “a bachelor is an unmarried man” is an analytically true, while “a square has three sides” is analytically false. A statement is empirically verifiable if empirical evidence would go towards establishing that the statement is true or false. For example, if I say “The moon is made of green cheese”, we can check this by scientific investigation. If I say “The universe has 600 trillion planets”, we can’t check this by scientific investigation in practice, but we can do so in principle. We know how to show whether it is true or false, so it is “verifiable” even if we can’t verify it.
The principle of verification entails that claims about values, about what is right or wrong are meaningless. They are neither true nor false because they do not actually state anything. If I say “murder is wrong”, this is not analytic, nor can any empirical investigation show this. We can show that murder causes grief and pain, or that it is often done out of anger. But we cannot demonstrate, in the same way, that is wrong.
2. What objection to logical positivism is based on ethics?
“Statements of value” are empirical propositions – they are statements about our psychology or sociology.
For instance, let’s try a though experiment. This one is from Jonathan Haidt. Julie and Mark are brother and sister and they go up to a cabin they know and spend the night there. While spending the night there they have sex with each other, Julie in on the pill and Mark uses a condom so there is no chance that Julie will have a baby. The next morning they felt pretty good, they don’t feel shameful at all. Is what they did