That said, I'd have to agree that Schafersman's arguments seemed weak. At first glance as excerpted by Burgy, like the stuff in the Skeptical Enquirer (which I sometimes call "Popular Scientism"): insightful, sweeping, a bit confused, and painfully overstated.
Now back to work on my AI response for Dave, Brian, Glenn, etc. :^> --John
-----Original Message-----
From: Loren Haarsma [SMTP:lhaarsma@OPAL.TUFTS.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 1997 2:49 pm
To: evolution
Cc: John W. Burgeson
Subject: Re: NTSE #8
JB> I come now to one of the most interesting (IMO) and provocative papers
> presented at the NTSE conference, Steven Schafersman's NATURALISM IS TODAY
> -- BY HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND PURPOSE -- AN ESSENTIAL PART OF SCIENCE.
Let me see if I have the structure of Schafersman's argument right.
1. Utilitarianism, a philosophy that the sole motive which drives human
behavior is maximizing one's self-interest, developed as economics
developed.
2. Utilitarian models of economics have been developed which work
quite well.
3. Supra-utilitarians, who believe that humans sometimes act out of
different motives, must go through tremendous philosophical
contortions to practice economics.
4. Supra-utilitarians, therefore, should not practice economics.
1. Dicsiplinarianism, the philosophy that parents always know what is in
the child's interest better than the child does, developed as
people started raising children.
2. Disciplinarianism raises well-behaved children.
3. Permissivists, who believe that children should sometimes be allowed
to make a choice for themselves, must go through tremendous
philosophical contortions to decide when to give the child a choice
and when to choose for the child.
4. Permissivists should not raise children.
Is that about right?
In fun and seriousness,
Loren Haarsma