JUSTIFIABILITY IS A MORAL CONSTRAINT, NOT AN EPISTEMIC ONE – BUT MORAL JUSTIFICA

JUSTIFIABILITY IS A MORAL CONSTRAINT, NOT AN EPISTEMIC ONE – BUT MORAL JUSTIFICATION IS NOT FALLACIOUS.

Even scientific arguments must be morally justifiable. (Really!)

Compare: Morally justifiable vs rationally justifiable vs truthfully justifiable.

1) Statements can be justified morally. That is where we got the concept of justification from.

2) Rational statements cannot be justified, only internal consistency can be demonstrated.

3) Truthful statements cannot be justified, only warrantied. If we warranty our statements to truthfulness then we are justified in speaking them.

But the degree of parsimonious correspondence (truth), and therefor the epistemological quality – the quality of the theory – can never be justified.

It is this combination of morally justifiability and parsimonious correspondence that we conflate in the discussion of truth, and that is why volumes of parchment , paper, bytes, radio waves and speech have been wasted in a tragically simple error.

Thus endeth the lesson. 😉

Justifiability still matters. But it’s justifiability in the warranty of the argument, not justifiabitly in the truth of it.

(Almost two years I’ve spent on this damned problem. In April it will be two years! Argh.