An often cited quote from Nazi Hermann Göring: "When I hear the word culture, I unlock my gun!"
Culture, art and music nearly disappeared during the Nazi rule.
It is easy to argue that life has no meaning because empirical evidence is impossible.
The implications in the modern era can be seen in science. It seems to be an ideal of science to abolish morality completely.
(2018) Immoral advances: Is science out of control?
To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... f-control/
(2019) Science and Morals: Can morality be deduced from the facts of science?
The issue should have been settled by David Hume in 1740: the facts of science provide no basis for values. Yet, like some kind of recurrent meme, the idea that science is omnipotent and will sooner or later solve the problem of values seems to resurrect with every generation.
https://sites.duke.edu/behavior/2019/04 ... f-science/
Morality is based on 'values' and that logically means that science also wants to get rid of philosophy.
Some recent perspectives on philosophy by scientists at a forum of a university in Great Britain (Cambridge):
When science is practiced autonomously and it intends to get rid of any influence of philosophy, the 'knowing' of a fact necessarily entails certainty. Without certainty, philosophy would be essential, and that would be obvious to any scientist, which it apparently is not.Naked Scientist Forum wrote:Philosophy is bunk.
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You may describe philosophy as a search for knowledge and truth. That is indeed vanity. Science is about the acquisition of knowledge, and most scientists avoid the use of "truth", preferring "repeatability" as more in line with our requisite humility in the face of observation.
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Philosophers always pretend that their work is important and fundamental. It isn't even consistent. You can't build science on a rickety, shifting, arbitrary foundation. It is arguable that Judaeo-Christianity catalysed the development of science by insisting that there is a rational plan to the universe, but we left that idea behind a long time ago because there is no evidence for it.
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Philosophy never provided a solution. But it has obstructed the march of science and the growth of understanding.
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Philosophy is a retrospective discipline, trying to extract something that philosophers consider important from what scientists have done (not what scientists think - scientific writing is usually intellectually dishonest!). Science is a process, not a philosophy. Even the simplest linguistics confirms this: we "do" science, nobody "does" philosophy.
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Science is no more or less than the application of the process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. There's no suggestion of belief, philosophy or validity, any more than there is in the rules of cricket or the instructions on a bottle of shampoo: it's what distinguishes cricket from football, and how we wash hair. The value of science is in its utility. Philosophy is something else.
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Philosophers have indeed determined the best path forward for humanity. Every religion, communism, free market capitalism, Nazism, indeed every ism under the sun, all had their roots in philosophy, and have led to everlasting conflict and suffering. A philosopher can only make a living by disagreeing with everyone else, so what do you expect?
It means that there is a belief involved (a belief in uniformitarianism) that legitimizes autonomous application of science (i.e. without thinking about whether it is actually 'good' what is being done).
The idea that facts exist outside the scope of a perspective (that is, that facts are valid without philosophy) has far-reaching implications, including the natural tendency to completely abolish morality.
Atheism (religion)
Atheism is a way out for people who would potentially (be prone to) seek the guidance that religions promise to provide. By revolting against religions, they (hope to) find stability in life.
The extremity developed by atheism in the form of a dogmatic belief in the facts of science can result in practices such as eugenics, a scientific ideology that laid at the basis of the Nazi holocaust. The desire for a 'easy way out' by people that attempt to escape exploitation of their weakness (read: the inability to answer the question "What is the meaning of life?") would result in corruption to 'acquire qualities' in a way that is immoral.
Eugenics or 'racial hygiene' is trending again in 2021 and on its way to re-enter the main stage of politics.
Eugenics in 2021 as 'fix' for social problems
https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... =5&t=17062
An analogy may be the story about the Devil that attempts to overturn God with trickery and deceit. It describes a weakling that tries to become stronger than a perceived strength in others by attempting to escape nature with corruption. A choice for evil.
What is strength? From my perspective, it would be the optimal serving of life and to do so, what it would entail for humans would be philosophy driven/guided progress (i.e. intelligent life).
According to philosopher Aristotle, philosophical contemplation is the greatest human virtue.
Fear driven progress is an option but I do not believe that it is an intelligent option.
How would humanity be able to achieve a state of wise progress? As it appears, humans haven't even started to master morality for guiding their progress.
(2020) How we make moral decisions
The researchers now hope to explore the reasons why people sometimes don't seem to use universalization in cases where it could be applicable, such as combating climate change. One possible explanation is that people don't have enough information about the potential harm that can result from certain actions, Levine says.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-moral-decisions.html
The scientists write that they "hope" that humanity / science will investigate the reasons why people sometimes do not use the "universalization principle" for moral considerations and decisions.
In 2020, the universalization principle appears to be the only method that is considered available for guiding human action and science.
How could the universalisation principle prevent a practice like eugenics or protect Nature when faced with a potential trillion USD synthetic biology revolution that reduces plants and animals to meaningless beyond the value that a company can "see" in them?
The applicability of the moral question "what is 'good'?" is evidence that the concept 'optimum' is applicable.
From a short term human perspective,'optimum' may be found in 'flow' and its corresponding mental extasis (an ultimate state of performance as a human being).
As a specie, and even as 'part of Nature', there is logically a similar 'optimal' state. For longer term survival, it may be important that the human is able to achieve synchrony with the optimum state of Nature.
Morality would enable humans to achieve such a state, by addressing the simple question "what is 'good'?".
Questions:
1) How can there be a place for morality when one thinks in science that facts are outside the scope of a perspective (that facts are valid without philosophy)? Asking attention for morality, despite the strong natural tendency for moral consideration embedded in human nature, would in theory be comparable to demanding a belief in God.
2) When morality is reduced to an empirical property of the social sciences, what theory could possibly prevent the idea that morality is an illusion?