Quote Originally Posted by Reenk Roink View Post
Fair enough. I say this because PVC brought up an example of a logically consistent system, and reason is used synonymously with (classical) logic many times.

So the natural followup question to you is, what other than logic do you need for good reasoning? Or does logic cover reason and you now want the "science" part along with it (reason being necessary but not sufficient)? Perhaps you need some empirical evidence that is interpreted through current scientific theory (for example, you need that jar of material but you also need the scientific theory which tells you it is oxygen and not dephlogisticated air like another theory).
Yes, you need some sort of ability to judge the premises of the logical arguments, and the ability to accommodate a range of information.



Yes. Along with gun threads, and the like. How is it not an example?

You may reply people don't usually question their moral axioms in those threads, and this is true (though at least in abortion threads, you would probably find attacks on the religious moral edifice). But it makes sense why they don't. These people are going based off axioms they hold. They probably believe that morality is the domain of (their interpretation of their) religion even as you conversely may believe it belongs to science and reason.
Well yes, I expect they do. Which is why I started the argue that it shouldn't belong to religion. However, I will probably revise that in a minute.
"As the other sciences do not argue in proof of their principles, but argue from their principles to demonstrate other truths in these sciences, so this doctrine does not argue in proof of its principles which are the articles of faith, but from them it goes on to prove something else."
-Aquinas
But, I think although you can't argue in proof of the principles, you can argue for the principles. You can argue for our number system being in base 10 by saying that for ordinary purposes there is no reason to change it, since change would be difficult and pointless, and so on. But we needn't accept that base 10 is the one true way--when binary and hexadecimal are found to be useful, we use them instead. In other words, there are reasons why we choose to accept a given axiom. I may not be able to logically disprove your axiom, but if I can show that the reasons you used when you chose to accept it apply better to a different axiom, isn't that significant?

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I do think that you are right about my conflating a couple things in the thread. I was mixing a couple different ideas.

I should say that morality doesn't necessarily belong to science and reason over religion and individual opinion. But that if it does belong to religion, it needs to be shown to do so by reason and/or science.