[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
I'm not clear on the observations as argument you implied there... Could you give an example?

The one I was specifically thinking of (half-remembered from Philosophy 116 - I've since sold the book back, and can't readily double-check) was a case where Aristotle was discussing the private vs. the public good: justice. He started with a statement along the lines of 'those for whom a ruling is unfavorable will not agree with it'. However, he then says something along the lines of 'well, no, there have been observed instances where the judgement was against someone, but that person agreed the judgement was fair.' Basically, he was pointing out that courts made judgements which, while not in the favor of one or more parties, were still considered fair by all involved; he appeared to be doing this to support an external Version of justice as possible.

However, when it comes down to it, every ethical system philosophy has ever put out makes unproveable assumptions somewhere down the line. For example, Kant, one of the strongest advocates of reason you'll ever find, made such an assumption when determining what has inherent value: reasoning beings. His support for this was basically 'what else could it be?' and a note that essentially every expression of value is of the form 'valuable to' some person. Standing alone, the question defense is decent, but doesn't constitute a proof. The note on expressions of value relating to people is cultural evidence, and only valid inside that culture: an Austrailian aboriginy (spelling?) from a millenia ago might have very different ways of expressing value. Such an argument might not be valid in that culture.