Philosophy No Less A Game

I wrote a bit ago about Hilbert's comment on mathematics as a game. While I'm admittedly critical of the implication that because mathematics is a game it is without merit. However, one natural follow on question asks which other disciplines are equally game like.

Candidate number one is philosophy. I'll pick on ethics for my example as it it closer to home for most of us, but the argument generalizes well.

To recap, any consistent system of thought is built on three things:

1. axioms
2. definitions
3. a system of logic

Admittedly, any system of logic is itself built on axioms and definitions, but for simplicity let's abstract away from that.

One thing that needs to get defined in any ethical system is the nature of good and a mechanism by which to classify things as good or bad. Yet this mechanism must come from either an axiom or a definition. But what makes our axiom or definition appropriate (or, if you like, good)? Suppose we argue for our choice of definition, then for that argument to be logically valid it too must follow from some set of axioms and definitions. Repeat this argument a few times and it quickly becomes apparent asking for a rigorous basis for something like the definition of good or a mechanism for making the decision quickly mires down.

So if we can't ever get to a fundamental set of principles which underly everything (assuming for the moment God is not interjected into the conversation), then this leaves ethics--or any other branch of philosophy--as based on an arbitrary choice of first principles, or at least cannot be rigorously shown as better than any other. When I took an ethics class last semester this usually came out whenever the instructor said the words "You could make an argument for . . . " and then filled in the blank.

The point here is this: whatever ethical system you chose to follow on any basis, so long as it is consistent it is just as objectively valid as any other consistent ethical system as there is no objective mechanism for assigning one as better than any other.

In short, ethics is no less a game than mathematics.