Hi, i'm reading Michael Shermer's book "The moral ark". One of the things discussed in the book is how modern sensibility of empirical science and reason came about.
Shermer goes to great pains trying to explain why, for example, people could have felt justified, from their perspective, to administer a test of a witch by drowning her. In short - if you believe that witches are responsible for dead babies and such, not only they felt justified, but also thought it was their moral duty. In other words, they had faulty assumptions and information, not lapse in judgment and logic. And a lot of people say you cant judge ancient people through the prism of modern mind.
And it looks to me that it's more than that. That they couldnt for some reason apply logic to the situation. Why couldnt someone stand up and say - wait a minute, if this woman turned out not to be a witch afterall, all we have is a drowned woman. Let's device better test?
Or why they couldnt reason through torture as a way of getting a confession? For example if a person is tortured and he's innocent, the fastest way for pain to end is to confess of everything you're being accussed of. Hence it's no use as a means of determining truth. It's not terribly complicated logic. It doesnt require scientific facts or knowledge. You dont need to have empathy for other's suffering. Just basic logic. Why didnt they use it?
I'm perplexed by all of this. And "The moral ark" is also a bit frustrating, because a) it doesnt dwell long on this period b) is mostly prescriptive, focused on what and not why. So maybe you guys could suggest something about this important period of human history? On ancient people's capacity for logic and reason? Or maybe you could offer some explanations here?
One thing I thought about was Flynn Effect. How our IQ is increasing every generation. As I understand one of the forces for that is our technology. You need to be more logical to make use of machinery. So it could explain our evolved capacity for logic. Except industrial revolution happened after scientific one. After Salem witch trials. So what would explain it? How to best go about trying to find this out?
Btw, maybe it's better question for r/AskSocialScience?
Logic and reason are not objective things that exist outside of human knowledge, but are relative to the worldview that one operates within. What you are doing is judging past people for operating in a different worldview than your own, where logic and rationality took different forms. Some very basic logical operations are mostly constant throughout history: an educated Roman or medieval Frenchman would agree that 2+2=4 because they would share an understanding of the basic workings of arithmetic. However things get weird once the application of logic revolves around conditions that are specific to a different time and place; understandings of what the universe is made of and why, whether supernatural beings and forces exist and to what extent they can interfere in daily affairs.
That they couldnt for some reason apply logic to the situation. Why couldnt someone stand up and say - wait a minute, if this woman turned out not to be a witch afterall, all we have is a drowned woman. Let's device better test?
How is that 'applying logic'? In the medieval worldview magic was a recognized method of manipulating the material world, people could practice black or white magic, and Satan was a paramount focus of fear that could interfere in everyday life. Indeed, the Bible, medieval Europe's most authoritative text, denounces sorcery and witches on several occasions, highlighting the urgency of prosecuting witchcraft from the perspective of ecclesiatical and secular rulers. In these circumstances, charging a woman for witchcraft was applying logic, it just seems infantile to you because you do not exist in that reality.
Ancient and medieval people had the exact same capacity for applying logic to situations than yourself, it's just that their given facts about the universe and metaverses were much different from your own.
Or why they couldnt reason through torture as a way of getting a confession? For example if a person is tortured and he's innocent, the fastest way for pain to end is to confess of everything you're being accussed of.
This is not confined to pre-modern thinking so is not evidence of anything.