We have really got to stop calling it Darwinian this and darwinian that. It is now called evolutionary theory because Darwin was wrong on quite a bit, and we know better now. Darwin was just the first man to posit the hypothesis.
But the Darwin is silent, just because mechanism is off doesn't mean we remove the orign( especially natural selection ) I think we should keep it but dawkins says the Phrase that before I got into the idea I thought it was a version of evolution lol
@madra000 I hear ya, I am just tired of those other people like fundamentalist apologists that do not actually know the actual theory and misrepresenting it by calling it darwinian evolution.
@@mileskeller5244 The point is to distinguish it from other models, e.g. Lamarckianism, where factors other than selective pressure against some traits play a role.
@@kmerczerwony1739 I just hate that the term darwinism is usually used by people that are scientifically illiterate like young earth creationists. I understand your distinction though.
You see two lions enter a cave. Then you see three lions enter the cave. Then you see six lions come out of the cave. You infer that if one more lion goes in, the cave will be empty again.
Thank you Kane! I wrote a bachelor thesis in philosophy on precisely Street's dilemma, so your video is very welcome. Your presentation of the topic resembles mine, which makes me think I wasn't completelely off track, even though the examiner was not too happy with bits of my thesis. I have not seen your whole video yet but I bet you will reach some interesting conclusions way above my philosophical ability. Best regards!
Before we investigate moral epistemology we should settle all issues of moral semantics, at least as an assumption for the sake of argument. To attempt to do moral epistemology without a clear idea of moral semantics is like looking for an answer before we decide what question we're asking. Is it evolutionary advantageous to have an accurate understanding of morality? Before we even attempt to answer that question, let's decide exactly what we mean by "morality" so that we know what question we're really asking. There are two aspects of the realism debate: the semantic and the epistemic. On the semantic side we have a debate regarding what moral language means; as a label, what does morality point toward? On the epistemic side, we have the question of whether we are justified in believing in the existence of whatever morality points toward. If we decide that "morality" refers to some spiritual fluid and "goodness" refers to possession of this fluid, then we can begin a meaningful debate over whether and how we might know this fluid exists and whether we would have evolved to accurately assess volumes of the fluid. The evolutionary debunking argument makes sense on the epistemic side of the debate, but it wouldn't make sense on the semantic side. The meaning of words doesn't depend on what beliefs are justified. The meaning of the word "unicorn" is not dependent upon us having justification for believing in unicorns. Words get their meaning from the intentions of the people who use the word, and in this way semantics are social constructs. Therefore it seems that the evolutionary debunking argument must be intended as an objection to the epistemic side of moral realism, and yet it seems to proceed without first clarifying the semantics that it intends to use. 6:32 "(1) Causal premise: Our evolutionary history explains why we have the moral beliefs that we have." How can we know whether this premise is true without knowing what the word "moral" means? Moral semantics are controversial. We really should not expect a moral realist to define this word in the same way as an anti-realist unless we carefully define our terms in advance so that everyone is speaking the same language. The way I would define "morality" allows evolution to provide a very good explanation of our moral beliefs, but I wouldn't trust this to be true if the word were being defined by an anti-realist. "(2) Epistemic premise: Evolution is not truth-tracking with respect to moral truth." I would have said that evolution is very likely truth-tracking with respect to moral truth since moral societies tend to thrive and immoral societies tend to tear themselves apart, so there's clearly some disagreement here and the disagreement probably isn't coming from a difference in opinion about evolution. More likely, people are going to disagree about the meaning of "moral truth." What exactly are we asking evolution to track? This is why it is important to settle issues of semantics before we attempt epistemology.
You are correct that it is important to deal with semantics before making the arguments. This is because people often use definitions that vary somewhat from each other, as well as often changing definitions halfway through their arguments if they are disingenuous or simply not well versed in philosophy. It's why Richard Joyce, in his book 'The myth of morality', painstakingly goes through definitions for page after page before the main arguments even begin. I'm wondering what, if any, disagreements you have with him on his analysis of the semantics. "I would have said that evolution is very likely truth-tracking with respect to moral truth since moral societies tend to thrive and immoral societies tend to tear themselves apart" And this is why moral definitions are important. You must be defining morality completely differently than me if you hold this to be true. What you mean when you say morality is likely very different than what I mean.
@@yahyamohammed637 : Roughly what sort of definitions does Joyce use? Is he utilitarian? Does he favor deontology? Virtue ethics? Divine command theory? I don't have a copy of his book. Personally I tend to favor utilitarian conceptions of morality as I think that fits most broadly with how people tend to use moral language. If not utilitarian, then surely most people tend to use moral language in at least a consequentialist way. Pleasure is not always the goal to which "good" things contribute, but still "good" things tend to get their "goodness" by working toward some goal.
This is fantastic. Thank you, Dr Kane B! I'm just in the process of writing an Essay on Evolutionary Debunking Arguments against Realism, and this is one of the best summaries I've seen. Is there a way to download a transcription of this video?
I am not philospoher but I know what morality is. Morality is tool produced by biology just like spider web, beavers' dam, bird's nest or human spear. It is an adaptation to conditions of environment. Morality is whatever leads to satisfaction of physiological and psychological needs of the body. When conditions of material reality around you are such that you can afford high morality (rich people sending millions to charities) your moral standard will be sky high, when you will become homeless begger your morality will automatically adapt and eventually you may end up survivng through cannibalism just like people living in harshest conditions. Social animals as humans have to construct morality also as a tool of social control to ensure that naturally arising conflicts based on oposing interests of individual's bodies (typically two males fighting for reproductive oportunity with same female, parent favoring his child with food over child of another parent, etc.) will not result into genetic extinction of the group. That is basically it. Morality is just another tool we developed for our own survival. And we will be always changing it/adapting it to make it fit with whatever change/challenge in enviroment around us. There is no objective morality but there surely is objective to morality and that is improvement of chances for succesful reproduction of our species.
You may be correct about what 'morality' actually is, but when someone says 'Hitler is evil', they are not almost never describing what you are describing. Would an average person in society (or anyone, for that matter), say 'That male lion who killed those lion cubs is evil'? Animal behavior could just as well be described in such a way and thus we could presumably make such statements or speak about 'injustice' among animals and so on. If not, then the definition and explanation you propose is so watered down or devoid of certain key elements of moral terminology as to make us question why even continue to use moral terminology for such a concept.
Whether the evolutionary debunking argument refutes moral our basic moral beliefs depends on what those basic moral beliefs are. Consider the following. (1) Evolution has given us certain desires and aversions - those that tend to promote evolutionary fitness (aversion to pain, desire for sex, desire to eat and drink, to seek a comfortable temperature, the company of others, etc.) There is no objective "truth" associated with these desires - a desire provides a motive to alter the world in a ways that tend to produce genetic replication. (2) Evolution has also given us a learning system. Desires are not hard-wired; they can be modified by experience. Rewards reinforce certain desires while punishments reinforce certain aversions. (3) A creature that evolves among creatures having such a learning system can gain an evolutionary advantage by responding to benefit-producing behavior with a desire-reinforcing response and with harm-producing behavior with an aversion-reinforcing response. (4) Cognitively sophisticated creatures such as humans can simply form better, more accurate beliefs about what types of behavior it makes sense to respond to with desire-reinforcing or aversion-reinforcing responses. We respond to taking property without consent with aversion-reinforcing behavior (anger, condemnation) and we respond to aiding those who are in great need with desire-reinforcing behavior (praise, expressions of gratitude). NOTE: This has stance independent in that we all might be ignorant or wrong about whether it is possible to promote a particular desire or aversion through praise or condemnation. We might think that there are reasons to and that it is possible to promote an aversion to engaging in homosexual acts when, in fact, there is either no good reason to do so.) (5) Moral beliefs are simply beliefs about what desires and aversions to reinforce and what types of responses are more or less effective in providing that reinforcement. One doesn't have to accept this theory, but it provides an example of objectively true or false moral beliefs that an evolutionary debunking argument cannot touch. Whether evolution debunks moral realism depends on what one takes real moral properties to be.
"Whether evolution debunks moral realism depends on what one takes real moral properties to be." Of course, but the only way to make 'moral properties' still exist if one considers the evolutionary debunking argument to be true is to water down the definition and properties of 'morality' so much as to make it completely different from how an average person uses moral terminology. Saying 'Hitler is evil' would have virtually no power anymore, because 'evil' doesn't mean anything close to the same thing and has virtually none of the same connotations anymore.
@@yahyamohammed637 I hold that the relational definition of the term makes perfectly good sense of how people use moral terms. It makes sense of everything from: 1) The use of praise or condemnation. (These are the methods by which one nurtures new desires and aversions in others.) 2) The concepts of "ought implies can". (If altering a character's sentiments through praise and condemnation in a way that change the outcome is not possible, then we are not dealing with a question of morality.) 3) Moral slogans such as "What if everybody did that?" and "How would you like it if somebody did that to you?",. (Morality is concerned with those desires and aversions people have reasons to promote universally - across the whole population - using praise and condemnation.) 4) The concept of an excuse. (An excuse is a claim that breaks the causal link between an agent's actions and that agent's desires, such as "accident" or "false belief". Or it shows that the agent did, in fact, act on a desire that people have reasons to promote universally, such as "greater good".) 5) Explains the types of evidence people accept in moral debate. (The types of evidence that provides reasons to promote a particular desire or aversion universally.) This theory understands moral properties to be relational properties - properties relating actions to those desires and aversions that people generally have reasons to promote universally. Not the type of "objective, intrinsic prescriptivity" that the "realists" insist on. And these relational properties are still real - they are facts. "Hitler is evil" has all of the power that we find it to have in contemporary philosophy. It says that any person who does what Hitler did warrants the strongest attitudes of contempt and condemnation that society can muster. Not because what Hitler did had a property of objective, intrinsic, not-to-be doneness (which doesn't actually exist, implying that Hitler actually did nothing wrong), but because people generally have genuine desire-based reasons to respond to that type of behavior in ways that would work to reduce the chance of it appearing again in the future.
my moral intuitions track with David Enoch. I don't have an answer to if it begs the question. but for the second criticism seems to me that Enoch points out necessary, but not sufficient grounds for morality. The sufficient would be in normative ethics. not in meta ethics
An intuitive way to think about it is that a capacity is truth-tracking when (a) the beliefs formed by that capacity are mostly true and (b) if the relevant facts were different, the beliefs would be different in a corresponding way. Perception tracks the truth: my perceptual beliefs are mostly true, and if the facts were different, my perceptual beliefs would be different. If there were not a computer in front of me, I would not believe there is a computer in front of me. Contrast that with the fake ethnography. Perhaps it's true that the tribe engage in a ritual involving fire ants. But even if they didn't, I would still believe they did, because my belief was based on the ethnography which was written not by observing the tribe but by inventing a fiction.
This is a small point, but I've heard you describe moral realism several times as a view that presupposes that we might all be wrong about what the moral facts are in the world. However, it seems to me like you could have a realist position that says something along the lines of "the moral facts are those moral propositions that everyone agrees are true". In this case, if we all assented to some moral proposition then we couldn't be wrong about its truth because its truth is just dependent on unanimous assent to it. I don't think this position holds much weight, but I think it's at least coherent, and a challenge to your account of realism.
Like pretty much every other philosophical term, "realism" is used in different ways. The way that I define "moral realism" is standard in metaethics. The position you describe there would not count as moral realism, per this definition. Of course, we can come up with other definitions of "moral realism" if we want. I'm not sure how that's a challenge to standard definition, though. We can come up with alternative definitions for any word we like. The notion that moral truth is determined by unanimous assent seems more in line with constructivism. When I'm criticizing realism, I usually want to explicitly distinguish it from constructivism. That's certainly important here, because the evolutionary debunking argument that I describe is given by Sharon Street, who is a constructivist. Also, it's worth noting that per your definition, moral realism is still false, since there are no moral propositions that everyone agrees are true. After all, some people are error theorists who take all moral propositions to be false!
@@KaneB I understand that the position I described would not count as realism per your definition, that was my point. You stated a definition of moral realism, and I came up with a position that I think ought to be counted as realism but would not fit your definition, therefore I think you ought to utilize a different definition. Isn't that standard conceptual analysis? The position I stated sounds constructivist, but I could easily make a non-constructivist version. I could say for instance that moral facts are the moral propositions that everyone assents to, and we learn about such facts through divine revelation. In this instance, we couldn't be wrong about the moral facts if everyone assented to them, and they would not be constructed by us, but by God. This position would end up being false, since there are no moral propositions that everyone assents to, and many people who claim to have divine revelation have different moral beliefs, but I don't think I need the position to be right, do I? I think all that is needed to challenge the definition is a position that is internally coherent.
@@JackyBunch These are technical terms. When metaethicists define "moral realism", they're not usually attempting to analyze a concept that's commonly used and that they want to have a better understanding of. They're just stipulating definitions for the purpose of demarcating a particular area of inquiry. There's a specific position, which has certain interesting features, and which is targeted by the evolutionary debunking argument, among a whole bunch of other arguments, and we're calling this position "moral realism". This isn't really a matter of conceptual analysis. If we want to do conceptual analysis of the concept "moral realism", I would respond that I just don't see why the position you describe ought to be counted as realism. Compare how the term "realism" is used in other contexts, say in philosophy of science. Consider the position: "the scientific facts are those scientific propositions that every scientist agrees is true." Well, maybe there is something to be said for this position. But very few philosophers of science would be inclined to call this a realist position. As for your alternative position, I don't understand how it's non-constructivist, or even coherent. If the moral facts are those moral propositions to which everybody assents, how can moral facts not be constructed by us? Maybe they're partly constructed by God, if we take God to be included in "everyone", but they're constructed by us as well.
The eda responce to the general skeptical challenge seems weak. in essence it boils down to: 1.If true preseption is positively related to evolutionary success then preseption is probaly truth tracking 2. I precive that preseption is positively related to evolutionary success T. preseption is probaly truth tracking This only holds true if we presuppose our perceptions are true.
Hi Kane, huge thanks for this incredibly helpful video! I am working on a paper concerning evolutionary debunking arguments at the moment. I was wondering if you could provide me with the source for one of the arguments you have sketched. This would be the moral realist who claims that our capacity to be rational enables us to know moral truths despite the influences evolution has had on us. Thank you!
Street, "Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value" Joyce, "The Evolution of Morality" and "Evolution, truth-tracking, and moral skepticism" Horn, "Evolution and the epistemological challenge to moral realism" Huemer, "Revisionary intuitionism" Copp, "Darwinian skepticism about moral realism" Enoch, "The epistemological challenge to metanormative realism" Braddock, "Evolutionary debunking: Can moral realists explain the reliability of our moral judgments?"
Excellent! Your arguments against moral realism seem incontrovertible to me. Until watching your TH-cam videos on this topic, I did not realize that, as a death penalty abolitionist, I have been arguing against moral realists (who say the death penalty is morally appropriate). Some of them explicitly claim that: 1) certain people are evil, and we in society get to decide who is evil, and 2) we have a moral obligation to kill the people we deem evil. (And they explicitly use the word "obligation.") Kane, am I correct in saying they are moral realists? My response to them has been: 1) Who are we to make the god-like distinction that murderer A should be executed, and murderer B should get life in prison, and 2) It is only your opinion that execution is warranted... I have a different opinion. Why does your opinion take precedence over mine? Am I on the right track?
It's difficult to say, because an antirealist can still make moral judgments, and they might make just the same moral judgments as a realist. Nothing stops an antirealist from endorsing the death penalty, or for thinking that societies are morally obligated to use the death penalty. It's just that the antirealist would not take these judgments to be true in virtue of stance-independent facts. They might instead see such judgments as ultimately grounded in emotional dispositions, for instance. It's worth noting that "we in society get to decide who is evil" actually sounds more in line with antirealism -- as far as realists are concerned, whether or not a person is evil isn't something we can decide. There's a fact of the matter, and we might all be incorrect about it. We don't decide that Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, we discover it; in the same way, we don't decide which persons are evil.
It does not seem to me, that somebody who is pro or anti death penalty is automatically committed to a metaethical position. Somebody could think death penalty should stay in place as morality is not real so why care about people dyeing or somebody could hold that morally, killing is wrong in a real sense, so having the death penalty in place violates this truth about the world so must be removed. I would suggest looking at the difference between normative and meta ethics. In brief, normative ethics are questions of what we should do, eg "should the death penalty being in place or not?", and meta ethics addresses what ethics is at a higher level, for example "do moral truths exist?" (realism/antirealism). Like everything in philosophy what exactly the distinction is, is disputed territory but I think my description gives the rough outline of it.
@@KaneB Thanks, that is helpful. I should probably focus more on all of the practical reasons to abolish the death penalty: 1) Innocence - 186 people in US have been exonerated and released from death row, 2) Lack of Deterrence - There is more evidence that the death penalty *increases* than decreases the homicide rate, 3) Cost - The death penalty costs several times more than life in prison, 4) Arbitrary Application - Poor people of color are more likely to get the death penalty; if you have enough money to hire good lawyers, you don't go to death row. Ever.
@@KaneB Correct, it appears that an anti-realist would likely view the judgment of good and evil as social constructs rather than some sort of metaphysical reality that is floating around and permeates the universe. I would argue that the way anti-realists use moral terminology is not in line with how most of society today and atleast the past several hundred years use such moral terms, and thus they should not even use commonly used moral terminology but come up with other terms or phrases.
Premise: I know little philo, not my trade. BUT consider that survival is definitionally intrinsic in being a living organism, and that natural selection is merely the product of the interaction of the environment pressing with its force onto the organism, which attempts to resist with its own. In this scenario the organism would, again by definition, have to develop survival "values" and related behaviors and physical features. In this scenario, is not the pressure towards accrual and exertion of force by the organism onto the environment a "Force," about as "real" as, say, gravity?
you are right if you are saying that not just physics have their laws but also life itself. Indeed there ie deterministic logic in every organism that will "make it do whatever it takes" and if not, that is OK, whole point of darwinistic filter is to separate functional forms from dysfunctional.
Sure, but is it correct to define such 'survival values' as morality? Is this definition of morality the same as how an average person or society uses moral terminology? I would argue no, and thus why describe such a thing as morality at all?
@@yahyamohammed637 Well yes, but it is the force that generates what we would call drives or values - both the values of power accrual and, at a later stage of aggregation, what laypeople would call morality. You could say that the human condition is the struggle between the different value systems that emerged within due to these forces: mainly a drive towards individual power a drive towards community cooperation (what we call morality).
Why couldn't a moral realist claim that promoting reproductive success itself is moral? If people who value survival tend to act in ways that promote survival, and this promotes reproductive success, and if reproductive success is moral, then their actions are moral. Doesn't this solve the dilemma?
Or take it even further, genetic health, rather than individual selection. You could say that the most moral actions are those which promote the reproductive success of those similarly related to yourself. So for example, I would give my life to save two of my biological siblings, or four biological cousins. You could then extend this further, by going all the way down to plants and bacteria, then making an environmentalist argument like, I would give my life to save all of the life on earth from certain death.
@@werrkowalski2985 I think also there's a visceral disgust towards realists who use evolution or biology as an explanatory tool. There is always a sort of instant thought they have which is "this justifies eugenics" or, "this justifies slavery". In my own view, this is just way too simplistic of an analysis. When Kane said that the realist position should concede that slavery was justified due to it being advantageous to favour the in-group, I just thought "how do you know that!?". I can think of many reasons why that wouldn't be true. The most obvious one being that the "slaves" BECAME the in-group through mere exposure! The more contact you have with another group, the more likely that you absorb them as part of the group. That COULD be a possible explanation. Very simplistic thinking from the dialogue that Kane is using here.
@@mrpickle6290 Yes, so as I understand it you are saying that the threat could be that the slaves could be absorbed by the ingroup, and this would work against the ethnocentric strategy (proven to be the most effective through computer models) People who make arguments like that, ie use examples like slavery often don't realise that their belief is embedded in a whole structure of the modern world. The reason why it is so easy for them to dismiss things like slavery is because slavery was made uneconomical by the industrial revolution, so they don't have to at all consider the practical aspect, they don't have to make any cost-benefit analysis, they don't really even need to consider the consequences. If a person's life depended to a significant degree on exploitation or slavery, then they would be way less inclined to just dismiss slavery as immoral. There are many kinds of exploitation, and also there could be said to be many degrees of slavery, Curt Doolittle has recognised 9 degrees of "slavery", going from enslavement of inanimate objects, through dependency of animals, temporary dependency of children, contracts, debt slavery, prisons, to the chattel slavery and hard labor slavery. If we see slavery in such degrees, then the moral ambiguity becomes more apparent. Moreover, one could also argue that economic exploitation is not really functionally different from slavery. I like that Dugin clip where he says that liberals fear barbarians, because barbarians are a parody of their own ways. A barbarian would say: This is a master, this is a slave, the slave works and the master relaxes, while a liberal would say that this person has to work, or live under a bridge, he has a choice, as if economic coercion was better than physical coercion.
@@werrkowalski2985 I think you are misunderstanding me. I think that under most circumstances, slavery is objectively wrong and immoral. But the reason that slavery happened might be because: the slavers did not have sufficient understanding of relatedness to recognize they were abusing and tormenting their own kin. So, 1. they didn't realize that they were actually damaging their own prospective gene selection. 2. they didn't realize, it is more economical to work with the "slaves" rather than to exploit them, 3. most people were able to empathize with the slaves, and did not want it to happen just for that reason. I mean shocking right? You can still be a consequentialist by saying; "well, if I didn't emancipate those slaves from oppression I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did otherwise". But then, why would you not be able to live with yourself you ask? What is the biological mechanism by which one is able to empathize, and feel the pain of others? I mean, there are a number of different explanations, both emerging from selective processes, or evolutionary accidents. But it doesn't matter. What matters is, I don't like it. Thus, it is in my best long-term interests to emancipate the slaves, or feed the hungry or whatever it be (otherwise my gene selection would suffer at the expense). I think, the liberals most probably got the whole abolishing slavery thing right, and other moral facts we take for granted etc.
2:30 Your presentation is so consistently good, so I’m guessing that the handwritten flowchart wasn’t yours. I could not read it, if someone is lettering specifically for visual presentation, it’s wise to be deliberate and measured in one’s penmanship. My handwriting used to be completely illegible, But after buying myself a Pilot Parrallel Pen*, And teaching myself to write Gothic Textura quadrata following a guide on an internet blog, My handwriting was completely transformed. People often complement me on my writing now. Learning a standardized Antique script allowed me to understand the forms of the letters on a deeper level. And you can literally do it in like 3, 2 hour study sessions. *(orange or green, red one too small and the blue too big, haven’t tried the new pink and teal nib sizes yet)
And I recommend the pilot pen specifically because it is a writing utensil used by the worlds best calligraphers yet it’s less than 5 dollars and you don’t have to fuck around with nibs and ink etc. i don’t think it’s possible to learn good habits without being able to control line width.
I have this intuition that I can't shake that moral actions that aid in survival (personal or group) are good , that moral actions that do not aid in survial (personal or group) are bad and the good and bad that people argue about have survival benefits that are either ambiguous or not universally helpful. So your in group out group example seems obvious to us because pluralism is good for our survival and it may be bad for others survival. Yet I do worry my intuition is question begging.
What are you thoughts on Divine Command Theory to determine the objectivity of moral values and duties? This would give morality a transcendent, concrete anchor point and foundation which is beyond human individuals, cultures, societies and natural evolution. Hence, theism is the way to go if you want to affirm the truth of moral realism, that morality is discovered not invented, which matches with our personal moral experiences that things like raping little children for sexual gratification or committing genocide against certain groups is actually wrong, not just wrong in my opinion or because a certain society has decided that’s the case.
I'm tempted to say that it has more going for it than many popular versions of moral realism -- it makes more sense to me than any secular form of non-naturalist realism that I've come across. Which is not to say that's plausible, of course. I'm not a theist, and even if you are a theist, it faces important challenges. But it grounds the objectivity and authoritative prescriptivity of morality in a straightforward way. I suppose it's not surprising that it has some appeal as a metaethical theory, since moral concepts were intertwined with religion for so long.
@@azerliartock I take it the issue here is that DCT makes morality dependent on the mind of God, so morality isn't really mind-independent. A few points: (1) There are different kinds of mind-independence. The point is that on DCT, there are laws/commands that exist independently of what any human or group of humans thinks or feels. I'd say that's enough to describe such commands as objective, at least from our point of view. (2) Presumably, God's mind is not anything like any mind that we are familiar with. I take it that when theist philosophers talk about the mental states of God, they are using terms metaphorically; or at least, they are using terms in some non-standard way. Even on DCT, morality counts as fully mind-independent, understanding "mind" to refer to the sort of faculties we find in humans, other animals, and perhaps computers and extraterrestrials. (3) According to classical theism, God is immanent: everything that exists is, in some sense, permeated by the divine, and is dependent for its existence on the divine. So even rocks and stars and trees are, in some sense, part of, or constructed by, the "mind" of God. Morality on DCT is no less objective than any paradigmatically objective entity.
@@KaneB Yeah, I would say that's mostly fair. I'll just add a few notes: (1) you're right that we can make 3rd person claims about the objectivity of a certain fact obtaining, such as "god commands X", or "culture Y adheres to value Z". But a cultural relativist would not want to say that value Z is objective in virtue of its dependence on subject Y. My point was just that we don't use "objective" to refer to things subject-dependent. (2) it seems to me that, if god commands were things like "thou shall not kill", or "murder is wrong", that would be very human-like and human-centered, but I'll take your word for what philosophers mean by god's mind. I'm sure they are more sophisticated than the bible. (3) since classical theism conceptions of god like panentheism view god as containing nature (any paradigmatically objective entity) but being more than nature, I don't think your last sentence really follows just from (3). Maybe it follows from (2)+(3)
Why is genocide wrong objectively maybe people who did genocide will celebrate and enjoy rest of their existence thanks to it. What makes genocide objectively wrong if it fullfils its function? Sapiens turning Neanderthals into source of energy for their children through cannibalism in Ice Age may be reason why our species flourished. Also the reason why you find pedo stuff abhorent may be genetic. Kids are not reproductive therefore having sex with them will not lead to survival of species eventually it may ruin sexual abilities of children to reproduce in adulthood which may lead to extinction of the group (think small tribe).
A tribe on an island are colour blind. They all see red and green as the same colour green. Who is correct about the colour red? The outsiders who are not colour blind or the tribe members? Is there a true position? Isn’t there an overwhelming temptation to say that there is an objective reality of red and that red is not an evolutionary querk?
I suppose the fact that red exists has not been relevant to the tribe's survivial or general wellbeing, though that might be taking the metaphor too literally.
@@maximus4765 cannot we say with some good confidence that it does? At any event, there is the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that firmly endorsed the objective fact of red
The fact that red and green do not represent the exact same wavelength of light is objective, so insofar as the tribes people assert this, they would be wrong. However, colors don't refer to only 1 wavelength of light. For example, "Yellow" doesn't simply mean "Light around 580 nm". It means "Any of the potentially infinite combinations of light which are perceived by a typical human as yellow". As an example, consider your computer monitor, which displays yellow as a combination of Red + Green light. We wouldn't say "This picture of a taxi cab is Red + Green", we would say it was yellow. A different species with different color vision might perceive this combination of Red + Green (Reen) differently from monochromatic yellow light, and so from that species' perspective *we* would be color blind for being unable to distinguish Reen from Yellow. I think the best position here is the tribe simply has a different definition of green than we do, a more expansive green which also encompasses what we call red, as befitting their color vision. If we ever get the color vision of mantis shrimp, you better believe we'd start inventing new color words, to disambiguate all of the new colors (Like "Reen") which were formerly referred to using the same words as other colors (Like "Yellow").
@@donanderson3653 but it’s not a definition if it is what occurs to your own eyes. It’s a provable fact, as it is repeated true phenomenon. The definition of empirical, the basis of the scientific endeavour. Some say that this is the only true knowledge. Scientism is founded on the idea that what apparent to the senses is the only truth. Lived experience. Those who say otherwise (that there is a colour called red) are the ones who deny the facts. It’s as provable as can be at least if you are a member of the tribe.
If color blindness would be deciding factor in survival of humans, we would soon found out which color really exist just by seeing some people going extinct and others multiplying. View of people flourishing would be "true" and view of people failing would be considered "false". In the end reproduction is generator of propositions that will be tested by laws of physics and environmet itself will (thanks to its hostility) decide who was right. Lets say that historically Neanderthals were less right than Sapiens and therefore they dont exist and we do.
Guys... The origin of morality is so simple... I can't believe people argue about it. Please, allow me to explain: There are 2 fundamental survival strategies that exist in nature: Competition, and Cooperation. Creatures can basically either compete with others, or they can cooperate with them. That's the 2 basic choices. - Competition is Amoral = the "Law of the Jungle" = Selfishness - Cooperation is Moral = the "Law of Society" = Altruism. Furthermore... To cooperate with another you have to respect their will. You cannot force someone to cooperate with you, you have to persuade them. THIS is the origin of / selection pressure which gives rise to: "Theory of Mind". i.e. the ability of one creature to comprehend that another has a mind of it's own. Everyone knows that nature contains competition. Why do they not notice it also contains cooperation, and this is OBVIOUSLY the origin of morality...? Morality is the LAW of COOPERATION. It's as simple as that.
Surely it's not quite that simple. Many religious people have strong associations between morality and supernatural beings. If some people who use the word "morality" are actually talking about something supernatural, then who are we to say that's not actual morality? Why do we get to define morality?
@@Ansatz66 The point I am making is: We DO NOT get to define morality. It's already built-into reality. It is an absolute, not relative phenomenon because it involves a completely different mechanism of operation to amorality. So there is a correct definition of it - which accurately reflects reality. Any different definition is then factually wrong. This is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact.
@@veritopian1823 : The nature of cooperation between people is built into reality. The selection pressures that directed human evolution are built into reality. But why should we be so confident that these things are morality? Many religious people say that morality is supernatural. They don't agree that morality is these natural things that we're talking about, and what reason do we have to say that we're right and they are wrong? Definitions just specify the meanings of words. Definitions are just about vocabulary; they're not about reality. Words are just made-up sounds that are given meaning by people, and reality doesn't care how we define our words. So what does it mean to say, "There is a correct definition of it, which accurately reflects reality"?
@@Ansatz66 "what reason do we have to say that we're right and they are wrong?" The same as in any investigation. You would follow the scientific method. If people can't back up their opinions with evidence & reason their opinions can be ignored. "So what does it mean to say, "There is a correct definition of it, which accurately reflects reality"? The same as with any word. Words refer to objects or concepts that exist in reality. The sound may be arbitrary - but the thing they refer to is real.
@@veritopian1823 "If people can't back up their opinions with evidence & reason their opinions can be ignored." Then what is our evidence and reason for our definition of morality? "The sound may be arbitrary - but the thing they refer to is real." The issue isn't whether the thing it refers to is real. The issue is whether the definition is correct. Imagine if Alice declared that the word "car" should be defined as: "A car is a large, solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped, Equus caballus." Now we might object that cars have wheels and they roll; they do not gallop. A car is not a horse. But Alice defends her definition by saying, "But car does actually refer to a horse, and _horses are real."_ The problem is that _it doesn't matter that horses are real._ The problem is that a car is not a horse. Now we're saying that morality is the law of cooperation and the law of cooperation is real, but it doesn't matter whether the law of cooperation is real unless we can prove that morally is actually the law of cooperation.
You lost me at the start when you enforced a genetic fallacy. If you have reason to believe that the source is unreliable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue (also a fallacy fallacy) Kin selection has been shown to be the evolutionary driver for morality. Hamiltons rule ( rB>C ) is a cost benefit equation the proves trait’s we call moral are more beneficial than not having those traits.
The EDA does not conclude that moral realism is false. It concludes that it is unjustified. Anyway, there are obviously circumstances in which facts about the origin a belief can undermine the justification of that belief. Merely saying that this is a "fallacy" is a not a convincing response to this in my view. If the concept of genetic fallacy is appropriately applied to every debunking argument, this shows that there is something wrong with our taxonomy of fallacies, not something wrong with every debunking argument.
@@KaneB Pointing out the fallacy was not my response. I was pointing out you lost me from the start. When I see an argument that starts with a blatant problem I don’t see anything that follows from that is going to reap viable fruit. My response was Hamiltons rule is an equation the shows this objective morality selects communities that follow that objective rule. You may not think it is a sufficient justification but it is a justification. Imagine two hunter gatherer communities one that uses Hamiltons Rule and one that doesn’t. The one that doesn’t , goes out and fend only for themselves. One person goes out and is good at catching small animals and gets fat. Everyone else starts to starve. Winter comes and the fat person has enough fat to see him through but everyone else dies. End of that community. The second community the person who is good at catching small animals shares them out to him family and helps out others for favours in return (like blankets etc) everyone is sufficiently feed and have blankets come the winter. That community survived. This is objectively true and a proto moral system would derive from this to help sustain the society. This can be shown mathematically and follows naturally from an evolutionary standpoint because the fittest society is the one that uses this objective rule. A community that recognises aspects of this fact and implement’s it as a virtue in the society will utilise it better and be fitter. It just seems to follow naturally to me.
@@collidingmembranes Okay, so apparently you don't want to call it a "response". Whatever. The point is that one of your reasons for rejecting the argument (or for not listening to the rest of it, or whatever, I suppose depending on what exactly you mean when you say the video "lost you") is that it is a form of the genetic fallacy. This strikes me as pretty poor reasoning.
@@KaneB I made a jab at your reasoning and made a clear response. You ignore my response “twice” and focus on me calling you out on a well known informal fallacy. If you want to convince me make logical argument then don’t use logical fallacies. But whatever! If you want to be uncharitable and avoid my actual argument don’t bother replying.
@@collidingmembranes >> focus on me calling you out on a well known informal fallacy Yes, that was what I felt like commenting on. Your appeal to that fallacy seemed like obviously shoddy reasoning to me. I wasn't particularly interested in discussing the other stuff. >> don’t bother replying LOL. I'll reply to whatever I like.
Thinking on the evolution of morals, I don't think we have enough information to give a theory beyond a certain point about our moral thought. We can see the evolution of our morals in our laws, showing development and growth, but we do not have any other samples to compare and contrast our ethical evolution from. It also may be a point that communication and written history as well as the ability to pass on our knowledge probably has had a deep impact on our development in ethics as well. I say this because early law seems far more similar to animalistic ethics than what we have and consider now. What I mean is that Hammurabi's code is to.put limits on punishment/vengeance and is formalizing the morality held by it's populace. Slavery may be an interesting point as it's not a behaviour in other animals, but also, as such, it's interesting g after it persisted for so.long, that we chose to stop (well, for the most part, and we're talking formal slavery, though you may argue other forms still exist).
Also, and this may seem offensive, but rape is common as can be in the animal world. It's a looooooooooot of work and resources to spend on wooing and getting the approval of a mate that I can just overpower. (Again, I know this seems offensive and I do not encourage this), and in many species, straight up killing males after they mate, seems like a good method of survival... And as such, it doesn't make sense to assume morality is truly tied to selection for survival.
Morality is just what you get when you are a highly social species. Rules need to be formed to keep a group cohesive, even if not all those rules are particularly good or just.
To be clear, I'm just presenting the argument as it has been discussed in the literature. I think there are problems with evolutionary debunking arguments. But sure, I'm happy to come on the podcast. My email is in my channel description (I can't write it here because youtube removes my comments whenever I write the email in them)
@@KaneB i understand. i’ve seen a few of your other videos and i’m definitely in disagreement with your perspective. My cohost is also a moral anti realist like you though. should make for an interesting convo. i’ll shoot you an email tomorrow and we can set something up. thanks !
I feel that 'moral facts confer evolutionary advantage' makes sense, once you assume that the moral facts are real. Like, any moral realist, in some sense, has some conception of their moral facts being real, and therefore, in /some/ fashion distinguishable from false ones. I'm not really sure what that would be, I'm no realist, but the most simple, and I'd suggest most common source of this would be religious in nature. From whence it's not that hard to suggest that God might steer evolution such that moral beings evolved, in essence functioning in some fashion as an evolutionary pressure
@@ferdia748 What do you consider rare? In Bonobos, it's a common social glue. The problem is in our categorization of people. Same sex sex is not at all rare in nature. Same sex monogamy does seem to be.
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We have really got to stop calling it Darwinian this and darwinian that. It is now called evolutionary theory because Darwin was wrong on quite a bit, and we know better now. Darwin was just the first man to posit the hypothesis.
But the Darwin is silent, just because mechanism is off doesn't mean we remove the orign( especially natural selection ) I think we should keep it but dawkins says the Phrase that before I got into the idea I thought it was a version of evolution lol
@madra000 I hear ya, I am just tired of those other people like fundamentalist apologists that do not actually know the actual theory and misrepresenting it by calling it darwinian evolution.
@@mileskeller5244 The point is to distinguish it from other models, e.g. Lamarckianism, where factors other than selective pressure against some traits play a role.
@@kmerczerwony1739 I just hate that the term darwinism is usually used by people that are scientifically illiterate like young earth creationists. I understand your distinction though.
You see two lions enter a cave. Then you see three lions enter the cave. Then you see six lions come out of the cave. You infer that if one more lion goes in, the cave will be empty again.
I admire Kane putting out content like this despite the murderous riots clearly going on just outside his door, very brave.
Jokes aside, great video
Thank you Kane!
I wrote a bachelor thesis in philosophy on precisely Street's dilemma, so your video is very welcome. Your presentation of the topic resembles mine, which makes me think I wasn't completelely off track, even though the examiner was not too happy with bits of my thesis. I have not seen your whole video yet but I bet you will reach some interesting conclusions way above my philosophical ability. Best regards!
I don't really reach any conclusions here. I'm just explaining some of the arguments in the literature.
This is going to be a treat!
Before we investigate moral epistemology we should settle all issues of moral semantics, at least as an assumption for the sake of argument. To attempt to do moral epistemology without a clear idea of moral semantics is like looking for an answer before we decide what question we're asking. Is it evolutionary advantageous to have an accurate understanding of morality? Before we even attempt to answer that question, let's decide exactly what we mean by "morality" so that we know what question we're really asking.
There are two aspects of the realism debate: the semantic and the epistemic. On the semantic side we have a debate regarding what moral language means; as a label, what does morality point toward? On the epistemic side, we have the question of whether we are justified in believing in the existence of whatever morality points toward. If we decide that "morality" refers to some spiritual fluid and "goodness" refers to possession of this fluid, then we can begin a meaningful debate over whether and how we might know this fluid exists and whether we would have evolved to accurately assess volumes of the fluid.
The evolutionary debunking argument makes sense on the epistemic side of the debate, but it wouldn't make sense on the semantic side. The meaning of words doesn't depend on what beliefs are justified. The meaning of the word "unicorn" is not dependent upon us having justification for believing in unicorns. Words get their meaning from the intentions of the people who use the word, and in this way semantics are social constructs. Therefore it seems that the evolutionary debunking argument must be intended as an objection to the epistemic side of moral realism, and yet it seems to proceed without first clarifying the semantics that it intends to use.
6:32 "(1) Causal premise: Our evolutionary history explains why we have the moral beliefs that we have."
How can we know whether this premise is true without knowing what the word "moral" means? Moral semantics are controversial. We really should not expect a moral realist to define this word in the same way as an anti-realist unless we carefully define our terms in advance so that everyone is speaking the same language. The way I would define "morality" allows evolution to provide a very good explanation of our moral beliefs, but I wouldn't trust this to be true if the word were being defined by an anti-realist.
"(2) Epistemic premise: Evolution is not truth-tracking with respect to moral truth."
I would have said that evolution is very likely truth-tracking with respect to moral truth since moral societies tend to thrive and immoral societies tend to tear themselves apart, so there's clearly some disagreement here and the disagreement probably isn't coming from a difference in opinion about evolution. More likely, people are going to disagree about the meaning of "moral truth." What exactly are we asking evolution to track? This is why it is important to settle issues of semantics before we attempt epistemology.
You are correct that it is important to deal with semantics before making the arguments. This is because people often use definitions that vary somewhat from each other, as well as often changing definitions halfway through their arguments if they are disingenuous or simply not well versed in philosophy. It's why Richard Joyce, in his book 'The myth of morality', painstakingly goes through definitions for page after page before the main arguments even begin. I'm wondering what, if any, disagreements you have with him on his analysis of the semantics.
"I would have said that evolution is very likely truth-tracking with respect to moral truth since moral societies tend to thrive and immoral societies tend to tear themselves apart"
And this is why moral definitions are important. You must be defining morality completely differently than me if you hold this to be true. What you mean when you say morality is likely very different than what I mean.
@@yahyamohammed637 : Roughly what sort of definitions does Joyce use? Is he utilitarian? Does he favor deontology? Virtue ethics? Divine command theory? I don't have a copy of his book.
Personally I tend to favor utilitarian conceptions of morality as I think that fits most broadly with how people tend to use moral language. If not utilitarian, then surely most people tend to use moral language in at least a consequentialist way. Pleasure is not always the goal to which "good" things contribute, but still "good" things tend to get their "goodness" by working toward some goal.
This is fantastic. Thank you, Dr Kane B! I'm just in the process of writing an Essay on Evolutionary Debunking Arguments against Realism, and this is one of the best summaries I've seen. Is there a way to download a transcription of this video?
Found it :)
I am not philospoher but I know what morality is.
Morality is tool produced by biology just like spider web, beavers' dam, bird's nest or human spear. It is an adaptation to conditions of environment. Morality is whatever leads to satisfaction of physiological and psychological needs of the body. When conditions of material reality around you are such that you can afford high morality (rich people sending millions to charities) your moral standard will be sky high, when you will become homeless begger your morality will automatically adapt and eventually you may end up survivng through cannibalism just like people living in harshest conditions.
Social animals as humans have to construct morality also as a tool of social control to ensure that naturally arising conflicts based on oposing interests of individual's bodies (typically two males fighting for reproductive oportunity with same female, parent favoring his child with food over child of another parent, etc.) will not result into genetic extinction of the group.
That is basically it. Morality is just another tool we developed for our own survival. And we will be always changing it/adapting it to make it fit with whatever change/challenge in enviroment around us.
There is no objective morality but there surely is objective to morality and that is improvement of chances for succesful reproduction of our species.
You may be correct about what 'morality' actually is, but when someone says 'Hitler is evil', they are not almost never describing what you are describing. Would an average person in society (or anyone, for that matter), say 'That male lion who killed those lion cubs is evil'? Animal behavior could just as well be described in such a way and thus we could presumably make such statements or speak about 'injustice' among animals and so on.
If not, then the definition and explanation you propose is so watered down or devoid of certain key elements of moral terminology as to make us question why even continue to use moral terminology for such a concept.
Whether the evolutionary debunking argument refutes moral our basic moral beliefs depends on what those basic moral beliefs are.
Consider the following.
(1) Evolution has given us certain desires and aversions - those that tend to promote evolutionary fitness (aversion to pain, desire for sex, desire to eat and drink, to seek a comfortable temperature, the company of others, etc.) There is no objective "truth" associated with these desires - a desire provides a motive to alter the world in a ways that tend to produce genetic replication.
(2) Evolution has also given us a learning system. Desires are not hard-wired; they can be modified by experience. Rewards reinforce certain desires while punishments reinforce certain aversions.
(3) A creature that evolves among creatures having such a learning system can gain an evolutionary advantage by responding to benefit-producing behavior with a desire-reinforcing response and with harm-producing behavior with an aversion-reinforcing response.
(4) Cognitively sophisticated creatures such as humans can simply form better, more accurate beliefs about what types of behavior it makes sense to respond to with desire-reinforcing or aversion-reinforcing responses. We respond to taking property without consent with aversion-reinforcing behavior (anger, condemnation) and we respond to aiding those who are in great need with desire-reinforcing behavior (praise, expressions of gratitude). NOTE: This has stance independent in that we all might be ignorant or wrong about whether it is possible to promote a particular desire or aversion through praise or condemnation. We might think that there are reasons to and that it is possible to promote an aversion to engaging in homosexual acts when, in fact, there is either no good reason to do so.)
(5) Moral beliefs are simply beliefs about what desires and aversions to reinforce and what types of responses are more or less effective in providing that reinforcement.
One doesn't have to accept this theory, but it provides an example of objectively true or false moral beliefs that an evolutionary debunking argument cannot touch. Whether evolution debunks moral realism depends on what one takes real moral properties to be.
"Whether evolution debunks moral realism depends on what one takes real moral properties to be."
Of course, but the only way to make 'moral properties' still exist if one considers the evolutionary debunking argument to be true is to water down the definition and properties of 'morality' so much as to make it completely different from how an average person uses moral terminology. Saying 'Hitler is evil' would have virtually no power anymore, because 'evil' doesn't mean anything close to the same thing and has virtually none of the same connotations anymore.
@@yahyamohammed637 I hold that the relational definition of the term makes perfectly good sense of how people use moral terms. It makes sense of everything from:
1) The use of praise or condemnation. (These are the methods by which one nurtures new desires and aversions in others.)
2) The concepts of "ought implies can". (If altering a character's sentiments through praise and condemnation in a way that change the outcome is not possible, then we are not dealing with a question of morality.)
3) Moral slogans such as "What if everybody did that?" and "How would you like it if somebody did that to you?",. (Morality is concerned with those desires and aversions people have reasons to promote universally - across the whole population - using praise and condemnation.)
4) The concept of an excuse. (An excuse is a claim that breaks the causal link between an agent's actions and that agent's desires, such as "accident" or "false belief". Or it shows that the agent did, in fact, act on a desire that people have reasons to promote universally, such as "greater good".)
5) Explains the types of evidence people accept in moral debate. (The types of evidence that provides reasons to promote a particular desire or aversion universally.)
This theory understands moral properties to be relational properties - properties relating actions to those desires and aversions that people generally have reasons to promote universally. Not the type of "objective, intrinsic prescriptivity" that the "realists" insist on. And these relational properties are still real - they are facts.
"Hitler is evil" has all of the power that we find it to have in contemporary philosophy. It says that any person who does what Hitler did warrants the strongest attitudes of contempt and condemnation that society can muster. Not because what Hitler did had a property of objective, intrinsic, not-to-be doneness (which doesn't actually exist, implying that Hitler actually did nothing wrong), but because people generally have genuine desire-based reasons to respond to that type of behavior in ways that would work to reduce the chance of it appearing again in the future.
my moral intuitions track with David Enoch. I don't have an answer to if it begs the question. but for the second criticism seems to me that Enoch points out necessary, but not sufficient grounds for morality. The sufficient would be in normative ethics. not in meta ethics
What do you mean by “track the truth” or, as you said a similar term in your video with Mon0, “truth-tracking”?
An intuitive way to think about it is that a capacity is truth-tracking when (a) the beliefs formed by that capacity are mostly true and (b) if the relevant facts were different, the beliefs would be different in a corresponding way. Perception tracks the truth: my perceptual beliefs are mostly true, and if the facts were different, my perceptual beliefs would be different. If there were not a computer in front of me, I would not believe there is a computer in front of me. Contrast that with the fake ethnography. Perhaps it's true that the tribe engage in a ritual involving fire ants. But even if they didn't, I would still believe they did, because my belief was based on the ethnography which was written not by observing the tribe but by inventing a fiction.
@@KaneB i see, thank you
This is a small point, but I've heard you describe moral realism several times as a view that presupposes that we might all be wrong about what the moral facts are in the world. However, it seems to me like you could have a realist position that says something along the lines of "the moral facts are those moral propositions that everyone agrees are true". In this case, if we all assented to some moral proposition then we couldn't be wrong about its truth because its truth is just dependent on unanimous assent to it. I don't think this position holds much weight, but I think it's at least coherent, and a challenge to your account of realism.
Like pretty much every other philosophical term, "realism" is used in different ways. The way that I define "moral realism" is standard in metaethics. The position you describe there would not count as moral realism, per this definition. Of course, we can come up with other definitions of "moral realism" if we want. I'm not sure how that's a challenge to standard definition, though. We can come up with alternative definitions for any word we like.
The notion that moral truth is determined by unanimous assent seems more in line with constructivism. When I'm criticizing realism, I usually want to explicitly distinguish it from constructivism. That's certainly important here, because the evolutionary debunking argument that I describe is given by Sharon Street, who is a constructivist.
Also, it's worth noting that per your definition, moral realism is still false, since there are no moral propositions that everyone agrees are true. After all, some people are error theorists who take all moral propositions to be false!
@@KaneB I understand that the position I described would not count as realism per your definition, that was my point. You stated a definition of moral realism, and I came up with a position that I think ought to be counted as realism but would not fit your definition, therefore I think you ought to utilize a different definition. Isn't that standard conceptual analysis?
The position I stated sounds constructivist, but I could easily make a non-constructivist version. I could say for instance that moral facts are the moral propositions that everyone assents to, and we learn about such facts through divine revelation. In this instance, we couldn't be wrong about the moral facts if everyone assented to them, and they would not be constructed by us, but by God. This position would end up being false, since there are no moral propositions that everyone assents to, and many people who claim to have divine revelation have different moral beliefs, but I don't think I need the position to be right, do I? I think all that is needed to challenge the definition is a position that is internally coherent.
@@JackyBunch These are technical terms. When metaethicists define "moral realism", they're not usually attempting to analyze a concept that's commonly used and that they want to have a better understanding of. They're just stipulating definitions for the purpose of demarcating a particular area of inquiry. There's a specific position, which has certain interesting features, and which is targeted by the evolutionary debunking argument, among a whole bunch of other arguments, and we're calling this position "moral realism". This isn't really a matter of conceptual analysis.
If we want to do conceptual analysis of the concept "moral realism", I would respond that I just don't see why the position you describe ought to be counted as realism. Compare how the term "realism" is used in other contexts, say in philosophy of science. Consider the position: "the scientific facts are those scientific propositions that every scientist agrees is true." Well, maybe there is something to be said for this position. But very few philosophers of science would be inclined to call this a realist position.
As for your alternative position, I don't understand how it's non-constructivist, or even coherent. If the moral facts are those moral propositions to which everybody assents, how can moral facts not be constructed by us? Maybe they're partly constructed by God, if we take God to be included in "everyone", but they're constructed by us as well.
@@KaneB After thinking about it more I agree that that position isn't coherent. Apologies!
@@JackyBunch No need to apologize; there's nothing wrong with exploring these ideas.
The eda responce to the general skeptical challenge seems weak. in essence it boils down to:
1.If true preseption is positively related to evolutionary success then preseption is probaly truth tracking
2. I precive that preseption is positively related to evolutionary success
T. preseption is probaly truth tracking
This only holds true if we presuppose our perceptions are true.
Hi Kane, huge thanks for this incredibly helpful video! I am working on a paper concerning evolutionary debunking arguments at the moment. I was wondering if you could provide me with the source for one of the arguments you have sketched. This would be the moral realist who claims that our capacity to be rational enables us to know moral truths despite the influences evolution has had on us. Thank you!
Is your paper in support of moral realism?
is there any way we could access these slides?
can u mention the references ?
Street, "Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value"
Joyce, "The Evolution of Morality" and "Evolution, truth-tracking, and moral skepticism"
Horn, "Evolution and the epistemological challenge to moral realism"
Huemer, "Revisionary intuitionism"
Copp, "Darwinian skepticism about moral realism"
Enoch, "The epistemological challenge to metanormative realism"
Braddock, "Evolutionary debunking: Can moral realists explain the reliability of our moral judgments?"
@@KaneB thanks 😊
Excellent! Your arguments against moral realism seem incontrovertible to me. Until watching your TH-cam videos on this topic, I did not realize that, as a death penalty abolitionist, I have been arguing against moral realists (who say the death penalty is morally appropriate). Some of them explicitly claim that: 1) certain people are evil, and we in society get to decide who is evil, and 2) we have a moral obligation to kill the people we deem evil. (And they explicitly use the word "obligation.") Kane, am I correct in saying they are moral realists? My response to them has been: 1) Who are we to make the god-like distinction that murderer A should be executed, and murderer B should get life in prison, and 2) It is only your opinion that execution is warranted... I have a different opinion. Why does your opinion take precedence over mine? Am I on the right track?
It's difficult to say, because an antirealist can still make moral judgments, and they might make just the same moral judgments as a realist. Nothing stops an antirealist from endorsing the death penalty, or for thinking that societies are morally obligated to use the death penalty. It's just that the antirealist would not take these judgments to be true in virtue of stance-independent facts. They might instead see such judgments as ultimately grounded in emotional dispositions, for instance. It's worth noting that "we in society get to decide who is evil" actually sounds more in line with antirealism -- as far as realists are concerned, whether or not a person is evil isn't something we can decide. There's a fact of the matter, and we might all be incorrect about it. We don't decide that Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, we discover it; in the same way, we don't decide which persons are evil.
It does not seem to me, that somebody who is pro or anti death penalty is automatically committed to a metaethical position. Somebody could think death penalty should stay in place as morality is not real so why care about people dyeing or somebody could hold that morally, killing is wrong in a real sense, so having the death penalty in place violates this truth about the world so must be removed.
I would suggest looking at the difference between normative and meta ethics. In brief, normative ethics are questions of what we should do, eg "should the death penalty being in place or not?", and meta ethics addresses what ethics is at a higher level, for example "do moral truths exist?" (realism/antirealism). Like everything in philosophy what exactly the distinction is, is disputed territory but I think my description gives the rough outline of it.
@@KaneB Thanks, that is helpful. I should probably focus more on all of the practical reasons to abolish the death penalty: 1) Innocence - 186 people in US have been exonerated and released from death row, 2) Lack of Deterrence - There is more evidence that the death penalty *increases* than decreases the homicide rate, 3) Cost - The death penalty costs several times more than life in prison, 4) Arbitrary Application - Poor people of color are more likely to get the death penalty; if you have enough money to hire good lawyers, you don't go to death row. Ever.
@@KaneB Correct, it appears that an anti-realist would likely view the judgment of good and evil as social constructs rather than some sort of metaphysical reality that is floating around and permeates the universe. I would argue that the way anti-realists use moral terminology is not in line with how most of society today and atleast the past several hundred years use such moral terms, and thus they should not even use commonly used moral terminology but come up with other terms or phrases.
Premise: I know little philo, not my trade.
BUT consider that survival is definitionally intrinsic in being a living organism, and that natural selection is merely the product of the interaction of the environment pressing with its force onto the organism, which attempts to resist with its own. In this scenario the organism would, again by definition, have to develop survival "values" and related behaviors and physical features.
In this scenario, is not the pressure towards accrual and exertion of force by the organism onto the environment a "Force," about as "real" as, say, gravity?
you are right if you are saying that not just physics have their laws but also life itself. Indeed there ie deterministic logic in every organism that will "make it do whatever it takes" and if not, that is OK, whole point of darwinistic filter is to separate functional forms from dysfunctional.
Sure, but is it correct to define such 'survival values' as morality? Is this definition of morality the same as how an average person or society uses moral terminology? I would argue no, and thus why describe such a thing as morality at all?
@@yahyamohammed637 Well yes, but it is the force that generates what we would call drives or values - both the values of power accrual and, at a later stage of aggregation, what laypeople would call morality. You could say that the human condition is the struggle between the different value systems that emerged within due to these forces: mainly a drive towards individual power a drive towards community cooperation (what we call morality).
Great. Thank you so much.🤩
Why couldn't a moral realist claim that promoting reproductive success itself is moral? If people who value survival tend to act in ways that promote survival, and this promotes reproductive success, and if reproductive success is moral, then their actions are moral.
Doesn't this solve the dilemma?
Or take it even further, genetic health, rather than individual selection. You could say that the most moral actions are those which promote the reproductive success of those similarly related to yourself. So for example, I would give my life to save two of my biological siblings, or four biological cousins. You could then extend this further, by going all the way down to plants and bacteria, then making an environmentalist argument like, I would give my life to save all of the life on earth from certain death.
@@mrpickle6290 Exactly. I think the author of the video didn't know much about genetics or evolutionary biology.
@@werrkowalski2985 I think also there's a visceral disgust towards realists who use evolution or biology as an explanatory tool. There is always a sort of instant thought they have which is "this justifies eugenics" or, "this justifies slavery". In my own view, this is just way too simplistic of an analysis. When Kane said that the realist position should concede that slavery was justified due to it being advantageous to favour the in-group, I just thought "how do you know that!?". I can think of many reasons why that wouldn't be true. The most obvious one being that the "slaves" BECAME the in-group through mere exposure! The more contact you have with another group, the more likely that you absorb them as part of the group. That COULD be a possible explanation. Very simplistic thinking from the dialogue that Kane is using here.
@@mrpickle6290 Yes, so as I understand it you are saying that the threat could be that the slaves could be absorbed by the ingroup, and this would work against the ethnocentric strategy (proven to be the most effective through computer models)
People who make arguments like that, ie use examples like slavery often don't realise that their belief is embedded in a whole structure of the modern world. The reason why it is so easy for them to dismiss things like slavery is because slavery was made uneconomical by the industrial revolution, so they don't have to at all consider the practical aspect, they don't have to make any cost-benefit analysis, they don't really even need to consider the consequences. If a person's life depended to a significant degree on exploitation or slavery, then they would be way less inclined to just dismiss slavery as immoral. There are many kinds of exploitation, and also there could be said to be many degrees of slavery, Curt Doolittle has recognised 9 degrees of "slavery", going from enslavement of inanimate objects, through dependency of animals, temporary dependency of children, contracts, debt slavery, prisons, to the chattel slavery and hard labor slavery. If we see slavery in such degrees, then the moral ambiguity becomes more apparent.
Moreover, one could also argue that economic exploitation is not really functionally different from slavery. I like that Dugin clip where he says that liberals fear barbarians, because barbarians are a parody of their own ways. A barbarian would say: This is a master, this is a slave, the slave works and the master relaxes, while a liberal would say that this person has to work, or live under a bridge, he has a choice, as if economic coercion was better than physical coercion.
@@werrkowalski2985 I think you are misunderstanding me. I think that under most circumstances, slavery is objectively wrong and immoral. But the reason that slavery happened might be because: the slavers did not have sufficient understanding of relatedness to recognize they were abusing and tormenting their own kin. So, 1. they didn't realize that they were actually damaging their own prospective gene selection. 2. they didn't realize, it is more economical to work with the "slaves" rather than to exploit them, 3. most people were able to empathize with the slaves, and did not want it to happen just for that reason. I mean shocking right? You can still be a consequentialist by saying; "well, if I didn't emancipate those slaves from oppression I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did otherwise". But then, why would you not be able to live with yourself you ask? What is the biological mechanism by which one is able to empathize, and feel the pain of others? I mean, there are a number of different explanations, both emerging from selective processes, or evolutionary accidents. But it doesn't matter. What matters is, I don't like it. Thus, it is in my best long-term interests to emancipate the slaves, or feed the hungry or whatever it be (otherwise my gene selection would suffer at the expense). I think, the liberals most probably got the whole abolishing slavery thing right, and other moral facts we take for granted etc.
great! thank you so much.
Could you believe in objective morality without being a moral realist?
Yes, see the first part Scanlon's What we owe eachother
2:30 Your presentation is so consistently good, so I’m guessing that the handwritten flowchart wasn’t yours.
I could not read it, if someone is lettering specifically for visual presentation, it’s wise to be deliberate and measured in one’s penmanship.
My handwriting used to be completely illegible,
But after buying myself a Pilot Parrallel Pen*,
And teaching myself to write Gothic Textura quadrata following a guide on an internet blog,
My handwriting was completely transformed. People often complement me on my writing now.
Learning a standardized Antique script allowed me to understand the forms of the letters on a deeper level.
And you can literally do it in like 3, 2 hour study sessions.
*(orange or green, red one too small and the blue too big, haven’t tried the new pink and teal nib sizes yet)
Do you work for a pen company lol? There are probably more effective places to advertise!
@@KaneB no. Pilot is a Japanese company. Just giving some helpful advice.
And I recommend the pilot pen specifically because it is a writing utensil used by the worlds best calligraphers yet it’s less than 5 dollars and you don’t have to fuck around with nibs and ink etc.
i don’t think it’s possible to learn good habits without being able to control line width.
th-cam.com/video/NEUkOt3G-js/w-d-xo.html
Irrelevant
I have this intuition that I can't shake that moral actions that aid in survival (personal or group) are good , that moral actions that do not aid in survial (personal or group) are bad and the good and bad that people argue about have survival benefits that are either ambiguous or not universally helpful. So your in group out group example seems obvious to us because pluralism is good for our survival and it may be bad for others survival. Yet I do worry my intuition is question begging.
What are you thoughts on Divine Command Theory to determine the objectivity of moral values and duties? This would give morality a transcendent, concrete anchor point and foundation which is beyond human individuals, cultures, societies and natural evolution. Hence, theism is the way to go if you want to affirm the truth of moral realism, that morality is discovered not invented, which matches with our personal moral experiences that things like raping little children for sexual gratification or committing genocide against certain groups is actually wrong, not just wrong in my opinion or because a certain society has decided that’s the case.
I'm tempted to say that it has more going for it than many popular versions of moral realism -- it makes more sense to me than any secular form of non-naturalist realism that I've come across. Which is not to say that's plausible, of course. I'm not a theist, and even if you are a theist, it faces important challenges. But it grounds the objectivity and authoritative prescriptivity of morality in a straightforward way. I suppose it's not surprising that it has some appeal as a metaethical theory, since moral concepts were intertwined with religion for so long.
@@KaneB Is it accurate to say "it grounds the objectivity [...] of morality..." when god itself is a subject?
@@azerliartock I take it the issue here is that DCT makes morality dependent on the mind of God, so morality isn't really mind-independent. A few points: (1) There are different kinds of mind-independence. The point is that on DCT, there are laws/commands that exist independently of what any human or group of humans thinks or feels. I'd say that's enough to describe such commands as objective, at least from our point of view.
(2) Presumably, God's mind is not anything like any mind that we are familiar with. I take it that when theist philosophers talk about the mental states of God, they are using terms metaphorically; or at least, they are using terms in some non-standard way. Even on DCT, morality counts as fully mind-independent, understanding "mind" to refer to the sort of faculties we find in humans, other animals, and perhaps computers and extraterrestrials.
(3) According to classical theism, God is immanent: everything that exists is, in some sense, permeated by the divine, and is dependent for its existence on the divine. So even rocks and stars and trees are, in some sense, part of, or constructed by, the "mind" of God. Morality on DCT is no less objective than any paradigmatically objective entity.
@@KaneB Yeah, I would say that's mostly fair. I'll just add a few notes:
(1) you're right that we can make 3rd person claims about the objectivity of a certain fact obtaining, such as "god commands X", or "culture Y adheres to value Z". But a cultural relativist would not want to say that value Z is objective in virtue of its dependence on subject Y. My point was just that we don't use "objective" to refer to things subject-dependent.
(2) it seems to me that, if god commands were things like "thou shall not kill", or "murder is wrong", that would be very human-like and human-centered, but I'll take your word for what philosophers mean by god's mind. I'm sure they are more sophisticated than the bible.
(3) since classical theism conceptions of god like panentheism view god as containing nature (any paradigmatically objective entity) but being more than nature, I don't think your last sentence really follows just from (3). Maybe it follows from (2)+(3)
Why is genocide wrong objectively maybe people who did genocide will celebrate and enjoy rest of their existence thanks to it. What makes genocide objectively wrong if it fullfils its function? Sapiens turning Neanderthals into source of energy for their children through cannibalism in Ice Age may be reason why our species flourished.
Also the reason why you find pedo stuff abhorent may be genetic. Kids are not reproductive therefore having sex with them will not lead to survival of species eventually it may ruin sexual abilities of children to reproduce in adulthood which may lead to extinction of the group (think small tribe).
This all assumes, of course, that macro evolution by natural selection is true.
Macro evolution is just speciation via micro evolution
*Hello TH-cam*
Wait, I'm not TH-cam. I'm Kane B. Everyone else is TH-cam.
A tribe on an island are colour blind. They all see red and green as the same colour green. Who is correct about the colour red? The outsiders who are not colour blind or the tribe members? Is there a true position?
Isn’t there an overwhelming temptation to say that there is an objective reality of red and that red is not an evolutionary querk?
I suppose the fact that red exists has not been relevant to the tribe's survivial or general wellbeing, though that might be taking the metaphor too literally.
@@maximus4765 cannot we say with some good confidence that it does? At any event, there is the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that firmly endorsed the objective fact of red
The fact that red and green do not represent the exact same wavelength of light is objective, so insofar as the tribes people assert this, they would be wrong.
However, colors don't refer to only 1 wavelength of light. For example, "Yellow" doesn't simply mean "Light around 580 nm". It means "Any of the potentially infinite combinations of light which are perceived by a typical human as yellow". As an example, consider your computer monitor, which displays yellow as a combination of Red + Green light. We wouldn't say "This picture of a taxi cab is Red + Green", we would say it was yellow. A different species with different color vision might perceive this combination of Red + Green (Reen) differently from monochromatic yellow light, and so from that species' perspective *we* would be color blind for being unable to distinguish Reen from Yellow.
I think the best position here is the tribe simply has a different definition of green than we do, a more expansive green which also encompasses what we call red, as befitting their color vision. If we ever get the color vision of mantis shrimp, you better believe we'd start inventing new color words, to disambiguate all of the new colors (Like "Reen") which were formerly referred to using the same words as other colors (Like "Yellow").
@@donanderson3653 but it’s not a definition if it is what occurs to your own eyes. It’s a provable fact, as it is repeated true phenomenon. The definition of empirical, the basis of the scientific endeavour. Some say that this is the only true knowledge. Scientism is founded on the idea that what apparent to the senses is the only truth. Lived experience.
Those who say otherwise (that there is a colour called red) are the ones who deny the facts. It’s as provable as can be at least if you are a member of the tribe.
If color blindness would be deciding factor in survival of humans, we would soon found out which color really exist just by seeing some people going extinct and others multiplying. View of people flourishing would be "true" and view of people failing would be considered "false". In the end reproduction is generator of propositions that will be tested by laws of physics and environmet itself will (thanks to its hostility) decide who was right. Lets say that historically Neanderthals were less right than Sapiens and therefore they dont exist and we do.
Guys... The origin of morality is so simple... I can't believe people argue about it. Please, allow me to explain:
There are 2 fundamental survival strategies that exist in nature: Competition, and Cooperation.
Creatures can basically either compete with others, or they can cooperate with them. That's the 2 basic choices.
- Competition is Amoral = the "Law of the Jungle" = Selfishness
- Cooperation is Moral = the "Law of Society" = Altruism.
Furthermore...
To cooperate with another you have to respect their will.
You cannot force someone to cooperate with you, you have to persuade them.
THIS is the origin of / selection pressure which gives rise to: "Theory of Mind".
i.e. the ability of one creature to comprehend that another has a mind of it's own.
Everyone knows that nature contains competition.
Why do they not notice it also contains cooperation, and this is OBVIOUSLY the origin of morality...?
Morality is the LAW of COOPERATION. It's as simple as that.
Surely it's not quite that simple. Many religious people have strong associations between morality and supernatural beings. If some people who use the word "morality" are actually talking about something supernatural, then who are we to say that's not actual morality? Why do we get to define morality?
@@Ansatz66
The point I am making is:
We DO NOT get to define morality. It's already built-into reality. It is an absolute, not relative phenomenon because it involves a completely different mechanism of operation to amorality.
So there is a correct definition of it - which accurately reflects reality.
Any different definition is then factually wrong.
This is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact.
@@veritopian1823 : The nature of cooperation between people is built into reality. The selection pressures that directed human evolution are built into reality. But why should we be so confident that these things are morality? Many religious people say that morality is supernatural. They don't agree that morality is these natural things that we're talking about, and what reason do we have to say that we're right and they are wrong?
Definitions just specify the meanings of words. Definitions are just about vocabulary; they're not about reality. Words are just made-up sounds that are given meaning by people, and reality doesn't care how we define our words. So what does it mean to say, "There is a correct definition of it, which accurately reflects reality"?
@@Ansatz66
"what reason do we have to say that we're right and they are wrong?"
The same as in any investigation. You would follow the scientific method.
If people can't back up their opinions with evidence & reason their opinions can be ignored.
"So what does it mean to say, "There is a correct definition of it, which accurately reflects reality"?
The same as with any word.
Words refer to objects or concepts that exist in reality.
The sound may be arbitrary - but the thing they refer to is real.
@@veritopian1823 "If people can't back up their opinions with evidence & reason their opinions can be ignored."
Then what is our evidence and reason for our definition of morality?
"The sound may be arbitrary - but the thing they refer to is real."
The issue isn't whether the thing it refers to is real. The issue is whether the definition is correct.
Imagine if Alice declared that the word "car" should be defined as: "A car is a large, solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped, Equus caballus." Now we might object that cars have wheels and they roll; they do not gallop. A car is not a horse. But Alice defends her definition by saying, "But car does actually refer to a horse, and _horses are real."_ The problem is that _it doesn't matter that horses are real._ The problem is that a car is not a horse. Now we're saying that morality is the law of cooperation and the law of cooperation is real, but it doesn't matter whether the law of cooperation is real unless we can prove that morally is actually the law of cooperation.
I love you
You lost me at the start when you enforced a genetic fallacy. If you have reason to believe that the source is unreliable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue (also a fallacy fallacy)
Kin selection has been shown to be the evolutionary driver for morality. Hamiltons rule ( rB>C ) is a cost benefit equation the proves trait’s we call moral are more beneficial than not having those traits.
The EDA does not conclude that moral realism is false. It concludes that it is unjustified. Anyway, there are obviously circumstances in which facts about the origin a belief can undermine the justification of that belief. Merely saying that this is a "fallacy" is a not a convincing response to this in my view. If the concept of genetic fallacy is appropriately applied to every debunking argument, this shows that there is something wrong with our taxonomy of fallacies, not something wrong with every debunking argument.
@@KaneB Pointing out the fallacy was not my response. I was pointing out you lost me from the start. When I see an argument that starts with a blatant problem I don’t see anything that follows from that is going to reap viable fruit.
My response was Hamiltons rule is an equation the shows this objective morality selects communities that follow that objective rule. You may not think it is a sufficient justification but it is a justification.
Imagine two hunter gatherer communities one that uses Hamiltons Rule and one that doesn’t. The one that doesn’t , goes out and fend only for themselves. One person goes out and is good at catching small animals and gets fat. Everyone else starts to starve. Winter comes and the fat person has enough fat to see him through but everyone else dies. End of that community.
The second community the person who is good at catching small animals shares them out to him family and helps out others for favours in return (like blankets etc) everyone is sufficiently feed and have blankets come the winter. That community survived. This is objectively true and a proto moral system would derive from this to help sustain the society.
This can be shown mathematically and follows naturally from an evolutionary standpoint because the fittest society is the one that uses this objective rule. A community that recognises aspects of this fact and implement’s it as a virtue in the society will utilise it better and be fitter.
It just seems to follow naturally to me.
@@collidingmembranes Okay, so apparently you don't want to call it a "response". Whatever. The point is that one of your reasons for rejecting the argument (or for not listening to the rest of it, or whatever, I suppose depending on what exactly you mean when you say the video "lost you") is that it is a form of the genetic fallacy. This strikes me as pretty poor reasoning.
@@KaneB I made a jab at your reasoning and made a clear response. You ignore my response “twice” and focus on me calling you out on a well known informal fallacy. If you want to convince me make logical argument then don’t use logical fallacies. But whatever! If you want to be uncharitable and avoid my actual argument don’t bother replying.
@@collidingmembranes >> focus on me calling you out on a well known informal fallacy
Yes, that was what I felt like commenting on. Your appeal to that fallacy seemed like obviously shoddy reasoning to me. I wasn't particularly interested in discussing the other stuff.
>> don’t bother replying
LOL. I'll reply to whatever I like.
Thinking on the evolution of morals, I don't think we have enough information to give a theory beyond a certain point about our moral thought. We can see the evolution of our morals in our laws, showing development and growth, but we do not have any other samples to compare and contrast our ethical evolution from.
It also may be a point that communication and written history as well as the ability to pass on our knowledge probably has had a deep impact on our development in ethics as well.
I say this because early law seems far more similar to animalistic ethics than what we have and consider now.
What I mean is that Hammurabi's code is to.put limits on punishment/vengeance and is formalizing the morality held by it's populace. Slavery may be an interesting point as it's not a behaviour in other animals, but also, as such, it's interesting g after it persisted for so.long, that we chose to stop (well, for the most part, and we're talking formal slavery, though you may argue other forms still exist).
Also, and this may seem offensive, but rape is common as can be in the animal world.
It's a looooooooooot of work and resources to spend on wooing and getting the approval of a mate that I can just overpower. (Again, I know this seems offensive and I do not encourage this), and in many species, straight up killing males after they mate, seems like a good method of survival...
And as such, it doesn't make sense to assume morality is truly tied to selection for survival.
Morality is just what you get when you are a highly social species. Rules need to be formed to keep a group cohesive, even if not all those rules are particularly good or just.
i think you’re on the wrong side of the conversation here. i’d love to have you on my podcast sometime to discuss if you’re interested?
To be clear, I'm just presenting the argument as it has been discussed in the literature. I think there are problems with evolutionary debunking arguments. But sure, I'm happy to come on the podcast. My email is in my channel description (I can't write it here because youtube removes my comments whenever I write the email in them)
@@KaneB i understand. i’ve seen a few of your other videos and i’m definitely in disagreement with your perspective. My cohost is also a moral anti realist like you though. should make for an interesting convo. i’ll shoot you an email tomorrow and we can set something up. thanks !
@@Obscuredbywinds How can I listen to your podcast?
@@thus.spoke.zarathustra it’s axioms on trial on youtube , thanks!
I feel that 'moral facts confer evolutionary advantage' makes sense, once you assume that the moral facts are real. Like, any moral realist, in some sense, has some conception of their moral facts being real, and therefore, in /some/ fashion distinguishable from false ones.
I'm not really sure what that would be, I'm no realist, but the most simple, and I'd suggest most common source of this would be religious in nature. From whence it's not that hard to suggest that God might steer evolution such that moral beings evolved, in essence functioning in some fashion as an evolutionary pressure
it blows my mind that "moral realism" continues to be a thing when the naturalistic explanations for normative behavior are so obvious
Fo real ,Moral realism under naturalism ,does not make sense at all😂
Human morality consistently breaks free of Darwinian adaptions, take the recent Western acceptance of homosexuality for instance.
wdym? homosexuality has always been a thing even in the animal kingdom?
@@noshowerforweeks797 it's rare of course, evolution will never completely eliminate anything.
@@ferdia748 wdym rare? there are a lot of species where homosexual behavior exists even so in our closest species.
@@noshowerforweeks797 how would that mean it's not rare?
@@ferdia748 What do you consider rare? In Bonobos, it's a common social glue. The problem is in our categorization of people. Same sex sex is not at all rare in nature. Same sex monogamy does seem to be.
LOL, amateur hour, I guess... IRL, everyone (no exceptions) is a moral realist and it is impossible to argue any other position.
Nah