To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/PhilosophyVibe . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
Never stop making videos guys. No other channel has helped me understand philosophical issues like this one. If I complete my degree in philosophy this year it's thank to you two
Here's how the Open Question and the is-ought is resolved: - The Open Question gets resolved by distinguishing between intrinsic vs. instrumental goods. Instrumental = what it leads to: Pain can be useful to alert you to a wound. Intrinsic = in and of itself: Pleasure and pain are always good and bad in and of itself. Eg: Childbirth is painful, but is "good" for what it leads to, but the pain is not good in and of itself "It's pleasurable, but is it good?" = Open, because what else it's leading to is left undefined. "It's pleasurable, but is the pleasure intrinsically good?" = Closed, because "yes". - Hume's is-ought gap is bridged by intrinsic value as well, Eg: "The greatest possible suffering, for the greatest many, for the greatest time, IS bad, therefore we OUGHT to avoid it.
Great content. William Lane Craig has some great debates on this topic. The best two, IMO, are against Paul Kurtz and Sam Harris. His debate against Erik Wielenberg was also good, but I don't know many people who are platonists when it comes to moral realism.
I've always gravitated towards the anti-realism side of things, believing that morality is largely based on our emotions. However, the mentioning of mathematical ideas being based on intuition made me start to consider realism more. In the end though, I do still think it's odd that we disagree over morality if it is indeed objective. This video has really made me want to dive into ethics more fully. Great job guys, keep it up!
I think moral realism and subjectivism can both be the case tbh, moral truths exist moral principles exist, you however wouldn’t be able to objectively prove it, because we can’t define what “good” and “bad” is objectively doesn’t mean there isn’t a good and bad moral principle in reality, it’s just based on feelings which is why it’s subjective. I think these two can go together actually!
I think that good starters are: Taking Morality Seriously by David Enoch Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics by David Brink Inventing Right and Wrong by John Mackie Moral Relativism by Gilbert Harman
Mathematics is not really objective, it's only used to represent objective reality, representing what's objective can be subjective, ours is just math. So I do believe the counter argument doesn't work here. Objective reality needs to be tested and verified.
@emmanuelstanley7371 But it is not the verification that makes reality be the way it is. It already is the way it is, and this is what is true. Our verification might be mistaken.
I am curious to what you think a natural moral realist would respond the objection, on the point that moral intuitions come evolution. Wouldn't that therefore make morality an arbitrary concept as to however humanity evolves for its own survivability? For example, if humans evolved the same way bees did and slaughtered some of their newborn, would not the natural moral realist have to agree that killing some of our human firstborns is right because that's the way humans evolved? But if the natural moral realist disagress and says this is wrong, would not the natural moral realist be appealing to an objective, unchanging moral law outside of humanity and therefore evolution cannot explain moral intuitions.
@@YohnzyRR It depends on the naturalist. some bite the bullet and some dont. Quine goes so far as to say that if evolution made it advantageous (promotes survival and reproduction) to deny the laws of logic or believe in fallacies then it would be justified. This was in terms of epistemic norms though. This is the main critique of the naturalist outside of is ought/open question concerns. Naturalists try to get around this by idealizing but it doesnt work since one has to justify one set of idealizations over another. Then the natural facts and their collision with moral intuitions come into play. The intuitions always win out in practice since no one can imagine their fundamental commitments to be false. that is one of the definitions of fundamental commitments.
I think that presenting moral intuition as some instinct developed through evolition is a misrepresentation of how moral intuition is understood in metaethics. If you'd like to understand it better, I recommend reading Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism. But, in short, an intuition in this context is not an instinct or a hunch, but an 'intellectual appearance' that we get just when we reflect about moral issues. It is similar to the perceptual appearances that we get when observing things. Intuitionism is a form of foundationalism, according to which some of our most basic and fundamental beliefs are non-inferential, ie they are not inferred from other beliefs and are not in need of further justification. For intuitionists, the belief that, say, suffering is bad, is as self-evident as the belief that we have hands. So, to ask someone to justify basic moral intuitions is like asking them to justify basic perceptual beliefs.
An interesting argument that Massimo Pigliucci made in his book, How to Be A Stoic, is that because human beings are related to bonobos and chimps, they display human traits of morality such as caring for their young, or defending one another from predators. But then Peter Kropotkin in his pioneering ethical naturalist book Ethics, made a similar argument in 1920, when he used a thought experiment of a group of alligators enacting justice when a human killed one of their kin, as an allegory for non-human animals exhibiting principles of justice just as human beings would. But then again, an ethical naturalist would use symbiosis in nature to demonstrate the principles of self-preservation and sociality. Like, take a vampire bat that gives up its supply of blood to feed starving other, or a group of rabbits and hares running together from foxes in the same hole. So, there's my two cents of ethical naturalism.
Morality is cause and effect between self and others. Virtues are good and vices are bad based on trustworthiness and deserve. If people possess qualitative character traits and have a capacity for love, joy, and peace contrary to hate, despair, and conflict then objective moral truths exist. Morality would be your inner nature discovered by introspection and imagination grounded in reality. Ethics would be how you apply your morality in reality. The is/ought distinction is meaningless because everything is based on qualitative facts. No one enjoys being scammed is a fact. Murder negates trust in the one doing the murder is a fact. Murder is not self or other defense is a moral fact. Anti realism is like seeing the world in 2D instead of 3D. It's absurd. Qualitative facts exist within the relationship between self and others. Morality is based on building trust and acknowledging deserve vs. destroying trust, and ignoring or working against deserve. If you ever work at something that benefits society then you will feel that you deserve something in return for your work. This is a moral fact. Beyond that it is a fact that something is deserved there. If no one appreciates these things society breaks down is a moral fact.
To be more exact, normative ethics and meta-ethics are about the theory of ethics and scope of moral judgments respectively, and applied ethics is about the practice of ethics. Also, I would suggest reading Nietzsche and Kropotkin on the debate of metaethics.
I’ve been watching this channel for 3 years now! I might be biased but I always find my philosophical views aligning more with John 😅 What kind of philosopher is John? Utilitarian, Kantian etc.
Will you ever make a video on Foundationalism vs Coherentism? The sources I’ve used haven’t really made sense to me, do coherentists accept circular reasoning?
All living creature strive to survive and recoil from pain (and suffering). Recognition and mutual understanding of these 2 undeniable facts bred empathy, a deep root of morality and the fundamental sentiment of the Golden Rule (for neurologically fit beings at least . Do as you will and harm none
How would you prove that empathy is the basis of morality? If morality and empathy are the same, do we need two separate words for them? Suppose you thought that punishing a criminal was morally good, does that contradict with empathy towards the criminal? How would you use this rule to make moral choices when there's a conflict and you emphasize with both parties?
@ I didn’t say morality and empathy are the same .I’m saying that empathy is a root building block for basic moral behavior , allowing people to recognize, understand and respond to the needs and feelings of others. Humans, at least 99% of us, are not naturally born k i l l e r s. Not even in the animal kingdom , mammals for example , are natural born killers in regard to their own kin. What mother or father naturally eat their offspring ? We aren’t reptiles . We don’t have the impulse to eat our young for one thing like alligators, Komodo dragons , and rattlesnakes do sometimes , for example . Again, I’m talking about the foundation of morality . The very basic root. Morality is complex but empathy is key. Morality also includes reasoning about ethical principles , considering the wider consequences of actions and understanding social norms , without which a society could not function. Imagine a society in which everyone in that society was dishonest , untruthful, untrustworthy unfair, unempathetic, harmful , a society in which everyone r a p e d one another , stole , cheated, m u r d e r e d, etc . That society would collapse the day it began . The vast majority of people on this earth do not go out and intentionally harm (k i l l , r a p e) others. Lying , cheating and stealing are different . Those have to be taught in society as ethical norms . It’s a personal responsibility . And in a society where lying cheating and stealing are disapproved of , criticized , denounced , you will quickly find yourself as a reject of the social fabric, leading to a negative perception and potential social consequences..
check out nominalistic and essentialistic view of morals as relative or universal principles; this basically lifts the restrictions of moral subjectivism and makes morals "objectivistic" eg. universale at least concerning moral justice (but not the law-version of justice, because law is relative again) [i was taught with the example of gerechtigkeit in german]
How can you be right that there’s no such thing as right? It’s a logical contradiction. This is basic platonism, an error he fought against the sophists. Guess who’s winning that battle now.
“From a biological point of view, basic emotions are … nature’s way of orienting us to do what we prudently ought. The social emotions are a way of getting us to do what we socially ought, and the reward/punishment system is away of learning to use past experiences to improve our performance in both domains.” - Patricia Churchland, in “Braintrust” argues that morality exists without reason, and is based mainly on instinct and emotion, and says that “the tension between (is and ought) is felt much less clearly in real life than at the conceptual level at which most philosophers like to dwell. They feel that we can not reason ourselves from one level to the other, and they are right, but who says that morality is or needs to be rationally constructed? What if it is grounded in emotional values?
Sorry virgin moral realists, I, as a chad Nietzschean, have already depicted you as the soyjack in my meme. All jokes aside, Nietzsche’s account of morality is so much more convincing than any realist (or analytic anti-realist for that matter) in my opinion. Nice video tho:)
@ There’s A LOT of videos online that’ll explain it better than I can in a youtube comment, but in short Nietzsche argues that morality was created, thus making it not inherent. The origin of morality he traces back to slaves living in Egypt, who were envious of the power their masters had. Instead of revolting and seizing power and their own self-determination, they instead invented morality to feel powerful over their masters. There’s actually very good evidence for this, especially in relation to the philology Nietzsche did. Basically he showed that “good and bad” existed in Ancient societies through linguistics, but “evil” didn’t (they didn’t have a word for it). That’s because “evil” doesn’t just mean “undesirable” but it implies more, something like “inherently un-valuable”. So in short, the slaves wanted power over their masters but couldn’t get it, so they called their masters “evil” and then declared themselves “moral”. This is why slave moralities like Christianity preach about the meek inheriting the earth, rich men being evil, etc. Slaves devalued what their masters had, to get power over them. I highly suggest reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Nietzsche or watching some youtube videos on him. Happy learning:)
@@aidanm.655 One problem with Nietzsche's moral theory is that, he's really just talking about a rich guy having power, and fails to take into account that power is inherently corrupt according to Bakunin, Proudhon, and Kropotkin. Hence, while he's a moral relativist, he's also a political realist, meaning that he doesn't really believe in changing the social structure to make the world a better place. I.e., his political philosophy is one that can lead into authoritarianism. Also, I would suggest reading Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor or Evolution, where he overturns Darwin, while also reading his unfinished book Ethics.
@@CosmoShidan I'm pro-authoritarian politics specifically because of Nietzsche. Your criticism is just a moral one, relying on some opposition to authoritarianism. Yet I literally support the system you're trying to use a critique of Nietzsche.
@@aidanm.655 Okay then, if you support authoritarianism, does that entail you'd support an authoritarian regime such as Hobbesianism, Marxist-Leninism, or Fascism? Because in an authoritarian regime, you wouldn't have any freedom at all, except for the wealthy. Under an anti-authoritarian, decentralized regime, everyone would be free to be who they are, so long as they don't infringe on the freedom of others, especially as there would be no rich people, let alone classes. Yes, I am an anti-authoritarian, in the sense of libertarian socialism.
This is not bad. Not too shabby. Moral philsophy is a touchy area. It's not really complicated at all, but of course it's nice if you can get people to behave the way you want them to, and be obedient and not cause trouble or upset the status quo, and so you want to wield so-called moral philosophy to your benefit, or society's benefit if you want to be self-righteous about it, nd thus philosophers and other thought leaders tend to get proprietary about it, like it's a difficult topic, and definitely something for a credentialed caste to have authority over. Quite obviously morality simply stated is merely so-called behavior modification, and is not profound. Dos and don'ts of living with other people, and very practical. What's sort of profound, is the way certain emotions are associated with 'moral' this or that. And it's those emotions that are evoked that help keep people in check, like guilt, which is something you might feel anyway even without sophisticated moral codes, if you did something really self-serving that hurt somebody, and the person you hurt or group which your are a part of resented you for it and maybe didn't want you around anymore, and the emotional response to that helps encourage you to quit behaving that way, lest you estrange yourself altogether. But in the modern world, and in a vast society, lots of people, or all people to some extent, behave very selfishly, and either actively or by default exploit other people as a matter of course, and don't feel too guilty about it. First of all because they can easily avoid personal contact with the people they hurt, but also because over time 'morality' has been perverted to valorize, or at least un-demonize very demonstrably, manifestly selfish, exploitative behavior. That's what's profound. And those emotions don't have the same inspiring effect. Formal morality is now a deliberate force of evil in the world, and has been for millennia, and one's aggressive behavior won't necessarily be stigmatized, indeed quite the contrary, and the accompanying emotions will be dulled and lose their power to behavior-modify, on account of how debased and very nakedly self-interested recognized moral precepts have become and evolved into. Even though it still retains its basic day to day utility and function, so as not to behave unacceptably to the person standing next to you. Though that's often referred to as 'etiquette', or worse, 'civility'. The upshot being that emotions like guilt are largely removed from the equation, and it's really only the practical consequences that drive people's moral behavior, like, I don't want to get arrested, so I don't even consider it. But if I can get away with something, maybe I will. A nation of laws and all that, which is just morality put into a more baldly straightforward form, without all the fluff of 'right vs wrong'. The fanciful notion of that which is 'good', in the abstract or something, is almost antithetical to a righteous morality I would say. It's an expedient phantom of the mind, verbalized to confuse and enthrall people into doing what they're told, and follow the moral codes they are born into and expected to follow, regardless of how 'moral' they really are. As always, elaborate moral codes or expectations, however innocently well meaning or deeply insidious and pernicious, if they're not backed up by forcible coercion if you don't obey, are pretty useless.
Moral intuitions are like other objective things we discover to be objectively true, like logical and mathematical truths. not only do I feel and believe that 2+2= 4, or that the law of non-contradiction holds in every possible world, so do I also intuit that abusing a child for fun is wrong in every possible world.
Mathematics is built "from the ground up" from certain axioms and rules. These are chosen based mainly on usefulness. There's no fundamental discovered truth about the mathematical axioms we use except that they are the most useful ones we have come up with. I suppose you could say that morals could be built up from axioms and rules, optimizing for something. But in the case of morals it's not clear what we should be optimizing for, and at some level that's what morals were supposed to be telling us in the first place. I think people idealize mathematics way too much in these kinds of discussions.
@@DobesVandermeer the issue with nominalism or any type of view where we construct those things based on contingent facts (even when based on mind-independent facts in the eternal world) is that it doesn't track with the intuition that some things obtain in every possible world (the law on non-contradiction or the intuition that torturing a child for fun is bad). this is different than a useful fiction or placeholder. or bite the bullet that there just are no objective truths like as such (i.e., fixed and unchanging, eternally like platonic ideas/forms)
@@daviddivad777 it's not clear that the denizens of every universe (out even every country, planet, or species) necessarily would have the same moral intuition as you. You could imagine from an evolutionary standpoint that certain moral intuitions make creatures more successful in survival and reproduction and thus those moral intuitions themselves would spread. Caring for young is an obvious case here. That doesn't make them objective or universal, just helpful.
@@DobesVandermeer right, if it depends on the moral intuition of agents/human knowing-subjects then you end up with an anti-moral realism position. or instrumental normativity based on evolution for example. most people would say it IS clear, though. and believe there ARE mind-independent necessary truths we discover. that can, as far as I can tell, only be grounded ontologically in Platonism or theism (e.g., divine conceptualism). if you are ok with embracing anti-moral realism you can indeed hold to helpful fiction, have at it.
Mathematics is not really objective, it's only a subjective explanation of objective reality, we can't limit the explanation of reality to maths, (as well as other concepts like life).
@@DobesVandermeer For one, they are the values of the proletariat as a whole. Contrary to all of those values is capitalism, since it deprives the proletariat of those values by divide and conquer, and hierarchy. Such values encourage unity, and community. Plus, it is the case that nonhuman animals share those values, as in evolution, nonhuman animals would require them to survive as a community.
If Moral anti-realism is true so someone who is emotionless because of genetic disorder is in fact unable to be moral or even grasp that his acts are immoral. Although somes criminals tend to display any regrets of theirs indictments, the following question is to know despite acting wrongly can we be aware of the fact that we acted wrongly. If so it shows that moral realism is true and anti-realism absurd.
There is an objective morality, just as there is objective truth. Whether or not we can attain it is another question, and the former is depends on the latter.
I think that objective morality isn't a set of rules, but more or less s system like virtue, where the morally right thing to do would be the virtuous thing to do
This was a very good presentation, but there are some things that I think I need to say. There could've been a better presentation and explanation of an intuitionist moral epistemology. It is a kind of foundationalism and it is the view that our most basic moral beliefs are non-inferential. Intuition, furthermore, should've been explained as an 'intellectual seeming', as commonly understood in the field, rather than as an instinct. I infer the presentation of intuition as some instinct by the fact that it was defended on evolutionary grounds. I think that this is a mistaken understanding of what moral intiution is. Another mistake is that moral intuition is presented as some special cogntivite faculty, which it is not, at least according to intuitionists themselves. We do not need a special mathematical cognitive capacity either. I think that non-naturalism should've been explained in a bit more depth with the metaphysical language of platonism, and that a platonist epistemology like Michael Balaguer's full blooded Platonism should've been mentioned. Finally, I think that a clear distinction should've been made between non-cognitivism and subjectivism/relativism because many people confuse them. Other than that, I think that this was a very good presentation of the realist and anti-realist metaethical theories and the arguments for and against them. Thank you for your work!
@andreselectrico I have read it, but never really finished it, unfortunately. I just found it quite difficult to follow all of Putnam's points, his writing style isn't the most engaging one, and I gave up. I should probably pick it up and go through it again slowly, taking notes. Would you mind if I ask you to sum up what you think is his actual argument?
@@Nexus-jg7ev I can perfectly relate to that. I’m an economist, and I felt the need to counter the strong fact/value dichotomy I found in areas of my profession, and I found Putnam. But I experienced the same frustration with some of his talks and lectures, which used to be charged with elitist, technical language, sometimes very unpleasant to follow for non-trained listeners. Not so much with his writing, although this is also the case with some of them. I was really mad at him sometimes because I knew that he was making sense I needed to understand. Everything changed when I listened to the videos two or three times. These two books in particular were not challenging to me because I already knew what he would be talking about and was very familiar with the issues and subject discussed in them. Basically, the argument of companions in guilt (CoG) says that to embrace skepticism in moral issues necessarily entails implausible, or unacceptable, skepticism in certain non‐moral subjects. I do not recall Putnam employing the term (his approach comes through a concept called the "indispensability argument"), but he is quoted as one of the precursors, and he certainly is. Putnam compares moral concepts with mathematical concepts, arguing that if the latter can be considered as real abstract objects, then ethical statements can also be considered as such. There is a debate here, but generally, CoG has been quite successful in defending moral realism. I think that, in my humble and modest opinion, two general ideas are worth mentioning in terms of his ideas on objective morality. The first is that he basically follows some sort of dialectical approach (he very much commends Dewey and Aristotle on this). In this sense, he claims that there is no end-stadium to arrive at in terms of ethics. What you have may be deemed as universal, but it is always improvable and even fallible in practical situations, which can seldom be solved by taking a unique universal moral stance as a point of departure (as Kant would suggest). Why, then, and here is the second idea, should we see these values as objective? Well, according to Putnam, because of the same reason we accept the results of natural sciences as objective, although correctible. Natural science is based in epistemic values, which play a normative role. These values are as historically based as the values behind ethical statements, and he provides proof of this in concrete historical cases (e.g., relativity theory). Still, we accept their implications as objective (because science has been able to predict many phenomena successfully), while we do not do the same with moral statements (I use “ethical” and “moral” interchangeably here). This is not to say that all moral statements are objective, but some of them could reasonably be considered as such. On the contrary, he continues, if we are to take the view that no moral claim is objective because, for instance, they are the result of subjective values, we should, for the sake of consistency, do the same with the results of natural sciences, which would be implausible. In any case, here you have a short and relatable video of Putnam explaining the issue: th-cam.com/video/2bFfDwvbKP8/w-d-xo.html Let me know if I could help you. Best.
Using pain or pleasure as a metric for moralism is completely ridiculous. There are countless situations in which helpful or necessary actions inflict pain. If causing pain is immoral then it is wrong to give birth (or impregnant someone to later give birth), perform various life saving medical procedures like amputation, saving someone with CPR but breaking ribs in the process. Is it wrong to work out or practice physical therapy to improve a body's strength and ability if it causes severe discomfort or pain to do so? If we extend this to mental or emotional pain, then it is wrong to discipline someone for misbehavior or committing crimes. It would be wrong to just criticize them if it makes them feel bad.
I think that you are failing to make a distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value. Those who say that pain is bad mean that it is instrinsically bad, in the sense that it is never good for its own sake, but only when it is incurred for the sake of something else that is good, either intrinsically or instrumentally. Going through labour pain to give birth to a child is overall good because the action is not done just for the sake of being painful, but for the sake of a child birth. The pain in this case would still be intrinsically bad, but at the same time it would also be instrumentally good, which makes it good overall. What I am saying is that the point that some good results require that we go through pain is a very weak and unsuccessful objection to the claim that pain is (intrinsically) bad.
@@CosmoShidan It is an interesting thought, but I think most, if not all people couldn't give a verifiable answer. Just speculation. I don't know much about economics personally. Especially not international economics.
@@feignsanity I will say this, capitalism is immoral, as it creates more suffering in the world, since it is the wealthy that live healthier lives, and poor people live unhealthy lives. This is caused by the division of labor and hierarchy.
@@markwrede8878 Adam Smith also advocated against expanding capital into other nations, and would be horrified to see how corporations are now like big empires. Smith advocated that people should have a right to own their own profits based on their profession, be it a plumber, or a shoe polisher. Meanwhile, private ownership of land creates suffering, especially when 77 million people who make up the 1% have access to healthcare and food, while the bottom 99% can't afford it. Hence, we need to have collective ownership and no bosses.
@@CosmoShidan Because those with darker skin fare worse throughout the world, there exists in each nation the moral imperative to pay all citizens a livable income from the assets, and to mandate its currency to achieve this level of provision.
@@markwrede8878 Those people in the global south are exploited by the global north under capitalism though. I.e., the north robs them of their wealth and offers nothing else in return. Hence capitalism causes suffering in the world and must be dismanted, as it is immoral.
I think you have to distinguish between theoretical or systemic and appliable or humanitarian philosophy/morality, systematically I would say that there are no evident objective moral truths however in the humanitarian context there are and they can be defined by their ability to propagate human flourishing. Which granted is a general term and identifying objective qualitative criteria to judge a moral inquisition off is challenging but it does not invalidate it as an empirical science. For example I can say "invoking a humanitarian percieved negative outcome is bad" if I were to make this more visual then I would say "destroying the universe or humanity is bad" now does the universe care about its destruction? I have no idea but we have no reason to believe so, therefore it is only bad in the context of destroying our species and we can measure the rate of destuction empirically thus morality is objective and empirical in relation to humaitarianism however metaphysically it does not appear to have any bearing or notion of significance. I'm sure you could actually extrapolate this mathematically and you wouldn't even have to use humanity as a benchmark for morality you could instead use the quality of conservation as a benchmark, for example a more processed/refined good or order of particles should take preservation priority over another, in reality this would be like a human life is worth more than a toy. Thus your moral framework could be grounded on a sort of universal conservation principle, the only valid argument I could see against this is that "why is preservation inherently good?" and I don't see an adequate defense, only one of ignorance, i.e. Because we are not omniscient then we should preserve the foundations of the universe. So in summary I think there is ultimately no objective morality however in a humanitarian context there is and it can mathematically determined by measuring the rate of order/complexity growth or quality conservation, the criteria for this assessment would be very stringent and the compute power needed to even determine a simplistic moral truth would be immense and so it has no real applicability it's purely theoretical. In reality we would measure it more simply by being more right than wrong with rules like "don't kill" even though sometimes not killing could be immoral. Therefore to have ultimate morality you'd have to be omniscient I'm not sure if this has been used as an argument before but it's just my thought process.
@CosmoShidan I wouldn't say capitalism is inherently immoral, I'd say our current form of capitalism is immoral but if we imagine utopian capitalism through progressive social democracy then the next step towards socialism isn't all that different
the problem with suggesting that there are ontologically objective moral facts is that beliefs about them rely on subjective judgments and we will be epistemically lucky to believe any ontologically objective moral fact is true if one fails to be sentimentality drawn to believe it. morality is epistemically objective in a naturalistic account. that is, culture, history, problems faced in our circumstances, and so on. since people do not generally vary in how we think and feel, intersubjective agreement about moral judgment screens off individual relativism. evolving in social ways is sufficient to explain why we all think and feel, in general, about moral judgments. and where circumstances et. al. vary such that no common ground exists, then we see this fundamental problem makes the of the hope of ontologically objective facts disappear. that's even if they do exist, they help us none. "This view is often referred to dismissively as 'cultural relativism'. But it is not relativistic, if that means saying that every moral view is as good as every other. Our moral view is, I firmly believe, much better than any competing view, even though there are a lot of people whom you will never be able to convert to it. It is one thing to say, falsely, that there is nothing to choose between us and the Nazis. It is another thing to say, correctly, that there is no neutral, common ground to which an experienced Nazi philosopher and I can repair in order to argue out our differences. That Nazi and I will always strike one another as begging all the crucial questions, arguing in circles." (rorty, trostky and the wild orchids)
Peter Kropotkin made an argument that morality is capable of existing outside of human experience, as non-human animals are capable of practicing it. For one, he uses an allegory of an allegator getting killed by a human for sport, but then a pack of allegators punish the hunter by a massing over them. Hence, justice is a reaction to injustice in this context, and since humans practice justice in this way, as do non-human animals.
@CosmoShidan ... i don't think that demonstrates there is anything substantive, ontologically objective, that exists that we name morality. emotional responses to what happens in the real world certainly aren't limited to human beings though, that's true. lions, hyenas, buffalo, all have similar responses to other creatures who have killed one of their own. i think animal behaviourists have better accounts of why that is than ethicists however.
@@stevenhoyt Kroptkin was a zoologist and a biologist, as well as an ethicist. Not to mention he wrote a book called Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which overtuned Darwin, in that he refuted overpopulation and invented the theories of kin selecetion, reciprical altruism, and symbiosis. BTW, animal behaiorists only tell us what we know about animal behavior, because no branch of science dictates ethics. That's turning science into an omniscient god. That's called scientism.
@@stevenhoyt Metaphysics isn't all mysticism, it's also mathematical. I mean, the study of metaphysics is a field of how we interpret reality, while science is an epistemological enterprise of the natural world. Even thought experiments, which are allegories to describe and elaborate an argument is a metaphysical construct, especially as it is a method also used in science and mathematics as well. E.g., mathematics uses word problems when teaching children. Have you actually read any work of metaphysical enquiry? Be it David Lewis, Jessica Wilson, , Tuomas E. Tahko, Wilard Quine, Robert Chysolm, Henry Frankfurt, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam. Kwame Anthony Appiah, or David Chalmers to name a few? Because, as someone whose a philosophy major here, you have to make the distinction between discussing ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, or else that is confusing as to what the heck you're talking about, and disregards the distinction between the 31 branches of philosophy as a whole, including the 5 main branches.
We are all unique perspectives of Truth (Souls). We all see a tiny bit, SUBJECTIVELY! No one can know/experience anything 'objectively'! It is not possible. Blasphemous people like to cry 'objective truth' when they blame their hatefulness on God.
No, just common evolution of the pre-frontal cortex. Current events are deteriorating this, evolution is not always forward moving. If morality were objective it would function like physical laws. It does not, therefor it is basically subjective. What you expect rather than reality.
For instance jumping off a tall enough building will always make you splat dead. Murder only actually has negative ramifications if you're wired to regret it or get caught. There is a wider percentage than anyone would like to admit who would just enjoy it. Those are winning and we're celebrating it. How to pretend we are a successful species?
@@frank.sophia Marx and Peter Kropotkin both saw capitalism as a moral wrong, objectively, and socialism as objectively good. I do believe that their stances hold true today, as no other liberal philosopher has ever been able to dispute their critiques of capitalism. The reason capitalism is bad, is because of the inherent inequalities that entail hierarchy, crime, poverty, disease, and pollution, which are detrimental to human suffering in the world. Hence, capitalism is inherently evil.
There is no stance-independent, non-circular, objective prescription for any entity to hold any values, or do any duties. Everything else is just a "copium" Band-Aid.
the non naturalist position seems strange. one cannot have knowledge of something which one cannot interact with it. The position taken now by leading theorists is absurd; parfit Scanlon, enoch dont make sense. Once you deny the necessity of a causal connection between subject and object the whole edifice of objectivity vanishes. People are just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks. This applies to both egalitarians and anti egalitarians. The beliefs that racism is good or bad are equally baseless.
@@CosmoShidan I'm sure that is quite a viable theory. It's socially reprehensible, anyway. Charity is simply not taking more than your share (of Earths limited resources) of anything. Thus Charity is reprehensible to capitalism, as is every other Virtue. Whether that is 'right or wrong' is up to the folks who see the world in such terms.
@@nameless-yd6ko No charity actually reinforces capitalism, since it is the opiate of the masses, as donations from rich keeps the poor dependent on them. So no matter how humane charity may be, it is to kill the poor with kindness. Hence charity is reprehensible. If the poor depended on the poor, then we would have mutual aid, in which it is the voluntary exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid or sociality is the antidote to capitalism.
As a moral realist, I believe that certain actions are objectively morally right or wrong. For example, a doctor performs a life-saving surgery, but the patient later develops complications and passes away. The doctor's intention was right, even though the outcome was unfortunate. The doctor's action can be considered objectively morally right, regardless of any disagreement.
I fully believe morality is subjective, not objective. Assigning morals to something like killing each other is more because we don't have a better way to handle the issue, and assigning something everyone can get behind, or be put behind, is easier than actually addressing why killing happens and dealing with it in a non-emotional, non-subjective way. From the video, talking about morality as being innate and evolved just describes a basic evolutionary response, which is preservation of self. We extend that to others because by necessity we have to, otherwise society wouldn't function. I have no problem with morality being decided based on what we feel is appropriate; I only disagree that there's something inherently "right" about it.
Seriously, still trying to debate this? As soon as man or animals decide to cohabit there exists an imperative to make rules for that cohabitation and survival of the group. Those rules become the moral code and end up as thousands of book of laws. STOP TRYING TO SELL THE CONCEPT A GOD HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH MORALS, IT'S JUST DUMB AND UNSUSTAINABLE IN TRUTH OR FACT.
Nobody is selling a God-based morality. Most academic moral realists nowadays are atheists. Even most non-naturalist realists are atheists. G.E. Moore himself was an atheist too.
@@aiya5777 Why? I'm stating a fact a group of idiots simply can't let go of because they need at least some evidence of their god which they will never have and it needs to be recorded as often as they lie.
@@Lightbearer616 This isn't a debate about morality coming from God, it's whether or not we can logically make sense of morality, especially in a secular manner.
@@CosmoShidan I'm pretty sure secular refers to religion. So, let me answer it for you: You can't make sense of morality in a secular manner as there is no secular manner.
Moral intuition does not lead all people to the same conclusions and therefore cannot be used to define morality. The argument is made that because "most" people generally agree on moral truths, collective moral intuition is still viable as a metric. But that would mean morality is SUBJECTIVE to whatever the majority opinion is. Human culture has shifted over time across thousands of years and has come to understand the world in different ways which would alter the common sentiments about morality. If that's true, then this majority rule of moral intuition would sooner prove moral subjectivity rather than the opposite. I think the common moral intuition argument is also much weaker when considering very minor cases of immorality. Is it wrong to ignore a stranger when they speak to you in public? Is it wrong to date someone in your friend group if there's a risk of that friend group falling apart if you were to later break up? Is it wrong if you don't tip your waiter? If you read this and you find it easy to decide if these are immoral or not, I promise you there are many who disagree with your answers.
@@chad969 I am the way the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through Me. It not only claims that but that in some sense Jesus is objective morality which is inspiring.
@@macattack1958That verse seems to be saying that Jesus is means by which people are saved. Even if there are no stance independent moral truths, it could still be true that we can only come to the father through Jesus. But if that verse is logically compatible with moral realism being false, then it can’t entail that moral realism is true. Oxford languages defines morality as principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. Jesus isn’t a principle, he’s a person. So I don’t think Jesus can be identical to objective morality, since a principle and a person are two fundamentally different things.
@@chad969replying to the second point- God's nature is distinct from ours, he's independent of Everything we're not, we are created beings and he is outside of time, space and matter. Meaning he has always been, has no creator and he created everything meaning he's the law giver. Meaning hes objective wether we believe so or not. All the principles of which you see within science have all come from our theories, but obviously were not perfect, we mess up the counting of our fingers and lack understanding daily therefore relying on yourself is foolish and prideful (self inflated identity without cause) based off of false assumptions and not having knowledge of our creator in mind just like how Adam and Eve forgot God made the tree therefore he gives knowledge and he's the giver of wisdom so he gives that aswell. Nevertheless I didn't come here with a bunch of scientific based arguements, but some underatanding of which my faith is based on and I hope you can find a connection in these points I made like me.
Yes and no, the realm in which morality lies is real. The exact system differs by user, but mostly coincides together. If it does not abide by logical rules, the system is out. If you do not adhere to any given moral system, then you have made yourself less trustworthy to rational creatures in that system. How broadly you apply your system matters too, if you don't think morality applies to non-violent animals, don't be surprised when AI thinks you're redundant and not morally valuable, however the AI runs into the same risk when harming you, in case a bigger AI exists, or even god, and to god, multiverse supergod, and so on, so all rational creatures (and perhaps creatures non-rational to some degree)
To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/PhilosophyVibe . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
Never stop making videos guys. No other channel has helped me understand philosophical issues like this one. If I complete my degree in philosophy this year it's thank to you two
agreed
Agreed, but is "guys" correct? Or, are George and John the same person? I honestly don't know.
@@sgringo I'm pretty sure they are two different people
@@sgringo I've been thinking it's just the one dude on the right putting on a different accent
This channel is a gold mine for philosophy enthusiasts. Really love this channel, been helping me understand complex topics for years.
Here's how the Open Question and the is-ought is resolved:
- The Open Question gets resolved by distinguishing between intrinsic vs. instrumental goods.
Instrumental = what it leads to: Pain can be useful to alert you to a wound.
Intrinsic = in and of itself: Pleasure and pain are always good and bad in and of itself.
Eg: Childbirth is painful, but is "good" for what it leads to, but the pain is not good in and of itself
"It's pleasurable, but is it good?" = Open, because what else it's leading to is left undefined.
"It's pleasurable, but is the pleasure intrinsically good?" = Closed, because "yes".
- Hume's is-ought gap is bridged by intrinsic value as well, Eg:
"The greatest possible suffering, for the greatest many, for the greatest time, IS bad, therefore we OUGHT to avoid it.
Great content. William Lane Craig has some great debates on this topic. The best two, IMO, are against Paul Kurtz and Sam Harris. His debate against Erik Wielenberg was also good, but I don't know many people who are platonists when it comes to moral realism.
Agreed. It doesn't take a theist to appreciate his brilliance as a philosopher.
A debate on moral nihilism or moral anti realism would be epic
th-cam.com/video/ycfRRJAkJLA/w-d-xo.html
I've always gravitated towards the anti-realism side of things, believing that morality is largely based on our emotions. However, the mentioning of mathematical ideas being based on intuition made me start to consider realism more. In the end though, I do still think it's odd that we disagree over morality if it is indeed objective. This video has really made me want to dive into ethics more fully. Great job guys, keep it up!
I think moral realism and subjectivism can both be the case tbh, moral truths exist moral principles exist, you however wouldn’t be able to objectively prove it, because we can’t define what “good” and “bad” is objectively doesn’t mean there isn’t a good and bad moral principle in reality, it’s just based on feelings which is why it’s subjective. I think these two can go together actually!
I think that good starters are:
Taking Morality Seriously by David Enoch
Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer
Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics by David Brink
Inventing Right and Wrong by John Mackie
Moral Relativism by Gilbert Harman
One good one I recommend is Peter Kropotkin's Ethics.
Mathematics is not really objective, it's only used to represent objective reality, representing what's objective can be subjective, ours is just math. So I do believe the counter argument doesn't work here. Objective reality needs to be tested and verified.
@emmanuelstanley7371 But it is not the verification that makes reality be the way it is. It already is the way it is, and this is what is true. Our verification might be mistaken.
I am curious to what you think a natural moral realist would respond the objection, on the point that moral intuitions come evolution. Wouldn't that therefore make morality an arbitrary concept as to however humanity evolves for its own survivability? For example, if humans evolved the same way bees did and slaughtered some of their newborn, would not the natural moral realist have to agree that killing some of our human firstborns is right because that's the way humans evolved? But if the natural moral realist disagress and says this is wrong, would not the natural moral realist be appealing to an objective, unchanging moral law outside of humanity and therefore evolution cannot explain moral intuitions.
Following this qestion
@@YohnzyRR It depends on the naturalist. some bite the bullet and some dont. Quine goes so far as to say that if evolution made it advantageous (promotes survival and reproduction) to deny the laws of logic or believe in fallacies then it would be justified. This was in terms of epistemic norms though.
This is the main critique of the naturalist outside of is ought/open question concerns. Naturalists try to get around this by idealizing but it doesnt work since one has to justify one set of idealizations over another. Then the natural facts and their collision with moral intuitions come into play. The intuitions always win out in practice since no one can imagine their fundamental commitments to be false. that is one of the definitions of fundamental commitments.
I think that presenting moral intuition as some instinct developed through evolition is a misrepresentation of how moral intuition is understood in metaethics. If you'd like to understand it better, I recommend reading Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism. But, in short, an intuition in this context is not an instinct or a hunch, but an 'intellectual appearance' that we get just when we reflect about moral issues. It is similar to the perceptual appearances that we get when observing things. Intuitionism is a form of foundationalism, according to which some of our most basic and fundamental beliefs are non-inferential, ie they are not inferred from other beliefs and are not in need of further justification. For intuitionists, the belief that, say, suffering is bad, is as self-evident as the belief that we have hands. So, to ask someone to justify basic moral intuitions is like asking them to justify basic perceptual beliefs.
@@Nexus-jg7ev Thanks for your respectful input.
An interesting argument that Massimo Pigliucci made in his book, How to Be A Stoic, is that because human beings are related to bonobos and chimps, they display human traits of morality such as caring for their young, or defending one another from predators. But then Peter Kropotkin in his pioneering ethical naturalist book Ethics, made a similar argument in 1920, when he used a thought experiment of a group of alligators enacting justice when a human killed one of their kin, as an allegory for non-human animals exhibiting principles of justice just as human beings would. But then again, an ethical naturalist would use symbiosis in nature to demonstrate the principles of self-preservation and sociality. Like, take a vampire bat that gives up its supply of blood to feed starving other, or a group of rabbits and hares running together from foxes in the same hole. So, there's my two cents of ethical naturalism.
Morality is cause and effect between self and others. Virtues are good and vices are bad based on trustworthiness and deserve. If people possess qualitative character traits and have a capacity for love, joy, and peace contrary to hate, despair, and conflict then objective moral truths exist.
Morality would be your inner nature discovered by introspection and imagination grounded in reality. Ethics would be how you apply your morality in reality.
The is/ought distinction is meaningless because everything is based on qualitative facts. No one enjoys being scammed is a fact. Murder negates trust in the one doing the murder is a fact. Murder is not self or other defense is a moral fact.
Anti realism is like seeing the world in 2D instead of 3D. It's absurd. Qualitative facts exist within the relationship between self and others.
Morality is based on building trust and acknowledging deserve vs. destroying trust, and ignoring or working against deserve. If you ever work at something that benefits society then you will feel that you deserve something in return for your work. This is a moral fact. Beyond that it is a fact that something is deserved there. If no one appreciates these things society breaks down is a moral fact.
To be more exact, normative ethics and meta-ethics are about the theory of ethics and scope of moral judgments respectively, and applied ethics is about the practice of ethics.
Also, I would suggest reading Nietzsche and Kropotkin on the debate of metaethics.
I’ve been watching this channel for 3 years now! I might be biased but I always find my philosophical views aligning more with John 😅 What kind of philosopher is John? Utilitarian, Kantian etc.
lol i'm honestly starting to question whether John is actually a separate person speaking or not
Great Job, we need more and more from you.
Thank you!
Will you ever make a video on Foundationalism vs Coherentism? The sources I’ve used haven’t really made sense to me, do coherentists accept circular reasoning?
What’s circular about it?
All living creature strive to survive and recoil from pain (and suffering). Recognition and mutual understanding of these 2 undeniable facts bred empathy, a deep root of morality and the fundamental sentiment of the Golden Rule (for neurologically fit beings at least . Do as you will and harm none
How would you prove that empathy is the basis of morality? If morality and empathy are the same, do we need two separate words for them? Suppose you thought that punishing a criminal was morally good, does that contradict with empathy towards the criminal? How would you use this rule to make moral choices when there's a conflict and you emphasize with both parties?
@ I didn’t say morality and empathy are the same .I’m saying that empathy is a root building block for basic moral behavior , allowing people to recognize, understand and respond to the needs and feelings of others. Humans, at least 99% of us, are not naturally born k i l l e r s. Not even in the animal kingdom , mammals for example , are natural born killers in regard to their own kin.
What mother or father naturally eat their offspring ? We aren’t reptiles . We don’t have the impulse to eat our young for one thing like alligators, Komodo dragons , and rattlesnakes do sometimes , for example .
Again, I’m talking about the foundation of morality . The very basic root. Morality is complex but empathy is key. Morality also includes reasoning about ethical principles , considering the wider consequences of actions and understanding social norms , without which a society could not function. Imagine a society in which everyone in that society was dishonest , untruthful, untrustworthy unfair, unempathetic, harmful , a society in which everyone
r a p e d one another , stole , cheated, m u r d e r e d, etc . That society would collapse the day it began .
The vast majority of people on this earth do not go out and intentionally harm (k i l l , r a p e) others. Lying , cheating and stealing are different . Those have to be taught in society as ethical norms . It’s a personal responsibility . And in a society where lying cheating and stealing are disapproved of , criticized , denounced , you will quickly find yourself as a reject of the social fabric, leading to a negative perception and potential social consequences..
Would y'all debate or discuss Heidegger's "Being and Time" one day?
check out nominalistic and essentialistic view of morals as relative or universal principles; this basically lifts the restrictions of moral subjectivism and makes morals "objectivistic" eg. universale at least concerning moral justice (but not the law-version of justice, because law is relative again) [i was taught with the example of gerechtigkeit in german]
You guys are actually saving a generation of philosophy students 😂
How can you be right that there’s no such thing as right? It’s a logical contradiction. This is basic platonism, an error he fought against the sophists. Guess who’s winning that battle now.
Is capitalism objectively wrong?
“From a biological point of view, basic emotions are … nature’s way of orienting us to do what we prudently ought. The social emotions are a way of getting us to do what we socially ought, and the reward/punishment system is away of learning to use past experiences to improve our performance in both domains.” - Patricia Churchland, in “Braintrust” argues that morality exists without reason, and is based mainly on instinct and emotion, and says that “the tension between (is and ought) is felt much less clearly in real life than at the conceptual level at which most philosophers like to dwell. They feel that we can not reason ourselves from one level to the other, and they are right, but who says that morality is or needs to be rationally constructed? What if it is grounded in emotional values?
Sorry virgin moral realists, I, as a chad Nietzschean, have already depicted you as the soyjack in my meme.
All jokes aside, Nietzsche’s account of morality is so much more convincing than any realist (or analytic anti-realist for that matter) in my opinion. Nice video tho:)
What exactly is Nietzsche's account of morality?
@ There’s A LOT of videos online that’ll explain it better than I can in a youtube comment, but in short Nietzsche argues that morality was created, thus making it not inherent.
The origin of morality he traces back to slaves living in Egypt, who were envious of the power their masters had. Instead of revolting and seizing power and their own self-determination, they instead invented morality to feel powerful over their masters. There’s actually very good evidence for this, especially in relation to the philology Nietzsche did. Basically he showed that “good and bad” existed in Ancient societies through linguistics, but “evil” didn’t (they didn’t have a word for it). That’s because “evil” doesn’t just mean “undesirable” but it implies more, something like “inherently un-valuable”.
So in short, the slaves wanted power over their masters but couldn’t get it, so they called their masters “evil” and then declared themselves “moral”. This is why slave moralities like Christianity preach about the meek inheriting the earth, rich men being evil, etc. Slaves devalued what their masters had, to get power over them.
I highly suggest reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Nietzsche or watching some youtube videos on him. Happy learning:)
@@aidanm.655 One problem with Nietzsche's moral theory is that, he's really just talking about a rich guy having power, and fails to take into account that power is inherently corrupt according to Bakunin, Proudhon, and Kropotkin. Hence, while he's a moral relativist, he's also a political realist, meaning that he doesn't really believe in changing the social structure to make the world a better place. I.e., his political philosophy is one that can lead into authoritarianism. Also, I would suggest reading Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor or Evolution, where he overturns Darwin, while also reading his unfinished book Ethics.
@@CosmoShidan I'm pro-authoritarian politics specifically because of Nietzsche. Your criticism is just a moral one, relying on some opposition to authoritarianism. Yet I literally support the system you're trying to use a critique of Nietzsche.
@@aidanm.655 Okay then, if you support authoritarianism, does that entail you'd support an authoritarian regime such as Hobbesianism, Marxist-Leninism, or Fascism? Because in an authoritarian regime, you wouldn't have any freedom at all, except for the wealthy. Under an anti-authoritarian, decentralized regime, everyone would be free to be who they are, so long as they don't infringe on the freedom of others, especially as there would be no rich people, let alone classes. Yes, I am an anti-authoritarian, in the sense of libertarian socialism.
This is not bad. Not too shabby. Moral philsophy is a touchy area. It's not really complicated at all, but of course it's nice if you can get people to behave the way you want them to, and be obedient and not cause trouble or upset the status quo, and so you want to wield so-called moral philosophy to your benefit, or society's benefit if you want to be self-righteous about it, nd thus philosophers and other thought leaders tend to get proprietary about it, like it's a difficult topic, and definitely something for a credentialed caste to have authority over. Quite obviously morality simply stated is merely so-called behavior modification, and is not profound. Dos and don'ts of living with other people, and very practical. What's sort of profound, is the way certain emotions are associated with 'moral' this or that. And it's those emotions that are evoked that help keep people in check, like guilt, which is something you might feel anyway even without sophisticated moral codes, if you did something really self-serving that hurt somebody, and the person you hurt or group which your are a part of resented you for it and maybe didn't want you around anymore, and the emotional response to that helps encourage you to quit behaving that way, lest you estrange yourself altogether.
But in the modern world, and in a vast society, lots of people, or all people to some extent, behave very selfishly, and either actively or by default exploit other people as a matter of course, and don't feel too guilty about it. First of all because they can easily avoid personal contact with the people they hurt, but also because over time 'morality' has been perverted to valorize, or at least un-demonize very demonstrably, manifestly selfish, exploitative behavior. That's what's profound. And those emotions don't have the same inspiring effect. Formal morality is now a deliberate force of evil in the world, and has been for millennia, and one's aggressive behavior won't necessarily be stigmatized, indeed quite the contrary, and the accompanying emotions will be dulled and lose their power to behavior-modify, on account of how debased and very nakedly self-interested recognized moral precepts have become and evolved into. Even though it still retains its basic day to day utility and function, so as not to behave unacceptably to the person standing next to you. Though that's often referred to as 'etiquette', or worse, 'civility'. The upshot being that emotions like guilt are largely removed from the equation, and it's really only the practical consequences that drive people's moral behavior, like, I don't want to get arrested, so I don't even consider it. But if I can get away with something, maybe I will. A nation of laws and all that, which is just morality put into a more baldly straightforward form, without all the fluff of 'right vs wrong'. The fanciful notion of that which is 'good', in the abstract or something, is almost antithetical to a righteous morality I would say. It's an expedient phantom of the mind, verbalized to confuse and enthrall people into doing what they're told, and follow the moral codes they are born into and expected to follow, regardless of how 'moral' they really are. As always, elaborate moral codes or expectations, however innocently well meaning or deeply insidious and pernicious, if they're not backed up by forcible coercion if you don't obey, are pretty useless.
Moral intuitions are like other objective things we discover to be objectively true, like logical and mathematical truths. not only do I feel and believe that 2+2= 4, or that the law of non-contradiction holds in every possible world, so do I also intuit that abusing a child for fun is wrong in every possible world.
Mathematics is built "from the ground up" from certain axioms and rules. These are chosen based mainly on usefulness.
There's no fundamental discovered truth about the mathematical axioms we use except that they are the most useful ones we have come up with.
I suppose you could say that morals could be built up from axioms and rules, optimizing for something. But in the case of morals it's not clear what we should be optimizing for, and at some level that's what morals were supposed to be telling us in the first place.
I think people idealize mathematics way too much in these kinds of discussions.
@@DobesVandermeer the issue with nominalism or any type of view where we construct those things based on contingent facts (even when based on mind-independent facts in the eternal world) is that it doesn't track with the intuition that some things obtain in every possible world (the law on non-contradiction or the intuition that torturing a child for fun is bad). this is different than a useful fiction or placeholder. or bite the bullet that there just are no objective truths like as such (i.e., fixed and unchanging, eternally like platonic ideas/forms)
@@daviddivad777 it's not clear that the denizens of every universe (out even every country, planet, or species) necessarily would have the same moral intuition as you.
You could imagine from an evolutionary standpoint that certain moral intuitions make creatures more successful in survival and reproduction and thus those moral intuitions themselves would spread. Caring for young is an obvious case here.
That doesn't make them objective or universal, just helpful.
@@DobesVandermeer right, if it depends on the moral intuition of agents/human knowing-subjects then you end up with an anti-moral realism position. or instrumental normativity based on evolution for example. most people would say it IS clear, though. and believe there ARE mind-independent necessary truths we discover. that can, as far as I can tell, only be grounded ontologically in Platonism or theism (e.g., divine conceptualism). if you are ok with embracing anti-moral realism you can indeed hold to helpful fiction, have at it.
Mathematics is not really objective, it's only a subjective explanation of objective reality, we can't limit the explanation of reality to maths, (as well as other concepts like life).
Thanks. More of these videos please ❤
You're welcome thanks for watching
much needed video ,... Thanks
Glad you enjoyed, thanks for watching.
I tend to think that self-preservation, sociality, life, liberty, autonomy, labor, and justice are core principles of human morality.
I suppose the next step is to figure out why those things in particular.
@@DobesVandermeer For one, they are the values of the proletariat as a whole. Contrary to all of those values is capitalism, since it deprives the proletariat of those values by divide and conquer, and hierarchy. Such values encourage unity, and community. Plus, it is the case that nonhuman animals share those values, as in evolution, nonhuman animals would require them to survive as a community.
If Moral anti-realism is true so someone who is emotionless because of genetic disorder is in fact unable to be moral or even grasp that his acts are immoral. Although somes criminals tend to display any regrets of theirs indictments, the following question is to know despite acting wrongly can we be aware of the fact that we acted wrongly. If so it shows that moral realism is true and anti-realism absurd.
There is an objective morality, just as there is objective truth. Whether or not we can attain it is another question, and the former is depends on the latter.
I think that objective morality isn't a set of rules, but more or less s system like virtue, where the morally right thing to do would be the virtuous thing to do
The virtuous thing to do is determined by one's moral character.
I see directly classifying an act as evil and saying every evil act is morally wrong, does not hold. Recurrent argument.
Interesting debate.
This was a very good presentation, but there are some things that I think I need to say.
There could've been a better presentation and explanation of an intuitionist moral epistemology. It is a kind of foundationalism and it is the view that our most basic moral beliefs are non-inferential. Intuition, furthermore, should've been explained as an 'intellectual seeming', as commonly understood in the field, rather than as an instinct. I infer the presentation of intuition as some instinct by the fact that it was defended on evolutionary grounds. I think that this is a mistaken understanding of what moral intiution is.
Another mistake is that moral intuition is presented as some special cogntivite faculty, which it is not, at least according to intuitionists themselves. We do not need a special mathematical cognitive capacity either.
I think that non-naturalism should've been explained in a bit more depth with the metaphysical language of platonism, and that a platonist epistemology like Michael Balaguer's full blooded Platonism should've been mentioned.
Finally, I think that a clear distinction should've been made between non-cognitivism and subjectivism/relativism because many people confuse them.
Other than that, I think that this was a very good presentation of the realist and anti-realist metaethical theories and the arguments for and against them. Thank you for your work!
Good old philvibe!
“Excellent.”
There is an interesting Hilary Putnam's argument for moral realism. It is, for me, the more convincing one up to date.
Are you referring to the companions in guilt argument?
@@Nexus-jg7ev Kind of. I refer to what he discribed in Ethics without Ontology and The Collapse of the
Fact/Value Dichotomy.
@andreselectrico I have read it, but never really finished it, unfortunately. I just found it quite difficult to follow all of Putnam's points, his writing style isn't the most engaging one, and I gave up. I should probably pick it up and go through it again slowly, taking notes. Would you mind if I ask you to sum up what you think is his actual argument?
@@Nexus-jg7ev I can perfectly relate to that. I’m an economist, and I felt the need to counter the strong fact/value dichotomy I found in areas of my profession, and I found Putnam. But I experienced the same frustration with some of his talks and lectures, which used to be charged with elitist, technical language, sometimes very unpleasant to follow for non-trained listeners. Not so much with his writing, although this is also the case with some of them. I was really mad at him sometimes because I knew that he was making sense I needed to understand. Everything changed when I listened to the videos two or three times. These two books in particular were not challenging to me because I already knew what he would be talking about and was very familiar with the issues and subject discussed in them.
Basically, the argument of companions in guilt (CoG) says that to embrace skepticism in moral issues necessarily entails implausible, or unacceptable, skepticism in certain non‐moral subjects. I do not recall Putnam employing the term (his approach comes through a concept called the "indispensability argument"), but he is quoted as one of the precursors, and he certainly is. Putnam compares moral concepts with mathematical concepts, arguing that if the latter can be considered as real abstract objects, then ethical statements can also be considered as such. There is a debate here, but generally, CoG has been quite successful in defending moral realism.
I think that, in my humble and modest opinion, two general ideas are worth mentioning in terms of his ideas on objective morality. The first is that he basically follows some sort of dialectical approach (he very much commends Dewey and Aristotle on this). In this sense, he claims that there is no end-stadium to arrive at in terms of ethics. What you have may be deemed as universal, but it is always improvable and even fallible in practical situations, which can seldom be solved by taking a unique universal moral stance as a point of departure (as Kant would suggest).
Why, then, and here is the second idea, should we see these values as objective? Well, according to Putnam, because of the same reason we accept the results of natural sciences as objective, although correctible. Natural science is based in epistemic values, which play a normative role. These values are as historically based as the values behind ethical statements, and he provides proof of this in concrete historical cases (e.g., relativity theory). Still, we accept their implications as objective (because science has been able to predict many phenomena successfully), while we do not do the same with moral statements (I use “ethical” and “moral” interchangeably here). This is not to say that all moral statements are objective, but some of them could reasonably be considered as such. On the contrary, he continues, if we are to take the view that no moral claim is objective because, for instance, they are the result of subjective values, we should, for the sake of consistency, do the same with the results of natural sciences, which would be implausible.
In any case, here you have a short and relatable video of Putnam explaining the issue: th-cam.com/video/2bFfDwvbKP8/w-d-xo.html
Let me know if I could help you. Best.
Using pain or pleasure as a metric for moralism is completely ridiculous.
There are countless situations in which helpful or necessary actions inflict pain.
If causing pain is immoral then it is wrong to give birth (or impregnant someone to later give birth), perform various life saving medical procedures like amputation, saving someone with CPR but breaking ribs in the process. Is it wrong to work out or practice physical therapy to improve a body's strength and ability if it causes severe discomfort or pain to do so?
If we extend this to mental or emotional pain, then it is wrong to discipline someone for misbehavior or committing crimes.
It would be wrong to just criticize them if it makes them feel bad.
I think that you are failing to make a distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value. Those who say that pain is bad mean that it is instrinsically bad, in the sense that it is never good for its own sake, but only when it is incurred for the sake of something else that is good, either intrinsically or instrumentally.
Going through labour pain to give birth to a child is overall good because the action is not done just for the sake of being painful, but for the sake of a child birth. The pain in this case would still be intrinsically bad, but at the same time it would also be instrumentally good, which makes it good overall.
What I am saying is that the point that some good results require that we go through pain is a very weak and unsuccessful objection to the claim that pain is (intrinsically) bad.
@Nexus-jg7ev fair point
@@feignsanity Here's an interesting idea: does capitalism bring more comfort to the world or more suffering to the world?
@@CosmoShidan It is an interesting thought, but I think most, if not all people couldn't give a verifiable answer. Just speculation.
I don't know much about economics personally. Especially not international economics.
@@feignsanity I will say this, capitalism is immoral, as it creates more suffering in the world, since it is the wealthy that live healthier lives, and poor people live unhealthy lives. This is caused by the division of labor and hierarchy.
Morality must be distributive, associative, and commutative, like arithmetic.
Agreed, because as Kropotkin once said, "Sociality is a law of nature".
@@CosmoShidan But private ownership of assets is taking society at large hostage for payment of tribute for access, as Adam Smith realized.
@@markwrede8878 Adam Smith also advocated against expanding capital into other nations, and would be horrified to see how corporations are now like big empires. Smith advocated that people should have a right to own their own profits based on their profession, be it a plumber, or a shoe polisher. Meanwhile, private ownership of land creates suffering, especially when 77 million people who make up the 1% have access to healthcare and food, while the bottom 99% can't afford it. Hence, we need to have collective ownership and no bosses.
@@CosmoShidan Because those with darker skin fare worse throughout the world, there exists in each nation the moral imperative to pay all citizens a livable income from the assets, and to mandate its currency to achieve this level of provision.
@@markwrede8878 Those people in the global south are exploited by the global north under capitalism though. I.e., the north robs them of their wealth and offers nothing else in return. Hence capitalism causes suffering in the world and must be dismanted, as it is immoral.
I think you have to distinguish between theoretical or systemic and appliable or humanitarian philosophy/morality, systematically I would say that there are no evident objective moral truths however in the humanitarian context there are and they can be defined by their ability to propagate human flourishing. Which granted is a general term and identifying objective qualitative criteria to judge a moral inquisition off is challenging but it does not invalidate it as an empirical science.
For example I can say "invoking a humanitarian percieved negative outcome is bad" if I were to make this more visual then I would say "destroying the universe or humanity is bad" now does the universe care about its destruction? I have no idea but we have no reason to believe so, therefore it is only bad in the context of destroying our species and we can measure the rate of destuction empirically thus morality is objective and empirical in relation to humaitarianism however metaphysically it does not appear to have any bearing or notion of significance.
I'm sure you could actually extrapolate this mathematically and you wouldn't even have to use humanity as a benchmark for morality you could instead use the quality of conservation as a benchmark, for example a more processed/refined good or order of particles should take preservation priority over another, in reality this would be like a human life is worth more than a toy. Thus your moral framework could be grounded on a sort of universal conservation principle, the only valid argument I could see against this is that "why is preservation inherently good?" and I don't see an adequate defense, only one of ignorance, i.e. Because we are not omniscient then we should preserve the foundations of the universe.
So in summary I think there is ultimately no objective morality however in a humanitarian context there is and it can mathematically determined by measuring the rate of order/complexity growth or quality conservation, the criteria for this assessment would be very stringent and the compute power needed to even determine a simplistic moral truth would be immense and so it has no real applicability it's purely theoretical. In reality we would measure it more simply by being more right than wrong with rules like "don't kill" even though sometimes not killing could be immoral. Therefore to have ultimate morality you'd have to be omniscient
I'm not sure if this has been used as an argument before but it's just my thought process.
One thing to consider what is objectivvely immoral, is capitalism.
@CosmoShidan I wouldn't say capitalism is inherently immoral, I'd say our current form of capitalism is immoral but if we imagine utopian capitalism through progressive social democracy then the next step towards socialism isn't all that different
the problem with suggesting that there are ontologically objective moral facts is that beliefs about them rely on subjective judgments and we will be epistemically lucky to believe any ontologically objective moral fact is true if one fails to be sentimentality drawn to believe it.
morality is epistemically objective in a naturalistic account. that is, culture, history, problems faced in our circumstances, and so on. since people do not generally vary in how we think and feel, intersubjective agreement about moral judgment screens off individual relativism.
evolving in social ways is sufficient to explain why we all think and feel, in general, about moral judgments.
and where circumstances et. al. vary such that no common ground exists, then we see this fundamental problem makes the of the hope of ontologically objective facts disappear. that's even if they do exist, they help us none.
"This view is often referred to dismissively as 'cultural relativism'. But it is not relativistic, if that means saying that every moral view is as good as every other. Our moral view is, I firmly believe, much better than any competing view, even though there are a lot of people whom you will never be able to convert to it. It is one thing to say, falsely, that there is nothing to choose between us and the Nazis. It is another thing to say, correctly, that there is no neutral, common ground to which an experienced Nazi philosopher and I can repair in order to argue out our differences. That Nazi and I will always strike one another as begging all the crucial questions, arguing in circles."
(rorty, trostky and the wild orchids)
Peter Kropotkin made an argument that morality is capable of existing outside of human experience, as non-human animals are capable of practicing it. For one, he uses an allegory of an allegator getting killed by a human for sport, but then a pack of allegators punish the hunter by a massing over them. Hence, justice is a reaction to injustice in this context, and since humans practice justice in this way, as do non-human animals.
@CosmoShidan ... i don't think that demonstrates there is anything substantive, ontologically objective, that exists that we name morality.
emotional responses to what happens in the real world certainly aren't limited to human beings though, that's true.
lions, hyenas, buffalo, all have similar responses to other creatures who have killed one of their own.
i think animal behaviourists have better accounts of why that is than ethicists however.
@@stevenhoyt Kroptkin was a zoologist and a biologist, as well as an ethicist. Not to mention he wrote a book called Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which overtuned Darwin, in that he refuted overpopulation and invented the theories of kin selecetion, reciprical altruism, and symbiosis.
BTW, animal behaiorists only tell us what we know about animal behavior, because no branch of science dictates ethics. That's turning science into an omniscient god. That's called scientism.
@CosmoShidan ... not scientism. ethics is metaphysical. there's very little good that comes of it. that's all.
@@stevenhoyt Metaphysics isn't all mysticism, it's also mathematical. I mean, the study of metaphysics is a field of how we interpret reality, while science is an epistemological enterprise of the natural world. Even thought experiments, which are allegories to describe and elaborate an argument is a metaphysical construct, especially as it is a method also used in science and mathematics as well. E.g., mathematics uses word problems when teaching children. Have you actually read any work of metaphysical enquiry? Be it David Lewis, Jessica Wilson, , Tuomas E. Tahko, Wilard Quine, Robert Chysolm, Henry Frankfurt, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam. Kwame Anthony Appiah, or David Chalmers to name a few?
Because, as someone whose a philosophy major here, you have to make the distinction between discussing ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, or else that is confusing as to what the heck you're talking about, and disregards the distinction between the 31 branches of philosophy as a whole, including the 5 main branches.
We are all unique perspectives of Truth (Souls). We all see a tiny bit, SUBJECTIVELY!
No one can know/experience anything 'objectively'! It is not possible.
Blasphemous people like to cry 'objective truth' when they blame their hatefulness on God.
The world would be boring if there was objective absolute truths. The conondrums keep life interesting XD
Another perspective: 60 - Objective Moral Values th-cam.com/video/wBWsGLiux9A/w-d-xo.html
No, just common evolution of the pre-frontal cortex.
Current events are deteriorating this, evolution is not always forward moving.
If morality were objective it would function like physical laws.
It does not, therefor it is basically subjective.
What you expect rather than reality.
For instance jumping off a tall enough building will always make you splat dead.
Murder only actually has negative ramifications if you're wired to regret it or get caught.
There is a wider percentage than anyone would like to admit who would just enjoy it.
Those are winning and we're celebrating it.
How to pretend we are a successful species?
Here's a question, is capitalism morally good or evil?
@@CosmoShidan Evil.
It is basically systematic greed, the good share.
@@CosmoShidan Since greed is clearly the center of modern life it's a subjective position, thus not a contradiction of my point.
@@frank.sophia Marx and Peter Kropotkin both saw capitalism as a moral wrong, objectively, and socialism as objectively good. I do believe that their stances hold true today, as no other liberal philosopher has ever been able to dispute their critiques of capitalism. The reason capitalism is bad, is because of the inherent inequalities that entail hierarchy, crime, poverty, disease, and pollution, which are detrimental to human suffering in the world. Hence, capitalism is inherently evil.
There is no stance-independent, non-circular, objective prescription for any entity to hold any values, or do any duties. Everything else is just a "copium" Band-Aid.
the non naturalist position seems strange. one cannot have knowledge of something which one cannot interact with it. The position taken now by leading theorists is absurd; parfit Scanlon, enoch dont make sense. Once you deny the necessity of a causal connection between subject and object the whole edifice of objectivity vanishes. People are just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks. This applies to both egalitarians and anti egalitarians. The beliefs that racism is good or bad are equally baseless.
Morality, the judging of good and evil exists in the vain and prideful 'eye of the beholder'!
Objective? What ignorance!
Is capitalism morally reprehensible, since it creates more suffering in the world by starvation, poverty, and disease?
@@CosmoShidan I'm sure that is quite a viable theory. It's socially reprehensible, anyway.
Charity is simply not taking more than your share (of Earths limited resources) of anything.
Thus Charity is reprehensible to capitalism, as is every other Virtue.
Whether that is 'right or wrong' is up to the folks who see the world in such terms.
@@nameless-yd6ko No charity actually reinforces capitalism, since it is the opiate of the masses, as donations from rich keeps the poor dependent on them. So no matter how humane charity may be, it is to kill the poor with kindness. Hence charity is reprehensible. If the poor depended on the poor, then we would have mutual aid, in which it is the voluntary exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid or sociality is the antidote to capitalism.
As a moral realist, I believe that certain actions are objectively morally right or wrong. For example, a doctor performs a life-saving surgery, but the patient later develops complications and passes away. The doctor's intention was right, even though the outcome was unfortunate. The doctor's action can be considered objectively morally right, regardless of any disagreement.
I fully believe morality is subjective, not objective. Assigning morals to something like killing each other is more because we don't have a better way to handle the issue, and assigning something everyone can get behind, or be put behind, is easier than actually addressing why killing happens and dealing with it in a non-emotional, non-subjective way. From the video, talking about morality as being innate and evolved just describes a basic evolutionary response, which is preservation of self. We extend that to others because by necessity we have to, otherwise society wouldn't function. I have no problem with morality being decided based on what we feel is appropriate; I only disagree that there's something inherently "right" about it.
You should definately read Peter Kropotkin's book Ethics. In it, he attempts to draw out a model of ethical naturalism.
@ I’ll give it a read. It looks pretty interesting tbh, and I’ve been wanting to explore the topic more. Thanks!
Seriously, still trying to debate this? As soon as man or animals decide to cohabit there exists an imperative to make rules for that cohabitation and survival of the group. Those rules become the moral code and end up as thousands of book of laws.
STOP TRYING TO SELL THE CONCEPT A GOD HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH MORALS, IT'S JUST DUMB AND UNSUSTAINABLE IN TRUTH OR FACT.
chill yourself out
Nobody is selling a God-based morality. Most academic moral realists nowadays are atheists. Even most non-naturalist realists are atheists. G.E. Moore himself was an atheist too.
@@aiya5777 Why? I'm stating a fact a group of idiots simply can't let go of because they need at least some evidence of their god which they will never have and it needs to be recorded as often as they lie.
@@Lightbearer616 This isn't a debate about morality coming from God, it's whether or not we can logically make sense of morality, especially in a secular manner.
@@CosmoShidan I'm pretty sure secular refers to religion. So, let me answer it for you: You can't make sense of morality in a secular manner as there is no secular manner.
Moral intuition does not lead all people to the same conclusions and therefore cannot be used to define morality.
The argument is made that because "most" people generally agree on moral truths, collective moral intuition is still viable as a metric. But that would mean morality is SUBJECTIVE to whatever the majority opinion is. Human culture has shifted over time across thousands of years and has come to understand the world in different ways which would alter the common sentiments about morality. If that's true, then this majority rule of moral intuition would sooner prove moral subjectivity rather than the opposite.
I think the common moral intuition argument is also much weaker when considering very minor cases of immorality.
Is it wrong to ignore a stranger when they speak to you in public? Is it wrong to date someone in your friend group if there's a risk of that friend group falling apart if you were to later break up? Is it wrong if you don't tip your waiter?
If you read this and you find it easy to decide if these are immoral or not, I promise you there are many who disagree with your answers.
Jesus said there are objective moral truths so there is objective morality 😊
if Jesus said you should kill does murder become a duty ?
What verse is that?
@@chad969 I am the way the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through Me. It not only claims that but that in some sense Jesus is objective morality which is inspiring.
@@macattack1958That verse seems to be saying that Jesus is means by which people are saved. Even if there are no stance independent moral truths, it could still be true that we can only come to the father through Jesus. But if that verse is logically compatible with moral realism being false, then it can’t entail that moral realism is true.
Oxford languages defines morality as principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. Jesus isn’t a principle, he’s a person. So I don’t think Jesus can be identical to objective morality, since a principle and a person are two fundamentally different things.
@@chad969replying to the second point- God's nature is distinct from ours, he's independent of Everything we're not, we are created beings and he is outside of time, space and matter. Meaning he has always been, has no creator and he created everything meaning he's the law giver. Meaning hes objective wether we believe so or not. All the principles of which you see within science have all come from our theories, but obviously were not perfect, we mess up the counting of our fingers and lack understanding daily therefore relying on yourself is foolish and prideful (self inflated identity without cause) based off of false assumptions and not having knowledge of our creator in mind just like how Adam and Eve forgot God made the tree therefore he gives knowledge and he's the giver of wisdom so he gives that aswell. Nevertheless I didn't come here with a bunch of scientific based arguements, but some underatanding of which my faith is based on and I hope you can find a connection in these points I made like me.
Yes and no, the realm in which morality lies is real. The exact system differs by user, but mostly coincides together.
If it does not abide by logical rules, the system is out.
If you do not adhere to any given moral system, then you have made yourself less trustworthy to rational creatures in that system.
How broadly you apply your system matters too, if you don't think morality applies to non-violent animals, don't be surprised when AI thinks you're redundant and not morally valuable, however the AI runs into the same risk when harming you, in case a bigger AI exists, or even god, and to god, multiverse supergod, and so on, so all rational creatures (and perhaps creatures non-rational to some degree)
3:43 not all anti-realism is non-cognivist. No point to watch the rest of the video