Moral Realism and Metaethics | Dr. Russ Shafer-Landau and
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ค. 2024
- Is moral realism true? What should our metaethical methodology be? Does the evolutionary debunking argument work? Are there categorical reasons? I'm joined by Russ Shafer-Landau and Kane B to discuss these questions and more.
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OUTLINE
0:00 Intro
1:25 The metaethical conceptual space
9:58 Methodology in metaethics
17:44 The metaethical data
37:32 Evolutionary debunking arguments
56:41 Categorical reasons
RESOURCES
(1) Russ' website: philosophy.wisc.edu/staff/sha...
(2) Kane's channel: / kaneb
(3) My website: www.josephschmid.com/
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Thanks for inviting me to have this conversation!
Our main disagreement concerned categorical reasons. I don't know what categorical reasons are -- in fact, I'm not sure what *reasons* in general are, at least as philosophers often use that term, which is why I said that I don't have a theory of reasons. There's a lot more to say here (on both sides) that we didn't get around to. Shortly after this chat, I recorded a video summarizing where I stand on this, if anybody's interested: th-cam.com/video/gFhMBRyZ4fQ/w-d-xo.html
One of my favourite pastimes is listening to so-called “academic philosophers” (that is, those men and women who have studied Western philosophical traditions at various tertiary “education” institutions, particularly those without the Asian continent, especially those who have gained a master’s degree or a doctorate) explaining or debating their moral positions in the public arena, such as social media on the Internet.
Due to the fact that authentic dharma is virtually non-existent outside of Bhārata, those philosophers invariably are UTTERLY incompetent at formulating logical and cogent arguments for their often very convoluted systems of ethics. If a person requires a doctorate in metaethics in order to live a decent, harmless life, then that suggests that morality is an elitist topic, and the rest of humanity is doomed to rot in iniquity!
Fortunately, that is not at all the case, as expertly demonstrated in what is undoubtedly the greatest work of non-fiction ever composed.
@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices Your argument against academic moral philosophy seems to be this reductio ad absurdum:
P1: A person requires a doctorate in metaethics to live a virtuous life.
P2: Only a small number of people have doctorates in metaethics.
C: Only a small number of people are capable of living a virtuous life.
But C is absurd. Therefore either P1 or P2 must be rejected. And since P2 is clearly true, we must reject P1.
The only problem I see with this argument is that I don't think any academic philosophers actually affirm P1 in the first place, so presenting it as a criticism of them appears to be an example of the "straw man" fallacy.
@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices Authentic Dharma exists all over the place. Especially outside of India. What are you talking about?
@@dharmadefender3932
😇अहिंसा परमो धर्म 😇
Ahiṃsa paramo dharma!
("non-harm is the HIGHEST religious principle" or “non-violence is the GREATEST law”).
Therefore, only a strict VEGAN can claim to be an adherent of the eternal religion (sanātana dharma).🌱
@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices Hinduism is just a fraud of Buddhism. Of course, if you understood Dharma you'd understand duality is beyond good and evil.
i really feel that they barely scratched the surface on their disagreements and that another conversation between them would really be great to have.
4 hours+ long conversation would be good
Awesome video! Thank you Joe for bringing Dr. Landau into the channel :)
I admire both of these thinkers and their views. Such an amazing discussion to see
HYPEEEE, saving this video for my bus trip tomorrow!
Wow, nice to see Dr Shafer Landau
Excited to watch
This concerns Russ Shafer-Landau's argument for categoricity.
Shafer-Landau offered the following argument:
Premise 1) If you are blameworthy for some action, then there is a reason not to do it.
Premise 2) Some people are blameworthy for actions, even though they have no desires that would be satisfied or promoted by refraining from those actions.
Conclusion) Therefore, those people have reasons to refrain from those actions.
I want to note the shift here from the phrase, "There is a reason" in the premise to "They have a reason" in the conclusion.
I hold that all reasons are based on desires.
But my desires are not the only desires that exist. Other people have desires.
Therefore, there can be reasons for me not to perform some action, even though I have no reason to refrain. They are the reasons grounded on other people's desires.
So, Shafer-Landau mentioned child abuse. There are a lot of reasons for a person to refrain from child abuse even though the abuser may have no reason to refrain.
You used the term "blameworthy"
All of those reasons that exist to blame a person who engages in child abuse are based on desires that the abuser does not have. The reasons THAT THERE ARE to condemn and hold in contempt the person who abuses a child are massive and overwhelming.
They do not imply that the abuser has a reason to refrain.
Others have reasons to manufacture reasons for potential abusers to refrain. They can do this by manufacturing external reasons (introducing threats to thwart the abuser's other desires if they should find the individual guilty of abuse).
They have reasons to create internal sanctions - guilt or disgust or some other internal reason - to refrain from actions being abusive.
And . . . as it turns out . . . condemnation, criticism, and expressions of contempt for those who would perform those types of actions are an effective way of creating these internal reasons in others.
All of this is consistent with the possibility that the conclusion that the abuser has a reason to refrain is false - even though the premises are both true.
Joe, have you read Jonas Olson's book on error theory? I found it so utterly persuasive that I can't help but think it could have helped here. In particular, Olson situates the evolutionary argument, clarifies its targets, and elucidates its aims. He also provides a very cogent argument on the subject of 'irreducible normativity', which is a clear way of describing the problem with 'categorical reasons'. Oh, and it does a good job setting aside the competing theories of 'reason' and showing why error theory goes through on any standard account.
I think Kane B would find Olson's arguments very strong if he hasn't already read them, given his preoccupation with other areas of philosophy.
Also, you rock unbelievably hard for setting the stage, letting your guests talk, and only interjecting when you were sure you had something to clarify. Absolute natural.
I'm with Kane on the whole "datum" thing. If "data" are not "factive" (which I take to mean something like "what everyone does or should accept to be true), then why use them as the basis for evaluating theories? Shouldn't we instead begin with actual facts, e.g. "Most people think they have access to moral truths," rather than these data that appear to be somebody's idea of the simplest/most intuitive explanations of such facts?
I think I'm with you and Kane here. I kinda struggle to understand what 'data' really are for Russ. I think we may need to read his forthcoming book on philosophical methodology, since I'm sure he gives a more precise and more plausible explication therein.
@@MajestyofReason aren't they just compelling and non-trivial claims, or perspectives, about phenomena? not all of the substantive raw material that we contend with philosophically can be reduced into facts
All datum is just given. "Everyone should accept as true" is not relevant, as in "should as should be forced", they are forced by natural selection to either learn through what's given or perish.
It's the same thing for moral facts.
And one thing relativists seem to miss is that all values are by definition, relative in respect to other values, be it truth values or any kind of value. It's by nature hierarchical.
This doesn't mean they don't exist, much to the contrary, it's the definition of their existence.
What that entails is on the fact that moral structures (which by definition are part of the customs, the habits and social norms) are infrastructural, and such infrastructure carries with it a price and depends on previous infrastructure to develop.
That doesn't make it "relative" or "subjective".
@@lloydgush It seems to me that there is contradiction in claiming "all values are by definition, relative in respect to other values" and "That doesn't make it 'relative'"?
I'm not sure what you're saying here, this seems like you're endorsing moral relativism ["the fact that moral structures (which by definition are part of the customs, the habits and social norms)"], then denying moral relativism ["That doesn't make it 'relative' or 'subjective'."]
What are you using the word "relative" to mean, and are you using it in multiple different ways within your post?
What a hilarious thumbnail.
He's copying Cameron Bertuzzi's style.
@@dharmadefender3932You say it like that’s something bad
1:12:26
P1: blameworthiness entails a reason against the action for which an individual is blameworthy
P2: the individual (moral monster) is blameworthy
C: therefore there’s a reason against the action
P1 seems confusing to me in the sense that it is unclear what exactly makes someone blameworthy in any case. Is it stance-independently blameworthy somehow? Also, it seems like the person could just have conflicting desires and maybe they desire not to get in trouble more than they desire to prey on children which would provide them a first-person stance-dependent reason not to prey on children.
Maybe I’m missing/misunderstanding the point here??
I found the description of data used by the moral realist to be simultaneously too vague and overly prescriptive, a quite frustrating combination. It seems like he wants to include datums that beg the question. To me, it seems better to separate the generally agreed upon observable facts (e.g. many people believe they have epistemic access to categorical moral truth) from the contested interpretations of those facts (e.g. either therefore there are such categorical moral truths, or that such people are likely incorrect in that belief). I say this, while holding to moral realism myself. It seemed like there really wasn't a very successful interchange here, and i think a large part of that was the rather narrow methodological assumptions the moral realist brought to the discussion.
I have a lot of sympathy for Kane regarding the "Should an error theorist accept data X?" question. It didn't really seem to me that Shafer-Landau properly justified why he assumes this to be a datum, he just constantly repeated that this data is defeasible and can potentially be explained away... but Kane was obviously already aware of that and this wasn't his point.
Obviously Kane looked pretty out of his depth when it came to methodology, it was obvious that Shafer-Landau simply has much more experience in that regard.
Regarding the point about categorical reasons: I recommend everyone to watch Kane's newest video about this, he clarifies his point there
I don't think Kane is out of his depth at all. Rather, I think philosophers who purport to have various "methods" often have rather poor methods, and Kane is often cautious and wary of over-committing himself. Kane just understates his general philosophical competence.
@@lanceindependent Actually, I genuinely wasn't familiar with the view that Russ was expressing, so maybe my questions missed the point. Joe did say in the initial email that he wanted to cover methodology, and I was expecting this to be on stuff like Russ's defense of the "moral intuition practice" (as in the article "Trusting Moral Intuitions" with Bengson and Cuneo) or his "moral fixed points" view. I guess I just didn't read the right material in preparation.
@@KaneB I still think you're selling yourself short. You've got enough general competence with philosophy that I don't think having any kind of well-specified method is necessary to deal with a variety of claims and arguments that come up.
I've studied a bit of philosophical method and I still don't think I have anything like a formal "method." It reminds me a bit of really clumsy attempts to talk about "the" scientific method, as though there's this magical method used throughout science. My approach to things is eclectic and a weird, inchoate grab-bag of tools and heuristics. It's hard to formalize it. I don't think that puts me at any kind of dialectic disadvantage.
It's just the lack of formality can give the superficial appearance that someone with a formal system is on better footing than someone without one. I don't think that's true. Imagine some clumsy idiot rigidly adhering to grade school notions of "the scientific method" against a seasoned and practical scientist unconsciously doing good science. I'd take the second person over the first any day, even if they had no formal method they could articulate.
@@lanceindependent Yeah, to be clear, I don't feel any particular need to develop a formal philosophical method. I'm inclined to be pluralist about methods, and I try to keep an open mind about different ways of approaching philosophical problems. If somebody presents a position, I want to know what their reasons are for accepting it -- I'm not so concerned about whether they're following specific methodological rules, and I don't think I need a model of philosophical method to criticize them. I'm just acknowledging that I may have misunderstood what Russ was saying about methodology, as it's a view I hadn't encountered before -- he seems to be using the notion of "data" in a way that's unfamiliar to me, for instance.
@@KaneB That's fine and I'm glad you're being cautious and fair minded about it but my immediate reaction wasn't so much that he's using "data" in an unfamiliar way but that what he was proposing as "data" struck me as deeply controversial. I doubt any clarification on his philosophical methods is going to change that assessment. I'm betting you'd agree.
When I heard Vivaldi’s Winter at the end I knew I had to subscribe ❤
I fail to see how evolution implies uniformity, I'd love an argument for that.
It doesn't.
it might be possible to defend the claim by appeal to human history.
there is a widespread theory amongst geneticists that there was a human bottleneck event less than 100,000 years ago from which almost all humans are descended. In this case, our moral intuitions would not have undergone significant variation so they should be uniform. indeed, humans as a species have low levels of genetic variation.
there are other arguments, for example from convergence:
fitness is maximised when human intuitions track moral truths. Therefore convergence and uniformity on moral truths should arise. Therefore convergence and uniformity can arise from evolution.
i'm not sure if i'm convinced by either argument, but the claim is certainly more complicated than what was discussed in the video.
@@indikulkarni7781 Well, there's an obvious problem with what you just wrote, and that is that human history is not a history of evolution, so at best your argument is about a "low degree" of genetic variation. And one more thing, evolution is not just genetic variation.
Now removing that, your first argument makes the case that morality is based on genetics, which is problematic to say the least and that requires an argument itself. And the second establishes a relationship between fitness and moral truths, again that requires an argument
Another big problem is that both arguments assume that evolution is a guided process, "it should", which is completely false, no result of evolution is expected.
I cannot conceive a good argument for neither, and there is a bounch of other problem with both of them
@@diegonicucs6954 I mean you would definitely expect them to be similar if morality can be explained wholely or primarily by appeal to evolution because all evolution does is shape our genetics and the genetic similarity across humans is >99.9%,
@@mohammadsultan935 The difference in the genome between humans and chimpanzees is approximately 4%, but the differences in abilities, characteristics, etc. are enormous. So no, there is no expectation of similarity just because of the low level of genetic variation. Furthermore, gene expression is highly dependent on the environment.
does anybody have a list of these metaethical data?
Just saw this, sorry for the delay. There's something I don't quite understand: how can "epistemic access to moral facts" (or "reality") be a neutral datum where the question of whether there are such things as moral facts/reality is being contested? Isn't it a bit like "epistemic access to God" being a datum in a discussion of whether or not God exists?
My conclusion - at least pending explanation of what I got wrong - is that for the "data" aspect/stage in Dr Russ Shafer-Landau and Co's methodology to work, the data at the heart of a specific philosophical question must first be "peer reviewed", including by proponents of at least all the (other) major approaches to that question.
Good question. I don't think anyone has epistemic access to moral facts in the first place. I don't grant that they seem to, or that this is plausible, or that this intuitive. I don't grant any of this, nor do I consider it "neutral." It's biased in favor of realism. This leads me to think either that Shafer-Landau is making very strong claims I'd probably reject, or that I haven't understood the position. But if it's the latter, then this may be because the position isn't being articulated very clearly, and that still seems like a problem.
what is is?
You could only expect uniformity in beliefs caused by culture, within a culture, if the culture was itself entirely uniform. Are there not variations within every culture? Even then, does subjective anomaly never play a role? Why is it being reduced to a singular causal feature ("culture")? And what scale of "culture" are we talking about? This appears to be an oversight.
Yeah this seemed strange to me as well. A person's culture can be thought of (oversimplified) as several overlapping subsets in a Venn Diagram, many of which affect each other, and affect the person to different extents and in different ways. It could be argued fairly accurately that most humans who have the most similar Venn Diagrams for their cultural influences are generally those with the most similar views on morality. We know that identical twins raised separately can have very different views on morality, and it would be no surprise that people who associate with the same people in the same ways tend to have similar views to each other.
Also, it's hardly a rebuttal that points towards a moral reality. If culture/evolution contribute at all towards peoples' morality, then they would converge to the extent that they are/were evolutionarily beneficial or culturally acceptable/normal, and diverge where the people had different evolutionary pasts or cultural influences. If we also have access to some form of moral reality, then in any area where morality is due to access to moral reality, we should have an observable convergence in these areas greater than due to evolution/culture alone. Arguing that culture should be uniform, therefore moral reality is more favoured since we don't have uniformity is counterintuitive, and arguing that culture and moral reality should both be uniform gives little by which we can differentiate them. At least we know that culture exists and affects how people understand or act out their morality.
Of course, biological factors shouldn't be ruled out. People who behave significantly differently due to the presence of brain tumours, for example, and behave differently after they are removed, support this point. People have innate tendencies towards certain behaviours, and they vary between individuals even before they are verbal enough to formulate coherent sentences. It seems clear to me that we have at least 3 complicated factors that contribute to morality. If there is a moral reality to which we have access, it seems to take a negligible 4th place. More work on the other 3 seems to have more promise for understanding (and potentially influencing) behaviour.
The comment about phenomenal conservatism around 30 minute seem to suggest Kane B doesn't understand what phenomenal conservatives believe. Having a seeming counts as evidence for something but opposing seemings by others under similar condition would count as many evidence against with net evidence tipping against believing the thing.
This is great content btw, thanks for putting them out.
More like the majesty of reasons ;)
i'd really like to see the non-naturalist (non-theist) case against naturalist moral realism. i'm a physicalist and it seems like non-naturalist morality would have to refer to some nebulous otherworld, and then it's unclear how this would relate to physical reality…
A non naturalist would argue that no natural description of right/wrong is sufficient at capturing what we mean by the terms (a natural property isn’t equal to the bad). Because there’s always a counter example to any purely natural description. So for example if you say the chemical that causes pain Or suffering or something like is equal to the wrong, We’d say there are instances where that chemical is there, however we wouldn’t say it’s wrong. Like Russ said, we’d argue you can’t describe good without referring to a normative property.
We don’t want to import your view as a datum, because too few people hold it, and it conflicts with my position. But mine is a datum, because more people hold it, and it happens to be commensurate with my conclusion. What was the doctor’s position before he put his theory together?
54:42 _"If it were just the culture plus evolution that's crank that's that's fully causally responsible for the content of your value of attitudes or judgments then we should expect uniformity of those attitudes and judgments within the culture and that's not what we see"_
I wish he had justified that claim (I wish Kane or Joe would have challenged him on that).
If a population with internal variation has a better fitness than a uniform one, then we do indeed expect the absence of uniformity...
Good conversation, didn't like the dig by Shafer at the end when Kane said he rejected that the molester was blameworthy. "Now we know where we stand" (followed by a chuckle)
Kane means that the molester isn't blameworthy in some metaphysical sense but digs such as Shafer can create the misperception that Kane would be fine with the molesters action. As if Kane wouldn't take a stance against the action.
@@senkuishigami2485 What does "it is fine" mean here? Objectively morally fine? Kane wouldn't think that either
That's usually how moral realists argue. 100% emotional.
@@senkuishigami2485 That doesn't follow at all.
What would it mean for Kane to take a stance against that action?
Would it be something like ,I do not like that action’ or something else?
@@masteroogway7624 "Not like" makes it seems weak I think. I don't speak for Kane. But a stance could be any number of things, if I say "you can't do that" or "you shouldn't do that" that could be as strong as "I will kill you if you try doing that" or as weak as "I will silently dissaprove of you if you do it". Depends on the situation I guess.
The datum story reminds me very much of the observational statements of logical positivism. Most likely there's no such things (data is always already contaminated by theory) and one has to adopt a more holistic approach.
@@greenstar2108 They are structures on tilts
The relevant evolutionary mechanism is not biological evolution reflecting fitness wrt to procreation, but *cultural* evolution reflecting what cultural information is preferentially acquired by others through social learning. Some information is more adaptive (i.e., preferentially transmitted) and so grow in prevalence in the population, eventually crowding out other, less adaptive, information. To a first approximation "morality" refers to the set of cultural behavioral prescriptions (e.g., taboos) stored in people's brains along with a great deal of cultural information that is not moral in nature.
For example, moral philosophers and religious figures possess a great deal of cultural information of a moral nature. Some of them have ideas perceived as good, achieve prestige or both and so are preferentially copied by others leading to an increase in this information in human brains over time. If some moral concept becomes near universal over time, one might say it is "evolutionarily valid."
As a specific example consider slavery. Today, it is nearly universally accepted that slavery is wrong. Three hundred years ago this was not the case. During the intervening period something like the process described above changed the moral categorization of slavery, where today one can say slavery is wrong and nobody will question you. Back in the 1970's when I first read Animal Liberation I concluded that SInger was probably right and if so in a couple of centuries people will look back at meat eaters like me the way we today (1970's) look back at slave owners. I also predicted that this change would not happen in my lifetime and so continued to eat meat. And so far it hasn't, but there is definite evidence that "vegan morality" has grown. If I were in my 20's today, I'd probably make a different decision.
Is there anyone who takes the position that (1) there are objective moral rules but (2) the objective rules are extremely complicated and vary from culture to culture, person to person, and situation to situation leading to (3) they are so complicated that no one can know much (perhaps anything) about them?
I'm just wondering if this is any kind of standard theory or if I am just thinking myself into some nonsense.
If the rules vary from one person to another or one society to another, I don't think anyone would call that 'objective'. What definition of 'objective' are you using?
Objective in the sense that the rules exist as abstracts independent of any mind. The thought was that there could be mind independent moral rules but the rules could be very complicated.
For a simple example, killing other people is generally bad. But a soldier killing another soldier under orders to fight in a just war is not bad. So the rule is different for the soldier than for others.
Similarly, maybe the objective rules could be different for different cultures depending, for example, on their geography and history.
I'm not sure about any of this. Just a thought.
Saving this video for later- looks great!
Quick question- are epistemic duties (and intellectual virtues) a subset of moral duties (and moral virtues)? If so, presumably moral anti-realists must deny the existence of duties, which seems problematic to the truth-seeker.
Generally epistemic duties are not seen as a subset of moral duties, no, although there are some epistemologists who believe that there is an "ethics of belief" (virtue epistemologists for example), which would entail that to not fullfil one's epistemic duties is necessarily immoral. But I think most philosophers think of epistemic and moral duties as separate things, which are sometimes in conflict with each other
But yeah, most error theorists would just deny that there are epistemic duties in a strong, realist sense
No? I have duties. There's just nothing true or real about those duties. And yes, epistemic virtue presupposes moral virtue. I think that's true.
@@dharmadefender3932 In your own words, define “TRUTH”. ☝️🤔☝️
Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱
@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices Truth is what corresponds with reality.
@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices you are using another different Account Again
Based
It really seems like "metaethical data" is nothing more than an endoxic proposition (or some claim of fact determined by the endoxic method). Around the 30 minute mark, Landau mentions that your metaethical theory must first be grounded in "datum", but he has no method for identifying this "datum" except for plausibility and acceptance from the linguistic community engaged in discussion. From what I can gather, his philosophical method is attempting to be something related to an abductive reasoning process or IBE. In other words, its sounding like he is saying your metaethical theory (should) comes through the defeasible argumentation (plausible reasoning) and your "datum" are simply endoxica (very similar to what Aristotle wrote about in his Topics). It seems like he is trying to build a framework that parallels how theories of the physical world are (allegedly) built after observing empirical data. You would not want to cherry pick certain data that privileges one metaethical theory over another when you have not considered disconfirming "datum" that is consistent with rival theories. Am I off here? Or Is he just trying to say that metaethical theories should be formed akin to every day common sense reasoning? Even if this is the case, I don't see a distinction between actual data (sociological data as he puts it) and this "philosophical" data. If I am slightly correct in my categorization, endoxon can be anything, so If the metaethical framework he proposes relies on this plausible argumentation schematic, how can he advocate for moral realism without a closed world assumption (which is itself pre-theoretic).
I really don't like this conflation of our colloquial notion of data to this speculative realm he is proposing. Whatever he thinks he's referring to when he says "datum" is probably the endoxon of a linguistic community. "Datum" connotes a sense of objectivity though, so if you redefine the endoxon as something akin to say, data generated from randomized trials, it makes it seem as if your "method" should be preferable. I dont know though, someone help me!
My understanding of the whole datum thing is this. There exists a bunch of data that neither support nor go against any specific theory. Additionally, the data are composed of immediate, pre-theoretic intuitions. Why believe that epistemic access to moral truths is a datum? Because almost everyone agrees and acts (pretheoretically) as though this is true. (Ofc, you can deny this. Thats a whole thing lol). Some data are easily explained, and some are more difficultly explained, but a theory is correct when it CAN explain all of the data. I honestly didn’t find this as controversial as Kane and many of the other commenters believed. It seems to me as though this was just the way that Schafer-Landau prefers to think about Ethics
>> Ofc, you can deny this. Thats a whole thing lol
Yes, I do deny that. The empirical evidence just doesn't support this, as far as I can tell. Folk metaethical views appear to be mixed or vague: see e.g. Polzer & Wright, "Antirealist pluralism: A new approach to folk metaethics" and Zijlstra, "Are people implicitly moral objectivists?" My immediate, pretheoretical intuitions clearly favoured antirealism, and that appears to be the case for at least a significant minority of other people too, so if data are composed of immediate, pretheoretical intuitions, why would I accept that epistemic access to moral truths is a datum? Is it just because some people have the intuition that there is epistemic access to moral truths? I don't see why I should favour their intuitions over mine, so I'll take take the claim that there is no epistemic access to moral truths as a datum instead.
@@KaneB Not just mixed or vague. The best recent studies lean towards mostly-antirealism. If realists want to quibble with the methods and results, that's fine. But what they don't have is a bunch of data showing most people are consistently realist about moral issues. The data not only just isn't there, but consistently suggests otherwise.
@@KaneB Btw, it's not just people's immediate, pretheoretical intutions. Even after people have metathical issues explained to them, they still mostly favor antirealist responses.
Kane B I would say those are post-theoretic intuitions. Just by asking people that, they immediately start theorizing (and I think people will naturally favor relativism for whatever reason, so they sound relativist when you ask them meta-ethical questions). If you ask a lay person, however, “Is harming someone for no reason morally wrong?” They will 9 times out of 10 say yes. Same with “Is genocide wrong?” Etc.
Kane B also, i imagine that the fact that people claim to be relativists and have relativist/anti-realist inclinations is also something that needs to be explained. I think the whole data thing is just neutral so I wanted to also throw that out there haha
4:07 i happen to agree with this point, it seems to be necessary that moral realism should have some authority over us, but i just don't think it does.
"realism" in morality will never have the same force as 'realism' as its conceptualized when we say 'reality'. Gravity binds us regardless because we all share a common property of mass, but morality binds only those who already are bound by rationality, emotions, or instincts. And all these give entirely diffrent conclusions depending on the persons makeup. I have changed many of my rationalizations, emotional responses, and instincts to situations in many diffrent domains of my inner life. But i can't change my mass as to not be effected by gravity.
So in effect, all one is doing is saying 'all those who are compelled by morality are compelled because of their properties (just as with gravity). "If we all shared a common nature, morality would be real!" and maybe in the future we will all share this common nature, and the quesiton will be forgotten as a philosophical footnote.
BUT im saying is that self overcoming can get you pretty far away from morality, but never from gravity. Which means that the 'force' here is only as great as the force of rationality, instincts or emotions within you. But these are of course properties within yourself, and your free to attempt to dismiss them if you like and can.
I fail to see the force in morality, but i remember when i was a rationalist it really felt like a force akin to gravity, when its really not. Just because one person can't dismiss parts of oneself, does not mean that these parts aren't dismissable in principle. Morality is dismissable, reality isn't.
So what else is there?
Without the force, we only have people arguing within a spesific domain of what is true within that domain. And pragmatically speaking, there is no diffrence between someone who says moral reasons are 'categorical' and moral reasons are 'hypothetical' because all they are doing is describe the same phenomena with two diffrent concepts, from two diffrent sides.
For the 'categorical' person- the term denotes the fact that within morality, there are true truthclaims
For the 'hypothetical' person- the term denotes the fact that if we care about morality (as a hypothetical domain of concern), there are true truthcliams
Because there is no force in the 'categorical' persons view, they just end up being someone who is already inbded and concerned with morality making claims within a domain of hypothetical interest.
While the 'hypothetical' person simply makes a meta claim that people need to be interested in morality first and formost to make such claims, but there is no force making them interested in morality by necessety.
So its only those making other claims, such as morality not existing, or being false who share a diffrent view.
But i would claim that all they are doing is dismissing the disscourse in a perticular domain they don't care about, or do care about, but simply point out that there is no 'force' as with 'realism' when it denotes 'the real' in reality.
But none of them actually say anything about morality being 'real', any invented domain of human discourse has plenty of 'objective' , true 'truthclaims'. There are true truthclaims about fictions, and within fictions, and their relation to the real world.
Its a fact that an author wrote a book, and within that book there are domains of discurse which relate to the facts as presented within that book, there can be invented systems (of magic for example) that work within that established domain of facts. ect ect. And there can be a relation between fictions and the real world too.
So dismissing morality is akin to dismissing a work of fiction, i mean, it exists within reality, its just that it isn't 'real' as when we talk about 'the real' when we talk about gravity, and its forcefull nature
notice that there a two conceptions of the 'real' here. I only consider the one with force to be viable, but there is nothing stopping you from using words hoewever you like :^) i can't force that. Force is the key theme here
1:00:00
as for 'blameworthlyness' - isn't that just a pragmatic consideration? Abstractified by the rationlist to a rule?
From the subject perspective: "i shouldn't do x, because i will be blameworthly by others"
from the victims perspective: "don't do that, if you do il blame you for it!"
There is even even better shortcut here, just go to conscent, and conscent as a rule. But that still doesn't have any 'force'.
It even saves you from having to debate free will versus determinism, for the whole 'blameworthlyness' debate. Conscent as a general rule works on all fronts, while blameworthlyness seems to lack a categorical aspect if your a determninst.
""realism" in morality will never have the same force as 'realism' as its conceptualized when we say 'reality'. Gravity binds us regardless because we all share a common property of mass, but morality binds only those who already are bound by rationality, emotions, or instincts."
unless some sort of metaphysical realist exists, which is essentially what is claimed in most of human society when moral claims are made, like 'Hitler is evil' or 'Rape is wrong.' They are not merely making some sort of scientific point about cause an effect. If such a metaphysical reality exists and permeates all of us, then it will have that force, same as gravity.
But of course, that is the entire object of discussion here, so not expecting you to adopt the idea, just pointing out that your statement is true or false depending on what definition of morality one is using, and depending on whether what that definition is describing actually exists or not.
@@yahyamohammed637 Well my point goes beyond that actually, sure i agree with your statements here, but you missed one crutial bit, gravity is always in effect, you cannot fly. You can rape and kill and all this transcendental metaphysical claims can do is say that after the fact happend, it will be punished or redeemed or whatever notion you subscribe to.
So realism in morality will never be equivalent as a concept because of this.
To take a religious example, Its just that god doesnt stop rapes or murders, yet he willfully stopps us from flying
04:07 i happen to agree with this point, it seems to be necessary that morality should have some authority over us, but i just don't think it does.
"realism" in morality will never have the same force as 'realism' as its conceptualized when we say 'reality'. Gravity binds us regardless because we all share a common property of mass, but morality binds only those who already are bound by rationality, emotions, or instincts. And all these give entirely diffrent conclusions depending on the persons makeup. I have changed many of my rationalizations, emotional responses, and instincts to situations in many diffrent domains of my inner life. But i can't change my mass as to not be effected by gravity.
I fail to see the force in morality, but i remember when i was a rationalist it really felt like a force akin to gravity, when its really not. Just because one person can't dismiss parts of oneself, does not mean that these parts aren't dismissable in principle.
So what else is there?
Without the force, we only have people arguing within a spesific domain of what is true within that domain. And pragmatically speaking, there is no diffrence between someone who says moral reasons are 'categorical' and moral reasons are 'hypothetical' because all they are doing is describe the same phenomena with two diffrent concepts.
For the 'categorical' person- the term denotes the fact that within morality, there are true truthclaims
For the 'hypothetical' person- the term denotes the fact that if we care about morality (as a hypothetical domain of concern), there are true truthcliams
Because there is no force in the 'categorical' persons view, they just end up being someone who is already inbded and concerned with morality making claims within a domain of hypothetical interest.
While the 'hypothetical' person simply makes a meta claim that people need to be interested in morality first and formost to make such claims, but there is no force making them interested in morality by necessety.
So its only those making other claims, such as morality not existing, or being false or what will you who share a diffrent view.
But i would claim that all they are doing is dismissing the disscourse in a perticular domain they don't care about, or do care about, but simply point out that there is no 'force' as with 'realism' when it denotes 'the real' in reality.
Doesn't the premise "He is blameworthy" beg the question by presupposing a normative value? If you say someone is worthy of blame, you are already assuming there is some other way they should have acted, implying there is some standard of good, and that they should have acted in accordance with that standard. This is another example of a realist framing the scenario as though objects or actions are _themselves_ "desirable", or contain some value of "desirability" rather than the value being within the valuer. The actions of the person contain whatever properties they contain, and the person perceiving those actions feels how they do about it.
To elaborate, Person A is a child abuser. That is a fact absent any moral loading. To say Person A is worthy of blame is to imply wrongdoing, which is the very thing being questioned in this discussion. The premise begs the question. The definition of "blame" is "to assign responsibility for a fault or wrong." To frame it the way Dr. Russ has here is to insert the value of wrongness into the action prior to evaluation, rather than describe the valuation as existing within the valuer.
An antirealist would simply describe this situation as Person A doing a thing, and the observer, Person B, finding it repulsive. The AR might even use the phrasing, "Person A is blameworthy" but they would just be signaling that Person B doesn't want Person A to abuse children, that Person B is repulsed by it. Now, Person A might have _sufficient_ reason to refrain from said action if they sufficiently value living in a society where Person B isn't repulsed by their actions (where the effect of Person B's repulsion outweighs the effect of abusing children), and if that results in a change of behavior then that would amount to _sufficient_ reason to change their behavior.
Weird to hear both Kane and Professor Shafer-Landau respond to evolutionary debunking arguments by denying that the empirical data is well-supported. At least from my perspective having done work in psychology research (including at an evo psych lab) the research on the evolution of our moral beliefs is extremely robust. 'the evolution of reciprocal altruism' by Robert Trivers is one of the most important papers written in any discipline, and there has been so much successful research based on the reasoning in that paper in biology, psychology, anthropology, etc. Not saying we have a complete story but we are pretty close to it. People are so unduly skeptical of evolutionary psychology. The whole 'just-so' story thing has been responded to so many times by the top researchers in the field of sociobiology and I've not yet seen people who use that term respond to them.
I didn't understand the difference between "accepting a data" and "asserting a data is true".
Blacks disproportionately killing is a datum. Do you have to agree with it being reflective of blacks people bad? No.
Epistemic access is a datum. Do you have to agree with it being reflective of the truth of morality? No
Test and stats are data
Has anybody ever told you that you look like Tom Holland a lot, Joe?
As in, “has any single person told Joe many times that he looks like Tom Holland?” Or, as in, “has anyone told Joe that he strongly resembles Tom Holland?” /s
My man ditched Cameron here
While I love Dr Landaus writing, I wish his oral dialectical approach was a little better. This isn’t surprising however, most academic philosophers tend to argue in papers.
I have just realized that your name nearly is "Joe Schmoe"
😂😂😂
That's hilarious
I thought the thumbnail was Pete Davidson lol
"Special" is a very fine way of describing Kane's views.
“Blameworthy” is simply a normative term. It surely, on pain of circularity, can’t be used to ground normative language.
I have some data too. My data are more data than your data.
Some strange conclusions reached in terms of evolutionary and cultural arguments. Why would we expect morality to be homogeneous within a culture? Are other aspects of culture completely homogeneous? I think the homogeneity of morality within cultures and subcultures is well on par with other culturally determined behaviors.
The same could be said of evolution. Does evolution tend to produce perfectly homogeneous species or is there still variation inside of species?
This seems like a very odd objection. Perhaps I misunderstood.
On the other side of things, if moral realism is true, does that mean that all species that evolve social and reasoning capabilities will converge towards the same morals regardless of their evolutionary heritage? That seems like a very strange and anthropocentric claim.
No, evolution does not entail the kind of homogeneity that Shafer-Landau suggested that it does. I'm not sure what he's basing that on.
>>>On the other side of things, if moral realism is true, does that mean that all species that evolve social and reasoning capabilities will converge towards the same morals regardless of their evolutionary heritage? That seems like a very strange and anthropocentric claim.
Good question. It seems extremely implausible to me that other species would converge on the same moral standards as humans. But hey, how things seem isn't a good guide to what's true. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see what aliens think if we ever encounter any. I'm betting they won't share our moral values, and that this is yet another reason to think moral realism is a bunch of nonsense.
How does the moral facts influence our moral intuitions?
If the moral realist believe that our moral intuitions are caused by brain activity then he need to explain how does the moral facts influence our brain activity causing in us our moral intuitions.
If he thinks that the moral facts influence our moral intuitions without first influencing our brain activity, then he is a mind/body dualist since he believes that we have behaviors, belifs or feelings that aren't caused by our brain activity.
I reckon he would give an explanation like his co-author (of the upcoming books) that is presented in this paper: drive.google.com/file/d/0B_9ZMBgx7ZieOFJPOU0tT2xBUHBVSlo2NklFZElPUjV4aVpZ/view?resourcekey=0-0VHfxM58Sd4bNK5G-du4oA
1:05:05 _"It seems to me that when that person acts as he so wants to act he's blameworthy"_
This sentence seems taken straight out of Nietzsche's book... Simply the week who reifies moral laws in order to control the strong...
data data data datum data data datum data data
obvious to me everything shafer is saying is gobbledygook desperately wrapped in techincal jargon to make his 'realism' sound more fancy, technical, and "deep"
🙄
"grasping the nature of moral reality" so just quasi Platonism then? Also, so much presupposed in this one statement. Presupposes a direct realist view, presupposes essentialism.
Without GOD there is No morality
-Theists
Okay
- Me, 2022
Not quite. Theists believe that the source of morality is God, yet many theists accept that there are other possible groundings or frameworks in which morality could theoretically exist. For example, I think that some kind of non-naturalistic Platonism might be able to ground morality, despite believing that theism offers a simpler option.
@@calebp6114 non naturalistic platonism?
@@senkuishigami2485 Non-naturalism in meta-ethics is a type of moral realist position where moral properties cannot be reduced to natural properties, like pleasure. I think this view is probably superior to moral naturalism. Platonism proposes that there are non-natural abstract objects, which ground and explain such things like universals. Platonist thought also generally holds that one can intuit such Platonic Forms. I think these two views can perhaps be conjoined, as they both propose non-naturalistic entities which are intuited.
Again tho, such a view isn't quite as satisfying as theism.
@@calebp6114 Abstract Objects Can be Natural
And Why Theism is better Or Even Why it is Needed?
"Objective morality" is a category error, like "yellow music".
You only say that because you are not a synesthetic; some people experience "yellow music".
@@Paradoxarn. Is synesthesia reliable? Can it be compared intersubjectively? No. What one synesthete considers "yellow" music, another would consider "purple" music, and most would say it is colorless by definition. Synesthesia is something the experiencer adds to the experience, not something derived simply from the experience itself.
In that way, synesthesia is very much like morality: it's subjective, not corresponding to a real part of the world.
@@11kravitzn If I'm understanding you correctly, you are a direct realist when it comes to normal sensory experiences but an indirect realist when it comes to synesthetic sensations? Also, are you saying that morality is unreliable and that it cannot be compared intersubjectively? Are you saying that reliability and intersubjectivity are prerequisites for objectivity?
@@Paradoxarn. Eye and ear tests exist. Only a small fraction of people are synesthetes (music-color). They all disagree on whether F# is blue or red or black, or whether it is different than Gb. There is and can be no synesthesia test (what is "correct" synesthesia?).
Values cannot be objective: fact value distinction, etc. In the same way that music cannot [objectively] be yellow, since music involves no light and only light has color. In the same way, values/valuations cannot be objective, since values are inherently and necessarily subjective. It's not a contradiction, but a category error, like yellow music. It's an empty reference.
@@11kravitzn So why can't values be both subjective and objective? After all, you already seem to think that this is not a contradiction. Is it because values are not facts?
Well, if God exists, then He could have determined/configured evolution in order for adaptations to track moral truths.
Btw, Dr. Shafer-Landau wins! 🥊🥊
🤦 Alright Landau's view has gotten even MORE ridiculous to me and I didn't think that was possible. When you need to bring in Essentialism to defend realism, then I think you've lost the debate. Pretty squarely.
Can you explain Dharma to me? I’m interested by your username.
@@calebp6114 Dharma is just the Buddha's teaching.
@@calebp6114 This may help th-cam.com/video/i2wLyhgeYsw/w-d-xo.html
Why are people still moral realists? Why can't they see that they're just gibberish generators?