Looking forward to giving this a watch. I like Lance but I think his position lacks sufficient grounding which I believe Michael will bring to the surface. Personally, I'm a Hegelian so contest objectivity being mind independence so here's hoping that get's raised. Regardless, thank you for hosting this debate.
Why would anyone want to give a watch to a video? Wouldn't a CLOCK be more appropriate? Hegelian? So, do you ADMIT that you adhere to the flawed concepts of a full-time criminal, Mr. Socialist-dunce-who-considers-right-and-wrong-to-be-absolutes?
BANGER, Huemer’s rhetorics always rub me the wrong way but he’s very sharp (of course) and manages to follow everything Lance argues here and addresses most things fairly I thought. The best proponents of each side of the metaethical divide here, ive been waiting to hear these guys go at it for a long time, this was awesome 😊 I agree with Lance that the metaethical dispute probably just stems from their deeper linguistic, and knowledge/truth theory disputes.
It does seem odd when people assume that because we use a word like “moral” that it has to connect to some metaphysical essence which we are then tasked with discovering the true nature of; even worse when people make those assumptions without even being aware that they are making them.
Hey, Curiosity Guy, I see that you're seeing all of these. Is there a reason I can't post a comment in the main thread? Am I partially banned or something? I don't know why I would be. Is that even a thing? Thanks. Sorry, for saying something irrelevant on this comment, but I needed to talk to Curiosity Guy and have no idea how to contact him otherwise.
I think the back and worth on Gettier cases was probably the most useful. I tend to by default have reactions to such cases that seem more similar to Lance's. It seems like the intuition for me is something like: this case doesn't seem to have an outcome where the agent had all of the relevant information and/or could have been using better criteria to come to true beliefs more frequently. Knowledge just seems to be a concept where we as a group decide that we prefer these criteria over other criteria. In everyday life these issues seem to be resolved in terms of pragmatic considerations. What causes more true beliefs seems to have a fact of the matter. What knowledge is seems to be constructed and seems to have no fact of the matter until one constructs an idea of what knowledge is.
This is correct. "There is no fact of the matter" is really, "there are many different facts about how people talk and what they mean." E.g., we use "know" in a fallibilistic sense all the time (because most of us recognize that we could be mistaken about things we are nonetheless confident about), but then when challenged with "but do you REALLY know?" we feel bullied into an infallibilistic sense and perhaps quickly admit that we don't know at all. Normal language is full of imprecisions, inconsistencies, and spontaneous & compelled shifts of criteria & meaning. We tend to neglect this (perhaps from a hope that it isn't true) and let expressive use cases guide our gut feelings, and before you know it, philosophers are building syllogisms on a premise's "intuitiveness." The right metaethic, by contrast, acknowledges conceptual pluralism, and will look as messy as the real world is, because it actually reflects the real world.
At 1:34:10 , wouldn't the difference be that a person set on eating non-nutricious food will die, but a person set on eating nutricious one won't? That seems like a very big, important difference. What am I missing from his position?
Hey Lance! I think you did. Mike then made the thick thin concepts distinction. Sorry i dont have the time stamp. I think it was something and Wierd vs other cultural differences.
If objective means independent of the attitudes of observers, then what comes to my mind is something like: the earth revolves around the sun. This at least to me, is as objective a claim can be, assuming we take Huemer’s definition of ‘objective’. Even if there isn’t a single sentient creature in the universe, the earth would still revolve around the sun. However, when speaking about moral claims, it doesn’t seem to me that they are objective in that sense, because for one you’d have to assume that these moral claims are etched into the fabric of the universe; like the claim torturing people for fun is wrong came prepackaged with the world.
I think it’s more similar to a physical law like gravity. Even if there were no physical objects to experience gravitational attraction, the law itself would still exist as an abstract principle. This is more akin to what realists are claiming, I believe.
Even the physical claim that the Earth revolves around the sun is a matter of convention and perspective. They both orbit a shared barycenter, but because the sun is much larger, it dominates the interaction, and the situation is just easier to describe as the Earth orbiting the sun, even though it's not perfectly accurate.
Many moral realists think that moral laws are "necessary" abstract objects, so they would indeed be "prepackaged", they would also be true in every possible world. The details would vary, in a world where there are no humans you can't break the moral law by harming a human but there would still be the general principle. Maybe the general principle is something like: it's wrong to harm any conscious creatures if they exist. There are other similar views, for example you could think that mathematical objects exist necessarily and all the mathematical truths are also necessary, something like mathematical Platonism.
I salute and admire Lance for citing empirical research to back his claims. However I think one very important consideration is needed, that is for moral realism to be true, there just needs to be at least 1 moral fact (insert realist descriptors) which isn't a high bar. While I view survey data with a lot of skepticism especially since most of the survey done are not representive of the global population ( mostly done in Western, college students who are also mainly white) and to pose a very simialr question Lance like to ask "who are we?" I would argue that most of the surveys done DO NOT capture we/folk in the broad sense. However when we look at the research from Beebe than spans a larger sample size across Poland, Ecuador and China, there seems to be closer consensus on a moral realist position on harm related questions. This is similar to the research done by Davis where when it came to judging harm, realist and anti-realist positions were extremely close. This isn't to disprove that anti-realism is false, it simply shows that the current empirical research (even if I grant that the current research represent "folk" well) DOES NOT prove the moral realism is false.
I don’t think Lance would say that the empirical research does or even can prove any metaethical stance true or false. However, if an argument begins (like Huemer’s first argument does) with the premise that “most people think X”, but we don’t have any empirical evidence that most people actually do think X, then we have no reason to accept that premise. If moral realists have arguments that are not based on “it seems like X” or “most people think X” then that’s something we can debate as philosophers. But if that is a premise, we need to turn to empirical research to back it up.
@@KentrosaurusesAs I’ve mentioned above, all it seems moral realist needs to claim is there needs to be one X. Currently the empirical research shows that people have moral realist intuition in regards to acts relating to harm. That’s sufficient to justify saying that people have some moral realist intuition towards a particular act. Once again stating that I do not believe the current empirical research is representative of the global population, just like how I don’t believe a survey of philosophers represents the global population.
There just needing to be one of something doesn't make it a low bar. There just needing to be one incantation that can summon demons, or just one object that is both a square and a circle doesn't make the prospects of either a low bar. Most of the surveys don't capture folk usage. Note, however, that non-naturalist realists who do not appeal to survey data are in an even worse position. Armchair theorizing and analyzing English sentences outside their actual contexts of usage are far worse as methods for evaluating which view is "commonsense" than existing survey data. >>However when we look at the research from Beebe than spans a larger sample size across Poland, Ecuador and China, there seems to be closer consensus on a moral realist position on harm related questions. That study doesn't come anywhere close to showing a cross-cultural consensus on moral realism. The realist response rate averaged across items in the US was 0.47, which is less than half, and it was extremely variable across all items, with some items, with no single item approaching consensus. A similar pattern held in Poland, Ecuador, and China, realist response rates ranging from 0.27 to 0.78 across items, once again with fairly middling averages. The average across items in these countries ranged from 0.33 for donating money to 0.67 for hitting others. This is, yet again, nowhere close to a consensus. Their data simply doesn't show a consensus, or even something close to one. Those studies were also conducted prior to the methodological critiques leveled against early metaethics paradigms (from myself, Polzler, Wright, and others). Better-designed studies have led to even lower rates of realism, including Taylor Davis's work and in Polzler and Wright's work, such as a recent cross-cultural study with Polzler and several collaborators that found very low realist response rates (see "Lay People Deny Morality’s Objectivity across Cultures (to somewhat Different Extents and in somewhat Different Ways)". In other words: the data never even appeared to show a consensus ten years ago, and as methods have improved, rates of realism have only dropped further. The most methodologically rigorous methods tend to find very high rates of antirealism. The overall body of literature does not suggest there is any sort of consensus that nonphilosophers are realists. >> This is similar to the research done by Davis where when it came to judging harm, realist and anti-realist positions were extremely close. Noncognitivism was the modal response across all five moral foundations (including harm) in Davis's data, with antirealist responses being about even for harm and otherwise dominating across the other four foundations. Davis's findings are squarely in the "most people gave antirealist responses" camp. >>This isn't to disprove that anti-realism is false, it simply shows that the current empirical research (even if I grant that the current research represent "folk" well) DOES NOT prove the moral realism is false. This research isn't about whether realism is true or false. This is empirical research about whether nonphilosophers are moral realists or not. The data is not very representative of people in general.
@@lanceindependent The paper by Beebe stated that "It is true that participants gave strongly objectivist responses to some ethical claims-particularly those that involved inflicting unwanted and unjustified harm upon other individuals" and the paper by Taylor Davis also showed that realism and anti-realist position came close on harm. Based on this I can contend that when it comes to harm and only harm, "folk" people have strong moral realist intuition. As for "better methods" I would just deny this until there's a replication showing that it is actually better, one can claim different criteria were included but there needs to be some replication to say its better, especially in the world of survey/psychology research. If a method cannot produce realibilty when it comes to replication, I would not say it's better and based on the current literature I've not seen a replication done, however if I am wrong due to my ignorance of not being deep in the field and unawre of the latest study, please let me know and I will give it a read.
@@kedrick93 What matters is what Beebe et al’s data shows, not how they frame the data. Their data does not show anything like a consensus in favor of moral realism. Neither does Davis’s data. Have you seen the graphs for the harm domain? They don’t show anything that could be reasonably interpreted as “most of these people favor realist responses.” Noncognitivist responses were more common, and participants broke about even on harm in the realist/antirealist categories. It’s not even close to a consensus. Neither of those studies comes anywhere near establishing any kind of consensus. >>As for "better methods" I would just deny this until there's a replication showing that it is actually better The quality of a study’s methods aren’t reducible to whether the results of the study replicate or not. The main issues here have to do with validity and invalid studies can still be replicated. The reasons why earlier studies have worse methods are well established on both theoretical and empirical grounds, including my own research. Those issues of data quality have to do with validity, not replicability.
I thought I would have, too. I think the vibe was too positive and relaxed for me to feel inclined to do that. My vibe is heavily influenced by context and by the attitudes of the people I am interacting with.
@@lanceindependent Huemer could press you as well. I think the vibe was too positive and relaxed for him to feel inclined to do that. But, it feels odd that you allowed the vibe to prevent you from pulling out your rather intellectualy more aggressive points, when it was such a good occassion to do it. 'Good' meaning 'perfect' occassion to 'press' Huemer. You literally had a debate with him in person.
@@lanceindependent I'm usually all in favour of holding peoples feet to the fire, but I think you walked the line here perfectly. I didn't expect Huemer to be as open as he was. He struggled in the beginning but I think he started genuinely trying to understand where you were coming from. If you pushed any harder he likely would have closed off completely. All in all good discussion. Great job!
@@jimothy9943 he struggled because he saw that Lance will play his stupid game of half baked skepticism. I can challenge Lance in such a way that he's gonna concede the conclusion that he doesn't exist, and? Why we wouldn't just continue Lance's line of reasoning and concede ontological nihilism?
@@KlPop-x1o Chill out dude. I doubt you could challenge anyone without emotional outburst based on how you are handling what was an extremely civil discussion. If I were Lance I wouldn't want to debate you unless you changed your attitude right quick.
Geology isn’t held back by “geology skeptics” because of the reality of the field. Geology actually does make progress, and doesn’t have many of its systems deconstructed with every new generation of geologists like philosophy does.
Because there's the philosophy of geology that gets into that. Science and philosophy are different in the sense that philosophy creates questions out of the foundations that a scientific field uses in its practice.
Yeah, Mike seems to like appealing to common sense as a general strategy, but that analogy set off my 'dodgy' senses straight away. Philosophy and the hard sciences just feel like significantly different endeavors with significantly divergent goals and assumptions.
This was very interesting. I would be interested to hear more. I always find Huemer interesting and I have recently been catching up on Bush. In this case, I initially agreed with Bush, and did not change my mind, so maybe I am being biased. Huemer makes good objections to arguments Bush did not make. If he addressed Bush's basic point, I didn’t understand him. The question is not whether someone thinks baby torture is wrong, but what presuppositions are packed into that, and whether all of them are as a matter of fact stance-independent. He seemed to take the stance-independence of moral claims as uncontroversial, and assume that an anti-realist would have no grounds for objecting to baby torture, rather than trying to show that an objection to baby-torture can only be based on stance-independent reasons. Some of Bush's objections about the impossibility of analyzing language out of context seem extreme, and for me difficult to understand, but I don’t think that is essential to the challenge to moral realism.
Nice comment. I'd be happy to discuss the latter point about analyzing language out of context. I don't just endorse this view, I also deny that it is in any way extreme. I think analytic philosophers have done a lot to entrench the notion that views like mine are "extreme" and "radical" and "skeptical" but I don't think any of this is true. From my perspective, their views seem very extreme and radical, and in many cases profoundly implausible.
@@lanceindependent instead of extreme, I should say difficult for me to get a grip on, and addressing an issue that I was unaware of and that I am not convinced is relevant. You seem to be very concerned about how to interpret statements by ordinary persons. I would be satisfied with coming up with coherent interpretations of what particular philosophers say, or objections to interpretations that philosophers have used. These are different problems, and one or the other might seem more tractable or interesting. Do you agree that Huemer continued to the end as if a moral anti-realist cannot disapprove of baby torture? I was distracted from time to time during the discussion and I could have missed something. This seems like a strange position to take for him, as I usually find him to be more imaginative and charitable.
@@tdbtdbthedeadbunny The issue of language is not only relevant, it is of immense relevance to these discussions. Insofar as standard antirealist positions rely on semantic theses that are themselves based on false presuppositions about language, all traditional antirealist positions (and realist positions, for that matter), could have serious problems. Furthermore, many standard objections to antirealist positions turn on leveraging their semantic commitments and turning them against them...which is exactly what Huemer did in his opening statement. Huemer employs a process of elimination approach: He claims there are only three possible antirealist positions, and if you can show all three are wrong, realism wins by default. What I was arguing is that this is not true: there are not only three antirealist positions, so showing that those three are wrong would not demonstrate realism is true. >>You seem to be very concerned about how to interpret statements by ordinary persons. I'm not that concerned about it. It's analytic philosophers who are concerned about it. All standard analytic metaethical positions on the matter feature a semantic thesis as one of their central claims. A big part of my work is showing that this is a mistake and that how ordinary people think about such questions is not especially relevant. There were three reasons I brought up language at the outset: (1) Because it is necessary to do so to argue that my position does not fall into one of the three positions Huemer claims are the only possible positions (2) Because Huemer characterizes my own position as a radical skeptical position. This claim loses its force if it's not the case that his position is "commonsensical" or appeals to intuitions widely held among philosophers. (3) Because language-related problems are a key element in normative entanglement. >>Do you agree that Huemer continued to the end as if a moral anti-realist cannot disapprove of baby torture? That depends what you mean, but probably not. I don't think Huemer thinks I don't disapprove of baby torture. I don't know if Huemer or other realists accept my characterization of normative entanglement or my claim that it is driving a lot of the reactions they and others have to antirealist positions. My impression is that Huemer didn't think normative entanglement accounted for his own judgments.
@@lanceindependent thanks for the clarification. It seemed to me that Huemer thought that if you disapprove of baby torture or condemn baby torturers, you’re being inconsistent. But as I said, I was not too certain that I had a strong grip on all his arguments.
@@tdbtdbthedeadbunny I'd have to review the whole discussion carefully but I doubt he thinks it's inconsistent with antirealism to disapprove of or condemn baby torturers. The question would turn more on what the moral antirealist is committed to saying, depending on their semantics. An error theorist couldn't fully and sincerely say, consistent with their position, "It's wrong to torture babies," but I don't see why they'd be unable to say, consistent with their position, to say "I don't like baby torture and I will try to stop it." I doubt Huemer would disagree, and if he did, that'd be very strange.
I think Lance won the "debate" but it was more of a good discussion. I personally do not even think there is any reason to discuss moral realism is true given there is no question begging manner we have to define any moral fact or moral phenomena in such terms. People spew words and from that I have no idea how we can determine mind-independent facts about the world beyond psychology, language and tautologies. The world is comprised of what objects are made of and anything else is psychological projection.
@@colbyboucher6391 Because Lance does what he always does: push the definitional game in order to maintain an agenda. It's a grotesquely sophistic and boorishly unsophisticated propaganda ploy. Consider: let's say that I'm a restrictionist on immigration. Enter Lance Bust. "Yeah well, what exactly IS a border anyways?" I go on to define a border in the roughly colloquial terms in which most everyone would understand the concept. Lance Bust then says, "well, at what EXACT POINT can one be said to cross this so called border?" I explain in rough but understandable terms, along the lines of when one's physical person steps or climbs or otherwise travels over the line, as it were. Lance Bust then says, "Must it be the "whole person," and what exactly is a "person" anyways?" And so it goes. It's a stupid, redundant game and worse yet, dishonest.
I dunno, I feel like the situation is pretty disanalogous, because the whole field of metaethics is about adjudicating what concepts mean. If somebody pulled this definitional stuff in a discussion about normatove ethics, I do think it'd be totally illict, and more in line with the situation you outline. But if I had to go with the border analogy to describe metaethical conversations, I'd say it was more like a country debating where to draw its borders, and somebody asking "Hold on: what exactly are our laws governing borders and the legality of crossing thereof? What are the practical implications of being in or outside of this border?" Which I think is extremely reasonable.
@@moonsweater Reasonable to a point, after all, there is a sense in which two interlocutors need mutual understanding of terms if they're to discuss the same subject matter, but I don't think it accurate to reduce metaethics entirely to terms of linguistic clarity anymore than it'd be fair to reduce biology to evolution. That aside, often demand for conceptual unpacking is little else than obfuscation of sneaking in an affirmed negation through the back door. As Rorty said of truth, "we know how to use it we don't have to define it." I'm less than charitable and reject your analogy in favor of mine through the sheer force of familiarity with how Lance operates. He's a sophist, full stop.
@@lanceindependent, NEITHER of you have any fundamental understanding of morality, and at the risk of seeming pessimistic, you will never ever have any proper understanding of ethics. Ask me why.
@@lanceindependentpeople think you've performed bad. Are you tacitly assuming there's an objective fact of the matter in relation to quality of your performance?
I would have liked to see Huemer pressed more on his epistemology. Intuitions can be primed, biased by parents, and altered by one’s social group. That alone should be enough of a defeater to show they need to at least be supported by other evidence, which he can’t because there is none. 1:30:00 Couldn’t this just be explained by having an aversion to the act-type of breaking promises? Seems like that’s a sufficient explanation to me. 1:35:00 I’d also like to know what he means by “it’s harder to escape [objective moral facts]”, How?! How is it harder?! Doesn’t seem to be harder since billions of people escape them every day. If these facts exist, they are supposed to *have* this property of harder to escape. Why should it make a difference if people subjectively *believe* they exist? Like, why is that a criteria for their inescapably?!
Regarding the last point: Yes, I very much agree. What's so inescapable of stance-independent moral facts? You could just...ignore them. And what are the consequences? As far as I can tell, none at all.
@@lanceindependent You can’t have any pudding if you don’t [obey objective normative facts]! How can you have any pudding if you don’t [obey objective normative facts]!?
I was really hoping Lance would demonstrate how thinking that torturing babies is wrong makes it true that there is some kind of physical moral law or platonic objects. It’s very plausible that having strong opposition to torturing babies is an evolutionary adaptation. Correct me if i am completely misunderstanding the topic.
Our ability to recognize truth is an evolutionary adaption, but it doesn't follow from that that we are not recognizing truths when we do. Likewise, while there is an evolutionary explanation behind certain moral feelings, those feelings could be rooted in objective truth. If you think evolution destroys moral knowledge, then why not say evolution destroys all knowledge? Thinking torturing is wrong does not commit someone to a platonic object or a spooky moral fact. If you find yourself committed to epistemic facts about what's rational and irrational, or what reasons are good or bad, or what kinds of reasoning are good or bad kinds of reasoning, then you can simply apply epistemic facts to ethical contexts. If moral facts are epistemic facts, then the fact that you shouldn't torture someone is no spookier than the fact that you shouldn't believe the Earth is flat.
@@BenStowell It's my understanding that objectivists are committed to saying that moral facts are true independent of opinions, so what are they true in virtue of? Personally I am an emotivist, I think morality is like anxiety or anger - something that you feel. And I mean, sure, you could come up with something that would make 99.99% of all healthy humans angry, just like torturing babies for fun would make 99.99% of all healthy humans feel it's wrong. Would this mean anger is objective too?
I think there has to be sufficient evidence that morals are more than opinions or beliefs. What is a moral? Can you see, taste, touch, smell, or hear it? Objects are real because there is a corresponding, testable, physical world. Morals however are beliefs. Do non-human species, like ants, have objective moral values? Is the sun expanding and engulfing the earth and ending all life immoral? From my perspective, the only thing that can be demonstrated is that humans have opinions on what they want others and themselves to do. We call that morality. It comes down to preference. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong to impose your beliefs on others. All morality is a form of imposing beliefs on others.
I was underwhelmed despite normally liking both parties. In the end: Michael thinks realism is intuitive, most people are committed to realism, and the arguments for anti-realism are all terrible. Lance thinks realism isn't intuitive at all, most people are not committed to realism, and the arguments for realism are all terrible. Other than that, I'll say I thought Lance did (or was allowed to do) too much of the talking. Maybe I'm mistaken -- and I'm not going to watch again and count their speaking time -- but it felt as if he kept adding to his points when it would have been more beneficial to stop and let Michael respond. Oh well, better than no debate.
That's fair. I'm very talkative. One point I think it's worth making though is that it takes a more words to discuss empirical evidence that a concept isn't commonsense than it does to claim that itis commonsense. That puts someone with my approach and position in an asymmetric position with respect to how much we have to say to challenge another claim or position. Compare to someone claiming there's no even evidence for evolution vs. someone trying to discuss that evidence.
Yeah Lance can ramble because he wants to say everything he thinks is important in relation to a point; I don't at all think it's intentional. I actually think HE is better when he is constrained a bit more.
@@blamtasticful Yea, I have strong completionist tendencies and dislike short exchanges. It's very challenging to try to address any of this in 2 hours, or even 10. I do feel it makes for a better conversation when there's someone that constrains me; I've been in a few interviews where this happens and it goes well when someone can stop me or manage the flow of a conversation.
@@lanceindependent Maybe, and again I like you in general, but just consider that if someone says "moral realism is intuitive to many people" that your response doesn't need to contain any studies. You could simply indicate that the studies you've seen or conducted don't support that. At that point, you've done as much work as your opponent. Then you only need to do a tiny bit more to "beat" your opponent in this respect, like say a single line about what your research shows. Then what are they gonna do?
I understand Michael’s insistence that intuitions are important and difficult to escape (4:40). But methodically I strongly dislike approaches that don’t seek to reduce our dependence on intuitions, or think “seemings” form a good basis for heavy duty metaphysical theorizing. I much prefer the meta philosophical approach of @lanceindependent that is reliant on the hard work of gathering empirical data, and getting clear about language; how it’s used and what its limitations are. (1:08:38) I also tend to find that pragmatists or people who are Wittgensteinians about language are very clear on what analytical philosophers are doing and exactly where they go wrong. Meanwhile analytical philosophers tend to struggle to wrap their heads around other perspectives. It was a pleasant and productive conversation on both sides, but I still couldn’t help but walk away with the impression that @owl235 was completely out classed.
@@niklasanzinger it’s fair to say I have not read any or listened to much of Huemer. I’m also not a professional philosopher or anywhere near as knowledgeable as Huemer on philosophy in general. That being said, the views I endorse fundamentally disagree with his approach to philosophy, and since the dispute is meta philosophical It doesn’t seem likely his writing on lower level issues will influence me or connect with the views I hold. Analytical rationalist L Pragmatic empiricist W
All a moral realist needs to claim is there needs to be one X. X being a moral fact.,Currently the empirical research shows that people have moral realist intuition in regards to acts relating to harm. That’s sufficient to justify saying that people have some moral realist intuition towards a particular act. Once again stating that I do not believe the current empirical research is representative of the global population, just like how I don’t believe a survey of philosophers represents the global population.
@@kedrick93 There is a distinction between it being true that people have _intuitions_ about moral notions and it being true that there are moral facts. Intuition about moral realism ≠ moral fact
7:23 It will be difficult for him to avoid using relativistic language. Even in his current explanation, the word 'seeming' introduces a subjective element. 'Seeming' conveys his intuition or attitude toward the proposition, which is inherently non-objective. So, should we interpret this 'seeming' as an objective claim? He could remove the term from the discussion, but that would force him to make a more direct and definitive statement. In doing so, however, he would still need to express it in a way that avoids implying his personal stance on the proposition. I'm not sure he can achieve that without resorting to some form of relativistic language, which would inevitably imply a subjective relationship between his attitude and the proposition.
He doesn't need to use the language in a "non-relative way" but only in a discriminative way, I think the defense of moral realism doesn't require any "special technical sense" and/or merely "ordinary language sense" to keep the case going, specially in the defense of modest moral realism that Huemer defends.
As a moral realist I think its important to distinguish absurdity from being morally wrong. What I mean by this is that in the way which moral anti-realists say “torturing baby’s is not wrong” is not an endorsement of torturing baby’s However it is an absurd position in the sense that I don’t think you can honestly follow the implications of that statement in a way which is consistent. However I think there are many anti-realists who are better people than I Sean Carrol for example. If you don’t acknowledge this it’s going to be hard to reach anti-realists cause your basically speaking in a different language
When you say that you don't think "You can honestly follow the implications of that statement" can you explain what you mean? What are the implications of following the statement?
@@lanceindependent your much smarter than me want I just don’t exactly understand how moral anti-realism would not have serious implications in how we act “I don’t like baby murder” does not feel like a good solution. I would hope we both agree baby murder is bad my judgment is one I believe to be objective yours would be one you believe to be subjective . We both probably want the same thing to happen I just have never been very convinced by arguments that we can reach the same conclusions with the anti-realist frameworks. Baby murder being wrong really is not something you let go of super easily it feels like your hanging from a bridge and someone is arguing for you to let go because life is meaningless or something some intuitions are vividly strong. I think phenomenal conservatism does a good job at stating this in the least “feels” way possible. I am a baby philosopher don’t study it just listen to good conversations like this. It feels like if we reject some of our intuitions we come to absurd conclusions. logical contradictions feel wrong baby murder feels wrong I would need someone to explain a difference between the two for me to not believe that baby murder is stance independently wrong . I think you probably could empirically disprove moral realism show a culture with a murdering baby’s is totally fine without some sort of incorrect belief(baby’s are aliens sent to murder us) leading them to murder baby’s . Good luck on your research !
@@lanceindependentone thing I super agree with you is that honestly the philo papers make me less confident in moral realism because the majority of moral realist being moral naturalist also seems a little absurd to me but I want to listen to more moral naturalist. It’s like I am on the winning team and I look at my teammates and say “are we the baddies” lol . Still confident enough in my beliefs but open to having my mind changed
The burden of proof is on the one claiming that morals are real and objective. If there is no evidence, then there’s no reason to believe in it. Unfortunately, many things can be true despite being undesirable if that’s where the evidence or lack of evidence leads. What is an objective moral? What’s wrong with doing what’s wrong? Why do we have to do what is right? Is there a grand, supreme enforcer out there? If not, how can you claim anything is wrong? Saying “It seems wrong” (intuition) is not an objective argument. It is subjective, which means it’s an opinion, and not actually a real moral. Why must we maximize happiness and minimize pain? Why isn’t it wrong to maximize pain? Again, it all comes down to human instinct, feelings, and opinions. Culture and popularity are factors too. I’m okay with admitting that morals are opinions and allowing people to enforce their opinions on others. If I agree, I have no problem. Every moral claim is ultimately enforcing your opinions on others. Why can’t people enforce their opinions on others? I don’t know of anything objectively wrong with that.
A question for Lance. If you had more "convensional" metaphilosophical views, how would that affect your position on moral realism? If for example you were not a pragmatist. I am 1 hour in so if that is answered my bad.
I used to have more conventional views and I was sympathetic to variations of standard antirealist views. I think moral non-naturalism is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in the literature, in that I think there are no good arguments for it, antirealists have good responses to all of the arguments in favor of it, and there is on abductive grounds very little reason to inflate our ontology with autonomous moral properties or insist on the meaningfulness of ineffable, irreducibly normative facts, or external reasons, and so on.
@@lanceindependent if that's the case, then how come you struggle in your debate against Huemer here and, even more so in your debate against Enoch? I mean, if moral realism was so implausible as you describe it, you should easily be able to produce the objections that Huemer and Enoch struggle to respond to. But instead your main "responses" are typically formulated in terms of "well I don't have that intuition" or even more commonly "well I reject that..." where ... often = standard practices of analytic philosophy. This is then typically followed by you stating what your alternative view is but not arguing for it, or demonstrating it as a superior approach to the standard one.
@@inquiry6274 I didn't struggle in either conversation. I had pleasant conversations with both Huemer and Enoch, but I do not think either of them presented arguments in our conversations that I failed to adequately address (unless, at best, there were open threads I didn't get to due to time constraints). If you think either of them presented arguments you don’t think I could address, let me know. More generally, I’m familiar with their arguments outside our discussions (e.g., moral convergence, deliberative indispensability) and I likewise think antirealists can handle these arguments just fine. If you think moral realism is plausible, you are welcome to tell me what you think a good argument for moral realism is, and I'd be happy to discuss with you why I don't think it's a good argument. >>I mean, if moral realism was so implausible as you describe it, you should easily be able to produce the objections that Huemer and Enoch struggle to respond to I don’t agree. I don’t think any of us struggled in these discussions. A person struggling to respond is not a good indication of whether their position is a strong one or not, especially if you’re talking live debates. >>But instead your main "responses" are typically formulated in terms of "well I don't have that intuition" or even more commonly "well I reject that..." If someone presents arguments with premises I reject, I will reject the premises. That’s pretty standard practice. >>This is then typically followed by you stating what your alternative view is but not arguing for it, or demonstrating it as a superior approach to the standard one. My alternative view to what, exactly? Things seem some way to someone else. They don’t seem that way to me. What kind of alternative are you looking for?
@@lanceindependent “If you think moral realism is plausible, you are welcome to tell me what you think a good argument for moral realism is, and I'd be happy to discuss with you why I don't think it's a good argument. “ If I understand your correctly, you find my version of moral realism - something like Frank Jackson style naturalism - to be plausible, but trivial and thus uninteresting. So, if there was an argument with you regarding my view, it would have to be that its not trivial. “I don’t agree. I don’t think any of us struggled in these discussions. A person struggling to respond is not a good indication of whether their position is a strong one or not, especially if you’re talking live debates. “ You claimed that moral realism (the non-naturalist version) is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in philosophy. For this to be true, two things must hold. One, that there are no good arguments in favor of it which cannot be easily addressed by the anti-realist. Two, that the anti-realist has strong knockdown arguments against this version of realism which the realist cannot adress. If this is the case, it should be very easy for you to produce such knockdown arguments in the debate. Knockdown arguments of those kinds should also clearly put the proponent of realism on the backfoot in the conversation. For example, I argue against any causal solution to moral overdetermination. I have strong knockdown arguments against such views. Whenever I present them in person to one of my opponents, they will be put on the backfoot, reaching for ways to respond. This is what we generally would expect to happen in a context where a person holds a view that cannot be defended and is presented with a strong knockdown argument against the view. Indeed, it happens in philosophy higher seminar and philosophy conferences all the time! “If someone presents arguments with premises I reject, I will reject the premises. That’s pretty standard practice. “ The way in which you do it does not seem like standard practice in analytic philosophy at all. Of course, we philosophers reject premises all the time, and sometimes we say things like “Well I reject that premise”. But that is then followed by the articulation of a reason for rejecting that premises. However, when you say things like “Well I reject that premise”, one of three things would often follow from that. 1) You would provide no further reason. 2) You would reject it based on not sharing the intuition. Or 3) you would say you don’t share the intuition and then provide your alternative view on subject-matter. But neither of above 3 moves are consiered good moves in analytic philosophy. The problem with 1) is that it does not provide a reason. The problem with the 2) is that it does not provide a good reason. To illustrate this: If I argue that I am allowed to switch the trolley, but not push the man, due to the principled distinction between letting die and killing. And I further support this principled distinction by pointing to how it helps us makes sense of a range of important cases, then in the context of a debate with someone who disagrees, it would not be sufficient for that someone to declare “well I don’t have that intuition”. We know this to be true within the practice of analytic philosophy, because no one can publish an article where the only “contribution” is the exclamation of “Well I don’t share that intuition”. The problem with 3) is that while you here do present an alternative view, which is good and allows the listners to decide which one they prefer, this falls FAR short of your claim that moral realism is one of the least defensible positions. If that was true, then you should very easily be able to argue that your alternative view is superior in a plethora of ways compared to the view held by the moral realist. But you dont produce such arguments (at least not in these two debates). “My alternative view to what, exactly? Things seem some way to someone else. They don’t seem that way to me. What kind of alternative are you looking for?” For example, in the Enoch debate you claimed to have this alternative view of language, according to which there is no general pretheoretical way of talking about wrongness in natural language due to the meaning of words always being context depended. Okay cool, so if your view was true, then Enochs attempt to setup the desiderata - which you seem to agree if valid would favor realism - is blocked. But you never provide reasons for believing your view of language is the correct one! Again, if realism and the semantic theory it relies upon to get its desiderata in place was SOOO indefensible, you should easily be able to produce reasons for why this is the case.
@@inquiry6274 >>You claimed that moral realism (the non-naturalist version) is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in philosophy. For this to be true, two things must hold. One, that there are no good arguments in favor of it which cannot be easily addressed by the anti-realist. Two, that the anti-realist has strong knockdown arguments against this version of realism which the realist cannot adress. Neither of those claims is an entailment of the view that moral realism is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in philosophy. An argument could be totally wrong and indefensible and yet it could still be difficult to explain exactly why this is the case. In any case, I can’t think of any argument for moral realism that I don’t think it’s fairly easy to address. With respect to the second claim: I think that’s just complete nonsense. I don’t think there are virtually any knockdown arguments in philosophy, especially ones that the targets of those arguments can’t at least superficially appear to have a response to. In any case, neither of these claims “must hold,” so I reject that assertion in the first place. >>If this is the case, it should be very easy for you to produce such knockdown arguments in the debate. You’re making an assertion. I don’t just accept assertions from other people. I don’t think this is true at all, and generally reject the idea that there are readily available “knockdown arguments.” My entire approach to philosophy is a holistic one that emphasizes the importance of abduction and a critical stance towards excessive formalism and reliance on leveraging logic as rhetoric via standardized formal arguments. Broad, holistic, abductive arguments are rarely easy to present in any simple, straightforward way. Most formal arguments, on the other hand, are bullshit enthymemes that exploit ambiguity and pragmatics, ultimately serving as toothless rhetorical tools. I think you’re operating on an assumption about what the dialectical landscape when a position is a weak one that I completely reject. >>The way in which you do it does not seem like standard practice in analytic philosophy at all. …You do realize I’m not an analytic philosopher, and that I explicitly reject analytic philosophy, right? Why would I use the standard practices of a school of philosophy that I think is catastrophically misguided? >>For example, I argue against any causal solution to moral overdetermination. I have strong knockdown arguments against such views. Whenever I present them in person to one of my opponents, they will be put on the backfoot, reaching for ways to respond. This is what we generally would expect to happen in a context where a person holds a view that cannot be defended and is presented with a strong knockdown argument against the view. With respect, this sounds like it’s engaged in precisely the kind of dialectical dance characteristic of analytic philosophy that I think is misguided and that doesn’t really get anywhere. >>The way in which you do it does not seem like standard practice in analytic philosophy at all. I’m not even an analytic philosopher, but it absolutely is. >>Of course, we philosophers reject premises all the time, and sometimes we say things like “Well I reject that premise”. But that is then followed by the articulation of a reason for rejecting that premises. Yes, which I provided: I don’t have the intuition that the premise is true. Standard practice for analytic philosophy. In fact, it doesn’t get much more standard than that. >>But neither of above 3 moves are consiered good moves in analytic philosophy. First, I’m not an analytic philosopher, so I don’t particularly care if something is considered a good move in analytic philosophy. Second, analytic philosophy isn’t a monolith, so I don’t grant that there’s some kind of unanimity with the claims you’re making. Third, I simply don’t agree that any of those are bad moves. Rejecting a premise without providing any further reason is totally fine, as is reporting not having an intuition, as is not sharing an intuition and then reporting some alternative view. These are all great ways to respond to arguments. If you don’t agree, or you think analytic philosophy recommends against this, so much the worse for you and analytic philosophy. Huemer claims to have certain intuitions as one of his primary reasons for endorsing moral realism. I don’t have those reasons. If he presents arguments that directly appeal to those intuitions, and I simply don’t have them…then the premises just aren’t going to move me. This is so incredibly common in analytic philosophy I’m puzzled that you think there’s something wrong with it. >>For example, in the Enoch debate you claimed to have this alternative view of language, according to which there is no general pretheoretical way of talking about wrongness in natural language due to the meaning of words always being context depended. Okay cool, so if your view was true, then Enochs attempt to setup the desiderata - which you seem to agree if valid would favor realism - is blocked. But you never provide reasons for believing your view of language is the correct one! Is this a joke? What did you want me to do, lay out an entire theory of language in the middle of that discussion? I *already* do full on 45-minute monologues in my streams, occasionally resulting in people complaining about how much detail I go into. Then I get complaints in other conversations about not going into detail. I’m honestly absolutely sick of it. I already go out of my way, bending over backwards to engage with audiences and discuss my views with tons of random strangers online daily, when I could be doing more productive things with my life. And those people, rather than showing even a little appreciation for how much work I actually put into these things, just complain that I didn’t do enough. You realize I’ve now spent *hours* in the past few days attempting to systematically address everyone on TH-cam, Substack, discord, Facebook, and who knows where on their questions and comments about my views? But no: Lance, you don’t argue for this, you don’t explain that, even though I almost certainly have, a dozen or more times, somewhere you aren’t reading or listening. Regarding not addressing some specific point you think I should have detailed or argued for: There’s almost never time to do this in the middle of these discussions. Laying out unconventional views that rely on tons of empirical data is extremely time-consuming and it would be rude if not impossible to interrupt guests or interlocutors and launch into a discussion on these topics. I don’t just hold some random philosophical view where I can flesh it out with a syllogism or a definition. Many of my views involve appeals to empirical findings, and only make sense in the context of those findings. So, for instance, it would make little sense to talk about my views about language or why I hold them without discussing criticisms of Chomsky’s views or the case Christiansen and Chater make for their views about language. That could take an hour or more just to scratch the surface: after all, they’ve written an entire popular book that just barely begins to make the case for their views about language. And that’s because actual, substantive, empirically grounded views are not easy to just blurt out in the middle of a discussion. Furthermore, many of the discussions you’ve seen are initial discussions with people, where it is important to establish what our views are and where we differ. This, alone, often occupies most of the time I have to talk to people. I’d be delighted to get into detail about my views about language or other topics in future discussions with those people. But it’s unreasonable to expect me to be able to detail all my arguments and reasons for every view every time I mention them. Look what I’m doing now: I am foregoing sleep *just* to address your objections. Yay. Lucky me. You probably won’t be satisfied and will still complain and gripe. Do you have any idea how fantastically unrewarding this is? I don't agree that if I'm confident it should be so easy to do this or that. Well, it isn't, and I don't agree with you that it should be. Also, note the immense irony here: giving me a hard time about not providing reasons in support of my claims, when most of your objections consist of bald assertions for which you provide no arguments at all. Overcoming loads of dogma and the metaphilosophical pretzel of problems that is analytic philosophy isn't easy at all.
“Naturalism counts as realism” - BOOO!!! Please help us make this a separate category! I don’t share the intuition, either. Torturing babies for fun is wrong comes out of natural realism based on its axioms.
@@ReverendDr.Thomasthey are universals. How would you know how to apply moral judgements if you wouldn't know what these universals stand for? How would all humans make evaluative judgements if they wouldn't possess universal knowledge of good and bad?
@Curiosity Am I partially blocked from posting? I can reply on people's comments but comments I leave myself are not posting. I don't know why I would be blocked.
@@cloudoftime I have deliberately chosen "No Moderation" for comments, so everybody could comment. Not sure why this is the case. Someone else mentioned that too. Hope it doesn't continue. The video has thankfully gotten good engagement..
@@CuriosityGuy Ok. Thank you for the response. I will try again later. And thank you for facilitating this conversation between Lance and Mike. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
How can one talk so much yet say so little? I think the answer to this says a lot. But at least we know what Lances thesis was and that he read a few papers. Definitely seems like a hopeless debate. To me, Huemers arguments are solid and beautifully obvious like F=ma. The other side, on the other hand, has to take up 80 percent of the air time to try and explain their view and arguments in a highly convoluted way.
I did a lot more than read a few papers. The number of papers I read for my dissertation work was probably in the low hundreds. What argument did Huemer present that you think is beautifully obvious?
An error theorist is only committed to the view that the metaethical presuppositions of people who claim the existence of moral facts are wrong. The "should" is still tied to their subjective attitudes though.
The approach I take is sufficiently uncommon that I wouldn't expect many people to be especially familiar with it, especially given that there are very few publications advocating views similar to my own in the current literature.
@@paulwenzlau8682 Parts of it are in my dissertation (folk metaethical indeterminacy, primarily). I don't work in philosophy of language or linguistics so I doubt I could get a publication on my views on that topic; my views are generally in line with Christiansen and Chater, though I'm no specialist and can't say I fully grasp their account. No publications on unintelligibility thesis. That and my views on language began developing as I finished the dissertation. Going to be a while before I write anything about either formally.
@@lanceindependent Thank you very much. I will look into your dissertation. Would "The Language Game" be a good place to start for Chater and Christiansen?
@@paulwenzlau8682 Yes, though they've also done interviews on TH-cam as well, which can give you a quick over view in ~an hour of what the book is about. They also have more technical work.
@@CuriosityGuy It seemed to me that appeal to majority was a part of the argument in favor of anti-realism. Was it a wrong judgement on my part? I can accept that intuitive anti-realism is a part of genetic apriori structure of the brain evolved to deal with reality and stayed cos it's fit enough, but it doesn't say anything about its truth value To lay out my view: I think that morality is objective, to be more precise, homo sapiens preference scales like "pain boo", "murder boo" are highly convergent, that's why I like Sam Harris' angle of it being the landscape. It just means that people within talking and trading groups of people - can find a lot in common about moral questions more often than not. It would also mean that differences between groups are highlighting least refined parts of homo sapiens morality Almost no group tolerates murder (within the group), no big enough groups seek pain (voluntary assembled deviants in last couple of generations aside), but some issues are far more contentious
Why would I need either of these? I haven't found anything from Bengson on the matter convincing at all. And my issues with "intuitions" differ from what you might find in a lot of standard experimental philosophical critiques. Among other things, I am not questioning whether they serve as evidence or whether there are variations in intuitions among ordinary people that raise questions about philosophical intuitions; I question whether there is any sensible conception of a "philosophical intuition" that I should acknowledge as a genuine psychological phenomenon in the first place (or at least not any distinct or evidential conception of intuition). I've seen little reason to think that the kinds of "seemings" that some rationalistically inclined philosophers report having refer to any substantive or distinct psychological state at all; a lot of philosophical talk around intuitions strikes me as speculative psychology at best, and pseudopsychology at worse. There isn't nearly enough empiricism in philosophy, nor are there enough empirical critiques of philosophers. It's also rather bizarre for philosophers to critique the use of empirical findings while simultaneously constantly making claims about what nonphilosophers think, believe, or are committed to.
@lanceindependent Here's a relevant bit from that Bealer essay, which I encourage you to read: -------------------- “There is a special irony here, for in their actual practice empiricists typically make use of a wide range of intuitions. For example, what does and does not count as an observation or experience? Why count sense perception as observation? Why not count memory as observation? Or why not count certain high-level theoretical judgments as sense experiences? Indeed, why not count intuitions as sense experiences? …What does and does not count as a theory, as justified (or acceptable), as an explanation, as simple?” “The fact is that empiricists arrive at answers to these questions by using as prima facie evidence their intuitions about what does and does not count as experience, observation, theory, justified, explanation, simple. In their actual practice, empiricists use such intuitions as evidence to support their theories and to persuade others of them.” “However, such use of intuitions contradicts the principle of empiricism, which includes only experiences and/or observations as prima facie evidence. So in their actual practice, empiricists are not faithful to their principles.” That's why Bealer thinks Empiricism is incoherent. -------------------- You say: >>I question whether there is any sensible conception of a "philosophical intuition" that I should acknowledge as a genuine psychological phenomenon in the first place>> By 'intuition' your Rationalist opponents mean just whatever is going on in the typical case when you make judgments about, as Bealer says, "what does and does not count as experience, observation, theory, justified, explanation, simple." Or when you "just see" the truth of one of de Morgan's laws [(p v q) --> ~(~p & ~q)]. Or when you "just see" that circles have no corners. You do make those judgments. Some things strike you as obviously examples of experience, observation, theory, etc. etc. Other things strike you as obviously examples of non-experiences, non-observations, non-theories, etc. You just see the validity of this inference: [(p v q) --> ~(~p & ~q)]. You just see that circles have no corners. So, you use intuitions. True, Rationalists have tried to say more about these episodes. Bealer calls them "intellectual seemings," and it sounds like they have a kind of phenomenology, for Bealer. This is the bit, I take it, that you consider speculative psychology, or even pseudopsychology. I, too, am skeptical of what Bealer says on that score. But even if Bealer's wrong about the psychology of intuitions, the fact is that we do make intuitive judgments. We do judge when concepts apply, and when they don't. When a belief counts as knowledge, and when it doesn't. When a moral proposition is true "in a stance-dependent sense" and when it isn't (I'm trying here to pick an example you can relate to). These are all intuitions. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE mwahaha. ------------------------ You also say: >>It's also rather bizarre for philosophers to critique the use of empirical findings while simultaneously constantly making claims about what nonphilosophers think, believe, or are committed to.>> Maybe this is the source of your confusion: philosophers often criticize the use of empirical evidence *when it is not relevant to the question at hand*. And it often isn't, in philosophy. If I want to know the *nature* of something (e.g. knowledge, justice) checking how things *actually* are will be of very limited use. But any philosopher worth his salt would accept that polls and surveys are relevant when the question is what non-philosophers think, believe, or are committed to. Of course. But that isn't really a philosophical question, is it. That's a question for the social psychologists (e.g. you, no?).
@@lanceindependent @lanceindependent Ah. Sorry to have struck a nerve! Is it not the case that some things strike you as obviously examples of experience, observation, theory, etc., and other things strike you as obviously examples of non-experiences, non-observations, non-theories, etc.? Do you not just see the validity of this inference: [(p v q) --> ~(~p & ~q)]? Do you not just see that circles have no corners? I had assumed you'd say that you do e.g. see the validity of that inference, and that circles have no corners. But maybe that was hasty on my part! Mea culpa.
@user-u9g8m Hi there super anonymous TH-cam user. The laughing emoji I used followed a joke equating Jesus to George Bealer. I just wanted to signal that it was a joke. It would be pretty weird to make this inference: That certainly doesn't follow. At all. Also, it's worth noting that, although you're telling me what I think and describing my psychology to me, I'm still willing to respond, because I think I have a good answer for you. Also, though I wouldn't recommend devoting much time to learning about informal fallacies (rather, just learn what a counterexample is, and how to generate one), I'd recommend reviewing what it means to "poison the well." Take care, User u9g8m. ✌
Lance defence for the claim that moral realism is not the common sense view seems to me to very poor. I don’t think empirical studies show that moral realism is not the common sense view. Lance seems to think that for moral realism to be the common sense view people need to explicitly endorse moral realism. Just because people didn’t endorse moral realism explicitly in the empirical research doesn’t show that moral realism is not the common sense view. Also note that the research is not so reliable as Lance thinks it is. Non philosophers doesn’t keep thinking about ethical issues and certainly they don’t think deeply about meta ethics, they are also not well equipped with philosophers’ vocabulary, in light of this, we should decrease our trust in such research to an extend. Keeping this point aside, even if we grant that the research is correct it doesn’t follow that moral realism is not the common sense view because people in general can be implicitly moral realists. Lance said nothing to refute this. If we follow Lance reasoning, we will have to conclude many things which we can take to be common sense views are not common sensical at all. For example, external world realism seems to be a common sense view but general people are not explicitly endorsing any version of non skeptical realism, does that shows according to Lance that people are not generally realists about the external world? According to me, it is not because people are still implicitly realists. Same can be true about moral realism. What did Lance said to rule this possibility? That’s my first worry with Lance position. I heard that Lance take moral non naturalism to be an unintelligible position, perhaps because of its commitment to external reasons, but Lance says nothing to defend his unintelligibility claim. Lance keeps saying how his meta philosophical views are different and how he takes an empiricist stance generally. But is Lance unintelligibility thesis supported by empirical study, by Lance own light empirical study doesn’t support any particular meta ethical theory, so then on the basis of what did he form his belief? He seems to give the impression that people who are moral realists are mistaken because they don’t take empirical study seriously however his own position is not based on empirical studies, if he can have a position why not the realists?
Lance Bust is a dishonest wretch willing to lie about his own moral intuitions, brandish about methodologically flawed "empirical studies" like a toddler swinging an axe, engage is endless semantic obfuscation, in order to maintain his silly nihilism.
>>I don’t think empirical studies show that moral realism is not the common sense view. Unless you're familiar with the studies in question you wouldn't be in a position to make an informed judgment about this. >>Lance seems to think that for moral realism to be the common sense view people need to explicitly endorse moral realism. No I don't. I explicitly have said otherwise in print. >>Just because people didn’t endorse moral realism explicitly in the empirical research doesn’t show that moral realism is not the common sense view. Almost none of the measures used are explicit or direct; i.e., most studies don't ask people if they endorse moral realism or not (or some variant of this sort of question). Most use a variety of other, indirect means, because researchers aren't idiots and they know nonphilosophers aren't going to be familiar with the terminology (unless the researchers teach it to them). As a result, this comment exhibits a misunderstanding about my claims and a lack of knowledge of the empirical literature. >> Also note that the research is not so reliable as Lance thinks it is. This remark likewise shows a misunderstanding about my position. I am highly critical of the methods used in this research. >>Non philosophers doesn’t keep thinking about ethical issues and certainly they don’t think deeply about meta ethics, they are also not well equipped with philosophers’ vocabulary, in light of this, we should decrease our trust in such research to an extend. I agree. This is something I explicitly defend in my writing. However, you appear to be operating under the assumption that the research in question presents untrained people with unfamiliar terminology. For the most part, it does not. Where it does, I am intensely critical of it for doing so. And again, this is all in print, and can easily be verified. You’re critiquing me for allegedly holding views contrary to the ones you present here when in fact I’ve explicitly argued otherwise. So your objections not only aren’t true, they’re the opposite of true. >>Keeping this point aside, even if we grant that the research is correct it doesn’t follow that moral realism is not the common sense view because people in general can be implicitly moral realists. I critique research on implicit commitments to moral realism, too. >>Lance said nothing to refute this. I don’t have hours to talk about all the studies. I discuss this research in my dissertation. >>If we follow Lance reasoning, we will have to conclude many things which we can take to be common sense views are not common sensical at all. For example, external world realism seems to be a common sense view but general people are not explicitly endorsing any version of non skeptical realism, does that shows according to Lance that people are not generally realists about the external world? This does not reflect my reasoning and misrepresents what I think. This is even explicitly addressed in the video you are commenting on. >>According to me, it is not because people are still implicitly realists. Same can be true about moral realism. You are welcome to present compelling empirical evidence of this. >> I heard that Lance take moral non naturalism to be an unintelligible position, perhaps because of its commitment to external reasons, but Lance says nothing to defend his unintelligibility claim. I have lots of views. I don’t defend all of them in every video. >>But is Lance unintelligibility thesis supported by empirical study, by Lance own light empirical study doesn’t support any particular meta ethical theory, so then on the basis of what did he form his belief? You could ask me, and have a conversation, rather than posing this as a rhetorical question as if it’s some kind of gotcha.
Huemer claims that moral statements do not depend on the attitude of observers, and to show this, he gives HIS attitude about certain moral situations, forgetting that he IS an observer, with a moral attitude, and that people with other attitudes might have different moral opinions. It is a very weird mistake. The mere fact that many agree with his moral attitude, of which I am likely one, does not mean that moral statements do not depend on the attitude of observers. Of course, they do. "Torturing babies" is only objectively wrong in the sense that 99% of humans would most likely share that personal moral attitude. This does not make it stance independent.
The easiest way to show why your point here is wrong is via an analogy. I believe that 'there are subatomic particles' is a true assertion about reality. Further, I take it that the statement is true regardless of whether anyone believes it. Obviously, I have to assess this from my own subjective epistemic position, as anyone does when they assess anything, but it does not make it the case that the statement's truth depends on my subjective epistemic position.
@@alastairbowyer7936 I think you missed his point. He wasn't saying that "there is disagreement therefore morality is stance dependent" he was saying "agreement is insufficient to prove stance independence."
@mind_onion ok that is somewhat fair based on the last thing he said. Nonetheless, part of the point of my example is to show that Huemer's style of reasoning is generally a legitimate way of testing whether a statement is stance dependent. I don't think its an infallible method, but it gives us evidence of objectivity
12:02 I find it extremely relatable and refreshing that Mike acknowledges "I don't know what's going on [about disparity of opinions in this field]". I'm a subjectivist, I don't agree with his realism and I also don't know what's going on 😄
@@TotalitarianDemocrat to what standard are you holding someone philosophically? If CS Lewis “knows nothing about philosophy,” does that mean he couldn’t do philosophy or cannot be philosophically valid? I could also holds you to the same standard, most of us don’t know who you are so why should we listen to what you have to say about philosophy at all for that matter?
@@TotalitarianDemocrat what a strange argument. So you can only know about philosophy or making philosophically valid claims if you’re recognized as a “philosopher”? None of these two interlocutors for example in this conversation called themselves a philosopher either, does that also means that they don’t know anything about philosophy? And if these people don’t know anything about philosophy in your account, go ahead and tell us what ‘philosophy’ is and who really qualifies for it and should be recognized for really knowing philosophy.
@@TotalitarianDemocrat but it’s ok, you might have an elitist view of what philosophy means and who in your view may be qualified to do philosophy. Just know that if only “philosophers” are able to do philosophy, you wouldn’t be able to do them either bc you aren’t one and there shouldn’t be any reason for the public to hear what you have to say either
Wow, Huemer right off the bat abandons the debate topic and just starts slandering people who disagree with what "seems" to him. He doesn't give any reason to think moral facts are objective, he just asserts, without evidence, the deeply implausible claim that every one of the many who disagree with him thinks something, widely seen as immoral, is ok. That clearly doesn't follow from endorsing any particular metaethical view, and he then whines then people who disagree he's shown his view is true are somehow "holding people who study ethics back" as if the consequences of being unable to show his view is true have any bearing at all on the truth of his view. He actually says nothing to support his own position other than, essentially, "it seems that way to him". Lance brings up actual empirical data, or points out when it is necessary, Huemer just claims he knows what other people think, by some magic sense organ I guess. Lance has to really work hard towards the beginning just to get Huemer on topic.
I think morality is received wisdom, as evidenced by how many bad moralities there are. It is a toss up whether religion or Econ101 is the worst received wisdom. I'd throw the switch in the trolly problem, but hate myself for it, and support those that didn't, because they'd have less self hate, and be in a better position to delicense the trolly manufacturer.
lance just has this tendency to unpack EVERYTHING - which I guess causes some people trouble in keeping track of everything that is happening. But this exhaustiveness is one of the main reasons I would say he's extremely clear in his speech.
This isn’t that difficult. Morality is the FEELING that certain actions ought or ought not be done. FEELINGS are subjective. Therefore, morality is subjective. When a theist says their supposed god ‘wrote morality on our hearts’, they are trying to identify where that feeling comes from. They are literally admitting morality is subjective.
Huemer is mistaken that "almost everybody" in epistemology shares the Gettier intuitions and accepts an alternate account of knowledge. The latest philpapers survey shows that 23.6% of philosophers and 17.6% of epistemologists still accept the JTB account while 30.6% of philosophers and 34.5% of epistemologists agree with Lance that there's no true account of knowledge. Huemer is in the minority here.
I don't really get how Huemer can, in the very beginning, use the word "seems" and still think he's talking about stance-independent moral facts. I wonder if it's some kind of fundamental brain difference that makes those "seems" somehow objective in his mind, but in my mind, I only see an unresolvable contradiction. The primary reason I don't subscribe to realism is that to me, objective reality is fundamentally amoral; subjective experiences seem to be emergent phenomena that arise from the mechanics of the universe without involving any moral questions whatsoever, and only in reference to those subjective experiences does it make sense to speak of morality.
Notice how you call into question Huemer's "seems," but then turn around and use the very word just rejected (at least insofar as it is related to non perspectival reality) yourself in pondering the nature of consciousness.
@fireinthesky2333 Yes, I did notice that. I have no problem with it, though, since my position isn't really bothered by the subjectivity. It might be that subjective experiences are not emergent phenomena, and there's some other cause, but that wouldn't change anything about my perspective of morality unless you can establish a fundamental law of the universe that all beings who experience anything must follow in the same sense that everything must follow the "rules" of gravity. As long as a person is even able to say "I don't think so," of any given moral proposition, I don't think (stance-independent) moral facts can exist. Or, to put it another way, I can deny the existence of gravity all I want, but I *can not* avoid being affected by it. I don't know what a fundamental moral fact comparable to gravity could even in theory look like if one existed.
@@nio804 I want you to think about how absurd your position is: you're saying that intractability, or sustained disagreement, is cause to think that the phenomenon in question is "subjective," but as moral realists have pointed out time and again, this is hardly unique to the moral domain. Philosophers, scientists, etc disagree on a vast array of things: they disagree on theories of time, on mathematical realism vs constructivism, on the causes of global temperature patterns, on theories of mass extinction, on nominalism, on theories of consciousness, on and on. None of this seems to necessitate irrealism as regards said domains.
@fireinthesky2333 There's a difference between disagreeing what is and is not a fact and the interpretation of what those facts mean. Going back to gravity, if I demonstrate it by dropping a ball 20 times, it would be lunacy to disagree that the ball fell 20 times unless you have other facts to show that we're hallucinating. However, disagreeing on why the ball falls remains an option.
@@nio804 Trying to introduce a fact/interpretation dichotomy in order to save irrealism exclusive to the moral domain is entirely ad hoc and doesn't solve your issue: that is, if we suppose only facts can be "objective" we're immediately threatened with epistemic nihilism, as, first of all, there will be disagreement as to what constitutes a fact and what constitutes a mere interpretation of these purportedly more epistemically fundamental facts. After all, philosophers don't even agree on what "truth" is. But more to the point, what I strongly suspect is happening here is this: it's clear that your modus operandi will entail a much more expansive irrealism, but this isn't a comfortable place to be, so rather than bite the bullet, you have manufactured a completely silly belief forming arbiter which saves domain realism elsewhere but kills it relative to the domain of morality. Whatever it takes, I guess. 😔
Lance constatntly throws red herrings, moves goalpoasts and plays his usual contrarian tactics. Not to mention appeals to empirical studies and so forth. The topic of the debate is "Do objective moral facts exists?" and not what Lance did for his PhD and what empirical studies show.
One of the reasons for bringing up empirical studies is that some realists make the claim that moral realism is the common sense position and maybe even the default position. How do we know that's actually true? You yourself are calling him a contrarian, but this seems to imply that moral anti-realism is some fringe position, when that isn't necessarily the case.
@@MsJavaWolf I am calling Lance contrarian because he's a behaving in a contrarian fashion generally, and not because moral realism is default position. The only reason why Lance appeals to these studies is to side step the debate.
@@KlPop-x1o The way I see the debate is somewhat like this: - Mike argues from his moral intuitions. - Lance doesn't have the same intuitions, so how do we resolve this? - Mike says that probably a lot of people have the same intuitions as he does. - Lance says that the empirical evidence doesn't support this. I see the empirical data as important (and therefore not side stepping), because so much of the realist argument seems to rely on a majority of people having those intuitions (although I know Mike also has some other arguments)
@@MsJavaWolfLance should know how deficient these empirical studies he and other experimentalists do, are. Empirical studies do not decide metaphysical issues. He admits it, so I don't see the relevance to the topic of the debate. It's clear that Lance is trying to sidestep the ontological or metaphysical questions by citing surveys. Putting trust into what people tell you, and using it to decide if people have these intuitions is as futile as it can get
@@lanceindependent Speaking for myself, I think of the 1935 film "The Raven." This was Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff's second collaboration. The unfortunate Karloff approaches Lugosi for plastic surgery in order to help his efforts to evade police capture. Sorrowfully, he opines, "maybe if a man looks ugly he does ugly things." Now, I don't have one of your "empirical studies" to back this up but my own experience is the type attracted to moral antitrealism is generally a lowly type, if not physically ugly, petty, spiteful, banal, childless, aesthetically displeasing in the order of their priorities, something like Nietzsche's Last Man. In other words, you yourself are a good reason to give up moral antirealism, ya dig? As everything about you deeply repulses me, I fear, like Agent Smith in the Matrix, being infected by it. I would then consider moral realism, which I see no good reason to relinquish, a kind of philosophic "social distancing" to the coronavirus of antirealism.
@@fireinthesky2333 Wow, what lewd nonsense. So, it is clear you can't give us the "good" reasons Huemer presented, because there are none, I suppose. You come across as "a lowly type, if not physically ugly, petty, spiteful, banal, childless, aesthetically displeasing in the order of your priorities".
@@fireinthesky2333 “You are ugly, therefore moral anti-realism is false”is not the argument I was expecting. Lol Lance I don’t think you are ugly and you seem like a nice person too. ❤ Edit: also you were talking about Agent Smith in the Matrix. Mr Anderson is Smith’s name for Neo.
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
Looking forward to giving this a watch. I like Lance but I think his position lacks sufficient grounding which I believe Michael will bring to the surface. Personally, I'm a Hegelian so contest objectivity being mind independence so here's hoping that get's raised. Regardless, thank you for hosting this debate.
What should one ground their meta-ethical positions in?
What do you have in mind when you say "lack sufficient grounding"?
can you please start posting again?
Why would anyone want to give a watch to a video?
Wouldn't a CLOCK be more appropriate?
Hegelian? So, do you ADMIT that you adhere to the flawed concepts of a full-time criminal, Mr. Socialist-dunce-who-considers-right-and-wrong-to-be-absolutes?
I think in the context of these analytic metaethics debates, objectivity is simply defined as mind-independent and propositional.
BANGER, Huemer’s rhetorics always rub me the wrong way but he’s very sharp (of course) and manages to follow everything Lance argues here and addresses most things fairly I thought. The best proponents of each side of the metaethical divide here, ive been waiting to hear these guys go at it for a long time, this was awesome 😊
I agree with Lance that the metaethical dispute probably just stems from their deeper linguistic, and knowledge/truth theory disputes.
It does seem odd when people assume that because we use a word like “moral” that it has to connect to some metaphysical essence which we are then tasked with discovering the true nature of; even worse when people make those assumptions without even being aware that they are making them.
I agree. Insanely smart but the 'error theory is obviously false' type responses he's given are really bad
@@realSAPERE_AUDEif you are claiming a moral fact to be objective then that assumption is valid
This was a really good conversation. Especially nice to see them go into the metaphilosophy, which IMO is where all the juicy stuff is.
I'm soo hyped!!! I was waiting for this conversation for awhile.
Wonderful to have two great minds on the same platform
nice content -- thank you for bringing these two together
Hey, Curiosity Guy, I see that you're seeing all of these. Is there a reason I can't post a comment in the main thread? Am I partially banned or something? I don't know why I would be. Is that even a thing? Thanks.
Sorry, for saying something irrelevant on this comment, but I needed to talk to Curiosity Guy and have no idea how to contact him otherwise.
Kitchen vs green mountains debate
I think the back and worth on Gettier cases was probably the most useful. I tend to by default have reactions to such cases that seem more similar to Lance's. It seems like the intuition for me is something like: this case doesn't seem to have an outcome where the agent had all of the relevant information and/or could have been using better criteria to come to true beliefs more frequently.
Knowledge just seems to be a concept where we as a group decide that we prefer these criteria over other criteria. In everyday life these issues seem to be resolved in terms of pragmatic considerations. What causes more true beliefs seems to have a fact of the matter. What knowledge is seems to be constructed and seems to have no fact of the matter until one constructs an idea of what knowledge is.
This is correct. "There is no fact of the matter" is really, "there are many different facts about how people talk and what they mean." E.g., we use "know" in a fallibilistic sense all the time (because most of us recognize that we could be mistaken about things we are nonetheless confident about), but then when challenged with "but do you REALLY know?" we feel bullied into an infallibilistic sense and perhaps quickly admit that we don't know at all. Normal language is full of imprecisions, inconsistencies, and spontaneous & compelled shifts of criteria & meaning. We tend to neglect this (perhaps from a hope that it isn't true) and let expressive use cases guide our gut feelings, and before you know it, philosophers are building syllogisms on a premise's "intuitiveness." The right metaethic, by contrast, acknowledges conceptual pluralism, and will look as messy as the real world is, because it actually reflects the real world.
Yay! I've been looking forward to this !
Because?
Having the hardest time comprehending beyond grammar & semantics 😂😅
At 1:34:10 , wouldn't the difference be that a person set on eating non-nutricious food will die, but a person set on eating nutricious one won't? That seems like a very big, important difference. What am I missing from his position?
Lance’s kitchen is the real winner 🏆
I love my kitchen!
Lance mentioned a paper about cross cultural thick virtue concepts. Does anyone have a reference?
I did or Huemer did?
Hey Lance! I think you did. Mike then made the thick thin concepts distinction. Sorry i dont have the time stamp. I think it was something and Wierd vs other cultural differences.
@BradCokelet Berniūnas, R. (2020). Mongolian yos surtakhuun and WEIRD “morality”. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 4(1), 59-71.
Awesome. Much appreciated!
If objective means independent of the attitudes of observers, then what comes to my mind is something like: the earth revolves around the sun. This at least to me, is as objective a claim can be, assuming we take Huemer’s definition of ‘objective’. Even if there isn’t a single sentient creature in the universe, the earth would still revolve around the sun. However, when speaking about moral claims, it doesn’t seem to me that they are objective in that sense, because for one you’d have to assume that these moral claims are etched into the fabric of the universe; like the claim torturing people for fun is wrong came prepackaged with the world.
I think it’s more similar to a physical law like gravity. Even if there were no physical objects to experience gravitational attraction, the law itself would still exist as an abstract principle. This is more akin to what realists are claiming, I believe.
Even the physical claim that the Earth revolves around the sun is a matter of convention and perspective. They both orbit a shared barycenter, but because the sun is much larger, it dominates the interaction, and the situation is just easier to describe as the Earth orbiting the sun, even though it's not perfectly accurate.
Many moral realists think that moral laws are "necessary" abstract objects, so they would indeed be "prepackaged", they would also be true in every possible world.
The details would vary, in a world where there are no humans you can't break the moral law by harming a human but there would still be the general principle. Maybe the general principle is something like: it's wrong to harm any conscious creatures if they exist.
There are other similar views, for example you could think that mathematical objects exist necessarily and all the mathematical truths are also necessary, something like mathematical Platonism.
@@MsJavaWolf I figured so, but such a grand claim requires more than just bare assertions, it requires actual evidence to back up such a claim.
@@nio804 so is the notion that Earth revolves around the sun objectively wrong, or something other than objective?
Im so hyped!
I salute and admire Lance for citing empirical research to back his claims. However I think one very important consideration is needed, that is for moral realism to be true, there just needs to be at least 1 moral fact (insert realist descriptors) which isn't a high bar.
While I view survey data with a lot of skepticism especially since most of the survey done are not representive of the global population ( mostly done in Western, college students who are also mainly white) and to pose a very simialr question Lance like to ask "who are we?" I would argue that most of the surveys done DO NOT capture we/folk in the broad sense.
However when we look at the research from Beebe than spans a larger sample size across Poland, Ecuador and China, there seems to be closer consensus on a moral realist position on harm related questions. This is similar to the research done by Davis where when it came to judging harm, realist and anti-realist positions were extremely close. This isn't to disprove that anti-realism is false, it simply shows that the current empirical research (even if I grant that the current research represent "folk" well) DOES NOT prove the moral realism is false.
I don’t think Lance would say that the empirical research does or even can prove any metaethical stance true or false. However, if an argument begins (like Huemer’s first argument does) with the premise that “most people think X”, but we don’t have any empirical evidence that most people actually do think X, then we have no reason to accept that premise.
If moral realists have arguments that are not based on “it seems like X” or “most people think X” then that’s something we can debate as philosophers. But if that is a premise, we need to turn to empirical research to back it up.
@@KentrosaurusesAs I’ve mentioned above, all it seems moral realist needs to claim is there needs to be one X. Currently the empirical research shows that people have moral realist intuition in regards to acts relating to harm. That’s sufficient to justify saying that people have some moral realist intuition towards a particular act.
Once again stating that I do not believe the current empirical research is representative of the global population, just like how I don’t believe a survey of philosophers represents the global population.
There just needing to be one of something doesn't make it a low bar. There just needing to be one incantation that can summon demons, or just one object that is both a square and a circle doesn't make the prospects of either a low bar.
Most of the surveys don't capture folk usage. Note, however, that non-naturalist realists who do not appeal to survey data are in an even worse position. Armchair theorizing and analyzing English sentences outside their actual contexts of usage are far worse as methods for evaluating which view is "commonsense" than existing survey data.
>>However when we look at the research from Beebe than spans a larger sample size across Poland, Ecuador and China, there seems to be closer consensus on a moral realist position on harm related questions.
That study doesn't come anywhere close to showing a cross-cultural consensus on moral realism. The realist response rate averaged across items in the US was 0.47, which is less than half, and it was extremely variable across all items, with some items, with no single item approaching consensus. A similar pattern held in Poland, Ecuador, and China, realist response rates ranging from 0.27 to 0.78 across items, once again with fairly middling averages. The average across items in these countries ranged from 0.33 for donating money to 0.67 for hitting others. This is, yet again, nowhere close to a consensus. Their data simply doesn't show a consensus, or even something close to one.
Those studies were also conducted prior to the methodological critiques leveled against early metaethics paradigms (from myself, Polzler, Wright, and others). Better-designed studies have led to even lower rates of realism, including Taylor Davis's work and in Polzler and Wright's work, such as a recent cross-cultural study with Polzler and several collaborators that found very low realist response rates (see "Lay People Deny Morality’s Objectivity across Cultures (to somewhat Different Extents and in somewhat Different Ways)".
In other words: the data never even appeared to show a consensus ten years ago, and as methods have improved, rates of realism have only dropped further. The most methodologically rigorous methods tend to find very high rates of antirealism. The overall body of literature does not suggest there is any sort of consensus that nonphilosophers are realists.
>> This is similar to the research done by Davis where when it came to judging harm, realist and anti-realist positions were extremely close.
Noncognitivism was the modal response across all five moral foundations (including harm) in Davis's data, with antirealist responses being about even for harm and otherwise dominating across the other four foundations. Davis's findings are squarely in the "most people gave antirealist responses" camp.
>>This isn't to disprove that anti-realism is false, it simply shows that the current empirical research (even if I grant that the current research represent "folk" well) DOES NOT prove the moral realism is false.
This research isn't about whether realism is true or false. This is empirical research about whether nonphilosophers are moral realists or not.
The data is not very representative of people in general.
@@lanceindependent The paper by Beebe stated that "It is true that participants gave strongly objectivist responses to some ethical claims-particularly those that involved inflicting unwanted and unjustified harm upon other individuals" and the paper by Taylor Davis also showed that realism and anti-realist position came close on harm. Based on this I can contend that when it comes to harm and only harm, "folk" people have strong moral realist intuition.
As for "better methods" I would just deny this until there's a replication showing that it is actually better, one can claim different criteria were included but there needs to be some replication to say its better, especially in the world of survey/psychology research. If a method cannot produce realibilty when it comes to replication, I would not say it's better and based on the current literature I've not seen a replication done, however if I am wrong due to my ignorance of not being deep in the field and unawre of the latest study, please let me know and I will give it a read.
@@kedrick93 What matters is what Beebe et al’s data shows, not how they frame the data. Their data does not show anything like a consensus in favor of moral realism. Neither does Davis’s data. Have you seen the graphs for the harm domain? They don’t show anything that could be reasonably interpreted as “most of these people favor realist responses.” Noncognitivist responses were more common, and participants broke about even on harm in the realist/antirealist categories. It’s not even close to a consensus. Neither of those studies comes anywhere near establishing any kind of consensus.
>>As for "better methods" I would just deny this until there's a replication showing that it is actually better
The quality of a study’s methods aren’t reducible to whether the results of the study replicate or not. The main issues here have to do with validity and invalid studies can still be replicated. The reasons why earlier studies have worse methods are well established on both theoretical and empirical grounds, including my own research. Those issues of data quality have to do with validity, not replicability.
I thought Lance would have pressed Huemer a little harder. Otherwise good convo
I thought I would have, too. I think the vibe was too positive and relaxed for me to feel inclined to do that. My vibe is heavily influenced by context and by the attitudes of the people I am interacting with.
@@lanceindependent Huemer could press you as well. I think the vibe was too positive and relaxed for him to feel inclined to do that. But, it feels odd that you allowed the vibe to prevent you from pulling out your rather intellectualy more aggressive points, when it was such a good occassion to do it. 'Good' meaning 'perfect' occassion to 'press' Huemer. You literally had a debate with him in person.
@@lanceindependent I'm usually all in favour of holding peoples feet to the fire, but I think you walked the line here perfectly. I didn't expect Huemer to be as open as he was. He struggled in the beginning but I think he started genuinely trying to understand where you were coming from. If you pushed any harder he likely would have closed off completely. All in all good discussion. Great job!
@@jimothy9943 he struggled because he saw that Lance will play his stupid game of half baked skepticism. I can challenge Lance in such a way that he's gonna concede the conclusion that he doesn't exist, and? Why we wouldn't just continue Lance's line of reasoning and concede ontological nihilism?
@@KlPop-x1o Chill out dude. I doubt you could challenge anyone without emotional outburst based on how you are handling what was an extremely civil discussion. If I were Lance I wouldn't want to debate you unless you changed your attitude right quick.
Geology isn’t held back by “geology skeptics” because of the reality of the field. Geology actually does make progress, and doesn’t have many of its systems deconstructed with every new generation of geologists like philosophy does.
Because there's the philosophy of geology that gets into that. Science and philosophy are different in the sense that philosophy creates questions out of the foundations that a scientific field uses in its practice.
Yeah, Mike seems to like appealing to common sense as a general strategy, but that analogy set off my 'dodgy' senses straight away. Philosophy and the hard sciences just feel like significantly different endeavors with significantly divergent goals and assumptions.
It seems to me that even professional philosophers can be petty in their retorts
Clearly an Intuitionist
Lance did phenomenally!
Sings: “It ain’t necessarily so...” 🎤
This was very interesting. I would be interested to hear more.
I always find Huemer interesting and I have recently been catching up on Bush. In this case, I initially agreed with Bush, and did not change my mind, so maybe I am being biased.
Huemer makes good objections to arguments Bush did not make. If he addressed Bush's basic point, I didn’t understand him. The question is not whether someone thinks baby torture is wrong, but what presuppositions are packed into that, and whether all of them are as a matter of fact stance-independent. He seemed to take the stance-independence of moral claims as uncontroversial, and assume that an anti-realist would have no grounds for objecting to baby torture, rather than trying to show that an objection to baby-torture can only be based on stance-independent reasons.
Some of Bush's objections about the impossibility of analyzing language out of context seem extreme, and for me difficult to understand, but I don’t think that is essential to the challenge to moral realism.
Nice comment. I'd be happy to discuss the latter point about analyzing language out of context. I don't just endorse this view, I also deny that it is in any way extreme. I think analytic philosophers have done a lot to entrench the notion that views like mine are "extreme" and "radical" and "skeptical" but I don't think any of this is true. From my perspective, their views seem very extreme and radical, and in many cases profoundly implausible.
@@lanceindependent instead of extreme, I should say difficult for me to get a grip on, and addressing an issue that I was unaware of and that I am not convinced is relevant. You seem to be very concerned about how to interpret statements by ordinary persons. I would be satisfied with coming up with coherent interpretations of what particular philosophers say, or objections to interpretations that philosophers have used. These are different problems, and one or the other might seem more tractable or interesting.
Do you agree that Huemer continued to the end as if a moral anti-realist cannot disapprove of baby torture? I was distracted from time to time during the discussion and I could have missed something. This seems like a strange position to take for him, as I usually find him to be more imaginative and charitable.
@@tdbtdbthedeadbunny The issue of language is not only relevant, it is of immense relevance to these discussions. Insofar as standard antirealist positions rely on semantic theses that are themselves based on false presuppositions about language, all traditional antirealist positions (and realist positions, for that matter), could have serious problems. Furthermore, many standard objections to antirealist positions turn on leveraging their semantic commitments and turning them against them...which is exactly what Huemer did in his opening statement. Huemer employs a process of elimination approach: He claims there are only three possible antirealist positions, and if you can show all three are wrong, realism wins by default.
What I was arguing is that this is not true: there are not only three antirealist positions, so showing that those three are wrong would not demonstrate realism is true.
>>You seem to be very concerned about how to interpret statements by ordinary persons.
I'm not that concerned about it. It's analytic philosophers who are concerned about it. All standard analytic metaethical positions on the matter feature a semantic thesis as one of their central claims. A big part of my work is showing that this is a mistake and that how ordinary people think about such questions is not especially relevant.
There were three reasons I brought up language at the outset:
(1) Because it is necessary to do so to argue that my position does not fall into one of the three positions Huemer claims are the only possible positions
(2) Because Huemer characterizes my own position as a radical skeptical position. This claim loses its force if it's not the case that his position is "commonsensical" or appeals to intuitions widely held among philosophers.
(3) Because language-related problems are a key element in normative entanglement.
>>Do you agree that Huemer continued to the end as if a moral anti-realist cannot disapprove of baby torture?
That depends what you mean, but probably not. I don't think Huemer thinks I don't disapprove of baby torture. I don't know if Huemer or other realists accept my characterization of normative entanglement or my claim that it is driving a lot of the reactions they and others have to antirealist positions. My impression is that Huemer didn't think normative entanglement accounted for his own judgments.
@@lanceindependent thanks for the clarification. It seemed to me that Huemer thought that if you disapprove of baby torture or condemn baby torturers, you’re being inconsistent. But as I said, I was not too certain that I had a strong grip on all his arguments.
@@tdbtdbthedeadbunny I'd have to review the whole discussion carefully but I doubt he thinks it's inconsistent with antirealism to disapprove of or condemn baby torturers.
The question would turn more on what the moral antirealist is committed to saying, depending on their semantics. An error theorist couldn't fully and sincerely say, consistent with their position, "It's wrong to torture babies," but I don't see why they'd be unable to say, consistent with their position, to say "I don't like baby torture and I will try to stop it." I doubt Huemer would disagree, and if he did, that'd be very strange.
I think Lance won the "debate" but it was more of a good discussion. I personally do not even think there is any reason to discuss moral realism is true given there is no question begging manner we have to define any moral fact or moral phenomena in such terms. People spew words and from that I have no idea how we can determine mind-independent facts about the world beyond psychology, language and tautologies. The world is comprised of what objects are made of and anything else is psychological projection.
Lance didn't "win the debate." That's ridiculous.
@@fireinthesky2333OK, why not?
@@colbyboucher6391 Because Lance does what he always does: push the definitional game in order to maintain an agenda. It's a grotesquely sophistic and boorishly unsophisticated propaganda ploy. Consider: let's say that I'm a restrictionist on immigration. Enter Lance Bust. "Yeah well, what exactly IS a border anyways?" I go on to define a border in the roughly colloquial terms in which most everyone would understand the concept. Lance Bust then says, "well, at what EXACT POINT can one be said to cross this so called border?" I explain in rough but understandable terms, along the lines of when one's physical person steps or climbs or otherwise travels over the line, as it were. Lance Bust then says, "Must it be the "whole person," and what exactly is a "person" anyways?" And so it goes. It's a stupid, redundant game and worse yet, dishonest.
I dunno, I feel like the situation is pretty disanalogous, because the whole field of metaethics is about adjudicating what concepts mean. If somebody pulled this definitional stuff in a discussion about normatove ethics, I do think it'd be totally illict, and more in line with the situation you outline. But if I had to go with the border analogy to describe metaethical conversations, I'd say it was more like a country debating where to draw its borders, and somebody asking "Hold on: what exactly are our laws governing borders and the legality of crossing thereof? What are the practical implications of being in or outside of this border?" Which I think is extremely reasonable.
@@moonsweater Reasonable to a point, after all, there is a sense in which two interlocutors need mutual understanding of terms if they're to discuss the same subject matter, but I don't think it accurate to reduce metaethics entirely to terms of linguistic clarity anymore than it'd be fair to reduce biology to evolution. That aside, often demand for conceptual unpacking is little else than obfuscation of sneaking in an affirmed negation through the back door. As Rorty said of truth, "we know how to use it we don't have to define it." I'm less than charitable and reject your analogy in favor of mine through the sheer force of familiarity with how Lance operates. He's a sophist, full stop.
Amazing Job by Huemer , took hold of the whole convo, props to both of them
Took hold how?
@@lanceindependent, NEITHER of you have any fundamental understanding of morality, and at the risk of seeming pessimistic, you will never ever have any proper understanding of ethics.
Ask me why.
@@lanceindependentpeople think you've performed bad. Are you tacitly assuming there's an objective fact of the matter in relation to quality of your performance?
@@ReverendDr.Thomas Good grief
@ReverendDr.Thomas, I'll bite. Why?
I would have liked to see Huemer pressed more on his epistemology. Intuitions can be primed, biased by parents, and altered by one’s social group. That alone should be enough of a defeater to show they need to at least be supported by other evidence, which he can’t because there is none.
1:30:00 Couldn’t this just be explained by having an aversion to the act-type of breaking promises? Seems like that’s a sufficient explanation to me.
1:35:00 I’d also like to know what he means by “it’s harder to escape [objective moral facts]”, How?! How is it harder?! Doesn’t seem to be harder since billions of people escape them every day. If these facts exist, they are supposed to *have* this property of harder to escape. Why should it make a difference if people subjectively *believe* they exist? Like, why is that a criteria for their inescapably?!
Regarding the last point: Yes, I very much agree. What's so inescapable of stance-independent moral facts? You could just...ignore them. And what are the consequences? As far as I can tell, none at all.
@@lanceindependent
You can’t have any pudding if you don’t [obey objective normative facts]! How can you have any pudding if you don’t [obey objective normative facts]!?
I don't think he can... Ultimately his epistemology seems an intuition pump.
I was really hoping Lance would demonstrate how thinking that torturing babies is wrong makes it true that there is some kind of physical moral law or platonic objects. It’s very plausible that having strong opposition to torturing babies is an evolutionary adaptation. Correct me if i am completely misunderstanding the topic.
Our ability to recognize truth is an evolutionary adaption, but it doesn't follow from that that we are not recognizing truths when we do. Likewise, while there is an evolutionary explanation behind certain moral feelings, those feelings could be rooted in objective truth. If you think evolution destroys moral knowledge, then why not say evolution destroys all knowledge?
Thinking torturing is wrong does not commit someone to a platonic object or a spooky moral fact. If you find yourself committed to epistemic facts about what's rational and irrational, or what reasons are good or bad, or what kinds of reasoning are good or bad kinds of reasoning, then you can simply apply epistemic facts to ethical contexts. If moral facts are epistemic facts, then the fact that you shouldn't torture someone is no spookier than the fact that you shouldn't believe the Earth is flat.
@@BenStowell It's my understanding that objectivists are committed to saying that moral facts are true independent of opinions, so what are they true in virtue of? Personally I am an emotivist, I think morality is like anxiety or anger - something that you feel. And I mean, sure, you could come up with something that would make 99.99% of all healthy humans angry, just like torturing babies for fun would make 99.99% of all healthy humans feel it's wrong. Would this mean anger is objective too?
I think there has to be sufficient evidence that morals are more than opinions or beliefs. What is a moral? Can you see, taste, touch, smell, or hear it? Objects are real because there is a corresponding, testable, physical world. Morals however are beliefs.
Do non-human species, like ants, have objective moral values? Is the sun expanding and engulfing the earth and ending all life immoral? From my perspective, the only thing that can be demonstrated is that humans have opinions on what they want others and themselves to do. We call that morality. It comes down to preference. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong to impose your beliefs on others. All morality is a form of imposing beliefs on others.
I was underwhelmed despite normally liking both parties. In the end:
Michael thinks realism is intuitive, most people are committed to realism, and the arguments for anti-realism are all terrible.
Lance thinks realism isn't intuitive at all, most people are not committed to realism, and the arguments for realism are all terrible.
Other than that, I'll say I thought Lance did (or was allowed to do) too much of the talking. Maybe I'm mistaken -- and I'm not going to watch again and count their speaking time -- but it felt as if he kept adding to his points when it would have been more beneficial to stop and let Michael respond. Oh well, better than no debate.
That's fair. I'm very talkative. One point I think it's worth making though is that it takes a more words to discuss empirical evidence that a concept isn't commonsense than it does to claim that itis commonsense. That puts someone with my approach and position in an asymmetric position with respect to how much we have to say to challenge another claim or position. Compare to someone claiming there's no even evidence for evolution vs. someone trying to discuss that evidence.
Yeah Lance can ramble because he wants to say everything he thinks is important in relation to a point; I don't at all think it's intentional. I actually think HE is better when he is constrained a bit more.
@@blamtasticful Yea, I have strong completionist tendencies and dislike short exchanges. It's very challenging to try to address any of this in 2 hours, or even 10. I do feel it makes for a better conversation when there's someone that constrains me; I've been in a few interviews where this happens and it goes well when someone can stop me or manage the flow of a conversation.
@@lanceindependent Maybe, and again I like you in general, but just consider that if someone says "moral realism is intuitive to many people" that your response doesn't need to contain any studies. You could simply indicate that the studies you've seen or conducted don't support that. At that point, you've done as much work as your opponent. Then you only need to do a tiny bit more to "beat" your opponent in this respect, like say a single line about what your research shows. Then what are they gonna do?
@@blamtasticful I don't think he's "rambling." Just adding new, also interesting points when it'd beneficial to stop and allow a response.
I understand Michael’s insistence that intuitions are important and difficult to escape (4:40). But methodically I strongly dislike approaches that don’t seek to reduce our dependence on intuitions, or think “seemings” form a good basis for heavy duty metaphysical theorizing.
I much prefer the meta philosophical approach of @lanceindependent that is reliant on the hard work of gathering empirical data, and getting clear about language; how it’s used and what its limitations are.
(1:08:38) I also tend to find that pragmatists or people who are Wittgensteinians about language are very clear on what analytical philosophers are doing and exactly where they go wrong. Meanwhile analytical philosophers tend to struggle to wrap their heads around other perspectives.
It was a pleasant and productive conversation on both sides, but I still couldn’t help but walk away with the impression that @owl235 was completely out classed.
I've read Huemer for years, it must be really frustrating to him that people just don't read or refer to his actual arguments about intuition
@@niklasanzingerWhy doesn't he offer them?
@@niklasanzinger it’s fair to say I have not read any or listened to much of Huemer. I’m also not a professional philosopher or anywhere near as knowledgeable as Huemer on philosophy in general.
That being said, the views I endorse fundamentally disagree with his approach to philosophy, and since the dispute is meta philosophical It doesn’t seem likely his writing on lower level issues will influence me or connect with the views I hold.
Analytical rationalist L
Pragmatic empiricist W
All a moral realist needs to claim is there needs to be one X. X being a moral fact.,Currently the empirical research shows that people have moral realist intuition in regards to acts relating to harm. That’s sufficient to justify saying that people have some moral realist intuition towards a particular act.
Once again stating that I do not believe the current empirical research is representative of the global population, just like how I don’t believe a survey of philosophers represents the global population.
@@kedrick93 There is a distinction between it being true that people have _intuitions_ about moral notions and it being true that there are moral facts.
Intuition about moral realism ≠ moral fact
7:23 It will be difficult for him to avoid using relativistic language. Even in his current explanation, the word 'seeming' introduces a subjective element. 'Seeming' conveys his intuition or attitude toward the proposition, which is inherently non-objective. So, should we interpret this 'seeming' as an objective claim? He could remove the term from the discussion, but that would force him to make a more direct and definitive statement. In doing so, however, he would still need to express it in a way that avoids implying his personal stance on the proposition. I'm not sure he can achieve that without resorting to some form of relativistic language, which would inevitably imply a subjective relationship between his attitude and the proposition.
He doesn't need to use the language in a "non-relative way" but only in a discriminative way, I think the defense of moral realism doesn't require any "special technical sense" and/or merely "ordinary language sense" to keep the case going, specially in the defense of modest moral realism that Huemer defends.
As a moral realist I think its important to distinguish absurdity from being morally wrong. What I mean by this is that in the way which moral anti-realists say “torturing baby’s is not wrong” is not an endorsement of torturing baby’s However it is an absurd position in the sense that I don’t think you can honestly follow the implications of that statement in a way which is consistent. However I think there are many anti-realists who are better people than I Sean Carrol for example. If you don’t acknowledge this it’s going to be hard to reach anti-realists cause your basically speaking in a different language
When you say that you don't think "You can honestly follow the implications of that statement" can you explain what you mean? What are the implications of following the statement?
@@lanceindependent your much smarter than me want I just don’t exactly understand how moral anti-realism would not have serious implications in how we act “I don’t like baby murder” does not feel like a good solution. I would hope we both agree baby murder is bad my judgment is one I believe to be objective yours would be one you believe to be subjective . We both probably want the same thing to happen I just have never been very convinced by arguments that we can reach the same conclusions with the anti-realist frameworks. Baby murder being wrong really is not something you let go of super easily it feels like your hanging from a bridge and someone is arguing for you to let go because life is meaningless or something some intuitions are vividly strong. I think phenomenal conservatism does a good job at stating this in the least “feels” way possible. I am a baby philosopher don’t study it just listen to good conversations like this. It feels like if we reject some of our intuitions we come to absurd conclusions. logical contradictions feel wrong baby murder feels wrong I would need someone to explain a difference between the two for me to not believe that baby murder is stance independently wrong . I think you probably could empirically disprove moral realism show a culture with a murdering baby’s is totally fine without some sort of incorrect belief(baby’s are aliens sent to murder us) leading them to murder baby’s . Good luck on your research !
@@lanceindependentone thing I super agree with you is that honestly the philo papers make me less confident in moral realism because the majority of moral realist being moral naturalist also seems a little absurd to me but I want to listen to more moral naturalist. It’s like I am on the winning team and I look at my teammates and say “are we the baddies” lol . Still confident enough in my beliefs but open to having my mind changed
The burden of proof is on the one claiming that morals are real and objective. If there is no evidence, then there’s no reason to believe in it. Unfortunately, many things can be true despite being undesirable if that’s where the evidence or lack of evidence leads.
What is an objective moral? What’s wrong with doing what’s wrong? Why do we have to do what is right? Is there a grand, supreme enforcer out there? If not, how can you claim anything is wrong? Saying “It seems wrong” (intuition) is not an objective argument. It is subjective, which means it’s an opinion, and not actually a real moral.
Why must we maximize happiness and minimize pain? Why isn’t it wrong to maximize pain? Again, it all comes down to human instinct, feelings, and opinions. Culture and popularity are factors too. I’m okay with admitting that morals are opinions and allowing people to enforce their opinions on others. If I agree, I have no problem. Every moral claim is ultimately enforcing your opinions on others. Why can’t people enforce their opinions on others? I don’t know of anything objectively wrong with that.
Finally
A question for Lance. If you had more "convensional" metaphilosophical views, how would that affect your position on moral realism? If for example you were not a pragmatist. I am 1 hour in so if that is answered my bad.
I used to have more conventional views and I was sympathetic to variations of standard antirealist views. I think moral non-naturalism is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in the literature, in that I think there are no good arguments for it, antirealists have good responses to all of the arguments in favor of it, and there is on abductive grounds very little reason to inflate our ontology with autonomous moral properties or insist on the meaningfulness of ineffable, irreducibly normative facts, or external reasons, and so on.
@@lanceindependent if that's the case, then how come you struggle in your debate against Huemer here and, even more so in your debate against Enoch? I mean, if moral realism was so implausible as you describe it, you should easily be able to produce the objections that Huemer and Enoch struggle to respond to. But instead your main "responses" are typically formulated in terms of "well I don't have that intuition" or even more commonly "well I reject that..." where ... often = standard practices of analytic philosophy. This is then typically followed by you stating what your alternative view is but not arguing for it, or demonstrating it as a superior approach to the standard one.
@@inquiry6274 I didn't struggle in either conversation. I had pleasant conversations with both Huemer and Enoch, but I do not think either of them presented arguments in our conversations that I failed to adequately address (unless, at best, there were open threads I didn't get to due to time constraints). If you think either of them presented arguments you don’t think I could address, let me know. More generally, I’m familiar with their arguments outside our discussions (e.g., moral convergence, deliberative indispensability) and I likewise think antirealists can handle these arguments just fine.
If you think moral realism is plausible, you are welcome to tell me what you think a good argument for moral realism is, and I'd be happy to discuss with you why I don't think it's a good argument.
>>I mean, if moral realism was so implausible as you describe it, you should easily be able to produce the objections that Huemer and Enoch struggle to respond to
I don’t agree. I don’t think any of us struggled in these discussions. A person struggling to respond is not a good indication of whether their position is a strong one or not, especially if you’re talking live debates.
>>But instead your main "responses" are typically formulated in terms of "well I don't have that intuition" or even more commonly "well I reject that..."
If someone presents arguments with premises I reject, I will reject the premises. That’s pretty standard practice.
>>This is then typically followed by you stating what your alternative view is but not arguing for it, or demonstrating it as a superior approach to the standard one.
My alternative view to what, exactly? Things seem some way to someone else. They don’t seem that way to me. What kind of alternative are you looking for?
@@lanceindependent “If you think moral realism is plausible, you are welcome to tell me what you think a good argument for moral realism is, and I'd be happy to discuss with you why I don't think it's a good argument. “
If I understand your correctly, you find my version of moral realism - something like Frank Jackson style naturalism - to be plausible, but trivial and thus uninteresting. So, if there was an argument with you regarding my view, it would have to be that its not trivial.
“I don’t agree. I don’t think any of us struggled in these discussions. A person struggling to respond is not a good indication of whether their position is a strong one or not, especially if you’re talking live debates. “
You claimed that moral realism (the non-naturalist version) is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in philosophy. For this to be true, two things must hold. One, that there are no good arguments in favor of it which cannot be easily addressed by the anti-realist. Two, that the anti-realist has strong knockdown arguments against this version of realism which the realist cannot adress. If this is the case, it should be very easy for you to produce such knockdown arguments in the debate. Knockdown arguments of those kinds should also clearly put the proponent of realism on the backfoot in the conversation. For example, I argue against any causal solution to moral overdetermination. I have strong knockdown arguments against such views. Whenever I present them in person to one of my opponents, they will be put on the backfoot, reaching for ways to respond. This is what we generally would expect to happen in a context where a person holds a view that cannot be defended and is presented with a strong knockdown argument against the view. Indeed, it happens in philosophy higher seminar and philosophy conferences all the time!
“If someone presents arguments with premises I reject, I will reject the premises. That’s pretty standard practice. “
The way in which you do it does not seem like standard practice in analytic philosophy at all. Of course, we philosophers reject premises all the time, and sometimes we say things like “Well I reject that premise”. But that is then followed by the articulation of a reason for rejecting that premises. However, when you say things like “Well I reject that premise”, one of three things would often follow from that. 1) You would provide no further reason. 2) You would reject it based on not sharing the intuition. Or 3) you would say you don’t share the intuition and then provide your alternative view on subject-matter.
But neither of above 3 moves are consiered good moves in analytic philosophy. The problem with 1) is that it does not provide a reason. The problem with the 2) is that it does not provide a good reason. To illustrate this: If I argue that I am allowed to switch the trolley, but not push the man, due to the principled distinction between letting die and killing. And I further support this principled distinction by pointing to how it helps us makes sense of a range of important cases, then in the context of a debate with someone who disagrees, it would not be sufficient for that someone to declare “well I don’t have that intuition”. We know this to be true within the practice of analytic philosophy, because no one can publish an article where the only “contribution” is the exclamation of “Well I don’t share that intuition”.
The problem with 3) is that while you here do present an alternative view, which is good and allows the listners to decide which one they prefer, this falls FAR short of your claim that moral realism is one of the least defensible positions. If that was true, then you should very easily be able to argue that your alternative view is superior in a plethora of ways compared to the view held by the moral realist. But you dont produce such arguments (at least not in these two debates).
“My alternative view to what, exactly? Things seem some way to someone else. They don’t seem that way to me. What kind of alternative are you looking for?”
For example, in the Enoch debate you claimed to have this alternative view of language, according to which there is no general pretheoretical way of talking about wrongness in natural language due to the meaning of words always being context depended. Okay cool, so if your view was true, then Enochs attempt to setup the desiderata - which you seem to agree if valid would favor realism - is blocked. But you never provide reasons for believing your view of language is the correct one! Again, if realism and the semantic theory it relies upon to get its desiderata in place was SOOO indefensible, you should easily be able to produce reasons for why this is the case.
@@inquiry6274 >>You claimed that moral realism (the non-naturalist version) is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in philosophy. For this to be true, two things must hold. One, that there are no good arguments in favor of it which cannot be easily addressed by the anti-realist. Two, that the anti-realist has strong knockdown arguments against this version of realism which the realist cannot adress.
Neither of those claims is an entailment of the view that moral realism is one of the least philosophically defensible positions prominent in philosophy. An argument could be totally wrong and indefensible and yet it could still be difficult to explain exactly why this is the case. In any case, I can’t think of any argument for moral realism that I don’t think it’s fairly easy to address. With respect to the second claim: I think that’s just complete nonsense. I don’t think there are virtually any knockdown arguments in philosophy, especially ones that the targets of those arguments can’t at least superficially appear to have a response to. In any case, neither of these claims “must hold,” so I reject that assertion in the first place.
>>If this is the case, it should be very easy for you to produce such knockdown arguments in the debate.
You’re making an assertion. I don’t just accept assertions from other people. I don’t think this is true at all, and generally reject the idea that there are readily available “knockdown arguments.” My entire approach to philosophy is a holistic one that emphasizes the importance of abduction and a critical stance towards excessive formalism and reliance on leveraging logic as rhetoric via standardized formal arguments. Broad, holistic, abductive arguments are rarely easy to present in any simple, straightforward way. Most formal arguments, on the other hand, are bullshit enthymemes that exploit ambiguity and pragmatics, ultimately serving as toothless rhetorical tools. I think you’re operating on an assumption about what the dialectical landscape when a position is a weak one that I completely reject.
>>The way in which you do it does not seem like standard practice in analytic philosophy at all.
…You do realize I’m not an analytic philosopher, and that I explicitly reject analytic philosophy, right? Why would I use the standard practices of a school of philosophy that I think is catastrophically misguided?
>>For example, I argue against any causal solution to moral overdetermination. I have strong knockdown arguments against such views. Whenever I present them in person to one of my opponents, they will be put on the backfoot, reaching for ways to respond. This is what we generally would expect to happen in a context where a person holds a view that cannot be defended and is presented with a strong knockdown argument against the view.
With respect, this sounds like it’s engaged in precisely the kind of dialectical dance characteristic of analytic philosophy that I think is misguided and that doesn’t really get anywhere.
>>The way in which you do it does not seem like standard practice in analytic philosophy at all.
I’m not even an analytic philosopher, but it absolutely is.
>>Of course, we philosophers reject premises all the time, and sometimes we say things like “Well I reject that premise”. But that is then followed by the articulation of a reason for rejecting that premises.
Yes, which I provided: I don’t have the intuition that the premise is true. Standard practice for analytic philosophy. In fact, it doesn’t get much more standard than that.
>>But neither of above 3 moves are consiered good moves in analytic philosophy.
First, I’m not an analytic philosopher, so I don’t particularly care if something is considered a good move in analytic philosophy. Second, analytic philosophy isn’t a monolith, so I don’t grant that there’s some kind of unanimity with the claims you’re making. Third, I simply don’t agree that any of those are bad moves. Rejecting a premise without providing any further reason is totally fine, as is reporting not having an intuition, as is not sharing an intuition and then reporting some alternative view. These are all great ways to respond to arguments. If you don’t agree, or you think analytic philosophy recommends against this, so much the worse for you and analytic philosophy.
Huemer claims to have certain intuitions as one of his primary reasons for endorsing moral realism. I don’t have those reasons. If he presents arguments that directly appeal to those intuitions, and I simply don’t have them…then the premises just aren’t going to move me. This is so incredibly common in analytic philosophy I’m puzzled that you think there’s something wrong with it.
>>For example, in the Enoch debate you claimed to have this alternative view of language, according to which there is no general pretheoretical way of talking about wrongness in natural language due to the meaning of words always being context depended. Okay cool, so if your view was true, then Enochs attempt to setup the desiderata - which you seem to agree if valid would favor realism - is blocked. But you never provide reasons for believing your view of language is the correct one!
Is this a joke? What did you want me to do, lay out an entire theory of language in the middle of that discussion? I *already* do full on 45-minute monologues in my streams, occasionally resulting in people complaining about how much detail I go into. Then I get complaints in other conversations about not going into detail. I’m honestly absolutely sick of it. I already go out of my way, bending over backwards to engage with audiences and discuss my views with tons of random strangers online daily, when I could be doing more productive things with my life. And those people, rather than showing even a little appreciation for how much work I actually put into these things, just complain that I didn’t do enough. You realize I’ve now spent *hours* in the past few days attempting to systematically address everyone on TH-cam, Substack, discord, Facebook, and who knows where on their questions and comments about my views? But no: Lance, you don’t argue for this, you don’t explain that, even though I almost certainly have, a dozen or more times, somewhere you aren’t reading or listening. Regarding not addressing some specific point you think I should have detailed or argued for: There’s almost never time to do this in the middle of these discussions.
Laying out unconventional views that rely on tons of empirical data is extremely time-consuming and it would be rude if not impossible to interrupt guests or interlocutors and launch into a discussion on these topics. I don’t just hold some random philosophical view where I can flesh it out with a syllogism or a definition. Many of my views involve appeals to empirical findings, and only make sense in the context of those findings. So, for instance, it would make little sense to talk about my views about language or why I hold them without discussing criticisms of Chomsky’s views or the case Christiansen and Chater make for their views about language. That could take an hour or more just to scratch the surface: after all, they’ve written an entire popular book that just barely begins to make the case for their views about language. And that’s because actual, substantive, empirically grounded views are not easy to just blurt out in the middle of a discussion.
Furthermore, many of the discussions you’ve seen are initial discussions with people, where it is important to establish what our views are and where we differ. This, alone, often occupies most of the time I have to talk to people. I’d be delighted to get into detail about my views about language or other topics in future discussions with those people. But it’s unreasonable to expect me to be able to detail all my arguments and reasons for every view every time I mention them. Look what I’m doing now: I am foregoing sleep *just* to address your objections. Yay. Lucky me. You probably won’t be satisfied and will still complain and gripe. Do you have any idea how fantastically unrewarding this is?
I don't agree that if I'm confident it should be so easy to do this or that. Well, it isn't, and I don't agree with you that it should be. Also, note the immense irony here: giving me a hard time about not providing reasons in support of my claims, when most of your objections consist of bald assertions for which you provide no arguments at all.
Overcoming loads of dogma and the metaphilosophical pretzel of problems that is analytic philosophy isn't easy at all.
“Naturalism counts as realism” - BOOO!!!
Please help us make this a separate category!
I don’t share the intuition, either. Torturing babies for fun is wrong comes out of natural realism based on its axioms.
Right and wrong are RELATIVE. ;)
@@ReverendDr.Thomas
Is this in response to what I said?
@@ReverendDr.Thomasno. Your judgement about what's good or bad might be relative, but good and bad are universal notions, innate to all moral agents.
@@KlPop-x1o, you mean that they are ABSOLUTES? 😬
@@ReverendDr.Thomasthey are universals. How would you know how to apply moral judgements if you wouldn't know what these universals stand for? How would all humans make evaluative judgements if they wouldn't possess universal knowledge of good and bad?
Unfortunately it seemed to me that Mike didn’t seem to take Lance’s metaphilosohical concerns seriously.
I can't believe he simply asserts the truth of statements like "there are good and bad pieces of artwork ". That is a real stretch
Just guys being dudes.
@Curiosity Am I partially blocked from posting? I can reply on people's comments but comments I leave myself are not posting. I don't know why I would be blocked.
It seems this comment has posted though, oddly.
@@cloudoftime I have deliberately chosen "No Moderation" for comments, so everybody could comment. Not sure why this is the case. Someone else mentioned that too. Hope it doesn't continue. The video has thankfully gotten good engagement..
@@CuriosityGuy Ok. Thank you for the response. I will try again later.
And thank you for facilitating this conversation between Lance and Mike. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
@@cloudoftime My pleasure! Stay tuned and stay curious for more ;)
I’ve noticed that my rhetorical capability dwarfs both interlocutors
dwarfsploitation
Nobody cares or knows who you are though
@@appleseedsix4523 im sorry please forgive me
@@theafricanassasin☠️
@@theafricanassasin, just as THEIR rhetorical abilities dwarf that of the current World Teacher Himself.
Have you watched his TH-cam channel?
Did the guy at the start say Lance Bush is a furry?1?!
Foodie
No! I'm really into food.
@@CuriosityGuy ah, that makes more sense lol
How can one talk so much yet say so little? I think the answer to this says a lot. But at least we know what Lances thesis was and that he read a few papers.
Definitely seems like a hopeless debate.
To me, Huemers arguments are solid and beautifully obvious like F=ma. The other side, on the other hand, has to take up 80 percent of the air time to try and explain their view and arguments in a highly convoluted way.
I did a lot more than read a few papers. The number of papers I read for my dissertation work was probably in the low hundreds.
What argument did Huemer present that you think is beautifully obvious?
32:30 - But it does tell you what the error theorist _should_ believe if they limit their beliefs to facts, no?
An error theorist is only committed to the view that the metaethical presuppositions of people who claim the existence of moral facts are wrong. The "should" is still tied to their subjective attitudes though.
wow, michael huemer looked so philosophically sheltered from lance’s positions… kind of embarrassing…
The approach I take is sufficiently uncommon that I wouldn't expect many people to be especially familiar with it, especially given that there are very few publications advocating views similar to my own in the current literature.
@@lanceindependentDo you have a publication that presents your stance on metaethics and language?
@@paulwenzlau8682 Parts of it are in my dissertation (folk metaethical indeterminacy, primarily). I don't work in philosophy of language or linguistics so I doubt I could get a publication on my views on that topic; my views are generally in line with Christiansen and Chater, though I'm no specialist and can't say I fully grasp their account.
No publications on unintelligibility thesis. That and my views on language began developing as I finished the dissertation. Going to be a while before I write anything about either formally.
@@lanceindependent Thank you very much. I will look into your dissertation.
Would "The Language Game" be a good place to start for Chater and Christiansen?
@@paulwenzlau8682 Yes, though they've also done interviews on TH-cam as well, which can give you a quick over view in ~an hour of what the book is about. They also have more technical work.
There are levels to this game my friends, and Mike Huemer is on the highest level. 🤙
ILY MICHAEL HUEMER
Meaning? You love him?
@@ReverendDr.Thomas YES SIR
👍🏻
Lance doesn’t impress me at all
Suppose majority are anti-realists and self-interested irrationaly. How does it affect anything for an individual truth-seeker?
I did not understand your question, sorry. Can you elaborate?
@@CuriosityGuy It seemed to me that appeal to majority was a part of the argument in favor of anti-realism. Was it a wrong judgement on my part?
I can accept that intuitive anti-realism is a part of genetic apriori structure of the brain evolved to deal with reality and stayed cos it's fit enough, but it doesn't say anything about its truth value
To lay out my view: I think that morality is objective, to be more precise, homo sapiens preference scales like "pain boo", "murder boo" are highly convergent, that's why I like Sam Harris' angle of it being the landscape. It just means that people within talking and trading groups of people - can find a lot in common about moral questions more often than not. It would also mean that differences between groups are highlighting least refined parts of homo sapiens morality
Almost no group tolerates murder (within the group), no big enough groups seek pain (voluntary assembled deviants in last couple of generations aside), but some issues are far more contentious
Y'all need Jesus/George Bealer, "The Incoherence of Empiricism." 😆
And John Bengson, "Experimental Attacks on Intuitions and Answers." 🤙
Why would I need either of these?
I haven't found anything from Bengson on the matter convincing at all. And my issues with "intuitions" differ from what you might find in a lot of standard experimental philosophical critiques. Among other things, I am not questioning whether they serve as evidence or whether there are variations in intuitions among ordinary people that raise questions about philosophical intuitions; I question whether there is any sensible conception of a "philosophical intuition" that I should acknowledge as a genuine psychological phenomenon in the first place (or at least not any distinct or evidential conception of intuition). I've seen little reason to think that the kinds of "seemings" that some rationalistically inclined philosophers report having refer to any substantive or distinct psychological state at all; a lot of philosophical talk around intuitions strikes me as speculative psychology at best, and pseudopsychology at worse.
There isn't nearly enough empiricism in philosophy, nor are there enough empirical critiques of philosophers. It's also rather bizarre for philosophers to critique the use of empirical findings while simultaneously constantly making claims about what nonphilosophers think, believe, or are committed to.
@lanceindependent Here's a relevant bit from that Bealer essay, which I encourage you to read:
--------------------
“There is a special irony here, for in their actual practice empiricists typically make use of a wide range of intuitions. For example, what does and does not count as an observation or experience? Why count sense perception as observation? Why not count memory as observation? Or why not count certain high-level theoretical judgments as sense experiences? Indeed, why not count intuitions as sense experiences? …What does and does not count as a theory, as justified (or acceptable), as an explanation, as simple?”
“The fact is that empiricists arrive at answers to these questions by using as prima facie evidence their intuitions about what does and does not count as experience, observation, theory, justified, explanation, simple. In their actual practice, empiricists use such intuitions as evidence to support their theories and to persuade others of them.”
“However, such use of intuitions contradicts the principle of empiricism, which includes only experiences and/or observations as prima facie evidence. So in their actual practice, empiricists are not faithful to their principles.”
That's why Bealer thinks Empiricism is incoherent.
--------------------
You say:
>>I question whether there is any sensible conception of a "philosophical intuition" that I should acknowledge as a genuine psychological phenomenon in the first place>>
By 'intuition' your Rationalist opponents mean just whatever is going on in the typical case when you make judgments about, as Bealer says, "what does and does not count as experience, observation, theory, justified, explanation, simple." Or when you "just see" the truth of one of de Morgan's laws [(p v q) --> ~(~p & ~q)]. Or when you "just see" that circles have no corners.
You do make those judgments. Some things strike you as obviously examples of experience, observation, theory, etc. etc. Other things strike you as obviously examples of non-experiences, non-observations, non-theories, etc. You just see the validity of this inference: [(p v q) --> ~(~p & ~q)]. You just see that circles have no corners.
So, you use intuitions. True, Rationalists have tried to say more about these episodes. Bealer calls them "intellectual seemings," and it sounds like they have a kind of phenomenology, for Bealer. This is the bit, I take it, that you consider speculative psychology, or even pseudopsychology. I, too, am skeptical of what Bealer says on that score.
But even if Bealer's wrong about the psychology of intuitions, the fact is that we do make intuitive judgments. We do judge when concepts apply, and when they don't. When a belief counts as knowledge, and when it doesn't. When a moral proposition is true "in a stance-dependent sense" and when it isn't (I'm trying here to pick an example you can relate to). These are all intuitions. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE mwahaha.
------------------------
You also say:
>>It's also rather bizarre for philosophers to critique the use of empirical findings while simultaneously constantly making claims about what nonphilosophers think, believe, or are committed to.>>
Maybe this is the source of your confusion: philosophers often criticize the use of empirical evidence *when it is not relevant to the question at hand*.
And it often isn't, in philosophy. If I want to know the *nature* of something (e.g. knowledge, justice) checking how things *actually* are will be of very limited use.
But any philosopher worth his salt would accept that polls and surveys are relevant when the question is what non-philosophers think, believe, or are committed to. Of course. But that isn't really a philosophical question, is it. That's a question for the social psychologists (e.g. you, no?).
@@tbogardus1 I don't engage with people who tell me what I think or describe my psychology to me.
@@lanceindependent @lanceindependent Ah. Sorry to have struck a nerve! Is it not the case that some things strike you as obviously examples of experience, observation, theory, etc., and other things strike you as obviously examples of non-experiences, non-observations, non-theories, etc.? Do you not just see the validity of this inference: [(p v q) --> ~(~p & ~q)]? Do you not just see that circles have no corners?
I had assumed you'd say that you do e.g. see the validity of that inference, and that circles have no corners. But maybe that was hasty on my part! Mea culpa.
@user-u9g8m Hi there super anonymous TH-cam user. The laughing emoji I used followed a joke equating Jesus to George Bealer. I just wanted to signal that it was a joke.
It would be pretty weird to make this inference:
That certainly doesn't follow. At all.
Also, it's worth noting that, although you're telling me what I think and describing my psychology to me, I'm still willing to respond, because I think I have a good answer for you.
Also, though I wouldn't recommend devoting much time to learning about informal fallacies (rather, just learn what a counterexample is, and how to generate one), I'd recommend reviewing what it means to "poison the well." Take care, User u9g8m. ✌
Huemer: "...it seems..." "...it's obvious..."
Cool man👍
Lance defence for the claim that moral realism is not the common sense view seems to me to very poor. I don’t think empirical studies show that moral realism is not the common sense view. Lance seems to think that for moral realism to be the common sense view people need to explicitly endorse moral realism. Just because people didn’t endorse moral realism explicitly in the empirical research doesn’t show that moral realism is not the common sense view. Also note that the research is not so reliable as Lance thinks it is. Non philosophers doesn’t keep thinking about ethical issues and certainly they don’t think deeply about meta ethics, they are also not well equipped with philosophers’ vocabulary, in light of this, we should decrease our trust in such research to an extend. Keeping this point aside, even if we grant that the research is correct it doesn’t follow that moral realism is not the common sense view because people in general can be implicitly moral realists. Lance said nothing to refute this. If we follow Lance reasoning, we will have to conclude many things which we can take to be common sense views are not common sensical at all. For example, external world realism seems to be a common sense view but general people are not explicitly endorsing any version of non skeptical realism, does that shows according to Lance that people are not generally realists about the external world? According to me, it is not because people are still implicitly realists. Same can be true about moral realism. What did Lance said to rule this possibility? That’s my first worry with Lance position. I heard that Lance take moral non naturalism to be an unintelligible position, perhaps because of its commitment to external reasons, but Lance says nothing to defend his unintelligibility claim. Lance keeps saying how his meta philosophical views are different and how he takes an empiricist stance generally. But is Lance unintelligibility thesis supported by empirical study, by Lance own light empirical study doesn’t support any particular meta ethical theory, so then on the basis of what did he form his belief? He seems to give the impression that people who are moral realists are mistaken because they don’t take empirical study seriously however his own position is not based on empirical studies, if he can have a position why not the realists?
Lance Bust is a dishonest wretch willing to lie about his own moral intuitions, brandish about methodologically flawed "empirical studies" like a toddler swinging an axe, engage is endless semantic obfuscation, in order to maintain his silly nihilism.
>>I don’t think empirical studies show that moral realism is not the common sense view.
Unless you're familiar with the studies in question you wouldn't be in a position to make an informed judgment about this.
>>Lance seems to think that for moral realism to be the common sense view people need to explicitly endorse moral realism.
No I don't. I explicitly have said otherwise in print.
>>Just because people didn’t endorse moral realism explicitly in the empirical research doesn’t show that moral realism is not the common sense view.
Almost none of the measures used are explicit or direct; i.e., most studies don't ask people if they endorse moral realism or not (or some variant of this sort of question). Most use a variety of other, indirect means, because researchers aren't idiots and they know nonphilosophers aren't going to be familiar with the terminology (unless the researchers teach it to them). As a result, this comment exhibits a misunderstanding about my claims and a lack of knowledge of the empirical literature.
>> Also note that the research is not so reliable as Lance thinks it is.
This remark likewise shows a misunderstanding about my position. I am highly critical of the methods used in this research.
>>Non philosophers doesn’t keep thinking about ethical issues and certainly they don’t think deeply about meta ethics, they are also not well equipped with philosophers’ vocabulary, in light of this, we should decrease our trust in such research to an extend.
I agree. This is something I explicitly defend in my writing. However, you appear to be operating under the assumption that the research in question presents untrained people with unfamiliar terminology. For the most part, it does not. Where it does, I am intensely critical of it for doing so. And again, this is all in print, and can easily be verified. You’re critiquing me for allegedly holding views contrary to the ones you present here when in fact I’ve explicitly argued otherwise. So your objections not only aren’t true, they’re the opposite of true.
>>Keeping this point aside, even if we grant that the research is correct it doesn’t follow that moral realism is not the common sense view because people in general can be implicitly moral realists.
I critique research on implicit commitments to moral realism, too.
>>Lance said nothing to refute this.
I don’t have hours to talk about all the studies. I discuss this research in my dissertation.
>>If we follow Lance reasoning, we will have to conclude many things which we can take to be common sense views are not common sensical at all. For example, external world realism seems to be a common sense view but general people are not explicitly endorsing any version of non skeptical realism, does that shows according to Lance that people are not generally realists about the external world?
This does not reflect my reasoning and misrepresents what I think. This is even explicitly addressed in the video you are commenting on.
>>According to me, it is not because people are still implicitly realists. Same can be true about moral realism.
You are welcome to present compelling empirical evidence of this.
>> I heard that Lance take moral non naturalism to be an unintelligible position, perhaps because of its commitment to external reasons, but Lance says nothing to defend his unintelligibility claim.
I have lots of views. I don’t defend all of them in every video.
>>But is Lance unintelligibility thesis supported by empirical study, by Lance own light empirical study doesn’t support any particular meta ethical theory, so then on the basis of what did he form his belief?
You could ask me, and have a conversation, rather than posing this as a rhetorical question as if it’s some kind of gotcha.
Huemer claims that moral statements do not depend on the attitude of observers, and to show this, he gives HIS attitude about certain moral situations, forgetting that he IS an observer, with a moral attitude, and that people with other attitudes might have different moral opinions. It is a very weird mistake.
The mere fact that many agree with his moral attitude, of which I am likely one, does not mean that moral statements do not depend on the attitude of observers. Of course, they do.
"Torturing babies" is only objectively wrong in the sense that 99% of humans would most likely share that personal moral attitude. This does not make it stance independent.
The easiest way to show why your point here is wrong is via an analogy. I believe that 'there are subatomic particles' is a true assertion about reality. Further, I take it that the statement is true regardless of whether anyone believes it. Obviously, I have to assess this from my own subjective epistemic position, as anyone does when they assess anything, but it does not make it the case that the statement's truth depends on my subjective epistemic position.
@@alastairbowyer7936 That analogy does not work at all.
Please explain why
@@alastairbowyer7936 I think you missed his point. He wasn't saying that "there is disagreement therefore morality is stance dependent" he was saying "agreement is insufficient to prove stance independence."
@mind_onion ok that is somewhat fair based on the last thing he said. Nonetheless, part of the point of my example is to show that Huemer's style of reasoning is generally a legitimate way of testing whether a statement is stance dependent. I don't think its an infallible method, but it gives us evidence of objectivity
12:02 I find it extremely relatable and refreshing that Mike acknowledges "I don't know what's going on [about disparity of opinions in this field]".
I'm a subjectivist, I don't agree with his realism and I also don't know what's going on 😄
What a poor defence of moral realism! I don’t blame the speaker, every argument for moral realism is sophistry.
No it isn't. You haven't read the relevant material and you should feel bad for being a dumbo.
I would recommend the book "The abolition of man" by C.S. Lewis to know more about objective morality and its implications for society.
C.S. Lewis knew nothing about philosophy
@@TotalitarianDemocrat to what standard are you holding someone philosophically? If CS Lewis “knows nothing about philosophy,” does that mean he couldn’t do philosophy or cannot be philosophically valid? I could also holds you to the same standard, most of us don’t know who you are so why should we listen to what you have to say about philosophy at all for that matter?
@@meaningofreason C.S. Lewis was never a philosopher. Just another apologist.
@@TotalitarianDemocrat what a strange argument. So you can only know about philosophy or making philosophically valid claims if you’re recognized as a “philosopher”? None of these two interlocutors for example in this conversation called themselves a philosopher either, does that also means that they don’t know anything about philosophy? And if these people don’t know anything about philosophy in your account, go ahead and tell us what ‘philosophy’ is and who really qualifies for it and should be recognized for really knowing philosophy.
@@TotalitarianDemocrat but it’s ok, you might have an elitist view of what philosophy means and who in your view may be qualified to do philosophy. Just know that if only “philosophers” are able to do philosophy, you wouldn’t be able to do them either bc you aren’t one and there shouldn’t be any reason for the public to hear what you have to say either
Wow, Huemer right off the bat abandons the debate topic and just starts slandering people who disagree with what "seems" to him. He doesn't give any reason to think moral facts are objective, he just asserts, without evidence, the deeply implausible claim that every one of the many who disagree with him thinks something, widely seen as immoral, is ok. That clearly doesn't follow from endorsing any particular metaethical view, and he then whines then people who disagree he's shown his view is true are somehow "holding people who study ethics back" as if the consequences of being unable to show his view is true have any bearing at all on the truth of his view. He actually says nothing to support his own position other than, essentially, "it seems that way to him". Lance brings up actual empirical data, or points out when it is necessary, Huemer just claims he knows what other people think, by some magic sense organ I guess. Lance has to really work hard towards the beginning just to get Huemer on topic.
agreed. how the heck is this guy a notable philosopher? This is embarrassing
I think morality is received wisdom, as evidenced by how many bad moralities there are. It is a toss up whether religion or Econ101 is the worst received wisdom. I'd throw the switch in the trolly problem, but hate myself for it, and support those that didn't, because they'd have less self hate, and be in a better position to delicense the trolly manufacturer.
Why Humer doesn't use hair band? Why Lance has no hair at all? Imagine Huemer being bald and Lance having a long hair
Huemer wins once again!
Lance’s speech is convoluted, Huemer‘s is precise & clear
I think the opposite.
lance just has this tendency to unpack EVERYTHING - which I guess causes some people trouble in keeping track of everything that is happening. But this exhaustiveness is one of the main reasons I would say he's extremely clear in his speech.
It “seems” we don’t share this “intuition.”
Yeah the Huemer
This isn’t that difficult. Morality is the FEELING that certain actions ought or ought not be done. FEELINGS are subjective. Therefore, morality is subjective.
When a theist says their supposed god ‘wrote morality on our hearts’, they are trying to identify where that feeling comes from. They are literally admitting morality is subjective.
Huemer is mistaken that "almost everybody" in epistemology shares the Gettier intuitions and accepts an alternate account of knowledge. The latest philpapers survey shows that 23.6% of philosophers and 17.6% of epistemologists still accept the JTB account while 30.6% of philosophers and 34.5% of epistemologists agree with Lance that there's no true account of knowledge. Huemer is in the minority here.
Nice, thanks for pointing that out.
I don't really get how Huemer can, in the very beginning, use the word "seems" and still think he's talking about stance-independent moral facts.
I wonder if it's some kind of fundamental brain difference that makes those "seems" somehow objective in his mind, but in my mind, I only see an unresolvable contradiction.
The primary reason I don't subscribe to realism is that to me, objective reality is fundamentally amoral; subjective experiences seem to be emergent phenomena that arise from the mechanics of the universe without involving any moral questions whatsoever, and only in reference to those subjective experiences does it make sense to speak of morality.
Notice how you call into question Huemer's "seems," but then turn around and use the very word just rejected (at least insofar as it is related to non perspectival reality) yourself in pondering the nature of consciousness.
@fireinthesky2333 Yes, I did notice that. I have no problem with it, though, since my position isn't really bothered by the subjectivity. It might be that subjective experiences are not emergent phenomena, and there's some other cause, but that wouldn't change anything about my perspective of morality unless you can establish a fundamental law of the universe that all beings who experience anything must follow in the same sense that everything must follow the "rules" of gravity.
As long as a person is even able to say "I don't think so," of any given moral proposition, I don't think (stance-independent) moral facts can exist.
Or, to put it another way, I can deny the existence of gravity all I want, but I *can not* avoid being affected by it. I don't know what a fundamental moral fact comparable to gravity could even in theory look like if one existed.
@@nio804 I want you to think about how absurd your position is: you're saying that intractability, or sustained disagreement, is cause to think that the phenomenon in question is "subjective," but as moral realists have pointed out time and again, this is hardly unique to the moral domain. Philosophers, scientists, etc disagree on a vast array of things: they disagree on theories of time, on mathematical realism vs constructivism, on the causes of global temperature patterns, on theories of mass extinction, on nominalism, on theories of consciousness, on and on. None of this seems to necessitate irrealism as regards said domains.
@fireinthesky2333 There's a difference between disagreeing what is and is not a fact and the interpretation of what those facts mean. Going back to gravity, if I demonstrate it by dropping a ball 20 times, it would be lunacy to disagree that the ball fell 20 times unless you have other facts to show that we're hallucinating. However, disagreeing on why the ball falls remains an option.
@@nio804 Trying to introduce a fact/interpretation dichotomy in order to save irrealism exclusive to the moral domain is entirely ad hoc and doesn't solve your issue: that is, if we suppose only facts can be "objective" we're immediately threatened with epistemic nihilism, as, first of all, there will be disagreement as to what constitutes a fact and what constitutes a mere interpretation of these purportedly more epistemically fundamental facts. After all, philosophers don't even agree on what "truth" is. But more to the point, what I strongly suspect is happening here is this: it's clear that your modus operandi will entail a much more expansive irrealism, but this isn't a comfortable place to be, so rather than bite the bullet, you have manufactured a completely silly belief forming arbiter which saves domain realism elsewhere but kills it relative to the domain of morality. Whatever it takes, I guess. 😔
Lance constatntly throws red herrings, moves goalpoasts and plays his usual contrarian tactics. Not to mention appeals to empirical studies and so forth. The topic of the debate is "Do objective moral facts exists?" and not what Lance did for his PhD and what empirical studies show.
One of the reasons for bringing up empirical studies is that some realists make the claim that moral realism is the common sense position and maybe even the default position. How do we know that's actually true? You yourself are calling him a contrarian, but this seems to imply that moral anti-realism is some fringe position, when that isn't necessarily the case.
@@MsJavaWolf I am calling Lance contrarian because he's a behaving in a contrarian fashion generally, and not because moral realism is default position. The only reason why Lance appeals to these studies is to side step the debate.
@@KlPop-x1o The way I see the debate is somewhat like this:
- Mike argues from his moral intuitions.
- Lance doesn't have the same intuitions, so how do we resolve this?
- Mike says that probably a lot of people have the same intuitions as he does.
- Lance says that the empirical evidence doesn't support this.
I see the empirical data as important (and therefore not side stepping), because so much of the realist argument seems to rely on a majority of people having those intuitions (although I know Mike also has some other arguments)
@@MsJavaWolfLance should know how deficient these empirical studies he and other experimentalists do, are. Empirical studies do not decide metaphysical issues. He admits it, so I don't see the relevance to the topic of the debate. It's clear that Lance is trying to sidestep the ontological or metaphysical questions by citing surveys. Putting trust into what people tell you, and using it to decide if people have these intuitions is as futile as it can get
@@KlPop-x1o
Do you understand what is a "moral fact"?
Bush is a clown, providing no good reasons whatsoever to give up moral realism. Im glad Huemer clanked on this fool.
What good reasons do you think Huemer presented to give up on moral antirealism?
You're either deeply dull or we haven't watched the same video
@@lanceindependent Speaking for myself, I think of the 1935 film "The Raven." This was Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff's second collaboration. The unfortunate Karloff approaches Lugosi for plastic surgery in order to help his efforts to evade police capture. Sorrowfully, he opines, "maybe if a man looks ugly he does ugly things."
Now, I don't have one of your "empirical studies" to back this up but my own experience is the type attracted to moral antitrealism is generally a lowly type, if not physically ugly, petty, spiteful, banal, childless, aesthetically displeasing in the order of their priorities, something like Nietzsche's Last Man. In other words, you yourself are a good reason to give up moral antirealism, ya dig? As everything about you deeply repulses me, I fear, like Agent Smith in the Matrix, being infected by it. I would then consider moral realism, which I see no good reason to relinquish, a kind of philosophic "social distancing" to the coronavirus of antirealism.
@@fireinthesky2333 Wow, what lewd nonsense. So, it is clear you can't give us the "good" reasons Huemer presented, because there are none, I suppose. You come across as "a lowly type, if not physically ugly, petty, spiteful, banal, childless, aesthetically displeasing in the order of your priorities".
@@fireinthesky2333 “You are ugly, therefore moral anti-realism is false”is not the argument I was expecting. Lol
Lance I don’t think you are ugly and you seem like a nice person too. ❤
Edit: also you were talking about Agent Smith in the Matrix. Mr Anderson is Smith’s name for Neo.