Have you ever thought of doing a video on pragmatic theories of truth? Although they are fringe I personally find some versions to be quite compelling. They capture a different angle than the correspondence theory of truth (which seems to me to have some pretty big problems). BIG UP
Yes, I want to do this. I'd like to do a series on truth in general, but it's just that there are loads of other topics I want to talk about as well! I'll note that I've covered similar themes to pragmatic approaches to truth in my video on "Science, Knowledge, and Complexity" (though as the title suggests, it's more phil of science): th-cam.com/video/4l5Y_Vt7Vc8/w-d-xo.html
great video. Have you managed to make the video on attempts to solve Frege-Geach yet? It seems like none of the attempts work but difficult to follow the literature because it is very technical
As an a level philosophy student hoping to do philosophy as part of his degree, this is one of my favourite philosophy channels if not my favourite. Our of interest, what are your favourite philosophy books? (either for being enjoyable to read or most philosophically compelling)
Thank you! Here's a top 10: A.J. Ayer, "Language, Truth, and Logic" Bas van Fraassen, "The Scientific Image" and "The Empirical Stance" David Hume, "Treatise" David Lewis, "On the Plurality of Worlds" Graham Priest, "In Contradiction" Ian Hacking, "Representing and Intervening" Max Stirner, "The Ego and Its Own" Paul Feyerabend, "Against Method" Robert Nozick, "Philosophical Explanations"
@@KaneB I'm seeing Ayer on more lists than I used to. Is he making a comeback, or am I just getting better at filtering for people with similar philosophical inclinations?
@@lanceindependent I'm not sure, though my impression is that things are going in the opposite direction. Of course, it might be that people are interested in Ayer despite disagreeing with him. I think Lewis's "On the Plurality of Worlds" is completely mistaken, both in detail and in spirit, but it still made my top 10.
Thanks! I do have a few videos on normative ethics already, and I'll probably revisit the topic from time to time. It's just not the area I'm most interested in.
@@justus4684 I don't have any current plans for that, but I'll bear it in mind. I guess I've always felt that with normative ethics, there are probably already a lot of videos that cover this ground? I dunno, but it seems like this is a fairly popular topic as far as philosophy goes, so I expect other philosophy youtubers have done a lot on it. I'm not sure if there's much new that I could bring to the table. (Contrast this with a topic like quasi-realism in metaethics, where there are other videos on it, but none that are organized as a lecture that goes into as much detail -- as far as I know, at least.)
I found quite a bit to agree with in your account of quasi-realism, like eschewing the "metaphyics" of ethical claims, or what looks to me like an assumption of correspondence-foundationalist ideas about truth . Although I wouldn't call my own views "non-cognitive". I have some intuition that the truth conditions of moral claims are grounded in a similar way to claims about money. Something *actually* being a $20 dollar bill is, to a large extent, dependent on people's attitudes and beliefs and institutional norms, but it also seems like a fact (or at least its not up to an individual to decide, not just "relative" etc.), even though its hard to point to the set of facts in/about the world that make it so. Also - as an aside - why are we so quick to dismiss emotional reactions as not truth-apt (or something like it)? There are some areas of ethics and aesthetics that treat emotional reactions as "apt" or "appropriate", where some agents can fail in certain circumstances to show the correct reactive attitudes.
Same. I often use the money analogy too. The idea that something is either a fact or a value becomes a false dichotomy with social facts, its very much entangled in a way that if we force the distinction, we lose something meaningful in the process.
>> why are we so quick to dismiss emotional reactions as not truth-apt Quasi-realism is itself an attempt to vindicate the idea that emotional reactions can be "apt" or "appropriate", so I don't think they are dismissive of this. There is a closely related point here, which is that it's not obvious that emotions are actually noncognitive states in the first place. Cognitive theories of emotion are taken seriously among psychologists and philosophers of mind. To my knowledge, this point has not received much attention from noncognitivists. I'm not sure why that is. Jesse Prinz, in "The Emotional Construction of Morals", develops a sentimentalist, antirealist account of morality that takes into account this work on emotion.
A great video as usual! I'll need to watch it again as there are some parts I'm confused about, but for now I have a particular question. It seemed to me that when you were explaining what sorts of answers could be given to Verity's relativism, that the answers were probably dogmatic in a sense! If Verity disagrees with us on some fundamental values, if she doesn't care about the cruelty of slavery or the coherence of her beliefs, what basis do we have to say that she is missing some facts? Furthermore, if our point is to show that there are such facts, then she could say we are just begging the question! I'd like to put this side to side with two other attitudes/positions you've talked about before. One is your indifference to animal suffering. It seems that it's the same as Verity's indifference to the cruelty of slavery. What would be your response to someone telling you you have wrong fundamental values about this? The second is your earlier "why use reason?" video. At the beginning of that video, you explained that the video could only talk to people who already acknowledge reason, not to somebody who doesn't care about reason at all (if such a person is really there). Well, what if Verity doesn't care about coherence in similar fashion, how could we say she has wrong values without falling into dogmatism? What I'm saying is, it doesn't seem to me really possible to say someone's values are right or wrong. What do you think?
I agree that the answers to the relativism challenge are extremely unsatisfying. That's one reason (among many) why I'm not a quasi-realist. >> It seems that it's the same as Verity's indifference to the cruelty of slavery. What would be your response to someone telling you you have wrong fundamental values about this? I don't see them as the same, for one reason because my indifference to animals does not, in my view at least, require drawing arbitrary lines. I know that lots of folks disagree with that, but as I discuss in the "Animals Don't Matter", I think there are plausible responses to the marginal cases argument. (Endorsing slavery doesn't necessarily require drawing arbitrary lines either, but with Verity we're imagining somebody who does defend it on this basis. Maybe Verity defends race-based slavery, even though racial categories have changed so much over time and the lines between races are always vague since all humans can interbreed.) >> The second is your earlier "why use reason?" video. At the beginning of that video, you explained that the video could only talk to people who already acknowledge reason, not to somebody who doesn't care about reason at all (if such a person is really there). Well, what if Verity doesn't care about coherence in similar fashion, how could we say she has wrong values without falling into dogmatism? In the "Why Use Reason?", I had in mind a global irrationalist, somebody who rejects all arguments. Verity just might not care about coherence in the moral domain specifically. Maybe she agrees that moral judgments are expressions of attitude, and she doesn't think there are any rational constraints whatsoever on attitudes, so that there's nothing irrational about holding conflicting attitudes. >> What I'm saying is, it doesn't seem to me really possible to say someone's values are right or wrong. What do you think? I agree. I'm an antirealist, and I'm not interested in tranquilizing the position to make it more palatable to realists. Realists are just wrong, and I wish philosophers would quit being shy about saying that.
Hi Kane, really enjoyed the video! I am writing an honours thesis on the meta-ethics of moral progress. Could you please tell me which reading in particular I should look at to find out more about Blackburn's notion of moral progress?
Ur metaethics videos r always great,but I wonder if u have any plan to revisit ur political philosophy vids . I mean,given ur philosophical background n intellectual elegance, u must have a lot to say about current issues,like wokeism ,free speech debate or whatever.
Thank you! I feel like anything I'd have to say on topics like that has probably been said better by other people. Every now and then, I make notes for videos on current "hot button" topics... but sooner or later, I always lose confidence and delete them.
@@KaneB come on,man. We all know ur articulation is dripping with lucidity . U invest a great deal of effort to present both sides of an argument n treat them fairly.Most importantly,no theaterical bullshits n plainly enjoyable elegant explanation of an issue.
@@zwelthureinmyo3747 I appreciate the kind words! Bear in mind though that if my videos are high quality, one reason for this is that I'm careful to select topics that I know I can discuss well. I'm much more likely to bungle a video on, say, the contemporary free speech debate. Having said that, you're not the only person to have asked for this kind of thing. I'll have a think about it.
Here's how I describe morality. I think this fits under quasi-realism, but not sure. Using an example of "punching someone in the face", we can clearly see the subjectiveness of morality. Sometimes punching someone in the face is immoral - beating up on people. Sometimes it is not immoral - karate practice. The key difference is did the person want to get punched in the face or were they unwillingly harmed by it? While the morality of the act is subjective, the harm caused by the act is coherent. The harm caused to the unwilling victim is objective. In the example of slavery, forced labor, the fact that the victim does not want to be a slave is baked into the definition of slavery. Therefore, slavery is always wrong. It is important to note that harm can be offset through compensation. And an immoral act can be made moral if the victim is adequately compensated. Also important is intent and probability of harm. If I give you flowers, unaware that you are allergic to flowers, this may not be immoral, but I still may owe you comoensation.
I think what you say here could be compatible with a range of metaethical views. This seems more like a normative theory than a metaethical theory. So whether it's quasi-realism I guess depends on what your account is of a statement like, "It is wrong to impose harm on somebody without their consent." Is this true independently of people's attitudes? If so, what makes it true?
@@KaneB in my view it is by definition. The definition of immoral in my system is "causing harm on someone without their consent". Not sure where that puts it
@@InventiveHarvest I'm not sure either but it's the only sensible definition I've found. If following a definition of morality to its theoretical conclusion doesn't lead to a world in which no will can be transgressed then I find the entire concept is rather pointless to pursue beyond vague intuitive conflict resolving. If there is no life-resolving end goal then I check out.
@@InventiveHarvest In that case, anybody who uses the term in a different way -- and there are plenty of people who do -- turn out not to be making moral judgments. Frank is a utilitarian and so does not think it is by definition wrong to impose harm on someone without their consent. When he says, "slavery is sometimes morally acceptable," you don't really disagree with him, because you're just defining terms differently. Frank isn't, per your view, actually making a moral judgment. But clearly, he is making some sort of normative judgment. So I guess the question would be: what it is that makes morality (per your definition) preferable to other normative systems? Do you think it's an objective fact, independent of people's attitudes, that moral rules are correct (and these other rules incorrect)? If so, what makes this a fact?
@@KaneB i dont think it is floating out there in the universe. But I dont think you would need that to be objective. If someone is harming others, you can say "you are being objectively immoral" whether or not they care about being objectively immoral is up to them. But we can use it as a basis for law. Similarly, the number one is a human defined term, but once we have that, we can say that one plus one is objectively two.
Hi Kane, this is an unrelated question and all but what’s your position on the mind-body problem and which theory of the mind do you find most plausible?
I don't know. It's difficult to figure out what my position is because I don't think think the standard conceptual space is well-defined. Usually, when philosophers talk about the mind-body problem, it's framed in terms of the relation between mental properties and physical properties. I don't know what "physical properties" are. I don't buy physicalism as a metaphysical thesis -- not because I think there are "nonphysical properties" but because the very distinction between physical vs nonphysical is problematic.
Do you think there's is a way to get general agreement about what rules a society should accept if error theory is true? Do you think at list most people would value a general agreement? Maybe because most want peace? I'm asking this because I want to know what you think and because many moral realists seems to value moral realism BECAUSE moral realism could end disagreement and avoid war... Maybe that's true, maybe Simon wants the same thing... So... If error theory could get something close to it, it would look sexier to them...
>> Do you think there's is a way to get general agreement about what rules a society should accept if error theory is true? It depends on what you mean by "general agreement". In practice, enough people seem to share certain values and goals that we're able to get a consensus on a bunch of rules. I doubt we'll ever have universal agreement on anything, though. But this doesn't really have anything to do with metaethics. This is more a point about psychology/sociology. >> I'm asking this because I want to know what you think and because many moral realists seems to value moral realism BECAUSE moral realism could end disagreement and avoid war It's pretty obvious that moral realism doesn't do that, though. Moral realism is a metaethical position, and with respect to normative theories, moral realists disagree just as vehemently as everyone else.
@@KaneB by general agreement I meant enough agreement to evoid war, big conflicts. I meant that if moral realism was/is true, maybe it make easier to solve normative theories shit, a hope some dispute could end, like that Triple Theory of Derek Parfit. But they disagree a lot as you said. Thank you
A exemplo about what a moral realist world could do and a error theory world couldn't: Powerful aliens want to kill humanity, we have nothing they want to negotiate with then. If error theory is true, game over, we gonna die, they want to kill us, we can't protect ourselves or negotiate with then. In a moral realism world maybe there's is a way if a believe can motivate. You tell the aliens that kill mankind is wrong and you tell them why is wrong, somehow this create motivation and they stop. How motivation works can give or kill hope about how disagreement couldn't or could be solved. That's why be very shore about what motivated beings is so important.
@@jacklessa9729 an error theorist could do this too. for example, if the aliens think killing each other is wrong, then we could show that it's inconsistent to think killing humans is right, because there's no relevant difference between us, that would make one right and one wrong. in fact, this is how actual moral arguments tend to work in practice. u don't tend to try to convince someone of a moral position by saying that it's a stance independent moral fact that x is wrong (because this isn't any more persuasive than just saying "x is wrong"). instead, you try to argue from shared commitments to the position that x is wrong
44:24 that's why moral realists, objectivists or quasi realists are subconsciously actually non-cognitivists. They don't prove Verity wrong, but simply blame her "Buh!", for not attaching the same properties as they want. And the mismatch here arises from the fact that there are no such properties. Complex concepts, terms, ideas, etc. have no analytic properties. That slavery is bad is a contingent truth. And the property bad also may not refer to slavery itself, but to the slave holders, or even not to them but to their behavior, and maybe not to that, but more to their ugly looking, and maybe not to that but to their smell, cloths, voice, speech, etc. You can't even objectively say that math is hard, because there will be always someone, who finds the stuff you struggle with easy.
@@KaneB Are u being contrarian right know? I don't think u need to have deep understanding of ST for the context of SR vs SA debate. At least that's what i took from what Brown was saying.
@@Krakkk No, I'm being honest. I don't intend to do any reading on string theory. There are about 100 topics that I'm more interested in than string theory, and I only have time for 5 or 6 of them. So unless my interests significantly change for some reason, I won't be learning string theory anytime soon. As for the "no alternatives" argument Brown was referencing, I did have a look over a paper about it, and I don't agree with how he presented it. As I understand it, the claim is not that the empirical adequacy of currently accepted theories rules out everything except string theory, but that scientists have been unable to conceive of an alternative to string theory. That leaves a lot of room open for standard antirealist arguments. Indeed, it's not particularly surprising, from most antirealist points of view, that scientists might be unable to conceive of alternatives in certain contexts (Stanford's "unconceived alternatives" argument would lead us to expect this, for instance).
A somewhat unusual form of correspondence theory. I don't buy deflationism because there are loads of situations in which we assert things we know to be false, such as the use of idealizations in science.
@@KaneB Would you ever do a video on Gila Sher's "Composite" correspondence theory? Or Terry Horgan's "Indirect" correspondence? Or various moderate pluralist theories of truth? I find these appealing but hard to wrap my head around.
No, that conversation was pretty depressing. Moreover, I'd worry that it might actually be harmful to my channel. Consider a casual viewer, who has an interest in philosophy and has seen a couple of my videos. If they were to view that conversation, what would they think? A reasonable reaction would be: "Oh, this Kane guy obviously doesn't know anything about the topics he talks about. So I'll stop watching his videos." In some ways, our first conversation was similar, in that I didn't really have much of a response to anything you said. But that wasn't a big deal, because it was a conversation on a topic that I hadn't done much research on anyway. I approached that more with the goal of learning something rather than defending a position. But scientific realism? That's literally what I've specialized in for the past several years, lol. I should have done a better job with that.
@@KaneB I hope you know that was not my intention with the conversation. I really like you and meant no harm, I didnt know anything Richard was going to bring up. I was as suprised as you that it went that way. But it's not your fault, live rhetorical skills arent a sign of really knowing what you're talking about, its just a sign that your a good showman or live performer. Only an idiot would mistake rhetorical skills for actual intelligence or good points. But then again I guess there are a lot of idiots out there haha
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 Yeah, of course. I don't think it's anybody's fault that it played out the way it did. (Anyway, you don't have any intentions at all with anything you do, right? 😉) Looking back on it, I think I made a serious mistake in just accepting at face value how the "no alternatives" argument was initially presented. If I'd pushed for a bit more detail about it, I would have seen the ways left open for antirealist responses, and we might have had a productive conversation about that. Part of the reason why I didn't do this is just that, as I mentioned at the time, I'm not comfortable talking publicly about topics that I don't consider myself sufficiently educated about, which is the case for string theory. But actually, the specific details of string theory don't really matter for some of those responses. Oh well, you live and learn.
@@KaneB Yes, good catch. When nothing is ever your intention it makes it much easier to say to you didn't intend to do something. But it would take a clever guy like you to notice a little detail like that. I'll say this again, I was very impressed at your follow up video to our first convo, you summarized my position much better than I could of. I often now link people to that video instead of explaining my position, I just tell them to watch your video instead.
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 >> you summarized my position much better than I could of. I often now link people to that video instead of explaining my position, I just tell them to watch your video instead. Wow, thanks dawg! I guess I usually get there in the end, it just takes me a while sometimes!
Some years from today, many things that we consider normal mundane things will become gross. E.g. Maybe marriage will be considered barbarous. And people will be canceled for arguing for marriage. We are not converging on ultimate true morals, we are simply witnessing a change in moral beliefs. A change doesn't necessarily mean convergence. In mathematics and science, a convergence means an entirely different thing than what philosopher mean by it. It is like that END OF HISTORY hubris, which is very typical of western thought.
Great vid. I am pro-putting realists into their place wherever humanly possible, like while ordering at Wendy's. Naive realism is ridiculously, offensively untenable. I can, maybe, only accept realist propositions when they apply exclusively to primitive propositions, like: one ought not to effect what a subject will perceive as "harm". These sentences would be all essentially axioms which one can project from, but there are no operations to link them together (without losing the desired realist quality). But as soon as you enter the --eukaryote-- 21st century man realm you just sound like the biggest clown secreting your realist claims all over the place. Your slavery example is way too composite lmao. Provincial, even. I am fully pro-slavery and also pro-ice cream -- I would even say they are the biggest moral good -- under certain frameworks. Realism has the same problem as propositional logic: it tries to do too much with unfitting tools that can't model the complexity and nuance of the real world humans/agents inhabit. Realists should go play with Lego, as toy models are the only time when realism doesn't look childish. I am not sure how to approach quasi-realism. It seems to flabby and sentimental for my taste.
If we adopt deflationary theory, then there is a unicorn in my room. I mean how ridiculous to have a name for such a view. LOL Well, 1 = 2 is also true then, isn't it. How ridiculous. As a famous christian apologist william craig puts it, philosophers sometimes do actually loose it. The whole philosophy of language business should have stopped with Wittgenstein.
i have thin walls and the "yeah slavery" is probably going to make by neighbours look at me different.
This channel truly improves my intellectual life. Thank you 😊
Have you ever thought of doing a video on pragmatic theories of truth? Although they are fringe I personally find some versions to be quite compelling. They capture a different angle than the correspondence theory of truth (which seems to me to have some pretty big problems). BIG UP
Yes, I want to do this. I'd like to do a series on truth in general, but it's just that there are loads of other topics I want to talk about as well! I'll note that I've covered similar themes to pragmatic approaches to truth in my video on "Science, Knowledge, and Complexity" (though as the title suggests, it's more phil of science): th-cam.com/video/4l5Y_Vt7Vc8/w-d-xo.html
I enjoy your videos. We philosophers of meta ethics should stick together.
Can you make a video about metaethical constructivism?
Yes, I'm planning on that. I don't know when I'll have it done.
That's a good one.
great video. Have you managed to make the video on attempts to solve Frege-Geach yet? It seems like none of the attempts work but difficult to follow the literature because it is very technical
As an a level philosophy student hoping to do philosophy as part of his degree, this is one of my favourite philosophy channels if not my favourite.
Our of interest, what are your favourite philosophy books? (either for being enjoyable to read or most philosophically compelling)
Thank you!
Here's a top 10:
A.J. Ayer, "Language, Truth, and Logic"
Bas van Fraassen, "The Scientific Image" and "The Empirical Stance"
David Hume, "Treatise"
David Lewis, "On the Plurality of Worlds"
Graham Priest, "In Contradiction"
Ian Hacking, "Representing and Intervening"
Max Stirner, "The Ego and Its Own"
Paul Feyerabend, "Against Method"
Robert Nozick, "Philosophical Explanations"
@@KaneB thank you!
@@KaneB I'm seeing Ayer on more lists than I used to. Is he making a comeback, or am I just getting better at filtering for people with similar philosophical inclinations?
@@lanceindependent I'm not sure, though my impression is that things are going in the opposite direction. Of course, it might be that people are interested in Ayer despite disagreeing with him. I think Lewis's "On the Plurality of Worlds" is completely mistaken, both in detail and in spirit, but it still made my top 10.
Your videos are awesome
Would you consider making vids on normative ethics?
Thanks! I do have a few videos on normative ethics already, and I'll probably revisit the topic from time to time. It's just not the area I'm most interested in.
@@KaneB
I see
I would really like a vid on consequentialist theories, primarily on negative utilitarianism
@@justus4684 I don't have any current plans for that, but I'll bear it in mind. I guess I've always felt that with normative ethics, there are probably already a lot of videos that cover this ground? I dunno, but it seems like this is a fairly popular topic as far as philosophy goes, so I expect other philosophy youtubers have done a lot on it. I'm not sure if there's much new that I could bring to the table. (Contrast this with a topic like quasi-realism in metaethics, where there are other videos on it, but none that are organized as a lecture that goes into as much detail -- as far as I know, at least.)
@@KaneB
There is little to no stuff and no very in depth stuff on negative utilitarianism in particular
@@justus4684 That's surprising! I'm more inclined to do something on this now, since I think there'd be a large audience for it.
I found quite a bit to agree with in your account of quasi-realism, like eschewing the "metaphyics" of ethical claims, or what looks to me like an assumption of correspondence-foundationalist ideas about truth . Although I wouldn't call my own views "non-cognitive". I have some intuition that the truth conditions of moral claims are grounded in a similar way to claims about money. Something *actually* being a $20 dollar bill is, to a large extent, dependent on people's attitudes and beliefs and institutional norms, but it also seems like a fact (or at least its not up to an individual to decide, not just "relative" etc.), even though its hard to point to the set of facts in/about the world that make it so.
Also - as an aside - why are we so quick to dismiss emotional reactions as not truth-apt (or something like it)? There are some areas of ethics and aesthetics that treat emotional reactions as "apt" or "appropriate", where some agents can fail in certain circumstances to show the correct reactive attitudes.
Same. I often use the money analogy too.
The idea that something is either a fact or a value becomes a false dichotomy with social facts, its very much entangled in a way that if we force the distinction, we lose something meaningful in the process.
>> why are we so quick to dismiss emotional reactions as not truth-apt
Quasi-realism is itself an attempt to vindicate the idea that emotional reactions can be "apt" or "appropriate", so I don't think they are dismissive of this. There is a closely related point here, which is that it's not obvious that emotions are actually noncognitive states in the first place. Cognitive theories of emotion are taken seriously among psychologists and philosophers of mind. To my knowledge, this point has not received much attention from noncognitivists. I'm not sure why that is. Jesse Prinz, in "The Emotional Construction of Morals", develops a sentimentalist, antirealist account of morality that takes into account this work on emotion.
@@KaneB Problem is, if we bring back a cognitive view of emotions, then we have to face the paradox of fiction again! :)
Thanks mate! I have a few of Blackburn's books, his writing is rather fun at times
Thank you for your teachings.
A great video as usual! I'll need to watch it again as there are some parts I'm confused about, but for now I have a particular question.
It seemed to me that when you were explaining what sorts of answers could be given to Verity's relativism, that the answers were probably dogmatic in a sense! If Verity disagrees with us on some fundamental values, if she doesn't care about the cruelty of slavery or the coherence of her beliefs, what basis do we have to say that she is missing some facts? Furthermore, if our point is to show that there are such facts, then she could say we are just begging the question!
I'd like to put this side to side with two other attitudes/positions you've talked about before. One is your indifference to animal suffering. It seems that it's the same as Verity's indifference to the cruelty of slavery. What would be your response to someone telling you you have wrong fundamental values about this?
The second is your earlier "why use reason?" video. At the beginning of that video, you explained that the video could only talk to people who already acknowledge reason, not to somebody who doesn't care about reason at all (if such a person is really there). Well, what if Verity doesn't care about coherence in similar fashion, how could we say she has wrong values without falling into dogmatism?
What I'm saying is, it doesn't seem to me really possible to say someone's values are right or wrong. What do you think?
I agree that the answers to the relativism challenge are extremely unsatisfying. That's one reason (among many) why I'm not a quasi-realist.
>> It seems that it's the same as Verity's indifference to the cruelty of slavery. What would be your response to someone telling you you have wrong fundamental values about this?
I don't see them as the same, for one reason because my indifference to animals does not, in my view at least, require drawing arbitrary lines. I know that lots of folks disagree with that, but as I discuss in the "Animals Don't Matter", I think there are plausible responses to the marginal cases argument. (Endorsing slavery doesn't necessarily require drawing arbitrary lines either, but with Verity we're imagining somebody who does defend it on this basis. Maybe Verity defends race-based slavery, even though racial categories have changed so much over time and the lines between races are always vague since all humans can interbreed.)
>> The second is your earlier "why use reason?" video. At the beginning of that video, you explained that the video could only talk to people who already acknowledge reason, not to somebody who doesn't care about reason at all (if such a person is really there). Well, what if Verity doesn't care about coherence in similar fashion, how could we say she has wrong values without falling into dogmatism?
In the "Why Use Reason?", I had in mind a global irrationalist, somebody who rejects all arguments. Verity just might not care about coherence in the moral domain specifically. Maybe she agrees that moral judgments are expressions of attitude, and she doesn't think there are any rational constraints whatsoever on attitudes, so that there's nothing irrational about holding conflicting attitudes.
>> What I'm saying is, it doesn't seem to me really possible to say someone's values are right or wrong. What do you think?
I agree. I'm an antirealist, and I'm not interested in tranquilizing the position to make it more palatable to realists. Realists are just wrong, and I wish philosophers would quit being shy about saying that.
Hi Kane, really enjoyed the video! I am writing an honours thesis on the meta-ethics of moral progress. Could you please tell me which reading in particular I should look at to find out more about Blackburn's notion of moral progress?
I just heard your quasi realism talk with Rationality Rules.
Did we talk about that? I know we discussed metaethics, but I don't recall bringing up quasi-realism specifically in that conversation.
@@KaneB Someone did. You, Cole or RR did. I don't remember. I just finished it yesterday.
Great fucking video, is there essays you’ve used or that i could read to advance a larger perspective?
I list them in the video description.
Ur metaethics videos r always great,but I wonder if u have any plan to revisit ur political philosophy vids .
I mean,given ur philosophical background n intellectual elegance, u must have a lot to say about current issues,like wokeism ,free speech debate or whatever.
Thank you! I feel like anything I'd have to say on topics like that has probably been said better by other people. Every now and then, I make notes for videos on current "hot button" topics... but sooner or later, I always lose confidence and delete them.
@@KaneB come on,man.
We all know ur articulation is dripping with lucidity . U invest a great deal of effort to present both sides of an argument n treat them fairly.Most importantly,no theaterical bullshits n plainly enjoyable elegant explanation of an issue.
@@zwelthureinmyo3747 I appreciate the kind words! Bear in mind though that if my videos are high quality, one reason for this is that I'm careful to select topics that I know I can discuss well. I'm much more likely to bungle a video on, say, the contemporary free speech debate. Having said that, you're not the only person to have asked for this kind of thing. I'll have a think about it.
Here's how I describe morality. I think this fits under quasi-realism, but not sure.
Using an example of "punching someone in the face", we can clearly see the subjectiveness of morality. Sometimes punching someone in the face is immoral - beating up on people. Sometimes it is not immoral - karate practice. The key difference is did the person want to get punched in the face or were they unwillingly harmed by it?
While the morality of the act is subjective, the harm caused by the act is coherent. The harm caused to the unwilling victim is objective.
In the example of slavery, forced labor, the fact that the victim does not want to be a slave is baked into the definition of slavery. Therefore, slavery is always wrong.
It is important to note that harm can be offset through compensation. And an immoral act can be made moral if the victim is adequately compensated. Also important is intent and probability of harm. If I give you flowers, unaware that you are allergic to flowers, this may not be immoral, but I still may owe you comoensation.
I think what you say here could be compatible with a range of metaethical views. This seems more like a normative theory than a metaethical theory. So whether it's quasi-realism I guess depends on what your account is of a statement like, "It is wrong to impose harm on somebody without their consent." Is this true independently of people's attitudes? If so, what makes it true?
@@KaneB in my view it is by definition. The definition of immoral in my system is "causing harm on someone without their consent". Not sure where that puts it
@@InventiveHarvest I'm not sure either but it's the only sensible definition I've found. If following a definition of morality to its theoretical conclusion doesn't lead to a world in which no will can be transgressed then I find the entire concept is rather pointless to pursue beyond vague intuitive conflict resolving. If there is no life-resolving end goal then I check out.
@@InventiveHarvest In that case, anybody who uses the term in a different way -- and there are plenty of people who do -- turn out not to be making moral judgments. Frank is a utilitarian and so does not think it is by definition wrong to impose harm on someone without their consent. When he says, "slavery is sometimes morally acceptable," you don't really disagree with him, because you're just defining terms differently. Frank isn't, per your view, actually making a moral judgment. But clearly, he is making some sort of normative judgment. So I guess the question would be: what it is that makes morality (per your definition) preferable to other normative systems? Do you think it's an objective fact, independent of people's attitudes, that moral rules are correct (and these other rules incorrect)? If so, what makes this a fact?
@@KaneB i dont think it is floating out there in the universe. But I dont think you would need that to be objective. If someone is harming others, you can say "you are being objectively immoral" whether or not they care about being objectively immoral is up to them. But we can use it as a basis for law. Similarly, the number one is a human defined term, but once we have that, we can say that one plus one is objectively two.
Hi Kane, this is an unrelated question and all but what’s your position on the mind-body problem and which theory of the mind do you find most plausible?
I don't know. It's difficult to figure out what my position is because I don't think think the standard conceptual space is well-defined. Usually, when philosophers talk about the mind-body problem, it's framed in terms of the relation between mental properties and physical properties. I don't know what "physical properties" are. I don't buy physicalism as a metaphysical thesis -- not because I think there are "nonphysical properties" but because the very distinction between physical vs nonphysical is problematic.
Cognitivism seems to me a failed attempt to fix objectivism. Non-cognitism seems more like Austin's performative utterances.
Do you think there's is a way to get general agreement about what rules a society should accept if error theory is true?
Do you think at list most people would value a general agreement? Maybe because most want peace?
I'm asking this because I want to know what you think and because many moral realists seems to value moral realism BECAUSE moral realism could end disagreement and avoid war... Maybe that's true, maybe Simon wants the same thing...
So... If error theory could get something close to it, it would look sexier to them...
>> Do you think there's is a way to get general agreement about what rules a society should accept if error theory is true?
It depends on what you mean by "general agreement". In practice, enough people seem to share certain values and goals that we're able to get a consensus on a bunch of rules. I doubt we'll ever have universal agreement on anything, though. But this doesn't really have anything to do with metaethics. This is more a point about psychology/sociology.
>> I'm asking this because I want to know what you think and because many moral realists seems to value moral realism BECAUSE moral realism could end disagreement and avoid war
It's pretty obvious that moral realism doesn't do that, though. Moral realism is a metaethical position, and with respect to normative theories, moral realists disagree just as vehemently as everyone else.
@@KaneB by general agreement I meant enough agreement to evoid war, big conflicts.
I meant that if moral realism was/is true, maybe it make easier to solve normative theories shit, a hope some dispute could end, like that Triple Theory of Derek Parfit. But they disagree a lot as you said.
Thank you
A exemplo about what a moral realist world could do and a error theory world couldn't:
Powerful aliens want to kill humanity, we have nothing they want to negotiate with then.
If error theory is true, game over, we gonna die, they want to kill us, we can't protect ourselves or negotiate with then.
In a moral realism world maybe there's is a way if a believe can motivate. You tell the aliens that kill mankind is wrong and you tell them why is wrong, somehow this create motivation and they stop.
How motivation works can give or kill hope about how disagreement couldn't or could be solved. That's why be very shore about what motivated beings is so important.
@@jacklessa9729 an error theorist could do this too. for example, if the aliens think killing each other is wrong, then we could show that it's inconsistent to think killing humans is right, because there's no relevant difference between us, that would make one right and one wrong. in fact, this is how actual moral arguments tend to work in practice. u don't tend to try to convince someone of a moral position by saying that it's a stance independent moral fact that x is wrong (because this isn't any more persuasive than just saying "x is wrong"). instead, you try to argue from shared commitments to the position that x is wrong
44:24 that's why moral realists, objectivists or quasi realists are subconsciously actually non-cognitivists. They don't prove Verity wrong, but simply blame her "Buh!", for not attaching the same properties as they want. And the mismatch here arises from the fact that there are no such properties. Complex concepts, terms, ideas, etc. have no analytic properties. That slavery is bad is a contingent truth. And the property bad also may not refer to slavery itself, but to the slave holders, or even not to them but to their behavior, and maybe not to that, but more to their ugly looking, and maybe not to that but to their smell, cloths, voice, speech, etc.
You can't even objectively say that math is hard, because there will be always someone, who finds the stuff you struggle with easy.
When will u upload a video on String Theory
?
Obviously that's not going to happen.
@@KaneB U planing to do some reading on string theory?
@@Krakkk No.
@@KaneB Are u being contrarian right know? I don't think u need to have deep understanding of ST for the context of SR vs SA debate. At least that's what i took from what Brown was saying.
@@Krakkk No, I'm being honest. I don't intend to do any reading on string theory. There are about 100 topics that I'm more interested in than string theory, and I only have time for 5 or 6 of them. So unless my interests significantly change for some reason, I won't be learning string theory anytime soon.
As for the "no alternatives" argument Brown was referencing, I did have a look over a paper about it, and I don't agree with how he presented it. As I understand it, the claim is not that the empirical adequacy of currently accepted theories rules out everything except string theory, but that scientists have been unable to conceive of an alternative to string theory. That leaves a lot of room open for standard antirealist arguments. Indeed, it's not particularly surprising, from most antirealist points of view, that scientists might be unable to conceive of alternatives in certain contexts (Stanford's "unconceived alternatives" argument would lead us to expect this, for instance).
Namste from India
ONE.
What’s your theory of truth? I’ve always found the deflationary theory of truth to be appealing.
A somewhat unusual form of correspondence theory. I don't buy deflationism because there are loads of situations in which we assert things we know to be false, such as the use of idealizations in science.
@@KaneB Would you ever do a video on Gila Sher's "Composite" correspondence theory? Or Terry Horgan's "Indirect" correspondence? Or various moderate pluralist theories of truth? I find these appealing but hard to wrap my head around.
Speaking of quasi-realism you ever gonna repost the convo with Richard and I? Or do you find it too unflattering?
No, that conversation was pretty depressing. Moreover, I'd worry that it might actually be harmful to my channel. Consider a casual viewer, who has an interest in philosophy and has seen a couple of my videos. If they were to view that conversation, what would they think? A reasonable reaction would be: "Oh, this Kane guy obviously doesn't know anything about the topics he talks about. So I'll stop watching his videos."
In some ways, our first conversation was similar, in that I didn't really have much of a response to anything you said. But that wasn't a big deal, because it was a conversation on a topic that I hadn't done much research on anyway. I approached that more with the goal of learning something rather than defending a position. But scientific realism? That's literally what I've specialized in for the past several years, lol. I should have done a better job with that.
@@KaneB I hope you know that was not my intention with the conversation. I really like you and meant no harm, I didnt know anything Richard was going to bring up. I was as suprised as you that it went that way. But it's not your fault, live rhetorical skills arent a sign of really knowing what you're talking about, its just a sign that your a good showman or live performer. Only an idiot would mistake rhetorical skills for actual intelligence or good points. But then again I guess there are a lot of idiots out there haha
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 Yeah, of course. I don't think it's anybody's fault that it played out the way it did. (Anyway, you don't have any intentions at all with anything you do, right? 😉)
Looking back on it, I think I made a serious mistake in just accepting at face value how the "no alternatives" argument was initially presented. If I'd pushed for a bit more detail about it, I would have seen the ways left open for antirealist responses, and we might have had a productive conversation about that. Part of the reason why I didn't do this is just that, as I mentioned at the time, I'm not comfortable talking publicly about topics that I don't consider myself sufficiently educated about, which is the case for string theory. But actually, the specific details of string theory don't really matter for some of those responses. Oh well, you live and learn.
@@KaneB Yes, good catch. When nothing is ever your intention it makes it much easier to say to you didn't intend to do something. But it would take a clever guy like you to notice a little detail like that. I'll say this again, I was very impressed at your follow up video to our first convo, you summarized my position much better than I could of. I often now link people to that video instead of explaining my position, I just tell them to watch your video instead.
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 >> you summarized my position much better than I could of. I often now link people to that video instead of explaining my position, I just tell them to watch your video instead.
Wow, thanks dawg!
I guess I usually get there in the end, it just takes me a while sometimes!
Hi Kane, not sure if this is the best way to reach you, but I was wondering if you'd like to collaborate on a video sometime.
Sure, happy to do that. My email is in my channel description (can't post it here because TH-cam removes comments with links)
Some years from today, many things that we consider normal mundane things will become gross.
E.g. Maybe marriage will be considered barbarous. And people will be canceled for arguing for marriage. We are not converging on ultimate true morals, we are simply witnessing a change in moral beliefs. A change doesn't necessarily mean convergence.
In mathematics and science, a convergence means an entirely different thing than what philosopher mean by it. It is like that END OF HISTORY hubris, which is very typical of western thought.
Great vid. I am pro-putting realists into their place wherever humanly possible, like while ordering at Wendy's.
Naive realism is ridiculously, offensively untenable. I can, maybe, only accept realist propositions when they apply exclusively to primitive propositions, like: one ought not to effect what a subject will perceive as "harm". These sentences would be all essentially axioms which one can project from, but there are no operations to link them together (without losing the desired realist quality).
But as soon as you enter the --eukaryote-- 21st century man realm you just sound like the biggest clown secreting your realist claims all over the place.
Your slavery example is way too composite lmao. Provincial, even.
I am fully pro-slavery and also pro-ice cream -- I would even say they are the biggest moral good -- under certain frameworks.
Realism has the same problem as propositional logic: it tries to do too much with unfitting tools that can't model the complexity and nuance of the real world humans/agents inhabit.
Realists should go play with Lego, as toy models are the only time when realism doesn't look childish.
I am not sure how to approach quasi-realism. It seems to flabby and sentimental for my taste.
If we adopt deflationary theory, then there is a unicorn in my room.
I mean how ridiculous to have a name for such a view. LOL
Well, 1 = 2 is also true then, isn't it. How ridiculous.
As a famous christian apologist william craig puts it, philosophers sometimes do actually loose it.
The whole philosophy of language business should have stopped with Wittgenstein.
I don't think u understood the deflationary theory of truth. it isn't the view that every proposition is true