Metaethics: Crash Course Philosophy #32
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ต.ค. 2016
- We begin our unit on ethics with a look at metaethics. Hank explains three forms of moral realism - moral absolutism, and cultural relativism, including the difference between descriptive and normative cultural relativism - and moral subjectivism, which is a form of moral antirealism. Finally, we’ll introduce the concept of an ethical theory.
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I remember taking this at university, but I Kant remember any of it.
I like Fiorello La Guardia's take on the question of stealing to feed your family. After being legally obligated to fine a woman ten dollars for doing just that during the Depression, he paid her fine out of his own pocket, then fined every person in the courtroom twenty-five cents "for the crime of living in a city where a woman has no choice but to steal or watch her grandson starve."
So I'm Mormon.... the more and more I dig into ethics, morals and philosophy the more I start to doubt religion. Not just mine alone but religion as a whole... idk, I feel bad about it but then again this seems so logical in my quest to understand what life is and how we operate.
Have you guys tried deluding yourselves with conspiracy theories? There are youtube videos for that too.
atine834 I'm a baptist Christian and I think science and philosophy can help with faith. Of course there are somethings in science like the evolution theory that opposes god but u can differentiate what is right and wrong urself
***** Wow, that's an interesting take on it. I am actually just going to write it all out and do as you said. Cheers!
You are not alone in feeling this way. Authoritative models of morality, in my experience, really suffer under outside scrutiny, since by definition they are based on a sort of 'decree' rather than anything about the acts themselves. It begins to feel very arbitrary... which is not *necessarily* a bad thing, but it *is* definitely a thing.
It's absurd to think that you can just dismiss things that you happen to disagree with in science. There is no basis for being able to differentiate "what is right and wrong urself" without having some basis of justification. Doing that and then looking at science as having any merit at all is massively hypocritical, and so either insincere or self-oblivious.
Either understand science and pursue unbiased truth (challenging whatever you want but not simply throwing things out for no reason), or deny it wholesale. Cherry-picking is logically unacceptable, as you should know if you're serious about studying either science or philosophy.
0:22 slight typo.
misspelled "morality" as "mortality"
But, like, what *is* mortality anyway?
CrashCourse Brain procedes to explode.
Aaliyah Adesida, noted that too.
Aaliyah Adesida , what does it feel like having crash course reply to you?.......
CrashCourse, A grammatical construct that has, for Western english speakers, a different meaning than morality.
I really appreciate that this episode closed on a notion that one should always be self-examining and trying to understand why they feel a certain way. Thank you CC!
I'm really loving how objective and balanced you're being about all of these topics. I appreciate it a lot.
Moral of the story:
The burglar was bad at being a burglar.
Jippy Panjo AND he should go to jail for being bad at being a burglar.
Ha ha ha.
To equate burglar to be bad is a tautology.
Jippy Panjo yeah but like, what is a burglar anyway?
True
But also the woman bad at Changing batteries in carbon detector 😂
For the burglar story, could you separate moral intentions from moral outcomes? His moral intentions were wrong, but his moral outcome was right. That would leave us with four different categories.
These are principles of many ethical theories. Utilitarianism would say the robber was good as the outcome caused more pleasure than pain to more people. Deontology would say the robber was bad as his intentions were evil. Other theories, such as virtue ethics, attempt to combine the two.
I would consider myself as utilitarian (considering most things at least) and I would say that the burglar did a good thing, but still doesn't deserve praise and also still deserves blame and consequentially judicial persecution.
What he did was certainly useful since he saved the life of a fellow human. However, he did attempt to break into someones home and steal stuff.
Things would have looked better for him (both in an ethical sense and a judicial sense) if he would have called an ambulance upon encountering the unconscious woman.
+Florian Haydn If the burglar did a good thing, why doesn't he deserve praise? In Utilitarianism the only thing that counts is the outcome of an action. So from a Utilitarianist perspective the burglar's actions were equally as good as the actions of a paramedic saving the old woman's life. If you assign moral value to a person's intentions, you are not a Utilitarian.
ilovemypiano
Well, for practical reasons. I agree that this might be breaking with pure Utilitarianism, but he was breaking into another persons home. Laws aren't necessarily moral.
+Florian Haydn So you are arguing that from a purely moral perspective
the burglar did the right thing, is a good person and deserves praise,
but from the perspective of the law he should be punished. Did I
understand that correctly? If yes, why do you think that law and
morality should be opposed? Isn't it normal to think that the law should
be an implementation of our moral principles?
I've gotten more and more interested in Philosophy lately, and I decided to join my high school ethics bowl team. Whenever I'm interested in any topics, I've found your videos extremely helpful, and recently the philosophy crash course videos have been very useful!
i watched the good place and now i'm obsessed with philosophy
I did my philosophy dissertation on the Divine command Theory and the effects evolution has on morality. I can't wait to see more of this series
Hey, I don't know if you will see this,but if you have time to answer,can I as you what domain are you working now on,with your degree?I am majoring in philosophy too,but in my country going to university is debt free.
It seems like the most fundamental question which all ethical frameworks would need to answer is if it's actions, intentions, or results by which someone should be judged. An ethical framework can usually only be built on one of those, but most people would agree that all three matter. So we already have a place where moral intuition can't be easily translated into ethical theory.
One of the nice things about virtue ethics is that it's able to take just about anything into consideration. (It's also one of the difficulties, as it rarely gives one definitive, simple answer as to what one should do.)
Your typical ethical theory looks at an isolated event from the point of view of an abstract person and then judges that event. (Is that a good or a bad thing to do, in the abstract?) In contrast, virtue ethics is all about the character of the person. (What kind of person would I be if I did this?) It easily combines action, intention, context, personal history, etc., typically as part of a lifelong project of improving oneself.
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Intuitions, even those held by a single person, are most often inconsistent. People are very prone to believing in conflicting principles - it is particularly easy to see that by coming up with not-too-unlikely scenarios where two seemingly unrelated principles cannot hold simultaneously. So that forces absolutists to create hierarchies of principles, however that's no easy task.
It is true that consequentialism and intentionalism are two contrasting flavours of ethical theories, however they are not necessarily inconsistent.
But even then there are many hidden assumptions - e.g. that people are to be "judged" (assumes the existence of an either reliable or at least powerful arbiter), or that ethical statements have the same truth values as statements about facts, etc. etc.
...and even if one is to decide on preferred metaethical positions, the general principles for guiding actions and to actully engage in ethical practice are usually independent of the metaethical position; also one would be prone to assume certain things about semantics and also will tend not to have treated metasemantic issues at all.
So it's rather fascinating, but also a long and difficult task.
Jason93609 All that is true. However, we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss moral intuition. After all, if an ethical system comes to conclusions that go against most peoples' moral intuition would generally be considered deeply flawed for this reason.
Timothy McLean I am not dismissing it! In fact I believe that very few people act guided by rational principle - the vast majority is guided by intuition.
But practical ethics is one thing, the academic study of the ideas behind it is quite another...
Moral questions horrofies me, because they has a deep pratical impact on life AND are not verificable, like science questions.
That's why you develop your own ethical values and express those values to others in hopes of having understanding. The best we can strive for is understanding one another
How are scientific questions not verifiable? We can empirically verify that e.g. the basal ganglia is involved in emotion generation & processing by using functional magnetic resonance imaging or virtually anything else that is written in scientific journals. While they do not represent the 'ground truth' they do provide a best estimate of verification of the hypothesis/scientific question.
@@acidtears I think the user meant "unlike science questions"
Nice Rei profile pic 👌
I adore your approach to presenting, Hank, and have seen other videos of yours. You have a light touch that makes even difficult and serious topics digestible. PBS Digital Studios is lucky to have you working with them. Is there a TH-cam playlist of all the videos you have published, so I can see more? Thanks!
Thank you for starting a unit on ethics! I'm really looking forward to this unit, and I'm confident that you will do a great job.
I like how polite you are to your thought bubble and thank it every time :D
I'm getting good grade in moral ethics course in college all because of your channel. Great content, precise and exclusive. and great animations too. I don't know how to thank you.
A very thorough and balanced video, good job Hank and Crash Course team
Thank you for the very interesting content. This is super benifical and has greatly increasd my understanding!
Really good breakdown of a very complex topic. Very impressive!
Who's the consultant on this unit?
"Ethics are spooks tho" - Max Stirner (probably)
they are doesnt mean its useless. every spook has its utility.
@@ElDrHouse2010 Spooks are chains. Some chains help us get rid of bigger chains. I don't think ethics is such.
These videos are so interesting and educational. Love 'em
I have to say, I used to not even think I would watch this in my spare time but now I'm always looking forward to theses videos!
Thought it said "Mathematics"
lol me too
Captain_MasonM Same.
same
Same
You came here expecting a crash course on all of mathematics?
I must say, I like the well-balanced explanations that Hank and team are giving.
to quote every INTP ever
"it depends..."
Me in a nutshell.
Bruh
I love seeing closed mindsets
@AMellowFellow That depends... some people literally do not think that way. Ask your local priest or someone who is deeply religious... The reason why there are multiple moral theories are mentioned in the video is because not everyone has the same moral theory lmao
hey, look its *me*
Another great video guys, love the show. I have substituted it for my actual study material a few times now haha
can't wait untill the next episode. great job you guys are doing here :)
I can't wait until I finish watching all these episodes. I'm going to have so many great -isms with which to label myself!
slight existential crisis
We got a lightweight over here..
ah it does seem to silly to evaluate existence, doesn't it
yld Not at all. I'm just sayin this video is hardly down the rabbit hole if you know what I mean.
I do, but it's a very elementary approach to something so profound, that it gives philosophy a base. That's just daunting. so yes, lightweight here, in a way.
This isn't particularly existential. Morality isn't the same as meaning.
Thank you so much, your videos on philosophy and ethics are getting me through my A levels
wow this is super interesting! I like crash course a lot and particularly this philosophy, it is inspiring and interesting, intriguing different thoughts :D Thank you Crash Course and everyone involved to make all these videos possible, I will support you guys!
I'm surprised to hear Hank say "there's just no right answer" to the plain or peanut M&M question.
I know, right? Obviously peanut!
Yet another great episode. Thanks CrashCourse :)
Although do take some more time to check the errors, here referring to spellings - 'Morality' and 'Cultural' spelled as 'Mortality' and 'Cultiral'. Just pointing it out :) We all make mistakes!
This is what the human geography crash course SHOULD HAVE been. Informative, and as unbiased as possible. I would still love to see a series on the subject as I finished an ap course in my high school last year, and your videos almost always interest me, even with things I an well versed in.Based on your second channel I don't really agree with many of your political beliefs, so I am very grateful that you try so hard to keep everything so unbiased (and considering how biased people are these days, I respect you more for it as well). Thanks for being awesome!
Helped me understand the foundation of my ethics course a lot clearer - thanks!
Lest anyone be confused, moral relativism in the descriptive, as opposed to normative, sense is NOT a metaethical theory. Since it's simply a statement about how beliefs differ from culture to culture, it makes no statement one way or another about the status of moral facts (whether they exist or not) and so is neither a form of moral realism or anti-realism on it's own. It is an important thing to discuss here since many people get descriptive moral relativism confused with normative moral relativism (which IS a metaethical theory) and/or use descriptive moral relativism as a justification for some other moral antirealist position. Cheers
I love this series so much! It has opened up my mind to other people's opinions and thoughts, and it has made me question and challenge my own opinions and thoughts. At times I have changed my views of the world because this course introduced me to new and different ways of thinking. I feel that this openness and questioning--this philosophical way of thinking--has bettered me as a person and that it can better other people, too. Thank you Crash Course Team and ThoughtCafe for making an awesome series with so many open-ended, convoluted questions that people around the world can contemplate and enjoy!
Thank you for making my second favorite CC series, but I own two telescopes and was looking for astronomy videos when I found CC so it's no surprise that Astronomy was my favorite series. This is good, but I don't jump up and down when a video comes out although I did when I saw that you (Hank) were on GMM!
BEST EDUCATIONAL CHANNEL ON TH-cam!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!
Fantastic rebuttal to cultural relativism at 5:30 onwards.
hey carl, nice to see you here...
improvement from the "words that hurt" episode
Well, only to normative cultural relativism.
Invokes Goodwin's Law, but Goodwin's Law seems to be the only way to discuss negative cultures without people possibly accusing you of some secondary agenda.
Every now and then PBS as some shows and hosts that aren't too bad.
crash course is my favorite channel! keep it up :)
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I feel sorry for your mother.
SparkyFister aight then
Emma Horan I'm sure your mother is lovely, she raised someone who knows how to not engage with loathsome trolls.
I'm glad I've already given this topic some thought-- this series has given me enough existential crises already
It's always a joy to see these guys pop up into my sub box.
1:14 the window is open :( he smashes it anyway
*1:41
perhaps the window was jammed
@@jeffreymcneary3055 Still doesn't explain how the Carbon Monoxide didn't escape from the house
@@DIYLabs prior it was escaping too slowly, there was still too much CO in the air.
@@officialkue *opened
7:20 "Well-ordered" plan, eh? Looks like axiom of choice is right.
Really interesting topic. Looking forward to it.
For the relativists out there, what are your moral statements relative to? How do I know whether the moral statement is true or false?
I am so confused yet intrigued at the very same time
What I learned from crash course philosophy is some of my ideas have terms.
I'm very grateful that such videos exist! :)
Right and wrong were never explained so well.
Can't wait for the future videos.
YES! My favorite branch of philosophy! I'd love to hear which ethical theories you guys identify with.
Hank, I think Wittgenstein "solved", dissolved, the whole moral/ethics problems. I hope you talk about it but if you don't what you're doing is still amazing. keep going!!.
Could you do a course in Statistics? Your videos are always fun and easy to follow.
All this is fits nicely into Robert M. Pirsig's ('Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") Metaphysics of Quality. Totally reorganized reality into a framework that easily explains all these "meta ethical" dilemmas and provides a true moral north.
Typo at 0:23. "Morality" was spelled with an extra _t_, spelling "mortality" instead.
Add 8:07, isn't viewing *unjustified* killing as amoral begging the question?
What a fun video about mathematics. Truly the queen of sciences.
Wonderfully structured for introductory reasons.
Thanks for the Captions for the Deaf :) - found you via Ravi Zacharias (RZIM)
this reminds me I had a philosophy major friend wonder what happened to him
I can't get enough of this course
ETHICS! Thanks for starting this branch of Philosophy.
Change your logo from an apple to a chom chom! That's probably what cc really stands for!
hey john you're great learning a lot
Chase Groll he is Hank not John
+Rainbow Mechanic oh shoot im with my friend named John and got confused! Thank you
I wonder if Hank will talk about moral calculus. One of the metaethical questions asked earlier in this episode was "Is it right to steal in order to feed your family?". Moral calculus gets an input of objective positive and negative consequences regarding a certain ethical decision and outputs the decision that should be made. So back to that question. Let's say you have 2 children, you are very poor, and your children are starving. You then see a pie that was put to cool on a open window that was left by the baker. You overhear from the baker that a wealthy individual will come by later to pick up and buy this pie. Let's look at the positives and negatives if you steal the pie.
+You and your children can keep living and won't die from starvation
+This wealthy individual can buy another pie quite easily with no financial concerns
-The baker loses time and money spent making the pie
-The baker has to spend time and money to make another one
-Wealthy individual must wait more time to buy the pie
When weighing these pros and cons against each other, we can see that the baker and individual losing some cash and time weighs far less than children dying. There are still many different variable to consider. Would it be more ethical to ask the baker if he can give you the pie for your starving children? What if the baker is also extremely poor? I'm not saying this is the absolute solution to the problems and questions philosophers ask regarding metaethics but it is very interesting.
another great episode. Thank you.
At 0:23, the blurb says 'What is [Mortality]?', where Hank says 'What is Morality?'
That is quite the worse misspelling ever Moral and Death (Mortality)...
Oh Shakespeare
And the metaethics chart, all the times it comes up, also has a spelling error (Descriptive cutiral relativism).
Steal food from Old lady for family scenario: (My View)
good intentions (to feed family)
bad method (taking things without asking the owner.)
good result (A life was saved at the cost of a broken window)
I find it strange to try to lump these three parts together to label the scenario overall good or overall bad.
Perhaps the idea of feeding your family at any cost is in itself a bad and poisonous intention... It keeps evil methods in consideration instead of fully dedicating your resources into looking for a non-pain-inducing method.
Interesting... Depending on how you label the thief's intentions, the scenario is either 2/3 good or 2/3 bad.
Reply Responsibly ;)
What's the deal with the typo's? It says "what is mortality?" in the graphics, instead of 'morality'. And in a previous episode, intentional was misspelled as 'interntionality'. Just a heads up!
Gratz on 5M Crash Course!
When I was 16 I had a great fascination with ancient reptiles and studied paleontology nonstop. I developed a great deal of respect for the dinosaurs given as they dominated the world for hundreds of millions of years ( whereas humans had only for a couple thousand ) and that they were so successful in adapting and evolving to countless conditions around the world. I sometimes thought that if dinosaurs had taken their success one step further and developed their own complex civilizations what their ethics would be. I asked myself if even basic moral rules would apply to animals other than humans. Like would murder be wrong for these civilized dinos? Or is that just a rule that applies exclusively to some part of the primate, human, brain that these animals wouldn't have. I thought about these a lot and studied biology, philosophy, psychology, and other sciences in search of an answer. I eventually figured stuff out but I still find it funny to think about how much sleep I lost asking myself if civilized birds would be cool with manslaughter.
0:24 "mortality"
I really hope you guys cover modern virtue ethics. and go into the weeds a bit on utilitarianism, especially negative utilitarianism
While it somewhat branches from consequentialism, I follow an ethical theory with major elements that don't seem to come up with other theories, and I'm curious about how correct that perception is.
Its three major elements are Consequential Intention: What you believe will be the results of your action(s) of choice; Action Effort: How much effort you put directly into achieving what would be a good set of results; & Logical Effort: How much effort you put into determining what action(s) would achieve the best results.
In a way, it's kind of the result of repeatedly applying utilitarianism to itself.
6:58 absolutely right
Slow down please.
Thank you for all of it
Sam Harris has a couple talks on TH-cam about objective morality (one of them is a TED talk). It's incredibly convincing. These talks are based on his book "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values".
Lol. No, it's *not* incredibly convincing. The overwhelming majority of philosophers of ethics disagree with his thinking as presented in that very book "The Moral Landscape." If you're ok with non sequiturs galore, then have it. That just wont do for most thinkers, however.
TruthUnadulterated
It doesn't matter what other philosophers think. It's about providing sufficient evidence for your arguments. But if you want to argue from authority then know that most scientists don't care what philosophers have to say either.
All Sam does is present an ethical theory (see 7:00), a form of Utilitarianism. One that I tend to agree with, mind you, but no more objective than Mills Utilitarianism, Divine Command, or Social Darwinism.
RicoSeattle the source of objectivism ends up being subjective.
I think it's really important to just decide a form of ethic and start researching that in the perspective of empirical facts. That might be the most important thing science could do in the 21st century. Neuroscience is a new field of science, which makes a huge difference in dealing with ethical questions.
After hearing the thought bubble, Is a judgement of the burglar the most constructive use of our time? For example couldn't we do more "good" by using the info to design a system that helps prevent people from dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in their homes? Is there a name for contemplating just how often we should be deciding if something is even ethical (be it in a fundamental or subjective way)?
I personally just follow the flow of the universe. It's based on progression, actual progression by result. Which trickles down into being nice, making hard choices that might seem to give a better outcome, and stuff that support logical progression for the human race. Just like with how the flow of nature already has allowed for intelligent life to become 'real'. We can only wonder what level of intricacy is going to surface next. I want to find out!
I'd love to use this video for my students. However, moral theory is generally not introduced as realism vs. antirealism, and relativism is generally not presented as a realist option. Relativism as realism is not just a minority position, but is largely untenable in philosophical ethics at large. Please consider revising this video with realism vs. relativism or universalism vs. relativism. Few philosophers, if any, find relativism plausible, and identify its metaethical shortcomings both in individual and cultural form. Please review any number of introductory textbooks such as Vaughn, Rachels, Boss, and Ellin (not in print but excellent). Thank you.
so excited for ethics. moral philosophy is so interesting
Sir hanks. Do you have any videos about the philosophical approaches to the study of ethics?
Uhhh, Peanut M&M FOR LIFE! Unless, like Hank said... you're allergic to Peanuts. Then uhh, Peanut M&M's for... err, death?
So, would that be normative cultural relativism for the issue of M&Ms?
I don't think that was a good comparison, it is objective truth that peanut butter M&M's are superior to all other varieties.
This is short sighted. There are pretzel M&Ms, crispy, mint, white chocolate, almond and more.
chomchoms 4 life
Skittles are the best M&Ms.
Oooooh! So I'm NOT a "Moral Relativist" like those Christians keep calling me! I'm a Moral Anti-Realist!
Thank's CrashCourse! I really need to know this! I'm going to enjoy this next few episodes!
BlankPicketSign I am not sure if this comment is sarcastic or not.
If it's sarcastic-- lousy sense of humor. If honest-- someone needs a new hobby.
It is Honest and I need a Hobby =^_^=
Hey Hank, just wondering if you've ever heard of the Universal Moral Grammar Theory? :) Offers some pretty good arguments for the grounding problem. Loved this course, excellent job!!
I love this channel so much
Is it unethical to screw up myself? Does it in the end hurt those that care about me, making it unethical? Who the hell knows.
nobody pointing out it says mortality and not morality
is it crazy I think I can binge watch this serious in comparison to other subjects on crash course for FUN
This is fascinating!
watching this so i dont have to read 20 pages of reading
Is it me or has every listed philosophical bent come across as false dichotomies?
Thank you for this! :D
Absolutely awesome.
4:52 typo: "cultiral relativism"
There had better be discussion of the Evil Baby Orphanage in this series.
Great video!
This is great. I find that ethics and philosophy can be dense and a little too focused on logic and language. I look forward to the follow-up videos. I hope that you do some eastern ethics as well. Western ethics is great, but quite emphasized already.