@@KaneBI won't have students for long, since I'm going to finish my PhD, but I tell them that your videos can successfully replace a lot of lectures from the teachers. I want all the best for you, so I repeat the question from one of your AMAs: do you consider learning programming? It can be quite interesting, especially Machine Learning, I'm doing that right now. Cheers!
The only person on TH-cam who would upload a video after finishing with "I am not happy with this video" lmao. Never change, Kane! The video is great btw.
Good video. I admit that maybe I don't understand all of the higher order ins and outs of all of this, but I feel as though this video gives me a general sense of what is going on with this tricky topic. The relaxed realists basically claim that moral statements are true or false without cause or justification. They claim basically that moral statements just are true or false, end of story. Or at least that justifying moral statements would just be appealing to other orders of moral reasoning. In this regard, the relaxed realists seem to be making a claim that moral statements cannot be justified. However, many ethicists do precisely that. Consider economic reasoning. People have individual preferences that they act upon. There are costs and benefits to all actions. People can choose between potential actions. People ought to choose to do the actions that provide the most benefit at the lowest cost available. This is a fine framework for morality that can be used to further investigate the subject. For example, what happens when the preferences of one person collide with the preferences of another? But the relaxed realists do bring up an interesting point about justifying moral statements and other abstract objects. Do they exist or matter when they have no direct effect on the world? I often say that things that have no effect do not matter. I use this to say that God, if it exists, does not matter. We see no way that God influences the world, and therefore doesn't matter. The effects that we do see are the actions of people that believe in God. So while God itself has no effect, the belief in God does have effects. The same applies to morality, Even if some actions are inherently wrong, we see no direct effect of the wrongness. But, we do see the effect of the actions of people that believe in morality. The belief has an effect, but not moral statements in and of themselves. But, this can be said of all statements, as they are abstract objects. We don't see sentences themselves affecting the world in any direct way. As the video points out, mathematics also uses abstract objects, and we don't see the number two answering prayers or any other effects. Now, we all know that I would then take a pragmatic lakatosian approach to demarkating between abstract objects. Is belief in the object (god, mathematics) leading to new knowledge? If so, then that provides credence for the existence of the abstract objects. If the belief in an abstract object is progressing, then the abstract object matters.
Dr. Baker, I am interested: What would it take for you to abandon moral philosophy as a whole? Despite being concerned with issues of practical ethics, myself. I just dont see the value of meta-ethical debate. It isn't clear to me at all that it isn't just fruitless speculation. I have never once seen a person seriously change their practical views as a result of ethical debate; I have only seen it radicalize them in concerning ways. As far as I can tell, there is no clear correlation between ethical debate and real-world impact.
I have zero interest in using philosophy to achieve practical ends. I'm militantly anti-pragmatist. See e.g. this video: th-cam.com/video/RqYbY1p4ORU/w-d-xo.html If meta-ethics is merely fruitless speculation, then that is a good thing about meta-ethics in my opinion. So you'll have to come up with a very different kind of argument if you want to persuade me to stop doing meta-ethics.
How do you think this view compares with Shafer-Landau, Cuneo and Bengson's view (in their chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Moral Realism) of moral truths as conceptual truths, true in virtue of essence facts about concepts involved in those truths? My view is that the Relaxed Realist approach and SCB's Conceptualist approach fit together nicely. You say the Relaxed Realist approach says the moral truths are not made true in virtue of anything substantial in the world. I hear: ah so they're not synthetic truths. So they're analytic or conceptual or logical or mathematical truths. Clearly moral truths are not analytic, not logical, not mathematical. So I guess they muat be conceptual truths, true in virthe not of anything substantial in the world (but also not nothing at all) but rather in virtue of concepts involved in the truth; more precisely, essence facts about those concepts (e.g. plausibly: it pertains to the essence of the concept "recreational slaughter" that it also satisfies the concept "wrongness")
Such an interesting view! Where does Parfait develop it more throughly? Also, since naturalism was mentioned a few times here, I was wondering if naturalism was actually any different to scientism! I mean, they both seem to make knowledge dependant on science, and science alone! Any thoughts?
Why should we think that the rules of morality are more authoritative than the rules of chess? What does it even mean to be "authoritative"? Does being "authoritative" just mean that people feel strongly about it and they apply social pressure to compel us to conform to the rules? In other words, "authority" comes from the barrel of a gun or the tip of a spear. If that's what we mean by "authority" then the "authority" of morality is just a fact of the structure of our society and the nature of the human animal.
The relativist seems to have an issue with the noun phrase claim "future like ours" given that in a highly developed economy relative to for example living in North East India that has living persons recently interviewed by anthropologists who witnessed inter clan head decapitations as rite of passage to make becoming an adult male is evidence that global modernisation is not absolute and may never be so. Therefore cultural relativism is true. However there is evidence that these persons (still alive) although show their scares with pride do not advocate the practice to be continued to the upcoming generations. If cultural relativism links of robust moral relativism the practice would have continued but its stopped which suggests cultural relativism is false. There is evidence for a form of moral internationalism or moral modernities emerging from dominate social structures such as super powers who have abilities to do moral projection based on political economy. It could be that once a political economy has power projection than so to it (nation state as an entity) promulgates a form of error theory that has a deflationary impact on relatively fragile cultural moralities making them as it were to judge head hunting is wrong is true as relaxed realism based on interpersonal agreement on economic exchange or from the error theorist perspective as balance of power schema. It is arguable that nation states and that of super powers meet the high bar of internal moral standard over time frames of a human life which can have cultural causal impacts through the advent of cheap air travel where tourists from those nation states advocate for a moral truth anchored in a super power nation state. An example of schmeason would be a tourist who brings a sub cultural advocacy to a tribal culture tradition as in advocating drinking a brand of soft drink gives super powers etcetera. So in this view the moral authority is through official diplomates as state actors who a card caring nationalists but grass roots tourist activists are non authoritative moralists and so wrong to advocate which happens to play out since it is illegal for example in Thailand for tourist visa person to bear a flag from their nation state on their person which only can be done so by official representation. So in this sense relaxed realism qua morality is a nod to international relations theory idealist style but not realist international relations that correlates to absolutist moral realism. Evidence for sub cultural or for profit schmeasons as branded soft drink containers can be found along in gullies along remote walking trails in the Himalayan region are in the wettest parts of the earth in north east India as plastic refuse.
I think you explained well, though possibly with a bit of your own slant, particularly in convincingly characterising 'relaxed realism' as a version of an error theory which buys into the deflationary interpretation of truth statements. I would add that this deflationary perspective can include the coherence argument about truth in which the set of propositions simply are coherent. This works for mathematics: there is no need to assert that 5 + 7 = 12 is true, nor that its truth belongs to a coherent framework, both are inherent in the proposition. Incidentally has anyone tried to argue that mathematical propositions are errors? Presumably this claim could be made using a similar strategy to that of error theories.
The brute fact is the truth maker. The relaxed realist is saying that even brute facts are not needed since brute facts would require certain metaphysical claims which they do not want to make. In the empirical world it is the equivalent of saying that an elephant is behind you and you turn around and don’t see an elephant but the person says that it is irrelevant whether there is a physical elephant behind you.
Maybe it's just *my* understanding of deflationism, but it seems to me that a deflationary account about X is basically an admission that X is *in the map, not the territory.* So a relaxed realist is admitting that "reasons" and "rightness" are merely a part of someone's map of reality. They are special "labels" which participate in the information processing in our minds. That sounds about right to me, and I'd call that anti-realism! Incidentally, I believe the same thing about possibility and necessity, too. *Is Derek Parfit an anti-realist now?!*
"No matter how many stabbings I observe, no matter how many instruments I use, I'm never going to detect the wrongness of stabbing. I'm never going to detect the fact that the pain caused by stabbing is a reason to refrain from stabbing." Average British mindset.
I hope this is more fun than my current social anxiety realism.
Mood lol
This is one of the most underrated philosophy channels.
Your channel is fantastic, the best on TH-cam, I recommend your videos to my students.
Thanks, that's great to hear!
@@KaneBI won't have students for long, since I'm going to finish my PhD, but I tell them that your videos can successfully replace a lot of lectures from the teachers. I want all the best for you, so I repeat the question from one of your AMAs: do you consider learning programming? It can be quite interesting, especially Machine Learning, I'm doing that right now. Cheers!
i found this video perfectly understandable as a non-philosophy student. but maybe some of your previous videos on meta-ethics would be a prerequisite
The only person on TH-cam who would upload a video after finishing with "I am not happy with this video" lmao. Never change, Kane! The video is great btw.
Relaxed Realism - also known as a fellow brother of famous **Realism - Lite Edition** and of course **Nerfed Realism (Sigma Version)** 👁️
Good video. I admit that maybe I don't understand all of the higher order ins and outs of all of this, but I feel as though this video gives me a general sense of what is going on with this tricky topic.
The relaxed realists basically claim that moral statements are true or false without cause or justification. They claim basically that moral statements just are true or false, end of story. Or at least that justifying moral statements would just be appealing to other orders of moral reasoning.
In this regard, the relaxed realists seem to be making a claim that moral statements cannot be justified. However, many ethicists do precisely that.
Consider economic reasoning. People have individual preferences that they act upon. There are costs and benefits to all actions. People can choose between potential actions. People ought to choose to do the actions that provide the most benefit at the lowest cost available. This is a fine framework for morality that can be used to further investigate the subject. For example, what happens when the preferences of one person collide with the preferences of another?
But the relaxed realists do bring up an interesting point about justifying moral statements and other abstract objects. Do they exist or matter when they have no direct effect on the world?
I often say that things that have no effect do not matter. I use this to say that God, if it exists, does not matter. We see no way that God influences the world, and therefore doesn't matter. The effects that we do see are the actions of people that believe in God. So while God itself has no effect, the belief in God does have effects.
The same applies to morality, Even if some actions are inherently wrong, we see no direct effect of the wrongness. But, we do see the effect of the actions of people that believe in morality. The belief has an effect, but not moral statements in and of themselves.
But, this can be said of all statements, as they are abstract objects. We don't see sentences themselves affecting the world in any direct way. As the video points out, mathematics also uses abstract objects, and we don't see the number two answering prayers or any other effects.
Now, we all know that I would then take a pragmatic lakatosian approach to demarkating between abstract objects. Is belief in the object (god, mathematics) leading to new knowledge? If so, then that provides credence for the existence of the abstract objects. If the belief in an abstract object is progressing, then the abstract object matters.
Nice! I was waiting for this video since you mentioned it in your last QnA
Great presentation. Will you make video on metaphysics and epistemology of contemporary robust realism?
I already have a video on robust realism. I'm intending to revisit it at some point though.
I'm new here, but this describes my world view.
eek
new to the world or to the channel?
If i were a realist, i would definitely be relaxed while being one
I would have to be a Pessimist, seeing what tends to happen in this world is rarely aligned with what I perceive to be good or even not horrible.
Will you do a video on utility cascades
I feel like if you pinned Graham Oppy down on ethics, he would subscribe to something like this.
Dr. Baker, I am interested: What would it take for you to abandon moral philosophy as a whole? Despite being concerned with issues of practical ethics, myself. I just dont see the value of meta-ethical debate. It isn't clear to me at all that it isn't just fruitless speculation.
I have never once seen a person seriously change their practical views as a result of ethical debate; I have only seen it radicalize them in concerning ways. As far as I can tell, there is no clear correlation between ethical debate and real-world impact.
I have zero interest in using philosophy to achieve practical ends. I'm militantly anti-pragmatist. See e.g. this video: th-cam.com/video/RqYbY1p4ORU/w-d-xo.html
If meta-ethics is merely fruitless speculation, then that is a good thing about meta-ethics in my opinion. So you'll have to come up with a very different kind of argument if you want to persuade me to stop doing meta-ethics.
@@KaneB you're a true philosopher then. I bow to you 🙇♂
How do you think this view compares with Shafer-Landau, Cuneo and Bengson's view (in their chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Moral Realism) of moral truths as conceptual truths, true in virtue of essence facts about concepts involved in those truths?
My view is that the Relaxed Realist approach and SCB's Conceptualist approach fit together nicely. You say the Relaxed Realist approach says the moral truths are not made true in virtue of anything substantial in the world. I hear: ah so they're not synthetic truths. So they're analytic or conceptual or logical or mathematical truths. Clearly moral truths are not analytic, not logical, not mathematical. So I guess they muat be conceptual truths, true in virthe not of anything substantial in the world (but also not nothing at all) but rather in virtue of concepts involved in the truth; more precisely, essence facts about those concepts (e.g. plausibly: it pertains to the essence of the concept "recreational slaughter" that it also satisfies the concept "wrongness")
I thought you did a good job. It is just a strange view so it is hard to present in general.
I thought this video was more straightforward than the regular ones
Such an interesting view! Where does Parfait develop it more throughly?
Also, since naturalism was mentioned a few times here, I was wondering if naturalism was actually any different to scientism! I mean, they both seem to make knowledge dependant on science, and science alone! Any thoughts?
Why should we think that the rules of morality are more authoritative than the rules of chess? What does it even mean to be "authoritative"? Does being "authoritative" just mean that people feel strongly about it and they apply social pressure to compel us to conform to the rules? In other words, "authority" comes from the barrel of a gun or the tip of a spear. If that's what we mean by "authority" then the "authority" of morality is just a fact of the structure of our society and the nature of the human animal.
Never heard of this, thx
The relativist seems to have an issue with the noun phrase claim "future like ours" given that in a highly developed economy relative to for example living in North East India that has living persons recently interviewed by anthropologists who witnessed inter clan head decapitations as rite of passage to make becoming an adult male is evidence that global modernisation is not absolute and may never be so. Therefore cultural relativism is true. However there is evidence that these persons (still alive) although show their scares with pride do not advocate the practice to be continued to the upcoming generations. If cultural relativism links of robust moral relativism the practice would have continued but its stopped which suggests cultural relativism is false. There is evidence for a form of moral internationalism or moral modernities emerging from dominate social structures such as super powers who have abilities to do moral projection based on political economy. It could be that once a political economy has power projection than so to it (nation state as an entity) promulgates a form of error theory that has a deflationary impact on relatively fragile cultural moralities making them as it were to judge head hunting is wrong is true as relaxed realism based on interpersonal agreement on economic exchange or from the error theorist perspective as balance of power schema. It is arguable that nation states and that of super powers meet the high bar of internal moral standard over time frames of a human life which can have cultural causal impacts through the advent of cheap air travel where tourists from those nation states advocate for a moral truth anchored in a super power nation state. An example of schmeason would be a tourist who brings a sub cultural advocacy to a tribal culture tradition as in advocating drinking a brand of soft drink gives super powers etcetera. So in this view the moral authority is through official diplomates as state actors who a card caring nationalists but grass roots tourist activists are non authoritative moralists and so wrong to advocate which happens to play out since it is illegal for example in Thailand for tourist visa person to bear a flag from their nation state on their person which only can be done so by official representation. So in this sense relaxed realism qua morality is a nod to international relations theory idealist style but not realist international relations that correlates to absolutist moral realism. Evidence for sub cultural or for profit schmeasons as branded soft drink containers can be found along in gullies along remote walking trails in the Himalayan region are in the wettest parts of the earth in north east India as plastic refuse.
I think you explained well, though possibly with a bit of your own slant, particularly in convincingly characterising 'relaxed realism' as a version of an error theory which buys into the deflationary interpretation of truth statements. I would add that this deflationary perspective can include the coherence argument about truth in which the set of propositions simply are coherent. This works for mathematics: there is no need to assert that 5 + 7 = 12 is true, nor that its truth belongs to a coherent framework, both are inherent in the proposition.
Incidentally has anyone tried to argue that mathematical propositions are errors? Presumably this claim could be made using a similar strategy to that of error theories.
There are several mathematical fictionalists who think "2 plus 2 equals 4" is strictly speaking false, yes.
what's the difference between a truth w/o a truthmaker v. a brute fact?
The brute fact is the truth maker. The relaxed realist is saying that even brute facts are not needed since brute facts would require certain metaphysical claims which they do not want to make. In the empirical world it is the equivalent of saying that an elephant is behind you and you turn around and don’t see an elephant but the person says that it is irrelevant whether there is a physical elephant behind you.
@@macattack1958 wow. goofy.
Maybe it's just *my* understanding of deflationism, but it seems to me that a deflationary account about X is basically an admission that X is *in the map, not the territory.* So a relaxed realist is admitting that "reasons" and "rightness" are merely a part of someone's map of reality. They are special "labels" which participate in the information processing in our minds.
That sounds about right to me, and I'd call that anti-realism! Incidentally, I believe the same thing about possibility and necessity, too.
*Is Derek Parfit an anti-realist now?!*
"No matter how many stabbings I observe, no matter how many instruments I use, I'm never going to detect the wrongness of stabbing. I'm never going to detect the fact that the pain caused by stabbing is a reason to refrain from stabbing."
Average British mindset.
Realists: 🏝️
This is possibly the most boring video on the channel.
Strange, I found it engaging