Derek Parfit - Full Address

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ต.ค. 2015
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    Derek Parfit is a British philosopher who specialises in problems of personal identity, rationality, ethics, and the relations among them.
    His 1984 book Reasons and Persons, has been very influential. His most recent book, On What Matters, was widely circulated and discussed for many years before its publication.
    ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY: The Union is the world's most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 192 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.

ความคิดเห็น • 118

  • @raffen79
    @raffen79 7 ปีที่แล้ว +161

    Good bye, Derek. You were a nice causally, psychologically and physiologically connected chain.

    • @sithukyaw6331
      @sithukyaw6331 2 ปีที่แล้ว

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  • @Raelspark
    @Raelspark 7 ปีที่แล้ว +60

    THAT's what a philosopher is supposed to look like.

  • @JohnThomas
    @JohnThomas 5 ปีที่แล้ว +34

    Awesome thinker! For those interested in understanding something of Parfit's influential metaethics, watch from the 39 to 48 minute marks. He moves onto other stuff after getting a laugh with, _“It’s philosophy that has done most of the damage to the economists because economists used to think that happiness and suffering mattered. It was only when people like Ayer came along that they thought they had to avoid all value judgements.”_
    OxfordUnion, it would be worth breaking this part out as a separate video with a name like "Parfit on Moral Theory."

  • @EE-we2di
    @EE-we2di 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

    "I do care greatly about ending humanity"
    Derek Parfit

  • @a-swimming-antelope
    @a-swimming-antelope 6 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    There are many critical comments, and most of their replies are folks defending Parfit's claims.
    For both groups, I would suggest taking a peek at Parfit's 1984 book, Reasons and Persons. Regardless of whether his claims in this talk are true or not, it's a poor representation of Parfit's depth of thought. His book is extremely well-communicated and logically rigorous and unfortunately this talk simply isn't.
    A lot of the claims Parfit makes are at least partly empirical, which he hints at at 59:12 but he's not an expert in this area. This talk is more valuable as an "insiders view" into academic moral philosophy.

  • @MattHerrettMusic
    @MattHerrettMusic 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Wonderful thinker. Absolutely smashed my brain in my first year philosophy course with his teleportation take on identity.

    • @THE_ONE.x1
      @THE_ONE.x1 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      What does this interpretation consist of? 🤔

  • @Ikaxas
    @Ikaxas 6 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    For me personally, the following (1:02) quote was the most impactful portion of this talk: “… I am immensely heartened by the way in which, here at Oxford and some other places …, various groups have been started whose aim is to relieve the great suffering and early deaths of some of the world’s 2 billion poorest people. I really admire this, and applaud you for doing it. It is the greatest moral problem, I think, that we reach people are likely to face in our lives, and most likely to act in ways that are seriously wrong. I think in this area we face the following dilemma: either we have moral beliefs that are very implausible or repugnant, or we have defensible beliefs, but we break the link between our belief that we ought to do something and our intention to do it. I think it’s clear that I ought to give much more than I intend to give. And that naturally provokes the response that I’m a hypocrite; how can you believe that you ought to give it if you don’t intend to do it? Well, in this area, the only way of keeping, for most of us, the intention connected with the belief that you ought to do it is to have very, I think, indefensible beliefs.” Wanted to highlight this portion in case others find it as impactful and lifechanging as it was for me.

    • @AA-dv3ie
      @AA-dv3ie 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      I just want to comment that for better understanding of what he meant, changing "reach" to "rich" would help a lot.

    • @THE_ONE.x1
      @THE_ONE.x1 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Pathetic herd thinking. "We want to alleviate the suffering of the world" and blah blah blah... When it comes to moral issues everyone seems to think like self-sacrificing Christians. They cannot look beyond their simple prejudices of small people.

  • @ummon995
    @ummon995 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    "If people from Sub-Saharan came and started removing my property I wouldn't feel that I had a right to stop them."
    Would you try and stop them regardless? Or would you allow the removal of your property? If so, would you in turn remove the property of others?

  • @fanboy8026
    @fanboy8026 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    We will miss you Derek Parfit 😥

  • @NNCCCC63
    @NNCCCC63 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    magnificient... How desparately could Oxford need the trivial revenue generated by the ads which repeatedly interupt this man's message ?

    • @PeterOlin
      @PeterOlin 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Indeed! The ads are more frequent here than in anything else I’ve seen on youtube. I hope the income goes towards something dispelling poverty.

  • @MarianaGarcia-lj7lc
    @MarianaGarcia-lj7lc 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    anyone know where I could find the Godwin quote he referenced ?

    • @attackdog6824
      @attackdog6824 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Probably in Godwin’s An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

  • @p382742937423y4
    @p382742937423y4 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Dear OxfordUnion, can you be a little bit more considerate with your uploads. Neither the title, nor the description gives us a hint of what the subject of this talk is, where it was, when it was and at what occassion. This is not good work.

  • @ramib8874
    @ramib8874 7 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    RIP

  • @tablab165
    @tablab165 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I think giving after becoming rich is idealistic because of what those money-seeking careers do to people and to the cultures they influence. The money that flows up to the elite is taken at gunpoint one way or another, so it’s not charity when given back. The lesson to the kids watching is scrounge and claw your way to the top until you’re a billionaire who has the capacity to give all of that back to the bottom. Now, does that create a world full of true philanthropists (which is what we should see given how favorable the system is to the ones we have), or does that create a world less repulsed by scrounging and clawing/treating each other as means to the end of profit?

  • @JCResDoc94
    @JCResDoc94 7 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    18:40 quantifying life - a quick reference chart

  • @zacharystauffer7067
    @zacharystauffer7067 8 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Has anyone typed up the text of this?

    • @jamesragsdale8202
      @jamesragsdale8202 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Re-upload the video and apply CC captioning. TH-cam automatically makes a text file of the transcript which can then be downloaded.

  • @TheBumblebee84
    @TheBumblebee84 7 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    fare thee well

  • @markv7458
    @markv7458 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Strongly disagree with Derek's idea of just giving people money to solve poverty. Giving people in poverty education and skills to make money for themselves makes them free and independent. Just giving money makes them forever dependant on the giver.

    • @fabianthome7698
      @fabianthome7698 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Not if given the right amount, on the right circumstances; too little to actually change their material conditions won't do, that's when they become dependant, too much that would throw them out of balance like winning the lottery wouldn't either.
      They pretty much need to be fed with fish before being taught how to fish them selves.

  • @rickjamez4987
    @rickjamez4987 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I’m reading “Reasons and Persons” right now. Could someone give me an example of a normative truth and perhaps more links to Parfit? He’s almost an alien thinker.

    • @Grace_Ravel
      @Grace_Ravel 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      He doesn't talk much about irreducibly normative truths in R&P, he talks about it in On What Matters. One example of such truths would be 'suffering is bad and should be prevented'.

    • @rickjamez4987
      @rickjamez4987 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Lord Retro Thank you so much. Reasons & Persons is just terrific. Any more books you’d recommend?

    • @Grace_Ravel
      @Grace_Ravel 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@rickjamez4987 Parfit hasn't written anything else than R&P and OWM, but I would definitely recommend books by Peter Singer like Animal Liberation or Practical Ethics.

    • @rickjamez4987
      @rickjamez4987 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Lord Retro I have animal ethics I will get the other as well

  • @dijondajee9281
    @dijondajee9281 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    One of the problem with MacAskills view is that capitalism is in direct conflict with charity. He states that the best way rich person can do good is to make a lot of money and then give as much of it away as one can. But in order to maximise earnings a true capitalist must retain as much of their wealth and use it to build a greater amount (through investments etc). This is in direct conflict with the 10% ethos as, by giving what you can, you are handicapping our future potential earning. Possibly, the only way forward is to make this a requirement upon death, but this similarly falls into the problem that a child may use that money to maximise their earnings, and their children might do the same, etc... resulting in nobody giving anything. Or else, we limit the amount of children we have and prevent the inheritance being passed on... either way, we are essentially advocating some kind of socialist system, because, capitalism is in direct conflict with charity.

  • @ThreeFineWonders
    @ThreeFineWonders 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    On the matter of inequality, is monetary wealth the only consideration? What about mental health, life satisfaction, naivety?

    • @fabianthome7698
      @fabianthome7698 ปีที่แล้ว

      I would believe those (the other considerations you mention) are mainly consequences of the material conditions in which the subjects of the inequality are immerse and those are mainly if not only addressed in the monetary wealth situation, because when they're not, i.e. an inherited mental disease they pretty much are unfixable and only (but not merely) dimmed by the same monetary wealth. I hope I made myself clear on my ideas, english is not my first language.

  • @polemicize4542
    @polemicize4542 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    12:10 Existential Risk

  • @MrJamesdryable
    @MrJamesdryable 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    24:30

  • @Soymilllk
    @Soymilllk 8 ปีที่แล้ว

    Derek presents the "child drowning in a lake" analogy as an example of a non-consequentialist ground to provide aid.
    I can't see how that differs from consequentialism (???) From the Stanford philosophy encyclopedia: "an act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes the good"
    - This, to me, is precisely what the "child drowning" analogy is. You save the child because by doing so you maximize the possible good.
    Can anyone prove me wrong?

    • @flem1431
      @flem1431 7 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Yes, saving the child act maximizes the good in the same way as giving money would, so consequentialism would endorse the pond analogy. The point is that you don't need to accept consequentialism in order to accept this argument, since many other moral views would endorse the argument too.
      Consider for instance the following view: You ought to perform an act if (but not necessarily only if) it gives a major benefit to someone else, without harming anyone significantly or violating a duty or being problematic in anyone other way. This view would validate the pond analogy, but it does not presume consequentialism.

    • @carrstone01
      @carrstone01 7 ปีที่แล้ว

      flemming D. C.
      Cui bono?
      Altruism is essentially a selfish emotion. The rescued child is incidental to the altruistic act, the real beneficiary is the altruist whose sense of self-worth grows in line with his perception of the 'difficulty' of the act. This 'pay-back' can be enhanced by the plaudits the altruist receives.

    • @Soymilllk
      @Soymilllk 7 ปีที่แล้ว

      ...Said the dyed-in-the-wool cynicist.
      @flemming D.C. thanks for the reply, 12 months down the track it all seems a lot clearer now.

    • @fredrauscher
      @fredrauscher 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      I see what you're saying, and definitely one does feel enhanced self-worth upon helping another person, either anonymously or publicly. It has been observed that people are less likely to help rescue someone from harm when in a group than if alone with the person. The conclusions from these observations usually involves diffusion of responsibility. But I must ask, why would a selfish person bother getting wet to save a drowning person if no one else is around. But people do, all the time. Firemen do it. It happens on battlefields. There must be a sense of brotherhood that in instinctual. I don't imagine it's just so that the would-be victim would be eternally grateful, or indebted to the rescuer. They also say (this could actually save your life some day) to look into the eyes of an attacker to build a brotherly bond. Tell the one threatening you that you are just like them, and it will lessen your odds of being attacked! Certain types of behavior that are destructive must be painful to commit, and sense of altruism seems to make destructive behavior less likely.
      Maybe the fireman or health professional has an instinctual sense that they might be saving someone with skills that could be of value to the group. You never know, the guy you do CPR on could be that guy that someday solves world peace or something!

    • @seanlynch3407
      @seanlynch3407 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      A deontologist might say that it's wrong not save lives when you can

  • @iwillheadlockyournan731
    @iwillheadlockyournan731 8 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Brian Badonde.

  • @neoepicurean3772
    @neoepicurean3772 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    1:02:53 - is this trying to slip a virtue ethics approach under the guise of consequentialism?

    • @aconcretemoth9382
      @aconcretemoth9382 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      You should read his Reasons and Persons book. I think he might consider the case of saving your own child over two children of others as "blameless wrongdoing." Parfit believes that we can acquire a personality for ourselves, and this personality will determine our motives, and our motives will determine our actions. Every personality is likely to have some aspects that will, downstream, have bad effects, and make us irrational or immoral. So long as this personality we choose or strive for is one of the best possible sets--one that usually has reasonable or moral effects?--we're justified in being less than perfectly moral or reasonable in some cases as a direct result of having one of the best possible personalities. (We also have no choice, since this is more likely how humans actually work than being perfectly in control/rational/moral in each moment.) In this instance, I would BE A BAD FATHER if I were motivationally able to leave my child to die to save two others. It would imply that I only am able to leave my child to die because I'm unable to love my child or care for my child across many years of life.
      You might have a different view on this and Parfit may not be the decisive expert on free will. (I'm also not as smart as he is.) But I think this is how he would consider it.

    • @neoepicurean3772
      @neoepicurean3772 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@aconcretemoth9382 I have read a lot of Reasons and Persons when needed for various essays. I just read McMahan's The Ethics of Killing, he just states that some relationships have obligations, like parent/child relationships.:
      '...reasons of this first sort may be supplemented, strengthened, or reinforced by reasons deriving from one's relations to others. Thus, while one has a reason to save an imperiled child just because the child is the kind of being who would be greatly harmed by dying, one has an additional reason (or, perhaps, the same reason but considerably strengthened) to save that child if the child is one's own. One has more reason, or a stronger reason, to save the child if one is related to it in this important way than if one is not specially related to it. In short, special relations, such as the relation between a parent and child, are an independent and autonomous source of moral reasons.'
      There are certain ways in which we ought or ought not to act toward an individual that are required simply by virtue of the nature of that individual.
      This to me is a straightforward and seemingly strong account. Simply by virtue of the type of being a child is, in that it is created by a parent and I would say there is a blurring of autonomy and lives (for the first two years of life a child is essentially just an external part of the parents, literally an offspring, but as the mechanisms that enable us to be autonomous individuals develop then the child gradually becomes it's own person) so of course we have greater reasons to save someone that has this relationship to us. Morality begins when we say to ourselves 'I want to live, I want to flourish', so of course if we have a moral commitment to ourselves (other things being equal) then we have a moral obligation to beings that are 'part of us'.

    • @lordbyron7918
      @lordbyron7918 ปีที่แล้ว

      I had the same thought the moment he said that. I'm glad to find it reflected in the comments as this initially confused me.

  • @lordbyron7918
    @lordbyron7918 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    My big question when hearing this is the following:
    It seems to me that at the core of his argument about giving a certain amount of wealth to the poor is, that this would actually reduce the amount of suffering in consequence (or that it would be conforming to any deontological imperative). Why should that be evident?
    Isn't it the case that extended into the future the population of the poorer parts of the world and as a matter of fact the world in general is going to grow to such an extend that it will be factually impossible to save all of their lives, thus resulting in human suffering, magnitudes of order bigger than what currently see. Hence isn't it reasonable to conceive of the dying children in different parts of the world as a natural process of homeostasis that nature goes through inevitably?
    Obviously this wouldn't make us rich people any more entitled to our indeed morally arbitrary abundance. But it is in my eyes a perspective that allows us to live our lives without constantly condemning ourselves as moral hypocrites. It is an unpleasant, even cruel stance to take, it is not entirely rational and yet it seems to me to be the most convincing one.
    Please let me know different opinions! Thank you!

  • @MagdaThomas
    @MagdaThomas 7 ปีที่แล้ว

  • @winston2015
    @winston2015 7 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    So long as we remain mired by an economic system that rewards narrow self-interests and ruthlessness above all, things will continue to get worse for most people and the planet. We live in a world today where we could easily provide the basic (housing, healthcare, food and education) needs for all human beings and yet we dont and never will because of the values inculcated by the neo-fuedal economic system we call global capitalism.

  • @mairtinoleannain8567
    @mairtinoleannain8567 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    Could someone give me a good definition of normative truth?

    • @mairtinoleannain8567
      @mairtinoleannain8567 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      And maybe an example?

    • @tomatotrucks
      @tomatotrucks 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Here's a quote from Parfit that might help; "We can have reasons to believe something, to do something, to have some desire or aim, and to have many other attitudes and emotions, such as fear, regret, and hope. Reasons are given by facts, such as the fact that someone's finger-prints are on some gun, or that calling an ambulance would save someone's life. It is hard to explain the concept of a reason, or what the phrase 'a reason' means. Facts give us reasons, we might say, when they count in favour of our having some attitude, or our acting in some way. But 'counts in favour of' means roughly 'gives a reason for'. The concept of a reason is best explained by example. One example is the thought that we always have a reason to want to avoid being in agony."

  • @aphorisma5864
    @aphorisma5864 8 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Isn't anyone somehow peeved that some organisations often use donated money more for administration than the cause for the poor or distressed animals?

    • @AnthonyColabella
      @AnthonyColabella 8 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      +Apho Risma An effective organization needs good administration. So I am not peeved that these organizations use some donation money to pay for effective staff members and other things needed to keep the organization up and running. Such things allow the organization to better serve the interests of its donators. But there is always room for corruption, which is why we must demand transparency.

  • @jesuisravi
    @jesuisravi 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    really, it's simple simple simple. Consult your own experience: Have you ever noticed that what you do to others seems to eventually by some hook or crook to be done back to you? If you haven't seen this, live long enough and you will. So: Do unto others...

    • @jamesragsdale8202
      @jamesragsdale8202 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Nah. Abusers abuse their whole life, do not change, and get away with it. No bad conscience. No retribution.

    • @lordbyron7918
      @lordbyron7918 ปีที่แล้ว

      It seems a remnant of religious belief survived in you. But I'm afraid most people nowadays see themselves obliged to reject such a belief as it is in no way congruent with empirical observation.

  • @JCResDoc94
    @JCResDoc94 ปีที่แล้ว

    49:40 repugnant regret _JC

  • @theinstigatorr
    @theinstigatorr 8 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Talks about being vegetarian because cows produce methane and treated badly seemingly unaware that dairy products are vegetarian

    • @pranavanand4305
      @pranavanand4305 8 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      +theinstigatorr Vegans FTW. Though his point is that it is possible to obtain dairy products from cows without treating them cruelly

  • @ThreeFineWonders
    @ThreeFineWonders 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Should the views, about giving, of older people (like Parfit) carry less weight than those of younger people? The less life someone potentially has available to them, the less consequential a view would be to them.
    And, do the views of educated academics carry more weight than those of the uneducated?

  • @DestroManiak
    @DestroManiak 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    I agree with everything he says. Still not donating money though.

  • @TheDerstine
    @TheDerstine 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    No longer has his head screwed on straight; very interesting, regardless.

  • @sunnysideup33
    @sunnysideup33 8 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    We here in Germany have a refugee "crisis" at the moment. U.K. not?! Why you are so far away from our daily reality? People risk there lifes daily on sea in small and overcroudes boats. Andi you guys talk about 10% or more stuff ...Please dont get me wrong. Refugees are welcome. My opinion.

    • @simpsonhenry7289
      @simpsonhenry7289 8 ปีที่แล้ว

      Germans lecturing the UK about war refugees is a bit risky! The people entering Germany are mainly from countries other than Syria and Iraq. They are from Albania, Kosovo, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Eritrea. If you think Germany can accommodate all peoples from poorly governed and poverty stricken countries, go ahead and invite them in.

    • @sunnysideup33
      @sunnysideup33 8 ปีที่แล้ว

      +Simpson Henry You unterstand nothing. Sorry.

    • @LordDraco999
      @LordDraco999 8 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      +len l The problem is no culture, it is that when a large amount of people suddenly enter an area the area is affected. Just as if you added 20 extra lions into a certain safari patch, there is a definite change on the entire ecosystem.

    • @astrazenica7783
      @astrazenica7783 7 ปีที่แล้ว

      Hans Franz we have had refugees in Britain for centuries. What is your point. Your leader Merkel rules by emotion and invited the world to you country. Britain is also an island

  • @philosophe5319
    @philosophe5319 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    The portion about having less kids has been debunked by Bryan caplan.

  • @thezzach
    @thezzach 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Great talk! Was I the only one distracted by the woman's very nice crossed legs on stage?

  • @ruvstof
    @ruvstof 8 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    é o que deu ficar 20 anos escrevendo um livro. Diz coisas interessantes mas também bobagens. Imagine só que perversão, ser contra uma boa picanha!

  • @promonkey7206
    @promonkey7206 7 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    So many weak arguments.
    e.g. sacrificing two unknown baby to save your own is right and not doing so is wrong? Doesn't seem a particularly philosophical response. Right or wrong from whose perspective? This response stems from evolution, clearly, as we're evolved to ensure our own survival along with that of our bloodline (for obvious reasons).
    Just as Parfit segregates philosophy from the realm of politics/history/economics, ignoring evolution and carrying out philosophy in a vacuum leads to such strange answers... From the detached perspective of humanity it is best to sacrifice your own baby and save two abstract, far-away babies (due to the obvious net gain to humanity all else being equal), from the perspective of the two mothers whose babies are to be sacrificed it would be even more wrong to prioritise the third, yet from the perspective of the mother confronted with the brutal choice of callously relinquishing responsibility of her own child and letting it die or sacrificing two abstract babies, the moral obligation is likely to be reversed in her view.
    His detachment from the historical phase human political-economic systems are at equally leads to absurd propositions towards the beginning of suggesting that widespread, global seizures of property are in his view morally justified, yet the best he can offer up is the meek, self-comforting bourgeois idea of giving away some arbitrary proportion of your salary within a global economic system that is to remain fundamentally unchanged.
    He seems a well-intentioned man but I fail to see the interest in his work. Everything he was saying seemed so flimsy and cut off from a wider knowledge of other related subjects.

    • @joaoluca9141
      @joaoluca9141 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Dude have you think that your background in philosophy is just a poor background and he keeps some things implicit because of time?

    • @joaoluca9141
      @joaoluca9141 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      For exemple the very first question you propose is just silly and, if not properly supported, is just a stance of Hume's dictum.
      Some things that he poses as "obvious" is just because of the role of intuitive grasp of some moral truths. It doesn't mean they are infallible, it's just that they are self-evident when thinking about the concepts that constituits truths.

    • @joaoluca9141
      @joaoluca9141 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      This is a metaethical view. Take a look of these before criticizing Parfit.

    • @satantango9931
      @satantango9931 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      all ur question is in parfit‘s book u need to read them,before criticise

  • @neoepicurean3772
    @neoepicurean3772 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I think Parfit was a great philosopher, but he seems to ignore the economics behind getting rich - for all the 'poor' people to vote in a referendum to take the money from the rich and give i to themselves... well, that just doesn't sound like a good system for creating rich people - and in a free market people can only get rich by offering Pareto-positive trades, which are by definition a win-win. Look at the standard of living increases that capitalism has brought, as Smith said, 'it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.' Just look at the objective improvements in standard of living that have taken place over the past 100 years - it is beyond refutation! So why then make a system that is anti-capitalistic when all the evidence points to capitalism as the answer, not the problem?

    • @nixyboy8039
      @nixyboy8039 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      I wonder if the true cause of increased material wealth is actually capitalism or just modern science.

    • @neoepicurean3772
      @neoepicurean3772 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@nixyboy8039 Science is driven by capitalism in a large part, so I don't think it can be looked at as a driver for increased economic wealth in isolation.

    • @nixyboy8039
      @nixyboy8039 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@neoepicurean3772 Interesting. I disagree however.
      I think science is driven by the *profit motive* , which is not neccesarily market originated. The apollo program and the manhattan project are two of the greatest (maybe the greatest) technological achievements of humanity and were developed in the *state sector*

    • @neoepicurean3772
      @neoepicurean3772 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@nixyboy8039 Yes, perhaps I should have been clearer on these points, but that would take a long time to do and not really suitable for a TH-cam comments section discussion. I do have responses to your points, but again, they would take a lot of effort to explain here.

    • @nixyboy8039
      @nixyboy8039 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@neoepicurean3772 Thanks. If your ever interested, I'd like to see or read them, because you reason well

  • @zeebpc
    @zeebpc ปีที่แล้ว

    i wouldnt donate money to anyone that eats animals . or else can you name the trait? would you give money to someone that eats other humans?

  • @bjrnerikjuel1459
    @bjrnerikjuel1459 8 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I am no expert at all in the topics covered here, and hoped to learn something from the video. However, I am now not sure whether he is a trustworthy source at all. Around 13:00 he says that it is "fairly likely that there are no intelligent beings anywhere else in the observable universe." He just throws this out there as if it is common knowledge or the current consensus. I have never heard any good arguments for this stance, and the whole point-of-view has a very bad historical record: the human species have never turned out to be anything special... Just looking around on our own planet (never mind the rest of the observable universe!), there are several species showing intelligent behavior.
    Anyways, it got me wondering: are the rest of his claims equally ungrounded? Is he basing his statements on research at all? Does he just make everything up?

    • @bjrnerikjuel1459
      @bjrnerikjuel1459 8 ปีที่แล้ว

      You bring good points, and in hindsight I probably overreacted regarding his statement. After all, whether or not we are alone is not his main point here. Though it should have an impact on some of his value calculations and so on.
      PS. intelligence can be defined in several ways and based on the first one I found (Merriam-webster: "the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations"), we are not the only intelligent species on earth.

    • @billiecashmore
      @billiecashmore 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I think, considering he wrote a three-volume work on ethics, he has pretty good reasons for his beliefs.

  • @maynardgent6708
    @maynardgent6708 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    His response to the animal charity question isn't satisfactory. Animal charities are totally unrelated to animal farming and animal welfarenin farming could easily be improved. Suggesting everyone should be vegetarian just doesn't stack up from a moral perspective

    • @fabianthome7698
      @fabianthome7698 ปีที่แล้ว

      I belive he was mainly concerned about the climate impact on the animal products and the suffering was kind of an extra reason.

  • @afarwiththedawning4495
    @afarwiththedawning4495 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Wasted 20 mins. Not watching further.

  • @ethanpettit
    @ethanpettit 7 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Ten percent of my salary "for life?" What planet do these academics live on. Oh right, tenure, job security for life, cost of living raises, and a pension.

    • @oliverdurose9592
      @oliverdurose9592 6 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      He clarified that he is speaking about the obligations of "rich people." He acknowledges that he is fortunate, that's precisely the point.

  • @dmc6262
    @dmc6262 7 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    57:27 - "You can be entitled to what you've earned if you've done extra work"
    How about no? Who decides what and how much "extra work" must be done? And entitlement doesn't come into it. The operative word here is "earned".
    57:41 - "If you've earned more because you're more able, that gives you no claim at all"
    Smarts, graft, drive et al would factor into higher earnings too. Not just being more able. And ye bozo that would give them all the claim they need.
    57:48 - "Floor sweepers should earn more than managing directors"
    Floor sweepers are in a low skilled job and there is no shortage of them. Unlike an MD. In addition, floor sweepers do not generate the same value that an MD does, yet they are to be paid more? What on Earth is this prat rattling on about? Who would bother to put in the years educating themselves, getting experience and rising through the ranks, when they could just pick up a broom and earn more? Where is the incentive there?
    Is this the pearls of wisdom that philosophy produces? What a waste of time.

    • @alexandrebastidaferreira1746
      @alexandrebastidaferreira1746 6 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      David L Honestly, I started writing a response but I'm not even going to bother

    • @a-swimming-antelope
      @a-swimming-antelope 6 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Floor sweepers vs. MDs: Parfit is engaging in hyperbole here for the sake of emphasis. He's not talking about supply vs. demand, and he knows that, just saying that he feels pay should be based on how unpleasant a job is. The MD job is nicer so the pay should be lower. This was an offhand remark; don't cherry-pick it to conclude that his ideas are worthless.

    • @fabianthome7698
      @fabianthome7698 ปีที่แล้ว

      This guy is mostly representative of today's big picture on these topics, problem is Parfit is WAY ahead, no wonder people didn't bother to give him an answer.

  • @Darthpederos
    @Darthpederos 7 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Eww.... british morals.... He is a hypocrite as he said in the beginning!

    • @fabianthome7698
      @fabianthome7698 ปีที่แล้ว

      Yup, but they're either hypocrites or cynical and I believe what ever they are is ok as long as they acknowledge it. That's a start I guess...

  • @thepleblian2079
    @thepleblian2079 8 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I thought philosophy was a dead study and didn't have any practical application in science...

    • @sunnysideup33
      @sunnysideup33 8 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      +Plebeian It can be a start but never a real answer in a real live.

    • @thepleblian2079
      @thepleblian2079 8 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Hans Franz It's good mental exercise, that's true...

    • @lapinrigolo
      @lapinrigolo 8 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      It usually doesn't have a direct application but without it you'll never grasp the big picture.

    • @AshishXiangyiKumar
      @AshishXiangyiKumar 7 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Science is technically a branch of applied philosophy: take empiricism + induction/falsificiationism and that's what modern science basically is an outgrowth of. Anything with a set of principles about what is true is a philosophy (well, is a theory in one branch of philosophy, to be accurate) -- science is a particularly successful one.

    • @user-ck9lm6xi1o
      @user-ck9lm6xi1o 7 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Sounds like you're either not clear about what philosophy's purpose is or what philosopher's would like it to be. Tbh, philosophers disagree about this stuff, so it doesn't make you dense or daft or anything. Some philosophers (old hat ones, imho) seem to think that philosophy gives you "rational" knowledge of metaphysical truths, like what makes us who we are (a soul? the brain?), whether there's a mind-independent world we can know anything about, or whether there's a God. "Rational" here means largely independent of our sensory experience of the world, which would make it stand apart from science, which is often sometimes said to be based on "observation" or "data" or "observational data" (but even *that* is too crude; see philosophers of science like Popper). That view of philosophy, due to philosophers like Descartes, isn't as popular nowadays. But there is another view, stemming from philosophers from Aristotle to Hume to Dennett, that philosophy aims to investigate our reasons and critically evaluate them, including our reasons for, say, adopting Einstein's theory of relativity over Newtonian physics (some say simplicity, but you cannot know whether simplicity is a sign of a better theory by using merely observational data). Philosophy isn't it's "own field", but neither is, say, cognitive psychology -- you need both empirically testable hypotheses AND critical theorizing and careful thought about what would count as confirming or dis-confirming evidence. This is especially the case with quite abstract scientific questions, such as how linguistic expressions come to have their content. One example of a scientific question that raises real philosophical questions is whether we have "concepts" and what they are. The alternative view, that there are not abstract mental representations that humans have with certain criteria for application but rather that we attend to properties of stored mental representations deriving from our perceptions and perceptual beliefs, is not really discussed much at all in cognitive science. Yet this alternative is something that observational data cannot alone determine the truth or falsity of, since both can explain the data; you want the best explanation, but you need some sort of standard or criterion to determine what the best explanation in these cases is, and that won't come from observation by itself. In fact, this is much the same problem as the one that Plato raised in the Phaedo.
      It's best to think of philosophy as a science of method than as its own field that publishes its own "results", e.g. theory T is true and theory T* is false.

  • @bla4979
    @bla4979 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Fraud.

  • @3.14ei
    @3.14ei 7 ปีที่แล้ว

    RIP