Thanks again for taking the time to chat with me Kane and Cole. Was a pleasure, and I hope this helps in part bridge the gap between epistemic bubbles.
I appreciate the effort you guys put into having these conversations. In the other hand I think that sometimes it gets too convoluted with the terminology, and it would be more productive if the terms or examples used were more simple. It was kinda complicated just to define the terms objective and subjective. In my opinion even if moral values are subjective they are real, but not necessarily objectively true.
If you want to figure out what specific moral values determine well-being, look at the mentaI heaIth of a moral system's proponents. Is ABORTlON wrong??? Liberal atheists say NO. Conservatives say YES. GOOGLE---> ''Science says: LIBERALS (not conservatives) are PSYCHOTlC'' (multiple articles from mainstream media quoting scientific research) If you're truly honestly objective, then you can come up with more keyword searches leading to more scientific research connecting *Liberal Atheism to depression and anti-social behavior* in modern society on your own without asking me. You don't need to believe in an Abrahamic god or *any god* to be a proponent of traditional values like Patriarchy, Religiosity, Heterosexuality and Patriotism because like it or not, proponents of those values are mentaIIy heaIthy; proponents of Liberal Atheism are PSYCHOTlC
52:12 - but you can put an ought in the premises of your argument and take it from there... For example, I started my last essay on killing with 'I will begin from the premise that there is a standing prima facie case that it is, ceteris paribus, wrong to harm a sentient being' - You don't need to go further than that to make an argument.
@Oners82 My point is that instead having to bootstrap your whole metaphysics, why not just put an ought in your premises? Rationality Rules is acting like he can't make an argument or have a consistent position unless he solves the whole puzzle from the ground up: that is not the case.
@Oners82 Yes, I study ethics formally post-grad. I try to make cogent arguments starting from a premise, and that premise only need be considered acceptable for the argument to have, at least some, value. For example, ''I will begin from the premise that, other things being equal, it is wrong to harm innocent persons when not necessary'. This is all Rationality Rules and Harris want to get going, and they can have that. They just have to resist saying that it is a metaphysical fact.
Great discussion! I think if people just dropped the conversation about is/ought and worried more about the normative force of facts there'd be a whole lot less repetitive discussions out there
I think that discussing these things with people outside of academia can be extremely valuable, partly just because it's important for philosophers to remain engaged with people from other disciplines and with the broader public.
I'm not sure if it's relevant, but a thought occurs to me (at ~20 minutes in) that there might be important differences between Eastern and Western philosophical traditions in how mind and morality are thought about. Harris, of course, is taking a lot of influence from Buddhist traditions, while Eastern Philosophy in general is practically non-examined in contemporary (Western) Philosophy departments. For example, in Eastern traditions it seems that the mind is thought of as an objective thing to be examined, and that can - in itself - be objectively known better or worse (from the "inside", while experienced subjectively). And morality - or awareness and cultivation of virtue and right conduct etc. - appears to follow when one comes to know the mind better (objectively); facilitated by, e.g., meditation and mindfulness. Whereas in Western traditions it seems the mind tends to be treated as something more subjective, and more distinct from the outside world (cf. also individualism vs. collectivism). And, in West, facts about morality appear as something that would or would not be found from the "external", rather than the "internal" (all the while it seems unclear whether this distinction of external and internal even make sense in Buddhist traditions). Or something along those rough lines. Like said, I'm not sure how relevant this is, or if I might be on the wrong tracks, but it seems it could be relevant given Harris's background. In any case, it would be interesting to see whether a more careful analysis of Eastern versus Western traditions might reveal something of importance.
I'm also noticing a bit of an issue of considering additional variables for one's own position but not for another's. One example of this was in how do we get oughts from true moral propositions like "it is wrong to murder." Kane immediately mentions that one might say something like "you ought not murder." However, he mentions that one might have some overarching principle such as maximizing the reduction of murder that may require murder in some instances, but that is an additional proposition that is different from the one initially under consideration. It is rather uncontroversial that additional considerations can override an initial consideration, but that doesn't necessarily undermine the initial consideration without the additional one. When it comes to the evidence proposed for moral realism though, we don't see these additional considerations. It has been mentioned that the mere existence of moral intuitions that certain propositions are good is not the same as those propositions being good. However, an additional consideration is that a moral realist would say that such intuitions are indications that certain propositions are good. This doesn't undermine the initial consideration without this new one, but it is clear that additional considerations are being considered more in some instances than in others.
I'm not in contact with him. I'd be happy to chat with him though. This particular video came about because Stephen got in contact with Cole when he was making his video on Sam Harris. After they spoke a little about these topics, we decided to record a conversation.
What do you guys think of psychological egoism? I think that's the idea that I identify with the most. Everything that I do ( or in my knowledge of) are done for my own benifit, even though sometimes it seems like it isn't.
I think that it must be possible to be altruistic or do things for others their benefit in order for egoism or doing things for your own benefit to be a meaningful concept.
The only problem in this conversation was the critique to Aristotle virtue ethics. There's no individual in Aristotle. That's a mordern thing. Aristotle and all classical philosophy thinks in terms of a social being, not an individual. The "becoming yourself" is related to finding your place in the cosmus, in the community. It's more restrictive than liberating
At around the 12:40 mark, it was discussed that Cole saying that she thinks Ice Tea is sweet is objective, but you can apply the same conditions that make the tea being sweet to her to the 'fact' that the tea is sweet to her. We can do this, as Cole mentions, by saying the Tea is sweet to whom?, to now we can see, To who is Cole able to mention that the Tea is sweet to her? (In this case, it would only be to organisms with the same structure of phenomena). Or a less far fetched version would be to those who are incapable of understanding the language used to communication. What would be objective is if you told yourself that the tea is too sweet, then relativity breaks down and you must assume objectivity when things are only in relation to yourself. (A solipsistic perspective). If you think about it, if there were to be an objective reality, then the destruction of said objective reality would cause its elimination (obviously), but that doesn't reduce it as any less objective because now the destruction is the new objective. A change in theatre. Well if that is the case, then why would not one assume the current theatre to be mind? Therefore everything present to you would be objective. There exists relativity of properties but not of Being.
@@rationalityrules It's such an incredible paper! Foot later changed her view, but I think she made a mistake. She argues that morality is based, not on categorical imperatives, which you reject in the video as well, but instead stems from our desires which generate hypothetical imperatives. However, she argues that this does not mean that morality doesn't exist, it just means that not everyone has a reason to be moral, even if most of us do. We are volunteers, not conscripts, in the army of morality.
She not only came to disavow that view, but publicly wrote and published an explanation of why it didn't work. It's one of my favorite pieces of philosophy because it's so rare to see someone do that when they realize they're wrong.
@@ColeNasrallah @Reivaxbeastly In which paper did P. Foot reject Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives? Please and Thank you! Can you please provide a link or title?
I think the definition of anti-realism loosely given in this video tends to muddy the water. As a point of comparison consider how three philosophers might interpret propositions about economic value. If someone were ignorant of what the going price for milk was, and they ended up over paying for some, someone might say "That was a bad purchase" or "you _should_ have paid less for that". An anti-realist might be tempted to interpret these propositions as merely expressing one's attitude about the purchase. "I don't like that you bought milk... it was bad". The error theorist might be tempted to interpret the proposition like "The purchase you just made was universally bad, and has badness as a fundamental character", and then go on to reject the proposition as false since nothing is universally bad, nor can things have the character of being bad. Person three might say that the correct interpretation of this proposition is something more like, "You overpaid for the milk", "You could have paid less for the same item", "It was not in your interest to make that purchase" By the definition of anti-realism given by Kane and Cole here, person three would be anti-realist with respect to the truth-value of these proposition, even though they are clearly truth-apt. Just because you can get person three to admit that economic value is merely a social construct and thus totally subjective, doesn't change the fact that person three is interpreting these propositions as having truth value. We can make truth-apt propositions about the cost of a carton of milk, despite the fact that "cost" is at bottom a social phenomena.
Nobody is a realist about statements like "the milk costs £1" or "John overpaid for the milk", at least in the sense that "realism" is understood in metaethics -- or in many other areas of philosophy, for that matter. In general, when philosophers talk about "X-realism" (e.g. moral realism), they do not take this to simply be the position that X-discourse is truth-apt (e.g. that moral discourse is truth-apt). If they did, then relativists, subjectivists, and quasi-realists would all be classed as realists. Indeed, if mere truth-aptness is enough, then even error-theorists would be realists, since error-theorists take moral claims to be truth-apt, just all false.
X-discourse is truth-apt, and that some moral propositions are true. This is the definition I've been familiar with. If you take the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy to be an authoritative source... here is the definition given: "Taken at face value, the claim that Nigel has a moral obligation to keep his promise, like the claim that Nyx is a black cat, purports to report a fact and is true if things are as the claim purports. Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value-moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true." plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
@@jesselee34 It's probably fine as an initial characterization of the conceptual space, for introductory purposes. One reason for this is that (a) there are many different forms of moral realism, so an intro article will try to outline it in as minimal a way as possible, and (b) the non-realist positions on which some moral claims are true are fairly rare. Both relativism and subjectivism, for instance, are generally seen as thoroughly refuted -- unfairly in my view, but as a result of this, characterizing the debate as between realists vs. noncognitivists and error theorists is understandable. Though having said that, quasi-realism is actually quite popular these days, and the whole point of quasi-realism is to justify moral truth despite the absence of moral properties. So, I dunno. I don't want to say that SEP is misleading, because it's written by professionals and is generally a very useful resource. But the definition given on that page entails that relativism, subjectivism, and quasi-realism are all forms of realism, and I don't think there's a single metaethicist who would accept that. (Like, I'd even guess if you were to ask the writer of that SEP piece, "do you think that subjectivism is a form of realism?", he would say "no". I'm kinda tempted to email him to find out.)
@@jesselee34 Here's the definition of moral realism from Andrew Fisher's "Metaethics: An Introduction": "The moral realist argues that moral properties exist and are in some way independent from people's judgements. For example, if moral realism is correct then we can say that the act of killing someone has the property of wrongness, and that it has it independently of whether people think it does." I think that this is a far better characterization of how metaethicists use the phrase "moral realism" than what it is given in the SEP article.
Difference between murder and kill. Obviously can't have a categorical imperative based on equivocation. Using words like that interchangeably is kind of annoying and careless, even more so when nuance seems to be pretty important.
@@Mandibil Murder = Wrong + Killing seems not like a good definition to me, it dismisses all moral debates about it because it already assumes murder is wrong. I would instead define murder as purposefully killing
Hey man! Enjoyed the conversation. I have an unrelated question: Is it possible to redefine/warp moral realism (+objective morality) so that they use other theories of truth? Usually we're talking about metaethics having in mind the correspondence theory of truth. Could we use the pragmatic or coherentist theory of truth and "be fine"?
My impression is that metaethicists who appeal to alternative theories of truth tend to be antirealists who want to save moral truth, despite the absence of moral facts/moral properties. For instance, Blackburn holds that moral statements simply express attitudes, but he argues that they can still be true or false, on the basis of a deflationary theory of truth.
@@KaneB Thanks. I'm thinking more along the lines of comparing ethics to science. In science we build theories that work, explain stuff and predict stuff. These theories have to be pragmatic. We don't think of them as being true in the correspondence theory of truth sense, but it would make sense to think of them as true in the pragmatic sense. **If** that could work, then it could just as well work for ethics.
@@WackyConundrum I don't agree with that characterization of science -- I think we can treat scientific theories as offering literal descriptions of the world, which are true just in case they "match" the way the world is, mind-independently. That seems to me to be the common-sense understanding of science. Of course, other accounts of science are available... but it's questionable whether those accounts are realist. Pragmatism is often presented as an alternative to scientific realism. More generally, though, if you want moral truth, but you find the traditional realist metaphysics unattractive -- then yes, there are ways of getting to moral truth without that metaphysics. Some sort of pragmatism would be one way to do it, I assume.
@@KaneB I agree that what the view of science you sketched is the common-sense one. One could say it's the naive view of science. My impression is, though, that philosophers generally understand science in a different way. As we can't really prove any scientific theory, but we can only try to falsify them and gather evidence that fits it and gather evidence from predictions, we treat them as tentatively the best ones we have at a particular time. I read some stuff about constructivism in (meta)ethics. According to some forms of it, ethics is about solving practical problems. If we were to understand it like then, then it would make more sense to think of various moral propositions as pragmatically-true, rather than as "correspondingly-true".
@@WackyConundrum I'd say that the common-sense view is also the general consensus among philosophers of science. While there are plenty of powerful arguments for skepticism about whether our theories are true, it's generally held that scientific theories are attempts to describe the facts, and that what would make them true is correspondence with the facts. If a philosopher tends to be a inclined towards skepticism in this context, they will tend to say that we just don't know whether or not our best theories are true.
This was so cool! Thanks! I wish I could sum up morality into a few sentences but I’m sure I would make myself foolish. Isn’t there something about morality that is very visceral. A collective and individual “view” on an action. Over time the “ugly” thing tends to be morally “bad”. Something that raises a since of disgust tends to be morally wrong. Morality is probably mostly an art and not a science.
@1:32:18 : If it was demonstrated to me that the Bible in fact was dictated by the creator of the universe according to his moral dictum, I would still reject it as a justification for unnecessary suffering (like male circumcision). Does that make me a moral realist or anti-realist, or it cannot be determined?
Isn't defining objective as mind independent excluding many natural moral realists who wouldn't at all describe their view as there being moral prescriptions floating out there somewhere?
It is good to have skin and oxygen for a human (or any other organism dependant on it to survial or avoidance of suffering). Therefore, it is not bad to forcefully remove the skin or deprive the dependant organism of oxygen as long as there are no ( for the subject) acceptabla substitute function available? Objectivly - regarding to the function of the organism and the values that are product of such a system regarding its self presentation - that is.
Lots to think about. It does seem to me when i watch videos about morality that one side may be talking in a purely academic sense while the other is talking about practical aspects and they just end up talking past each other, they are each speaking their own totally seperate language but each language uses the same words.
I wish the distinction between metaethics and normative ethics was made early on. Alongside the terms universal and objective, would have helped A LOT. I'm also really bothered RR somehow doesn't understand that innate desires or values or oughts are not morality. All men in the world could be born with the innate desire to rape women, that wouldn't make it moral to do so. We still have to decide whether we follow our biological programming / desires / values / oughts or not. And we don't have to be absolutist about it either. We can say "these biological desires over here are good and compatible with my normative theory, so we ought to follow them, but these ones aren't, so we shouldn't." Finally, while it might be true that everyone is a "slave to the two masters; pleasure and suffering" that's so vague that it means nothing. Pleasure and suffering haven't been defined. And appealing to people's innate sense of the concepts, won't do either. Won't let us resolve moral conflicts. You might as well be saying "everyone acts in accordance with what they think is moral, so morality is settled". That just won't do. People disagree about what is moral, what is pleasurable, and what is suffering, and what to do about it.
This was important. Thank you guys for taking the time to explain all that. I share steve's frustration with a certain apatheism, but did have the intuition that despite what everyone seemed to think, morality was not even involved in most cases. Kinda made me feel like a I was involved in scientism. Harris would get exactly what he wants if he called his system a science of well being and not science of morality, without all the objections and drama. You guys drew a lot of distinctions that will have me rethink a lot of things. I needed that content, thank you for making it, to all three of you. I think I made about 3 views
Great conversation! One thought: I'm not really certain that all such moral discussions that Stephen and other "peudo-realists" would like to have in order to further "moral progress" can ultimately be reduced to discussions on empirical facts. Think for instance that you found a culture where penis mutilation was an ancient tradition, and the highest value of said culture was tradition. At that point, there is no bible analogue to point to to claim that it is factually wrong... it is an empirical fact that penis mutilation is a tradition of this culture, and it is also an empirical fact that they value tradition above all else. What can you then say? Would Cole's caution of not wanting to impose her values on others prevent her from wanting to make any points against this form of genital mutilation? if so, that's still an example of the kind of relativism that Stephen wants an out to!
The point that keeps getting missed from Sam harris is the connection to consciousness. For example It's a fact that cutting out the pleasure center of women's private parts is wrong because we know subjective facts of women. Mixed with an ability to be aware that that removal would factually negatively impact the individual's well being. Even if that woman desires to do so herself. It is a mistake and their naivete is no excuse and does not dissolve us of our knowledge. It's solved it's certain non-negotiable. My and any governments ability to stop that from happening has no affect on the moral nature of the problem.
@@Cookiekeks well not everyone gets told this but we coin a nice sounding term, circumcision and we say "male or female circumcision" as if* they are the same. For men they remove a bit of skin called foreskin for women they remove the clitorus. If you learn about biology and specifically the nervous system you'd see that to make circumcision identical it would entail removal of most of the head of a male's penis. That's where the sensory cells are for men to allow for pleasure and orgasm stimulation. Because I am a man and I am not personally familiar with anyone who's undergone female "circumcision", I don't know the details of how damaging or frustrating that process is for them. Perhaps they can still stimulate to orgasm but it's much more difficult or they can't at all and never reach the same levels of pleasure as the rest of society. To make an analogy, imagine the eye. Men lose an eyelid, they can still see just fine, women lose their retina, they may be blind, they might have some slight vision it's hard to say. Really awful practice imo.
I think pointing out that the Bible or Quoran isn't written by God is sadly ineffective. Trying to convince someone that abortion by convincing them to give up their faith seems like the hardest path to go.
Kane your audio quality is not very good. Maybe you are aware, but worth mentioning. It might be worth doing a sound check before starting to record next time. You have an echo in this one. Also, you have a lot of digital noise when you are speaking but the other people do not. It is much easier to hear what Stephen is saying and nicer to listen to. Keep helping us think! Thanks!
Is it ever morally acceptable for the police to be allowed to torture a suspected terrorist in an effort to gain valuable information so that they can protect others from terror?
@Alex McAuliff A friend from Nigeria believed that the police should be allowed to torture suspects to gain a confession so long as evidence points to guilt. I asked why? if the police already have evidence but got nothing back. This conversation was revisited on numerous occasions, and I even asked "What if your brother was accused of committing a crime, should the police be allowed to torture him?" I was shocked when he said yes. Later, I decided to substitute his brother for his dad, he thoroughly worshipped the ground his father walked on, and as soon as he started imagining his father being tortured by the police, the penny dropped. What alarmed me was how he could accept his brother being tortured but not his dad. And for the record, he loved his brother as well. If I had been a psychologist, I would have made a study on him.
@@Cookiekeks Wow, I suspect that you just wanted me, and others to know that you understand fallacies, why? Do you want us to think that you are intelligent??? (Note the ad hominen).
Thanks again for taking the time to chat with me Kane and Cole. Was a pleasure, and I hope this helps in part bridge the gap between epistemic bubbles.
It was a fun discussion. I appreciate you coming on the channel!
I appreciate the effort you guys put into having these conversations.
In the other hand I think that sometimes it gets too convoluted with the terminology, and it would be more productive if the terms or examples used were more simple.
It was kinda complicated just to define the terms objective and subjective.
In my opinion even if moral values are subjective they are real, but not necessarily objectively true.
If you want to figure out what specific moral values determine well-being, look at the mentaI heaIth of a moral system's proponents.
Is ABORTlON wrong???
Liberal atheists say NO.
Conservatives say YES.
GOOGLE---> ''Science says: LIBERALS (not conservatives) are PSYCHOTlC''
(multiple articles from mainstream media quoting scientific research)
If you're truly honestly objective, then you can come up with more keyword searches leading to more scientific research connecting *Liberal Atheism to depression and anti-social behavior* in modern society on your own without asking me.
You don't need to believe in an Abrahamic god or *any god* to be a proponent of traditional values like Patriarchy, Religiosity, Heterosexuality and Patriotism because like it or not, proponents of those values are mentaIIy heaIthy; proponents of Liberal Atheism are PSYCHOTlC
@@hiqhduke "Google my personal beliefs and you will find others who agree with me" lololol.
@@ModernCentrist you have to be "on the spectrum'' to come up with that kind of a response. Another psychotlc liberal.
Kane, you lost the neck beard, now doing colabs with RUclips stars, next you'll be in Hello magazine.
I'm still haunted by giving up the neckbeard. I've won... but at what cost?
25:02 haha
52:12 - but you can put an ought in the premises of your argument and take it from there... For example, I started my last essay on killing with 'I will begin from the premise that there is a standing prima facie case that it is, ceteris paribus, wrong to harm a sentient being' - You don't need to go further than that to make an argument.
@Oners82 My point is that instead having to bootstrap your whole metaphysics, why not just put an ought in your premises? Rationality Rules is acting like he can't make an argument or have a consistent position unless he solves the whole puzzle from the ground up: that is not the case.
@Oners82 Yes, I study ethics formally post-grad. I try to make cogent arguments starting from a premise, and that premise only need be considered acceptable for the argument to have, at least some, value. For example, ''I will begin from the premise that, other things being equal, it is wrong to harm innocent persons when not necessary'. This is all Rationality Rules and Harris want to get going, and they can have that. They just have to resist saying that it is a metaphysical fact.
Great discussion! I think if people just dropped the conversation about is/ought and worried more about the normative force of facts there'd be a whole lot less repetitive discussions out there
PLEASE DO MORE OF THESE KIND OF COLLABS !!
Love this. Really didn't expect this.
I'm not a huge fan of RR, but he was very humble and open-minded here, which made the dialogue pretty good to listen to.
Did not expect this cross over
Came here to comment the same haha
I think that discussing these things with people outside of academia can be extremely valuable, partly just because it's important for philosophers to remain engaged with people from other disciplines and with the broader public.
@@KaneB by other disciplines here we mean....just wingin it on YT by the feelz
I'm not sure if it's relevant, but a thought occurs to me (at ~20 minutes in) that there might be important differences between Eastern and Western philosophical traditions in how mind and morality are thought about. Harris, of course, is taking a lot of influence from Buddhist traditions, while Eastern Philosophy in general is practically non-examined in contemporary (Western) Philosophy departments.
For example, in Eastern traditions it seems that the mind is thought of as an objective thing to be examined, and that can - in itself - be objectively known better or worse (from the "inside", while experienced subjectively). And morality - or awareness and cultivation of virtue and right conduct etc. - appears to follow when one comes to know the mind better (objectively); facilitated by, e.g., meditation and mindfulness.
Whereas in Western traditions it seems the mind tends to be treated as something more subjective, and more distinct from the outside world (cf. also individualism vs. collectivism). And, in West, facts about morality appear as something that would or would not be found from the "external", rather than the "internal" (all the while it seems unclear whether this distinction of external and internal even make sense in Buddhist traditions).
Or something along those rough lines. Like said, I'm not sure how relevant this is, or if I might be on the wrong tracks, but it seems it could be relevant given Harris's background. In any case, it would be interesting to see whether a more careful analysis of Eastern versus Western traditions might reveal something of importance.
This was a great podcast. Very clarifying for me as someone who got their start in Philosophy by reading the moral landscape.
@Oners82 You want him to turn back time and start with another book? lol
@Oners82 It's a new drug, called retardol
@Oners82 he was calling you out for being elitist and it flew right over your head
@Oners82 it makes no sense to YOU, you might have a blind spot, like we all do. And it's fine, just something to think about
I'm also noticing a bit of an issue of considering additional variables for one's own position but not for another's. One example of this was in how do we get oughts from true moral propositions like "it is wrong to murder." Kane immediately mentions that one might say something like "you ought not murder." However, he mentions that one might have some overarching principle such as maximizing the reduction of murder that may require murder in some instances, but that is an additional proposition that is different from the one initially under consideration. It is rather uncontroversial that additional considerations can override an initial consideration, but that doesn't necessarily undermine the initial consideration without the additional one.
When it comes to the evidence proposed for moral realism though, we don't see these additional considerations. It has been mentioned that the mere existence of moral intuitions that certain propositions are good is not the same as those propositions being good. However, an additional consideration is that a moral realist would say that such intuitions are indications that certain propositions are good. This doesn't undermine the initial consideration without this new one, but it is clear that additional considerations are being considered more in some instances than in others.
Please do one with CosmicSkeptic also🥺🥺❣️❣️❣️
I'm not in contact with him. I'd be happy to chat with him though. This particular video came about because Stephen got in contact with Cole when he was making his video on Sam Harris. After they spoke a little about these topics, we decided to record a conversation.
@@KaneB You're probably aware of this, but Stephen is a friend of CosmicSkeptic, so he might want to help you get it contact. Would be interesting :)
What do you guys think of psychological egoism? I think that's the idea that I identify with the most. Everything that I do ( or in my knowledge of) are done for my own benifit, even though sometimes it seems like it isn't.
It's more of a description of possible human behavior than an ethical or philosophical theory.
I think that it must be possible to be altruistic or do things for others their benefit in order for egoism or doing things for your own benefit to be a meaningful concept.
The only problem in this conversation was the critique to Aristotle virtue ethics. There's no individual in Aristotle. That's a mordern thing. Aristotle and all classical philosophy thinks in terms of a social being, not an individual. The "becoming yourself" is related to finding your place in the cosmus, in the community. It's more restrictive than liberating
did you ever read Aristotle? what the hell are you talking about?
At around the 12:40 mark, it was discussed that Cole saying that she thinks Ice Tea is sweet is objective, but you can apply the same conditions that make the tea being sweet to her to the 'fact' that the tea is sweet to her. We can do this, as Cole mentions, by saying the Tea is sweet to whom?, to now we can see, To who is Cole able to mention that the Tea is sweet to her? (In this case, it would only be to organisms with the same structure of phenomena). Or a less far fetched version would be to those who are incapable of understanding the language used to communication.
What would be objective is if you told yourself that the tea is too sweet, then relativity breaks down and you must assume objectivity when things are only in relation to yourself. (A solipsistic perspective).
If you think about it, if there were to be an objective reality, then the destruction of said objective reality would cause its elimination (obviously), but that doesn't reduce it as any less objective because now the destruction is the new objective. A change in theatre. Well if that is the case, then why would not one assume the current theatre to be mind? Therefore everything present to you would be objective. There exists relativity of properties but not of Being.
His position is what is put forward in Foot's 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives'.
Will have to check that out. I've found a PDF, which I'll digest tomorrow. Cheers.
@@rationalityrules It's such an incredible paper! Foot later changed her view, but I think she made a mistake. She argues that morality is based, not on categorical imperatives, which you reject in the video as well, but instead stems from our desires which generate hypothetical imperatives. However, she argues that this does not mean that morality doesn't exist, it just means that not everyone has a reason to be moral, even if most of us do. We are volunteers, not conscripts, in the army of morality.
She not only came to disavow that view, but publicly wrote and published an explanation of why it didn't work.
It's one of my favorite pieces of philosophy because it's so rare to see someone do that when they realize they're wrong.
@cosmic sans One person's modus ponens is another person's modus tollens.
@@ColeNasrallah @Reivaxbeastly In which paper did P. Foot reject Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives? Please and Thank you! Can you please provide a link or title?
Assuming that moral realists are also confident that "they know it" is a silly argument
I think the definition of anti-realism loosely given in this video tends to muddy the water. As a point of comparison consider how three philosophers might interpret propositions about economic value. If someone were ignorant of what the going price for milk was, and they ended up over paying for some, someone might say "That was a bad purchase" or "you _should_ have paid less for that".
An anti-realist might be tempted to interpret these propositions as merely expressing one's attitude about the purchase. "I don't like that you bought milk... it was bad". The error theorist might be tempted to interpret the proposition like "The purchase you just made was universally bad, and has badness as a fundamental character", and then go on to reject the proposition as false since nothing is universally bad, nor can things have the character of being bad.
Person three might say that the correct interpretation of this proposition is something more like, "You overpaid for the milk", "You could have paid less for the same item", "It was not in your interest to make that purchase"
By the definition of anti-realism given by Kane and Cole here, person three would be anti-realist with respect to the truth-value of these proposition, even though they are clearly truth-apt. Just because you can get person three to admit that economic value is merely a social construct and thus totally subjective, doesn't change the fact that person three is interpreting these propositions as having truth value. We can make truth-apt propositions about the cost of a carton of milk, despite the fact that "cost" is at bottom a social phenomena.
Nobody is a realist about statements like "the milk costs £1" or "John overpaid for the milk", at least in the sense that "realism" is understood in metaethics -- or in many other areas of philosophy, for that matter. In general, when philosophers talk about "X-realism" (e.g. moral realism), they do not take this to simply be the position that X-discourse is truth-apt (e.g. that moral discourse is truth-apt). If they did, then relativists, subjectivists, and quasi-realists would all be classed as realists. Indeed, if mere truth-aptness is enough, then even error-theorists would be realists, since error-theorists take moral claims to be truth-apt, just all false.
X-discourse is truth-apt, and that some moral propositions are true. This is the definition I've been familiar with. If you take the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy to be an authoritative source... here is the definition given:
"Taken at face value, the claim that Nigel has a moral obligation to keep his promise, like the claim that Nyx is a black cat, purports to report a fact and is true if things are as the claim purports. Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value-moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true."
plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
@@jesselee34 It's probably fine as an initial characterization of the conceptual space, for introductory purposes. One reason for this is that (a) there are many different forms of moral realism, so an intro article will try to outline it in as minimal a way as possible, and (b) the non-realist positions on which some moral claims are true are fairly rare. Both relativism and subjectivism, for instance, are generally seen as thoroughly refuted -- unfairly in my view, but as a result of this, characterizing the debate as between realists vs. noncognitivists and error theorists is understandable.
Though having said that, quasi-realism is actually quite popular these days, and the whole point of quasi-realism is to justify moral truth despite the absence of moral properties. So, I dunno. I don't want to say that SEP is misleading, because it's written by professionals and is generally a very useful resource. But the definition given on that page entails that relativism, subjectivism, and quasi-realism are all forms of realism, and I don't think there's a single metaethicist who would accept that. (Like, I'd even guess if you were to ask the writer of that SEP piece, "do you think that subjectivism is a form of realism?", he would say "no". I'm kinda tempted to email him to find out.)
@@jesselee34 Here's the definition of moral realism from Andrew Fisher's "Metaethics: An Introduction":
"The moral realist argues that moral properties exist and are in some way independent from people's judgements. For example, if moral realism is correct then we can say that the act of killing someone has the property of wrongness, and that it has it independently of whether people think it does."
I think that this is a far better characterization of how metaethicists use the phrase "moral realism" than what it is given in the SEP article.
Difference between murder and kill. Obviously can't have a categorical imperative based on equivocation. Using words like that interchangeably is kind of annoying and careless, even more so when nuance seems to be pretty important.
@@Mandibil Murder = Wrong + Killing seems not like a good definition to me, it dismisses all moral debates about it because it already assumes murder is wrong. I would instead define murder as purposefully killing
Hey man! Enjoyed the conversation. I have an unrelated question: Is it possible to redefine/warp moral realism (+objective morality) so that they use other theories of truth? Usually we're talking about metaethics having in mind the correspondence theory of truth. Could we use the pragmatic or coherentist theory of truth and "be fine"?
My impression is that metaethicists who appeal to alternative theories of truth tend to be antirealists who want to save moral truth, despite the absence of moral facts/moral properties. For instance, Blackburn holds that moral statements simply express attitudes, but he argues that they can still be true or false, on the basis of a deflationary theory of truth.
@@KaneB Thanks. I'm thinking more along the lines of comparing ethics to science. In science we build theories that work, explain stuff and predict stuff. These theories have to be pragmatic. We don't think of them as being true in the correspondence theory of truth sense, but it would make sense to think of them as true in the pragmatic sense. **If** that could work, then it could just as well work for ethics.
@@WackyConundrum I don't agree with that characterization of science -- I think we can treat scientific theories as offering literal descriptions of the world, which are true just in case they "match" the way the world is, mind-independently. That seems to me to be the common-sense understanding of science. Of course, other accounts of science are available... but it's questionable whether those accounts are realist. Pragmatism is often presented as an alternative to scientific realism.
More generally, though, if you want moral truth, but you find the traditional realist metaphysics unattractive -- then yes, there are ways of getting to moral truth without that metaphysics. Some sort of pragmatism would be one way to do it, I assume.
@@KaneB I agree that what the view of science you sketched is the common-sense one. One could say it's the naive view of science. My impression is, though, that philosophers generally understand science in a different way. As we can't really prove any scientific theory, but we can only try to falsify them and gather evidence that fits it and gather evidence from predictions, we treat them as tentatively the best ones we have at a particular time.
I read some stuff about constructivism in (meta)ethics. According to some forms of it, ethics is about solving practical problems. If we were to understand it like then, then it would make more sense to think of various moral propositions as pragmatically-true, rather than as "correspondingly-true".
@@WackyConundrum I'd say that the common-sense view is also the general consensus among philosophers of science. While there are plenty of powerful arguments for skepticism about whether our theories are true, it's generally held that scientific theories are attempts to describe the facts, and that what would make them true is correspondence with the facts. If a philosopher tends to be a inclined towards skepticism in this context, they will tend to say that we just don't know whether or not our best theories are true.
Anyone know where I can find Cole discussing Vegetarianism with Kane?
This was so cool! Thanks! I wish I could sum up morality into a few sentences but I’m sure I would make myself foolish. Isn’t there something about morality that is very visceral. A collective and individual “view” on an action. Over time the “ugly” thing tends to be morally “bad”. Something that raises a since of disgust tends to be morally wrong. Morality is probably mostly an art and not a science.
This really helped me clear up something I didn’t remember I was incredibly confused about. (What objective & subjective means)
Also Stephen sent me.
Rationality Rules clashes with Rationality, about time
He’s on the right track!
@1:32:18 : If it was demonstrated to me that the Bible in fact was dictated by the creator of the universe according to his moral dictum, I would still reject it as a justification for unnecessary suffering (like male circumcision). Does that make me a moral realist or anti-realist, or it cannot be determined?
Aren’t there atheists who think we ought to discriminate as well? If this IS in their self interest, then how can we convince them it’s not?
How do you define the verb "ought"?
Isn't defining objective as mind independent excluding many natural moral realists who wouldn't at all describe their view as there being moral prescriptions floating out there somewhere?
It is good to have skin and oxygen for a human (or any other organism dependant on it to survial or avoidance of suffering).
Therefore, it is not bad to forcefully remove the skin or deprive the dependant organism of oxygen as long as there are no ( for the subject) acceptabla substitute function available? Objectivly - regarding to the function of the organism and the values that are product of such a system regarding its self presentation - that is.
Lots to think about. It does seem to me when i watch videos about morality that one side may be talking in a purely academic sense while the other is talking about practical aspects and they just end up talking past each other, they are each speaking their own totally seperate language but each language uses the same words.
moral realism = good shit
I wish the distinction between metaethics and normative ethics was made early on. Alongside the terms universal and objective, would have helped A LOT.
I'm also really bothered RR somehow doesn't understand that innate desires or values or oughts are not morality. All men in the world could be born with the innate desire to rape women, that wouldn't make it moral to do so. We still have to decide whether we follow our biological programming / desires / values / oughts or not. And we don't have to be absolutist about it either. We can say "these biological desires over here are good and compatible with my normative theory, so we ought to follow them, but these ones aren't, so we shouldn't."
Finally, while it might be true that everyone is a "slave to the two masters; pleasure and suffering" that's so vague that it means nothing. Pleasure and suffering haven't been defined. And appealing to people's innate sense of the concepts, won't do either. Won't let us resolve moral conflicts. You might as well be saying "everyone acts in accordance with what they think is moral, so morality is settled". That just won't do. People disagree about what is moral, what is pleasurable, and what is suffering, and what to do about it.
9:50 I think its misleading to tie 'hot stove burns which causes suffering' to humans only.
This was important. Thank you guys for taking the time to explain all that.
I share steve's frustration with a certain apatheism, but did have the intuition that despite what everyone seemed to think, morality was not even involved in most cases. Kinda made me feel like a I was involved in scientism. Harris would get exactly what he wants if he called his system a science of well being and not science of morality, without all the objections and drama.
You guys drew a lot of distinctions that will have me rethink a lot of things. I needed that content, thank you for making it, to all three of you.
I think I made about 3 views
Sounds like Cole’s been cooking the wrong thing on Sam Harris’ stove top 🥶
Great conversation!
One thought: I'm not really certain that all such moral discussions that Stephen and other "peudo-realists" would like to have in order to further "moral progress" can ultimately be reduced to discussions on empirical facts. Think for instance that you found a culture where penis mutilation was an ancient tradition, and the highest value of said culture was tradition. At that point, there is no bible analogue to point to to claim that it is factually wrong... it is an empirical fact that penis mutilation is a tradition of this culture, and it is also an empirical fact that they value tradition above all else. What can you then say? Would Cole's caution of not wanting to impose her values on others prevent her from wanting to make any points against this form of genital mutilation? if so, that's still an example of the kind of relativism that Stephen wants an out to!
I don’t understand why “realists” even try with morality.
The point that keeps getting missed from Sam harris is the connection to consciousness.
For example It's a fact that cutting out the pleasure center of women's private parts is wrong because we know subjective facts of women. Mixed with an ability to be aware that that removal would factually negatively impact the individual's well being. Even if that woman desires to do so herself. It is a mistake and their naivete is no excuse and does not dissolve us of our knowledge.
It's solved it's certain non-negotiable. My and any governments ability to stop that from happening has no affect on the moral nature of the problem.
What do you mean with womens private part, and pleasure center?
@@Cookiekeks well not everyone gets told this but we coin a nice sounding term, circumcision and we say "male or female circumcision" as if* they are the same.
For men they remove a bit of skin called foreskin for women they remove the clitorus.
If you learn about biology and specifically the nervous system you'd see that to make circumcision identical it would entail removal of most of the head of a male's penis. That's where the sensory cells are for men to allow for pleasure and orgasm stimulation.
Because I am a man and I am not personally familiar with anyone who's undergone female "circumcision", I don't know the details of how damaging or frustrating that process is for them. Perhaps they can still stimulate to orgasm but it's much more difficult or they can't at all and never reach the same levels of pleasure as the rest of society.
To make an analogy, imagine the eye. Men lose an eyelid, they can still see just fine, women lose their retina, they may be blind, they might have some slight vision it's hard to say. Really awful practice imo.
I think pointing out that the Bible or Quoran isn't written by God is sadly ineffective. Trying to convince someone that abortion by convincing them to give up their faith seems like the hardest path to go.
I'll watch this tomorrow should be good also atheist experience and talk heathen should be good too...
Kane your audio quality is not very good. Maybe you are aware, but worth mentioning. It might be worth doing a sound check before starting to record next time. You have an echo in this one. Also, you have a lot of digital noise when you are speaking but the other people do not. It is much easier to hear what Stephen is saying and nicer to listen to. Keep helping us think! Thanks!
Is it ever morally acceptable for the police to be allowed to torture a suspected terrorist in an effort to gain valuable information so that they can protect others from terror?
@Alex McAuliff A friend from Nigeria believed that the police should be allowed to torture suspects to gain a confession so long as evidence points to guilt. I asked why? if the police already have evidence but got nothing back. This conversation was revisited on numerous occasions, and I even asked "What if your brother was accused of committing a crime, should the police be allowed to torture him?" I was shocked when he said yes. Later, I decided to substitute his brother for his dad, he thoroughly worshipped the ground his father walked on, and as soon as he started imagining his father being tortured by the police, the penny dropped. What alarmed me was how he could accept his brother being tortured but not his dad. And for the record, he loved his brother as well. If I had been a psychologist, I would have made a study on him.
@Alex McAuliff A utilitarian would say its moral to torture a terrorist for the sake of information which saves more lifes than one.
@@mephistophelean Thats not a good way of convincing someone. You appealed to emotion instead of actually changing his mind.
@@Cookiekeks Wow, I suspect that you just wanted me, and others to know that you understand fallacies, why? Do you want us to think that you are intelligent??? (Note the ad hominen).
@Alex McAuliff "I know its immoral but the consequences justify it" is just another way to say its moral
I think this was unfair and it would’ve been nice for another realist to be up there.
for the algorithm
I think Kane should've been speaking a lot lot lot more rather than her.
Following past the 1:09:30 mark - I can't prove God exists and I don't give a shit....'>.......
Is Cole Lebanese?
This Cole lady is an emotional mess.
For what reason do you believe this?