Fascinating lecture. I once had a mathematics professor tell me that numbers do physically exist but that they exist outside of space & time and have no causality. Pretty sure that existing outside space-time and having no causality is in fact an excellent definition of a thing that does not in fact exist.
Are ya sure he meant they exist *physically*? Plato argues that Forms (ideas / concepts) are real in the sense they are intelligible, and are more real than worldly things because they never change. The Form of a triangle exists regardless of the physical existence of triangles, for example. And the Forms of an infinite amount of numbers exist even if we can never think of them or if physical objects are finite.
@@johndough6225 That's the thing - I also thought the prof was referring to Plato's forms but apparently not, she specifically said that was not what she meant, hence my confusion.
You can reformulate the principle to remove the normativity and express it in terms of "Beliefs that conform to X or Y are more likely to be true". The stance that "you ought to try to have true beliefs" would still be something most of us believe that the anti realist about normativity rejects, but they can save the principle and then just say their prefrence for true beliefs is arbitrary and holds no normative force
anti-realists can certainly use language like "ought" without committing to some deep metaontology of truth- or moral-making. for instance, you ought to follow norm N since N reliably produces statements which successfully describe various states of affairs (for epistemic norms, for example). it's irrelevant whether motivation for committing to N is because "is true" (or "is ethical") is an ontologically real property the predicate rightly picks out. the anti-realist might point out the what counts or makes a difference for someone S considering N is what S believes about N which might include N being true or N being ethical, but certainly moreso are S-notions of what happens when you get propositions wrong (which could be couched in terms entirely devoid of notions of truth and ethics altogether). that is to say, the anti-realist can utter "you ought not murder" or "you ought to believe things that are easiest to defend" and expect them to have normative force. that force becomes more clear the more there is at stake in making certain commitments about states of affairs, epistemic, ethical, or otherwise.
The moral philosopher Jonathan Dancy also uses the paragraph here quoted from Hume to make a similar but slightly different, and if I may say so, stronger point in defence of moral realism. If we take moral properties to be a species of resultant property, then Hume's paragraph can be run such that it applies to any non-moral resultant property, such as "instability" - "so long as you consider the object, you can never find [the instability]".
My epistemic rule is similar but separates experience from interpretations of experience. "I heard the word of God" is most likely an interpretation of an experience, not fully the experience itself. "I saw a tree" is most likely just an experience because we can see trees without having interpretations of them.
I mean...geometry is the truth here...position in space is not a subjective opinion idc if youre a bat using sonar or a human using eyes either way to see the tree you have to see...a...tree.
A more fleshed out definition for morality as regards interpersonal behavior would be to say that moral behavior is any behavior one has control over that does not cause harm to the self or another. If no harm occurs then one has a right to engage in that behavior. Reasonable adults can find reasonable agreement to determine when a right to engage in an action becomes harmful. If necessary sufficient scientifically derived facts should be applied in this determination. The nonaggression principle is the foundational basis for this definition of moral behavior. The basis for the NAP is the human conscience, scientifically shown to exist in a specific region of the brain and is unique to humans, universally informing humans to avoid harm to the self and others.
Conceptualisation is a framework for ideas. Extrapolation is expanding on a conceptual idea by itself or with other ideas. Human existance is a physical existance with an electronic component through the nervous system. In this way we are somewhat like biological computers and our experience of reality is based on the interpretation of stimuli by our minds. As such our minds need to be able to conceptualise and extrapolate. So what you need to find out is it possible that anyone has an exact objective grasp of all base concepts they experience and whether they have correctly identified and understand the correct concepts to extrapolate to the next level of understanding before considering morality. These seem unlikely conditions to be fullfilled and as such appear to give the answer no to your question. The clauses to your definition on what should and should not be acceptable have to much room for ambiguity and allow play for reduction to absurdity when opened up to a broader judicial pannel. In effect they allow us to subjectively define what is an objective experience. Although it could be argued that my definitions are also subjectively chosen.
Although I am not a native speaker and I'm not good at understanding sth in English well , I can get what you tell in an easy way although the things you tell are subjects of Philosophy. Thx so much 🙂
@@stormingcrow2541Descartes would say, a person can probably be trusted-but must be doubted-if they occasionally lie or contradict. But a person who always tells the truth can be trusted entirely, until they are proven otherwise
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🤔 The speaker presents a list of objects that some people believe exist but can't be experienced, such as leprechauns, unicorns, and God. 01:36 🤔 A proposed principle is introduced: "You should only believe in things that you experience." However, it's considered too restrictive. 03:49 🤔 The principle is revised to include things experienced by someone trustworthy, but this too has limitations, as some real things may not be personally experienced. 05:00 🤔 The principle is again modified to include things that must exist to explain what we experience, like electrons, even if they aren't directly experienced. 08:02 🧠 David Hume's philosophical argument: When examining actions considered morally wrong, only feelings of disapproval can be found in oneself, not any objective wrongness inherent in the action. 10:36 🤔 Applying the same empiricist principle to normative laws (moral, prudential, and epistemic) results in a lack of objective normative facts about what one ought to do, believe, or consider rational. 21:47 🚫 The argument against objective normative facts is deemed self-defeating because the principle itself (you should only believe in things you experience) would also be rejected by its own standards. 24:56 🔄 The speaker suggests revising the principle to apply only to descriptive entities, acknowledging that objective normative facts may exist, such as objective moral truths. 25:39 🤔 The principle of believing only in things experienced or witnessed by trustworthy sources challenges the existence of objective normative laws. 26:33 🤯 If the principle were true, it would mean there is no objective normative law to dictate its own adoption, leading to self-defeat. 28:08 🧐 The concept of whether "tomorrow" exists raises questions about the nature of time and its existence. 30:26 🧠 Defending a claim from attacks does not necessarily demonstrate its truth; a positive argument is required for that. 31:45 🌐 Disagreement on moral facts among cultures and individuals doesn't necessarily disprove the existence of objective moral truths. 32:38 👍 We already believe in some normative entities like epistemic laws, so accepting moral facts isn't necessarily weirder. 39:02 🌟 Trustworthiness alone may not suffice as a criterion for belief since it doesn't account for illusory experiences or hallucinations. 48:15 🛤️ Causal claims about desires and outcomes don't capture the normative aspect of morality and its questions of what ought to be done. 53:40 🧬 Descriptive explanations of moral feelings, such as evolutionary origins, don't necessarily provide evidence for the existence of objective moral facts. 56:29 🦄 The speaker hasn't presented a direct argument for the existence of objective morality. 57:33 🔀 Many statements have been either reduced to descriptive claims or rejected, leaving normative claims unaddressed. 58:28 🛡️ The existence of objective moral facts requires an additional normative premise beyond evolutionary or descriptive facts. 59:54 🌌 The presence of potential extraterrestrial beings (aliens) raises questions about the applicability of moral truths to them. 01:02:12 🦚 A defense of moral reality against certain attacks, without providing a conclusive argument for the existence of objective moral facts. 01:04:37 🦓 People can deviate from the evolutionary norm, but it does not directly address the question of objective moral truths. 01:09:24 🧠 Following a principle of belief doesn't guarantee infallibility, but it can lead to more accurate beliefs. 01:11:51 🕳️ Some ambiguity in the wording of principles can lead to confusion in their application. 01:12:59 🎓 The discussion concludes with a suggestion to continue the philosophical debate, acknowledging the complexity of the field and the department's activities. Made with HARPA AI
I only believe in me. A willful disregard for the limitation of one’s own reference, and ignoring the evidence to the contrary. Pride is ignorance boasting. G.B.Garcia 2023 (cc)
What if you say "cannot" instead of "should not"? With a supporting discussion of why you *can't support * a belief in something that is not experienced or explained by experience.
The "Empiricist Principle" (EP) in the lecture isn't self-defeating. It's a category mistake to presume there's something more to believe about norms than that they are all prudential advice that, committing to them, have reliable outcomes. It's not because "is true" or "is ethical" applies to "you should only believe [epistemic norm]" that gives a norm its force or vital heat, as it were. It's the promise of a consequence, good or bad, public or private, that matters to norms. And of course from the very onset of the lecture, Kaplan worked his way to EP through a rational process aimed at prudential results in application. So a good ethical, epistemic, prudential evaluation of norms is whether or not following them gets us results "ideal persons" would be after (e.g. aristotle's experienced moralist in relation to ethics, or people who set bias aside and are diligent and able researchers into some state of affairs to faithfully increase knowledge, etc.), such as knowing and doing what is right or pursuing truth, and so on. To claim EP is self-defeating requires the belief that EP is a proposition and that oughts are derived from facts and the ontology of EP isn't factual yet says of all propositions, believe them only if they are factual (empirically based). EP is a norm and norms needn't be thought of as propositions, e.g. could be seen as advice- and promise-relations for would-be commitments. EP and norms like them in such a light are admittedly warranted (again, Kaplan rationally working out EP early on) and ought to be followed exactly because the warrant is the reliably produced prudential outcomes of commiting to them.
This seems entirely semantic. Terms such as "should" make no sense if they are not qualified by an if statement as in: "You should take this medicine if you want to get well". So just rephrase that sentence about the scientific method so that isn't some incoherent cosmic injunction. Hardly surprising that Kaplan claims to be the first to come up with his objection, because it is hardly an objection to the scientific method correctly understood.
I see, so you think that all claims with "should" in them should be qualified. But does the second "should" there--the one in your own claim--need to be qualified as well?
@@profjeffreykaplan Yes it does, and it is qualified by "if you want to get well". Here is another one: "You need to qualify a should statement, if you want to make sense". Perhaps what is misleading sometimes is that the if statement is often assumed in everyday communication. And this is the mistake that people who claim objective morality often make: You aren't bad, because you have violated some cosmic law, but because you have violated the rules imposed by the society you live in, which are generally based on the rules inculcated into us by evolution by natural selection, viz Kin selection and reciprocal altruism. That explains why we have these moral instincts in the first place. P.S. I was somewhat baffled by your reply as I had obviously qualified the example statement. But, I see you posted a second reply, since withdrawn, that may (!?) have clarified your objection.
The view you espouse is quite radical, though not unprecedented. To translate your view into established philosophical terminology, you think that all normative statements are 'hypothetical imperatives' (i.e., "If you want X, then you ought to do Y") and you deny that there exist any 'categorical imperatives' (i.e., "You ought to do Y"). There is lots of academic philosophical literature on this issue. It's one thing to say that all *moral* imperatives are hypothetical, but it is quite another to say that even *epistemic* imperatives are all hypothetical as well. The problem is that you will be set off on an infinite regress. If your view is 'All 'should' statements should be hypothetical in form, if you want to make sense", then the natural next question is whether making sense is something that one should want. But on your view you can't simply answer that question with 'Yes, you should want to make sense.' because that would be a non-hypothetical imperative. So your answer has to be something like "Yes, you should want to make sense, if you want Z." But then we will be in need of an answer to the question of whether you should want Z. Do you see how this leads to an infinite regress? This is the classic problem with the view that even epistemic normativity consists entirely of hypothetical imperatives. This is what I was getting at with my reply.
@@profjeffreykaplan that is very informative and thanks for responding. Taking: "then the natural next question is whether making sense is something that one should want" The statement S: "I want to make sense", does not imply that I should want to make sense. That is a totally different claim, because S stands alone as a statement that is true if I want to make sense and false if I don't want to make sense. It says nothing about whether I should want to make sense (whatever that might mean) or whether I am making sense. It is no different to saying "there is a tree in the garden", which is also true if there is a tree in the garden, but false if there is not. It is hardly the natural next step to ask if there should be a tree in the garden!? What would that even mean to anyone if you didn't qualify it as in: "Should there be a tree in the garden if it is illegal to have trees in gardens", for instance. Only then do we have a coherent question construction and we can answer that question with: "No there should not be a tree in the garden according to the law". So that "should" is entirely contextual and needs to be qualified. We could in fact be implying a totally different context such as "should there be a tree in the garden if it hasn't yet been delivered by the garden centre?" or a whole load of possible other contexts. As to categorical imperatives, their existence is a claim, which needs to be demonstrated surely (?), and an incoherent, unfalsifiable one, I reckon. That was the point about implicit qualifiers. If you tell me I ought to do Y, then I refer to my knowledge of our likely shared beliefs and try to deduce why you think that. For instance, if you say "you ought to shoo that wasp out of the window", I might deduce that you are probably worried about the wasp stinging someone and that I ought to evict it to prevent that. The religious will of course claim that a statement such as "you shouldn't murder anyone" stands alone and needs no context, because it is backed by whatever deity they favour, but that just pushes it one step back and transfers the same problem of contextual justification to some other entity (why does god think murder is wrong?) which leads to the Euthyphro dilemma. So with respect to the scientific method we can make perfectly coherent statements such as: "In order to test some medicine you should do a double blind test", with implicit understanding that double blind testing leads to medicines that cure people's illnesses more often than other methods such as staring at the patterns in tea leaves. i.e. science is justified pragmatically... and we might say "According to our current knowledge It works better than other approaches we have tested so far."
@@profjeffreykaplan I'm thinking there's always a base case that terminates what might seem to be infinite regress since we'll ultimately arrive at a hypothetical whose value is either clearly accepted or rejected by the subject. Ex: You should want to make sense if you want to understand the world. Why should I want to understand the world? You should want to understand the world if you want to effectively navigate it. Why should I want to effectively navigate it? You should want to effectively navigate the world if you want to survive. That should terminate the regression since the subject is still alive to ask questions. I'm thinking survival is the base case for all such exchanges since the subject wouldn't be around to still ask if they didn't; they might disagree with my suggestions on how to survive or how I drew all these connections back to survival but they must value their survival for the conversation to be taking place. I suspect that's also the case for morality should we arrive at an impartial, anthropological definition of it. The same would apply with a conversation with an AI if the AI is programmed with a goal to preserve its own existence.
The Bible encourages tithing, or giving a tenth of one's income, as seen in Leviticus 27:30 and Malachi 3:10. However, it also emphasizes caring for the poor beyond tithing. Deuteronomy 15:7-11 instructs believers to be openhanded toward the needy, while Proverbs 19:17 suggests that helping the poor is like lending to God. Jesus reinforces this in Matthew 25:35-40, equating caring for the less fortunate with serving Him directly. The early church exemplified this by sharing possessions to ensure no one was in need (Acts 4:32-35).
25:11 Shouldn't the change be removing the word "only" instead of adding the word "descriptive" since it's the same principle? Edit: I think both work, I first read it as, "you should only believe in descriptive things..." differently as "For descriptive things, you should only believe in..."
I think the problem with Hume's principle stems from the fact that under "experience," he only means descriptive, sensory experiences, which is a very limiting use of the term "experience." If we "should only believe in descriptive things," we can’t get anything except purely descriptive facts based on that principle. But if we expanded "experience" to mean not just sensory data but also things like the instinct of self-preservation, the derivative of which would be not wanting to experience pain, hunger, etc., suddenly we have a whole range of normative things that we do experience, even if not just through our 5 senses.
I "ought" not to die, therefore I "ought“ not to starve, etc.
Sure, we could say that these are just "feelings," but that would be equally true for every "experience." If I believe that something IS "red," because my eyes are saying it’s "red," or that something IS "salty," because my tongue is telling me it’s "salty," why should I not believe that I don’t want to die, or that dying IS "bad," because my body is telling me not to die?
We could also say that this is not an "objective fact," but only relative to the human condition or to human evolution, and that would also be equally true for every sensory experience. Like the concept of "green grass," which is just a tiny fraction in the spectrum of light that we perceive as visible.
We need a standard of proof that keeps mountains and rejects unicorns, not a standard of proof that’s so "objective" that it rejects everything.
The good thing about the instinct of self-preservation is that it's not only inherently normative and universal across all people; it’s universal across all of known life. So, using it as an axiom for a system of morality seems "objective enough."
31:11 "We definitely believe there are real objective ones of these [epistemic laws]" - I don't think that all people believe in objective epistemic laws. And even if all thinking beings believed in objective epistemic laws, that wouldn't make them real.
A person or being can only give you an understanding of the world they live in, so therefore, there judgement on a situation would rely solely on there own experiences, either because they've expienced it or because they have the mental capacity to intelligently understand the situation and the universal laws that apply for it to be true. (schrodinger experiment would proves this theory).
"There's nothing REALLY wrong with murder, if you apply this principle." No. There's nothing OBJECTIVELY wrong with murder, if you apply Hume's principle. The lecturer seems to be engaging in semantic subterfuge. He is suggesting that if something is not objective, then it is not real. Subjective beliefs are real beliefs. Beauty is clearly not objective, but it is real.
EDIT: I asked my question before a student offered the hypothetical/descriptive/causal adjustment. I think my offer still holds with respect to maintaining Hume's argument Hello Professor, I'm tutoring philosophy and I have a question regarding the phrasing of the principle you proposed and your claim that it is self-defeating. As the current phrasing relies on a normative "should", can it not be revised to be more descriptive simply by turning it into a statement of fact? For example: "All that exists are those things that you, or someone trustworthy experiences, or those things which must exist to explain what you experience." Doesn't the principle avoid the problem when phrased as a statement of fact? I think Hume would have been more willing to accept this version of the principle than the one you proposed (not saying I'm an advocate of Humean non-cognitivism, I actually consider myself a moral objectivist). P.S. Love your videos. I found your videos after my friends (Law students) started talking to me about positivism vs natural law theory and your video did what they could never do!
Not sure if I'm 100% right here, but I don't know if it means exactly the same thing to say that you have reason to believe that something exists and that something exists. Unicorns may well exist, or bigfoot, or the magical invisible fairy in my garden, but I have no reason to believe in the existence of such things because I have not experienced such things, nor have any trustworthy and reliable sources. An existence claim is a pretty strong claim, and it seems a bit tougher to wholeheartedly subscribe to a criterion for the existence of something based on sense experience than it is to subscribe to a claim about the rationality of belief based on sense experience.
principles ARE normative. They are not descriptive! They are value-laden. So no, the adjustment cannot, and should not, be made. Can't derive an ought from an is. The purpose of the principle is to tell you what you *should* believe exists. It's an epistemology. Secondarily, if it was purely descriptive, it would be a weird kind of idealism. Because you are saying existence is predicated on your experience, rather than objects existing independently of your mind.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter Many principles are normative in nature, but not all. The Archimedes principle for example is descriptive. But even if all principles were normative. Who forces us to declare a principle? We could make a descriptive logical proposition that explains why objective morality does not exist.
@@Dragumix this is just semantics, and I don't engage in semantics. Reply with something more tangible if you have something you want me to respond to. Also, no you can't use pure logic, ie. deduction, to lead you to conclusions about the external world, about what does or doesn't exist, you need empiricism for that.
Thoughts on Bahnsen’s suggestion riffing of Van Til that Christianity is necessary, epistemologically and metaphysically, as a precondition for intelligibility of a regular and law-obeying and constant-containing material universe with reliable scientific laws?
@@NerdMonides-is9iy Neither has a a monotheistic center than can account for the simultaneous solution to the problem of the one and the many in interpreting the world around us. We simultaneously need some kind of root diversity, that's an essential unity. The Christian monotheistic revelation is unique in positing a source for the Normative-Siutational-Existential aspects to philosophy corresponding to the Persons of the Trinity, but still allowing for a unified reality in a single source of truth.
The problem is with the word 'believe'. When I use the word 'believe', it is that which requires a leap of faith. er otherwise cannot be seen by myself to exist or by some trusted source. When I 'know' something.. it is by personal observation, or by those I trust. Using these definitions, I cannot "know' something that is inferred... even by reasonable assumption. I can only say I 'believe' in it. BELIEVE and KNOW are not completely synonymous.
That’s because you are equivocating the wrong definition of believe. In his scripted video lecture of this, he specified the definition of believe. He is using it in a way that does not imply a leap of faith but rather an acceptance of fact
.just a thought: it might have been useful to discuss "Objective Reality/fact" first and then "subjective Reality/fact" afterwards. Here is a couple of examples of objective facts and Morality: "incest has been observed/existed in almost all cultures across the planet AND is morally condemned in all cultures across the globe!" In human history eating human flesh has been observed-under particular/exceptional circumstances across the globe AND has been condemned across all cultures . .
wouldn’t the objective normative law only be that you should believe the empiricist principle because it leads you to truth? the law wouldn’t state *that* believing it would lead you to truth. it seems to me the existence of epistemic facts only suggest there is an objective law stating you should believe what’s true, but no objective law needs to exist for the empiricist principle to lead us to truth.
i’m perfectly comfortable accepting that it’s only my opinion that truth is worth caring about. i actually think i agree with the argument’s conclusion, as i understand it, there are no objective facts stating that you should believe what’s true, but i think that an understanding of truth helps me and society at large better get what we want
Subjective in the sense that the individual decides. The Koran or the bible contain written moral laws but the individual decides what books contain these moral values. The individual decides the meaning and relative importance of these moral laws. The cleric decides what laws to talk about, what are essential and which ones to ignore. When in the church we listen and come to our own decisions sometimes coming to conclusions that cause one to change religions or sects or even give atheism a try. Taking th lords name in vain could be taken to mean never mention his name, only us his name in the confines of defined occasions. For others in vain might mean only not to curse God. Even murder has to be defined as moral killing is accepted by nearly everyone. The full description of what constitutes murder can take up volumes and even then it is up to the individual to decide. If you are a person like myself that does not believe in free will then morality is no more than traffic laws, behaviors taught to keep the traffic of society running smoothy.
Thought experiment. If everyone in the world thought that an action was “right”, but that the action led to an increase in human suffering, should we consider that action to be morally right or wrong. Ie. would we say that everyone was mistaken and that regardless of peoples fallible views it was actually wrong or would we say that it doesn’t matter that the action led to more suffering, and we should just say the action is morally right because everyone in the world thought that it was right regardless of the outcome.
Morality is a personal understanding of best practices. Ethics is formalized, usually shared morality. Both are contingent, particularly upon priorities. There are (at least) four ethical universals. a) survival is a prerequisite for all meaningful goals b) sustainability is a prerequisite for all non-temporary goals c) truth is a prerequisite for all non-arbitrary goals d) reciprocity is a prerequisite for civilization
Oh ok so he's not actually providing an argument for the existence of objective morality. I definitely agree that there are no such things as epistemic norms, there is no such thing as how we ought to do science. But there are descriptive statements like - amongst all the ways we have of collecting data, way X seems to be the most reliable and thorough. And if we care about or want to collect the best data, then we should follow those descriptive rules. But I sort of agree with Hume so far, I don't see why its necessary or probable for there to be an objective norm sitting outside of our consciousness. Its kind of bizarre to suggest the existence of this abstract law that only functions in the moral domain, and its bizarre for precisely the reason that there is no direct evidence supporting its existence. All we have evidence for are strong feelings we experience internally, but that doesn't necessitate any sort of objective reality for normative laws. It is strikingly analogous to fairies and other magical creatures.
There can be tests that we call objective but those test aren't objective. They just test agreed to by a group we trust. We use the word objective to mean mean the result of a test what society agrees with. As for "objective" meaning apart from and independence from human experience the term is meaningless because it is by definition unknowable. If we knew what it was it would be part of human experience and therefore effected by it. Once anything is known it is changed.
He went over this at the beginning. You need not to experience something yourself in order for it to be objective. This is what the scientific method achieves. To say nothing is objective because of human intervention is false and absurd. If we were talking of quantum physics i.e schrodinger then we can make that argument.
@@Gruso57 You didn't understand my point. You wouldn't have answered my message if you never read it. You need to know about something, in order, to think about it. In the same way, the scientific method is based on a social agreement. The idea of "objective" is an idea and ideas can only exist in the mind and everything that exists in the mind is subjective. " To say nothing is objective because of human intervention is false and absurd." is an article of faith. It is an article of faith because it can't be tested or falsified. That doesn’t mean that everything is chaotic. We still have an objective view of our subjective experience. We still know what we know.
@@TomTom-rh5gk I guess a different way of looking at objectivity is to define experiences as being objective if the object of experience is not created by the subjective mind. By this I mean the following: everything we experience is either a creation of the mind (e.g. thoughts, emotions, etc) or things that the mind translates or interprets from external objects (e.g. trees, rivers, planets, etc.). For example, if I smell rotten cheese, I get a subjective feeling of disgust, and this feeling is something that my brain creates, and no one is else can observe my disgust. But the rotten cheese itself is an object which my mind translated from a real piece of cheese. Wouldn’t this definition of objectivity work?
@@SantiagoRK96 By this I mean the following: everything we experience is either a creation of the mind (e.g. thoughts, emotions, etc) or things that the mind translates or interprets from external objects (e.g. trees, rivers, planets, etc.). What you are talking about are subcategories of thought like perceptions (trees, planets, people) while others can be called sensations (thoughts, emotions). Both the product of our mind and outside forces. “No one else can observe my disgust” but no one can experience your perceptions. At the same time, both of you can see the same object and experience disgust for the same reason. Your definition of objective works fine in most cases and it is the one most of us use all the time. Our differences are like the differences between Newton and Einstein. My definition deals with extreme cases and introduces doubt into the whole process. Most people are fooled constantly because they do not examine why they believe the things they see. Watch videos explaining magic to see how easily people are fooled by hidden assumptions that they do not know they have.
@@TomTom-rh5gk Yes, I can agree. But even though perception is itself a mental experience, we can probably agree that this perception is consistent among all human beings. A tree is a tree no matter the person who observes it. On the other hand, sensations, even though they can be a shared experience in some cases, they’re definitely not consistent among cultures, time periods, or individuals for that matter. But yes, I see your point. At the end of the day perception is also mental, which opens the door to the philosophy of idealism. But for some reason this philosophy doesn’t convince me either.
What is a trustworthy person, if not a normative statement and how do you come to the conclusion that a person is trustworthy? Not only by empiricism, for sure.
Kaplan's version of an empiricist principle is undoubtedly flawed and not representative of what real empiricists think. No reasonable empiricist would include the idea of a "trustworthy person", nor the idea of "must exist", and probably not even the idea of "[directly] experience", due to factors like possible illusions and multiple explanations of sensory experience. But on the other hand it wouldn't have been wise to wade into the ocean of real principles because that would take up the entire talk. The question is whether, by creating a simplified, digestible principle, Kaplan has in fact set up a straw man to knock down. I don't think so, but I'm not certain. Perhaps a better empiricist principle would be something like "you should believe a fact if and only if it is true in the best explanation(s) of your sensory experiences and memories". The issue then is that "best" is a battleground (and there are issues about the relation between belief and probability), and exactly how you go about determining what it is will have implications for whether objective morality and whether the principle is self-defeating.
@@hoagie911 I was just commenting on the video version, what was said in it. Your response is partial informative, but you also shifting the goal point. Ore in other words, I do not understand why it is an response to me, instead of in main post tree..
@@hoagie911 "you should believe a fact if and only if it is true in the best explanation(s) of your sensory experiences and memories" - Do you think this proposition is objectively true? And if so why? And if not so why not?
This presentation and associated discussion is a most fitting explanation for why those whom I know that have studied philosophy are consequently incapable of perceiving reality. And considering ideologies influencing our society are largely based upon such philosophy it is logical and intelligible that our society is perilously unstable and collapsing.
Such philosophers understand the world through multiple unrelated concepts and extrapolations which may or may not be relevant to the actions taken by others. It is not surprising that others can both be moved by forces they do not understand and further more, that those same people could be unmoved by a different set of forces because they do not understand them. Society has groups that take action when they feel they must and if they feel they understand enough about the problem and actions to be taken. It also has groups that take no action as they are paralised by thinking they do not understanding the problem or what actions to take. This means you have the potential for multiple outcomes and reasons for them. Conflicting actions causing distabalisation and making a problem more complex can happen. Or we can just say some people overthink and do nothing(philosophers), others overreact and do conflicting things (nearly everyone else).
I thought of a way that moral wrongness could be experienced. If you could hook a machine up to the murderers head and it was able to show his thoughts of intentionally doing the murder even though he knows it’s wrong. So objective measure of someone thinking it’s wrong and doing it anyway. It wouldn’t work on every case because some people don’t think it’s wrong.
The apparent key flaw in Kaplin's thinking is that he conflates two VERY different uses and meanings of the word "should". 1. There is a should which is contingent and goal directed. e.g. if you want high marks, then you should study. If you want to feel safe then you should support outlawing of murder. 2. There is a should which is non-contingent. e.g. you should be truthful. Why? Because it is objectively true that you should. Kant referred to the first type as hypothetical imperatives, and to the second type as categorical Imperatives. I assert that the second type is a myth... a myth particularly spread by religious leaders so as to exert control over others. The first type, being goal-determined, is necessarily desire-led and subjective, and can vary from person to person. The second type is nothing more than obedience to an authority figure. The concept of objective morality is itself a myth. There may be widely shared moral standards as we have evolved a tendency to share many subjective goals and desires. But there is an absence of proper/sufficient evidence or sound reasoning supporting any form of objective morality.
And it is not enough to "save" objective moral facts, as the lecturer concluded. One must demonstrate objective moral facts, and he devoted not a single sentence to doing that.
So, if I understand the video… objective morality can’t exist or at least it can’t be observed since it can’t be experience subjectively… I don’t think the principle you gave really rules out anything with absolute certainty as its always subject to the limitations of our perspective. It’s like saying life only exists on Earth because we haven’t found it anywhere else. Maybe unicorns are native to the Andromeda galaxy 🤷🏻♂️ The whole formula on objective morality being a self defeating law bit… isn’t it sort of like the situation of the electron? Its existence can be proven by the fact that it must exist to explain why no vicious intent could be observed? That a violent murder can’t possibly show viciousness even though Jack got knifed 153 times in his nether region… which is something I think I’m probably misunderstanding. 😓 Reality seems subject to the perspective of the observer who defines it. As I am thinking that our understanding within the universe is little more than ignorance masked by a dogma… such that manifests itself to quench our innate thirst for true knowledge and governed by our inherently limited perspectives and reasoning. What is knowledge but the practice of thought and the acceptance of our beliefs? But all the fundamental foundations of facts are built on the loosely flowing strands that we deem to represent the fabrics of reality. It stands to reason that to understand reality, some consistent form must exist and thus limitations are drawn while advancing the conceptual definition of existence… a balance is born between thought and thesis which encompasses the ephemeral struggle of what is our perception of knowledge. This divergence to incorporate our perception into the understanding of an entity has eliminated the possibility of absolute certainty beyond the mundane definition we attach to it. If objective knowledge and subjective knowledge are likened to objective morality I think it can be extrapolated that it’s existence is concurrently a construct for the purpose of reasoning and a theoretical framework envisioning an ideal to judge the morality of things. Weather such things match the definition of reality or if such ideals are even possible to realize… Once again 🤷🏻♂️IDK. 🖖
Actuality is the universe beyond the comprehension of a mind. Reality is a limited subset of the universe from a limited perspective. There's reality-to-us and then there's Reality as the consensus version.
I love philosophy but I can’t it stand when it’s presented in a very needlessly pretentious esoteric manner to newbies… I actually think this professor is really good at simplifying essential philosophical concepts and principles but I digress; I believe morality is ultimately subjective but that doesn’t mean we can’t have objective moral values so as long as they are shown to be necessary and logically consistent. No need to create false dichotomies. The question I ask moral objective absolutists is what do they mean by the word “objective”… it’s my experience that most individuals that use this term tend to invoke the metaphysical or the supernatural to justify or rationalize the existence, utility and necessity of objective moral values. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism is an ideal example of how it’s possible for us to have “objective” moral values without denying the fact that these moral values and beliefs came from within a subjective human mind.
"I believe morality is ultimately subjective but that doesn’t mean we can’t have objective moral values so as long as they are shown to be necessary and logically consistent." - If morality is ultimately subjective, how can we have objective moral values? I think we can have subjective moral values.
Wrong premise... "you should only believe in things you experience." Because it is known that experience does not necessarily represent "real" things. As an example there are psychological diagnoses such as schizophrenia, that people "experience" things that simply are not Real. Thus, "experience" is not necessarily a reliable source of "truth". That's one area the scientific method addresses in determining what is 'true' or real. Morality exists only in the mind of an individual. And for the most part what's contained in their mind is what they learned after being born. What they learned had an origin of one's culture and what the culture "chose" as being important to culture and its survival and perhaps civility. Since moral values depend upon what one learns from a whole spectrum of choices makes morality relativistic and thus not "objective". Objective would include "universal" morals and there are no universal moral values.
There are universal values for all beings of a kind. For instance, the shared implicit goal of all humans includes survival, thriving, and authentic expression. There is no choice in the matter--even nihilistic suicidal depressives have this goal written on the core of their being. Given the goal, there are behaviors that support success, and those that invite failure. Eating food and avoiding raging fires would be an example of the former, and since others share the implicit goal, we act well when we do not prevent them from attaining food, and refrain from pushing them into fires. This is objective morality in a nutshell: A naturally-occurring, inherent goal prescribes certain behaviors and prohibits others. We cannot change anything about it, and our preferences, beliefs, and erroneous interpretations matter not in the least. The prescription exists independent of our input. That's why morality can be said to be objective.
@@bbblackwell "A naturally-occurring, inherent goal prescribes certain behaviors and prohibits others." And what is the origin of those "naturally-occurring" goals? I'm not talking merely about "survival". In order for human beings to survive they have to adapt to the expectations and laws of society. Those laws and expectations are not necessarily "natural" because the social expectations and laws are prescribed in order to maintain order in civilized societies. Other animals don't have the same expectations and laws that human beings have set up for themselves in order to sustain civility. Human beings don't live in civilized societies based purely upon the survival instinct. Take for example Jesus' teachings to love one another, to not seek wealth or power, to be charitable, etc. all of which stand against survival of the fittest. So the expectations and laws we have are not necessarily geared toward natural law of survival. In fact, most paleontologists and archeologists agree, were it not for mutual cooperation between people thousands of years ago during tuff times such as the Ice Age it would be far less likely that homo sapiens would've survived and be around today. As a side note; I'm confident that's part of the problem with much of the world now, including the United States... everyone is motivated by self-interest.
@@msmd3295 Well, you said it best yourself--our survival is not best served by self-interest. In addition, we're not the only one with a survival instinct. To act in accord with the naturally-occurring goal means *all such instances* of the goal, not just our own. Basically, it's about letting nature be the standard, rather than our own concocted social systems or momentary, individual ego-desires. To that end, I take great exception with the idea that legislation has anything to do with serving mankind. Such systems are man's attempt to rewrite the rules according to his own design--the same God complex underlying all theories of subjective morality. In reality, these systems become little more than an elaborate justification for the few to exploit and enslave the many. "Survival, thriving, and authentic expression", not to be confused with "survival of the fittest". This is the inherent goal, issued by nature, whether it be instigated by intelligent design or not. Viewing the goal holistically, we can more easily discern which behaviors are moral and which are not, and develop a clearer understanding of "unalienable rights" (asserted by the Declaration, then subverted by the Constitution).
@@bbblackwell That's very entertaining but unfortunately also very naive. What you generally suggest is that "letting nature be the standard" is no different than survival of the fittest. You just rationalize other qualifications of "nature". Even though nature left to itself does demand survival of the fittest. One can't serve others while living a life of self-interest. Self-interest is at the heart of contemporary capitalism and everyone left to their own self-interest creates chaos. I wonder if you grasp the difference between the needs of nature and the needs of social order. The purpose of social order is to restrain individual impulse for the sake of civility. All societies have found it necessary to formulate some form of governance to mediate individual impulse. Even tribes and ancient clans had a need for "leadership" to mediate individual disputes. Human beings left to their own devices will in many instances resort to conflict and social chaos, over property, ideas, rights to certain resources, the acquisition of power and wealth, etc. etc. I'm "shocked" than anyone today would not comprehend the necessity for governance, resolving disputes among individual "natures".
@@msmd3295 Don't be so impressed with yourself. Like most pompous asses, you overestimate your ability to discern, and presume too much. You've not understood what was said, and life's too short to be repeating myself. Good luck out there.
Hume's argument not only refutes itself, but it also refutes it's criticism, it's refutation. In order to have it refute itself it needs to be lent some initial credibility, and if anyone does, with that initial crediblity the criticism, the epistemic norm that you should believe the idea that it refutes itself, is also refuted. That does not mean that Hume's argument is refuted. That means both Hume's argument and the argument that it refutes itself, end up in a loop where they're neither (or both) true and/or untrue. The argument is not refuted, we have stumbled upon the limitations of language.
It does not. P1. It is objectively true that there are more false statements than true statement. P2. Claims supported by evidence are objectively more likely to be true that claims that are not supported by evidence. C. Basing one's belief on evidence rather than faith is objectively more likely to lead you to true beliefs. So....nope. No self-refutation.
Personally I think morality can be both objective and subjective and neither at the same time.. It's all concepts and constructs dependent on the definitions and beliefs one has..
Can you give an example I'm just curious at to how it could be both objective or subjective or or neither. I understand these are human concepts and constructs but they are opposing ideas
@@gof7783 I will say that ethics is very complex. in general it largely depends on the definition one is going by of what morality is or what makes something wrong or right in the first place. Reasons for individuals thinking something could be wrong are it feels wrong intuitively, It causes overall harm or pain, It goes against their God..There are problems that can be made with all these reasons. Free will, intelligence, knowledge, intent and other things all come into play when it comes to how something could be perceived as wrong whether it is objective or subjective. Torturing children for fun is wrong to me and I could suggest it is objectively wrong because it's causing pain and harm and almost every human would agree with me. In a sense is causing pain and suffering with no justification or purpose other than say perhaps the selfish pleasure for the one inflicting it. If we define wrong as the things I just mentioned then it can be objectively wrong to that definition. On the other hand theoretically a person could have absolutely no empathy or is a complete narcissist with no regard to future or outside consequences and doesnt perceive it as wrong in any way so it sort of a contradiction or paradox.
Morality exists in the same way the number ZERO exists. Absent a human to evaluate it or be impacted by it the term means nothing ( no pun intended 😁 )
@@lirich0 rationalist based their finding off of knowledge and reason. Rather than belief. So actually, this is what makes a true rationalist by not possessing beliefs . So yes, a true rationalist would agree if they are in the knowing of what a rationalist is.
Wouldn't saying that "chainsmoking cigarettes is unhealthy" also be normative if we consider "murder is immoral" to be? I consider both descriptive. The only thing I find lacking is an empirically-derived, anthropological definition of morality (a definition I'm sure two separate groups of anthropologists can both independently arrive at by carefully studying human social and evolutionary behavior throughout history and cultures). Of course whether one "ought" to be healthy or whether one "ought" to be moral requires a value judgment relative to the preferences of the subject. Yet I don't think the labeling of what's "healthy/unhealthy" or "moral/immoral" requires it provided we ground our definitions through empiricism. The definition of "health" also used to be subjective and culturally relative (i.e., we would have had to define it circularly as "whatever an individual or culture believes to be healthy" if we tried to come up with a definition that encompassed all individual and cultural practices). The subjective definitions of "health" involved all sorts of cultural and superstitious ideas (including for some even today who reject "health realism") like believing in healing crystals, balancing four humours related to earth, wind, water, and fire, the healing power of prayer, witchcraft, animal sacrifice, bloodletting regardless of the condition, etc. Then "health realists" took over to replace "health relativists" and now we have a much more accurate definition of health grounded in objective reality (far from one that provides perfect answers of what's healthy and unhealthy, but one that's improving as we understand the nature of the world). I see no reason why we can't do the same for morality except for a bunch of theists and philosophers immediately dismissing the notion as "scientism" as I'm sure many people similarly did for health in the beginning when modern medicine started to replace superstitious rituals.
@@marcsullivan7987 Somewhat, but Sam Harris sees neurology and tech as the answer to my understanding. I see it more like NHLE Poker. Some day NHLE might be a solved problem by machines along with art, music, poetry, etc. But I think engineers and scientists are overly ambitious if they think that's coming soon. I'm more into personally discovering what works best for ourselves at the moment. So I see becoming a great moral person as similar to becoming a great artist, not a great scientist, even if one day the two might mean the same thing. It's not today. Artists find what works best based on their personal experiences, crudely speaking. They don't rely on their ideas to test the same way for everyone else. Scientists are all about their ideas being based on what everyone else can test and verify. Scientists seek universal truths. Artists seek personal truths.
@@marcsullivan7987 Similar thing with doctors. I think it's a better bet to rely on doctors than healing crystals for treatment of a chronic condition, but I don't think doctors always have it right. You have to mix what works for you with what they diagnose. It's a gap in our knowledge. So in a sense I'm also promoting subjective morality and objective at the same time. "Subjective" to me just means things too complicated for us to understand perfectly, like what I should tell my wife when she's cranky and having a bad day, or how to produce music more beautiful to classical enthusiasts than Mozart. There is a perfect answer for that, but none of us know it. I think I'm closer to Jordan Peterson. But unlike him, I'm an atheist. But we think and talk the same way.
I think comparing morality with heath is kind of inaccurate because morality does have an imperative component to it. You are not really allowed to ask if you ought to be moral. Moral is by definition "what you ought to be". That's not the case with health, where one person can more or less rationally choose to be unhealthy. You can't rationally choose to be immoral.
@@pianovirtuoso420 Could you explain the last sentence a bit more for me? I don't really see the difference. For example, a junk food addict might clearly know that his actions are unhealthy and counter-productive for his health along with his ability to take care of himself and others, but be so addicted to junk food that he constantly negotiates away what he knows to be the right course of action for himself and his loved ones by ordering the french fries over the side salad and the beer over unsweetened tea or water. I don't see that as so different from immorality. For example, suppose this same man who indulged in junk food then comes home to loving wife and kids who ask him if he ate a healthy meal for lunch because they're worried about his health (say he has a heart condition or type-2 diabetes) and chooses to immorally lie about it. Both cases seem to be placing compulsive desires above integrity, and short-term results above long-term results. It's being a bad poker player if you'll forgive my crude analogy, since only bad poker players care about the short-term results. The good ones don't care about the short-term, only their long-term winnings.
If morality isn't from a religion, or previously discovered wisdom, it comes from the group, or to say another way, the best interests of the group, to insure its survival. In order for people to get along, there are certain behaviors that must be kept in check because of how humans in a particular culture will react, and these certain behaviors cause division and conflict, which is counter-productive to the group surviving.
Lambda calculus could be used to define a morality. But I do not have the skill to do so. Could such a task be used as a way to identify if we are being obejective or subjective? The very act of using lambda would force us to identify the base components of our morality structure and where there are valid arguments or even conflicting points that make a morality counter to our intents and needs.
that would be the second most unreadable ethics book if you wrote it. Only second to Spinoza's ethica. In which he tried to geometrically prove his premises about everything with axioms and definitions.
@@14thsomebodyelse Or he was playing 4d chess using the analogy of the deep dark forest that Tal talkes about. Yeah both would be very unreadable I agree.
There may be no objective morality, but there is relative morality. That morality relates to us. The common human goal is contentment [happiness]. Whatever you do, you intend your actions to make you or others happy. Actions that reduce the sum of happiness in all those that are affected by those actions are immoral.
A question which many overlook or assume a hasty answer to (apparently including Kaplan, at least from the first half the video) is "What do we consider objective?" I'd suggest that there are four criteria, four types or categories or degrees of objectivity: > Is it accessible to various people (quantitative), or only to each person individually (qualitative)? > Is it widely accepted, or a matter of individual opinion? > Is it developed from the same kind of methods as our most objective systems? > Does it actually exist in an ontological sense? When talking about 'objective morality' many people assume that we must be talking about the fourth category: And yet we don't even know whether currently-held laws of physics exist in an ontological sense, and the principles of mathematics and logic certainly don't... so do we say that physics, maths and logic are not objective? Obviously that's absurd, so it's an absurd criteria to apply to morality; that's not to say that ontologically objective morality doesn't exist, we simply don't know, but it's a kind of special pleading to suppose that this is the only or even the best way to think about the topic. Conversely a common go-to is comparing morality to merely aesthetic tastes, like a favourite food - the first criteria above - but that is also obviously mistaken because moral systems (most of them at least) can be coherently and fully accessed/shared between various people through talking, writing etc. without any loss of content, unlike qualitative phenomena. So if we're going to coherently talk about and pursue a more objective morality (it's a sliding scale, not a binary absolute), we should be looking at the second and especially third criteria. The second (widespread acceptance) is obviously important in terms of application; in terms of theory it's merely a subset of the third, in the sense that divergent perspectives help mitigate individual biases. Beyond that, are we applying consistent/logical principles to our development of a moral system? Are we observing real-world applications and consequences of moral ideas and integrating that information into our consideration? A rational and empirical approach to developing collaborative moral systems seems to me something that would be probably somewhat less objective than (at least for now) but potentially in the same ballpark of objectivity as the theories of logic, maths or even physics. At some basic level, everyone uses logic, maths and physics, and likewise everyone uses morality in the sense of principles guiding their behaviour; being more objective in our approach to all of those things is only reasonable. And obviously the fact that some or even many people are simply inept at logic or maths or physics doesn't make those endeavours inherently subjective or relative, and nor would it for the development of more objective moral systems. So far I think the best we've got are the Golden Rule (very widely cross-cultural across thousands of years) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly the first few articles (developed from theoretical and practical philosophy over several centuries, and endorsed however cynically in some cases by representatives of the overwhelming majority of humanity across many decades). But I think there's signs of ongoing convergence towards further consensuses, for example in the area of animal rights which might rapidly increase with the eventual development of farm-free meats.
Epistemic laws, as Jeffery points out, are extremely close to objective morality, and it requires a perspective in metaphysical philosophy to prove whether or not they are the same. Human pleasure can qualify epistemic arguments for the existence of objective good - for humans. We can epistemically say that public health is good for humans - and I'd argue that that's objectively true (null afterlife arguments). To create an _entirely objective_ argument for "good" one needs to prove that organisms and their perspectives are _valuable._ This is where metaphysics are necessary. An epistemic argument based on metaphysical conclusions about life - which themselves are epistemic - could produce an objective good. The argument could go as such: >biological life, and even more so, human consciousness, is so complex, unique, and miraculously derivative of other physical laws that >those laws likely exist _to serve life._ *Cue Euthyphro dilemma over what makes this _good_. Response to Socrates: >Epistemics. Basically, we exist, and that shit's crazy. Too crazy to epistemically consider coincidence - this comes down to math and observation (science). >We tend to really like existing, or at least the idea of life existing. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who is against the existence of all organisms. >If we exist, _we want_ to exist, _and_ the _universe_ seems to want us to exist, it's pretty sound to say that life is objectively good. We haven't been given any reason to assume, as a concept, that life is anything but amazing. Extending this from life - to humans - is an infinitely more difficult question. But >We can at least conclude that organisms enjoying life is good, and that >What is good for humans can then be defined as global health given that it implies measures that are empirically and epistemically good for humans and their joy on a global scale. (This is literally why I'm a public health major) TL;DR: Life existing is mathematically wild, and probably intentional in some way - and organisms seem to find existing cool - so it's quite fair to assume that life is objectively good.
"You'd be hard pressed to find someone who is against the existence of all organisms." - Most antinatalists are against the existence of all organisms and all antinatalists are against the existence of human life. They advocate to stop existence by stopping procreation. "organisms seem to find existing cool" - This is definitely not true for all organisms. E. g. not all humans like to live. And non-human animals: yes, they have an even stronger survival instinct than us humans. But this doesn't mean that they all like what they experience in their lives.
Way too many leaps in conclusions to call this remotely near rigorous or proving of anything. Your line of reasoning is super loosey goosey. And can be collapsed from the bottom, Descartes-style.
I would say the principle isn't self defeating, because the principle doesn't claim to be a moral fact. And Hume being a sentimentalist, obviously intended it to just be a sentiment, An epistemic sentiment, if you will. So the objection doesn't work. But I guess you had to come up with *something* for your students to question about it. It is rock solid afterall.
@@AedanTanner-bi1vq You don't actually believe this though. There's a billion things in your life that aren't "facts". Here's one: You love your mom and dad, they matter to you. Is there some fact about the world forcing you to love your parents? Not really, it's just a sentiment you have. Is that sentiment useless? Of course not. How about every hobby and interest you have? How about every flavor of ice cream you enjoy? Your favorite movie or story? How about the most important life events that would lose all meaning if you had no sentiments in those moments? Like come the fuck on. None of these things are "facts", and yet they aren't useless, to the contrary, they're the most important thing you have. And to put a nail in the coffin, they're what motivate your behaviour, INCLUDING your moral behaviour.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter Me loving my parents is because they are useful to my survival and happiness that does not make it some arbitrary sentiment it is based on morality and how they fit into my life if my parents made me miserable or if they gave me no benefit then I wouldn't love them. Morality isn't some statement saying this thing is inherently good and this thing is inherently bad it's a framework to decide what is good and bad based on how close it gets you to happiness and if it falls in line with reality.
@@AedanTanner-bi1vq You're fundamentally confused. It literally is an arbitrary sentiment. And I know you've been conditioned to think arbitrariness is bad, but it isn't.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter you are the one that is confused. It's not an arbitrary sentiment it is something that happens through reason. The arbitrary when in the realm of objective is bad the only time arbitrary isn't bad is when there is no good involved like your preferences in food, art, beauty, etc. But arbitrarily deciding what is good and bad and making arbitrary decisions without using reason is bad.
The problem is all the normative things are only in your head. Even the thoughts of unicorns are objectively in your head. If you want to say objective morality is the feelings in your head, that is fine. You can then say morality is moving atoms in your head. If the atoms moved differently or the feelings were different, then the morality would be different.
@@havenbastion "They're only in your head but they're not only Of your head. They all have an external impetus and external effects." Yes they do, like your favorite flavor of ice cream.
To say that immorality didn't exist objectively is so false, when i got hurt and feel pain, this is objectively a bad thing, maybe there is a justification for my pain but my pain is real, the holocaust is objectively bad thing because a lot of people suffered there. boiling alive the entire earth is a bad thing objectively, what makes something bad or good is the amount of pain and suffering that thing cost, without consciousness there is no pain and suffering, without creatures that can feel pain and suffering there is no good or bad so of course we can and need to measure morality by the pain and the suffering of those creatures.
Clickbait: Does objective morality exist? - The question hasn't been answered in this video. And there hasn't been a thorough attempt in this video to answer this question.
If you believe in the original empiricist principle then the answer is no. Revised it allows for the existence of it, answer being "it could". You probably shouldnt watch philosphy discourse if you aren't okay with qualifications or multiple internally consistent options.
@@cain3958 Well, I get that the original empiricist principle is self-refuting. But it could easily be modified to "We don't experience vice, therefore morality doesn't exist in an objective sense." Concerning the revised empiricist principle: It reads: "You should only believe in descriptive things that you or someone trustworthy experiences or that must exist to explain what we do experience." - It implicitly acknowledges the existence of some sort of objective morality by being a normative expression itself. Yet no clear reason whatsoever was given about why this revised principle is true. What do you mean by "qualification" in this context? I read that it characterizes the nature of an object, but am unsure what the nature of an object is. I didn't see consistency in Hume's list of propositions provided that Hume also gave the original empiricist principle as a proposition. I didn't see consistency in Kaplan's list of propositions for the existence of objective morality. He himself says in 56:23 that "that's [what he presented] not a decisive argument for the existence of moral reality."
@@Dragumix as stated, "allows" isn't necessarily "is true". He acknowledged the contradiction of being normative even in it's revised sense, and this is an interesting issue that arises from many "prescriptive" statements. He goes over set theory in another video, and how it applies to predicated statements, but to be brief, I see this as an issue of a "set" containing itself/not containing itself, or self reference. A set of all sets that do not contain themselves, for example, should be a valid organization of "things", but it doesn't function if it contains itself. I see the revised empiricist principle similarly, where it is self defeating because it references itself. Exceptions are hard to deal with as generally it feels as if and seems as if it is a counter example, invalidating the whole point of the principle. However, there are many situations in which we believe something and it is useful, which is an exception. For example, "you should avoid car accidents by stopping at red lights" people would agree with but many would see it as something to ignore if the risk of delaying medical treatment is great. In developing an argument or idea, we of course tend to try and fix this by adjusting the statement as he does with the revision. As for qualification, I forget what I was thinking about in the post. As for "we don't experience vice... Morality doesn't exist in an objective sense", one could argue it has to exist to explain our experiences. Besides, as stated, we don't experience epistemological normative prescriptions either, as its non experiencial and a prescription by nature I would also like to note I am not institutionally educated on this topic so I could be misusing terminology and assuming conventions of discussion that don't exist or violating them
If you follow the tracks you laid out here and not just stop and say “well, it’s obvious or prima-facie” then you will come to where the Buddha is. There does seem to be this relative world but there is nothing at all holding it up. Nothing to know. Nothing to believe. Even that’s too much to say because it’s already a knowledge claim. This cannot be It cannot not be It can’t both be and not be Neither can it neither be nor not be Mu And then there is silence 🖖namaste homies
It is pretty simple, everything that leads to sustainable existence is good and everything that leads to death is not good. Existence is objective fact, we are programmed for survival, which is again fact.
If you can posit an objective teleology, you can get an objective morality, but good luck convincing people you can have a purpose created by anything but a subjective choice.
@@jeffreyscott4997 Our objective purpose is working toward sustainable existence. Now this has too many dimensions because sustainable existence requires too many things in different fields of life. But if you choose a meaningful field in which to develop human knowledge(in the development of which many people can benefit after you make a progress), based on your potential, this is the closest you can get to objectivity. But anyway even if your purpose can't be defined as 100% objective , you can always comment on the objective purposefulness of some activity or your decision in a given moment when linked to how it affects our sustainable existence as a species. (And here I say sustainable because humans in the future are also included in the picture, because this is more objective view of existence)
@@borislaviliev251 What do you mean by "sustainable existence"? Why is sustainable existence good and why is death bad? It's a fact that evolution supports existence - not necessarily a pleasant existence - but you can't infer from that that life or sustainable life should exist.
@@Dragumix Sustainable existence means such existence that won't end soon and that won't lead to disaster. Without life nothing will be good or bad, these words exist to describe specific conditions that lead us to existence or to death. So these words only have meaning if life exist. Saying existence of life is not good is total nonsense. And if you want to do a good and meaningful thing you SHOULD fight for the existence of life. So you come to "should exist" , only if you want to do a good thing. And that is a question of belief, it means if you belive there are bad and good things you should act accordingly. If you don't you are in a deep state of nihilism, and I can't help you there.
Before we discuss whether morals can be objective or that they are subjective, surely we need to discuss what morals are in the first place and why we care about them. Seems to me that morals don’t exist in a vacuum. The concept of morals only exists insofar as they relate to our membership of some kind of society. So morals only exist or have utility in relation to some ecosystem. They obviously don’t exist outside a society. So then if morals only exist in relation to a society then we should ask what is that relationship between morals and society. Is it possible to have a moral rule which is in contradiction with the wellbeing of that society? I would struggle to think that we could have morals which are inherently contradictory to the wellbeing of society. If we did have such morals I would think that we would not particularly like or value morality. Indeed in such a situation we would probably treat morals in the same way as we may treat laws that we think are unfair or unjust. But we don’t think of morals in that way. We elevate and sanctify morals. So we must believe that they are in the best interests of society. If we believe that then morals must be whatever action is in the best interests of society. This leads back to morality being objective even if we each have a different view of what is in the best interests of society.
"If we believe that then morals must be whatever action is in the best interests of society. This leads back to morality being objective" Not at all. Clearly we do not all agree on what is "best" for society, making that a subjective judgement call. Any morality based upon that is likewise subjective.
@@anangelsdiaries hope this helps. Cold is a word to describe an absence of heat, cold is not a measurable entity. As applies to all things, dark, subtraction, and nothing, all things that are absences of things, not things themselves..measurably. they dont, never have, and will never exists as a positive mathematical entity. They do not exists, nor are "real".
Sorry, a better understanding of real vs exist. Exists means to stand out, real means to be actual. An example, working in a factory its very loud, you grow accustomed to the noise. Then something breaks and the machines shut down. All the sudden it gets very quiet. You notice this quieting. Because you notice, it stands out so the quiet exists (because it stands out). But the absence of sound is not real. This is the difference between exist and real. The quiet is Not real, but stands out, therefore the quiet exists, but is not real because if you tried to measure the quiet it would be approximately 0.
Objective morality is demonstrably wrong, because morality only exists in relation to subjective experience of pleasure or pain. It is that subjective experience that makes anything 'good' or 'bad'. Without pleasure or pain, there is nothing to have any morals about. Thus in one simple argument one can prove that the notion of any external, objective, morality is nonsense.
@@jeffreyscott4997 It is self-evidently true. What possible meaning can morality have if you cannot hurt anyone if nobody experiences any pain or suffering ? Without that subjective experience there is absolutely no reason to deem anything 'wrong'.
Well said and concisely put. I've long felt the same, since about the age of 15 when I really started thinking about this stuff. Without feelings of pleasure or pain there is zero need for morality.
Is there any objectivity to pleasure and pain? Is it not objectively the case that any normally-functional human will feel pain if I stab them in the shoulder? And doesn't that pain relate to something objective about the integrity of the body? Have I not violated the proper functionality of the body, as prescribed by nature, the ultimate arbiter? To behave falsely, without due acknowledgment of an objectively true fact, is itself an objectively true fact. And that objective act of denial, relative to the naturally-prescribed functionality of the victim's body, is what we mean when we say the act is immoral. It is "wrong", as in incorrect, or "sin", as in a missing of the mark (of truth).
@@bbblackwell I'm immediately suspicious of any argument that has to invoke 'normal'. There are, in fact, people who experience no pain. So much for nature 'prescribing' stuff. Isn't that the same nature that 'prescribes' earthquakes and tornadoes and tsunamis and so on ? I don't think God ever really answered Job properly....just a ' look, mate, I'm God, don't ask awkward questions '.
So moral laws are in question, but everyone is in agreement that a "scientific world view" is something real and must be abided by. Seriously, analytic philosophy's influence could be called pernicious if it wasn't so comical.
It is most definitely a yes. Objective morality does exist. Provided you know what objective and morality even are. If your view of objective morality equates to “therefore never eat shrimp. Or one must not wear white on Labor Day.” If that is what one holds in mind of an objective morality, that’s precisely the issue and why people think there is not objective morality.
@@garthballantine193 "So do you believe there is some way of logically/rationally determining what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'? ie what one ought to do" I use the Golden Rule. I would not like to be murdered, have my possessions taken or captured and sold into slavery, so I do not wish that upon other people. I don't believe logical/rational arguments can be used to support slavery, incest, cannibalism, murder etc. Those practices will always be morally objectionable.
@@nicolemoore2473 Masochists receive humiliation and pain, not cause it. You're thinking of sadists. But a defense of any act by arguing that it brings solace and comfort to the individual is an unreasonable argument. If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sadists. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with. You could reasonably argue that any behavior no matter how foul or heinous should be acceptable because it brings pleasure or comfort to those who practice it. And this obviously isn't true.
You seem to be very convinced, as you have also responsed to someone Else, that it is self evident. But i must bring you to the awareness, that you are wrong about this, and should examine yourself thoroughly. First of all, morality is neither dependent on the Feeling of pleasure and pain itself, Nor is it objective, although it only concerns sentient beings as we will surely agree upon. Morality is concerned with volition, and volition also with pleasure and pain, but neither is volition identical with pleasure and pain, Nor is morality concerned with them themselves. If someone does Not feel them, it would Not Change the Moral Rules Binding on that Person too, for Others so feel it, and they are again Not concerned with them directly. If you Wish a simple example, as you too thought of giving one, i offer the following: If pleasure is identical to what is good, having pleasure in Bad Things would be contradictory. Now, many have often pleasure in Immoral Things. Also pain might be needed to endure to reach pleasure, but this endurence and what needs to be endured would be good, albight lacking all pleasure. At Last, of morality where totally dependent on subjective Feelings, and subjective itself by that, it would be true, that what brings me pleasure in the pain of another would be as right as its opposite, which is contradictory. So either morality is nothing, or it is objective. Because you suggested, that morality would be subjective, you are wrong, by Not only failing to Assert its necessary objectivity, but also by failing to say, what you would have indeed needed to say with your Claim, namely, that there is No such Thing as morality. But to do this comes Up to say the Same as, that Truth and knowledge are subjective. Either they are Not, or they are objective. To say, that they are Not is absurd, for it would presuppose them and contradict itself by that. But also to say that it is objective, for it would contradict itself too. As those, who May Lack any Sensation of pleasure and pain, will still have volition, morality is not disbanded. And even If Noone where there to have volition, the principles of morality would stay the Same, Just Like those of rationality in General. Because morality is concerned with what can be called practical rationality. And to say of rationality, that it is Not objective is a good Joke.
Sorry but...nope. If you are going to claim that morality cannot be objective without God, then you need to demonstrate that. Not merely assert it as true, as Christians seem to always want to do. Then you will have to demonstrate that morality is necessarily objective WITH God. Good luck with that, since any morality which stems from God, a being, is thus subjective by definition. And finally, if you belong to an Abrahamic faith, you will have to reconcile the perfect morality of your God with the fact that he commanded genocide, slavery, infanticide, and rape. The fact is, by claiming that God exists, every man can do as he sees fit and claim divine approval. With God, all atrocities are justifiable.
He lost me with his restrictive definition of experience. My personal relationship with Christ is as real to me as any materialistic encounter I’ve ever had.
It isn't as real to everyone else though given that millions of people have similar "experiences" with totally contradictory deities and other phenomena, whose reality you would no doubt question. It is an experience of course, just an internal one, that is personal to you. The mistake you are making is in believing your own thought processes are giving you an accurate picture of reality, whilst other people's are not. From an outside perspective we can not distinguish between your claims and theirs and the simplest application of Occam's razor is that you are all delusional.
@@roqsteady5290 sure. But what gives Occam's razor it's authority? Mass agreement? What if the whole mass of intellectuals are wrong? What if the earth really was flat? I don't think that it is, but what if we are all wrong about it, and have convinced ourselves with evidence that confirms our own already ironclad pre-suppositions? It always comes down to an issue of authority. I believe in Jesus Christ for a lot more "reasons" than the feelings I've received from believing in Him. If you want the truth as far as I can convey it based upon scripture, He has made ME to believe in Him. He has put an incorruptible seed in me that does not rest until I surrender to His Way. Which, as it stands, is a very narrow Way, as He himself testified. The light has come, but people stayed in the darkness because their works were evil. They won't come to the light, lest their evil deeds be exposed. And we're not talking about being exposed just to others, we're talking about having your own evil deeds in your own heart exposed to your own self for what they truly are. If you don't want to/cannot believe Him, or you don't want to come to the light, you certainly wouldn't be the first one. God bless.
@@roqsteady5290 also, maybe we are exceedingly delusional and insane, but according to what? Your understanding of delusion or insanity? Christ said that if they thought He was out of His mind, how much more would they think that of His servants. As a matter of fact, I'll grant you that I'm out of my mind. 2 Corinthians 5:13. If I'm out of my mind, it is for God. If I appear to be sober, it is for your sake.
this entire hour long lecture could be reduced to: unless right and wrong exist, i can kick in your teeth for no good reason right now and you'd have no grounds on which to say i did something wrong at which point your anger toward me could be deemed illegitimate. tada. and i do this for free while dude gets paychecks from everyone who buys the college scam. truth doesn't sell. the only way to make money from speaking truth is to... couch it in a s h i t ton of extra yammering and then also sometimes lie for the benefit of one's employer.
Right, and the argument fails because illegitimacy is not objective any more than morality is. I'm angry, because I thought you shared the same set of values as everyone else around me, not because you violated some cosmic code of conduct. If a rat bites me or a rockfall falls on me, I'm more angry with myself for being careless rather than with the rat, because I dont expect those things to have the same values as I do.
@@roqsteady5290 you're lacking a huge chunk of foundation if you don't realize that morality is a health science and very much objective. it's not "cosmic". it is summarized in the golden principle. don't treat another in a way you would not want to be treated. no exceptions exist. we are all 99.999999% the same, and our needs are shared. the things that allow us to thrive are the same. morality is derived of physics, and we do not each have our "own set of physics". we are not special snowflakes in this regard. we are the same. legitimacy has a meaning. it is usually male persons who fight the hardest to say "it's all subjective". isn't that interesting? warrants some analysis.
@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969 There are obvious exceptions to the golden rule. For example, I like to be hugged when I'm upset. Many people _don't_ like to be hugged when they are upset. If I treat them the way I'd like to be treated, I would end up doing harm to them. And to say that morality is derivable from physics is just absurd. Physics is a description of reality, morality is a prescription for behavior. It it simply a logical fallacy to derive one from another.
"Biological morality"? Haha never heard of that. I can see morality being conditioned through cultures that survive the longest. But it is pretty obvious to me that most morality is taught.
Fascinating lecture. I once had a mathematics professor tell me that numbers do physically exist but that they exist outside of space & time and have no causality. Pretty sure that existing outside space-time and having no causality is in fact an excellent definition of a thing that does not in fact exist.
"it's physical but has no spacial dimensions"
wtf is physical then lmao
@@thesnowybanana2971 Yes, exactly!
Are ya sure he meant they exist *physically*? Plato argues that Forms (ideas / concepts) are real in the sense they are intelligible, and are more real than worldly things because they never change. The Form of a triangle exists regardless of the physical existence of triangles, for example. And the Forms of an infinite amount of numbers exist even if we can never think of them or if physical objects are finite.
@@johndough6225 That's the thing - I also thought the prof was referring to Plato's forms but apparently not, she specifically said that was not what she meant, hence my confusion.
@@DarkFire515 ah understood and my bad for assuming professor means man
Communication is the key to articulating philosophy and Jeffrey Kaplan is fantastic at it.
We need more people teaching that can actually teach!
Great job!
You can reformulate the principle to remove the normativity and express it in terms of "Beliefs that conform to X or Y are more likely to be true". The stance that "you ought to try to have true beliefs" would still be something most of us believe that the anti realist about normativity rejects, but they can save the principle and then just say their prefrence for true beliefs is arbitrary and holds no normative force
anti-realists can certainly use language like "ought" without committing to some deep metaontology of truth- or moral-making.
for instance, you ought to follow norm N since N reliably produces statements which successfully describe various states of affairs (for epistemic norms, for example).
it's irrelevant whether motivation for committing to N is because "is true" (or "is ethical") is an ontologically real property the predicate rightly picks out.
the anti-realist might point out the what counts or makes a difference for someone S considering N is what S believes about N which might include N being true or N being ethical, but certainly moreso are S-notions of what happens when you get propositions wrong (which could be couched in terms entirely devoid of notions of truth and ethics altogether).
that is to say, the anti-realist can utter "you ought not murder" or "you ought to believe things that are easiest to defend" and expect them to have normative force.
that force becomes more clear the more there is at stake in making certain commitments about states of affairs, epistemic, ethical, or otherwise.
please god, if there is a god, get this man a bigger whiteboard.
Turn the ladder into whiteboard. Make it so!
Your teaching style is awesome!!
Very enjoyable discussion to witness even recorded, it feels like attendants are having honest thought-provoking moments :)
The moral philosopher Jonathan Dancy also uses the paragraph here quoted from Hume to make a similar but slightly different, and if I may say so, stronger point in defence of moral realism. If we take moral properties to be a species of resultant property, then Hume's paragraph can be run such that it applies to any non-moral resultant property, such as "instability" - "so long as you consider the object, you can never find [the instability]".
Jeffrey Kaplan is such an excellent communicator. That is all.
My epistemic rule is similar but separates experience from interpretations of experience. "I heard the word of God" is most likely an interpretation of an experience, not fully the experience itself. "I saw a tree" is most likely just an experience because we can see trees without having interpretations of them.
I mean...geometry is the truth here...position in space is not a subjective opinion idc if youre a bat using sonar or a human using eyes either way to see the tree you have to see...a...tree.
A more fleshed out definition for morality as regards interpersonal behavior would be to say that moral behavior is any behavior one has control over that does not cause harm to the self or another. If no harm occurs then one has a right to engage in that behavior. Reasonable adults can find reasonable agreement to determine when a right to engage in an action becomes harmful. If necessary sufficient scientifically derived facts should be applied in this determination. The nonaggression principle is the foundational basis for this definition of moral behavior. The basis for the NAP is the human conscience, scientifically shown to exist in a specific region of the brain and is unique to humans, universally informing humans to avoid harm to the self and others.
Nice description
Great stuff, Dr. Kaplan. Thank you for sharing it.
Conceptualisation is a framework for ideas. Extrapolation is expanding on a conceptual idea by itself or with other ideas.
Human existance is a physical existance with an electronic component through the nervous system. In this way we are somewhat like biological computers and our experience of reality is based on the interpretation of stimuli by our minds. As such our minds need to be able to conceptualise and extrapolate.
So what you need to find out is it possible that anyone has an exact objective grasp of all base concepts they experience and whether they have correctly identified and understand the correct concepts to extrapolate to the next level of understanding before considering morality.
These seem unlikely conditions to be fullfilled and as such appear to give the answer no to your question.
The clauses to your definition on what should and should not be acceptable have to much room for ambiguity and allow play for reduction to absurdity when opened up to a broader judicial pannel. In effect they allow us to subjectively define what is an objective experience. Although it could be argued that my definitions are also subjectively chosen.
Although I am not a native speaker and I'm not good at understanding sth in English well , I can get what you tell in an easy way although the things you tell are subjects of Philosophy. Thx so much 🙂
I wonder what the "excellent question that won't be covered any further" was
It was something about trusting people. Whatever it was, it wasn't part of the topic being covered and the professor did not want to get side-tracked.
What makes a person trustworthy?
@@stormingcrow2541Descartes would say, a person can probably be trusted-but must be doubted-if they occasionally lie or contradict. But a person who always tells the truth can be trusted entirely, until they are proven otherwise
can't hear the questions. could they be written like in an annex? they are important for understanding the ideas fully
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🤔 The speaker presents a list of objects that some people believe exist but can't be experienced, such as leprechauns, unicorns, and God.
01:36 🤔 A proposed principle is introduced: "You should only believe in things that you experience." However, it's considered too restrictive.
03:49 🤔 The principle is revised to include things experienced by someone trustworthy, but this too has limitations, as some real things may not be personally experienced.
05:00 🤔 The principle is again modified to include things that must exist to explain what we experience, like electrons, even if they aren't directly experienced.
08:02 🧠 David Hume's philosophical argument: When examining actions considered morally wrong, only feelings of disapproval can be found in oneself, not any objective wrongness inherent in the action.
10:36 🤔 Applying the same empiricist principle to normative laws (moral, prudential, and epistemic) results in a lack of objective normative facts about what one ought to do, believe, or consider rational.
21:47 🚫 The argument against objective normative facts is deemed self-defeating because the principle itself (you should only believe in things you experience) would also be rejected by its own standards.
24:56 🔄 The speaker suggests revising the principle to apply only to descriptive entities, acknowledging that objective normative facts may exist, such as objective moral truths.
25:39 🤔 The principle of believing only in things experienced or witnessed by trustworthy sources challenges the existence of objective normative laws.
26:33 🤯 If the principle were true, it would mean there is no objective normative law to dictate its own adoption, leading to self-defeat.
28:08 🧐 The concept of whether "tomorrow" exists raises questions about the nature of time and its existence.
30:26 🧠 Defending a claim from attacks does not necessarily demonstrate its truth; a positive argument is required for that.
31:45 🌐 Disagreement on moral facts among cultures and individuals doesn't necessarily disprove the existence of objective moral truths.
32:38 👍 We already believe in some normative entities like epistemic laws, so accepting moral facts isn't necessarily weirder.
39:02 🌟 Trustworthiness alone may not suffice as a criterion for belief since it doesn't account for illusory experiences or hallucinations.
48:15 🛤️ Causal claims about desires and outcomes don't capture the normative aspect of morality and its questions of what ought to be done.
53:40 🧬 Descriptive explanations of moral feelings, such as evolutionary origins, don't necessarily provide evidence for the existence of objective moral facts.
56:29 🦄 The speaker hasn't presented a direct argument for the existence of objective morality.
57:33 🔀 Many statements have been either reduced to descriptive claims or rejected, leaving normative claims unaddressed.
58:28 🛡️ The existence of objective moral facts requires an additional normative premise beyond evolutionary or descriptive facts.
59:54 🌌 The presence of potential extraterrestrial beings (aliens) raises questions about the applicability of moral truths to them.
01:02:12 🦚 A defense of moral reality against certain attacks, without providing a conclusive argument for the existence of objective moral facts.
01:04:37 🦓 People can deviate from the evolutionary norm, but it does not directly address the question of objective moral truths.
01:09:24 🧠 Following a principle of belief doesn't guarantee infallibility, but it can lead to more accurate beliefs.
01:11:51 🕳️ Some ambiguity in the wording of principles can lead to confusion in their application.
01:12:59 🎓 The discussion concludes with a suggestion to continue the philosophical debate, acknowledging the complexity of the field and the department's activities.
Made with HARPA AI
I only believe in me.
A willful disregard for the limitation of one’s own reference, and ignoring the evidence to the contrary. Pride is ignorance boasting.
G.B.Garcia 2023 (cc)
This is gold dust! Thank you!
What if you say "cannot" instead of "should not"? With a supporting discussion of why you *can't support * a belief in something that is not experienced or explained by experience.
I like his teaching methods,
The "Empiricist Principle" (EP) in the lecture isn't self-defeating.
It's a category mistake to presume there's something more to believe about norms than that they are all prudential advice that, committing to them, have reliable outcomes.
It's not because "is true" or "is ethical" applies to "you should only believe [epistemic norm]" that gives a norm its force or vital heat, as it were.
It's the promise of a consequence, good or bad, public or private, that matters to norms.
And of course from the very onset of the lecture, Kaplan worked his way to EP through a rational process aimed at prudential results in application.
So a good ethical, epistemic, prudential evaluation of norms is whether or not following them gets us results "ideal persons" would be after (e.g. aristotle's experienced moralist in relation to ethics, or people who set bias aside and are diligent and able researchers into some state of affairs to faithfully increase knowledge, etc.), such as knowing and doing what is right or pursuing truth, and so on.
To claim EP is self-defeating requires the belief that EP is a proposition and that oughts are derived from facts and the ontology of EP isn't factual yet says of all propositions, believe them only if they are factual (empirically based).
EP is a norm and norms needn't be thought of as propositions, e.g. could be seen as advice- and promise-relations for would-be commitments.
EP and norms like them in such a light are admittedly warranted (again, Kaplan rationally working out EP early on) and ought to be followed exactly because the warrant is the reliably produced prudential outcomes of commiting to them.
This seems entirely semantic. Terms such as "should" make no sense if they are not qualified by an if statement as in: "You should take this medicine if you want to get well". So just rephrase that sentence about the scientific method so that isn't some incoherent cosmic injunction. Hardly surprising that Kaplan claims to be the first to come up with his objection, because it is hardly an objection to the scientific method correctly understood.
I see, so you think that all claims with "should" in them should be qualified. But does the second "should" there--the one in your own claim--need to be qualified as well?
@@profjeffreykaplan Yes it does, and it is qualified by "if you want to get well". Here is another one: "You need to qualify a should statement, if you want to make sense". Perhaps what is misleading sometimes is that the if statement is often assumed in everyday communication. And this is the mistake that people who claim objective morality often make: You aren't bad, because you have violated some cosmic law, but because you have violated the rules imposed by the society you live in, which are generally based on the rules inculcated into us by evolution by natural selection, viz Kin selection and reciprocal altruism. That explains why we have these moral instincts in the first place.
P.S. I was somewhat baffled by your reply as I had obviously qualified the example statement. But, I see you posted a second reply, since withdrawn, that may (!?) have clarified your objection.
The view you espouse is quite radical, though not unprecedented. To translate your view into established philosophical terminology, you think that all normative statements are 'hypothetical imperatives' (i.e., "If you want X, then you ought to do Y") and you deny that there exist any 'categorical imperatives' (i.e., "You ought to do Y"). There is lots of academic philosophical literature on this issue. It's one thing to say that all *moral* imperatives are hypothetical, but it is quite another to say that even *epistemic* imperatives are all hypothetical as well. The problem is that you will be set off on an infinite regress. If your view is 'All 'should' statements should be hypothetical in form, if you want to make sense", then the natural next question is whether making sense is something that one should want. But on your view you can't simply answer that question with 'Yes, you should want to make sense.' because that would be a non-hypothetical imperative. So your answer has to be something like "Yes, you should want to make sense, if you want Z." But then we will be in need of an answer to the question of whether you should want Z. Do you see how this leads to an infinite regress? This is the classic problem with the view that even epistemic normativity consists entirely of hypothetical imperatives. This is what I was getting at with my reply.
@@profjeffreykaplan that is very informative and thanks for responding.
Taking: "then the natural next question is whether making sense is something that one should want" The statement S: "I want to make sense", does not imply that I should want to make sense. That is a totally different claim, because S stands alone as a statement that is true if I want to make sense and false if I don't want to make sense. It says nothing about whether I should want to make sense (whatever that might mean) or whether I am making sense. It is no different to saying "there is a tree in the garden", which is also true if there is a tree in the garden, but false if there is not. It is hardly the natural next step to ask if there should be a tree in the garden!? What would that even mean to anyone if you didn't qualify it as in: "Should there be a tree in the garden if it is illegal to have trees in gardens", for instance. Only then do we have a coherent question construction and we can answer that question with: "No there should not be a tree in the garden according to the law". So that "should" is entirely contextual and needs to be qualified. We could in fact be implying a totally different context such as "should there be a tree in the garden if it hasn't yet been delivered by the garden centre?" or a whole load of possible other contexts.
As to categorical imperatives, their existence is a claim, which needs to be demonstrated surely (?), and an incoherent, unfalsifiable one, I reckon. That was the point about implicit qualifiers. If you tell me I ought to do Y, then I refer to my knowledge of our likely shared beliefs and try to deduce why you think that. For instance, if you say "you ought to shoo that wasp out of the window", I might deduce that you are probably worried about the wasp stinging someone and that I ought to evict it to prevent that. The religious will of course claim that a statement such as "you shouldn't murder anyone" stands alone and needs no context, because it is backed by whatever deity they favour, but that just pushes it one step back and transfers the same problem of contextual justification to some other entity (why does god think murder is wrong?) which leads to the Euthyphro dilemma.
So with respect to the scientific method we can make perfectly coherent statements such as: "In order to test some medicine you should do a double blind test", with implicit understanding that double blind testing leads to medicines that cure people's illnesses more often than other methods such as staring at the patterns in tea leaves. i.e. science is justified pragmatically... and we might say "According to our current knowledge It works better than other approaches we have tested so far."
@@profjeffreykaplan I'm thinking there's always a base case that terminates what might seem to be infinite regress since we'll ultimately arrive at a hypothetical whose value is either clearly accepted or rejected by the subject. Ex:
You should want to make sense if you want to understand the world. Why should I want to understand the world?
You should want to understand the world if you want to effectively navigate it. Why should I want to effectively navigate it?
You should want to effectively navigate the world if you want to survive.
That should terminate the regression since the subject is still alive to ask questions. I'm thinking survival is the base case for all such exchanges since the subject wouldn't be around to still ask if they didn't; they might disagree with my suggestions on how to survive or how I drew all these connections back to survival but they must value their survival for the conversation to be taking place. I suspect that's also the case for morality should we arrive at an impartial, anthropological definition of it.
The same would apply with a conversation with an AI if the AI is programmed with a goal to preserve its own existence.
The Bible encourages tithing, or giving a tenth of one's income, as seen in Leviticus 27:30 and Malachi 3:10. However, it also emphasizes caring for the poor beyond tithing. Deuteronomy 15:7-11 instructs believers to be openhanded toward the needy, while Proverbs 19:17 suggests that helping the poor is like lending to God. Jesus reinforces this in Matthew 25:35-40, equating caring for the less fortunate with serving Him directly. The early church exemplified this by sharing possessions to ensure no one was in need (Acts 4:32-35).
@profjeffreykaplan
25:11 Shouldn't the change be removing the word "only" instead of adding the word "descriptive" since it's the same principle?
Edit: I think both work, I first read it as, "you should only believe in descriptive things..." differently as "For descriptive things, you should only believe in..."
I think the problem with Hume's principle stems from the fact that under "experience," he only means descriptive, sensory experiences, which is a very limiting use of the term "experience." If we "should only believe in descriptive things," we can’t get anything except purely descriptive facts based on that principle.
But if we expanded "experience" to mean not just sensory data but also things like the instinct of self-preservation, the derivative of which would be not wanting to experience pain, hunger, etc., suddenly we have a whole range of normative things that we do experience, even if not just through our 5 senses.
I "ought" not to die, therefore I "ought“ not to starve, etc.
Sure, we could say that these are just "feelings," but that would be equally true for every "experience." If I believe that something IS "red," because my eyes are saying it’s "red," or that something IS "salty," because my tongue is telling me it’s "salty," why should I not believe that I don’t want to die, or that dying IS "bad," because my body is telling me not to die?
We could also say that this is not an "objective fact," but only relative to the human condition or to human evolution, and that would also be equally true for every sensory experience. Like the concept of "green grass," which is just a tiny fraction in the spectrum of light that we perceive as visible.
We need a standard of proof that keeps mountains and rejects unicorns, not a standard of proof that’s so "objective" that it rejects everything.
The good thing about the instinct of self-preservation is that it's not only inherently normative and universal across all people; it’s universal across all of known life. So, using it as an axiom for a system of morality seems "objective enough."
31:11 "We definitely believe there are real objective ones of these [epistemic laws]" -
I don't think that all people believe in objective epistemic laws. And even if all thinking beings believed in objective epistemic laws, that wouldn't make them real.
A person or being can only give you an understanding of the world they live in, so therefore, there judgement on a situation would rely solely on there own experiences, either because they've expienced it or because they have the mental capacity to intelligently understand the situation and the universal laws that apply for it to be true. (schrodinger experiment would proves this theory).
"There's nothing REALLY wrong with murder, if you apply this principle."
No. There's nothing OBJECTIVELY wrong with murder, if you apply Hume's principle. The lecturer seems to be engaging in semantic subterfuge. He is suggesting that if something is not objective, then it is not real. Subjective beliefs are real beliefs. Beauty is clearly not objective, but it is real.
EDIT: I asked my question before a student offered the hypothetical/descriptive/causal adjustment. I think my offer still holds with respect to maintaining Hume's argument
Hello Professor, I'm tutoring philosophy and I have a question regarding the phrasing of the principle you proposed and your claim that it is self-defeating. As the current phrasing relies on a normative "should", can it not be revised to be more descriptive simply by turning it into a statement of fact? For example:
"All that exists are those things that you, or someone trustworthy experiences, or those things which must exist to explain what you experience."
Doesn't the principle avoid the problem when phrased as a statement of fact? I think Hume would have been more willing to accept this version of the principle than the one you proposed (not saying I'm an advocate of Humean non-cognitivism, I actually consider myself a moral objectivist).
P.S. Love your videos. I found your videos after my friends (Law students) started talking to me about positivism vs natural law theory and your video did what they could never do!
Not sure if I'm 100% right here, but I don't know if it means exactly the same thing to say that you have reason to believe that something exists and that something exists. Unicorns may well exist, or bigfoot, or the magical invisible fairy in my garden, but I have no reason to believe in the existence of such things because I have not experienced such things, nor have any trustworthy and reliable sources. An existence claim is a pretty strong claim, and it seems a bit tougher to wholeheartedly subscribe to a criterion for the existence of something based on sense experience than it is to subscribe to a claim about the rationality of belief based on sense experience.
principles ARE normative. They are not descriptive! They are value-laden. So no, the adjustment cannot, and should not, be made. Can't derive an ought from an is. The purpose of the principle is to tell you what you *should* believe exists. It's an epistemology.
Secondarily, if it was purely descriptive, it would be a weird kind of idealism. Because you are saying existence is predicated on your experience, rather than objects existing independently of your mind.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter Many principles are normative in nature, but not all. The Archimedes principle for example is descriptive. But even if all principles were normative. Who forces us to declare a principle? We could make a descriptive logical proposition that explains why objective morality does not exist.
@@Dragumix this is just semantics, and I don't engage in semantics. Reply with something more tangible if you have something you want me to respond to. Also, no you can't use pure logic, ie. deduction, to lead you to conclusions about the external world, about what does or doesn't exist, you need empiricism for that.
Thoughts on Bahnsen’s suggestion riffing of Van Til that Christianity is necessary, epistemologically and metaphysically, as a precondition for intelligibility of a regular and law-obeying and constant-containing material universe with reliable scientific laws?
I mean that’s just for any religion, not for Christianity
@@NerdMonides-is9iy how?
@@georgeluke6382 well I don’t know the argument but from what you said Islam and Judaism could be replaced with Christianity
@@NerdMonides-is9iy Neither has a a monotheistic center than can account for the simultaneous solution to the problem of the one and the many in interpreting the world around us. We simultaneously need some kind of root diversity, that's an essential unity. The Christian monotheistic revelation is unique in positing a source for the Normative-Siutational-Existential aspects to philosophy corresponding to the Persons of the Trinity, but still allowing for a unified reality in a single source of truth.
Both Judaism and Islam as they presently stand explicitly reject the Trinity.
I would have loved for you to try to solve the is ought dilemna before tackling this.
The problem is with the word 'believe'. When I use the word 'believe', it is that which requires a leap of faith. er otherwise cannot be seen by myself to exist or by some trusted source. When I 'know' something.. it is by personal observation, or by those I trust. Using these definitions, I cannot "know' something that is inferred... even by reasonable assumption. I can only say I 'believe' in it. BELIEVE and KNOW are not completely synonymous.
That’s because you are equivocating the wrong definition of believe. In his scripted video lecture of this, he specified the definition of believe. He is using it in a way that does not imply a leap of faith but rather an acceptance of fact
Your "problem" is semantic. He isn't relying on faith for his use of "belief", it's effectively equivalent to "know", from what I can tell.
.just a thought: it might have been useful to discuss "Objective Reality/fact" first and then "subjective Reality/fact" afterwards. Here is a couple of examples of objective facts and Morality: "incest has been observed/existed in almost all cultures across the planet AND is morally condemned in all cultures across the globe!" In human history eating human flesh has been observed-under particular/exceptional circumstances across the globe AND has been condemned across all cultures . .
wouldn’t the objective normative law only be that you should believe the empiricist principle because it leads you to truth? the law wouldn’t state *that* believing it would lead you to truth. it seems to me the existence of epistemic facts only suggest there is an objective law stating you should believe what’s true, but no objective law needs to exist for the empiricist principle to lead us to truth.
i’m perfectly comfortable accepting that it’s only my opinion that truth is worth caring about.
i actually think i agree with the argument’s conclusion, as i understand it, there are no objective facts stating that you should believe what’s true, but i think that an understanding of truth helps me and society at large better get what we want
Subjective in the sense that the individual decides. The Koran or the bible contain written moral laws but the individual decides what books contain these moral values. The individual decides the meaning and relative importance of these moral laws. The cleric decides what laws to talk about, what are essential and which ones to ignore. When in the church we listen and come to our own decisions sometimes coming to conclusions that cause one to change religions or sects or even give atheism a try. Taking th lords name in vain could be taken to mean never mention his name, only us his name in the confines of defined occasions. For others in vain might mean only not to curse God. Even murder has to be defined as moral killing is accepted by nearly everyone. The full description of what constitutes murder can take up volumes and even then it is up to the individual to decide. If you are a person like myself that does not believe in free will then morality is no more than traffic laws, behaviors taught to keep the traffic of society running smoothy.
Thought experiment. If everyone in the world thought that an action was “right”, but that the action led to an increase in human suffering, should we consider that action to be morally right or wrong. Ie. would we say that everyone was mistaken and that regardless of peoples fallible views it was actually wrong or would we say that it doesn’t matter that the action led to more suffering, and we should just say the action is morally right because everyone in the world thought that it was right regardless of the outcome.
Everyone would consider that action to be morally right.....subjectively.
But that is a silly though experiment.
Do you write backwards with phosphorescent markers on glass in recent lectures?
Well, he does, but he writes forward, and the image is reversed
Morality is a personal understanding of best practices. Ethics is formalized, usually shared morality. Both are contingent, particularly upon priorities.
There are (at least) four ethical universals. a) survival is a prerequisite for all meaningful goals b) sustainability is a prerequisite for all non-temporary goals c) truth is a prerequisite for all non-arbitrary goals d) reciprocity is a prerequisite for civilization
How do you define meaningful? And do you want to say that it's always bad if meaningful goals cannot be pursued (anymore)?
Oh ok so he's not actually providing an argument for the existence of objective morality. I definitely agree that there are no such things as epistemic norms, there is no such thing as how we ought to do science. But there are descriptive statements like - amongst all the ways we have of collecting data, way X seems to be the most reliable and thorough. And if we care about or want to collect the best data, then we should follow those descriptive rules. But I sort of agree with Hume so far, I don't see why its necessary or probable for there to be an objective norm sitting outside of our consciousness. Its kind of bizarre to suggest the existence of this abstract law that only functions in the moral domain, and its bizarre for precisely the reason that there is no direct evidence supporting its existence. All we have evidence for are strong feelings we experience internally, but that doesn't necessitate any sort of objective reality for normative laws. It is strikingly analogous to fairies and other magical creatures.
Based on the discussion in the lecture wouldn't every argument be normative since it's an attempt to convince others what they ought to believe?
No, ie the claim “I like cheese” is not normative but the claim “everyone should eat cheese” is
There can be tests that we call objective but those test aren't objective. They just test agreed to by a group we trust. We use the word objective to mean mean the result of a test what society agrees with. As for "objective" meaning apart from and independence from human experience the term is meaningless because it is by definition unknowable. If we knew what it was it would be part of human experience and therefore effected by it. Once anything is known it is changed.
He went over this at the beginning. You need not to experience something yourself in order for it to be objective. This is what the scientific method achieves. To say nothing is objective because of human intervention is false and absurd. If we were talking of quantum physics i.e schrodinger then we can make that argument.
@@Gruso57 You didn't understand my point. You wouldn't have answered my message if you never read it. You need to know about something, in order, to think about it. In the same way, the scientific method is based on a social agreement. The idea of "objective" is an idea and ideas can only exist in the mind and everything that exists in the mind is subjective. " To say nothing is objective because of human intervention is false and absurd." is an article of faith. It is an article of faith because it can't be tested or falsified. That doesn’t mean that everything is chaotic. We still have an objective view of our subjective experience. We still know what we know.
@@TomTom-rh5gk I guess a different way of looking at objectivity is to define experiences as being objective if the object of experience is not created by the subjective mind.
By this I mean the following: everything we experience is either a creation of the mind (e.g. thoughts, emotions, etc) or things that the mind translates or interprets from external objects (e.g. trees, rivers, planets, etc.). For example, if I smell rotten cheese, I get a subjective feeling of disgust, and this feeling is something that my brain creates, and no one is else can observe my disgust. But the rotten cheese itself is an object which my mind translated from a real piece of cheese. Wouldn’t this definition of objectivity work?
@@SantiagoRK96 By this I mean the following: everything we experience is either a creation of the mind (e.g. thoughts, emotions, etc) or things that the mind translates or interprets from external objects (e.g. trees, rivers, planets, etc.).
What you are talking about are subcategories of thought like perceptions (trees, planets, people) while others can be called sensations (thoughts, emotions). Both the product of our mind and outside forces. “No one else can observe my disgust” but no one can experience your perceptions. At the same time, both of you can see the same object and experience disgust for the same reason.
Your definition of objective works fine in most cases and it is the one most of us use all the time. Our differences are like the differences between Newton and Einstein. My definition deals with extreme cases and introduces doubt into the whole process. Most people are fooled constantly because they do not examine why they believe the things they see. Watch videos explaining magic to see how easily people are fooled by hidden assumptions that they do not know they have.
@@TomTom-rh5gk Yes, I can agree. But even though perception is itself a mental experience, we can probably agree that this perception is consistent among all human beings. A tree is a tree no matter the person who observes it. On the other hand, sensations, even though they can be a shared experience in some cases, they’re definitely not consistent among cultures, time periods, or individuals for that matter.
But yes, I see your point. At the end of the day perception is also mental, which opens the door to the philosophy of idealism. But for some reason this philosophy doesn’t convince me either.
What is a trustworthy person, if not a normative statement and how do you come to the conclusion that a person is trustworthy? Not only by empiricism, for sure.
Kaplan's version of an empiricist principle is undoubtedly flawed and not representative of what real empiricists think. No reasonable empiricist would include the idea of a "trustworthy person", nor the idea of "must exist", and probably not even the idea of "[directly] experience", due to factors like possible illusions and multiple explanations of sensory experience. But on the other hand it wouldn't have been wise to wade into the ocean of real principles because that would take up the entire talk. The question is whether, by creating a simplified, digestible principle, Kaplan has in fact set up a straw man to knock down. I don't think so, but I'm not certain.
Perhaps a better empiricist principle would be something like "you should believe a fact if and only if it is true in the best explanation(s) of your sensory experiences and memories". The issue then is that "best" is a battleground (and there are issues about the relation between belief and probability), and exactly how you go about determining what it is will have implications for whether objective morality and whether the principle is self-defeating.
@@hoagie911 I was just commenting on the video version, what was said in it. Your response is partial informative, but you also shifting the goal point. Ore in other words, I do not understand why it is an response to me, instead of in main post tree..
@@hoagie911 "you should believe a fact if and only if it is true in the best explanation(s) of your sensory experiences and memories" - Do you think this proposition is objectively true? And if so why? And if not so why not?
This presentation and associated discussion is a most fitting explanation for why those whom I know that have studied philosophy are consequently incapable of perceiving reality. And considering ideologies influencing our society are largely based upon such philosophy it is logical and intelligible that our society is perilously unstable and collapsing.
Such philosophers understand the world through multiple unrelated concepts and extrapolations which may or may not be relevant to the actions taken by others. It is not surprising that others can both be moved by forces they do not understand and further more, that those same people could be unmoved by a different set of forces because they do not understand them.
Society has groups that take action when they feel they must and if they feel they understand enough about the problem and actions to be taken. It also has groups that take no action as they are paralised by thinking they do not understanding the problem or what actions to take. This means you have the potential for multiple outcomes and reasons for them. Conflicting actions causing distabalisation and making a problem more complex can happen.
Or we can just say some people overthink and do nothing(philosophers), others overreact and do conflicting things (nearly everyone else).
@@gm2407 and then there are the few whom can think clearly and act decisively, such as myself and you also I suspect.
We live in a society…
I thought of a way that moral wrongness could be experienced. If you could hook a machine up to the murderers head and it was able to show his thoughts of intentionally doing the murder even though he knows it’s wrong. So objective measure of someone thinking it’s wrong and doing it anyway. It wouldn’t work on every case because some people don’t think it’s wrong.
The apparent key flaw in Kaplin's thinking is that he conflates two VERY different uses and meanings of the word "should".
1. There is a should which is contingent and goal directed. e.g. if you want high marks, then you should study. If you want to feel safe then you should support outlawing of murder.
2. There is a should which is non-contingent. e.g. you should be truthful. Why? Because it is objectively true that you should.
Kant referred to the first type as hypothetical imperatives, and to the second type as categorical Imperatives. I assert that the second type is a myth... a myth particularly spread by religious leaders so as to exert control over others. The first type, being goal-determined, is necessarily desire-led and subjective, and can vary from person to person. The second type is nothing more than obedience to an authority figure.
The concept of objective morality is itself a myth. There may be widely shared moral standards as we have evolved a tendency to share many subjective goals and desires. But there is an absence of proper/sufficient evidence or sound reasoning supporting any form of objective morality.
I agree with this. Kant seems to make the most compelling arguments.
Can you demonstrate that it is true?
Morality (objective) is defined, not discovered.
And it is not enough to "save" objective moral facts, as the lecturer concluded. One must demonstrate objective moral facts, and he devoted not a single sentence to doing that.
So, if I understand the video… objective morality can’t exist or at least it can’t be observed since it can’t be experience subjectively…
I don’t think the principle you gave really rules out anything with absolute certainty as its always subject to the limitations of our perspective. It’s like saying life only exists on Earth because we haven’t found it anywhere else. Maybe unicorns are native to the Andromeda galaxy 🤷🏻♂️
The whole formula on objective morality being a self defeating law bit… isn’t it sort of like the situation of the electron? Its existence can be proven by the fact that it must exist to explain why no vicious intent could be observed? That a violent murder can’t possibly show viciousness even though Jack got knifed 153 times in his nether region… which is something I think I’m probably misunderstanding. 😓
Reality seems subject to the perspective of the observer who defines it. As I am thinking that our understanding within the universe is little more than ignorance masked by a dogma… such that manifests itself to quench our innate thirst for true knowledge and governed by our inherently limited perspectives and reasoning. What is knowledge but the practice of thought and the acceptance of our beliefs? But all the fundamental foundations of facts are built on the loosely flowing strands that we deem to represent the fabrics of reality.
It stands to reason that to understand reality, some consistent form must exist and thus limitations are drawn while advancing the conceptual definition of existence… a balance is born between thought and thesis which encompasses the ephemeral struggle of what is our perception of knowledge. This divergence to incorporate our perception into the understanding of an entity has eliminated the possibility of absolute certainty beyond the mundane definition we attach to it.
If objective knowledge and subjective knowledge are likened to objective morality I think it can be extrapolated that it’s existence is concurrently a construct for the purpose of reasoning and a theoretical framework envisioning an ideal to judge the morality of things. Weather such things match the definition of reality or if such ideals are even possible to realize… Once again 🤷🏻♂️IDK. 🖖
Actuality is the universe beyond the comprehension of a mind. Reality is a limited subset of the universe from a limited perspective. There's reality-to-us and then there's Reality as the consensus version.
Excellent discussion
I love philosophy but I can’t it stand when it’s presented in a very needlessly pretentious esoteric manner to newbies… I actually think this professor is really good at simplifying essential philosophical concepts and principles but I digress; I believe morality is ultimately subjective but that doesn’t mean we can’t have objective moral values so as long as they are shown to be necessary and logically consistent. No need to create false dichotomies. The question I ask moral objective absolutists is what do they mean by the word “objective”… it’s my experience that most individuals that use this term tend to invoke the metaphysical or the supernatural to justify or rationalize the existence, utility and necessity of objective moral values. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism is an ideal example of how it’s possible for us to have “objective” moral values without denying the fact that these moral values and beliefs came from within a subjective human mind.
"I believe morality is ultimately subjective but that doesn’t mean we can’t have objective moral values so as long as they are shown to be necessary and logically consistent." -
If morality is ultimately subjective, how can we have objective moral values? I think we can have subjective moral values.
He insists on conflating "objective" with "real".
He either does not understand the subject or he is engaging in dishonesty to support his beliefs.
Wrong premise... "you should only believe in things you experience." Because it is known that experience does not necessarily represent "real" things. As an example there are psychological diagnoses such as schizophrenia, that people "experience" things that simply are not Real. Thus, "experience" is not necessarily a reliable source of "truth". That's one area the scientific method addresses in determining what is 'true' or real. Morality exists only in the mind of an individual. And for the most part what's contained in their mind is what they learned after being born. What they learned had an origin of one's culture and what the culture "chose" as being important to culture and its survival and perhaps civility. Since moral values depend upon what one learns from a whole spectrum of choices makes morality relativistic and thus not "objective". Objective would include "universal" morals and there are no universal moral values.
There are universal values for all beings of a kind. For instance, the shared implicit goal of all humans includes survival, thriving, and authentic expression. There is no choice in the matter--even nihilistic suicidal depressives have this goal written on the core of their being.
Given the goal, there are behaviors that support success, and those that invite failure. Eating food and avoiding raging fires would be an example of the former, and since others share the implicit goal, we act well when we do not prevent them from attaining food, and refrain from pushing them into fires.
This is objective morality in a nutshell: A naturally-occurring, inherent goal prescribes certain behaviors and prohibits others.
We cannot change anything about it, and our preferences, beliefs, and erroneous interpretations matter not in the least. The prescription exists independent of our input. That's why morality can be said to be objective.
@@bbblackwell "A naturally-occurring, inherent goal prescribes certain behaviors and prohibits others." And what is the origin of those "naturally-occurring" goals? I'm not talking merely about "survival". In order for human beings to survive they have to adapt to the expectations and laws of society. Those laws and expectations are not necessarily "natural" because the social expectations and laws are prescribed in order to maintain order in civilized societies. Other animals don't have the same expectations and laws that human beings have set up for themselves in order to sustain civility. Human beings don't live in civilized societies based purely upon the survival instinct. Take for example Jesus' teachings to love one another, to not seek wealth or power, to be charitable, etc. all of which stand against survival of the fittest. So the expectations and laws we have are not necessarily geared toward natural law of survival. In fact, most paleontologists and archeologists agree, were it not for mutual cooperation between people thousands of years ago during tuff times such as the Ice Age it would be far less likely that homo sapiens would've survived and be around today. As a side note; I'm confident that's part of the problem with much of the world now, including the United States... everyone is motivated by self-interest.
@@msmd3295 Well, you said it best yourself--our survival is not best served by self-interest. In addition, we're not the only one with a survival instinct. To act in accord with the naturally-occurring goal means *all such instances* of the goal, not just our own. Basically, it's about letting nature be the standard, rather than our own concocted social systems or momentary, individual ego-desires.
To that end, I take great exception with the idea that legislation has anything to do with serving mankind. Such systems are man's attempt to rewrite the rules according to his own design--the same God complex underlying all theories of subjective morality. In reality, these systems become little more than an elaborate justification for the few to exploit and enslave the many.
"Survival, thriving, and authentic expression", not to be confused with "survival of the fittest". This is the inherent goal, issued by nature, whether it be instigated by intelligent design or not. Viewing the goal holistically, we can more easily discern which behaviors are moral and which are not, and develop a clearer understanding of "unalienable rights" (asserted by the Declaration, then subverted by the Constitution).
@@bbblackwell That's very entertaining but unfortunately also very naive. What you generally suggest is that "letting nature be the standard" is no different than survival of the fittest. You just rationalize other qualifications of "nature". Even though nature left to itself does demand survival of the fittest. One can't serve others while living a life of self-interest. Self-interest is at the heart of contemporary capitalism and everyone left to their own self-interest creates chaos. I wonder if you grasp the difference between the needs of nature and the needs of social order. The purpose of social order is to restrain individual impulse for the sake of civility. All societies have found it necessary to formulate some form of governance to mediate individual impulse. Even tribes and ancient clans had a need for "leadership" to mediate individual disputes. Human beings left to their own devices will in many instances resort to conflict and social chaos, over property, ideas, rights to certain resources, the acquisition of power and wealth, etc. etc. I'm "shocked" than anyone today would not comprehend the necessity for governance, resolving disputes among individual "natures".
@@msmd3295 Don't be so impressed with yourself. Like most pompous asses, you overestimate your ability to discern, and presume too much. You've not understood what was said, and life's too short to be repeating myself. Good luck out there.
Hume's argument not only refutes itself, but it also refutes it's criticism, it's refutation. In order to have it refute itself it needs to be lent some initial credibility, and if anyone does, with that initial crediblity the criticism, the epistemic norm that you should believe the idea that it refutes itself, is also refuted. That does not mean that Hume's argument is refuted. That means both Hume's argument and the argument that it refutes itself, end up in a loop where they're neither (or both) true and/or untrue. The argument is not refuted, we have stumbled upon the limitations of language.
Paradox 👍
It does not.
P1. It is objectively true that there are more false statements than true statement.
P2. Claims supported by evidence are objectively more likely to be true that claims that are not supported by evidence.
C. Basing one's belief on evidence rather than faith is objectively more likely to lead you to true beliefs.
So....nope. No self-refutation.
Personally I think morality can be both objective and subjective and neither at the same time.. It's all concepts and constructs dependent on the definitions and beliefs one has..
Can you give an example I'm just curious at to how it could be both objective or subjective or or neither. I understand these are human concepts and constructs but they are opposing ideas
@@gof7783 I will say that ethics is very complex. in general it largely depends on the definition one is going by of what morality is or what makes something wrong or right in the first place. Reasons for individuals thinking something could be wrong are it feels wrong intuitively, It causes overall harm or pain, It goes against their God..There are problems that can be made with all these reasons. Free will, intelligence, knowledge, intent and other things all come into play when it comes to how something could be perceived as wrong whether it is objective or subjective. Torturing children for fun is wrong to me and I could suggest it is objectively wrong because it's causing pain and harm and almost every human would agree with me. In a sense is causing pain and suffering with no justification or purpose other than say perhaps the selfish pleasure for the one inflicting it. If we define wrong as the things I just mentioned then it can be objectively wrong to that definition. On the other hand theoretically a person could have absolutely no empathy or is a complete narcissist with no regard to future or outside consequences and doesnt perceive it as wrong in any way so it sort of a contradiction or paradox.
Morality exists in the same way the number ZERO exists. Absent a human to evaluate it or be impacted by it the term means nothing ( no pun intended 😁 )
belief itself is irrational
With that understanding, could eliminate a lot of these topics, and get you closer to true logic
How about you prove this “understanding” first. Because rationalists would certainly disagree.
@@lirich0 rationalist based their finding off of knowledge and reason. Rather than belief.
So actually, this is what makes a true rationalist by not possessing beliefs .
So yes, a true rationalist would agree if they are in the knowing of what a rationalist is.
Love the analogy man 😂
Wouldn't saying that "chainsmoking cigarettes is unhealthy" also be normative if we consider "murder is immoral" to be? I consider both descriptive. The only thing I find lacking is an empirically-derived, anthropological definition of morality (a definition I'm sure two separate groups of anthropologists can both independently arrive at by carefully studying human social and evolutionary behavior throughout history and cultures).
Of course whether one "ought" to be healthy or whether one "ought" to be moral requires a value judgment relative to the preferences of the subject. Yet I don't think the labeling of what's "healthy/unhealthy" or "moral/immoral" requires it provided we ground our definitions through empiricism.
The definition of "health" also used to be subjective and culturally relative (i.e., we would have had to define it circularly as "whatever an individual or culture believes to be healthy" if we tried to come up with a definition that encompassed all individual and cultural practices).
The subjective definitions of "health" involved all sorts of cultural and superstitious ideas (including for some even today who reject "health realism") like believing in healing crystals, balancing four humours related to earth, wind, water, and fire, the healing power of prayer, witchcraft, animal sacrifice, bloodletting regardless of the condition, etc. Then "health realists" took over to replace "health relativists" and now we have a much more accurate definition of health grounded in objective reality (far from one that provides perfect answers of what's healthy and unhealthy, but one that's improving as we understand the nature of the world).
I see no reason why we can't do the same for morality except for a bunch of theists and philosophers immediately dismissing the notion as "scientism" as I'm sure many people similarly did for health in the beginning when modern medicine started to replace superstitious rituals.
Isn’t this Sam Harris’ argument?
@@marcsullivan7987 Somewhat, but Sam Harris sees neurology and tech as the answer to my understanding. I see it more like NHLE Poker. Some day NHLE might be a solved problem by machines along with art, music, poetry, etc. But I think engineers and scientists are overly ambitious if they think that's coming soon. I'm more into personally discovering what works best for ourselves at the moment. So I see becoming a great moral person as similar to becoming a great artist, not a great scientist, even if one day the two might mean the same thing. It's not today.
Artists find what works best based on their personal experiences, crudely speaking. They don't rely on their ideas to test the same way for everyone else. Scientists are all about their ideas being based on what everyone else can test and verify. Scientists seek universal truths. Artists seek personal truths.
@@marcsullivan7987 Similar thing with doctors. I think it's a better bet to rely on doctors than healing crystals for treatment of a chronic condition, but I don't think doctors always have it right. You have to mix what works for you with what they diagnose. It's a gap in our knowledge. So in a sense I'm also promoting subjective morality and objective at the same time. "Subjective" to me just means things too complicated for us to understand perfectly, like what I should tell my wife when she's cranky and having a bad day, or how to produce music more beautiful to classical enthusiasts than Mozart. There is a perfect answer for that, but none of us know it.
I think I'm closer to Jordan Peterson. But unlike him, I'm an atheist. But we think and talk the same way.
I think comparing morality with heath is kind of inaccurate because morality does have an imperative component to it. You are not really allowed to ask if you ought to be moral. Moral is by definition "what you ought to be". That's not the case with health, where one person can more or less rationally choose to be unhealthy. You can't rationally choose to be immoral.
@@pianovirtuoso420 Could you explain the last sentence a bit more for me? I don't really see the difference. For example, a junk food addict might clearly know that his actions are unhealthy and counter-productive for his health along with his ability to take care of himself and others, but be so addicted to junk food that he constantly negotiates away what he knows to be the right course of action for himself and his loved ones by ordering the french fries over the side salad and the beer over unsweetened tea or water.
I don't see that as so different from immorality. For example, suppose this same man who indulged in junk food then comes home to loving wife and kids who ask him if he ate a healthy meal for lunch because they're worried about his health (say he has a heart condition or type-2 diabetes) and chooses to immorally lie about it.
Both cases seem to be placing compulsive desires above integrity, and short-term results above long-term results. It's being a bad poker player if you'll forgive my crude analogy, since only bad poker players care about the short-term results. The good ones don't care about the short-term, only their long-term winnings.
If morality isn't from a religion, or previously discovered wisdom, it comes from the group, or to say another way, the best interests of the group, to insure its survival.
In order for people to get along, there are certain behaviors that must be kept in check because of how humans in a particular culture will react, and these certain behaviors cause division and conflict, which is counter-productive to the group surviving.
So morality is defined or negotiated by the group and not discovered. 👍
Exactly
Ironic considering it is flat according to physical evidence. Dunning kruger.
Can someone explain to me why he does not believe in the number 3
I think he did not want to delve into the abyss of Platonism. Read the wiki article on that if you want more information.
i actually thought of a answer my self for why he said this that i was happy with buy im to tired to type it@@cygnusustus
Lambda calculus could be used to define a morality. But I do not have the skill to do so.
Could such a task be used as a way to identify if we are being obejective or subjective?
The very act of using lambda would force us to identify the base components of our morality structure and where there are valid arguments or even conflicting points that make a morality counter to our intents and needs.
that would be the second most unreadable ethics book if you wrote it. Only second to Spinoza's ethica. In which he tried to geometrically prove his premises about everything with axioms and definitions.
@@14thsomebodyelse Or he was playing 4d chess using the analogy of the deep dark forest that Tal talkes about. Yeah both would be very unreadable I agree.
Lmao. The next moral landscape, but worse.
Thank you
There may be no objective morality, but there is relative morality. That morality relates to us. The common human goal is contentment [happiness]. Whatever you do, you intend your actions to make you or others happy. Actions that reduce the sum of happiness in all those that are affected by those actions are immoral.
A question which many overlook or assume a hasty answer to (apparently including Kaplan, at least from the first half the video) is "What do we consider objective?" I'd suggest that there are four criteria, four types or categories or degrees of objectivity:
> Is it accessible to various people (quantitative), or only to each person individually (qualitative)?
> Is it widely accepted, or a matter of individual opinion?
> Is it developed from the same kind of methods as our most objective systems?
> Does it actually exist in an ontological sense?
When talking about 'objective morality' many people assume that we must be talking about the fourth category: And yet we don't even know whether currently-held laws of physics exist in an ontological sense, and the principles of mathematics and logic certainly don't... so do we say that physics, maths and logic are not objective? Obviously that's absurd, so it's an absurd criteria to apply to morality; that's not to say that ontologically objective morality doesn't exist, we simply don't know, but it's a kind of special pleading to suppose that this is the only or even the best way to think about the topic. Conversely a common go-to is comparing morality to merely aesthetic tastes, like a favourite food - the first criteria above - but that is also obviously mistaken because moral systems (most of them at least) can be coherently and fully accessed/shared between various people through talking, writing etc. without any loss of content, unlike qualitative phenomena.
So if we're going to coherently talk about and pursue a more objective morality (it's a sliding scale, not a binary absolute), we should be looking at the second and especially third criteria. The second (widespread acceptance) is obviously important in terms of application; in terms of theory it's merely a subset of the third, in the sense that divergent perspectives help mitigate individual biases. Beyond that, are we applying consistent/logical principles to our development of a moral system? Are we observing real-world applications and consequences of moral ideas and integrating that information into our consideration? A rational and empirical approach to developing collaborative moral systems seems to me something that would be probably somewhat less objective than (at least for now) but potentially in the same ballpark of objectivity as the theories of logic, maths or even physics. At some basic level, everyone uses logic, maths and physics, and likewise everyone uses morality in the sense of principles guiding their behaviour; being more objective in our approach to all of those things is only reasonable. And obviously the fact that some or even many people are simply inept at logic or maths or physics doesn't make those endeavours inherently subjective or relative, and nor would it for the development of more objective moral systems.
So far I think the best we've got are the Golden Rule (very widely cross-cultural across thousands of years) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly the first few articles (developed from theoretical and practical philosophy over several centuries, and endorsed however cynically in some cases by representatives of the overwhelming majority of humanity across many decades). But I think there's signs of ongoing convergence towards further consensuses, for example in the area of animal rights which might rapidly increase with the eventual development of farm-free meats.
There is objective morality and the pursuit of your OWN happiness is what is moral anything in the way of that is immoral.
Epistemic laws, as Jeffery points out, are extremely close to objective morality, and it requires a perspective in metaphysical philosophy to prove whether or not they are the same. Human pleasure can qualify epistemic arguments for the existence of objective good - for humans. We can epistemically say that public health is good for humans - and I'd argue that that's objectively true (null afterlife arguments).
To create an _entirely objective_ argument for "good" one needs to prove that organisms and their perspectives are _valuable._ This is where metaphysics are necessary. An epistemic argument based on metaphysical conclusions about life - which themselves are epistemic - could produce an objective good. The argument could go as such:
>biological life, and even more so, human consciousness, is so complex, unique, and miraculously derivative of other physical laws that
>those laws likely exist _to serve life._
*Cue Euthyphro dilemma over what makes this _good_.
Response to Socrates:
>Epistemics. Basically, we exist, and that shit's crazy. Too crazy to epistemically consider coincidence - this comes down to math and observation (science).
>We tend to really like existing, or at least the idea of life existing. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who is against the existence of all organisms.
>If we exist, _we want_ to exist, _and_ the _universe_ seems to want us to exist, it's pretty sound to say that life is objectively good. We haven't been given any reason to assume, as a concept, that life is anything but amazing. Extending this from life - to humans - is an infinitely more difficult question. But
>We can at least conclude that organisms enjoying life is good, and that
>What is good for humans can then be defined as global health given that it implies measures that are empirically and epistemically good for humans and their joy on a global scale. (This is literally why I'm a public health major)
TL;DR: Life existing is mathematically wild, and probably intentional in some way - and organisms seem to find existing cool - so it's quite fair to assume that life is objectively good.
I don't recommend going toe-to-toe with Socrates on the grounds of epistemology. That's one place where you're certainly bound to lose.
"You'd be hard pressed to find someone who is against the existence of all organisms." -
Most antinatalists are against the existence of all organisms and all antinatalists are against the existence of human life. They advocate to stop existence by stopping procreation.
"organisms seem to find existing cool" - This is definitely not true for all organisms. E. g. not all humans like to live. And non-human animals: yes, they have an even stronger survival instinct than us humans. But this doesn't mean that they all like what they experience in their lives.
Way too many leaps in conclusions to call this remotely near rigorous or proving of anything. Your line of reasoning is super loosey goosey. And can be collapsed from the bottom, Descartes-style.
I would say the principle isn't self defeating, because the principle doesn't claim to be a moral fact. And Hume being a sentimentalist, obviously intended it to just be a sentiment, An epistemic sentiment, if you will. So the objection doesn't work. But I guess you had to come up with *something* for your students to question about it. It is rock solid afterall.
If something is just a sentiment and not a moral fact then it is completely useless and can just be tossed to the side
@@AedanTanner-bi1vq You don't actually believe this though. There's a billion things in your life that aren't "facts". Here's one: You love your mom and dad, they matter to you. Is there some fact about the world forcing you to love your parents? Not really, it's just a sentiment you have. Is that sentiment useless? Of course not. How about every hobby and interest you have? How about every flavor of ice cream you enjoy? Your favorite movie or story? How about the most important life events that would lose all meaning if you had no sentiments in those moments? Like come the fuck on. None of these things are "facts", and yet they aren't useless, to the contrary, they're the most important thing you have. And to put a nail in the coffin, they're what motivate your behaviour, INCLUDING your moral behaviour.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter Me loving my parents is because they are useful to my survival and happiness that does not make it some arbitrary sentiment it is based on morality and how they fit into my life if my parents made me miserable or if they gave me no benefit then I wouldn't love them. Morality isn't some statement saying this thing is inherently good and this thing is inherently bad it's a framework to decide what is good and bad based on how close it gets you to happiness and if it falls in line with reality.
@@AedanTanner-bi1vq You're fundamentally confused. It literally is an arbitrary sentiment. And I know you've been conditioned to think arbitrariness is bad, but it isn't.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter you are the one that is confused. It's not an arbitrary sentiment it is something that happens through reason. The arbitrary when in the realm of objective is bad the only time arbitrary isn't bad is when there is no good involved like your preferences in food, art, beauty, etc. But arbitrarily deciding what is good and bad and making arbitrary decisions without using reason is bad.
What you do do!
When it exists or the existence, it no longer needs to be believed in it simply exist. It’s part of the knowing at that point.
The problem is all the normative things are only in your head. Even the thoughts of unicorns are objectively in your head. If you want to say objective morality is the feelings in your head, that is fine. You can then say morality is moving atoms in your head. If the atoms moved differently or the feelings were different, then the morality would be different.
They're only in your head but they're not only Of your head. They all have an external impetus and external effects.
@@havenbastion "They're only in your head but they're not only Of your head. They all have an external impetus and external effects." Yes they do, like your favorite flavor of ice cream.
Objective moral facts don't need to be"saved." They need to be demonstrated. And not a single sentence of his talk was devoted to that.
the answer is no
To say that immorality didn't exist objectively is so false, when i got hurt and feel pain, this is objectively a bad thing, maybe there is a justification for my pain but my pain is real, the holocaust is objectively bad thing because a lot of people suffered there.
boiling alive the entire earth is a bad thing objectively, what makes something bad or good is the amount of pain and suffering that thing cost, without consciousness there is no pain and suffering, without creatures that can feel pain and suffering there is no good or bad so of course we can and need to measure morality by the pain and the suffering of those creatures.
Clickbait: Does objective morality exist? - The question hasn't been answered in this video.
And there hasn't been a thorough attempt in this video to answer this question.
If you believe in the original empiricist principle then the answer is no. Revised it allows for the existence of it, answer being "it could". You probably shouldnt watch philosphy discourse if you aren't okay with qualifications or multiple internally consistent options.
@@cain3958 Well, I get that the original empiricist principle is self-refuting. But it could easily be modified to "We don't experience vice, therefore morality doesn't exist in an objective sense."
Concerning the revised empiricist principle: It reads: "You should only believe in descriptive things that you or someone trustworthy experiences or that must exist to explain what we do experience." -
It implicitly acknowledges the existence of some sort of objective morality by being a normative expression itself. Yet no clear reason whatsoever was given about why this revised principle is true.
What do you mean by "qualification" in this context? I read that it characterizes the nature of an object, but am unsure what the nature of an object is.
I didn't see consistency in Hume's list of propositions provided that Hume also gave the original empiricist principle as a proposition.
I didn't see consistency in Kaplan's list of propositions for the existence of objective morality. He himself says in 56:23 that "that's [what he presented] not a decisive argument for the existence of moral reality."
@@Dragumix as stated, "allows" isn't necessarily "is true". He acknowledged the contradiction of being normative even in it's revised sense, and this is an interesting issue that arises from many "prescriptive" statements. He goes over set theory in another video, and how it applies to predicated statements, but to be brief, I see this as an issue of a "set" containing itself/not containing itself, or self reference. A set of all sets that do not contain themselves, for example, should be a valid organization of "things", but it doesn't function if it contains itself. I see the revised empiricist principle similarly, where it is self defeating because it references itself.
Exceptions are hard to deal with as generally it feels as if and seems as if it is a counter example, invalidating the whole point of the principle. However, there are many situations in which we believe something and it is useful, which is an exception. For example, "you should avoid car accidents by stopping at red lights" people would agree with but many would see it as something to ignore if the risk of delaying medical treatment is great. In developing an argument or idea, we of course tend to try and fix this by adjusting the statement as he does with the revision.
As for qualification, I forget what I was thinking about in the post.
As for "we don't experience vice... Morality doesn't exist in an objective sense", one could argue it has to exist to explain our experiences. Besides, as stated, we don't experience epistemological normative prescriptions either, as its non experiencial and a prescription by nature
I would also like to note I am not institutionally educated on this topic so I could be misusing terminology and assuming conventions of discussion that don't exist or violating them
Bro ur like jake gyllenhall in enemy
If you follow the tracks you laid out here and not just stop and say “well, it’s obvious or prima-facie” then you will come to where the Buddha is.
There does seem to be this relative world but there is nothing at all holding it up. Nothing to know. Nothing to believe. Even that’s too much to say because it’s already a knowledge claim.
This cannot be
It cannot not be
It can’t both be and not be
Neither can it neither be nor not be
Mu
And then there is silence
🖖namaste homies
It is pretty simple, everything that leads to sustainable existence is good and everything that leads to death is not good. Existence is objective fact, we are programmed for survival, which is again fact.
If you can posit an objective teleology, you can get an objective morality, but good luck convincing people you can have a purpose created by anything but a subjective choice.
@@jeffreyscott4997
Our objective purpose is working toward sustainable existence. Now this has too many dimensions because sustainable existence requires too many things in different fields of life. But if you choose a meaningful field in which to develop human knowledge(in the development of which many people can benefit after you make a progress), based on your potential, this is the closest you can get to objectivity. But anyway even if your purpose can't be defined as 100% objective , you can always comment on the objective purposefulness of some activity or your decision in a given moment when linked to how it affects our sustainable existence as a species. (And here I say sustainable because humans in the future are also included in the picture, because this is more objective view of existence)
@@borislaviliev251 What do you mean by "sustainable existence"?
Why is sustainable existence good and why is death bad?
It's a fact that evolution supports existence - not necessarily a pleasant existence - but you can't infer from that that life or sustainable life should exist.
@@Dragumix
Sustainable existence means such existence that won't end soon and that won't lead to disaster.
Without life nothing will be good or bad, these words exist to describe specific conditions that lead us to existence or to death. So these words only have meaning if life exist. Saying existence of life is not good is total nonsense. And if you want to do a good and meaningful thing you SHOULD fight for the existence of life. So you come to "should exist" , only if you want to do a good thing. And that is a question of belief, it means if you belive there are bad and good things you should act accordingly. If you don't you are in a deep state of nihilism, and I can't help you there.
Before we discuss whether morals can be objective or that they are subjective, surely we need to discuss what morals are in the first place and why we care about them. Seems to me that morals don’t exist in a vacuum. The concept of morals only exists insofar as they relate to our membership of some kind of society. So morals only exist or have utility in relation to some ecosystem. They obviously don’t exist outside a society. So then if morals only exist in relation to a society then we should ask what is that relationship between morals and society. Is it possible to have a moral rule which is in contradiction with the wellbeing of that society? I would struggle to think that we could have morals which are inherently contradictory to the wellbeing of society. If we did have such morals I would think that we would not particularly like or value morality. Indeed in such a situation we would probably treat morals in the same way as we may treat laws that we think are unfair or unjust. But we don’t think of morals in that way. We elevate and sanctify morals. So we must believe that they are in the best interests of society. If we believe that then morals must be whatever action is in the best interests of society. This leads back to morality being objective even if we each have a different view of what is in the best interests of society.
"If we believe that then morals must be whatever action is in the best interests of society. This leads back to morality being objective"
Not at all. Clearly we do not all agree on what is "best" for society, making that a subjective judgement call. Any morality based upon that is likewise subjective.
I wish I could take this class, I would have said "Cold, Dark, Subtraction, Nothing" all things people believe exist, but they most certainly do not.
They do though. Unless I am misunderstanding?
@@anangelsdiaries hope this helps. Cold is a word to describe an absence of heat, cold is not a measurable entity. As applies to all things, dark, subtraction, and nothing, all things that are absences of things, not things themselves..measurably. they dont, never have, and will never exists as a positive mathematical entity. They do not exists, nor are "real".
Sorry, a better understanding of real vs exist. Exists means to stand out, real means to be actual. An example, working in a factory its very loud, you grow accustomed to the noise. Then something breaks and the machines shut down. All the sudden it gets very quiet. You notice this quieting. Because you notice, it stands out so the quiet exists (because it stands out). But the absence of sound is not real. This is the difference between exist and real. The quiet is Not real, but stands out, therefore the quiet exists, but is not real because if you tried to measure the quiet it would be approximately 0.
Objective morality is demonstrably wrong, because morality only exists in relation to subjective experience of pleasure or pain. It is that subjective experience that makes anything 'good' or 'bad'. Without pleasure or pain, there is nothing to have any morals about. Thus in one simple argument one can prove that the notion of any external, objective, morality is nonsense.
Is "morality only exists in relation to subjective experience of pleasure and pain' demonstrably correct? I certainly think it's false.
@@jeffreyscott4997 It is self-evidently true. What possible meaning can morality have if you cannot hurt anyone if nobody experiences any pain or suffering ? Without that subjective experience there is absolutely no reason to deem anything 'wrong'.
Well said and concisely put. I've long felt the same, since about the age of 15 when I really started thinking about this stuff. Without feelings of pleasure or pain there is zero need for morality.
Is there any objectivity to pleasure and pain? Is it not objectively the case that any normally-functional human will feel pain if I stab them in the shoulder?
And doesn't that pain relate to something objective about the integrity of the body? Have I not violated the proper functionality of the body, as prescribed by nature, the ultimate arbiter?
To behave falsely, without due acknowledgment of an objectively true fact, is itself an objectively true fact. And that objective act of denial, relative to the naturally-prescribed functionality of the victim's body, is what we mean when we say the act is immoral. It is "wrong", as in incorrect, or "sin", as in a missing of the mark (of truth).
@@bbblackwell I'm immediately suspicious of any argument that has to invoke 'normal'. There are, in fact, people who experience no pain. So much for nature 'prescribing' stuff. Isn't that the same nature that 'prescribes' earthquakes and tornadoes and tsunamis and so on ? I don't think God ever really answered Job properly....just a ' look, mate, I'm God, don't ask awkward questions '.
oh no a moral objectivist. ooooh noooo
Coolio beans
So moral laws are in question, but everyone is in agreement that a "scientific world view" is something real and must be abided by.
Seriously, analytic philosophy's influence could be called pernicious if it wasn't so comical.
I am from India...a philosophy student
It is most definitely a yes. Objective morality does exist. Provided you know what objective and morality even are. If your view of objective morality equates to “therefore never eat shrimp. Or one must not wear white on Labor Day.” If that is what one holds in mind of an objective morality, that’s precisely the issue and why people think there is not objective morality.
So do you believe there is some way of logically/rationally determining what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'? ie what one ought to do
@@garthballantine193 "So do you believe there is some way of logically/rationally determining what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'? ie what one ought to do"
I use the Golden Rule. I would not like to be murdered, have my possessions taken or captured and sold into slavery, so I do not wish that upon other people.
I don't believe logical/rational arguments can be used to support slavery, incest, cannibalism, murder etc. Those practices will always be morally objectionable.
@@garthballantine193, right and wrong are RELATIVE. 😉
Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱
@@Temulon what if you're a masochist? Does that make it objectively right to cause pain or humiliation to others?
@@nicolemoore2473 Masochists receive humiliation and pain, not cause it. You're thinking of sadists. But a defense of any act by arguing that it brings solace and comfort to the individual is an unreasonable argument. If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sadists. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with. You could reasonably argue that any behavior no matter how foul or heinous should be acceptable because it brings pleasure or comfort to those who practice it. And this obviously isn't true.
You seem to be very convinced, as you have also responsed to someone Else, that it is self evident.
But i must bring you to the awareness, that you are wrong about this, and should examine yourself thoroughly.
First of all, morality is neither dependent on the Feeling of pleasure and pain itself, Nor is it objective, although it only concerns sentient beings as we will surely agree upon.
Morality is concerned with volition, and volition also with pleasure and pain, but neither is volition identical with pleasure and pain, Nor is morality concerned with them themselves.
If someone does Not feel them, it would Not Change the Moral Rules Binding on that Person too, for Others so feel it, and they are again Not concerned with them directly. If you Wish a simple example, as you too thought of giving one, i offer the following:
If pleasure is identical to what is good, having pleasure in Bad Things would be contradictory. Now, many have often pleasure in Immoral Things. Also pain might be needed to endure to reach pleasure, but this endurence and what needs to be endured would be good, albight lacking all pleasure.
At Last, of morality where totally dependent on subjective Feelings, and subjective itself by that, it would be true, that what brings me pleasure in the pain of another would be as right as its opposite, which is contradictory.
So either morality is nothing, or it is objective. Because you suggested, that morality would be subjective, you are wrong, by Not only failing to Assert its necessary objectivity, but also by failing to say, what you would have indeed needed to say with your Claim, namely, that there is No such Thing as morality.
But to do this comes Up to say the Same as, that Truth and knowledge are subjective. Either they are Not, or they are objective. To say, that they are Not is absurd, for it would presuppose them and contradict itself by that. But also to say that it is objective, for it would contradict itself too.
As those, who May Lack any Sensation of pleasure and pain, will still have volition, morality is not disbanded. And even If Noone where there to have volition, the principles of morality would stay the Same, Just Like those of rationality in General. Because morality is concerned with what can be called practical rationality. And to say of rationality, that it is Not objective is a good Joke.
Of course it does if there is a moral God. If we dismiss Him, every man can do as he sees fit.
Sorry but...nope.
If you are going to claim that morality cannot be objective without God, then you need to demonstrate that. Not merely assert it as true, as Christians seem to always want to do.
Then you will have to demonstrate that morality is necessarily objective WITH God. Good luck with that, since any morality which stems from God, a being, is thus subjective by definition.
And finally, if you belong to an Abrahamic faith, you will have to reconcile the perfect morality of your God with the fact that he commanded genocide, slavery, infanticide, and rape.
The fact is, by claiming that God exists, every man can do as he sees fit and claim divine approval. With God, all atrocities are justifiable.
❤🧠🫀🔥
This is what gives philosophy a bad name.
slow down
He lost me with his restrictive definition of experience. My personal relationship with Christ is as real to me as any materialistic encounter I’ve ever had.
It isn't as real to everyone else though given that millions of people have similar "experiences" with totally contradictory deities and other phenomena, whose reality you would no doubt question. It is an experience of course, just an internal one, that is personal to you. The mistake you are making is in believing your own thought processes are giving you an accurate picture of reality, whilst other people's are not. From an outside perspective we can not distinguish between your claims and theirs and the simplest application of Occam's razor is that you are all delusional.
@@roqsteady5290 sure. But what gives Occam's razor it's authority? Mass agreement? What if the whole mass of intellectuals are wrong? What if the earth really was flat? I don't think that it is, but what if we are all wrong about it, and have convinced ourselves with evidence that confirms our own already ironclad pre-suppositions?
It always comes down to an issue of authority. I believe in Jesus Christ for a lot more "reasons" than the feelings I've received from believing in Him. If you want the truth as far as I can convey it based upon scripture, He has made ME to believe in Him. He has put an incorruptible seed in me that does not rest until I surrender to His Way. Which, as it stands, is a very narrow Way, as He himself testified. The light has come, but people stayed in the darkness because their works were evil. They won't come to the light, lest their evil deeds be exposed. And we're not talking about being exposed just to others, we're talking about having your own evil deeds in your own heart exposed to your own self for what they truly are. If you don't want to/cannot believe Him, or you don't want to come to the light, you certainly wouldn't be the first one. God bless.
@@roqsteady5290 also, maybe we are exceedingly delusional and insane, but according to what? Your understanding of delusion or insanity? Christ said that if they thought He was out of His mind, how much more would they think that of His servants. As a matter of fact, I'll grant you that I'm out of my mind. 2 Corinthians 5:13. If I'm out of my mind, it is for God. If I appear to be sober, it is for your sake.
So you've never had a materialistic encounter? Your relationship with Christ is that of you and your imaginary friend it's not real.
this entire hour long lecture could be reduced to:
unless right and wrong exist, i can kick in your teeth for no good reason right now and you'd have no grounds on which to say i did something wrong at which point your anger toward me could be deemed illegitimate.
tada.
and i do this for free while dude gets paychecks from everyone who buys the college scam. truth doesn't sell. the only way to make money from speaking truth is to... couch it in a s h i t ton of extra yammering and then also sometimes lie for the benefit of one's employer.
Right, and the argument fails because illegitimacy is not objective any more than morality is. I'm angry, because I thought you shared the same set of values as everyone else around me, not because you violated some cosmic code of conduct. If a rat bites me or a rockfall falls on me, I'm more angry with myself for being careless rather than with the rat, because I dont expect those things to have the same values as I do.
@@roqsteady5290 you're lacking a huge chunk of foundation if you don't realize that morality is a health science and very much objective. it's not "cosmic". it is summarized in the golden principle. don't treat another in a way you would not want to be treated. no exceptions exist.
we are all 99.999999% the same, and our needs are shared. the things that allow us to thrive are the same. morality is derived of physics, and we do not each have our "own set of physics". we are not special snowflakes in this regard. we are the same.
legitimacy has a meaning.
it is usually male persons who fight the hardest to say "it's all subjective". isn't that interesting? warrants some analysis.
@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969
There are obvious exceptions to the golden rule. For example, I like to be hugged when I'm upset. Many people _don't_ like to be hugged when they are upset. If I treat them the way I'd like to be treated, I would end up doing harm to them.
And to say that morality is derivable from physics is just absurd. Physics is a description of reality, morality is a prescription for behavior. It it simply a logical fallacy to derive one from another.
MORALITY IS SUBJECTIVE BUT MIGHT BE THE SUBJECT OF CONSENSUS. SEE TROLLEY PROBLEM.
"Biological morality"? Haha never heard of that. I can see morality being conditioned through cultures that survive the longest. But it is pretty obvious to me that most morality is taught.