UPDATE 2: Read “Alex O’Connor’s Red-Herring Thought Experiment vs. Facts that Support Morality” craigbiddle.com/2024/09/03/alex-oconnors-red-herring-thought-experiment-vs-facts-that-support-morality/ UPDATE 1: Thank you for the great questions! Here’s a video in which I answer 11 of them: ruclips.net/video/FcMpHtAH6RM/видео.htmlsi=6blZlMB5VmBZCuYY Enjoy! ### Thank you all for engaging with these ideas-especially those of you who have posted challenging questions. If you’d like to read a short, systematic presentation of my argument for human life as the standard of moral value, you can do so here: bit.ly/3WWSVDY If you’re up for a longer, more fleshed-out version, check out my book Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It: amzn.to/3WF1v9d And if you have a question you’d like me to address, please post it in the comments below. I’ll make a follow-up video addressing the best of them next week. In the meantime, keep loving life!
Hey Craig I wanted to start off by saying as someone who mostly watches bad faith online political debates It’s always a breath of fresh air seeing a calm good faith debate. My question for you is in a conversation about meta ethics wouldn’t it fine to use hypotheticals to establish a moral principle even if they couldn’t actually exist. Isn’t that the whole point of meta ethics, to establish the standards by which we base our answers to real life ethical questions on? Edit: to
Another question! Early on in the debate you argued that the life of a flower has value and therefore it ought not be destroyed. Later on in the debate you also said that a psychopath’s life doesn’t have moral weight because they don’t recognize others as having moral weight. (Hopefully I summarized you correctly) if it were the case that a psychopath definitively wouldn’t harm other people would it still be the case that they are subhuman or would that be irrelevant to their moral weight. It seems to me that a flower doesn’t attribute moral weight to other living things the same way a psychopath doesnt, therefore the only reason a psychopath would have no moral value to you is the potential for them to cause others harm.
@@craigbiddle what do people here ( in the comments) mean by expression like "subjective", "objective" and "morality"? And what does "morality", "objective" and "subjective" mean for you?
I ABSOLUTELY 100% **DISAGREE** with you Craig when you say "we have a choice to remain alive or not" To say this is oblivious to the fact you cannot just "choose" to die, there has to be some ACTION that needs to be taken (or absence of action like not eating) which may even be over a prolonged period of time before the person actually ceases to exist. In addition to this we know people do not always understand themselves, or what they really want until they are actually confronted with it happening. The number of times people "choose" to die only to change their mind at the last minute just as they try to enact it... Did they "change their mind"? Or was there a deeper INSTINCT within them which is EVOLUTIONARILY ingrained in them which overrides whatever their choice may be. There are also some people where the option of "unlifing" oneself just isn't an option... again it just isn't in their DNA, they have a survival instinct which is so high that they couldn't even make that choice if they wanted to (which is something you seem to think ALL animals do... as if Elephants have not just starved to death near their child's body because they "chose to die", or an animal that intentionally sacrifices itself to save its children, thus making a "choice" to die) I am almost sure you would say of that animal that they are not choosing to die but instead are just following their animalistic instincts.... BUT WE ARE ANIMALS CRAIG!!!! So really sorry but the very foundation of your entire argument is just oblivious to biology, evolution, instincts.... you are just special pleading and wishful thinking
@@enigmaticaljedi6808 that you' have full knowledge on topics, I concede. But I hope you would elicit your wrath I your display of you're extensive eradication was lost on me.
I was really thrown off that someone who actively sought out this discussion needed Alex to explain to him why thought experiments are applicable to the real world even if they're counterfactual. The fact that anyone who participates in public philosophical discussions doesn't immediately understand the value of thought experiments is very odd.
This is a shockingly common opinion among people who view themselves as objective, scientific and materialist who view philosophy as below them. They don't understand that thought experiments are just a method of abstraction and that abstraction is the foundation of objectivity and science. They think objectivity just means looking at the world "as it is", whereas in reality it also requires considering how it could be.
If an interlocutor introduces an argument in the artificial environment of a fantasy world that is “counter-factual” to reality it is because the facts of reality tell against the argument. This is academic sophistry. "How do you know," the professor asks, "you are not a frog dreaming you are a man?" If a question means anything, one must know what the words used to form the question mean. It is assumed (smuggled in) one knows what a "man" is, what a "frog" is, what a "dream" is, and what "knowing" is. If all of these are known, there is no question; if any of these are not known, the question has no meaning. Matrix, Trolly cars, brain in a vat, what if man were immortal, etc, these arguments are employed to put over falsehoods.
Like Alex says, there's a very reasonable suspicion of thought experiments. While useful, they play with our intuitions, often in ways that make us forget to take important factors into account. That sleight of hand often happens in the stage of "now let's translate this to our world." Like, for example Singer's shallow pond. It reliably gets people to say we need to help the little girl. But in translating that to "we need to help every starving girl on the planet," there are some more assumptions smuggled in. If this translation isn't explicitly described, it can often leave holes in your argument that aren't easy to notice.
Because rational egoism is for people who want to live a good life. Its not for intellectual masturbatory ivory tower discussions. None of the questions Alex raised has anything to do with me living a good life.
Craig you have so many exceptions to your objective moral standard that depends on your opinion. Alex is asking good clarifying questions that you just keep asserting apriori. Morality is based on life that I deem is normal? So I can imprison or enslave a psychopath because he is not “normal”? What happened to something is alive so it has objective value to control its own life. Dude This is the Swiss cheese version of objective morality.
@@Doug-jf5hx yeah, I don’t get the emotional attachment to using the word objective, when there are so many exceptions, contingencies, and “pre-rational” considerations baked into the view. Where’s the objectivity coming from? I just don’t see it.
I guess objectivity is a stamp to legitimate. I personally agree with Greg. I think that Moral Emotionalism is also objective cause most people feel very similar feelings if they share exact conditions. I'd say that there exist no "shoulds" but still if you choose Goodness than you should "______"... And if you choose destruction, than you should "_______".... That is why "they shall not murder" is correct, cause it's directed to the chosen people, if you do murder than you are not anymore 😂 it's kinda simple if you accept the "choosing" factor (free will)
Morality starts at choosing life whether I choose life or not. The principles of morality have nothing to do with my individual choices. I only choose whether to adhere to these principles. So you're wrong.
@denismijatovic1239 I am aware. Objectivism has two standards for behavior. One for those that choose life, and one for those that don't. As Craig points out, the actions psychopath aren't wrong in a moral sense. They are outside the purview of morality. They are broken and incapable of choosing life. They are like animals in the sense that they cannot not do right or wrong. So the double standard is inescapable in your view. Yes, you only call the standard for those who choose life morality, but what you call it doesn't matter. It's still two standards of behavior. That makes you a subjectivist about standards of behavior. That's what people mean when they say that they're subjectivist about morality.
@@denismijatovic1239 I tend to think morality starts from sentient social imperatives, such as reciprocity. IOW, IMO true moral values are those values that are imperative to the survival and flourishing of societies of sentient beings. Certainly no society can survive and flourish if a significant number of it's members choose to commit suicide, so I suppose choosing life is the morally correct choice. However, it's got to go well beyond just individuals choosing to live to them choosing to live in a way that is conducive to the survival and flourishing of society. A person who chooses to benefit themselves at the expense of society is acting immorally I believe by definition...I mean if indeed my theory is correct.
@@someonesomeone25what does morality without life even mean? Your body gives you a job description: “Take these actions to sustain me, and I’ll reward you with good feelings”.
I'm a bit weirded out by Craig's inability to test his moral system using thought experiments and his comfort in labelling people with non-average moralities (suicidality, psychopathy, ...) as defective. Alex phrased his points beautifully and I'd say he brought me over more than Craig did.
But Craig isnt doing anything that modern psychology and society don't. Being a psychopath is not considered non-average, but is a serious personality disorder. Just as being suicidal, in my state at least, will get you institutionalized against your will for 72 hours.
@@marioargiropoulos4747 I personally wouldn't consider the psychology and society you're referencing to be anything modern... I just visited my nations suicide hotline website to see how they describe it, and the only time they'd intervene is when there's an "acute emergency". Same with psychopaths, do they have a personality disorder? Yes. Are they sub-human and should their perspective be excluded from the moral debate? Hell no! The examples Alex used during the talk were effective in illustrating the subjective nature of morality by introducing neuro-atypical personalities and how they consider "right" and "wrong". Stating that this is common practice within "society" and "modern psychology", seems like an empty deflection to me.
those thoughts are just weird fantasy that cannot be tested in reality and so 1 has no value 2 are designed purely as gotchas because of the constraints of seeking a .00000000001% of something then proclaim that amount represents the whole.
@@marioargiropoulos4747 And yet both those categories of people are still people and not sub-human creatures. It's the dehumanizing language that's weird. When you start categorizing people that way, you can justify anything.
Graig proposing objective morality and then trying to avoid answering a hypothetical which is supposed to test that objective morality is extremely amusing. You are making a big claim here, dont cry about the “realness” of a hypothetical. It is supposed to provide a logical challenge which if found is a very real thing. Even if the hypothetical is not.
@@Mbonic objectivity is tied to reality. This reality, not a fantasy. Ethical concern is about this reality because that's where the application is. Of course you can construct a make-believe reality, but it will usually be littered with "plot-holes" which you could easily forget to take into account. Thought experiment could only get you so far, and in many instances it's not useful anymore. For instance the classic trolley problem. There's no actual answer to it
@@kurokamei objectivity is tied to reality sure, but that doesnt mean that truth or logical truth cannot be found in fantasy. Otherwise you are denouncing almost every science branch
@@kurokamei The primary purpose of a hypothetical scenario is not to mirror reality exactly but to isolate specific variables in a controlled environment, allowing us to test the consistency and application of moral principles. By dismissing them as “make-believe” due to their departure from reality, you’re ignoring their value as tools for probing deeper moral truths. In philosophy, hypotheticals like the Trolley Problem aren’t meant to be realistic but are designed to highlight moral dilemmas and provoke critical thinking.
@@kurokamei You seem to misrepresent the use of hypotheticals by suggesting they are intended to reflect reality perfectly. This mischaracterization allows you to dismiss them too easily. The strength of a thought experiment lies in its ability to strip away extraneous details and focus on the core of the moral issue, not in its realism.
What is truly strange is that, on one hand Craig asserts that he doesn't care if a psychopath is killed because he is not capable of moral agency, and therefore isn't a moral agent; yet would object to killing a flower even though a flower definitely isn't capable of moral agency and is not a moral agent.
@@scottgodlewski306broken and “creature”. I personally have a problem with any worldview that seems to create a caste system based on someone’s mental health status.
I agree with him that objective moral truths exist. However, in a typically Ayn Randian way, he centers it on the individual, whereas I believe morality evolves as a matter of ensuring the survival and flourishing of societies. If an individual living on a desert island chooses death over life, there is nothing moral or immoral about it because he's not a member of any society.
@@micchaelsanders6286 Well, I think that's false. It's true that societies are a sort of ...heh heh...social construct, but that doesn't mean they don't exist as such. I'd say individuals are a kind of construct, too. So, though I suppose that makes a nice premise for some anti collectivist, right-wing libertarian philosophy, I don't buy it. I'll grant though that the experience of life takes place at the level of the individual. As such, any extreme left-wing ideology that discounts the individual totally subjugating him/her to society, or worse the state, are terribly wrong-headed.
@@snuzebusterBut then if there is another society which needs to terminate the previous society to survive wouldn't their morality contradict the previous society's morality thus making it subjective to the particular society ?
Wasn't he talking about murderers or sadists when he said that? Regardless, it's not really a psychopathic statement. Maybe insensitive or ignorant, not psychopathic.
@@bargledargle7941 Literally? No. Metaphorically? I wouldn't call dehumanizing language towards people with likely mental health problems the peak of morality.
@@scottfauber Do you think you really have a sufficient philosophical understanding of objectivism after hearing this one exchange to dismiss it out of hand? While I’m not an objectivist, it took me several years to really understand objectivism. I think it’s naive to rush to judgement in such matters. I know for a fact that Alex does not yet understand what he is critiquing. And I wouldn’t expect him too. There is a lot to learn. I look forward to more discussions between these two.
Alex has changed his mind many times in his, what I believe a, genuine search for truth. I tend to fall into Craigs camp but I still interrogate and look for challenges to it to put it to the test.
@@vinoveritathought the same thing. Still undecided on obj.morality and emotivism but Craig seemed like he couldn't follow the line of arguments in this debate. So I'd rather spend my time on people who can.
Oh, you think excluding a moral philosophy that has the aim of helping you live a good life, because of immortality and psychopaths? You do you, big guy.
@@marie-ray Are you genuinely struggling with the idea of objective morality, or struggling to identify its metaphysical basis? For example, one man chooses to feed his child, another to starve his child. One student choose to study and achieve a good grade, another chooses to cheat to acquire a good grade. The holocaust versus a family picnic, a pogrom versus a birthday party, theft versus productivity, honesty versus dishonesty, drunkenness versus temperance, etc. Are you truly struggling to see any moral difference between these events, acts and character traits? Are they, on your view, morally neutral such that child rape and consensual sex between people who adore each other is “six of one and half a dozen of the other”? I’m 57 years on the planet, have lived in multiple cities, traveled around the world, and have never met one person who cannot distinguish good from evil. You can board a plane to any country in the world, deplane, ask any passer-by if theft, murder, infidelity and the like constitute the morally good and he will respond in the negative - EVERY time. Noam Chomsky speaks to this phenomenon wherein people deny moral objectivity as follows: “Moral relativism - it’s a little difficult to discuss. It’s like discussing skepticism. There are no skeptics. You can discuss it in a philosophy seminar, but no human being can actually be a skeptic. They wouldn’t survive for two minutes if they were. And I think pretty much is true of moral relativism. There are no moral relativists, there are people who profess it, you can discuss it abstractly, but it doesn’t exist in ordinary life.” He is absolutely right. All these online discussions that call into question objective morality reduce to armchair pontification and abstraction divorced from the facts of reality. There are no moral relativists or moral nihilists. And that much is evident by how people speak. Their language gives away their awareness of what constitutes the good and the evil. For example, in an exchange with another man in this comments section I mentioned the holocaust, pogroms, child rape and the like. He responded that “every atrocity is neither moral nor immoral.” But an atrocity is a wicked, immoral act. So, by the use of his own language, by his ability to identify those events I listed as instances of “atrocity” he gives away the game. He reveals his knowledge of good and evil.
Bro continually describes subjective morality to a tee and answers every hypothetical in a subjective way with new qualifiers and asterisks, but then he thinks saying "it's based in the value of human life tho" makes it objective. Nah, dawg.
@davidspencer343 "Clearly Trolling" is the argument of a loser. You believe that science is subjective become words are formed by a "subject" in the linguistic sense, ignoring that this "subject" only speaks because of Objective facts.
A hypothetical that is within the bounds of metaphysical possibility can be useful. A hypothetical that is metaphysically impossible is not. The whole point of saying that morality is objective means that it aligns with the facts of reality and can be proven true with a series of abstractions, much like a proof in mathematics. If you change the facts of reality, a whole new proof would be necessary and the conclusions could change.
@@rationalcapitalist The thought experiments presented were completely reasonable, and Alex bringing them up was exactly the right thing to do. Instead of attacking thought experiments, Craig should have used that energy to support his argument.
@@sunnyinvladivostok starting a thought experiment out with "imagine a scenario where we all live forever" is not reasonable and changes the playing field to such an extent that it potentially makes the conclusions completely different. Ayn Rand's view on morality was developed from a complex identification of the facts of THIS world, not a fantasy one that can't exist. A world where people live forever would mean getting blown up by a bomb or getting run over by a car or shot in the heart wouldn't kill you. This all contradicts lots of truths about reality and is therefore fantasy. Again, it can be helpful to set up a metaphor based on extreme unlikely possibilities, but not based on metaphysical impossibilities.
@@rationalcapitalist ... it's very clear to see the point of alex's hypothetical. craig stated that life is the fundamental presupposition for value, the point of alex's hypothetical is to challenge that presupposition. the metaphysical changes don't affect craig's argument whatsoever.
@@potato-vh7ks life is what makes the concept of values exist. A value presupposes a value to something and for a purpose. A rock doesn't have values because it isn't alive. It doesn't "need" anything in order to survive. It just is. Plants have values to the extent that they're alive, but they can't choose those values or to choose to seek non-values. Humans are unique in that they are both alive and have volition. This is where values and the whole field of ethics comes into play. Humans need a principled guide to action to help them makes the choices not only to live, in the sense that their heart in beating, but to achieve happiness. Sure, if people could live forever there would still be a general objective standard of what leads to happiness, but it's not necessary to concoct such a fantasy scenario to prove the point.
Disagree actually. I felt like they played semantics on words all day. And just signed things differently and used those word definitions defending their points which if they are defined that way make sense.
@@thomabow8949I'm talking about both of them. They have varying definitions of what a truth is, what a value is, what rationality is.... so when they talk on these abstract concepts where they have fundamental differences of definitions they disagree on all of them. That's the problem with these debates and semantics. Is we need to spend 90mins defining both sides definitions of words to piece together their worldview. It's at times exhausting.....and then they spend actual little time of debating the topics and all we learned is how they define words. lol. They end up playing defense by having to explain themselves because they feel strawman'd by their opponents assumptions of their definition of the topic.
A better more accurate description is that O'Connor presupposes that an objective morality must be true in all possible words, while Bittle holds it only need apply to the actual world.
@jeffreyscott4997 interestingly only Non naturalists would think morality would need to be true in all possible worlds, moral naturalists would say moral facts are natural facts and most natural facts are contingent
@@jeffreyscott4997 no, the discussion necessarily involves both ontology and epistemology. If you're trying to ground an ontology, you need to invoke epistemology. The debate topic might have been formatted in the question "is morality objective?" but that's immediately deconstructed for the sake of understanding how one can know that morality is objective, which is where I'd argue that Craig failed. Craig didn't offer an effective explanation for why his views on human value and the value of life weren't just arbitrary decisions he's made. Instead of recognizing the purpose of Alex's hypotheticals, which was to show how changes in the ontology expose the epistemology, or lack thereof, we got reason after reason as to why Rand's philosophy is incompatible with imaginative realities and Craig got lost in the self referential sauce of the compilation of Rand's other ideas necessary to build his argument rather than recognize the issues that Alex and the audience were having with his reduction of the epistemology to things like the innate value of life, the will to live, and the normative human experience of empathy, things that are in themselves inherently subjective experiences which only instigate more confusion pertaining to how Craig can make a distinction between objectivity and relativity in the first place, an epistemic concern absolutely necessary to understanding whether or not an ontology of objective ethics can be considered valid.
Craig could never bridge the gap from “this serves my wellbeing so it’s good” to “this serves another person’s wellbeing so it’s good”. When Alex proposed a psychopath that doesn’t value other’s wellbeing, all Craig could do was assert that psychopath was broken, by presupposing that others’ wellbeing is important.
Things that are tested in reality to promote wide reaching aspects of well-being fall in the category of wisdom. There are those who hate wisdom and actively fight against it known as misosophists. If you don’t see or value wisdom then you can’t bridge the gap of some concepts and you will use any subjectivism(confusion) or relativism(degeneracy) to do so. It causes in external reality a breakdown of social order and loss of ability to understand the language supporting the structure of civilization.
@@Kuhanapomarancawhat do you think is the reason we believe these thought experiments are valuable? Try to “steel man” the perspective you don’t agree with.
You can prove that the value of some others is a value. If a psychopath does not value another human, who has done nothing wrong(or things right), then he is irrational.
Why are objectivists so desperate to use the word objective? By the time they’ve jumped through all the hoops to employ the word, it’s contingent on so many things it hardly means what most people use the word for anyways.
For the same reason they espouse this: they want the authority. In truth what they mean when they say objective is: 'something no one will dare question, since that leads to things I don't like, because of my personal meaning negotiation of a particular religious text'. You know... 'objective'! But basically, yes: don't use your increasing knowledge of the world to reconsider morality.
@@dillanklapp essentially objective means "in principle" which means wide conclusions drawn from the facts of reality. The problem with almost anyone who isn't an objectivist is they worship greyness and pragmatism and hate the idea of making a strong principled stand on anything... Other than the idea that there are no principles.
@@beorntwit711 I think you are partially right, except it’s a little different with the Ayn Rand / objectivist types, as they are also atheist. Unless you consider Atlas Shrugged their religious text, which is actually pretty funny come to think of it😂
There's no hoop jumping. Objectivity refers to the basis behind something being grounded in reality. When Objectivist say "Objective Morality, they mean a morality that is Objectivitely needed. Since morality is an objective need for survival, which is a fact that is based in reality.
@@rationalcapitalist maybe that’s what you mean by objective, but I don’t think that’s how it’s commonly used. I consider myself a pragmatist, but the idea that I “worship greyness” and don’t have principles is just patently silly. To me it sounds like objectivists have a black and white issue, and a naive one at that.
the complete inconsistency between "destroying a flower for fun is wrong" and "killing an animal for flavour is ok because animals have no rights" is staggering
ah, it becomes even more ridiculous when destroying flower for fun or 'just because' is deemed radically different to destroying a flower for the sake of using it as a silly adornment. would it stand for humans too? extreme: to annihilate a people for no reason is evil while doing so for the sake of their land or any other benefit to the perpetrator is somehow morally fine in Craig's universe?
@@tulpas93 how is pleasure from flavour(because we have already assumed there's another way to get all nutrients) different than pleasure from destroying? why would flavour be morally different? both destroy a life for pleasure
@@tulpas93 1:25:25 28:16 I'm not trying to be mean or difficult here but he did say a few times that finding enjoyment from destroying a flower would be wrong/nihilistic/contempt for life. I just don't see how enjoying the flavour of a dead animal to be different from enjoying the sight or the feel of a dead plant. it's stated every time the question was asked that the kicker enjoys kicking the flower.
I actually felt embarrassed on behalf of Craig. How do you show up to a debate without even considering whether your position is self-contradictory or circular? It took Alex about 2 seconds to pick it completely apart.
Alex has such insanely strong and sound logic in every debate - he clearly thinks through his opinions and points with critique and genuine care for the truth.
Craig came into this discussion with the preconceived notions that his theory for morality was the objective standard we use to determine whether someone was human or not.
Wow. This was a very lopsided debate. Alex used pointed questions, solid logic, and thought-provoking counterexamples. Craig responded with filibustering non-answers, circular reasoning, and complaining that thought experiments aren't real life.
Even in the example about living forever Alex can’t get away from the reality that it would come from the world we live in now. An immortality pill doesn’t mean a world where death wasn’t once a possibility. So morality doesn’t go away in that case. Besides, morality is all about what one should or shouldn’t do. Alex coming up with alternate realities is a way to avoid that fact.
@@MalcolmBomaniBrown No, he's not trying to avoid anything. He is demonstrating that even if staying alive is no longer a part of the equation, EVEN THEN there should still be a basis for morality. This is the benefit of "thought experiments". They allow us to test our ideas and isolate variables to see if they are really as important as we are told. In this case, the thought experiment revealed that Craig's stated basis for morality isn't actually that important to his moral framework.
An hour in and it seems more like an interview with Alex pressing Craig. I for once would like to see someone seriously challenge Alex on his emotivism rather than he just poke holes in realism/objectivism, which is what it so often is when he discusses/debates ethics.
@@dawnkeyyyou mean where Sam confuses the fact that there are objective facts about systems that have preferences with the idea of objective morality?
i get the vibe that alex really would on some level prefer not to be an emotivist, but is stuck there and hasn't yet banged against someone who can knock him out of it
@@ayberkgurses677 “Objectivism” is a philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand, and that title isn’t necessarily tied to morality. The moral system within Objectivism is actually called “rational egoism.” Craig won’t make much sense to anyone who doesn’t understand the differences here, and without that understanding, it’s easy to equivocate between “moral objectivism” and “objectivism.”
@theautodidacticlayman to be clear egoism could be an objectivist theory in the sense everyone else means that term too (it may be that everyone has a moral duty to maximize their wellbeing regardless of their stance on the matter)... although not one I think most philosophers would endorse
@@tjcofer7517 Right, Rational Egoists can defend either descriptive or normative forms of that system. Objectivism is a minority. RE is a minority. Moral Realism ≠ Objectivism.
@@theautodidacticlayman a quick google search reveals she named her philosophy Objectivism because she believed it provides an objective grounding for values. "The name "Objectivism" derives from the idea that human knowledge and values are objective: they exist and are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by one's mind, and are not created by the thoughts one has. " (Rand 1967, p. 23).
That'san Objectivist with capital O. It's the name that Rand gave to her philosophy. Just like Existentialism (the movement), or Libertarian (the party).
I’m halfway through this video, and I find it shocking that neither of them have pointed to the fact that the “humans” (modern Homo sapiens) being discussed are a product of evolution. Our experience of pain and suffering is something that has been selected for by evolution. A person who suddenly couldn’t die is still someone whose biology evolved in a niche where death was a very real possibility. In Alex’s thought experiment of an immortality pill, the structures of the neurons responsible for the consciousness of the individual presumably didn’t dramatically change. Their brain’s anatomy was still the result of a selection pressure in favor of preserving the attachment of their head and torso. Their brain still thinks that 3rd degree burns are something to be concerned about… pain is still an experience that aims to deter them from certain predicaments…
They didn't mention it because Alex doesn't need any scientific foundation for his morality because it's not objective, and Craig defined "life" as "things that 'go after' things," which is a weird non-biological way of defining it.
@@JM-us3fr I may have read between the lines, but I didn’t get the impression that Craig was defining life as “things that go after things.” I understood that phrase to be his way of describing what living things do, IF they have not chosen to stop living. But I think he would still call the resigned, inactive person no longer valuing anything as a living person.
@@JM-us3fr i think that our current conception of what makes something alive has use in practical application, but is probably not fundamentally sound. we can point to patterns of behavior, self replicating arrangements of molecules and so on. but "life" as a technical term seems rather contrived. are amoebas alive? sure. viruses? maybe? prions? how about salt crystals growing? how about a robot that can reprogram and rebuild itself?
@@WindingRoads2020 That’s fair, but in his view, as far as morality is concerned, that’s what life is. I think it would have been better if he said “One thing that goes after things is life,” to make it clear it may not be the only such thing. But Craig seemed to need it to be the _only_ such thing because he didn’t want to leave open the possibility of non-human morality. I think that’s a bit ad-hoc
@@Alexmw777 That’s a fair critique, but I think you’ve expressed exactly why Craig’s argument breaks down. He seemed determined to rule out non-human morality, but clearly there exist non-human agents, so why not non-human morality?
I was highly disappointed in this debate as Mr. Craig was consistently bringing up easily dealt with philosophical points rather than some of the more powerful arguments in favor of objective morality. Not a particularly edifying experience.
@@inajosmoodyes unfortunately Im starting to think that is the only possible conclusion. I feel like moral objectivists, whether religious or agnostic, just dont seem to put the work in to find objective support for what they believe. I wonder if they reach a point of satisfaction with a belief in objectivity and then stop searching and rationalizing. But more probably, and the more I search I come to the conclusion that, I think its just a cognitive bias in most people that doesnt want to let themselves admit there is no objective standard as they tie their sense of meaning to it. Probably some biological trait as a result of our strongly evolved social dependencies.
Yeah, I’ve yet to come across a moral ”objectivist” who isn’t just a subjectivist who is lying to themselves. I feel it’s caused by primitive thinking and cognitive biases
Happens so frequently with moral objectivists - they keep repeating statements about what is right or wrong but somehow never get around to actually justifying their view. So its all about life, but kicking a flower is wrong not because of that but because kicking something beautiful is a nihilistic act?
Literally the opposite. wtf planet are you on? Objectivist almost always justify their morals through god. Subjectivists usually just say r tarded shit like ‘Well it just feel good to be good derrr’ Go watch Andrew Wilson and Jay dyer and tell me objectivist don’t justify themselves 🤣🫵🏻
@@MalcolmBomaniBrown did you just compare metaethics to the most basic arithmetics? I'm guessing you haven't yet turned your all-seeing eye onto medicine because we'd have cured all cancers by now. Also repeatedly stating your conclusion isn't "clearly explaining."
Very true. What i wouldnt give for someone to present an airtight argument for objectivism, but it always devolves to the same tactics religious debaters fall back to: the "it is because i believe it is and all the other good people agree with me" argument.
I am only about 22 minutes in and noticing a lot of mean-spirited comments. You are a great speaker Craig and you explain concepts extremely well. Even though I feel like the conversation is already starting to swing in Alex's favour, I am greatly enjoying the civil exchange!
I think the primary point of confusion between these two is something like this: Craig believes that after an individual makes the pre-rational choice to value his life, then he must also broadly/abstractly value life itself. This logical jump never seemed clarified/justified to me. I also didn't hear Alex ever ask this directly.
I agree, I think the conversation would have been more interesting if Alex challenged that a priori presupposition, as well as the presupposition that choosing to live or die is pre-rational/not applicable for moral debate.
Craig states value in life as the standart, but in practice seems like he valued well-being as the ultimate value, and therefore sounds more like an utilitarian
There is a difference between the purpose of morality and the standard of value. Also, long term happiness for the self according to a standard is not utilitarian. Utilitarianism is hedonistic (i.e. pleasure based) and has a unique target of morality. Neither the self nor others. The target of utilitarianism is the greatest number of people.
@@kzeriar25 human life is not merely about your body and consciousness existing. It's about living a flourishing life, obtaining values and happiness. The fact that we have the choice to live or die is the fundamental principle that makes morality applicable. From there, morality is a guide to not only continue that existence, but make it materially and spiritually (not in a religious sense) richer.
@@rationalcapitalist sounds like happiness/well-being/utility is the factor when choosing to live or die then. Regardless, I'm talking about my view of Craig's position, not my position itself.
@@kzeriar25 Yes, the potential for happiness can be a motivation to choose to live. It's the job of morality to guide you in achieving happiness inducing values once you've made that choice.
@@kzeriar25 Except he’s not a utilitarian at all. If he full subscribes to Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, then he would fall in the camp of the Rational Egoists, which says that each person should act towards their own self-interests. Utilitarians, on the other hand, say that each person should act in a way that maximizes the interests of others.
24:50 How is it a metaphysical impossibility for such a society to exist? When you say "impossible" you actually mean very unlikely, you can't derive any logical contradiction from it, and they dont break any rules about reality.
Yep, position is that morality is objective. Supports the position by carving out special group (living entities on earth), then explains morality from some individual's perspective. If a decision is made from the perspective of each individual it is by definition subjective. If X proposition is only true from a select viewpoint, then is it not objective.
Morality is the province of choice. I’m not morally accountable for being born with blue eyes. But if I choose not to feed my daughter - to starve her - my choice is objectively immoral because nourishment is an objective requirement of her nature. Which part of that argument isn’t objective: 1. That morality isn’t the province of choice? 2. That it is immoral to starve my daughter? 3. That my daughter’s nature requires nourishment?
I'm convinced a lot of these craigs feel "objective" is a synonym for "i feel this very, very strongly". It's the only way to make sense of the argument.
Lots of comments hating on Craig, but I think he was quite eloquent and explained his position well. I still disagree with it, but people don't have to be so negative.
Theyre being negative because he didnt address the subject of the debate which was "is morality objective". Craig seems like a well spoken guy but he spent the entire time trying to prove why common agreement on subjevtive morality is important, which wasnt the question. I dont think he really understood the debate but Alex was quite gracious in not directly calling him out on it and Craig ended up proving that morality is subjective by his own statements. Craig probably should have taken the time to formulate a relevant and stronger argument though as we all missed out on someone arguing the opposing side.
It's not the ideas that are inspiring that reaction. People who've bought into kooky non-rational ideas (the majority) have a need to tear down reality. Anything that hints at objectivity must be laughed out of consideration before ever being heard.
@@TRIPP5_Shurikens I think there are plenty of ideas expressed by Craig that were absurd and deserve all the scorn in the world. I'm just saying we should reserve the scorn for the ideas, not the man. You're just on the other side of it: heaping scorn on "the majority", as you put it, for being irrational and hating reality. That's just your own irrational defense mechanism to people critiquing your ideas. Most people watching a video like this, came here to watch two intellectuals discuss their ideas. They are mostly people interested in knowing the truth. If you are bothered by the fact that someone who is genuinely searching for the truth could come to different conclusions to you, then you haven't really grappled with just how ambiguous and unintuitive reality can be.
I wrote my thesis on Alasdair McIntyre’s book After Virtue. The first half of the books describes emotivism, and why no one has come up with an objectively true moral framework. The next half of the book posits the authors own subjective moral framework as an objective one. It’s hard, as a layperson (me) to argue with such a philosophical giant. But once you come to terms with everyone’s utter failure to justify their moral framework, it’s much easier to argue with anyone about the subject. All you need to ask is “why is yours true?”
You’re brave for writing a thesis on that book. I found something interesting on every page yet I really didn’t know what the book was proposing by the end.
Hi Craig, just want to say that Alex has a much bigger following than you on this platform, so don't take these comments to heart. They (not unjustifiably) love Alex, but this leads them to hate on and ridicule everyone he talks to, and the size of his fanbase means they drown out everyone else. I hope you're well.
@@someonesomeone25 the content of the debate is irrelevant imo, theres no need for hundreds of people to comment the same unkind thing from some weird place of surrogate intellectually superiority. And the size of Alex’s audience leads to the one-sidedness of these comments misrepresenting the actual feel of the debate.
He invited Alex knowing of his following hopeing he would be able to benefit from extra publicity and being exposed to a large audience. When you know you'll have more scrutiny applied to your positions you should really be more prepared and be able to quote more people than Ayn fucking Rand
I was there in the audience, Biddle handled this terribly. It was like listening to Chat GPT trying to explain the Objectivist Ethics. For anyone who reads this, if you want to hear Objectivism from people who actually understand the philosophy, listen to something from Leonard Peikoff or anyone at the Ayn Rand Institute. Steer clear of OSI for the life of you
This question is so easy to answer. Of course there are no objective moral standards, but once you agree on the standard you can make objective statements about that standard and actions within it.
Huge props Craig for being man enough to post a defeat this bad on your own page. What is with old people and saying they don’t entertain thought experiments?
Hypothetical, if you weren't 12 IQ, would a donkey have pockets? You must accept the hypothetical by your own argument. So tell me the answer or you lose.
@@someonesomeone25 Alex's hypothetical is an example. It makes no sense. You cannot just put words together and hope for the best. So here is my joke: >Hypothetically, if you weren't 12 IQ. This is a strawman attack without a reason for it. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to be a 12 IQ. The premise of the hypothetical starts by suggesting the opponent is already wrong and stupid and that the impossible is true. Alex: >Hypothetically, if Craig's Philosophy wasn't missing that the impossible is true. Back to the joke: >Then would a donkey have pockets? This statement is perfectly fine given the fact that we already started by assuming the impossible and nonsensical. Alex: > Then wouldn't the creature that didn't evolve through a process of natural selection but popped into existence without cause have the ability to develop pain and pleasure? It makes no sense.
I enjoyed the conversation and appreciate both speakers, however, Craig's seeming inability to seriously entertain hypotheticals and their conceptual consequences is irritating. He is, dare I say, to borrow his label of psychopaths, a "broken" human being who doesn't understand the value of thought experiments.
“If you were to say your shirt was an intrinsic part of your body, and I were to say you can imagine a world in which you didn’t have your shirt on..” So this illustrates either a misunderstanding or misrepresentation on the part of Alex regarding the relationship between life and ethics. Of course, no one would claim their shirt was an intrinsic part of their body, but what we might say is that the existence of shirts is intrinsically reliant on the existence of bodies. This is a very subtle but important distinction because what it sets up is two facts: 1. If bodies never existed, shirts also would never have existed. 2. If bodies did exist, and suddenly stopped existing, the shirts would still be around, but they would become useless or their use case would change. Now to firmly connect this analogy with ethics. The fact of life being immortal is what sets the stage for all the other emergent experiential qualities of the contents consciousness. Concepts like happiness, suffering, fulfillment, shame etc- all of these emotional states are tools employed by the mind that help guide us towards living. They are essentially signals that prevent us from doing dangerous things and push us towards doing life-conserving things. It’s obviously way more complex than that but for the moment we need not explain more. So the problem with this thought experiment is that when we remove mortality from the equation, we remove the ontological foundation of morality, but all of the psychological residue that cumulated over vast spans of time in order to aid in the preservation of life still remains. So we still have suffering, which is “bad” phenomenologically, but not existentially. And to bring this home, this is as if we, (since Alex likes using metaphysically impossible thought experiments) imagined a world where suddenly everyone’s torsos vanished, but we still had the rest of our appendages. Can we still wear our shirts?
That guy lost completely me when he said he couldn't think even in hypothetical scenario that harming an innocent person would benefit another person. I felt like he's dodging every question that Alex asked as being "unrealistic".
I came into this debate not knowing much about Ayn Rand but having a generally negative impression of her. Craig actually did a commendable job of solidifying this opinion.
I'm so glad that this debate exists. It sometimes feels like religious debate sucks all the oxygen out of the room so other kinds of debates can't flourish. I wish we could move past the frankly boring questions of god and the origin of the universe and talk about these questions more.
Came here to say this. Sounds like someone brought a frequency emitter that only Alex could hear, trying to throw him off and favor his older opponent lol.
I shat my pants when that happened out of nowhere. Thought my head was going to explode like in scanners. Had to pause YT on the TV and come to the app to see if it was the video or my device.
A lot of you really dont understand how hypotheticals work if you dont understand that Biddle's response, "how about we hypothetically imagine a world exactly like reality how would this ethical system work in that imaginary situation" was perfect. Hypotheticals are often just sophistry. Alex's weren't even effective sophistry theywere irrelevant. Never did Craig assert that Rand's ethics work in all possible worlds and all possible configurations of mortality. Alex asked -- what about immortals... what in Rand stops a person from inflicting pain on an immortal since it doesnt have any bearing on life or death? 'What an irrelevant question' is a perfectly adequate answer but if you want to play Alex's game... ask, why the f**k would imnortals feel pain? Pain is an evolved biological warning system for things with potentially deadly consequences... our bodies are machines built around the twin poles of death and reproductuon.... immortalaity makes our bodies absurdities and pain a hideous absurdity...what possible bearing does this have on human ethics? Hey imagine a world in which logic doesnt work... Ergo... elevator butter!
Killing an innocent animal because you like the way it's flesh tastes, is more moral than kicking a flower because you think it's fun... literally the logic we are dealing with here. This was a pretty tough one to watch seriously.
So an hour of you saying its unnecessary to talk about anything that shows the flaw in your thinking. First person have ever seen trying to claim thought experiments werea waste of time in a debate on ethics.
Craig, your ability to have an intellectually challenging conversation is extremely low. I am surprised by the lack of quality of intellectual standards in your thinking.
Debate summary: 1. Craig explains relatively well where objective morality is rooted in 2. Craig reacts on every counterpoint with terribly subjective morality 3. Craig copes about why he eats meat
I kinda feel like the immortality hypothetical wasn’t quite the trap Alex felt it was. It’s not that crazy to imagine that given a long enough time scale, any amount of torture would genuinely become, functionally, a stubbed toe. It’s annoying and painful to stub your toe, and someone who leaves boards out for you to stub them warrants avoidance, but I don’t know that it’s really immoral, especially given that it’s really more of a temporary inconvenience. The point being, yes in a world where we are immortal morality would cease. It may even be the case that torture would go through a phase of being a novel experience similar to people who like to skydive or thrill seek until it ultimately would feel no different from not being tortured.
The lack of understanding of what a psychopath is kills me. Psychopathy does not stop the understanding and actions of moral systems. This is positing they are broken with no evidence.
@@randywayne3910 I don't know her or her ideas, but I think if he is so incoherent and inprecise in his talk he cannot be reciting someone famous for ideas, that would make them both questionable and would make their arguments invalid about this topic. I hope he is wrong because the amount of contradicting ideas he proposed was huge, and moreso incomprehensible. he didn't even believe in the practicality of the hypothetical, that means he doesn't actually think, therefore he himself is less of a human by his standards, which are appalling.
@@user-hn1bu3pu5f expand on one of his contradictions? He didn’t say hypotheticals were impractical, he said they must be tied to reality otherwise they not any use to us morally. Objective morality must work in real world situations, otherwise it’s pointless calling it objective. Also note; Alex was wrong about mathematicians learning practical concepts from hypotheticals, they also must tie what they explore back to reality. Alex’s hypothetical life boat scenario showed a complete lack of understanding of Craig’s position.
54:44 wait, so if a terrorist is considered sub-human according to Craig, and therefore loses value as a human, if I enslave the terrorist and make him my slave would that then be justified according to his moral system?
Biddle is absolutely correct that ethics is about dealing with how to act in the real word, so Alex positing hypotheticals that have nothing to do with this world is adjacent at best to the conversation. Any realistic hypothetical is certainly fair game.
What does it mean to say morality is objective when there are countless instances of nothing happening when we do morally horrible things, get away with them, and die without ever having felt guilty or bad about having done them....
It doesn't mean anything, it seems. I don't see the use of creating an ethical system and declaring it objective. Or creating any ethical system at all. People do what they want regardless.
Well, morality can be objective and there not be any consequences to actions. Say for instance that there is some kind of passive god that has the Box of Objective Morality in its possession, but it is a god that does not intervene.
@@adamruuth5562 no it can't. It doesn't mean anything for it to be objective and there be no consequences. I mean you can make that distinction but that's why I asked the question. What would it mean to say it's objective if it's indistinguishable from being nonexistent in actual experience and in practice? It's basically like saying the thing we call air is actually shmair but shares all the same properties of that which we refer to as air.
Nothing is more annoying that a hypothetical dodger. As soon as someone try’s to start dodging hypotheticals, I immediately lose all respect for that person and no longer take them seriously.
A hypothetical is a waste of time if it is never tied back to reality, which is what Craig tried to get Alex to do. Even the mathematicians Alex spoke about understand this fact.
Craig's argument still boils down to his subjective or the collective's subject feelings on a matter. There is nothing grounding it saying it's objectively true. The pyschopath argument was interesting because that seems obvious but sub in some other group or person into that area. Who determines "wrong think" what collection of people have the correct view on it. It's not obvious.
@@xbudzix the same reason I can say 1+1 is 2. The same reason I can evaluate that people who took drugs are having experience not of reality, but hallucinations.
@@kurokamei Say the psychopath believes that what is moral is whatever pleases the individual. In his case, it would be psychopathic behavior that pleases him. So he acts on his psychopathic impulses. That's not irrational. It's just at odds with social norms and consensus. That is basically all it comes down to in psychology. It is all culturally relative. Today, killing someone with an ax, having your way with their wife, and enslaving their child would make you an unimaginable monster. A thousand years ago... you'd just be a dude doing what your culture does.
@@kurokamei The latter is something that studies have been conducted on and it's been proven that it's likely (though it depends on how you define reality). The former is something that follows from particular definition of symbols and basic mathematical axioms. None of those are the case for your claim. So, what is the logical benefit is saying that it's the psychopaths that are irrational, not everybody else? What's an objective reason for that? Because right now it seems like a mere subjective judgment.
This whole rant at the beginning about living things "going after" what they value, in contrast to dead matter, didn't make any sense whatsoever. A falling rock goes after a place where it can be at rest. A virus goes after infecting other organisms. A bacterium goes after consuming nutrients from its surroundings. An ant goes after building a nest, and so on. Why do you think that somewhere between the virus and the bacterium (i.e. arguably non-living and living matter), there's this magical thing called "value"? Seriously, the only difference between a human actively seeking food and a rock tumbling down a mountain is the level of complexity. Both objects follow the same laws of physics, and the only reason we can't predict the behaviour of the latter is the huge number of variables that influence what it does. The tendency of living organisms to stay alive and reproduce is no different from the tendency of water to form waves. It's just a bunch of particle interactions following the laws of physics.
So what, Craig? So what??? When asked why I should care about ruining life, you responded " The problem is that life is the very thing that gives rise to the business of valuing conceptual terms that we use, or, I mean, beauty, anything like that." So what? Why should I care
I nearly died laughing when Mr. Biddle said "I don't think it's an intuitive issue, it's just a matter of fact that it's profoundly immoral to torture an animal!" I wonder if he tells us where "out there" that immorality exists? The sad, or funny thing is that, up to that point, I was completely with him.
The problem with "kicking a flower" is that your action is not motivated by anything rational. For an action to be moral it has to serve your life. It is not like any action is morally ok. It has to be understood based on evidence to serve you long range for practical living.
The problem here is metaphysical and epistemological. You cannot speak of ethics without arguing about the more fundamental branches of philosophy. The reason Alex kept thinking Craig was talking in a circle is because Alex is only hearing the ethical propositions Craig was delivering. He wasn't aware of the underlying metaphysical and epistemological underpinnings Craig starts out with. For instance, Objectivism accepts Aristotelian Logic so you cannnot have any contradictions in your formulations. Alex was using many hypothetical with contradictions baked into them.
Craig never did quite get around to explaining the fundamentals on which Objectivism stands, to be fair, the format was centered around morality and the debating time was limited. For an audience that isn't familiar with Objectivism all this debate does is provide a comparison of the two theories that were presented by the interlocutors. If it gets a person to read Rand, it's a win. I doubt Objectivism is winning over the ethical veganists anytime soon though, yikes!
@@nsinkov If Objectivism as a philosophy is logically consistent given the definitions that they go by then it doesn't necessarily have to present a problem. Pretty much all philosophies are guilty of this as language and ideas change over time.
This is one of the most one-sided stompings I have seen in a debate maybe second only to Zizek v Peterson in the modern era. It felt like Craig was genuinely unaware of how ungrounded and circular his argument was. It felt like he didn’t realize that it is not only entirely possible, but completely rational from certain perspectives to be able to have a drive to live your own life to its fullest and most fulfilled but be completely disinterested in the life and well-being of others. It’s easy to claim that the affirmation of life and the desire to live is what imparts meaning in a practical sense and call that “objective”, but like Alex pointed out if that “objectivity” is based on the subjective desire to survive, it is inherently non-objective no matter how many supposed layers of objectivity you stack on top of this subjective framework. Also on his point of not being able to imagine benefiting from the death of an innocent person, are you not using a computer with batteries made from components that were undoubtedly collected using forced slave labor with people being forced to live in unfathomably horrible situations and tortured beyond comprehension? Yet clearly he values the utility of his phone and computer that comes at the cost of innocent peoples lives more than he values those lives, otherwise he would refrain from using them on moral grounds. It’s also easy to argue that slavery is wrong in this high-minded sense, but then you live in a capitalist society that has outsourced and abstracted its use of slavery to other countries to make the consumer less aware of it. So just because the slavery isn’t in your country being directly done by you, it’s no longer wrong and you are free to benefit from it and that’s in no way unethical? It seems nonsensical.
Wow this was frustrating to watch. Everything Craig said was subjective and I cant see how is so deaf to what he is saying. Changed his answer constantly, I'm so confused what was Objective here
He didn’t do very well isolating Alex’s confusion. The point is that we can still act against our own self interest while behaving selfishly in a current state of (flawed) self interest. All forms of life come to learn what is moral through negative feedback. We have some basic instincts built into us at birth but they are very egoistic and we only start extending our awareness of self survival to the survival of others as we learn how our long term survival as a species depends on others. Many people don’t ever become aware enough to value humanity at a large scale because they are simply trying to survive themselves. So in other words the level of a person’s morality is tied to one’s ability to satisfy their own sense of survival and recognize that their survival depends on the ability of others to also satisfy their survival in order to work together towards that collective consciousness that we are all dependent on one another’s survival.
Yes, it would be the same thing. It's basically the position that moral statements don't actually express propositions, but rather purely emotional states of personal disposition towards a given act. Frege and Geach wrote an essay about the so-called 'embedding problem' which has basically debunked this position for good. The only ones who try to hold on to this sort of view advocate for moral quasi-realism.
@@georgepantzikis7988 George, I believe we have a duty to evaluate how well our worldview enmeshes with reality. I think you're leaning too far into justifying your viewpoint instead of considering the real-world impacts of what you believe, and their unworkability. I'd challenge you to ask a million normal-thinking individuals without any sort of background considering this issue what they think of your point. You'll find that none of them will agree with you. ergo, your worldview is at odds with the state of the world.
@@georgepantzikis7988 I agree that the Frege-Geach linguistic argument has put non-cognitivism to rest, and also other points brought forth by philosopher Michael Smith in a paper against non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivsm actually devolves into subjectivism and it can then be tackeld with other objections to subjectivism. He main argument going for non-cognitivsm is that beliefs about objective moral facts (if there were any), would be intrinsically motivating without the presence of any desires. But, according to non-cognitivists, beliefs alone cannot motivate. So, they conclude, moral judgements are not beliefs, but expressions of desires. The problem is that evaluative beliefs can motivate. My belief that X is good can motivate me to do X. Then non-cognitivists will have to say that this is a belief about what would best promote our desires and interests, and this is now subjectivism, and it is vulnerable to the Open Question Argument. X promotes my interests and desires, but is it really good? This is obvious an open question, so reducing 'good' to 'what best promotes my interests and desires' is a failed move.
@@tomn4483 I haven't presented any viewpoint, I was just answering OP's question and explaining the emotivist worldview a bit. If you think I put too much of my own view in the comment, could you please tell me what my views are?
@@Nexus-jg7ev Well, you can be a cognitivist subjectivist. You can agree that moral statements express propositions while also thinking that individual opinion is what gives these propositions truth value. The real problem that the Frege-Geach problem presents for cognitivism is that it makes it impossible to construct syllogisms with them, as moral language under non-cognitivism fails to have a coherent meaning in the case of a hypothetical (if... then...).
I found craig being unable or unwilling to engage in thought experiments in an intellectual conversation between two rationalists a bit odd its like trying study a painting with your eyes closed. Alex really did well I feel to guide this towards something useful I defiantly feel no affinity towards this Objectivism of Rand's I have only read a bit about it and Craigs discipleship of her ideas did little to convince me otherwise that it does not hold up to rational, emotional or indeed common sense.
the assertion that individuals who lack cognitive and affective empathy are subhuman and therefore shouldnt be considered even in a hypothetical shows a lack of understanding of psychology on craig's part and is based on circular reasoning. somebodys humanity is not measured by their capacity for empathy, a dog's dog-ness is not measured by the amount of limbs they have. its true that lack of empathy usually correlates in amoral thinking, but the existence of amorality in people at all proves its subjectivity! claiming hypothetical person somehow lacks consciousness was the only way craig could justify his preconceived objectivist stance. great debate
Craig can't comprehend or address even the most basic thought experiment 😅😅 He is not ready to share a stage with actual intellectuals and this childish philosophy he has latched onto.
And yet he imagines a future where lab-grown meat is actually available for consumption and then gives his ethical take on that hypothetical future. (I guess that one was okay because HE imagined it… 🙄🤣)
Very questionable to have an "objective" morality where he repeatedly refers to people as broken, subhuman, outside morality, etc. Very dangerous thinking. There's nothing objective about the morality he's talking about especially if it requires people to be neurotypical to even be considered human in his estimation. Alex, you did a great job in this one, as always.
Some people are broken and evil. Evil in general is not a matter of being neurodivergent, but of evading reality and resenting existence, and taking that resentment out on others.
@@micchaelsanders6286 Evil is a description I'd use for certain actions and is applicable to people only in so far as their main motivations and actions are evil. But I don't think my definition of evil is objectively right or that I can call people subhuman even if I think they're evil. I don't believe in othering people even if they are "broken". Remove them from the general population certainly, lock them up of course if they are dangerous but referring to them as subhuman? Dangerous thinking that leads to cruelty or worse, especially when Craig seems to think his standard of what makes someone broken beyond repair is objective.
Subjective morality through basic reasoning refutes itself and is equivalent in meaning to degeneracy. It’s a sad state of affairs that degeneracy is taught in colleges and universities but it is and it gives misosophists the confidence to spread it.
Craig's unwillingness to engage in a valid thought experiment because "it cannot logically exist in the world" did not convince me of his argument. Following that logic, Einstein had no idea of what the universe truly was.
Yeah, if your philosophical hypothesis can't withstand even a single thought experiment, then it's probably not very strong. Often, people who are bad at abstract thinking struggle with thought experiments, but I don't think that's the case here, considering how we're listening to a pair of philosophers. Here it's more likely just a poor defense and an attempt to deflect.
Its important to define what objective means. Does it mean that ethics implies ontologically substantive entities? Or does it imply universality, and then as formal principles or as particular material actions? Or does it imply normativity, and then as a present reality or as a future possibility. I don't think that Oconnor's emotivism is either adequate or plausible. We also need resolve problems as posed by Hume, Moore and Mackie.
This wan't reallyba discussion on whether morality is objective. Greg just redefined objective to mean sonething other than what people actually mean by the word.
A person who kicks a flower or tortures an animal doesn’t value it, and therefore doesn’t see it as scarce, but as soon as a flower becomes scarce and animals becomes scarce, he will become aware of their value because the consequence of not having it anymore will show itself apparent.
The dude in the light blue shirt is just rambling without noticing the many contradictions he's getting himself into. "Can you think about a situation where the death of someone would benefit you?" - "no." - "even hypothetical?" - "no." that makes no sense.
@KaidensPodcast makes no sense... Christians use hypotheticals to prove God, and Alex rejects their metaphysical premise out right. Like Craig did to Alex's nonsense. Immortal creatures can not move!! Biology requires mortality to move
I'm surprised (i.e., concerned) by how many respondents in this Comments section seem to think that Alex's immortality-related hypotheticals were profound -- and that Craig's rebuttal was somehow insufficient. Craig -- quite clearly, persuasive, and factually -- explained that philosophy has to derive from and be compatible with reality as it exists. Alex's hypothetical scenario, as Craig stated, depicts an utterly unrealistic "wonderland." Moreover: Beyond what Craig said, Alex's scenario -- even if we could one day make immortality possible -- would not make it inevitable. Someone would/could still opt out of immortality via suicide, etc. -- and even should be able to do based on his free will-based metaphysical constitution. Life or death would still be the fundamental alternative for living human beings. These days, I actually describe myself as a Neo-Objectivist -- basically because I've come to disagree with the belief that only life can be someone's standard of value. In fact, I think that life or death can be one's fundamental objective -- as life or death is one's fundamental alternative. Regardless, personal liberty is objectively valuable -- because somebody cannot act in favor of his judgment, one way or the other, if he isn't free to do so. (On that note: Even if life were inevitable, personal sovereignty/free will/freedom of conscience would nonetheless legitimize individual liberty -- and if we cooked up a hypothetical without free will/volition, well, then we're squarely into the realm of Ayn Rand's programmed robot and altogether out of any realm of morality, which cannot exist in the absence of choice.)
P.S. I do see that later in the debate, Alex raised my "Neo-Objectivist" objection to the idea of life as the sole standard of value -- so I do give him credit for that.
@@doogboh I'm student (self study) of Objectivism. As I understand it, Objectivism position is, it's not that, life has intrinsic value thus is the standard of value. It's because you choose life, choose to be in existence. So if we choose existence, then as the corollary we choose life as a value, and that's where the issue of other derivative value comes into the picture.
It's not that Alex's hypothetical was particularly profound, it was just a run-of-the-mill thought experiment and refusing to engage in such a thing shows a lack of intellectual honesty. Thought experiments are the backbone of moral reasoning. If you're trying to reason about what you _should_ do without considering hypotheticals, you're not really reasoning at all. This is pedestrian in most cases: if I take this action, so and so will happen but if I take this other action, such and such will happen. That's a thought experiment, but I think Craig wouldn't have a problem with that. Even deeper than that, moral reasoning fundamentally relies on abstraction. What would I do if I were a perfect person? What would the average person do? These are the kinds of question you ask when trying to formulate rules. The whole process of applying rules in general relies on abstracting away from some given reality and using principles that don't depend on any particular circumstance. So it's a perfectly reasonable move, if Craig is claiming that morality relies on the possibility of death, to consider whether we would still have morality even if that weren't a possibility. We're interested in the principle here, not the specific circumstance.
Rand's response to the subjectivist challenge is to redefine objectivism such that 'objectively moral' is synonymous with 'objectively beneficial'. Which is a transparent instance of moving the goalposts.
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UPDATE 2: Read “Alex O’Connor’s Red-Herring Thought Experiment vs. Facts that Support Morality”
craigbiddle.com/2024/09/03/alex-oconnors-red-herring-thought-experiment-vs-facts-that-support-morality/
UPDATE 1: Thank you for the great questions! Here’s a video in which I answer 11 of them:
ruclips.net/video/FcMpHtAH6RM/видео.htmlsi=6blZlMB5VmBZCuYY
Enjoy!
###
Thank you all for engaging with these ideas-especially those of you who have posted challenging questions.
If you’d like to read a short, systematic presentation of my argument for human life as the standard of moral value, you can do so here: bit.ly/3WWSVDY
If you’re up for a longer, more fleshed-out version, check out my book Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It: amzn.to/3WF1v9d
And if you have a question you’d like me to address, please post it in the comments below. I’ll make a follow-up video addressing the best of them next week.
In the meantime, keep loving life!
Hey Craig I wanted to start off by saying as someone who mostly watches bad faith online political debates It’s always a breath of fresh air seeing a calm good faith debate. My question for you is in a conversation about meta ethics wouldn’t it fine to use hypotheticals to establish a moral principle even if they couldn’t actually exist. Isn’t that the whole point of meta ethics, to establish the standards by which we base our answers to real life ethical questions on?
Edit: to
Another question! Early on in the debate you argued that the life of a flower has value and therefore it ought not be destroyed. Later on in the debate you also said that a psychopath’s life doesn’t have moral weight because they don’t recognize others as having moral weight. (Hopefully I summarized you correctly) if it were the case that a psychopath definitively wouldn’t harm other people would it still be the case that they are subhuman or would that be irrelevant to their moral weight. It seems to me that a flower doesn’t attribute moral weight to other living things the same way a psychopath doesnt, therefore the only reason a psychopath would have no moral value to you is the potential for them to cause others harm.
@@craigbiddle what do people here ( in the comments) mean by expression like "subjective", "objective" and "morality"? And what does "morality", "objective" and "subjective" mean for you?
I ABSOLUTELY 100% **DISAGREE** with you Craig when you say "we have a choice to remain alive or not"
To say this is oblivious to the fact you cannot just "choose" to die, there has to be some ACTION that needs to be taken (or absence of action like not eating) which may even be over a prolonged period of time before the person actually ceases to exist.
In addition to this we know people do not always understand themselves, or what they really want until they are actually confronted with it happening. The number of times people "choose" to die only to change their mind at the last minute just as they try to enact it... Did they "change their mind"? Or was there a deeper INSTINCT within them which is EVOLUTIONARILY ingrained in them which overrides whatever their choice may be.
There are also some people where the option of "unlifing" oneself just isn't an option... again it just isn't in their DNA, they have a survival instinct which is so high that they couldn't even make that choice if they wanted to (which is something you seem to think ALL animals do... as if Elephants have not just starved to death near their child's body because they "chose to die", or an animal that intentionally sacrifices itself to save its children, thus making a "choice" to die)
I am almost sure you would say of that animal that they are not choosing to die but instead are just following their animalistic instincts.... BUT WE ARE ANIMALS CRAIG!!!!
So really sorry but the very foundation of your entire argument is just oblivious to biology, evolution, instincts.... you are just special pleading and wishful thinking
@@enigmaticaljedi6808 that you' have full knowledge on topics, I concede. But I hope you would elicit your wrath I your display of you're extensive eradication was lost on me.
I was really thrown off that someone who actively sought out this discussion needed Alex to explain to him why thought experiments are applicable to the real world even if they're counterfactual. The fact that anyone who participates in public philosophical discussions doesn't immediately understand the value of thought experiments is very odd.
This is a shockingly common opinion among people who view themselves as objective, scientific and materialist who view philosophy as below them. They don't understand that thought experiments are just a method of abstraction and that abstraction is the foundation of objectivity and science. They think objectivity just means looking at the world "as it is", whereas in reality it also requires considering how it could be.
His objective is for eyeballs, to get his cult out to as many as possible.
If an interlocutor introduces an argument in the artificial environment of a fantasy world that is “counter-factual” to reality it is because the facts of reality tell against the argument. This is academic sophistry.
"How do you know," the professor asks, "you are not a frog dreaming you are a man?"
If a question means anything, one must know what the words used to form the question mean. It is assumed (smuggled in) one knows what a "man" is, what a "frog" is, what a "dream" is, and what "knowing" is. If all of these are known, there is no question; if any of these are not known, the question has no meaning.
Matrix, Trolly cars, brain in a vat, what if man were immortal, etc, these arguments are employed to put over falsehoods.
Like Alex says, there's a very reasonable suspicion of thought experiments. While useful, they play with our intuitions, often in ways that make us forget to take important factors into account. That sleight of hand often happens in the stage of "now let's translate this to our world."
Like, for example Singer's shallow pond. It reliably gets people to say we need to help the little girl. But in translating that to "we need to help every starving girl on the planet," there are some more assumptions smuggled in. If this translation isn't explicitly described, it can often leave holes in your argument that aren't easy to notice.
Because rational egoism is for people who want to live a good life. Its not for intellectual masturbatory ivory tower discussions.
None of the questions Alex raised has anything to do with me living a good life.
It was game over when the moral objectivist came to say through cross examination, “he’s acting immoral by my standards”
Yea but he has the objetively correct standards
@@chrishekman6179Except this is your subjective opinion.
@@richmondopoku836It is also my subjective opinion that electrons exists, but that doesnt make it less objectively true they exist.
@@chrishekman6179That's not your opinion but your knowledge.
@@chrishekman6179 Proof by analogy? This is philosophy, not religion. We are serious here.
Craig you have so many exceptions to your objective moral standard that depends on your opinion. Alex is asking good clarifying questions that you just keep asserting apriori. Morality is based on life that I deem is normal? So I can imprison or enslave a psychopath because he is not “normal”? What happened to something is alive so it has objective value to control its own life. Dude This is the Swiss cheese version of objective morality.
@@Doug-jf5hx yeah, I don’t get the emotional attachment to using the word objective, when there are so many exceptions, contingencies, and “pre-rational” considerations baked into the view. Where’s the objectivity coming from? I just don’t see it.
So many times Craig tried to explain something about the objectivity it seemed that he was making it subjective with his description.
I guess objectivity is a stamp to legitimate. I personally agree with Greg. I think that Moral Emotionalism is also objective cause most people feel very similar feelings if they share exact conditions.
I'd say that there exist no "shoulds" but still if you choose Goodness than you should "______"... And if you choose destruction, than you should "_______".... That is why "they shall not murder" is correct, cause it's directed to the chosen people, if you do murder than you are not anymore 😂 it's kinda simple if you accept the "choosing" factor (free will)
You missed the standard of morality
@@dillanklapp I think we all know why some people are so attached to the idea of objective morality.
In short objectivist are subjectivist that personally value life, but find the term subjectivist to be distasteful.
Morality starts at choosing life whether I choose life or not. The principles of morality have nothing to do with my individual choices. I only choose whether to adhere to these principles. So you're wrong.
@@denismijatovic1239Why does morality start at choosing life?
@denismijatovic1239 I am aware. Objectivism has two standards for behavior. One for those that choose life, and one for those that don't. As Craig points out, the actions psychopath aren't wrong in a moral sense. They are outside the purview of morality. They are broken and incapable of choosing life. They are like animals in the sense that they cannot not do right or wrong.
So the double standard is inescapable in your view. Yes, you only call the standard for those who choose life morality, but what you call it doesn't matter. It's still two standards of behavior. That makes you a subjectivist about standards of behavior. That's what people mean when they say that they're subjectivist about morality.
@@denismijatovic1239 I tend to think morality starts from sentient social imperatives, such as reciprocity. IOW, IMO true moral values are those values that are imperative to the survival and flourishing of societies of sentient beings. Certainly no society can survive and flourish if a significant number of it's members choose to commit suicide, so I suppose choosing life is the morally correct choice. However, it's got to go well beyond just individuals choosing to live to them choosing to live in a way that is conducive to the survival and flourishing of society. A person who chooses to benefit themselves at the expense of society is acting immorally I believe by definition...I mean if indeed my theory is correct.
@@someonesomeone25what does morality without life even mean? Your body gives you a job description: “Take these actions to sustain me, and I’ll reward you with good feelings”.
I'm a bit weirded out by Craig's inability to test his moral system using thought experiments and his comfort in labelling people with non-average moralities (suicidality, psychopathy, ...) as defective. Alex phrased his points beautifully and I'd say he brought me over more than Craig did.
But Craig isnt doing anything that modern psychology and society don't. Being a psychopath is not considered non-average, but is a serious personality disorder. Just as being suicidal, in my state at least, will get you institutionalized against your will for 72 hours.
@@marioargiropoulos4747 I personally wouldn't consider the psychology and society you're referencing to be anything modern... I just visited my nations suicide hotline website to see how they describe it, and the only time they'd intervene is when there's an "acute emergency". Same with psychopaths, do they have a personality disorder? Yes. Are they sub-human and should their perspective be excluded from the moral debate? Hell no! The examples Alex used during the talk were effective in illustrating the subjective nature of morality by introducing neuro-atypical personalities and how they consider "right" and "wrong". Stating that this is common practice within "society" and "modern psychology", seems like an empty deflection to me.
those thoughts are just weird fantasy that cannot be tested in reality and so 1 has no value 2 are designed purely as gotchas because of the constraints of seeking a .00000000001% of something then proclaim that amount represents the whole.
@@marioargiropoulos4747 And yet both those categories of people are still people and not sub-human creatures. It's the dehumanizing language that's weird. When you start categorizing people that way, you can justify anything.
No, when you start suggesting psychopathy isn’t a defect, you can justify anything.
Graig proposing objective morality and then trying to avoid answering a hypothetical which is supposed to test that objective morality is extremely amusing. You are making a big claim here, dont cry about the “realness” of a hypothetical. It is supposed to provide a logical challenge which if found is a very real thing. Even if the hypothetical is not.
@@Mbonic objectivity is tied to reality. This reality, not a fantasy. Ethical concern is about this reality because that's where the application is.
Of course you can construct a make-believe reality, but it will usually be littered with "plot-holes" which you could easily forget to take into account. Thought experiment could only get you so far, and in many instances it's not useful anymore.
For instance the classic trolley problem. There's no actual answer to it
@@kurokamei objectivity is tied to reality sure, but that doesnt mean that truth or logical truth cannot be found in fantasy. Otherwise you are denouncing almost every science branch
@@kurokamei as i said, the logical hole or shortcoming in a claim or theory can be identified very usefully in hypotheticals and abstractions
@@kurokamei The primary purpose of a hypothetical scenario is not to mirror reality exactly but to isolate specific variables in a controlled environment, allowing us to test the consistency and application of moral principles. By dismissing them as “make-believe” due to their departure from reality, you’re ignoring their value as tools for probing deeper moral truths. In philosophy, hypotheticals like the Trolley Problem aren’t meant to be realistic but are designed to highlight moral dilemmas and provoke critical thinking.
@@kurokamei You seem to misrepresent the use of hypotheticals by suggesting they are intended to reflect reality perfectly. This mischaracterization allows you to dismiss them too easily. The strength of a thought experiment lies in its ability to strip away extraneous details and focus on the core of the moral issue, not in its realism.
What is truly strange is that, on one hand Craig asserts that he doesn't care if a psychopath is killed because he is not capable of moral agency, and therefore isn't a moral agent; yet would object to killing a flower even though a flower definitely isn't capable of moral agency and is not a moral agent.
He said something about valuing the flower because it's beautiful. So maybe he would've spared the psychopath if they were hot LMAO
@@Baset_"the ethics, metaethics and paraethical numenology of unaliving crazy hot shorties, a hermeneutical perspective" (Craig et al 2025)
His conclusions are gross and dangerous. Pastors don't even use "broken" when describing people as often as Craig does.
@@j8000 I'd listen to that lol
@@scottgodlewski306broken and “creature”. I personally have a problem with any worldview that seems to create a caste system based on someone’s mental health status.
its crazy listening to Craig speak of other humans as "sub-rational" and "broken" while disguising it with the virtuosity of "objective morality".
I agree with him that objective moral truths exist. However, in a typically Ayn Randian way, he centers it on the individual, whereas I believe morality evolves as a matter of ensuring the survival and flourishing of societies. If an individual living on a desert island chooses death over life, there is nothing moral or immoral about it because he's not a member of any society.
@@snuzebusterThere is no such thing as a “society”, there are only individuals.
@@micchaelsanders6286 Well, I think that's false. It's true that societies are a sort of ...heh heh...social construct, but that doesn't mean they don't exist as such. I'd say individuals are a kind of construct, too. So, though I suppose that makes a nice premise for some anti collectivist, right-wing libertarian philosophy, I don't buy it. I'll grant though that the experience of life takes place at the level of the individual. As such, any extreme left-wing ideology that discounts the individual totally subjugating him/her to society, or worse the state, are terribly wrong-headed.
@@snuzebusterBut then if there is another society which needs to terminate the previous society to survive wouldn't their morality contradict the previous society's morality thus making it subjective to the particular society ?
@@micchaelsanders6286 There is no such thing as an individual, there are only cells.
Labelling a psychopath as a sub-human creature is an unusually psychopathic statement to make.
Wasn't he talking about murderers or sadists when he said that? Regardless, it's not really a psychopathic statement. Maybe insensitive or ignorant, not psychopathic.
@@marioargiropoulos4747 But then it wouldn't be as pithy a statement.
There's nothing psychopathic about that statement
@@bargledargle7941 Literally? No. Metaphorically? I wouldn't call dehumanizing language towards people with likely mental health problems the peak of morality.
Not an argument, or rather argument from intimidation fallacy.
If nothing else, I appreciate Alex reducing the number of moral philosophies I need to take seriously.
@@scottfauber
Do you think you really have a sufficient philosophical understanding of objectivism after hearing this one exchange to dismiss it out of hand?
While I’m not an objectivist, it took me several years to really understand objectivism. I think it’s naive to rush to judgement in such matters.
I know for a fact that Alex does not yet understand what he is critiquing. And I wouldn’t expect him too. There is a lot to learn.
I look forward to more discussions between these two.
Alex has changed his mind many times in his, what I believe a, genuine search for truth. I tend to fall into Craigs camp but I still interrogate and look for challenges to it to put it to the test.
@@vinoveritathought the same thing. Still undecided on obj.morality and emotivism but Craig seemed like he couldn't follow the line of arguments in this debate. So I'd rather spend my time on people who can.
Oh, you think excluding a moral philosophy that has the aim of helping you live a good life, because of immortality and psychopaths?
You do you, big guy.
@@marie-ray
Are you genuinely struggling with the idea of objective morality, or struggling to identify its metaphysical basis?
For example, one man chooses to feed his child, another to starve his child. One student choose to study and achieve a good grade, another chooses to cheat to acquire a good grade. The holocaust versus a family picnic, a pogrom versus a birthday party, theft versus productivity, honesty versus dishonesty, drunkenness versus temperance, etc.
Are you truly struggling to see any moral difference between these events, acts and character traits? Are they, on your view, morally neutral such that child rape and consensual sex between people who adore each other is “six of one and half a dozen of the other”?
I’m 57 years on the planet, have lived in multiple cities, traveled around the world, and have never met one person who cannot distinguish good from evil. You can board a plane to any country in the world, deplane, ask any passer-by if theft, murder, infidelity and the like constitute the morally good and he will respond in the negative - EVERY time.
Noam Chomsky speaks to this phenomenon wherein people deny moral objectivity as follows:
“Moral relativism - it’s a little difficult to discuss. It’s like discussing skepticism. There are no skeptics. You can discuss it in a philosophy seminar, but no human being can actually be a skeptic. They wouldn’t survive for two minutes if they were. And I think pretty much is true of moral relativism. There are no moral relativists, there are people who profess it, you can discuss it abstractly, but it doesn’t exist in ordinary life.”
He is absolutely right. All these online discussions that call into question objective morality reduce to armchair pontification and abstraction divorced from the facts of reality.
There are no moral relativists or moral nihilists. And that much is evident by how people speak. Their language gives away their awareness of what constitutes the good and the evil.
For example, in an exchange with another man in this comments section I mentioned the holocaust, pogroms, child rape and the like. He responded that “every atrocity is neither moral nor immoral.” But an atrocity is a wicked, immoral act. So, by the use of his own language, by his ability to identify those events I listed as instances of “atrocity” he gives away the game. He reveals his knowledge of good and evil.
Bro continually describes subjective morality to a tee and answers every hypothetical in a subjective way with new qualifiers and asterisks, but then he thinks saying "it's based in the value of human life tho" makes it objective.
Nah, dawg.
Is science also subjective by your standard here?
@@ExistenceUniversity kind of. It's tentative and only our current best understanding of a particular bodie of evidence
@@davidspencer343 lol you would say that. So science is just feelings and democracy I guess. Why even believe in reality? Why not believe in unicorns?
@@ExistenceUniversity that's not even close to what I was saying
Clearly your trolling
@davidspencer343 "Clearly Trolling" is the argument of a loser.
You believe that science is subjective become words are formed by a "subject" in the linguistic sense, ignoring that this "subject" only speaks because of Objective facts.
Imagine speaking on moral philosophy and not understanding the utility of a hypothetical 😂
A hypothetical that is within the bounds of metaphysical possibility can be useful. A hypothetical that is metaphysically impossible is not. The whole point of saying that morality is objective means that it aligns with the facts of reality and can be proven true with a series of abstractions, much like a proof in mathematics. If you change the facts of reality, a whole new proof would be necessary and the conclusions could change.
@@rationalcapitalist The thought experiments presented were completely reasonable, and Alex bringing them up was exactly the right thing to do. Instead of attacking thought experiments, Craig should have used that energy to support his argument.
@@sunnyinvladivostok starting a thought experiment out with "imagine a scenario where we all live forever" is not reasonable and changes the playing field to such an extent that it potentially makes the conclusions completely different. Ayn Rand's view on morality was developed from a complex identification of the facts of THIS world, not a fantasy one that can't exist. A world where people live forever would mean getting blown up by a bomb or getting run over by a car or shot in the heart wouldn't kill you. This all contradicts lots of truths about reality and is therefore fantasy. Again, it can be helpful to set up a metaphor based on extreme unlikely possibilities, but not based on metaphysical impossibilities.
@@rationalcapitalist ... it's very clear to see the point of alex's hypothetical. craig stated that life is the fundamental presupposition for value, the point of alex's hypothetical is to challenge that presupposition. the metaphysical changes don't affect craig's argument whatsoever.
@@potato-vh7ks life is what makes the concept of values exist. A value presupposes a value to something and for a purpose. A rock doesn't have values because it isn't alive. It doesn't "need" anything in order to survive. It just is. Plants have values to the extent that they're alive, but they can't choose those values or to choose to seek non-values. Humans are unique in that they are both alive and have volition. This is where values and the whole field of ethics comes into play. Humans need a principled guide to action to help them makes the choices not only to live, in the sense that their heart in beating, but to achieve happiness. Sure, if people could live forever there would still be a general objective standard of what leads to happiness, but it's not necessary to concoct such a fantasy scenario to prove the point.
Alex absolutely swept the floor as he always does. Bravo!
Disagree actually. I felt like they played semantics on words all day. And just signed things differently and used those word definitions defending their points which if they are defined that way make sense.
@@Majorpain12345 You sure you're not talking about Craig lol?
@@thomabow8949I'm talking about both of them. They have varying definitions of what a truth is, what a value is, what rationality is.... so when they talk on these abstract concepts where they have fundamental differences of definitions they disagree on all of them. That's the problem with these debates and semantics. Is we need to spend 90mins defining both sides definitions of words to piece together their worldview. It's at times exhausting.....and then they spend actual little time of debating the topics and all we learned is how they define words. lol. They end up playing defense by having to explain themselves because they feel strawman'd by their opponents assumptions of their definition of the topic.
When Craig randomly brought in rights, and moral values he lost the plot on what the topic is. Dude does not even know he is in circular reasoning.
I am going to sound extremely biased, but I felt he won before Craig started his opening argument
"I can't answer your hypothetical because my ethics are relativ.. cough cough.. contingent upon aspects of our experienced mortality."
A better more accurate description is that O'Connor presupposes that an objective morality must be true in all possible words, while Bittle holds it only need apply to the actual world.
@@jeffreyscott4997 No, I would push that further and say that he holds that it must be a derivative of the normative experiences of the real world.
@jeffreyscott4997 interestingly only Non naturalists would think morality would need to be true in all possible worlds, moral naturalists would say moral facts are natural facts and most natural facts are contingent
@He.knows.nothing That might be a claim about the epistemology of moral claims, but this discussion is about the ontology of the moral.
@@jeffreyscott4997 no, the discussion necessarily involves both ontology and epistemology. If you're trying to ground an ontology, you need to invoke epistemology. The debate topic might have been formatted in the question "is morality objective?" but that's immediately deconstructed for the sake of understanding how one can know that morality is objective, which is where I'd argue that Craig failed.
Craig didn't offer an effective explanation for why his views on human value and the value of life weren't just arbitrary decisions he's made. Instead of recognizing the purpose of Alex's hypotheticals, which was to show how changes in the ontology expose the epistemology, or lack thereof, we got reason after reason as to why Rand's philosophy is incompatible with imaginative realities and Craig got lost in the self referential sauce of the compilation of Rand's other ideas necessary to build his argument rather than recognize the issues that Alex and the audience were having with his reduction of the epistemology to things like the innate value of life, the will to live, and the normative human experience of empathy, things that are in themselves inherently subjective experiences which only instigate more confusion pertaining to how Craig can make a distinction between objectivity and relativity in the first place, an epistemic concern absolutely necessary to understanding whether or not an ontology of objective ethics can be considered valid.
If your moral framework relies on pointing to any and all "outliers" and saying that they don't count, then it's not very well defined, is it.
Craig could never bridge the gap from “this serves my wellbeing so it’s good” to “this serves another person’s wellbeing so it’s good”. When Alex proposed a psychopath that doesn’t value other’s wellbeing, all Craig could do was assert that psychopath was broken, by presupposing that others’ wellbeing is important.
Things that are tested in reality to promote wide reaching aspects of well-being fall in the category of wisdom. There are those who hate wisdom and actively fight against it known as misosophists. If you don’t see or value wisdom then you can’t bridge the gap of some concepts and you will use any subjectivism(confusion) or relativism(degeneracy) to do so. It causes in external reality a breakdown of social order and loss of ability to understand the language supporting the structure of civilization.
don't you guys see these thought experiments are all boring and absolutely worthless?
@@Kuhanapomarancapsychopaths exist here in reality, not really some abstract thought experiment. Not that they're worthless to begin with
@@Kuhanapomarancawhat do you think is the reason we believe these thought experiments are valuable? Try to “steel man” the perspective you don’t agree with.
You can prove that the value of some others is a value. If a psychopath does not value another human, who has done nothing wrong(or things right), then he is irrational.
What’s the deal with guys named Craig having such bad takes on morality😂
lol, Craig dominated the morality discussion with Alex.
@@joshwatson5561 that’s like, your opinion… maaan.
@@dillanklapp just an objective fact…😎
@@joshwatson5561 Just as objective as morality apparently
@@JamesRyhl If you say so…
Why are objectivists so desperate to use the word objective? By the time they’ve jumped through all the hoops to employ the word, it’s contingent on so many things it hardly means what most people use the word for anyways.
For the same reason they espouse this: they want the authority.
In truth what they mean when they say objective is: 'something no one will dare question, since that leads to things I don't like, because of my personal meaning negotiation of a particular religious text'.
You know... 'objective'!
But basically, yes: don't use your increasing knowledge of the world to reconsider morality.
@@dillanklapp essentially objective means "in principle" which means wide conclusions drawn from the facts of reality. The problem with almost anyone who isn't an objectivist is they worship greyness and pragmatism and hate the idea of making a strong principled stand on anything... Other than the idea that there are no principles.
@@beorntwit711 I think you are partially right, except it’s a little different with the Ayn Rand / objectivist types, as they are also atheist. Unless you consider Atlas Shrugged their religious text, which is actually pretty funny come to think of it😂
There's no hoop jumping. Objectivity refers to the basis behind something being grounded in reality. When Objectivist say "Objective Morality, they mean a morality that is Objectivitely needed. Since morality is an objective need for survival, which is a fact that is based in reality.
@@rationalcapitalist maybe that’s what you mean by objective, but I don’t think that’s how it’s commonly used.
I consider myself a pragmatist, but the idea that I “worship greyness” and don’t have principles is just patently silly. To me it sounds like objectivists have a black and white issue, and a naive one at that.
the complete inconsistency between "destroying a flower for fun is wrong" and "killing an animal for flavour is ok because animals have no rights" is staggering
ah, it becomes even more ridiculous when destroying flower for fun or 'just because' is deemed radically different to destroying a flower for the sake of using it as a silly adornment. would it stand for humans too? extreme: to annihilate a people for no reason is evil while doing so for the sake of their land or any other benefit to the perpetrator is somehow morally fine in Craig's universe?
@@tulpas93 sorry can you explain that one? I may have to go rewatch it but I'm sure he says that it's morally bad to destroy the flower for fun
@@tulpas93 how is pleasure from flavour(because we have already assumed there's another way to get all nutrients) different than pleasure from destroying? why would flavour be morally different? both destroy a life for pleasure
@@tulpas93 1:25:25 28:16
I'm not trying to be mean or difficult here but he did say a few times that finding enjoyment from destroying a flower would be wrong/nihilistic/contempt for life.
I just don't see how enjoying the flavour of a dead animal to be different from enjoying the sight or the feel of a dead plant.
it's stated every time the question was asked that the kicker enjoys kicking the flower.
I actually felt embarrassed on behalf of Craig. How do you show up to a debate without even considering whether your position is self-contradictory or circular? It took Alex about 2 seconds to pick it completely apart.
Hilarious that the questioner at 1:10:00 does a better job of presenting the case than the so-called expert
Alex’s lack of understanding is not proof of Craig going in circles.
@@MalcolmBomaniBrownOr maybe t’s just Your understanding of what a circle is.
@@jimj9040 Had to LOL at that comeback
@@MalcolmBomaniBrown Damn you got roasted by that comeback
I find Craig's reasoning completely ad-hoc and that's probably because his framework has too many holes
why does Alex like Hitler?
Lmao you are clueless
Which specific aspect of his reasoning did you find ad hoc?
@@cristianorentroia6607 clueless of what?
@@Matthew-cp2egthe mustache
Alex has such insanely strong and sound logic in every debate - he clearly thinks through his opinions and points with critique and genuine care for the truth.
He's very rationalistic. Operating on pure logic divorced from perception. Ayn Rand got philosophy right.
Craig came into this discussion with the preconceived notions that his theory for morality was the objective standard we use to determine whether someone was human or not.
😬 Kinda scary
@@jordannewberry9561 indeed
LOL it really is that crazy too 😂 I don’t think he’s ever evaluated the logical conclusion of his own philosophy
Craig was absolutely outmatched here. His arguments fell fantastically short
disagree
Wow. This was a very lopsided debate. Alex used pointed questions, solid logic, and thought-provoking counterexamples. Craig responded with filibustering non-answers, circular reasoning, and complaining that thought experiments aren't real life.
Even in the example about living forever Alex can’t get away from the reality that it would come from the world we live in now. An immortality pill doesn’t mean a world where death wasn’t once a possibility. So morality doesn’t go away in that case. Besides, morality is all about what one should or shouldn’t do. Alex coming up with alternate realities is a way to avoid that fact.
@@MalcolmBomaniBrown No, he's not trying to avoid anything. He is demonstrating that even if staying alive is no longer a part of the equation, EVEN THEN there should still be a basis for morality. This is the benefit of "thought experiments". They allow us to test our ideas and isolate variables to see if they are really as important as we are told. In this case, the thought experiment revealed that Craig's stated basis for morality isn't actually that important to his moral framework.
@@MalcolmBomaniBrown You absolutely missed the whole premise of a thought experiment.
Alex is out of his depth
@@randywayne3910It appears you are. That's alright, you'll catch up! ❤
An hour in and it seems more like an interview with Alex pressing Craig. I for once would like to see someone seriously challenge Alex on his emotivism rather than he just poke holes in realism/objectivism, which is what it so often is when he discusses/debates ethics.
His conversation with Sam Harris, around the 54min mark might interest you
@@dawnkeyyyou mean where Sam confuses the fact that there are objective facts about systems that have preferences with the idea of objective morality?
i get the vibe that alex really would on some level prefer not to be an emotivist, but is stuck there and hasn't yet banged against someone who can knock him out of it
@@Alexmw777 that's basically where I am with emotivism atm, I'd quite like to be convinced out of it
@@Alexmw777I think he has said he’s in the same place with atheism as well
it's funny and sad how alex has to point out the circular reasoning of Craig
I think Craig should stop calling himself an objectivist and instead, use the term well-in-generalist
@@ayberkgurses677 “Objectivism” is a philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand, and that title isn’t necessarily tied to morality. The moral system within Objectivism is actually called “rational egoism.” Craig won’t make much sense to anyone who doesn’t understand the differences here, and without that understanding, it’s easy to equivocate between “moral objectivism” and “objectivism.”
@theautodidacticlayman to be clear egoism could be an objectivist theory in the sense everyone else means that term too (it may be that everyone has a moral duty to maximize their wellbeing regardless of their stance on the matter)... although not one I think most philosophers would endorse
@@tjcofer7517 Right, Rational Egoists can defend either descriptive or normative forms of that system. Objectivism is a minority. RE is a minority. Moral Realism ≠ Objectivism.
@@theautodidacticlayman a quick google search reveals she named her philosophy Objectivism because she believed it provides an objective grounding for values. "The name "Objectivism" derives from the idea that human knowledge and values are objective: they exist and are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by one's mind, and are not created by the thoughts one has. " (Rand 1967, p. 23).
That'san Objectivist with capital O. It's the name that Rand gave to her philosophy. Just like Existentialism (the movement), or Libertarian (the party).
I’m halfway through this video, and I find it shocking that neither of them have pointed to the fact that the “humans” (modern Homo sapiens) being discussed are a product of evolution. Our experience of pain and suffering is something that has been selected for by evolution. A person who suddenly couldn’t die is still someone whose biology evolved in a niche where death was a very real possibility. In Alex’s thought experiment of an immortality pill, the structures of the neurons responsible for the consciousness of the individual presumably didn’t dramatically change. Their brain’s anatomy was still the result of a selection pressure in favor of preserving the attachment of their head and torso. Their brain still thinks that 3rd degree burns are something to be concerned about… pain is still an experience that aims to deter them from certain predicaments…
They didn't mention it because Alex doesn't need any scientific foundation for his morality because it's not objective, and Craig defined "life" as "things that 'go after' things," which is a weird non-biological way of defining it.
@@JM-us3fr I may have read between the lines, but I didn’t get the impression that Craig was defining life as “things that go after things.” I understood that phrase to be his way of describing what living things do, IF they have not chosen to stop living. But I think he would still call the resigned, inactive person no longer valuing anything as a living person.
@@JM-us3fr i think that our current conception of what makes something alive has use in practical application, but is probably not fundamentally sound. we can point to patterns of behavior, self replicating arrangements of molecules and so on. but "life" as a technical term seems rather contrived. are amoebas alive? sure. viruses? maybe? prions? how about salt crystals growing? how about a robot that can reprogram and rebuild itself?
@@WindingRoads2020 That’s fair, but in his view, as far as morality is concerned, that’s what life is. I think it would have been better if he said “One thing that goes after things is life,” to make it clear it may not be the only such thing. But Craig seemed to need it to be the _only_ such thing because he didn’t want to leave open the possibility of non-human morality. I think that’s a bit ad-hoc
@@Alexmw777 That’s a fair critique, but I think you’ve expressed exactly why Craig’s argument breaks down. He seemed determined to rule out non-human morality, but clearly there exist non-human agents, so why not non-human morality?
I was highly disappointed in this debate as Mr. Craig was consistently bringing up easily dealt with philosophical points rather than some of the more powerful arguments in favor of objective morality. Not a particularly edifying experience.
What also might be the case is that there are no powerful arguments in favor of objective morality.
Agreed
@@inajosmoodyes unfortunately Im starting to think that is the only possible conclusion.
I feel like moral objectivists, whether religious or agnostic, just dont seem to put the work in to find objective support for what they believe. I wonder if they reach a point of satisfaction with a belief in objectivity and then stop searching and rationalizing.
But more probably, and the more I search I come to the conclusion that, I think its just a cognitive bias in most people that doesnt want to let themselves admit there is no objective standard as they tie their sense of meaning to it. Probably some biological trait as a result of our strongly evolved social dependencies.
The attempts to retroactively frame moral intuitions as somehow objective without proving it are wild here
Yeah, I’ve yet to come across a moral ”objectivist” who isn’t just a subjectivist who is lying to themselves. I feel it’s caused by primitive thinking and cognitive biases
@@aboliguu1168 perhaps because you have never read any books about moral realism, this guy argued pretty badly for his position
@@toonyandfriends1915 it could be that too
@@aboliguu1168 Have you even read Ayn Rand? You couldn't be more wrong.
@@micchaelsanders6286 okay maybe not ayn rand
Happens so frequently with moral objectivists - they keep repeating statements about what is right or wrong but somehow never get around to actually justifying their view. So its all about life, but kicking a flower is wrong not because of that but because kicking something beautiful is a nihilistic act?
Literally the opposite. wtf planet are you on?
Objectivist almost always justify their morals through god.
Subjectivists usually just say r tarded shit like
‘Well it just feel good to be good derrr’
Go watch Andrew Wilson and Jay dyer and tell me objectivist don’t justify themselves 🤣🫵🏻
If a person clearly explains why 2 +2 =4, and you still say it’s 80, their justification is not the problem.
@@MalcolmBomaniBrown did you just compare metaethics to the most basic arithmetics? I'm guessing you haven't yet turned your all-seeing eye onto medicine because we'd have cured all cancers by now.
Also repeatedly stating your conclusion isn't "clearly explaining."
@@anzov1n wasn’t what happened. If you don’t know, now you know. If you still don’t, rewatch the video and try again.
Very true. What i wouldnt give for someone to present an airtight argument for objectivism, but it always devolves to the same tactics religious debaters fall back to: the "it is because i believe it is and all the other good people agree with me" argument.
I am only about 22 minutes in and noticing a lot of mean-spirited comments. You are a great speaker Craig and you explain concepts extremely well. Even though I feel like the conversation is already starting to swing in Alex's favour, I am greatly enjoying the civil exchange!
Jesus buddy, take it easy on him
I think the primary point of confusion between these two is something like this:
Craig believes that after an individual makes the pre-rational choice to value his life, then he must also broadly/abstractly value life itself. This logical jump never seemed clarified/justified to me. I also didn't hear Alex ever ask this directly.
I agree, I think the conversation would have been more interesting if Alex challenged that a priori presupposition, as well as the presupposition that choosing to live or die is pre-rational/not applicable for moral debate.
Craig states value in life as the standart, but in practice seems like he valued well-being as the ultimate value, and therefore sounds more like an utilitarian
There is a difference between the purpose of morality and the standard of value. Also, long term happiness for the self according to a standard is not utilitarian. Utilitarianism is hedonistic (i.e. pleasure based) and has a unique target of morality. Neither the self nor others. The target of utilitarianism is the greatest number of people.
@@kzeriar25 human life is not merely about your body and consciousness existing. It's about living a flourishing life, obtaining values and happiness. The fact that we have the choice to live or die is the fundamental principle that makes morality applicable. From there, morality is a guide to not only continue that existence, but make it materially and spiritually (not in a religious sense) richer.
@@rationalcapitalist sounds like happiness/well-being/utility is the factor when choosing to live or die then.
Regardless, I'm talking about my view of Craig's position, not my position itself.
@@kzeriar25 Yes, the potential for happiness can be a motivation to choose to live. It's the job of morality to guide you in achieving happiness inducing values once you've made that choice.
@@kzeriar25 Except he’s not a utilitarian at all. If he full subscribes to Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, then he would fall in the camp of the Rational Egoists, which says that each person should act towards their own self-interests. Utilitarians, on the other hand, say that each person should act in a way that maximizes the interests of others.
Good lord, never, never, ever allow Craig to have any involvement is help for suicidal people.
24:50
How is it a metaphysical impossibility for such a society to exist? When you say "impossible" you actually mean very unlikely, you can't derive any logical contradiction from it, and they dont break any rules about reality.
Craig is constantly contradicting himself, there is not a single thing he says that makes Morality objective.
Yep, position is that morality is objective. Supports the position by carving out special group (living entities on earth), then explains morality from some individual's perspective. If a decision is made from the perspective of each individual it is by definition subjective. If X proposition is only true from a select viewpoint, then is it not objective.
@@wm4657 Yeah... I don't find the realism position unintelligible in general, but here it had very bad support.
Nice to know that moral anarchism is permissible if we allow it to be I guess. Until things start to go wrong.
Morality is the province of choice. I’m not morally accountable for being born with blue eyes. But if I choose not to feed my daughter - to starve her - my choice is objectively immoral because nourishment is an objective requirement of her nature.
Which part of that argument isn’t objective:
1. That morality isn’t the province of choice?
2. That it is immoral to starve my daughter?
3. That my daughter’s nature requires nourishment?
I'm convinced a lot of these craigs feel "objective" is a synonym for "i feel this very, very strongly". It's the only way to make sense of the argument.
"they come to my mind, as they just have bcoz I have brought them up", I see what you did there Mr. free will believer.
Lots of comments hating on Craig, but I think he was quite eloquent and explained his position well. I still disagree with it, but people don't have to be so negative.
I agree. However someone as Sam Harris is, I believe, a better advocate for objective morality. Even though I agree with Alex.
Secularism has an echo chamber as well.
Theyre being negative because he didnt address the subject of the debate which was "is morality objective". Craig seems like a well spoken guy but he spent the entire time trying to prove why common agreement on subjevtive morality is important, which wasnt the question. I dont think he really understood the debate but Alex was quite gracious in not directly calling him out on it and Craig ended up proving that morality is subjective by his own statements. Craig probably should have taken the time to formulate a relevant and stronger argument though as we all missed out on someone arguing the opposing side.
It's not the ideas that are inspiring that reaction. People who've bought into kooky non-rational ideas (the majority) have a need to tear down reality. Anything that hints at objectivity must be laughed out of consideration before ever being heard.
@@TRIPP5_Shurikens
I think there are plenty of ideas expressed by Craig that were absurd and deserve all the scorn in the world. I'm just saying we should reserve the scorn for the ideas, not the man.
You're just on the other side of it: heaping scorn on "the majority", as you put it, for being irrational and hating reality. That's just your own irrational defense mechanism to people critiquing your ideas.
Most people watching a video like this, came here to watch two intellectuals discuss their ideas. They are mostly people interested in knowing the truth. If you are bothered by the fact that someone who is genuinely searching for the truth could come to different conclusions to you, then you haven't really grappled with just how ambiguous and unintuitive reality can be.
I wrote my thesis on Alasdair McIntyre’s book After Virtue. The first half of the books describes emotivism, and why no one has come up with an objectively true moral framework. The next half of the book posits the authors own subjective moral framework as an objective one. It’s hard, as a layperson (me) to argue with such a philosophical giant. But once you come to terms with everyone’s utter failure to justify their moral framework, it’s much easier to argue with anyone about the subject. All you need to ask is “why is yours true?”
You’re brave for writing a thesis on that book. I found something interesting on every page yet I really didn’t know what the book was proposing by the end.
Morality doesn't exist. Do what you want.
Hi Craig, just want to say that Alex has a much bigger following than you on this platform, so don't take these comments to heart. They (not unjustifiably) love Alex, but this leads them to hate on and ridicule everyone he talks to, and the size of his fanbase means they drown out everyone else. I hope you're well.
To be fair, though, avoiding hypothetical and trying to defend objective morality was doomed.
@@someonesomeone25 the content of the debate is irrelevant imo, theres no need for hundreds of people to comment the same unkind thing from some weird place of surrogate intellectually superiority.
And the size of Alex’s audience leads to the one-sidedness of these comments misrepresenting the actual feel of the debate.
@@JonTonyJimMaybe. Or it could just be that Craig did very badly.
There is a reason why Rand is laughed at in almost all philosophy departments. Her arguments are rather amateurish.
He invited Alex knowing of his following hopeing he would be able to benefit from extra publicity and being exposed to a large audience. When you know you'll have more scrutiny applied to your positions you should really be more prepared and be able to quote more people than Ayn fucking Rand
I was there in the audience, Biddle handled this terribly. It was like listening to Chat GPT trying to explain the Objectivist Ethics. For anyone who reads this, if you want to hear Objectivism from people who actually understand the philosophy, listen to something from Leonard Peikoff or anyone at the Ayn Rand Institute. Steer clear of OSI for the life of you
This question is so easy to answer. Of course there are no objective moral standards, but once you agree on the standard you can make objective statements about that standard and actions within it.
Huge props Craig for being man enough to post a defeat this bad on your own page. What is with old people and saying they don’t entertain thought experiments?
Hypothetical, if you weren't 12 IQ, would a donkey have pockets?
You must accept the hypothetical by your own argument. So tell me the answer or you lose.
@@ExistenceUniversityIs that a fair representation of how thought experiments are worded and used in philosophical discourse?
@@someonesomeone25 Yes.
Alex:
imagine the impossible!
Now I win!
Right?
You cannot just say, imagine God exists, so God exist, take that atheist!
@@ExistenceUniversityCan you give me a real example analogous to your example?
@@someonesomeone25 Alex's hypothetical is an example.
It makes no sense.
You cannot just put words together and hope for the best.
So here is my joke:
>Hypothetically, if you weren't 12 IQ.
This is a strawman attack without a reason for it. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to be a 12 IQ. The premise of the hypothetical starts by suggesting the opponent is already wrong and stupid and that the impossible is true.
Alex:
>Hypothetically, if Craig's Philosophy wasn't missing that the impossible is true.
Back to the joke:
>Then would a donkey have pockets?
This statement is perfectly fine given the fact that we already started by assuming the impossible and nonsensical.
Alex:
> Then wouldn't the creature that didn't evolve through a process of natural selection but popped into existence without cause have the ability to develop pain and pleasure?
It makes no sense.
I enjoyed the conversation and appreciate both speakers, however, Craig's seeming inability to seriously entertain hypotheticals and their conceptual consequences is irritating. He is, dare I say, to borrow his label of psychopaths, a "broken" human being who doesn't understand the value of thought experiments.
It’s strange that Craig, although attempting to discuss philosophy , cannot think in the abstract.
“If you were to say your shirt was an intrinsic part of your body, and I were to say you can imagine a world in which you didn’t have your shirt on..”
So this illustrates either a misunderstanding or misrepresentation on the part of Alex regarding the relationship between life and ethics. Of course, no one would claim their shirt was an intrinsic part of their body, but what we might say is that the existence of shirts is intrinsically reliant on the existence of bodies. This is a very subtle but important distinction because what it sets up is two facts: 1. If bodies never existed, shirts also would never have existed. 2. If bodies did exist, and suddenly stopped existing, the shirts would still be around, but they would become useless or their use case would change.
Now to firmly connect this analogy with ethics. The fact of life being immortal is what sets the stage for all the other emergent experiential qualities of the contents consciousness. Concepts like happiness, suffering, fulfillment, shame etc- all of these emotional states are tools employed by the mind that help guide us towards living. They are essentially signals that prevent us from doing dangerous things and push us towards doing life-conserving things. It’s obviously way more complex than that but for the moment we need not explain more.
So the problem with this thought experiment is that when we remove mortality from the equation, we remove the ontological foundation of morality, but all of the psychological residue that cumulated over vast spans of time in order to aid in the preservation of life still remains. So we still have suffering, which is “bad” phenomenologically, but not existentially. And to bring this home, this is as if we, (since Alex likes using metaphysically impossible thought experiments) imagined a world where suddenly everyone’s torsos vanished, but we still had the rest of our appendages. Can we still wear our shirts?
That guy lost completely me when he said he couldn't think even in hypothetical scenario that harming an innocent person would benefit another person. I felt like he's dodging every question that Alex asked as being "unrealistic".
I came into this debate not knowing much about Ayn Rand but having a generally negative impression of her. Craig actually did a commendable job of solidifying this opinion.
I don't think Craig represented Rand's philosophy well.
@jdrein9511 I'd agree with that. He showed far to much empathy to his fellow humans for there to be much Rand in there
I'm so glad that this debate exists. It sometimes feels like religious debate sucks all the oxygen out of the room so other kinds of debates can't flourish. I wish we could move past the frankly boring questions of god and the origin of the universe and talk about these questions more.
1:10:55 wtf is that sound
Serious wtf
Came here to say this. Sounds like someone brought a frequency emitter that only Alex could hear, trying to throw him off and favor his older opponent lol.
I shat my pants when that happened out of nowhere. Thought my head was going to explode like in scanners. Had to pause YT on the TV and come to the app to see if it was the video or my device.
A lot of you really dont understand how hypotheticals work if you dont understand that Biddle's response, "how about we hypothetically imagine a world exactly like reality how would this ethical system work in that imaginary situation" was perfect. Hypotheticals are often just sophistry. Alex's weren't even effective sophistry theywere irrelevant. Never did Craig assert that Rand's ethics work in all possible worlds and all possible configurations of mortality. Alex asked -- what about immortals... what in Rand stops a person from inflicting pain on an immortal since it doesnt have any bearing on life or death? 'What an irrelevant question' is a perfectly adequate answer but if you want to play Alex's game... ask, why the f**k would imnortals feel pain? Pain is an evolved biological warning system for things with potentially deadly consequences... our bodies are machines built around the twin poles of death and reproductuon.... immortalaity makes our bodies absurdities and pain a hideous absurdity...what possible bearing does this have on human ethics? Hey imagine a world in which logic doesnt work... Ergo... elevator butter!
You're just spewing so many words coz deep inside you know you often don't make sense
Killing an innocent animal because you like the way it's flesh tastes, is more moral than kicking a flower because you think it's fun... literally the logic we are dealing with here. This was a pretty tough one to watch seriously.
So an hour of you saying its unnecessary to talk about anything that shows the flaw in your thinking. First person have ever seen trying to claim thought experiments werea waste of time in a debate on ethics.
Craig, your ability to have an intellectually challenging conversation is extremely low. I am surprised by the lack of quality of intellectual standards in your thinking.
Debate summary:
1. Craig explains relatively well where objective morality is rooted in
2. Craig reacts on every counterpoint with terribly subjective morality
3. Craig copes about why he eats meat
I kinda feel like the immortality hypothetical wasn’t quite the trap Alex felt it was. It’s not that crazy to imagine that given a long enough time scale, any amount of torture would genuinely become, functionally, a stubbed toe. It’s annoying and painful to stub your toe, and someone who leaves boards out for you to stub them warrants avoidance, but I don’t know that it’s really immoral, especially given that it’s really more of a temporary inconvenience. The point being, yes in a world where we are immortal morality would cease. It may even be the case that torture would go through a phase of being a novel experience similar to people who like to skydive or thrill seek until it ultimately would feel no different from not being tortured.
The lack of understanding of what a psychopath is kills me. Psychopathy does not stop the understanding and actions of moral systems. This is positing they are broken with no evidence.
The grandstanding is strong in this one. Alex showed class as usual.
why wasn't ayn rand invited if we were gonna spend so much time listening about her ideas
Because Craig is a follower of her philosophy
@@randywayne3910 not even a good one I would say
@@user-hn1bu3pu5f why?
@@randywayne3910 I don't know her or her ideas, but I think if he is so incoherent and inprecise in his talk he cannot be reciting someone famous for ideas, that would make them both questionable and would make their arguments invalid about this topic.
I hope he is wrong because the amount of contradicting ideas he proposed was huge, and moreso incomprehensible. he didn't even believe in the practicality of the hypothetical, that means he doesn't actually think, therefore he himself is less of a human by his standards, which are appalling.
@@user-hn1bu3pu5f expand on one of his contradictions?
He didn’t say hypotheticals were impractical, he said they must be tied to reality otherwise they not any use to us morally.
Objective morality must work in real world situations, otherwise it’s pointless calling it objective.
Also note; Alex was wrong about mathematicians learning practical concepts from hypotheticals, they also must tie what they explore back to reality.
Alex’s hypothetical life boat scenario showed a complete lack of understanding of Craig’s position.
54:44 wait, so if a terrorist is considered sub-human according to Craig, and therefore loses value as a human, if I enslave the terrorist and make him my slave would that then be justified according to his moral system?
"Sub-human" is such a dangerous concept that has been part of every dictatory or racist movement.
No.
@@micchaelsanders6286 why wouldn’t it be? The terrorist is no longer human?
Biddle is absolutely correct that ethics is about dealing with how to act in the real word, so Alex positing hypotheticals that have nothing to do with this world is adjacent at best to the conversation. Any realistic hypothetical is certainly fair game.
I’m so grateful for Alex as a voice of reason in this day and age. Yum and yay!
What does it mean to say morality is objective when there are countless instances of nothing happening when we do morally horrible things, get away with them, and die without ever having felt guilty or bad about having done them....
It doesn't mean anything, it seems. I don't see the use of creating an ethical system and declaring it objective. Or creating any ethical system at all. People do what they want regardless.
How do you know that they got away with it after death?
Well, morality can be objective and there not be any consequences to actions.
Say for instance that there is some kind of passive god that has the Box of Objective Morality in its possession, but it is a god that does not intervene.
@@adamruuth5562 Indeed.
@@adamruuth5562 no it can't. It doesn't mean anything for it to be objective and there be no consequences. I mean you can make that distinction but that's why I asked the question. What would it mean to say it's objective if it's indistinguishable from being nonexistent in actual experience and in practice? It's basically like saying the thing we call air is actually shmair but shares all the same properties of that which we refer to as air.
Nothing is more annoying that a hypothetical dodger. As soon as someone try’s to start dodging hypotheticals, I immediately lose all respect for that person and no longer take them seriously.
A hypothetical is a waste of time if it is never tied back to reality, which is what Craig tried to get Alex to do.
Even the mathematicians Alex spoke about understand this fact.
Inability to engage in hypothetical and thought experiments reveals a dull mind.
The moment Craig says a psychopath is "acting unethically... from my perspective" it shows that his morality is just subjective.
Even if morality is objective we approach it in a subjective way. We all seem to face moral issues subjectively.
Craig's argument still boils down to his subjective or the collective's subject feelings on a matter. There is nothing grounding it saying it's objectively true.
The pyschopath argument was interesting because that seems obvious but sub in some other group or person into that area. Who determines "wrong think" what collection of people have the correct view on it. It's not obvious.
@@alteredendeavor the psychopath can't be rational. The concept of a moral choice can't be applied to the person.
@@kurokamei The whole point is: why do you get to say that? Why do you get to say who can and cannot be rational. It seems entirely arbitrary.
@@xbudzix the same reason I can say 1+1 is 2. The same reason I can evaluate that people who took drugs are having experience not of reality, but hallucinations.
@@kurokamei Say the psychopath believes that what is moral is whatever pleases the individual. In his case, it would be psychopathic behavior that pleases him. So he acts on his psychopathic impulses. That's not irrational. It's just at odds with social norms and consensus. That is basically all it comes down to in psychology. It is all culturally relative. Today, killing someone with an ax, having your way with their wife, and enslaving their child would make you an unimaginable monster. A thousand years ago... you'd just be a dude doing what your culture does.
@@kurokamei The latter is something that studies have been conducted on and it's been proven that it's likely (though it depends on how you define reality). The former is something that follows from particular definition of symbols and basic mathematical axioms. None of those are the case for your claim. So, what is the logical benefit is saying that it's the psychopaths that are irrational, not everybody else? What's an objective reason for that? Because right now it seems like a mere subjective judgment.
This whole rant at the beginning about living things "going after" what they value, in contrast to dead matter, didn't make any sense whatsoever. A falling rock goes after a place where it can be at rest. A virus goes after infecting other organisms. A bacterium goes after consuming nutrients from its surroundings. An ant goes after building a nest, and so on. Why do you think that somewhere between the virus and the bacterium (i.e. arguably non-living and living matter), there's this magical thing called "value"? Seriously, the only difference between a human actively seeking food and a rock tumbling down a mountain is the level of complexity. Both objects follow the same laws of physics, and the only reason we can't predict the behaviour of the latter is the huge number of variables that influence what it does. The tendency of living organisms to stay alive and reproduce is no different from the tendency of water to form waves. It's just a bunch of particle interactions following the laws of physics.
Well put.
So what, Craig? So what???
When asked why I should care about ruining life, you responded " The problem is that life is the very thing that gives rise to the business of valuing conceptual terms that we use, or, I mean, beauty, anything like that."
So what? Why should I care
Because we don't like you anymore and you can live in the woods
I nearly died laughing when Mr. Biddle said "I don't think it's an intuitive issue, it's just a matter of fact that it's profoundly immoral to torture an animal!"
I wonder if he tells us where "out there" that immorality exists? The sad, or funny thing is that, up to that point, I was completely with him.
The problem with "kicking a flower" is that your action is not motivated by anything rational. For an action to be moral it has to serve your life. It is not like any action is morally ok. It has to be understood based on evidence to serve you long range for practical living.
The problem here is metaphysical and epistemological. You cannot speak of ethics without arguing about the more fundamental branches of philosophy.
The reason Alex kept thinking Craig was talking in a circle is because Alex is only hearing the ethical propositions Craig was delivering. He wasn't aware of the underlying metaphysical and epistemological underpinnings Craig starts out with.
For instance, Objectivism accepts Aristotelian Logic so you cannnot have any contradictions in your formulations.
Alex was using many hypothetical with contradictions baked into them.
Craig never did quite get around to explaining the fundamentals on which Objectivism stands, to be fair, the format was centered around morality and the debating time was limited. For an audience that isn't familiar with Objectivism all this debate does is provide a comparison of the two theories that were presented by the interlocutors. If it gets a person to read Rand, it's a win. I doubt Objectivism is winning over the ethical veganists anytime soon though, yikes!
The problem is that objectivism ultimately redefines the common meaning of "objective".
@@nsinkov If Objectivism as a philosophy is logically consistent given the definitions that they go by then it doesn't necessarily have to present a problem. Pretty much all philosophies are guilty of this as language and ideas change over time.
To think that Alex is not aware of the metaphysical and epistemological underpinnings of (his counterpart’s) ethics seems far fetched.
@Giuseppe11 No it is true. Alex denies that ethics is related to metaphysics and epistemology.
This is one of the most one-sided stompings I have seen in a debate maybe second only to Zizek v Peterson in the modern era.
It felt like Craig was genuinely unaware of how ungrounded and circular his argument was. It felt like he didn’t realize that it is not only entirely possible, but completely rational from certain perspectives to be able to have a drive to live your own life to its fullest and most fulfilled but be completely disinterested in the life and well-being of others. It’s easy to claim that the affirmation of life and the desire to live is what imparts meaning in a practical sense and call that “objective”, but like Alex pointed out if that “objectivity” is based on the subjective desire to survive, it is inherently non-objective no matter how many supposed layers of objectivity you stack on top of this subjective framework.
Also on his point of not being able to imagine benefiting from the death of an innocent person, are you not using a computer with batteries made from components that were undoubtedly collected using forced slave labor with people being forced to live in unfathomably horrible situations and tortured beyond comprehension? Yet clearly he values the utility of his phone and computer that comes at the cost of innocent peoples lives more than he values those lives, otherwise he would refrain from using them on moral grounds.
It’s also easy to argue that slavery is wrong in this high-minded sense, but then you live in a capitalist society that has outsourced and abstracted its use of slavery to other countries to make the consumer less aware of it. So just because the slavery isn’t in your country being directly done by you, it’s no longer wrong and you are free to benefit from it and that’s in no way unethical? It seems nonsensical.
Bro didn't utter a word that made any sense the entire debate
Wow this was frustrating to watch. Everything Craig said was subjective and I cant see how is so deaf to what he is saying. Changed his answer constantly, I'm so confused what was Objective here
He didn’t do very well isolating Alex’s confusion. The point is that we can still act against our own self interest while behaving selfishly in a current state of (flawed) self interest. All forms of life come to learn what is moral through negative feedback. We have some basic instincts built into us at birth but they are very egoistic and we only start extending our awareness of self survival to the survival of others as we learn how our long term survival as a species depends on others. Many people don’t ever become aware enough to value humanity at a large scale because they are simply trying to survive themselves. So in other words the level of a person’s morality is tied to one’s ability to satisfy their own sense of survival and recognize that their survival depends on the ability of others to also satisfy their survival in order to work together towards that collective consciousness that we are all dependent on one another’s survival.
Morality is absolutely relative to a contextually objective reality filtered through a subjective lens.
as a psychopath i'm really offended
"Boo murder!" Is it the same as when the soccer fans shout "boo" to the ref for a call against their team?
Yes, it would be the same thing. It's basically the position that moral statements don't actually express propositions, but rather purely emotional states of personal disposition towards a given act. Frege and Geach wrote an essay about the so-called 'embedding problem' which has basically debunked this position for good. The only ones who try to hold on to this sort of view advocate for moral quasi-realism.
@@georgepantzikis7988 George, I believe we have a duty to evaluate how well our worldview enmeshes with reality. I think you're leaning too far into justifying your viewpoint instead of considering the real-world impacts of what you believe, and their unworkability. I'd challenge you to ask a million normal-thinking individuals without any sort of background considering this issue what they think of your point. You'll find that none of them will agree with you. ergo, your worldview is at odds with the state of the world.
@@georgepantzikis7988 I agree that the Frege-Geach linguistic argument has put non-cognitivism to rest, and also other points brought forth by philosopher Michael Smith in a paper against non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivsm actually devolves into subjectivism and it can then be tackeld with other objections to subjectivism.
He main argument going for non-cognitivsm is that beliefs about objective moral facts (if there were any), would be intrinsically motivating without the presence of any desires. But, according to non-cognitivists, beliefs alone cannot motivate. So, they conclude, moral judgements are not beliefs, but expressions of desires.
The problem is that evaluative beliefs can motivate. My belief that X is good can motivate me to do X. Then non-cognitivists will have to say that this is a belief about what would best promote our desires and interests, and this is now subjectivism, and it is vulnerable to the Open Question Argument. X promotes my interests and desires, but is it really good? This is obvious an open question, so reducing 'good' to 'what best promotes my interests and desires' is a failed move.
@@tomn4483 I haven't presented any viewpoint, I was just answering OP's question and explaining the emotivist worldview a bit. If you think I put too much of my own view in the comment, could you please tell me what my views are?
@@Nexus-jg7ev Well, you can be a cognitivist subjectivist. You can agree that moral statements express propositions while also thinking that individual opinion is what gives these propositions truth value. The real problem that the Frege-Geach problem presents for cognitivism is that it makes it impossible to construct syllogisms with them, as moral language under non-cognitivism fails to have a coherent meaning in the case of a hypothetical (if... then...).
Alex continues to be great
I found craig being unable or unwilling to engage in thought experiments in an intellectual conversation between two rationalists a bit odd its like trying study a painting with your eyes closed.
Alex really did well I feel to guide this towards something useful I defiantly feel no affinity towards this Objectivism of Rand's I have only read a bit about it and Craigs discipleship of her ideas did little to convince me otherwise that it does not hold up to rational, emotional or indeed common sense.
the assertion that individuals who lack cognitive and affective empathy are subhuman and therefore shouldnt be considered even in a hypothetical shows a lack of understanding of psychology on craig's part and is based on circular reasoning. somebodys humanity is not measured by their capacity for empathy, a dog's dog-ness is not measured by the amount of limbs they have. its true that lack of empathy usually correlates in amoral thinking, but the existence of amorality in people at all proves its subjectivity! claiming hypothetical person somehow lacks consciousness was the only way craig could justify his preconceived objectivist stance. great debate
This is what happens when you can't think for yourself and instead import all your views from another, Ayn Rand in Craig's case.
Craig can't comprehend or address even the most basic thought experiment 😅😅 He is not ready to share a stage with actual intellectuals and this childish philosophy he has latched onto.
And yet he imagines a future where lab-grown meat is actually available for consumption and then gives his ethical take on that hypothetical future. (I guess that one was okay because HE imagined it… 🙄🤣)
Very questionable to have an "objective" morality where he repeatedly refers to people as broken, subhuman, outside morality, etc. Very dangerous thinking.
There's nothing objective about the morality he's talking about especially if it requires people to be neurotypical to even be considered human in his estimation.
Alex, you did a great job in this one, as always.
Drugs being so popular is a good sign that humanity is broken.
Some people are broken and evil. Evil in general is not a matter of being neurodivergent, but of evading reality and resenting existence, and taking that resentment out on others.
@@micchaelsanders6286 Evil is a description I'd use for certain actions and is applicable to people only in so far as their main motivations and actions are evil. But I don't think my definition of evil is objectively right or that I can call people subhuman even if I think they're evil.
I don't believe in othering people even if they are "broken". Remove them from the general population certainly, lock them up of course if they are dangerous but referring to them as subhuman? Dangerous thinking that leads to cruelty or worse, especially when Craig seems to think his standard of what makes someone broken beyond repair is objective.
Subjective morality through basic reasoning refutes itself and is equivalent in meaning to degeneracy. It’s a sad state of affairs that degeneracy is taught in colleges and universities but it is and it gives misosophists the confidence to spread it.
I dont understand what you just said. I don't believe that morality exists. Where have I gone wrong?
@@someonesomeone25 Morality exists and has consequences in reality even if you claim to not believe in it. External reality exists.
@boltrooktwo How do you test to see if morality exists?
Where do I dig to find a rich vein of morality?
Spiritual, virtue, and integrity outcomes over time. By their fruit ye shall know them.
Craig's unwillingness to engage in a valid thought experiment because "it cannot logically exist in the world" did not convince me of his argument. Following that logic, Einstein had no idea of what the universe truly was.
Yeah, if your philosophical hypothesis can't withstand even a single thought experiment, then it's probably not very strong. Often, people who are bad at abstract thinking struggle with thought experiments, but I don't think that's the case here, considering how we're listening to a pair of philosophers. Here it's more likely just a poor defense and an attempt to deflect.
Its important to define what objective means. Does it mean that ethics implies ontologically substantive entities? Or does it imply universality, and then as formal principles or as particular material actions? Or does it imply normativity, and then as a present reality or as a future possibility. I don't think that Oconnor's emotivism is either adequate or plausible. We also need resolve problems as posed by Hume, Moore and Mackie.
This wan't reallyba discussion on whether morality is objective. Greg just redefined objective to mean sonething other than what people actually mean by the word.
I'm still not even sure what his definition of objective morality is.
50 minutes in and I kinda like Craig Biddle's view. By the way, a flower gives us oxygen.
"Morality is objective," but also, "I think it's wrong to kick a beautiful flower."
What an unbelievable load of bullshit XD!
A person who kicks a flower or tortures an animal doesn’t value it, and therefore doesn’t see it as scarce, but as soon as a flower becomes scarce and animals becomes scarce, he will become aware of their value because the consequence of not having it anymore will show itself apparent.
The dude in the light blue shirt is just rambling without noticing the many contradictions he's getting himself into. "Can you think about a situation where the death of someone would benefit you?" - "no." - "even hypothetical?" - "no." that makes no sense.
Per usual, I'm a Christian here agreeing with Alex.
That alex needs to explain why engaging in hypothetical thought experiments is not only relevant but useful is telling
@KaidensPodcast makes no sense... Christians use hypotheticals to prove God, and Alex rejects their metaphysical premise out right. Like Craig did to Alex's nonsense.
Immortal creatures can not move!! Biology requires mortality to move
I'm surprised (i.e., concerned) by how many respondents in this Comments section seem to think that Alex's immortality-related hypotheticals were profound -- and that Craig's rebuttal was somehow insufficient.
Craig -- quite clearly, persuasive, and factually -- explained that philosophy has to derive from and be compatible with reality as it exists. Alex's hypothetical scenario, as Craig stated, depicts an utterly unrealistic "wonderland."
Moreover: Beyond what Craig said, Alex's scenario -- even if we could one day make immortality possible -- would not make it inevitable. Someone would/could still opt out of immortality via suicide, etc. -- and even should be able to do based on his free will-based metaphysical constitution. Life or death would still be the fundamental alternative for living human beings.
These days, I actually describe myself as a Neo-Objectivist -- basically because I've come to disagree with the belief that only life can be someone's standard of value. In fact, I think that life or death can be one's fundamental objective -- as life or death is one's fundamental alternative. Regardless, personal liberty is objectively valuable -- because somebody cannot act in favor of his judgment, one way or the other, if he isn't free to do so. (On that note: Even if life were inevitable, personal sovereignty/free will/freedom of conscience would nonetheless legitimize individual liberty -- and if we cooked up a hypothetical without free will/volition, well, then we're squarely into the realm of Ayn Rand's programmed robot and altogether out of any realm of morality, which cannot exist in the absence of choice.)
P.S. I do see that later in the debate, Alex raised my "Neo-Objectivist" objection to the idea of life as the sole standard of value -- so I do give him credit for that.
@@doogboh I'm student (self study) of Objectivism. As I understand it, Objectivism position is, it's not that, life has intrinsic value thus is the standard of value. It's because you choose life, choose to be in existence. So if we choose existence, then as the corollary we choose life as a value, and that's where the issue of other derivative value comes into the picture.
Freewill doesn't exist.
It's not that Alex's hypothetical was particularly profound, it was just a run-of-the-mill thought experiment and refusing to engage in such a thing shows a lack of intellectual honesty.
Thought experiments are the backbone of moral reasoning. If you're trying to reason about what you _should_ do without considering hypotheticals, you're not really reasoning at all. This is pedestrian in most cases: if I take this action, so and so will happen but if I take this other action, such and such will happen. That's a thought experiment, but I think Craig wouldn't have a problem with that.
Even deeper than that, moral reasoning fundamentally relies on abstraction. What would I do if I were a perfect person? What would the average person do? These are the kinds of question you ask when trying to formulate rules. The whole process of applying rules in general relies on abstracting away from some given reality and using principles that don't depend on any particular circumstance. So it's a perfectly reasonable move, if Craig is claiming that morality relies on the possibility of death, to consider whether we would still have morality even if that weren't a possibility. We're interested in the principle here, not the specific circumstance.
@APaleDot : The hypothetical is totally divorced from reality, though -- that's the problem. Not a hypothetical in and of itself.
Rand's response to the subjectivist challenge is to redefine objectivism such that 'objectively moral' is synonymous with 'objectively beneficial'. Which is a transparent instance of moving the goalposts.
The psychopath question highlighted perfectly why morality cannot be objective on Craig's terms.