The script to this video is part of the Philosophy Vibe “Ethics” eBook, available on Amazon: mybook.to/philosophyvibe4 Philosophy Vibe Paperback Anthology Vol 3 'Ethics & Political Philosophy' available worldwide on Amazon: mybook.to/philosophyvibevol3
love this format, how the other guy politely presents the counterargument!! reminds me of a quote: "we don't need to disagree less, we need to disagree better."
In the case of rain, one of them has to be wrong because rain is objectively true. Nobody is questioning the objective truth of rain. However, the jury is still out on the objective truth of morality.
@@edathompson2 The timing of your comment is such a freaky coincidence. I just finished watching this new TV show called "Dark Matter" like a minute ago, which is about quantum physics; and here you are, talking about quantum physics on a comment I made five months ago. This is too freaky. I've got goosebumps.
Ethical subjectivism is like two people standing in the rain, and the other claiming that it's refreshing and the other claiming that it isn't. Or that's how I see it. Moral dilemmas don't hold some absolute truth in them, and are a fools errand to try and crack. There's no formula for ethics. :D
Exactly. He gave the example of is it raining which proves nothing. One person says Rain is good, the other person is saying rain is bad, that's a moral dilemma
Precisely. The contradiction is in believing there is an objectively true answer. The contradiction is not present when you understand that the "contradictory" views are opinions. I don't consider it contradictory if I say "I like peanut butter" and someone else says "I don't." It's completely reasonable for opinions to not match. There's no contradiction.
The answer is in Nature. Both persons in your example would have to agree that rain is necessary for the survival of Life in the planet. Consequently, any hypothetical action that would make all rain stop forever would be wrong. Animals display the rudiments of moral codes as well, it is a requirement for the survival and thriving of species, with the exception perhaps of insects or viruses. Life has a built-in moral code, though we may disregard it or be unaware of it.
@@miguelmorales4633that only applies so far. the person in the video is claiming that there are absolute moral truths to everything not just certain situations that we have prebuilt moral code for.
@@J33berI would agree that personal preferences would have nothing to do with moral truth IF moral truth could be shown to exist. Can you demonstrate the existence of moral truth? If you can’t, then it must be based on opinion.
am i relativist if i belive that under particular circumstances and goals there is only one correct way/ moral? Or like "when in Rome act like romans." is still an obsolut morale, isn't?
@@OzscaroYes, i think you would be considered a relativist because your opinion on what is morally right would be based purely on your subjective standards or that of a wider group.
@@Generatorman59im pretty sure that choosing your favourite colours and fruits have nothing to do with the defined terms of morals and ethics. I think you have confused the terms/definitions being used here.
I would argue, rather, that there are certain goods and bads which are relativistic. But there is a fundamental morality which basically spans every culture.
You guys and perspective philosophy are guiding me to understand as many views as I can and the benefits and downsides :) thanks again you guys deserve more recognition
Great video as always! I really enjoyed seeing both sides of this topic. Thanks guys :) QUESTION regarding the last part of the video: obviously, I agree that the preservation of human life and elimination of pain and suffering are good. BUT these are objectively good... according to who? Why are they objectively good? What objective standard outside of humanity is there to say that something is objectively good or bad? Because if there's no standard outside of humanity, then it's still only OUR opinion that preservation of human life is good. If a man like Stalin has the power to harm others and take their stuff for himself, why is he wrong? "Oh, because that's not good for the survival of the human race as a whole." BUT why should he care about the survival of human race?? It's just our opinion versus his opinion... UNLESS, the survival of human race is not just our opinion, but it's objectively good. If is it objectively good, then what objective basis is there to explain this fact? Evolution? Evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive. Evolution only describes what survives, NOT what ought to survive. In naturalistic evolution without any intelligence and design, there is no literally no objective purpose and intention for the survival of human race. The survival of human race is purely an accidental by-product of the blind forces of nature. Since there's no objective purpose for the survival of the human race, it would be JUST our opinion now when we say that the human race ought to survive. If that were the case, then we can't say Stalin or Hitler were objectively wrong. It's just our society's/culture's subjective opinion against their subjective opinion. HOWEVER, honest in your heart, you KNOW what Stalin did or what happened in the Holocaust is objectively wrong (for all people at all times). Therefore, there must be a source of morality beyond humanity, beyond just our opinion. What could this source be? I SINCERELY want to hear YOUR thoughts (Philosophy Vibe guys or anyone else). Thanks! Much love. - Kings
Hello Kingsley, glad you liked the video, and you have raised some excellent points. I understand what you mean about objectivity outside of humanity. If there is no God in the equation this gets very difficult to explain. As always this can be a very in-depth debate. From my perspective Quasi Realism best addresses our "objective morality", something is "objectively" good for humanity, is only true for humanity and not on a grander scale. It functions like a fake truth in way. So if we bring this back to the is-ought problem, "if you want humanity to survive and be happy then you ought not to kill and torture you fellow man".
I agree. From a purely materialistic and scientific point of view all things are without meaning and accidental. In my opinion only the concept of God, gods, or spirituality can give any objective meaning to morality. But then that raises the problem that such concepts can not be proven in an empirical way. I see it almost as a sliding scale. The more empirical you get, the less meaning you can ascribe to the world. The more meaning, the less empirical evidence. I feel we only have a choice between nihilism and faith. ""if you want humanity to survive and be happy then you ought not to kill and torture you fellow man"." I have always found this type of argument to be rather weak. Given an abundant population one could destroy and harm numerous individuals without causing harm to the human species as a whole. This is proven by the fact that historically there have been times of great violence and yet humanity survives. Also, it makes the assumption that we must care for all of humanity, that we must see it as a homogenous whole. What stops us from behaving morally towards those of our own group, but not to those outside of it?
Hume once stated "That one cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is" - which IMHO killed every hope of ever finding a objective morality. Second, Stephen Toulmin observed that nature is "amoral" (which is quite different from the concept "immoral"). If such is the case, there is no objective morality to be found in nature. As you stated: "Evolution only describes what survives, *NOT* what ought to survive". On the other hand, we find some form of morality within different groups of social mammals (although those morals differ as well). One might conclude it is an emergent quality of these groups, which in itself seems to be in some way, shape or form beneficial to these species. And I'm afraid it ends right there.
I really wish someone would address the natural commonalities between societies and cultures. Relativism will say, "look at all these cultures doing different things that are moral/immoral in other cultures!". For example my textbook said that Inuit people will kill off babies to survive the winter if resources are short. They put them out on an ice flow. Therefore they find infanticide moral. Comparing to the West where infanticide is reprehensible. However moral objectivists might respond that all cultures are finding different ways to preserve the most human life. Doing what it takes to sustain the most human life is pervasive in ALL cultures and peoples. Anyone who would disagree that life is valuable would not survive long. Surely putting an infant out on the ice is something acceptable if only as a last resort. Cannibalisms is an even better use of the flesh however it isn't practiced. Why? Because they know that its an act of desperation and last resort and are trying minimize the immorality of the act. There are at least some things like this, some moralities that *must* arise as a result of the human condition. I would love to here a rebuttal to this.
I agree with this. Are you familiar with moral foundations theory from The Righteous Mind? According to this theory the moralities that must arise are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Everyone has these six moral foundations but different groups of people fill them in differently. Conservatives tend to use all six foundations more or less equally and liberals rely primarily on care/harm and also some fairness/cheating but to a much lesser extent the other ones.
Depends on how dangerous it is. The paradox between life,death,safety,and risk. Master and slave morality is a good example of moral objectivity and moral relativism as a whole. It only works in the pursuit of progress when it is wholly liberated from one another. One reinforces the other. Morality is a good thing as a safety net when too much of a good thing gets dangerous.
Great video and great that you link to the script too. This is a deep subject, and there's a lot of territory left to cover when it comes to the metaethics, but as an overview and a summary of some key arguments, this is first rate! Well done!
I agree that moral relativism and moral objectivism overlap. At the same time, I don't think people should dismiss either or. So I stand in the overlap until one outweighs the other.
the rain comparison is not a good argument. Whether or not it is raining is objective reality, whether or not something is moral is subjective perspective. We share an objective reality but we observe that reality through subjective perspective.
Fair points. I'm definitely in a moral absolutist camp. One that believes in a religion has to be. Though the moral choice on certain issues may be different in different circumstances.
Excellent video! Very thought provoking. I’ll add one thing that convinced me of moral relativism (or something similar to the hybrid relativism mentioned at the end) that wasn’t mentioned in this video which was reading The Righteous Mind and learning how morals evolved to strengthen groups. The evolutionary purpose of morality is to bind us to a group and blind us to the morals of other groups.
What are the absolute bare minimum requirements for a species (primarily humans) to thrive mentally and physically independently yet collectively? Morality. Got some?
I have this question in my head can somebody help? Good and Evil is just a construct, like it's not really concrete. So If say, there are living beings who enjoy getting hurt or they enjoy dying then I think their morality would favor pain and death? Then my conclusion is morality is subjective or relative? What do you guys think? I'm just confused help.
Exactly you can’t say they are objectively wrong with what they desire because objectively they do desire it. If person A likes pizza you can say objectively they think it is enjoyable. But you can never say objectively pizza is desirable as the very concept of desire only has meaning in a subjective context. Going outside the realm of desire and deciphering what is objectively desirable is meaningless. Desire, morality and all subjective experience only has truth in the subjective realm. in the objective realm it’s not that it’s false it’s just that it’s meaningless.
The apathy argument is weak and a strong disagreement point for myself. There is a difference between identifying a Moral difference between societies based on culture, generation, or other influences; and accepting it as being a MORAL truth for yourself. Hence why it is a SUBJECTIVE TRUTH.
I know... late comment. I just came across this video accidentally. Really impressed by the fact that the points you brought up are generally the ones present in the literature on moral relativism. Congrats, great stuff! I label myself as a moral relativism and part of the motivation for being a moral relativism is what you rightly called "descriptive relativism". The way you characterise the view was that there are "fierce" moral disagreements; usually it's called "persistent", "fundamental" and sometimes "deep" disagreements, not "fierce", but I'll assume your using the adjective in the same sense. However, the way you then went on to describe the view was pointing that there are moral disagreements. The issue is not just that agents disagree about moral matters, but that those persist even when the parties disagreeing agree on all the non-moral facts relevant to the disagreement. Also, your characterisation of moral relativism is lacking important features. Relativist hold not just that moral truths are not truth simpliciter (or absolute), but that the truth of moral judgments varies relative to moral standards and that there is no privileged standard from which a moral judgment is assessed. Here's the distinction exemplified: I can say that a moral judgment is true relative to historical periods, but that for each historical period there is a privileged moral standard. This would imply e.g. that when during the Roman Empire someone states that slavery is wrong is making a false statement, while during the modern era someone stating the same thing would be making a true statement. But each statement is absolutely false/true-hence, no moral relativism here. Now, to the objectivist arguments. Firstly, the burden is on the objectivist to explain why moral disagreements persist. One way to go, which you pointed out, is either saying that moral truths are hard to find and another is that they are unknowable (moral skepticism). The latter view has its own problems and, arguably, leaves the objectivist in a worse position than the relativist. The former option still needs to say something about what makes moral truths so hard to find. And here you cannot just say that other truths are also hard to discover. Sure, truths about the fundamental reality, the origin of the universe are hard to discover, but at the very least it seems we're making some scientific progress when inquirying about them and arguably if we haven't discovered more that has to do with technological limitations; can we say the same about moral truths? I would say no. So, what's so special about morality that makes it so mysterious? Secondly, someone else has already pointed this out in another comment, but the reply that there are many moral similarities across cultures and diverse groups is the wrong reply to the motivation for relativism from moral diversity. Here's the challenge for the objectivist: moral diversity is a fact, can the objectivist account for it? The wrong way to go would be to say "well... there's many more moral similarities". That's dodging the challenge. Unless, you can show that moral diversity is really scarce, then the challenge can be reinstated: given the diversity that exists, how does the objectivist account for it? Thirdly, the "it is raining" example is begging the question. The objectivist is already assuming that moral facts are objective. Fourthly, the whole point of relativism is that when A states that S is wrong and B disagrees they aren't contradicting each other. What A is saying is true relative to A's moral standards while what B is saying is true relative to B's moral standards. They are both right in the sense that according to each standard none of the two is asserting something false. But A is not right according to B's moral standards. And, hence, we can make perfect sense of this. Finally, a remark on the solution presented at the end of the video. The objectivist is the one making the strong claim that all moral truths are objective, many relativist views hold that only some truths are relative (in the relevant sense-i.e. in the sense that their truth varies according to moral standards).
Great video! But I might add: At 11:03, it’s not really that with moral subjectivism everyone has their own personal belief of what’s morally true or false. The point is that ethics can’t be understood in terms of “true” or “false” in the first place. If one person says pizza is yummy and another person says pizza is gross, both people are expressing personal opinion/ taste, not fact. The same applies to morality. Disagreement doesn’t lead to contradiction, it’s just two people with different opinions.
@@goaheadmakemyday7126 yeah i used to think the same thing here’s what i mean. Person A likes pizza. That is in the realm of subjectivism however the statement “Person A likes pizza” (assuming they’re not lying) is objectively true. So i can say murder objectively causes pain and suffering and is objectively bad for the majority of humanity. However the fundamental assumption all moral values rely on is suffering is bad and pleasure is good. These are completely subjective and impossible to describe objectively. However when we accept these beliefs like every human already has only then can we derive objectivivity. So although fundamentally and philosophicaly the idea of objective morality doesn’t exist as it’s ultimately based on subjective reasoning. After assuming this subjective reasoning then we can derive objectivism. Even in the pizza example the pizza is objectively liked subjectively. But the concept of tasting good is subjective. hope that clarified what i’m saying
I disagree with moral relativism for much the same reasons as John does at 8:55. My own conclusion was to embrace moral skepticism. The problem then becomes, if you reject morality what replaces it? So many of the concepts of our society are founded upon a moral basis. Replacing that in a way that does not invite instability can be difficult. A lot of moral skeptics I have found continue to make use of morality, whether by continuing to act as if morality were true or treating it as a useful fiction. The idea of blending of objective and relative morality is interesting to me and I do think provides a more stable grounding for how one might define even if not an objective morality, then at least a unified structure for how one might conceptualize human values. I personally can see practical problems in tying one's view to either of the two extremes. I know I'm a moral nihilist, so I'm one to talk on extremes :-) But in all honesty, I feel my position is in some ways a middle ground. -M
@@goranmilic442 I can find a number of values that are near universal among humans, many of which I agree with. But I personally don't think that universality implies objectivity. You do make an interesting point though, about only needing one. I agree. -M
@@VIKASHKumar-xp7jj What type of insight? I feel moral relativism is sort of a loosening of objective morality. You say well, there are things that are moral, but what things there are, based on context, kind of depends. Problem with this I have is that while it allows people the flexibility to define adaptive moral standards, which can aid in navigating situations, it often still leaves them with the moral justifications more characteristic of moral objectivity. So that is, people may say less of "what you're doing is wrong" but they may say more of "who are we to judge." These are both moral judgements, just structured in a different way. -M
In 10:53 its said that there are two conflicting statements and both are true… i think the problem here is that the “for me” words are missing… once you put then in the phrases, “morally good for me” and “morally bad for me” stops being contradictory
I was about to disagree with you but as I was writing my argument, I figured out what you were saying. The implied "for me" makes moral good and bad just as subjective as taste, so they might as well be saying brussel sprouts taste good or taste bad and they are both correct (assuming they are not lying, of course). Since taste cannot be measured any more than morality in a person can be measured, it is not even close to a scientifically measurable rain. So I agree with you.
@@arniedamaniac6206 Assuming you mean "because it does", objectivity does not exist in the subjective realm unless you apply a universal standard, and two random people judging morality do not have a universal standard until they agree upon it.
@@AndyAlegria no objectivity exists in subjectivity realm. For example person A likes pizza. that’s in the realm of subjectivity but the statement “person A likes pizza” is objectively true (assuming he’s not lying 😂). Hope that clarifies
@@britishrocklovingyank3491 because even if moral values vary the fundamental values we have are all shared. we all chase desire. so desire is the form of good
Murder is merely a term created by society to describe the unlawful killing of another human being. Killing is neither right nor wrong. Morals are relative. If there were no people in the world to care about morals, then morals would not exist. We're just like animals. The only difference is us humans tend to think of ourselves as "better" than animals merely because we're able to articulate our feelings into words. There is no 'better' or 'worse' or 'should' or 'shouldn't' in the realm of objectivity. Animals are just as sentient as humans are in that they can feel emotions and care for other animals and people. However, they still kill. The death of a human is no more tragic than the death of an animal. We merely consider it more tragic because of the bias that humans consider themselves as superior. Another thing we can look at is how we even call things artificial when we create them, as if we're not from nature ourselves. Technology comes from humans and humans come from nature, therefor technology is a product of nature. There is nothing unnatural about humans or their creations. We. Are. Animals. Things like morals, laws, justice, and all that other jazz? Entirely subjective. There is no universal moral that everyone can agree on. Even the golden rule of "treat others how you wish to be treated" can be thrown out the window when you take masochistic sadists into consideration. Surveys and statistics prove nothing. The majority can agree with anything but that will never turn opinions into facts. Value, love, hate, importance, etc. It's all in the eye of the beholder and there's nothing you can do to change that. Even assuming God exists, he's merely passing his subjective judgement onto humans and claiming it to be righteous merely because he considers himself superior due to having created the universe but creating the universe doesn't make your opinions objective. It just means you hold all the power. There is nothing here you can refute, try as you might. Morals are biased and relative to culture and empathy varies between individuals as well. Sure, I have my own morals too but I'm not going to get all egotistical and claim that I know what's truly right or wrong. My morals are just as subjective as anyone else's. No one and I mean NO ONE knows what's truly right or wrong. As far as objectivity is concerned, right and wrong are entirely fluid subjective constructs. If there really is a list of truly objective morals somewhere out there, we humans will never know if it's factual or not. EVER.
As the video says, I think we can observe the results of most actions and conclude whether their results are favorable or unfavorable, and can talk about why that is. Pretending actions don't have consequences is a pretty anti-science take to life and moral reasoning. I think we can disagree on what our goals are, but as people have the experience of obtaining those goals, they can say whether or not the consequences associated with achieving them were worth the price that was paid. For example, when you poll people at the end of their lives what made their life most fulfilling, the answer tends to be overwhelmingly the quality of their relationships with their family and friends. Although one could base a moral system around the attainment of wealth or fame, for example, most people's experience says those are ultimately empty goals when viewed from the perspective of the end of life. (And polls about subjective happiness begin to plateau at all ages after attaining a middle class income). Moral reasoning is hard because we can't pass on the direct experience of having achieved goals having paid a certain cost, and all of us are attracted in some ways to things we ultimately decide are bad for us overall (it takes a lot of paying the price for many drug addicts to come to the conclusion it isn't worth it, for example). Also people's relative experience of pain or pleasure given the same stimuli can differ. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't say "these morals are better than those morals because they tend to create greater peace, happiness, and fulfillment in society than those set of morals, and we can back that up with data."
That doesn’t mean objectively morality can’t exists. it just means we need prerequisite assumptions that are themselves subjective. we can get objective from subjectivity
I had to stop midway reading your long post , and although I do agree with some of what you said you seem to make the point of wanting to reduce the human state to a complete animalistic state and hence no laws of decency or morality would make sense if we are just equating humans to animals in the wild . You need to understand that morality , however you wish to define is one of the few paradigms that truly separates us from wild animals . Animals in the wild are not absurdly wild as some might claim . They are bound by survivalist instincts and other laws that might even depict them as not completely unhinged. In simpler words, we are not entirely wild animals, and as I just wrote , even wild animals are governed by some laws . We most happen to also make our own laws and morality should be at the center of those laws . See, morality helps us not stray all the way down or up or sideways 😅to our pure animalistic instincts. Do we have the capacity to go there ? Absolutely!!! Please , be careful not to experiment with that 😅 If the open the zoo gate to the chimps , then the chimps will act as chimps . So please don’t do that unless it is Halloween 👻 Have a gooooood night ! Oh! Side note . I happen to find purple to be a morose color . I prefer happy colors 😊 ❤
I think the way people use moral relativism and the way it is understood is missing the point. No one should live their life as a moral relativist, that's stupid. Moral Relativism is a tool to understand people who don't share the same beliefs as you. Why is that important? It's simple, you cannot have peace without understanding others. When you understand those different beliefs, the better chance you have at finding common ground. The truth is that every bit of morality is ultimately the same, it's simply built differently from one individual to another. Everyone wants the same thing, we all want to live. From the day we are born we start to create moral beliefs with every experience we have and since every person will interpret those experiences differently, we end up with diverse morals. The problem is we aren't raised to understand each other, we are raised with lines drawn in the sand and we compete with each other over who deserves to live or die. That is not inherent either, all behavior is learned. I think if more people used moral relativism as a tool to understand other people which is really one of the most important things to survival, the world would certainly be a better place. This is how peace comes about but once again, we choose to behave the way we do because fear is a tool being used to make sure that people don't learn how to deal with differences (there's too much profit in war). It almost feels like moral relativism is purposely looked at in the most stupid way possible. I am not 100% certain of anything but when it comes to this, it is the most certain I can be with leaving room for new information that could change my mind on this.
" and we compete with each other over who deserves to live or die" ps. People tend to take this for grant (while their governments are roaming the world killing innocence people for their own benefit)
Moral Relativism is a Philosophy that merely states the Morality Compass of Individuals are calibrated by cultural, societal, geographical, generational and other proximal influences.
Thats a good argument, but how do you apply this to, say, homophobia in countries outside of the west? In many non- western countries a lot of people hold the view that homophobia is right.
In a world A objective morality doesn't exist, it's just a useful illusion, in world B it does exists. In A we developed moral systems, in B we discovered it. Wouldn't both worlds look the same? Therefore, we cannot know.
@@goranmilic442 yes I would agree there is some degree of faith involved. but that should lead us to the conclusion that it doesn't exist, I'll use the matrix as an example, in a world A reality is a clever illusion to convince it's subject that it real but really everyone is just dreaming and hooked up to machine, world B reality is just objective and real wouldn't both of these world also look the same ? most philosopher would say reality is objective and real because it is a properly basic belief In philosophy a properly basic belief is a belief that is viewed as justified on the basis of experience or intuition or both. Such a belief is deemed properly basic and has no external, empirical justification. These beliefs cannot be proven, they are necessary in any world view and the existence of the external world is the best explanation of reality, and likewise objective moral can't be proved but it is the best explanation of reality also subjective morality seems to require some objective foundation to it too. because if morality is subjective then everything is morally permissible or as a famous satanist once said "do what thou wilt shall be the only law of the universe" the problem is these are objective statements about moral, and they are universal claims, both require some thing beyond materialism to explain there is also a pragmatic perspective if objective morality doesn't exist why follow it ? if there is nothing truly immoral about torturing babies for fun, then why not engage in such behavior, it would be impossible to live in any society without assuming the objective morality is real, meaning you end up following absurdism, and for what reason ? why would we assume that reality isn't objective ? same what evidence do you have that morality isn't objective ? I would argue based on all of this that the burden of proof would be on the skeptic to show that objective morality is false and not the other way around
8:17 As a moral relativist I disagree that those acts should have been or should be tolerated. In fact, this whole notion of tolerance is only half true to me. Of course, there are things that can't be tolerated. Just because there are no objective moral truths doesn't mean that I can't fight for my (subjective) moral truth. In short, the strongest person wins - that's always how morals changed in society. 8:42 Personally, I would choose the side according to my subjective morality. Both cultures are equally true, so it's just a matter of preference. 9:15 I agree with this argument. Instead of focusing solely on culture, I believe that culture is just one of the factors that goes into shaping one's morals. Every person's morals are different, so each person has their subjective truths. 10:37 This argument presents a wrong example that already assumes that there is an objective truth out there. A better example would be: "This salad is disgusting!" And "This salad is delicious!" 11:41 The problem I have with this argument is that these truths are not truly objective. They are just popular. So, basically, if I start killing people, I'm going to be "objectively" evil only because that's a very popular opinion. In my opinion, morals exist only because of our emotions and tendencies. Because that's how we evolved. We have no right to claim that the way we evolved is correct, that almost sounds like racism. (Joke) The fact is, morals cannot exist without emotions. A robot without emotions will never help a human, and we have no way to prove that the robot is wrong.
@@arniedamaniac6206 Yes, but though it may be objective that some actions cause more suffering than others, the decision to do something about that suffering is subjective. There are a bunch of ways to deal with the existence of suffering - none of them objectively better than each other. Utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, even egoism or hedonism.
@@Azariy0 yeah there’s no objective way to deal with suffering because even the perception of suffering is different to people. even if you had the perfect ethics theory to prevent the most suffering which is ultimately the goal. diferent people determine what is more sufferable. how can we dertemrnine what is the objectively more sufferable option. And even if we do why is one’s opinion of the most sufferable option less valid than the other. To me even if objective morality could exist it wouldn’t make sense how different perceptions of suffering could entail one being more valid and truthful of the suffering and one being less valid. they’re subjective opinions at the end of the day no matter how strong they are and we can’t treat them objectively. it’s like saying someone who thinks chocolate is bad has a less valid opinion than someone else just because they’re in the minority.
Moral objectivity does definitely exist and the fact that we aren't all impeccable moral people doesn't disprove it's existence. Cultural and individual beliefs about what is or isn't moral is just belief. Beliefs about what is moral or not are not actually the same as morality. Beliefs can be inaccurate, nonsensical, harmful, denialist, unscientific, and unknowable. There are many reasons why we don't all use objective morality to make decisions. We do immoral things (causes harm (excluding neutral harm) because we are told to do so by our communities, families, governments, and people in positions of power, we were told that harmful behaviors and beliefs are okay, good, or justifiable, we aren't taught what morality actually is, and also we are imperfect creatures who cause harm whether we always mean to or not. Neutral harm includes things like accidents where the act that caused the harm isn't immoral such as stepping on someone's toe by accident. The act itself isn't necessarily immoral (although if harm was intended it would be) but it also isn't moral and so it's neutral. Sometimes harm happens regardless of people's intentions. Also to apologize for causing harm is the moral thing to do. To refuse to acknowledge and apologize for causing harm prolongs the other person's suffering and is therefore immoral. Also apologies naturally vary in scale just as all harm is not all equal. This is why the Christian belief that all sin is equal is simply inaccurate. To consider and compare to immoral acts such as calling someone a slur with harmful intent vs murdering someone, the harm caused is simply not the same. In one situation the other person is harmed but is still alive and in the other, the person's life has been forcibly ended. Another aspect I haven't yet mentioned is the topic of true ignorance vs willful ignorance. True ignorance would fall under neutral harm because we are all naturally born ignorant and cannot always be aware of everything including the harm we cause. Willful ignorance, the choice to deny, ignore as well as neglect to learn new information is intentionally hurtful. To deny you hurt someone when asked to acknowledge the harm caused is wrong. Also you can't say that one act like murder is "obviously objectively immoral" and then say another act like arranged marriage is "morally subjective" because it's controversial. Controversy is about belief. The assumption with the first part also is that everyone agrees murder is wrong but not all people do actually believe that. Also just because a belief is widely held doesn't alone make it moral. This is why you can't base morality on beliefs about the morality of specific acts but instead view every act in vacuum from an objective standpoint and analyse whether or not it causes harm and consider if intention was involved. This method allows you to clearly decide whether or not a specific act is moral and immoral. Morality is about the choices people make. Things beyond our control like accidents and bad luck are morally neutral whether they are actually good or bad, helpful or harmful. My main issue with this video is that it neglects to bring up different possibilities, confuses beliefs about morality with actual morality, and at different points breaks its own logic. This is obviously a nuanced topic so I'd gladly expand on this more and am open to criticism. Sorry this is so fucking long.
The problem is if you are viewing from an objective perspective by definition it’s a perspective unrelated to subjective experience. It’s an observation not a characterisation from subjectivity. So if you are viewing from a perspective unrelated to subjective experience you can only say that it objectively causes what we perceive as harm. But you cannot say why harm is “bad” through objective lens without incorporating subjective experience. We believe it is so wrong because it is imbedded into our biology it’s impossible to see moral acts truly though objective lens anyway.
10:45 I disagree with this counterpoint. To refresh, it's saying that if two people see something and disagree about whether it's moral or not, and if they are both right, there is a contradiction. However, if those same people are eating food and one of them says that it's good and the other says that it's bad, they are both right and there's no contradiction. I think it's very much possible that morality is similar. Personally, I'm new to the philosophy of ethics, but, I agree with moral relativism in a sense. I don't believe that there's an objective moral system. Like, most people would agree that cold-blooded murder is wrong. But, why? Can anybody back this argument up using only logic or objective criteria? I think morality is dependent on subjective feelings and empathy. Of course, if God exists, then there would be an objective sense of morality. But, if God doesn't exist, then how could any aspect of morality be objective?
@@dahir4389God doesn’t help objective morality. why should u follow god? because you’ll go to hell? why shouldn’t u go to hell? these questions are impossible to answer objectively and rely on subjective perception
if gods existence could explain objective morality and it is possible. then even without god this theoretical objective morality would still exist but be undisccoverable for now
The counter argument assumes that a moral relativist does not have his own set of morals he abides by and judges other cultures actions on . So even though I can acknowledge some cultures in the past didn't think slavery was bad , my cultural beliefs now , as a moral relativist tells me "F that , and F them " lol
Sorry, but objective morality is simply impossible. Let's consider an example. A husband is abusing his wife, while their young child looks on. The abuse begins verbally but gradually becomes more and more physical. And although the child attempts to intervene, all their efforts prove ineffective. The abuse is such that at some point the child fears for their mother's life, and so the child takes their father's gun from its hiding place and shoots and kills the father. Was this killing moral or immoral? If there's really such a thing as objective morality then there must be an objective point at which killing the father switches from being immoral to being moral. But what's that point, and how do we determine where it lies? The logical answer would seem to be that the threshold of morality lies at the point where the child is in fear for their mother's life. But that would make it subjective. It's completely dependent upon the opinion of the child. Someone else may have reached that threshold at a completely different point, if at all. Thus the threshold for morally killing the father lies within the subjective judgement of the observer. It's when they personally feel that it's morally justified. Objective morality is easy to define as long as you're vague enough, but when it comes down to specifics it's not objective at all, it's like pornography, you'll know it when you see it.
the problem I see with your analogy is that the objectively right answer can be determined should one be able to see the future if the child knows the father is going to kill the mother then it is objectively right to safe the mothers life if the child knows the father isn't going to kill the mother then it is objectively wrong for the child to kill the father the issue arises that how does the child know what is the right answer ? this wouldn't lead to the conclusion that there is no right answer this would be like me "it is going to rain here next Sunday" the statement is either objectively true or false but I can not know the answer until Sunday comes and even if I don't find out the answer that wouldn't make it subjective the problem with subjective moral is that if the father decided to kill the mother for fun, this would not be truly moral or immoral it would have the same moral weight as say "I prefer chocolate over vanilla" morality would just be reduced to personal preference
@@landonstuyvesant3690 Yes certainly so I would believe that much like there is are physical laws of the universe that govern object in nature there are also a moral law that govern moral agents and tells them what to do though I believe we possess freewill so we can chose to go against the moral law this would require the rejection of materialism as something would be needed to transcend space,time,and matter yet be equally real so my main argument for this moral law would be from sense data we percieve certain actions as be moral or immoral we would never say “I prefer not to rape people but who am I to tell people otherwise” we would all perceive intuitively that rapping a 10 year old is not just a preference but something truly immoral and it would be absurd to suggest otherwise, much like how I perceive the external world through sense data although it could be the case that the external world doesn't exist and is just a product of my mind it wouldn't be the best explanation of reality to say the external world doesn't exist in the same way it is not the best explanation of reality to say moral truths don't exist of course one could say why are there moral differences across culture ? But I think this is a weak objection because sometime our sense play tricks on us we can have dreams that feel so real that we think they are real until we wake up . Yet we don't seem to think that reality is an illusion because of this, And it would be absurd to suggest otherwise. So much like we believe that the physical world exist to avoid the absurd,we also believe that moral truths exist to avoid the absurd and come up with the best explanation for reality that being that moral truth exist
@@darcevader4146, but alas, the child has no way of knowing if the father would have actually killed the mother. And oddly enough, according to Christian doctrine, not even God knows whether the father would have killed the mother. So it would seem, that lacking the counterfactual, the only standard by which we can judge the morality of the child's action is by their intent. Did the child intend to save the mother's life? And would it have been immoral for the child not to kill the father? If morality is objective, then it must have been one or the other, they couldn't both be morally justifiable actions. This all raises an interesting moral dilemma, is it even morally justifiable to kill one person, simply to save another? History is full of morally justified killings, or at least the perpetrators would have us believe that they were.
@@ronaldbuntrock9446 I think your viewing objective morality as being a rule book and therefore lead to the conclusion that it is going to be a difficult rule if not an impossible rule to write down but if we view morality as being a set of principle,rights etc it is easy to write down 1. a person has a right to life,liberty,etc so long as they don't violate the rights of others then we can use situational ethic to apply them to certain circumstances like the one above, be unable to see the future would not change such a moral truth all it would mean is that it's just harder for someone to see the move that would lead to the right outcome finally you should research Christianity more the christian view is that God the father can see the end from the beginning
@@darcevader4146 you seem to have reached the same conclusion that I have, that there's no such thing as objective morality...a definitive, black and white, always identifiable distinction between right and wrong. There's no such thing. Under general circumstances most people will probably agree with your definition, but when we get down to the specifics, as in the given example, that definition breaks down, and your black and white view of morality becomes extremely grey. There's simply no specific point at which killing the father becomes immoral, apart from the child's intent. It's the child's subjective judgment that determines the morality of the act. P.S. I believe that it's you who misunderstands Christianity. While it's true that the Christian God can see the end from the beginning, and He can even know all the things that COULD'VE happened, but in the case of free agents, God can't possibly know what WOULD'VE happened. God can't possibly know what the father would've done if the child hadn't killed him. Thus not even God can know if the father would've actually killed the mother, because the father never got the chance to make that choice. God can't know the outcome of a choice that a free agent never made. If He could, then free will would be an illusion.
Brilliant but I have a question though If its all subjective than how can we say something is wrong? And isn't eliminating pain relative as well? Pleasure and pain can be relative to ppl like for masochist's or sadist
Very interesting question. I think the only way to defend against these objections for someone who likes to define the good and evil in terms of pain and pleasure, is to adopt some sort of utilitarian position, that allows for long-term thinking. Playing the devil's advocate for a bit (I'm not an ultilitarian), I'd say the masochist is having some pleasure at the moment, which may be greater than his pain, but the consequences of that masochism will lead to further pain in the future, and that has to be taken into account. So certain things are pleasurable in the moment but bring about pain in the future, often a pain greater than that pleasure. To that defence I'd ask is the person believes in life after death and if that doesn't exist, certain pleasures will not lead to future pain if the person dies soon after, since in that view they would cease to exist.
Hey guys great video I liked the arguments proposed here! I would like to ask a question/ propose an argument to which anyone can reply, to what is said at 12:15 regarding Cold blooded murder as being wrong. Couldn't one who believes that life is suffering say that murder is infact justifiable and true elimination of pain? And in addition to that who is to say that the promotion of life and elimination of pain is the ultimate goal of humanity?
Very good analysis. I would say two things in response: - very controversial to say life is defined as suffering. Heavy burden of proof - cold blooded murder typically impacts more than the person being murdered (family/friends/those they provided care for etc.) Those would be my arguments against cold blooded murder being justified.
The second question is very interesting, and you will find some answers on pain and suffering reading Nietzsche, who argued that society has been continuously making mankind suffer by sacrificing individuality.
i never understood moral relativism, since there can never be a fact of the matter when expressing a moral proposition on that position, which seems counterintuitive.
@@josephparsons7896 Could you be more specific? Are we talking moral absolutism? Or ethical naturalism? Or Divine Command Theory? Or Ethical Non-naturalism? Or Moral Intuitionism? Or Moral Pluralism? Or Moral Universalism?
@@josephparsons7896 is it a matter of fact that rape of a woman is morally wrong anywhere, on a micro and macro level, and in the past, Present and future?
I just had a deep critical thinking session about this and I could've just came here and get schooled and not waste my time. I ended up writing this down. God could just be the main FORCE FIELD, so if God exists, he is a neutral being meaning to him there's no good and there's no bad, he doesn't prefer any religion either. So I imagine that thieves also pray, people of all religions pray, atheist pray (I'm referring to the law of attraction) so all of these acts are ways of projecting our wants through waves to the main force field & that's what we refer to as God, this would kinda explain why Criminals pray too when they're about to do a crime, this would kinda explain why we still have a lot religions. We are feezing to the force field, it feezes back! God (the Main Force Field) doesn't recognize Morality, but we do, we've created it and we keep on modifying it. And if you think my theory has errors, please present them, I'm open to criticism.
@@mikexhotmailIf you couldn’t suffer you wouldn’t be able to comprehend how it’s bad without the suffering sensation. even emotions can be distinguished as suffering and pleasure. just put yourself in the mind of a emotions less robot
No universal moral truth (true)but there is naturalism which means there’s a universal moral compass. Ex the 1 st commandment thou shall not kill. It’s man natural desire to not want to kill. The relativism makes him kill 💯 therefore we can judge the moral relativism of one because it’s adopted and not natural.
I would like to offer some tips. If you aren't using a blue yeti microphone - acquire one. You can also throw a blanket over you (or record under a blanket) for cheap echo cancellation!
Trying to make morality into a truth claim is where most people go wrong. Morality is a group survival strategy. Truth claims do not involve morality. They are different spheres entirely. This misunderstanding gives rise to the of the idea of moral progress (which is itself founded on the false idea of evolution and linear time). To claim there could be a universal moral truth would require that morality be a feature of the universe (it clearly is not and cannot be found outside of the human mind). Some will try and point to god (monotheists actually try to say this with a straight face while their god breaks his own moral rules and orders his people to do the same), but this is an untestable hypothesis. If it were the case, wouldn't every person know this set of rules? if you make this claim, you end sounding like someone claiming that gravity is part of every objective, but only some objects act in accordance with it. It is completely illogical as a position. If you say, "ah, but objects don't have choice, while people do" you are in no better of a position because the people who have a choice don't know what the "correct" one is. We can see the immediate consequences of ignoring the law of gravity. We see no such consequences when people exhibit moral choices, even at odds with one another. The clown on the right just keeps arguing by assertion, and provides no examples or evidence to support his positions. "I'm pretty sure that...." No you aren't. You're assuming it because you have no idea what you are talking about. Murder, rape and torture are the norm in Africa for example. Objectivity is not determined by similarity, but by its differences. The differences are ALWAYS what define any category. We don't group humans and fruits together because both contain water. We separate them because of their differences. One thing he does get right is that leftist moral relativists are hypocrites because they have no moral standing to condemn any other groups moral standards: slavery, racism, infidelity, violence precisely because morality is relative. They can say that it is immoral in their group, but to say it is wrong for everyone contradicts their own position. He then contradicts his own position again when he claims that people within a culture can't agree on moral standards. That just further shows that even in a shared culture, morality is not objective. He is also leaving out that until very recently, most cultures would NOT have largely divergent viewpoints on what is moral. That is a product of modernity and the cancer of forced diversity, and exactly why it is such a bad idea. The two people having opposing moral views of a certain situation is not a contradiction and comparing it to rain is a false analogy. Whether it is raining or not is a testable and verifiable question. Whether X action is moral is not in any way testable or verifiable. That is the whole issue here. If morality is objective, where is this object? Where is this standard by which we can test our own moral perceptions against? Moral objectivists, who are mostly christians, are really just moral cowards, looking to offload moral responsibility onto some authority figure. They are terrified of having to make a moral decision for themselves and having to take responsibility for that choice. This is where the cowardice of salvation is rooted. It is really about getting some authority figure (government, god, police) to tell you what is proper and grant you absolution for obeying that authority. At the end of the video the relativist cucks and starts babbling about marxist BS about happiness and liberty. Plenty of things that make people happy are things he would condemn as immoral (molesting kids, rape, theft). This "debate" is badly written, badly narrated, and just pushing ideological nonsense under the guise of critical thinking.
Some of the arguments of the Moral objectivism are not moral dilemas, but scientific facts...I think is there a little confusion. Of course, we can make the hipotesis that some moral are intrinsic to human species and that moral is then comum to all the individuals, but if this is in our instinct then is not a conscientious choice. For example, a mother dog protecting is child... Is this in the realm of moral? The Dog is doing some type of action based in Moral? or is only instinct? I can't see any situation that we have absolute moral, we can find any little twist that put some "imoral" act in a "moral" act...
“But what gives God the right to judge me?” Objective and Subjective moral standards and God? Let me propose a more refined definition of Objective and Subjective standards. Something is Subjective if its existence is dependent on consciousness because without consciousness nothing can be Subjective. Something is Objective if its existence is independent of consciousness and only in so far as it could continue even if all consciousness in the universe were eliminated. AKA 1 plus 1 would still equal two regardless if there is anybody around to know it. Now if we think of God as consciousness, as most definitions of God do. Then the morality that comes from that consciousness, according to the definition that I have just set out, would also be just as Subjective as any morality that any man could construct. If this is correct, the question we must now ask is. Does God not have the right to impose his moral standards on his own creation? And if so, does that not make those standards Objective rather than Subjective in that creation? If those Subjective morals are built into this creation, then would not that in itself, make those Subjective morals Objective in and to all that are part of this universe? To explain farther, let’s use a video game as a parallel. A programmer can build into his game world any morality he chooses. The NPCs (non player character) in the game (AKA you and me) are locked into its built-in moral system as well as the consequences for breaking that system. Because the NPC’s are part of the game world itself they also are subject to the rules of that game world including any morals built into it. As a programmer do you not have the right to make the rules (morals) for your own game? Are you then not allowed to impose your rules (morals) on the NPC’s in your game? If you give the NPC’s randomized adaptable IA (free will) and they refuse to accept and live by your rules while in your game do you not have the right and responsibility then to force them to do so (change their code) or remove them from your game (delete them) especially if they are doing things that could crash the game? The fact that this is God's universe (game), one that he made and owns justifies his absolute, universal morality here. It must be pointed out that we are his creation, we live in and are part of his universe (game) itself, therefore we are then subject to his rules (morals) while in his universe (game). If one does not like God’s rules (morals) and refuse to live by them, they should not be surprised by their difficulties when they find themselves bumping into those built in morals and realities that they refuse to accept. That said, God did give us free will to do as we please while in his universe. Sure God gave us instruction on how this universe works best. What set of rules (morals) to follow that would reduce pain and suffering to a minimum. But one can chose to ignore those instructions and do things his/her own way if that is what one insist. And we all get to suffer the consequences of each other's chosen actions wile in this universe. This, of course all rests on whether or not God exists. But that is a question for another time. P.S. Some try to postulate that because the morals of God are subjective rather than objective that he then does not exist, or that because mankind can make a set of his own Subjective morals that God and his morals then do not exist. These arguments of course would both be a very big and obvious non sequitur. Having the ability to construct your own morals simply has nothing to do with whether or not God and his morals exist.
I like what you are saying- I would actually hypothesize that God Himself has to abide by natural law as well. What you proposed basically agrees with moral relativism at a universal level and the objectivity comes from God deciding what’s the rules of the game are. I would suggest that there are natural laws that transcend our universe. God knows these laws and He teaches us what they are because He knows they will make us happy and better. That is my theory at least. God didn’t male His own special rules for us. I don’t think God would or even could create a universe in which murder is justified and morally upstanding. Idk I feel like I’m an idiot trying to explain this lol but your comment was so interesting I wanted to chip in
@@cadewoolf4380 I agree that there are certain laws that even God has to follow... They are mostly logical inconsistency... Like God can't make a married bachelor or a square circle or a rocks so big he can't lift it... As for the physical laws here in this universe they are not of the same type... Like a cheat code in a game the programmer (God) is not bound by the rules he made, he can change them anytime he wants. We the NPC's cannot. Sorry for the bad grammar, doing this on my phone...
I'd argue that the "objective moral truths" mentioned in the video are still not objective, but relative to the group of "all human beings of sound mind in the Universe". Our morals are always relativistic, even the ones that seem "universal" are limited by race, specie or state of being. If you wanted to make a truly universal morality you'd have to also include on it all possible conscious creatures, even non-humans, and even from outside our planet. Possibly, even non-conscious actions/beings could be susceptible to have morality. And we are in no possition to understand what is "good" for non-living beings. We can only know whats "good" for us, and those similar to us. So we can only discuss in relative terms.
I'm just jotting thoughts down, don't read unless interested. ------ Objectivism only exists if we believe and adhere to its concordance but life is not as clear cut and simple as a rulebook. Naturally, humanity will gravitate towards placing subjectivity (discretion) on before deciding which objective choice one should make - an interpretation of the law. Think of it as a judge judging a hard case and weighing what is the morally right option. Is it better to lie to save your family from a killer? Or tell the truth and let your family be killed? There's no such scenario in which a human (with exception I suppose) would tell the truth here but when weighing whether to be immaculately morally right or wrong, humanity will almost always choose a greater good, path of least resistance, or ends justifies the means behavior. We have a moral obligation (a greater good) to lie (ends justifies the means) to achieve safety for loved ones (path of least resistance).
You obviously do not mean "cannot", because performing contradictory arguments is clearly something many people are capable of. Did you mean "should not?"
I would have to slightly disagree with the last point. Wild animals have the evolutionary desire for less pain and more life, however how the way they go about achieving it is not "moral" or "immoral" for, wild animals simply do what is in their nature. This is because wild animals lack the intellectual capacity to make "enlightened" choices. Intellect correlates with morality. And as long as intellect is a factor morality with also be of importance With that said I believe that morality can be both objective and subjective however only in the relative sense as intellect is relative and the only thing which is absolute is supreme source conscious. Morality like the ego is not absolute, rather it is all an illusion from the absolute perspective of supreme source conscious. All things which are not source conscious are physical and subject to physical law, making cause and effect substantial and morality a real principle when considering the intelligent mortal/physical being
Despite your points about there being moral truths e.g. murder, rape etc, those are still just your opinion on the general attitude modern people have towards said things. Additionally you countered this exact point multiple times throughout the video when you mentioned cultural and historical moral frame works. You could have pointed to darwinism and how our natural instincts are the foundation of what direction our morals develop in, you could even point to maslow's pyramid of needs and some developmental psychology to flush it out. However and this is a big one, everything is causality all thoughts actions, feelings ect are predetermined and a result of prior happenstance.
@@AndyAlegria If we don’t judge clinically insane people for their actions the same way we do normal people then if no one has control of their actions or consequences then surely that would mean that we have no control of commotion moral/immoral actions. it’s beyond our control (assuming free will is false and that’s an assertion only if determinism is true)
@@arniedamaniac6206 I could be wrong but a believe morality is a judgement of intent and/or outcome. Whether or not you have control over your actions (determinism) doesn't change the judgement of whether your intent or the outcome are negative. If I had no choice to but to kill my neighbor for no good reason, especially if my intent was to NOT kill my neighbor, then it might be determined that my intent was moral but the outcome of my action was still immoral. If I announce that I WANT to kill my neighbor but determinism prevents me from doing it, my intent is still judged immoral. It is incredibly difficult to prove intent unless I've documented it somewhere in writing, video, etc. but the outcome is easy to prove. And even if someone controlled my mind and made me kill my neighbor, the outcome is still considered immoral, despite my lack of intent to do it. If a tree randomly collapses on a person and they had no way to avoid it, that's essentially determinism, but their death is still considered a wrong. Right?
I feel that the linguistics or paradigms of these narrow boxes - that the brain so much wants as to kill dissonance, and to create order - are in this case very limiting and make it dualistic thing. Also, increase of life, of happiness etc are moral objective truths, then one can ask for whom? for oneself, or for a family or for a village, a nation etc? Since we all know many (especially nowadays) are focussed more on their own individual happiness and health etc even when its at the cost of someone else's happiness and life. In certain cultures it is the opposite, where you can not be (morally) happy if your neighbour is suffering. It feels like morals are objective in many ways but humans tend to want to bend them whenever it suits them, especially when there is room to do so. Many more thoughts pop in my mind, but I let it marinate first...maybe ill be back another time.;) But nonetheless still interesting and very well made video.
good format for a video but morality is objective, if you disagree please kindly explain how child abuse could ever be considered moral. don't worry I'll wait
Morality is a science, and it is 100% objective. If it were subjective, what could be right today could be wrong tomorrow. Whoever thinks that is possible is attempting to play God.
But but but! Many Buddhists believe that the attainment of pleasure is immoral and that suffering is NOT immoral. So is the idea of eliminating pain and suffering also relative? Based on thousands of years of humans realizing that the general promotion of life and elimination of pain and suffering is what keeps our species alive and flourishing?
Buddhists DO believe that unnecessary suffering is immoral. That is why they are vegan, yes? While they might believe that actively seeking pleasure for pleasure's sake is immoral, I don't think they believe that incidental happiness is problematic. I took a bath, and enjoyed the feel of hot water, so that's bad? I don't think Buddhism works like that. Like most good philosophies I've learned about, "bad" is in the extremes.
We live in a dualistic reality so there cannot exist 1 absolute truth about anything. All truths are but half truths. The last argument presented is not about what is right or wrong but rather what is conducive to survival which is not relevant to the subject matter.
2:44 in ancient times, genocide, slavery, and infanticide were completely acceptable by those benefiting from it. victims of genocide/infanticide would completely reject their fate, if they could.
The reason objective morality hasn't been discovered is because not everyone knows everything We can gain more knowledge about ethics but people can be wrong about what they think they know and people can be unaware of things they don't know.
it’s not that it hasn’t been discovered. it’s because it’s fundamentally impossible to exist. It’s like saying the objective best colour hasn’t been “discovered”. we can only find the objective most liked colour not the objective best. thoughts?
@@arniedamaniac6206 Well because color is just wavelengths the reality might be they are all equal you would have to be infinitely intelligent to conclude which of us is objectively right of course Since "best" isn't well defined, that is a bit difficult. Nonetheless a being of perfect intelligence would be able to tell what quantifies "bestness", whether or not best even is applicable to the situation, and what would objectively fit the answer with all information at hand. Im saying what "ought" what "should" be done, what "better" to do and we all act upon those things, even if you are a nihilist! The thing is our information can be faulty, we can get things wrong and that is why we must be vigilant with our evidence and take caution with our actions, dare I say we ought to 🤯
@@LBoomsky good point never seen a view like that. does this apply to other subjective things like food, art etc.? If you do think so then it makes sense how morality would fall under this. However, the only way a perfect intelligent being would be able to distinguish themselves is through the lens of subjectivity. If someone preferred pink and blue was the “objective best” how could u objectively say they are wrong. you can’t because objectivity by definition is unrelated to subjective experience. Okay i’ll grant you the fact that there may be certain objective moral values. Even if this is true how would u objectively explain to someone why murder is wrong. How is it possible to do this without subjectivity. I agree we can say “murder objectively causes harm” and if we define harm as immoral then it’s true by definition. But pain and suffering is not bad in the objective sense because in order to look objectivity we must abandon the subjective perception therefore leaving the terms meaningless. thoughts?
@@arniedamaniac6206 > If someone preferred pink and blue was the “objective best” how could u objectively say they are wrong. I couldn't, but I could assess that a position would only be absolutely, conclusively answered once they know everything possibly relevant. Perhaps they might learn pink is not any better than blue, or something else. My argument is that since we each have a position now based on what we know, if we all grew to gain ALL of the relevant knowledge our positions would reunite in agreement. Since this theoretical position is based on ALL the information at hand, and theoretically does not have any false information, it would be objectively the right position. If someone with infinite knowledge somehow never achieves an ought then no ought exists. However since basically everyone has a moral system (even a "subjective" one) I think it is in the nature of things that what ought is real. I think those who believe morality being subjective are just like everyone else, we each lack the full picture, but we strive to do the right thing nonetheless. I think to say otherwise would be an amoral stance rather than a subjective morality stance... I hope im not misrepresenting ur argument, my brain is not in thinking mode rn lol
There’s no objective evidence for equality so there’s no reason to insist one culture isn’t better than another. Doesn’t mean morality is objective. Why is tolerance good?
Great video! Just wanted to point out that the latter defenses for universal morality were quite shakey... @8:11 the defense of universal morals via similarities between cultures because a relativist can rely on differences is a false equivalence. UNIVERSAL morals would be UNIVERSAL! They would transcend humanity & be prolific among all life forms. To deny that absolute morals do not apply to "lesser beings" is a denial of UNIVERSAL morality itself. In such case, the position should be rebranded to "Absolute Human Morals." Which then becomes a laugh in and of itself, as war crimes are committed daily by soldiers in foreign lands. Rape, murder, theft, etc.. these "morals" are only recognized between CONCENTING "tribe" members. A tribe can take the form of a family, a neighborhood, all the way to a national level. Look at Hindu & Islam in India & Pakistan. Look how Indians treat/view indians & how Pakistani treat/view Indians. When you look at global, cross cultural interactions. really the debate between ethics and morals is quite ignorant.. at the end of the day morals are nothing more than ancient ethics.. rooted in a society's cultural heritage. This gets back to the defense of universal moralities simply not being discovered yet. Okay, if we are to take this argument seriously, if we have not discovered universal morals, then what are the things we now refer to as morals? @9:12 this is an abhorrent argument often used by religious zealots to defend their faith as necessary. Obviously this has no place in intelligent banter.. because obviously we witnessed as conflicting EMERGENT ETHICS drove society's moral perception of slavery to an immoral perception. This phenomenon occurred within recorded history.. much of the Civil Rights movement is on film.. the cultural evolution of our species brought forward a new ethical paradigm within which slavery was denounced as immoral. So just because I recognize that certain Asian countries don't see the unethical use of child labor in sweat shops, does not make me any less disgusted by it. Why? BECAUSE THAT'S RELATIVISM! As a relative individual I have the ability to define for myself what I view as moral and what I view as immoral, just as everyone else is free to do so as well. Some believe life starts at conception, others say it begins at birth. Neither are wrong because neither is right. Because there is no such thing as right or wrong. There is only what humans AGREE there is. And humans, if nothing else, are incredibly fickle. @11:14 that was not a good point.. 😂 you can't compare a metaphysical construct like morality to a physical constructs such as rain. "Here pick up your universal morality and place it in my hand allow me to put it on a scale allow us to weigh morality." No, this is simply absurd. The reason both can be right is because neither is wrong. Just because it is raining above your house does not mean that it is raining in the Sahara desert. you cannot expect that someone in the Sahara is going to agree that it is raining simply because it's raining for you in New York. They would say "no it is raining for you, not me." The same goes for morality. "This is immoral to you but not to me."
Nice points. Just a remark on what you mention at the end. One needs to be careful not to make the response sound as if the the disagreement is lost. If you claim that it is raining (in New York) and the other person claims that its not raining (in the Sahara), then you're not really disagreeing with each other. The whole point of relativism is to explain why moral disagreements can be substantive and the parties disagreeing can both be right.
@@Orlandismos The point is not the atmosphere of the physical spaces the individuals occupy, but their subjective perception of the world based from their viewpoint. The point wasn't that it's actually raining for the New Yorker, but that the New Yorker is demanding the Saharan acknowledge that New York's weather is actually universal, and not just a localized/relative event. A similar example; Someone with just a dirty sense of humor may get offended by jokes about infanticide while someone with a dark sense of humor will be laughing so hard they cry. In a world of universal humor people wouldn't find jokes about infanticide offensive while other's laugh. Either everyone would say "that's not funny" or everyone would laugh. Similarly, if 'morality' was a universal constant, there would not be 'immoral' behavior. That would be like us living in our matter based universe where anti-matter is constantly popping into existence & exploding on contact with random people, animals, etc. We know that's not the case. Sure anti-matter can be forced to exist in our world, but it near impossible to maintain. Where as our world is not only full of people who behave "immorally" according to other's standards but who THRIVE by behaving immorally.
@@TheMartianReport Not sure I'm following you. Are you assuming that raining (simpliciter) is an event? The fact that an event is a localised event does not imply that it is relative. There is no such event as "raining", there is an event "raining in New York", "raining in the Sahara", and so on... those are not the same events, but all of them are "absolute". The context in which the utterance of 'it is raining' [in L] is performed fills the missing information in the "in L" argument. From either subjective viewpoint in your example it is raining in New York and it is not raining in the Sahara. They don't disagree about the events. I agree with you that humour is somewhat subjective; but consider the following reply by an objectivist about humour: "sure, people can manifest different responses to jokes, but some responses are wrong; there is a fact of the matter about whether a joke is funny or not." Hence, it doesn't follow that "In a world of universal humor people wouldn't find jokes about infanticide offensive while other's laugh. Either everyone would say "that's not funny" or everyone would laugh. Your conclusion about morality would not follow either. Moral objectivism does not preclude moral disagreement. It precludes that both parties can be right. Besides, you're assuming that facts about humour and moral facts are alike, which is a controversial assumption.
@@Orlandismos when discussing spatial orientation, being relative, is synonymous with being local. that said it's no wonder you're not following because you're still attempting to frame the rain as an event instead of as an experience. Morality is an individual's experienced sense of what is right. To imply what you believe to be morally correct is synonymous, in being identically contradictive, to a New Yorker INSISTING THAT BECAUSE IT IS RAINING IN NEW YORK IT MUST BE RAINING IN THE SAHARA. It doesn't matter if it is sunny in the Sahara, or if the person in the Sahara knows that the person in New York is absolutely batshit crazy. It's not stopping the New Yorker from believing the weather they experience is the same weather the guy in the Sahara is experiencing or the guy on Mars. Because to the New Yorker their weather is a universal phenomena, not just a local/relative phenomena of New York. And that's the whole point. It's absolutely asinine to assert that your perceived concept of morality is everyone else's perceived concept of morality, especially when our collectively experienced reality falsifies such magical thinking.
@@Orlandismos you don't seem to understand the word universal or absolute. if something is universal or absolute there is no example within the universe that can conflict/oppose that universal observation. Real world example; light is not universal. Rather light is a relative phenomenon, which we observed in relation to it's absence; "darkness." Thus to, because we have a concept of immorality, the very best argument which can be made for it's opposite, morality, is as a relative phenomenon. No more universal than the light which shines from our sun. Before you try, while the electromagnetic field is a "universally observed phenomena" it is neither static nor absolute/universally uniform, which are qualities applied to morality by moral absolutism.
It's true that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - but that goes for the tooth fairy as well. On the other hand: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". Furthermore, yes, there are many similarities between cultures - but often these rules *apply only to their own tribe.* They do not apply to members *outside* their tribe. E.g. killing a tribe member is forbidden, but killing a member of another tribe is ok - or even encouraged! See the Bible for some nice examples. And yes, "presentism" is a logical fallacy. And tell me: what is the moral foundation for forcing a Jew to refrain from eating kosher meat because it is considered bad to the environment and animal cruelty? Such act can only be performed if one claims moral superiority - which is pretty arrogant to begin with. Then we jump to a "false dichotomy" fallacy. Moral judgments are neither right nor wrong - in as much as it can rain just a bit, not just being dry and raining cats and dogs. There is a clear gradient - otherwise everybody would either be found innocent or get life when tried. We have a solution for this dilemma, though. It's called "contractual ethics" aka "the law".
I don't think a moral absolutist needs to explain why there is disagreement, any more than a math professor has to explain why he might have a test question that gets 12 different answers back. However the explanation is simple, people who do not like the moral law and intend on violating it want a different theory to dominate. It does not mean they don't believe it. How do you explain how we know that there are many people who totally continue to believe what their church says and don't go because they don't wan to be told to stop being irresponsible? The combo theory at the end assumes morality can only consist in what Kant calls hypothetical imperatives. I think Kant is right that when we look at it from Reason, morality is supposed to command rather than advise.
@@timber2lease Someone who thinks moral relativism is better should show it. I haven't seen such a demonstration yet. Mill says such matters are not amenable to strict demonstration, but I think that from what we mean by morality, it must command rather than advise. I woulld also suggest that our world, at least in the Western Civilization part, is worse off having moral relativism and nihilism becoming popular.
@@TheCRancourt you twisted my words, i dont think moral absolutism is better. there is no better or worse, only one is true. the demonstration you want or the opposite is not necessary nor possible, as one of both does not exist. a minority of humanity thinks moral absolutism exists, that is mostly christians. so if one makes the claim that absolute morality exists, even if you can clearly see that it is not necessary and just not reality, than you should explain yourself. it is the same in science. if you make the hypothesis, provide data/formula/instruction to falsify to prove your point
@@timber2lease It feels like it’s cope for you or it’s a lacking of simple empathy. Just because you can’t comprehend something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist either
@@eggheadusa asking for evidence is not coping by any means. also i can comprehend that moral is relative by experience, accepting the opposite, too, would be a contradiction
You forgot to talk about subjective moral, which is not relative or objective, it’s just based on your egotistical point of view, the bigger ego, the more right you have against other people.
@@KittyBoyPurr Hardly - there are examples where the categorical imperative fails (aka being counter intuitive). There is *NO* moral school of thought that is infallible.
The bible allowed slavery because the people at the time did not consider it to be immoral. How do you reconcile that with considering the bible to be a guide for morality?
But can we even put any moral claim into practice let's look at something simple suffering. We are obligated tjo decrease rather than increase suffering. I will assume that this is true and that were not talking about spending every waking moment doing that but just when we make a choice of one thing over another that we chose the one that reduces or at least does not increase suffering. You see a child suffering from hunger. You are morally responsible to stop that suffering. Do you feed the child? What if the child has a food allergy that might kill it. Perhaps it is just the appearance of hunger but something else like immediate need of medial attention. Are you also morally obligated to find out how the child came to be hungry and to provide a long term solution to the hunger? What if hunger is just one of a host of things that will cause the child to suffer learning disabilities, poverty, racism. Is simply telling the next person you see that you just saw a child that tooks very hungry. We are morally obligated to tell the truth. Your neighbors are in a nasty divorce with a custody battle and you must testify now you know that it is nte children's best interest that the father gets custody. The mother cares not at all about the children. The whole neighborhood knows it but you did see the father strike his son one time in flustration . So do you tell the truth knowing the harm it will cause or lie, that. Causing less harm than telling the truth? Either way you are not following the moral thing to do. In other words when we try to put moral principals into action and two actions collided what does do. Are we obligated to give up summer vacations to feed the poor? If we don't know if what we try To do to help someone will make things better or worse are we still obligated to try?
Well it’s subjectively correct to the murderer. There was one guy who got asked in my personal life, “Is murder wrong?” And he justified it by saying it depends on the circumstance. (Situational ethics). So to him it’s right or wrong in his own eyes . he thinks to the outside world that he’s right and not wrong for that evil behavior. Btw if someone disagreed with him he thought they were arrogant and prideful . I think the guy should look in a mirror 🪞
@@thecarlitosshow7687 Killing being wrong can depend on circumstances, but those circumstances can be part of objective rule. Objective morality doesn't say "don't kill", it says "don't kill, unless...". If circumstance can give justification to killing one time, it will give justification to killing every time (when same circumstance appears). Therefore, exceptions and situations can be part of objective morality.
@@goranmilic442 is murder objectively wrong? There’s a difference between killing and murdering. Because murder implies motive and intention with anger. For example, Hitler ; Escobar , Bundy didn’t kill they murdered and what not ? We’re they wrong ? The way I could see your example is if someone trespassed into your house and you would have the legal right to shoot him to defend your self . However that’s not murder that’s killing cus their was no motive and intentionional anger and what not and self defense is justified.
@@thecarlitosshow7687 We define murder as unjustified killing, killing that is wrong. If there is no objective morality, then there is no such thing as murder.
![ARGENTINA vs. BOLIVIA [6-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/C3wPtKNbAOA/mqdefault.jpg)
The script to this video is part of the Philosophy Vibe “Ethics” eBook, available on Amazon:
mybook.to/philosophyvibe4
Philosophy Vibe Paperback Anthology Vol 3 'Ethics & Political Philosophy' available worldwide on Amazon:
mybook.to/philosophyvibevol3
what software do you use for animation?
I love how you present these discussions as arguments/dialectics. Makes it even more engaging
it's very poorly done and very poorly read. the script is a covert attempt at marxism.
What?@@spiritsplice
@@GageTheMageTCG maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain == marxism, apparently
Please keep these coming, the dialogue format is the best philosophy on youtube. The Greeks would be proud
Thank you :D and still a lot more to come!
I like how you have another person disagreeing and seeing the rules from another perspective. And he is very polite. 😊
How all debates should be :D thanks for watching.
love this format, how the other guy politely presents the counterargument!! reminds me of a quote: "we don't need to disagree less, we need to disagree better."
Glad you enjoyed :)
thats a fantastic frase
I searched for philosophy tube and I found an *actual* philosophy channel. Thanks for this!
You’re welcome 😀glad you enjoyed.
In the case of rain, one of them has to be wrong because rain is objectively true. Nobody is questioning the objective truth of rain. However, the jury is still out on the objective truth of morality.
Quantum physics says the rain exists based on who watches it.
@@edathompson2 The timing of your comment is such a freaky coincidence. I just finished watching this new TV show called "Dark Matter" like a minute ago, which is about quantum physics; and here you are, talking about quantum physics on a comment I made five months ago. This is too freaky. I've got goosebumps.
@@edathompson2applies only on micro not macro scale
Ethical subjectivism is like two people standing in the rain, and the other claiming that it's refreshing and the other claiming that it isn't. Or that's how I see it. Moral dilemmas don't hold some absolute truth in them, and are a fools errand to try and crack. There's no formula for ethics. :D
Exactly. He gave the example of is it raining which proves nothing. One person says Rain is good, the other person is saying rain is bad, that's a moral dilemma
Precisely.
The contradiction is in believing there is an objectively true answer.
The contradiction is not present when you understand that the "contradictory" views are opinions. I don't consider it contradictory if I say "I like peanut butter" and someone else says "I don't." It's completely reasonable for opinions to not match. There's no contradiction.
The answer is in Nature. Both persons in your example would have to agree that rain is necessary for the survival of Life in the planet. Consequently, any hypothetical action that would make all rain stop forever would be wrong. Animals display the rudiments of moral codes as well, it is a requirement for the survival and thriving of species, with the exception perhaps of insects or viruses. Life has a built-in moral code, though we may disregard it or be unaware of it.
@@miguelmorales4633that only applies so far. the person in the video is claiming that there are absolute moral truths to everything not just certain situations that we have prebuilt moral code for.
@@arniedamaniac6206there is…
terrible point. “Yellow is the best colour!” “No! purple is the best!” they’re not “both correct”. There is no correct, it’s subjective
Exactly what I thought, personal preferences have nothing to do with moral truth.
@@J33berI would agree that personal preferences would have nothing to do with moral truth IF moral truth could be shown to exist. Can you demonstrate the existence of moral truth? If you can’t, then it must be based on opinion.
am i relativist if i belive that under particular circumstances and goals there is only one correct way/ moral? Or like "when in Rome act like romans." is still an obsolut morale, isn't?
@@OzscaroYes, i think you would be considered a relativist because your opinion on what is morally right would be based purely on your subjective standards or that of a wider group.
@@Generatorman59im pretty sure that choosing your favourite colours and fruits have nothing to do with the defined terms of morals and ethics. I think you have confused the terms/definitions being used here.
Great example of dialectic. These two give us practical use of philosophy.
Thank you! 😃
I would argue, rather, that there are certain goods and bads which are relativistic. But there is a fundamental morality which basically spans every culture.
There isnr such thing on individual levels
You guys and perspective philosophy are guiding me to understand as many views as I can and the benefits and downsides :) thanks again you guys deserve more recognition
Thank you very much, happy we could help you on your philosophical journey :)
Great video as always! I really enjoyed seeing both sides of this topic. Thanks guys :)
QUESTION regarding the last part of the video: obviously, I agree that the preservation of human life and elimination of pain and suffering are good. BUT these are objectively good... according to who? Why are they objectively good? What objective standard outside of humanity is there to say that something is objectively good or bad? Because if there's no standard outside of humanity, then it's still only OUR opinion that preservation of human life is good. If a man like Stalin has the power to harm others and take their stuff for himself, why is he wrong? "Oh, because that's not good for the survival of the human race as a whole." BUT why should he care about the survival of human race?? It's just our opinion versus his opinion... UNLESS, the survival of human race is not just our opinion, but it's objectively good. If is it objectively good, then what objective basis is there to explain this fact?
Evolution? Evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive. Evolution only describes what survives, NOT what ought to survive. In naturalistic evolution without any intelligence and design, there is no literally no objective purpose and intention for the survival of human race. The survival of human race is purely an accidental by-product of the blind forces of nature. Since there's no objective purpose for the survival of the human race, it would be JUST our opinion now when we say that the human race ought to survive. If that were the case, then we can't say Stalin or Hitler were objectively wrong. It's just our society's/culture's subjective opinion against their subjective opinion.
HOWEVER, honest in your heart, you KNOW what Stalin did or what happened in the Holocaust is objectively wrong (for all people at all times). Therefore, there must be a source of morality beyond humanity, beyond just our opinion. What could this source be?
I SINCERELY want to hear YOUR thoughts (Philosophy Vibe guys or anyone else). Thanks! Much love.
- Kings
Hello Kingsley, glad you liked the video, and you have raised some excellent points. I understand what you mean about objectivity outside of humanity. If there is no God in the equation this gets very difficult to explain. As always this can be a very in-depth debate. From my perspective Quasi Realism best addresses our "objective morality", something is "objectively" good for humanity, is only true for humanity and not on a grander scale. It functions like a fake truth in way. So if we bring this back to the is-ought problem, "if you want humanity to survive and be happy then you ought not to kill and torture you fellow man".
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
I agree. From a purely materialistic and scientific point of view all things are without meaning and accidental. In my opinion only the concept of God, gods, or spirituality can give any objective meaning to morality. But then that raises the problem that such concepts can not be proven in an empirical way.
I see it almost as a sliding scale. The more empirical you get, the less meaning you can ascribe to the world. The more meaning, the less empirical evidence. I feel we only have a choice between nihilism and faith.
""if you want humanity to survive and be happy then you ought not to kill and torture you fellow man"."
I have always found this type of argument to be rather weak. Given an abundant population one could destroy and harm numerous individuals without causing harm to the human species as a whole. This is proven by the fact that historically there have been times of great violence and yet humanity survives.
Also, it makes the assumption that we must care for all of humanity, that we must see it as a homogenous whole. What stops us from behaving morally towards those of our own group, but not to those outside of it?
Hume once stated "That one cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is" - which IMHO killed every hope of ever finding a objective morality. Second, Stephen Toulmin observed that nature is "amoral" (which is quite different from the concept "immoral"). If such is the case, there is no objective morality to be found in nature. As you stated: "Evolution only describes what survives, *NOT* what ought to survive".
On the other hand, we find some form of morality within different groups of social mammals (although those morals differ as well). One might conclude it is an emergent quality of these groups, which in itself seems to be in some way, shape or form beneficial to these species. And I'm afraid it ends right there.
I really wish someone would address the natural commonalities between societies and cultures.
Relativism will say, "look at all these cultures doing different things that are moral/immoral in other cultures!". For example my textbook said that Inuit people will kill off babies to survive the winter if resources are short. They put them out on an ice flow. Therefore they find infanticide moral. Comparing to the West where infanticide is reprehensible.
However moral objectivists might respond that all cultures are finding different ways to preserve the most human life. Doing what it takes to sustain the most human life is pervasive in ALL cultures and peoples. Anyone who would disagree that life is valuable would not survive long. Surely putting an infant out on the ice is something acceptable if only as a last resort. Cannibalisms is an even better use of the flesh however it isn't practiced. Why? Because they know that its an act of desperation and last resort and are trying minimize the immorality of the act.
There are at least some things like this, some moralities that *must* arise as a result of the human condition. I would love to here a rebuttal to this.
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
I agree with this. Are you familiar with moral foundations theory from The Righteous Mind? According to this theory the moralities that must arise are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Everyone has these six moral foundations but different groups of people fill them in differently. Conservatives tend to use all six foundations more or less equally and liberals rely primarily on care/harm and also some fairness/cheating but to a much lesser extent the other ones.
@@VIKASHKumar-xp7jjwhat do u mean insight
Depends on how dangerous it is. The paradox between life,death,safety,and risk. Master and slave morality is a good example of moral objectivity and moral relativism as a whole. It only works in the pursuit of progress when it is wholly liberated from one another. One reinforces the other. Morality is a good thing as a safety net when too much of a good thing gets dangerous.
Great video and great that you link to the script too. This is a deep subject, and there's a lot of territory left to cover when it comes to the metaethics, but as an overview and a summary of some key arguments, this is first rate! Well done!
Thank you!
I agree that moral relativism and moral objectivism overlap. At the same time, I don't think people should dismiss either or. So I stand in the overlap until one outweighs the other.
the rain comparison is not a good argument. Whether or not it is raining is objective reality, whether or not something is moral is subjective perspective. We share an objective reality but we observe that reality through subjective perspective.
Fair points. I'm definitely in a moral absolutist camp. One that believes in a religion has to be. Though the moral choice on certain issues may be different in different circumstances.
do u think every situation has an objectively moral answer?
subjective morality is the cheapest ticket to decadence and oblivion ...
objective morality is the cheapest ticket to deception and control
the consequences are irrelevant to its truth
😂😂😂😂😂 literally !
@@timber2leaseno it isnt😂
I like the format and the content produced in this video. Very enlightening.
These videos are amazing and easy to watch. Excellent work.
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed.
Excellent video! Very thought provoking. I’ll add one thing that convinced me of moral relativism (or something similar to the hybrid relativism mentioned at the end) that wasn’t mentioned in this video which was reading The Righteous Mind and learning how morals evolved to strengthen groups. The evolutionary purpose of morality is to bind us to a group and blind us to the morals of other groups.
I have to ponder what a moral relativist would make of Peter Kropotkin's arguments for Ethical Naturalism.
It'd be nonsense. Kropotkin was based. Democracy is based. Freedom is based. Communism is based. The aforementioned three are inseperable.
What are the absolute bare minimum requirements for a species (primarily humans) to thrive mentally and physically independently yet collectively? Morality. Got some?
The fact that there’s even a discussion about what’s right and wrong is proof of an objective truth.
I have this question in my head can somebody help? Good and Evil is just a construct, like it's not really concrete. So If say, there are living beings who enjoy getting hurt or they enjoy dying then I think their morality would favor pain and death? Then my conclusion is morality is subjective or relative? What do you guys think? I'm just confused help.
Exactly you can’t say they are objectively wrong with what they desire because objectively they do desire it. If person A likes pizza you can say objectively they think it is enjoyable. But you can never say objectively pizza is desirable as the very concept of desire only has meaning in a subjective context. Going outside the realm of desire and deciphering what is objectively desirable is meaningless. Desire, morality and all subjective experience only has truth in the subjective realm. in the objective realm it’s not that it’s false it’s just that it’s meaningless.
The apathy argument is weak and a strong disagreement point for myself. There is a difference between identifying a Moral difference between societies based on culture, generation, or other influences; and accepting it as being a MORAL truth for yourself. Hence why it is a SUBJECTIVE TRUTH.
This video was amazingly helpful, thank you. Do you guys have an opinion on where these universal morals stem from?
Thank you. With regards to universal morals, this would be a debate and video in itself :D
I know... late comment. I just came across this video accidentally. Really impressed by the fact that the points you brought up are generally the ones present in the literature on moral relativism. Congrats, great stuff!
I label myself as a moral relativism and part of the motivation for being a moral relativism is what you rightly called "descriptive relativism". The way you characterise the view was that there are "fierce" moral disagreements; usually it's called "persistent", "fundamental" and sometimes "deep" disagreements, not "fierce", but I'll assume your using the adjective in the same sense. However, the way you then went on to describe the view was pointing that there are moral disagreements. The issue is not just that agents disagree about moral matters, but that those persist even when the parties disagreeing agree on all the non-moral facts relevant to the disagreement.
Also, your characterisation of moral relativism is lacking important features. Relativist hold not just that moral truths are not truth simpliciter (or absolute), but that the truth of moral judgments varies relative to moral standards and that there is no privileged standard from which a moral judgment is assessed. Here's the distinction exemplified: I can say that a moral judgment is true relative to historical periods, but that for each historical period there is a privileged moral standard. This would imply e.g. that when during the Roman Empire someone states that slavery is wrong is making a false statement, while during the modern era someone stating the same thing would be making a true statement. But each statement is absolutely false/true-hence, no moral relativism here.
Now, to the objectivist arguments.
Firstly, the burden is on the objectivist to explain why moral disagreements persist. One way to go, which you pointed out, is either saying that moral truths are hard to find and another is that they are unknowable (moral skepticism). The latter view has its own problems and, arguably, leaves the objectivist in a worse position than the relativist. The former option still needs to say something about what makes moral truths so hard to find. And here you cannot just say that other truths are also hard to discover. Sure, truths about the fundamental reality, the origin of the universe are hard to discover, but at the very least it seems we're making some scientific progress when inquirying about them and arguably if we haven't discovered more that has to do with technological limitations; can we say the same about moral truths? I would say no. So, what's so special about morality that makes it so mysterious?
Secondly, someone else has already pointed this out in another comment, but the reply that there are many moral similarities across cultures and diverse groups is the wrong reply to the motivation for relativism from moral diversity. Here's the challenge for the objectivist: moral diversity is a fact, can the objectivist account for it? The wrong way to go would be to say "well... there's many more moral similarities". That's dodging the challenge. Unless, you can show that moral diversity is really scarce, then the challenge can be reinstated: given the diversity that exists, how does the objectivist account for it?
Thirdly, the "it is raining" example is begging the question. The objectivist is already assuming that moral facts are objective.
Fourthly, the whole point of relativism is that when A states that S is wrong and B disagrees they aren't contradicting each other. What A is saying is true relative to A's moral standards while what B is saying is true relative to B's moral standards. They are both right in the sense that according to each standard none of the two is asserting something false. But A is not right according to B's moral standards. And, hence, we can make perfect sense of this.
Finally, a remark on the solution presented at the end of the video. The objectivist is the one making the strong claim that all moral truths are objective, many relativist views hold that only some truths are relative (in the relevant sense-i.e. in the sense that their truth varies according to moral standards).
hey can you gi
ve insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
The only absolute stand I take is that everything is absolutely gray.
Relativism seems to highlight the importance of convention using outlier examples to contend with near universal moralities
Great video! But I might add: At 11:03, it’s not really that with moral subjectivism everyone has their own personal belief of what’s morally true or false. The point is that ethics can’t be understood in terms of “true” or “false” in the first place. If one person says pizza is yummy and another person says pizza is gross, both people are expressing personal opinion/ taste, not fact. The same applies to morality. Disagreement doesn’t lead to contradiction, it’s just two people with different opinions.
we can still derive objectivity from subjectivity
@@arniedamaniac6206 With respect, I don’t see how that would be possible by definition
@@goaheadmakemyday7126 yeah i used to think the same thing here’s what i mean. Person A likes pizza. That is in the realm of subjectivism however the statement “Person A likes pizza” (assuming they’re not lying) is objectively true. So i can say murder objectively causes pain and suffering and is objectively bad for the majority of humanity. However the fundamental assumption all moral values rely on is suffering is bad and pleasure is good. These are completely subjective and impossible to describe objectively. However when we accept these beliefs like every human already has only then can we derive objectivivity. So although fundamentally and philosophicaly the idea of objective morality doesn’t exist as it’s ultimately based on subjective reasoning. After assuming this subjective reasoning then we can derive objectivism. Even in the pizza example the pizza is objectively liked subjectively. But the concept of tasting good is subjective. hope that clarified what i’m saying
Another great video. Love the format. Thank you!
You're very welcome, glad you enjoyed.
I disagree with moral relativism for much the same reasons as John does at 8:55. My own conclusion was to embrace moral skepticism. The problem then becomes, if you reject morality what replaces it? So many of the concepts of our society are founded upon a moral basis. Replacing that in a way that does not invite instability can be difficult. A lot of moral skeptics I have found continue to make use of morality, whether by continuing to act as if morality were true or treating it as a useful fiction.
The idea of blending of objective and relative morality is interesting to me and I do think provides a more stable grounding for how one might define even if not an objective morality, then at least a unified structure for how one might conceptualize human values. I personally can see practical problems in tying one's view to either of the two extremes.
I know I'm a moral nihilist, so I'm one to talk on extremes :-) But in all honesty, I feel my position is in some ways a middle ground.
-M
It's enough that we find one moral issue where we can be certain it's objectively true, so that we could conclude objective morality exists.
@@goranmilic442 I can find a number of values that are near universal among humans, many of which I agree with. But I personally don't think that universality implies objectivity. You do make an interesting point though, about only needing one. I agree.
-M
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
@@VIKASHKumar-xp7jj What type of insight? I feel moral relativism is sort of a loosening of objective morality. You say well, there are things that are moral, but what things there are, based on context, kind of depends. Problem with this I have is that while it allows people the flexibility to define adaptive moral standards, which can aid in navigating situations, it often still leaves them with the moral justifications more characteristic of moral objectivity. So that is, people may say less of "what you're doing is wrong" but they may say more of "who are we to judge." These are both moral judgements, just structured in a different way.
-M
Thank you Luna
In 10:53 its said that there are two conflicting statements and both are true… i think the problem here is that the “for me” words are missing… once you put then in the phrases, “morally good for me” and “morally bad for me” stops being contradictory
In other words, this argument begs the question because it assumes a moral standard to judge both statements
I was about to disagree with you but as I was writing my argument, I figured out what you were saying. The implied "for me" makes moral good and bad just as subjective as taste, so they might as well be saying brussel sprouts taste good or taste bad and they are both correct (assuming they are not lying, of course). Since taste cannot be measured any more than morality in a person can be measured, it is not even close to a scientifically measurable rain. So I agree with you.
@@AndyAlegriaThats true but that doesn’t mean no objectivity exists in the realm of subjectivity because it foes
@@arniedamaniac6206 Assuming you mean "because it does", objectivity does not exist in the subjective realm unless you apply a universal standard, and two random people judging morality do not have a universal standard until they agree upon it.
@@AndyAlegria no objectivity exists in subjectivity realm. For example person A likes pizza. that’s in the realm of subjectivity but the statement “person A likes pizza” is objectively true (assuming he’s not lying 😂). Hope that clarifies
But denying existence of morality as universal is like saying ethics doesn't exist
It isn’t universal though. Only certain moral values that we have been given though evolution (or god) can be considered objective
How?
@@britishrocklovingyank3491 because even if moral values vary the fundamental values we have are all shared. we all chase desire. so desire is the form of good
Murder is merely a term created by society to describe the unlawful killing of another human being. Killing is neither right nor wrong. Morals are relative. If there were no people in the world to care about morals, then morals would not exist. We're just like animals. The only difference is us humans tend to think of ourselves as "better" than animals merely because we're able to articulate our feelings into words. There is no 'better' or 'worse' or 'should' or 'shouldn't' in the realm of objectivity. Animals are just as sentient as humans are in that they can feel emotions and care for other animals and people. However, they still kill. The death of a human is no more tragic than the death of an animal. We merely consider it more tragic because of the bias that humans consider themselves as superior. Another thing we can look at is how we even call things artificial when we create them, as if we're not from nature ourselves. Technology comes from humans and humans come from nature, therefor technology is a product of nature. There is nothing unnatural about humans or their creations. We. Are. Animals. Things like morals, laws, justice, and all that other jazz? Entirely subjective. There is no universal moral that everyone can agree on. Even the golden rule of "treat others how you wish to be treated" can be thrown out the window when you take masochistic sadists into consideration. Surveys and statistics prove nothing. The majority can agree with anything but that will never turn opinions into facts. Value, love, hate, importance, etc. It's all in the eye of the beholder and there's nothing you can do to change that. Even assuming God exists, he's merely passing his subjective judgement onto humans and claiming it to be righteous merely because he considers himself superior due to having created the universe but creating the universe doesn't make your opinions objective. It just means you hold all the power. There is nothing here you can refute, try as you might. Morals are biased and relative to culture and empathy varies between individuals as well. Sure, I have my own morals too but I'm not going to get all egotistical and claim that I know what's truly right or wrong. My morals are just as subjective as anyone else's. No one and I mean NO ONE knows what's truly right or wrong. As far as objectivity is concerned, right and wrong are entirely fluid subjective constructs. If there really is a list of truly objective morals somewhere out there, we humans will never know if it's factual or not. EVER.
We will never know? So you don't think moral relativism and moral objectivism overlap?
As the video says, I think we can observe the results of most actions and conclude whether their results are favorable or unfavorable, and can talk about why that is. Pretending actions don't have consequences is a pretty anti-science take to life and moral reasoning.
I think we can disagree on what our goals are, but as people have the experience of obtaining those goals, they can say whether or not the consequences associated with achieving them were worth the price that was paid.
For example, when you poll people at the end of their lives what made their life most fulfilling, the answer tends to be overwhelmingly the quality of their relationships with their family and friends. Although one could base a moral system around the attainment of wealth or fame, for example, most people's experience says those are ultimately empty goals when viewed from the perspective of the end of life. (And polls about subjective happiness begin to plateau at all ages after attaining a middle class income).
Moral reasoning is hard because we can't pass on the direct experience of having achieved goals having paid a certain cost, and all of us are attracted in some ways to things we ultimately decide are bad for us overall (it takes a lot of paying the price for many drug addicts to come to the conclusion it isn't worth it, for example). Also people's relative experience of pain or pleasure given the same stimuli can differ.
That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't say "these morals are better than those morals because they tend to create greater peace, happiness, and fulfillment in society than those set of morals, and we can back that up with data."
That doesn’t mean objectively morality can’t exists. it just means we need prerequisite assumptions that are themselves subjective. we can get objective from subjectivity
I had to stop midway reading your long post , and although I do agree with some of what you said you seem to make the point of wanting to reduce the human state to a complete animalistic state and hence no laws of decency or morality would make sense if we are just equating humans to animals in the wild . You need to understand that morality , however you wish to define is one of the few paradigms that truly separates us from wild animals . Animals in the wild are not absurdly wild as some might claim . They are bound by survivalist instincts and other laws that might even depict them as not completely unhinged. In simpler words, we are not entirely wild animals, and as I just wrote , even wild animals are governed by some laws . We most happen to also make our own laws and morality should be at the center of those laws . See, morality helps us not stray all the way down or up or sideways 😅to our pure animalistic instincts. Do we have the capacity to go there ? Absolutely!!! Please , be careful not to experiment with that 😅
If the open the zoo gate to the chimps , then the chimps will act as chimps . So please don’t do that unless it is Halloween 👻
Have a gooooood night !
Oh! Side note . I happen to find purple to be a morose color . I prefer happy colors 😊 ❤
I think the way people use moral relativism and the way it is understood is missing the point. No one should live their life as a moral relativist, that's stupid. Moral Relativism is a tool to understand people who don't share the same beliefs as you. Why is that important? It's simple, you cannot have peace without understanding others. When you understand those different beliefs, the better chance you have at finding common ground. The truth is that every bit of morality is ultimately the same, it's simply built differently from one individual to another. Everyone wants the same thing, we all want to live. From the day we are born we start to create moral beliefs with every experience we have and since every person will interpret those experiences differently, we end up with diverse morals. The problem is we aren't raised to understand each other, we are raised with lines drawn in the sand and we compete with each other over who deserves to live or die. That is not inherent either, all behavior is learned. I think if more people used moral relativism as a tool to understand other people which is really one of the most important things to survival, the world would certainly be a better place. This is how peace comes about but once again, we choose to behave the way we do because fear is a tool being used to make sure that people don't learn how to deal with differences (there's too much profit in war). It almost feels like moral relativism is purposely looked at in the most stupid way possible. I am not 100% certain of anything but when it comes to this, it is the most certain I can be with leaving room for new information that could change my mind on this.
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
So basically moral relitivism means that people have different goodness or badness in them right?
" and we compete with each other over who deserves to live or die"
ps. People tend to take this for grant (while their governments are roaming the world killing innocence people for their own benefit)
Moral Relativism is a Philosophy that merely states the Morality Compass of Individuals are calibrated by cultural, societal, geographical, generational and other proximal influences.
Thats a good argument, but how do you apply this to, say, homophobia in countries outside of the west? In many non- western countries a lot of people hold the view that homophobia is right.
Some things are relative, and some things are objective.
I believe infanticide is objectively wrong..
Objectivism is just a scapegoat term for being absolutist
@@totalwater9431 exactly 💯
@@lordofthegremlinsbro agreed with his own point
I disagree with your rain example @10:56, you are comparing here a fact with an abstract concept (morality)..
would natural laws like F=MA be an abstract concepts
and if not then couldn't
"killing innocents babies for fun= evil" also be just as real and true ?
@@darcevader4146 Yeah, if math is real, so can morality be true.
In a world A objective morality doesn't exist, it's just a useful illusion, in world B it does exists. In A we developed moral systems, in B we discovered it. Wouldn't both worlds look the same? Therefore, we cannot know.
@@goranmilic442 yes I would agree there is some degree of faith involved. but that should lead us to the conclusion that it doesn't exist, I'll use the matrix as an example,
in a world A reality is a clever illusion to convince it's subject that it real but really everyone is just dreaming and hooked up to machine, world B reality is just objective and real wouldn't both of these world also look the same ?
most philosopher would say reality is objective and real because it is a properly basic belief In philosophy a properly basic belief is a belief that is viewed as justified on the basis of experience or intuition or both. Such a belief is deemed properly basic and has no external, empirical justification. These beliefs cannot be proven, they are necessary in any world view and the existence of the external world is the best explanation of reality, and likewise objective moral can't be proved but it is the best explanation of reality
also subjective morality seems to require some objective foundation to it too.
because if morality is subjective
then everything is morally permissible
or as a famous satanist once said
"do what thou wilt shall be the only law of the universe"
the problem is these are objective statements about moral, and they are universal claims, both require some thing beyond materialism to explain
there is also a pragmatic perspective
if objective morality doesn't exist
why follow it ?
if there is nothing truly immoral about torturing babies for fun, then why not engage in such behavior,
it would be impossible to live in any society without assuming the objective morality is real, meaning you end up following absurdism, and for what reason ?
why would we assume that reality isn't objective ?
same what evidence do you have that morality isn't objective ?
I would argue based on all of this that the burden of proof would be on the skeptic to show that objective morality is false and not the other way around
@@darcevader4146 Agreed. Even those who claim objective morality isn't real, live their lives like it was real.
8:17 As a moral relativist I disagree that those acts should have been or should be tolerated. In fact, this whole notion of tolerance is only half true to me. Of course, there are things that can't be tolerated. Just because there are no objective moral truths doesn't mean that I can't fight for my (subjective) moral truth. In short, the strongest person wins - that's always how morals changed in society.
8:42 Personally, I would choose the side according to my subjective morality. Both cultures are equally true, so it's just a matter of preference.
9:15 I agree with this argument. Instead of focusing solely on culture, I believe that culture is just one of the factors that goes into shaping one's morals. Every person's morals are different, so each person has their subjective truths.
10:37 This argument presents a wrong example that already assumes that there is an objective truth out there. A better example would be: "This salad is disgusting!" And "This salad is delicious!"
11:41 The problem I have with this argument is that these truths are not truly objective. They are just popular. So, basically, if I start killing people, I'm going to be "objectively" evil only because that's a very popular opinion.
In my opinion, morals exist only because of our emotions and tendencies. Because that's how we evolved. We have no right to claim that the way we evolved is correct, that almost sounds like racism. (Joke) The fact is, morals cannot exist without emotions. A robot without emotions will never help a human, and we have no way to prove that the robot is wrong.
True but certain actions are more than just preference and have objective more suffering to them
@@arniedamaniac6206 Yes, but though it may be objective that some actions cause more suffering than others, the decision to do something about that suffering is subjective. There are a bunch of ways to deal with the existence of suffering - none of them objectively better than each other. Utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, even egoism or hedonism.
@@Azariy0 yeah there’s no objective way to deal with suffering because even the perception of suffering is different to people. even if you had the perfect ethics theory to prevent the most suffering which is ultimately the goal. diferent people determine what is more sufferable. how can we dertemrnine what is the objectively more sufferable option. And even if we do why is one’s opinion of the most sufferable option less valid than the other. To me even if objective morality could exist it wouldn’t make sense how different perceptions of suffering could entail one being more valid and truthful of the suffering and one being less valid. they’re subjective opinions at the end of the day no matter how strong they are and we can’t treat them objectively. it’s like saying someone who thinks chocolate is bad has a less valid opinion than someone else just because they’re in the minority.
Moral objectivity does definitely exist and the fact that we aren't all impeccable moral people doesn't disprove it's existence. Cultural and individual beliefs about what is or isn't moral is just belief. Beliefs about what is moral or not are not actually the same as morality. Beliefs can be inaccurate, nonsensical, harmful, denialist, unscientific, and unknowable. There are many reasons why we don't all use objective morality to make decisions. We do immoral things (causes harm (excluding neutral harm) because we are told to do so by our communities, families, governments, and people in positions of power, we were told that harmful behaviors and beliefs are okay, good, or justifiable, we aren't taught what morality actually is, and also we are imperfect creatures who cause harm whether we always mean to or not. Neutral harm includes things like accidents where the act that caused the harm isn't immoral such as stepping on someone's toe by accident. The act itself isn't necessarily immoral (although if harm was intended it would be) but it also isn't moral and so it's neutral. Sometimes harm happens regardless of people's intentions. Also to apologize for causing harm is the moral thing to do. To refuse to acknowledge and apologize for causing harm prolongs the other person's suffering and is therefore immoral. Also apologies naturally vary in scale just as all harm is not all equal. This is why the Christian belief that all sin is equal is simply inaccurate. To consider and compare to immoral acts such as calling someone a slur with harmful intent vs murdering someone, the harm caused is simply not the same. In one situation the other person is harmed but is still alive and in the other, the person's life has been forcibly ended. Another aspect I haven't yet mentioned is the topic of true ignorance vs willful ignorance. True ignorance would fall under neutral harm because we are all naturally born ignorant and cannot always be aware of everything including the harm we cause. Willful ignorance, the choice to deny, ignore as well as neglect to learn new information is intentionally hurtful. To deny you hurt someone when asked to acknowledge the harm caused is wrong.
Also you can't say that one act like murder is "obviously objectively immoral" and then say another act like arranged marriage is "morally subjective" because it's controversial. Controversy is about belief. The assumption with the first part also is that everyone agrees murder is wrong but not all people do actually believe that. Also just because a belief is widely held doesn't alone make it moral. This is why you can't base morality on beliefs about the morality of specific acts but instead view every act in vacuum from an objective standpoint and analyse whether or not it causes harm and consider if intention was involved. This method allows you to clearly decide whether or not a specific act is moral and immoral. Morality is about the choices people make. Things beyond our control like accidents and bad luck are morally neutral whether they are actually good or bad, helpful or harmful.
My main issue with this video is that it neglects to bring up different possibilities, confuses beliefs about morality with actual morality, and at different points breaks its own logic. This is obviously a nuanced topic so I'd gladly expand on this more and am open to criticism. Sorry this is so fucking long.
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
The problem is if you are viewing from an objective perspective by definition it’s a perspective unrelated to subjective experience. It’s an observation not a characterisation from subjectivity. So if you are viewing from a perspective unrelated to subjective experience you can only say that it objectively causes what we perceive as harm. But you cannot say why harm is “bad” through objective lens without incorporating subjective experience. We believe it is so wrong because it is imbedded into our biology it’s impossible to see moral acts truly though objective lens anyway.
10:45 I disagree with this counterpoint. To refresh, it's saying that if two people see something and disagree about whether it's moral or not, and if they are both right, there is a contradiction. However, if those same people are eating food and one of them says that it's good and the other says that it's bad, they are both right and there's no contradiction. I think it's very much possible that morality is similar. Personally, I'm new to the philosophy of ethics, but, I agree with moral relativism in a sense. I don't believe that there's an objective moral system. Like, most people would agree that cold-blooded murder is wrong. But, why? Can anybody back this argument up using only logic or objective criteria? I think morality is dependent on subjective feelings and empathy. Of course, if God exists, then there would be an objective sense of morality. But, if God doesn't exist, then how could any aspect of morality be objective?
Thats why objective morality and God are tied together.
@@dahir4389God doesn’t help objective morality. why should u follow god? because you’ll go to hell? why shouldn’t u go to hell? these questions are impossible to answer objectively and rely on subjective perception
How can god help the argument
if gods existence could explain objective morality and it is possible. then even without god this theoretical objective morality would still exist but be undisccoverable for now
The counter argument assumes that a moral relativist does not have his own set of morals he abides by and judges other cultures actions on . So even though I can acknowledge some cultures in the past didn't think slavery was bad , my cultural beliefs now , as a moral relativist tells me "F that , and F them " lol
you would still think it’s bad without the culture
Individual moral relativism certainly makes more sense than cultural moral relativism imo
What about the genetic fallacy, the idea that the true or falseness of a belief depends on how someone came to believe it?
Sorry, but objective morality is simply impossible. Let's consider an example. A husband is abusing his wife, while their young child looks on. The abuse begins verbally but gradually becomes more and more physical. And although the child attempts to intervene, all their efforts prove ineffective. The abuse is such that at some point the child fears for their mother's life, and so the child takes their father's gun from its hiding place and shoots and kills the father.
Was this killing moral or immoral? If there's really such a thing as objective morality then there must be an objective point at which killing the father switches from being immoral to being moral. But what's that point, and how do we determine where it lies? The logical answer would seem to be that the threshold of morality lies at the point where the child is in fear for their mother's life. But that would make it subjective. It's completely dependent upon the opinion of the child. Someone else may have reached that threshold at a completely different point, if at all. Thus the threshold for morally killing the father lies within the subjective judgement of the observer. It's when they personally feel that it's morally justified.
Objective morality is easy to define as long as you're vague enough, but when it comes down to specifics it's not objective at all, it's like pornography, you'll know it when you see it.
the problem I see with your analogy is that the objectively right answer can be determined should one be able to see the future if the child knows the father is going to kill the mother then it is objectively right to safe the mothers life
if the child knows the father isn't going to kill the mother then it is objectively wrong for the child to kill the father
the issue arises that how does the child know what is the right answer ?
this wouldn't lead to the conclusion that there is no right answer
this would be like me "it is going to rain here next Sunday" the statement is either objectively true or false
but I can not know the answer until Sunday comes and even if I don't find out the answer that wouldn't make it subjective
the problem with subjective moral is that if the father decided to kill the mother for fun, this would not be truly moral or immoral it would have the same moral weight as say "I prefer chocolate over vanilla" morality would just be reduced to personal preference
@@landonstuyvesant3690 Yes certainly so I would believe that much like there is are physical laws of the universe that govern object in nature
there are also a moral law that govern moral agents and tells them what to do though I believe we possess freewill so we can chose to go against the moral law
this would require the rejection of materialism as something would be needed to transcend space,time,and matter yet be equally real
so my main argument for this moral law would be from sense data
we percieve certain actions as be moral or immoral
we would never say “I prefer not to rape people but who am I to tell people otherwise”
we would all perceive intuitively that rapping a 10 year old is not just a preference
but something truly immoral and it would be absurd to suggest otherwise,
much like how I perceive the external world through sense data although it could be the case that the external world doesn't exist and is just a product of my mind it wouldn't be the best explanation of reality to say the external world doesn't exist
in the same way it is not the best explanation of reality to say moral truths don't exist
of course one could say why are there moral differences across culture ?
But I think this is a weak objection because sometime our sense play tricks on us we can have dreams that feel so real that we think they are real until we wake up . Yet we don't seem to think that reality is an illusion because of this, And it would be absurd to suggest otherwise. So much like we believe that the physical world exist to avoid the absurd,we also believe that moral truths exist to avoid the absurd
and come up with the best explanation for reality that being that moral truth exist
@@darcevader4146, but alas, the child has no way of knowing if the father would have actually killed the mother. And oddly enough, according to Christian doctrine, not even God knows whether the father would have killed the mother. So it would seem, that lacking the counterfactual, the only standard by which we can judge the morality of the child's action is by their intent. Did the child intend to save the mother's life? And would it have been immoral for the child not to kill the father? If morality is objective, then it must have been one or the other, they couldn't both be morally justifiable actions.
This all raises an interesting moral dilemma, is it even morally justifiable to kill one person, simply to save another? History is full of morally justified killings, or at least the perpetrators would have us believe that they were.
@@ronaldbuntrock9446 I think your viewing objective morality as being a rule book
and therefore lead to the conclusion that it is going to be a difficult rule if not an impossible rule to write down
but if we view morality as being a set of principle,rights etc
it is easy to write down
1. a person has a right to life,liberty,etc so long as they don't violate the rights of others
then we can use situational ethic to apply them to certain circumstances like the one above, be unable to see the future would not change such a moral truth all it would mean is that it's just harder for someone to see the move that would lead to the right outcome
finally you should research Christianity more the christian view is that God the father can see the end from the beginning
@@darcevader4146 you seem to have reached the same conclusion that I have, that there's no such thing as objective morality...a definitive, black and white, always identifiable distinction between right and wrong. There's no such thing. Under general circumstances most people will probably agree with your definition, but when we get down to the specifics, as in the given example, that definition breaks down, and your black and white view of morality becomes extremely grey. There's simply no specific point at which killing the father becomes immoral, apart from the child's intent. It's the child's subjective judgment that determines the morality of the act.
P.S. I believe that it's you who misunderstands Christianity. While it's true that the Christian God can see the end from the beginning, and He can even know all the things that COULD'VE happened, but in the case of free agents, God can't possibly know what WOULD'VE happened. God can't possibly know what the father would've done if the child hadn't killed him. Thus not even God can know if the father would've actually killed the mother, because the father never got the chance to make that choice. God can't know the outcome of a choice that a free agent never made. If He could, then free will would be an illusion.
Brilliant but I have a question though
If its all subjective than how can we say something is wrong? And isn't eliminating pain relative as well?
Pleasure and pain can be relative to ppl like for masochist's or sadist
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
@@VIKASHKumar-xp7jj so is rape not absolutely wrong?
@@arianagrandaremix8858 hey i have beeen given assignment to write in support ,view on this in 400 words , if u can help
Very interesting question. I think the only way to defend against these objections for someone who likes to define the good and evil in terms of pain and pleasure, is to adopt some sort of utilitarian position, that allows for long-term thinking.
Playing the devil's advocate for a bit (I'm not an ultilitarian), I'd say the masochist is having some pleasure at the moment, which may be greater than his pain, but the consequences of that masochism will lead to further pain in the future, and that has to be taken into account. So certain things are pleasurable in the moment but bring about pain in the future, often a pain greater than that pleasure.
To that defence I'd ask is the person believes in life after death and if that doesn't exist, certain pleasures will not lead to future pain if the person dies soon after, since in that view they would cease to exist.
@@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714 thanks
Hey guys great video I liked the arguments proposed here! I would like to ask a question/ propose an argument to which anyone can reply, to what is said at 12:15 regarding Cold blooded murder as being wrong. Couldn't one who believes that life is suffering say that murder is infact justifiable and true elimination of pain? And in addition to that who is to say that the promotion of life and elimination of pain is the ultimate goal of humanity?
Very good analysis. I would say two things in response:
- very controversial to say life is defined as suffering. Heavy burden of proof
- cold blooded murder typically impacts more than the person being murdered (family/friends/those they provided care for etc.)
Those would be my arguments against cold blooded murder being justified.
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
I suggest reading Doestievsky as I think it's very relevant to the issue you raised.
It wouldn’t be cold blooded murder then, since the murderer would be killing for empathetic reasons.
The second question is very interesting, and you will find some answers on pain and suffering reading Nietzsche, who argued that society has been continuously making mankind suffer by sacrificing individuality.
i never understood moral relativism, since there can never be a fact of the matter when expressing a moral proposition on that position, which seems counterintuitive.
Makes a hell a lot more sense than moral objectivism
@@josephparsons7896 Which version of moral realism?
@@CosmoShidan anything that claims the existence of moral facts/truths
@@josephparsons7896 Could you be more specific? Are we talking moral absolutism? Or ethical naturalism? Or Divine Command Theory? Or Ethical Non-naturalism? Or Moral Intuitionism? Or Moral Pluralism? Or Moral Universalism?
@@josephparsons7896 is it a matter of fact that rape of a woman is morally wrong anywhere, on a micro and macro level, and in the past, Present and future?
Learned more from this than my 3h class on the topic
Glad we could help :)
I just had a deep critical thinking session about this and I could've just came here and get schooled and not waste my time.
I ended up writing this down.
God could just be the main FORCE FIELD, so if God exists, he is a neutral being meaning to him there's no good and there's no bad, he doesn't prefer any religion either. So I imagine that thieves also pray, people of all religions pray, atheist pray (I'm referring to the law of attraction) so all of these acts are ways of projecting our wants through waves to the main force field & that's what we refer to as God, this would kinda explain why Criminals pray too when they're about to do a crime, this would kinda explain why we still have a lot religions. We are feezing to the force field, it feezes back!
God (the Main Force Field) doesn't recognize Morality, but we do, we've created it and we keep on modifying it. And if you think my theory has errors, please present them, I'm open to criticism.
11:40 Would we still have mortality if we did not have the capacity to feel pain and suffer?
Perhaps. Since we still have "emotion"? For example, getting your belongings taken away make us agree that "Stealing" is immoral?
@@mikexhotmailIf you couldn’t suffer you wouldn’t be able to comprehend how it’s bad without the suffering sensation. even emotions can be distinguished as suffering and pleasure. just put yourself in the mind of a emotions less robot
@@arniedamaniac6206 Perhaps
No universal moral truth (true)but there is naturalism which means there’s a universal moral compass. Ex the 1 st commandment thou shall not kill. It’s man natural desire to not want to kill. The relativism makes him kill 💯 therefore we can judge the moral relativism of one because it’s adopted and not natural.
Then where did morality come from?
If we and our cultures can love as we define love, where did we get that from?
I would like to offer some tips.
If you aren't using a blue yeti microphone - acquire one. You can also throw a blanket over you (or record under a blanket) for cheap echo cancellation!
Thank you for the advice, definitely noted.
Trying to make morality into a truth claim is where most people go wrong. Morality is a group survival strategy. Truth claims do not involve morality. They are different spheres entirely. This misunderstanding gives rise to the of the idea of moral progress (which is itself founded on the false idea of evolution and linear time).
To claim there could be a universal moral truth would require that morality be a feature of the universe (it clearly is not and cannot be found outside of the human mind). Some will try and point to god (monotheists actually try to say this with a straight face while their god breaks his own moral rules and orders his people to do the same), but this is an untestable hypothesis. If it were the case, wouldn't every person know this set of rules? if you make this claim, you end sounding like someone claiming that gravity is part of every objective, but only some objects act in accordance with it. It is completely illogical as a position. If you say, "ah, but objects don't have choice, while people do" you are in no better of a position because the people who have a choice don't know what the "correct" one is. We can see the immediate consequences of ignoring the law of gravity. We see no such consequences when people exhibit moral choices, even at odds with one another.
The clown on the right just keeps arguing by assertion, and provides no examples or evidence to support his positions. "I'm pretty sure that...." No you aren't. You're assuming it because you have no idea what you are talking about. Murder, rape and torture are the norm in Africa for example. Objectivity is not determined by similarity, but by its differences. The differences are ALWAYS what define any category. We don't group humans and fruits together because both contain water. We separate them because of their differences.
One thing he does get right is that leftist moral relativists are hypocrites because they have no moral standing to condemn any other groups moral standards: slavery, racism, infidelity, violence precisely because morality is relative. They can say that it is immoral in their group, but to say it is wrong for everyone contradicts their own position. He then contradicts his own position again when he claims that people within a culture can't agree on moral standards. That just further shows that even in a shared culture, morality is not objective. He is also leaving out that until very recently, most cultures would NOT have largely divergent viewpoints on what is moral. That is a product of modernity and the cancer of forced diversity, and exactly why it is such a bad idea.
The two people having opposing moral views of a certain situation is not a contradiction and comparing it to rain is a false analogy. Whether it is raining or not is a testable and verifiable question. Whether X action is moral is not in any way testable or verifiable. That is the whole issue here. If morality is objective, where is this object? Where is this standard by which we can test our own moral perceptions against?
Moral objectivists, who are mostly christians, are really just moral cowards, looking to offload moral responsibility onto some authority figure. They are terrified of having to make a moral decision for themselves and having to take responsibility for that choice. This is where the cowardice of salvation is rooted. It is really about getting some authority figure (government, god, police) to tell you what is proper and grant you absolution for obeying that authority.
At the end of the video the relativist cucks and starts babbling about marxist BS about happiness and liberty. Plenty of things that make people happy are things he would condemn as immoral (molesting kids, rape, theft). This "debate" is badly written, badly narrated, and just pushing ideological nonsense under the guise of critical thinking.
Moral certainty often empowers groups to fail in most moral systems.
Do you have an example I can take a look at I’m curious I like this discussion
We disagree because of sin.
Some of the arguments of the Moral objectivism are not moral dilemas, but scientific facts...I think is there a little confusion.
Of course, we can make the hipotesis that some moral are intrinsic to human species and that moral is then comum to all the individuals, but if this is in our instinct then is not a conscientious choice. For example, a mother dog protecting is child... Is this in the realm of moral? The Dog is doing some type of action based in Moral? or is only instinct?
I can't see any situation that we have absolute moral, we can find any little twist that put some "imoral" act in a "moral" act...
What is your moral standards for then???
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
You can't say there is no truth because you haven't found it yet.
It’s not about finding it it’s about determining if whether it is logically possible for it to exist. would u ahree
“But what gives God the right to judge me?”
Objective and Subjective moral standards and God?
Let me propose a more refined definition of Objective and Subjective standards. Something is Subjective if its existence is dependent on consciousness because without consciousness nothing can be Subjective. Something is Objective if its existence is independent of consciousness and only in so far as it could continue even if all consciousness in the universe were eliminated. AKA 1 plus 1 would still equal two regardless if there is anybody around to know it. Now if we think of God as consciousness, as most definitions of God do. Then the morality that comes from that consciousness, according to the definition that I have just set out, would also be just as Subjective as any morality that any man could construct.
If this is correct, the question we must now ask is. Does God not have the right to impose his moral standards on his own creation? And if so, does that not make those standards Objective rather than Subjective in that creation? If those Subjective morals are built into this creation, then would not that in itself, make those Subjective morals Objective in and to all that are part of this universe?
To explain farther, let’s use a video game as a parallel.
A programmer can build into his game world any morality he chooses. The NPCs (non player character) in the game (AKA you and me) are locked into its built-in moral system as well as the consequences for breaking that system. Because the NPC’s are part of the game world itself they also are subject to the rules of that game world including any morals built into it.
As a programmer do you not have the right to make the rules (morals) for your own game? Are you then not allowed to impose your rules (morals) on the NPC’s in your game? If you give the NPC’s randomized adaptable IA (free will) and they refuse to accept and live by your rules while in your game do you not have the right and responsibility then to force them to do so (change their code) or remove them from your game (delete them) especially if they are doing things that could crash the game? The fact that this is God's universe (game), one that he made and owns justifies his absolute, universal morality here. It must be pointed out that we are his creation, we live in and are part of his universe (game) itself, therefore we are then subject to his rules (morals) while in his universe (game). If one does not like God’s rules (morals) and refuse to live by them, they should not be surprised by their difficulties when they find themselves bumping into those built in morals and realities that they refuse to accept.
That said, God did give us free will to do as we please while in his universe. Sure God gave us instruction on how this universe works best. What set of rules (morals) to follow that would reduce pain and suffering to a minimum. But one can chose to ignore those instructions and do things his/her own way if that is what one insist. And we all get to suffer the consequences of each other's chosen actions wile in this universe.
This, of course all rests on whether or not God exists. But that is a question for another time.
P.S. Some try to postulate that because the morals of God are subjective rather than objective that he then does not exist, or that because mankind can make a set of his own Subjective morals that God and his morals then do not exist. These arguments of course would both be a very big and obvious non sequitur. Having the ability to construct your own morals simply has nothing to do with whether or not God and his morals exist.
I like what you are saying- I would actually hypothesize that God Himself has to abide by natural law as well. What you proposed basically agrees with moral relativism at a universal level and the objectivity comes from God deciding what’s the rules of the game are. I would suggest that there are natural laws that transcend our universe. God knows these laws and He teaches us what they are because He knows they will make us happy and better. That is my theory at least. God didn’t male His own special rules for us. I don’t think God would or even could create a universe in which murder is justified and morally upstanding. Idk I feel like I’m an idiot trying to explain this lol but your comment was so interesting I wanted to chip in
@@cadewoolf4380
I agree that there are certain laws that even God has to follow... They are mostly logical inconsistency... Like God can't make a married bachelor or a square circle or a rocks so big he can't lift it... As for the physical laws here in this universe they are not of the same type... Like a cheat code in a game the programmer (God) is not bound by the rules he made, he can change them anytime he wants. We the NPC's cannot.
Sorry for the bad grammar, doing this on my phone...
hey can you give insight on :_ Moral Relativism : There is no moral absolute
I'd argue that the "objective moral truths" mentioned in the video are still not objective, but relative to the group of "all human beings of sound mind in the Universe". Our morals are always relativistic, even the ones that seem "universal" are limited by race, specie or state of being. If you wanted to make a truly universal morality you'd have to also include on it all possible conscious creatures, even non-humans, and even from outside our planet. Possibly, even non-conscious actions/beings could be susceptible to have morality. And we are in no possition to understand what is "good" for non-living beings. We can only know whats "good" for us, and those similar to us. So we can only discuss in relative terms.
I'm just jotting thoughts down, don't read unless interested.
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Objectivism only exists if we believe and adhere to its concordance but life is not as clear cut and simple as a rulebook. Naturally, humanity will gravitate towards placing subjectivity (discretion) on before deciding which objective choice one should make - an interpretation of the law. Think of it as a judge judging a hard case and weighing what is the morally right option.
Is it better to lie to save your family from a killer?
Or tell the truth and let your family be killed?
There's no such scenario in which a human (with exception I suppose) would tell the truth here but when weighing whether to be immaculately morally right or wrong, humanity will almost always choose a greater good, path of least resistance, or ends justifies the means behavior.
We have a moral obligation (a greater good) to lie (ends justifies the means) to achieve safety for loved ones (path of least resistance).
This two perspectif is great.
I think this confused the metaphysical with the physical. One cannot argue that it is raining if it is not raining.
You obviously do not mean "cannot", because performing contradictory arguments is clearly something many people are capable of. Did you mean "should not?"
Thank you so much for helping me write my essay
Pleasure, glad we could help.
i'm y'all's biggest fan thank u
No, I’m the biggest fan
@@kevinromero352 no I am
@@Kayla-pg9tr no, I am!
Are whole society is based on relative morality and that’s why everyone is being divided and conquered
I would have to slightly disagree with the last point. Wild animals have the evolutionary desire for less pain and more life, however how the way they go about achieving it is not "moral" or "immoral" for, wild animals simply do what is in their nature. This is because wild animals lack the intellectual capacity to make "enlightened" choices. Intellect correlates with morality. And as long as intellect is a factor morality with also be of importance
With that said I believe that morality can be both objective and subjective however only in the relative sense as intellect is relative and the only thing which is absolute is supreme source conscious.
Morality like the ego is not absolute, rather it is all an illusion from the absolute perspective of supreme source conscious. All things which are not source conscious are physical and subject to physical law, making cause and effect substantial and morality a real principle when considering the intelligent mortal/physical being
Despite your points about there being moral truths e.g. murder, rape etc, those are still just your opinion on the general attitude modern people have towards said things.
Additionally you countered this exact point multiple times throughout the video when you mentioned cultural and historical moral frame works.
You could have pointed to darwinism and how our natural instincts are the foundation of what direction our morals develop in, you could even point to maslow's pyramid of needs and some developmental psychology to flush it out.
However and this is a big one, everything is causality all thoughts actions, feelings ect are predetermined and a result of prior happenstance.
Determinism is an entirely separate topic and does not affect the existence or lack of objective moral truth.
@@AndyAlegrianot necessarily. if the universe is deterministic morality objective or not is simply meaningless
@@arniedamaniac6206 If morality exists, objective or subjective, morality would be part of the deterministic formula, so it is not meaningless.
@@AndyAlegria If we don’t judge clinically insane people for their actions the same way we do normal people then if no one has control of their actions or consequences then surely that would mean that we have no control of commotion moral/immoral actions. it’s beyond our control (assuming free will is false and that’s an assertion only if determinism is true)
@@arniedamaniac6206 I could be wrong but a believe morality is a judgement of intent and/or outcome. Whether or not you have control over your actions (determinism) doesn't change the judgement of whether your intent or the outcome are negative. If I had no choice to but to kill my neighbor for no good reason, especially if my intent was to NOT kill my neighbor, then it might be determined that my intent was moral but the outcome of my action was still immoral. If I announce that I WANT to kill my neighbor but determinism prevents me from doing it, my intent is still judged immoral. It is incredibly difficult to prove intent unless I've documented it somewhere in writing, video, etc. but the outcome is easy to prove. And even if someone controlled my mind and made me kill my neighbor, the outcome is still considered immoral, despite my lack of intent to do it. If a tree randomly collapses on a person and they had no way to avoid it, that's essentially determinism, but their death is still considered a wrong. Right?
I feel that the linguistics or paradigms of these narrow boxes - that the brain so much wants as to kill dissonance, and to create order - are in this case very limiting and make it dualistic thing.
Also, increase of life, of happiness etc are moral objective truths, then one can ask for whom? for oneself, or for a family or for a village, a nation etc? Since we all know many (especially nowadays) are focussed more on their own individual happiness and health etc even when its at the cost of someone else's happiness and life. In certain cultures it is the opposite, where you can not be (morally) happy if your neighbour is suffering. It feels like morals are objective in many ways but humans tend to want to bend them whenever it suits them, especially when there is room to do so.
Many more thoughts pop in my mind, but I let it marinate first...maybe ill be back another time.;)
But nonetheless still interesting and very well made video.
Probably something we can see in
moral relativism like faith but others we cant
good format for a video but morality is objective, if you disagree please kindly explain how child abuse could ever be considered moral. don't worry I'll wait
Morality is a science, and it is 100% objective. If it were subjective, what could be right today could be wrong tomorrow. Whoever thinks that is possible is attempting to play God.
But but but! Many Buddhists believe that the attainment of pleasure is immoral and that suffering is NOT immoral. So is the idea of eliminating pain and suffering also relative? Based on thousands of years of humans realizing that the general promotion of life and elimination of pain and suffering is what keeps our species alive and flourishing?
Buddhists DO believe that unnecessary suffering is immoral. That is why they are vegan, yes? While they might believe that actively seeking pleasure for pleasure's sake is immoral, I don't think they believe that incidental happiness is problematic. I took a bath, and enjoyed the feel of hot water, so that's bad? I don't think Buddhism works like that. Like most good philosophies I've learned about, "bad" is in the extremes.
So your moral is based on your preference
Microphone sounds a bit echoy
Sorry, new room :(
Could you do a video on conscience
Hello, we have a playlist on Philosophy of Mind which addresses this. If there is something we have not covered then please let us know.
@@PhilosophyVibe oh great thanks
We live in a dualistic reality so there cannot exist 1 absolute truth about anything. All truths are but half truths. The last argument presented is not about what is right or wrong but rather what is conducive to survival which is not relevant to the subject matter.
2:44 in ancient times, genocide, slavery, and infanticide were completely acceptable by those benefiting from it.
victims of genocide/infanticide would completely reject their fate, if they could.
The reason objective morality hasn't been discovered is because not everyone knows everything
We can gain more knowledge about ethics but people can be wrong about what they think they know and people can be unaware of things they don't know.
it’s not that it hasn’t been discovered. it’s because it’s fundamentally impossible to exist. It’s like saying the objective best colour hasn’t been “discovered”. we can only find the objective most liked colour not the objective best. thoughts?
@@arniedamaniac6206 Well because color is just wavelengths the reality might be they are all equal
you would have to be infinitely intelligent to conclude which of us is objectively right of course
Since "best" isn't well defined, that is a bit difficult. Nonetheless a being of perfect intelligence would be able to tell what quantifies "bestness", whether or not best even is applicable to the situation, and what would objectively fit the answer with all information at hand.
Im saying what "ought" what "should" be done, what "better" to do and we all act upon those things, even if you are a nihilist!
The thing is our information can be faulty, we can get things wrong and that is why we must be vigilant with our evidence and take caution with our actions, dare I say we ought to 🤯
@@LBoomsky good point never seen a view like that. does this apply to other subjective things like food, art etc.? If you do think so then it makes sense how morality would fall under this. However, the only way a perfect intelligent being would be able to distinguish themselves is through the lens of subjectivity. If someone preferred pink and blue was the “objective best” how could u objectively say they are wrong. you can’t because objectivity by definition is unrelated to subjective experience. Okay i’ll grant you the fact that there may be certain objective moral values. Even if this is true how would u objectively explain to someone why murder is wrong. How is it possible to do this without subjectivity. I agree we can say “murder objectively causes harm” and if we define harm as immoral then it’s true by definition. But pain and suffering is not bad in the objective sense because in order to look objectivity we must abandon the subjective perception therefore leaving the terms meaningless. thoughts?
@@arniedamaniac6206
> If someone preferred pink and blue was the “objective best” how could u objectively say they are wrong.
I couldn't, but I could assess that a position would only be absolutely, conclusively answered once they know everything possibly relevant.
Perhaps they might learn pink is not any better than blue, or something else. My argument is that since we each have a position now based on what we know, if we all grew to gain ALL of the relevant knowledge our positions would reunite in agreement.
Since this theoretical position is based on ALL the information at hand, and theoretically does not have any false information, it would be objectively the right position.
If someone with infinite knowledge somehow never achieves an ought then no ought exists.
However since basically everyone has a moral system (even a "subjective" one) I think it is in the nature of things that what ought is real.
I think those who believe morality being subjective are just like everyone else, we each lack the full picture, but we strive to do the right thing nonetheless.
I think to say otherwise would be an amoral stance rather than a subjective morality stance...
I hope im not misrepresenting ur argument, my brain is not in thinking mode rn lol
There’s no objective evidence for equality so there’s no reason to insist one culture isn’t better than another. Doesn’t mean morality is objective. Why is tolerance good?
Great video! Just wanted to point out that the latter defenses for universal morality were quite shakey...
@8:11 the defense of universal morals via similarities between cultures because a relativist can rely on differences is a false equivalence. UNIVERSAL morals would be UNIVERSAL! They would transcend humanity & be prolific among all life forms.
To deny that absolute morals do not apply to "lesser beings" is a denial of UNIVERSAL morality itself. In such case, the position should be rebranded to "Absolute Human Morals." Which then becomes a laugh in and of itself, as war crimes are committed daily by soldiers in foreign lands.
Rape, murder, theft, etc.. these "morals" are only recognized between CONCENTING "tribe" members. A tribe can take the form of a family, a neighborhood, all the way to a national level. Look at Hindu & Islam in India & Pakistan. Look how Indians treat/view indians & how Pakistani treat/view Indians. When you look at global, cross cultural interactions. really the debate between ethics and morals is quite ignorant.. at the end of the day morals are nothing more than ancient ethics.. rooted in a society's cultural heritage.
This gets back to the defense of universal moralities simply not being discovered yet.
Okay, if we are to take this argument seriously, if we have not discovered universal morals, then what are the things we now refer to as morals?
@9:12 this is an abhorrent argument often used by religious zealots to defend their faith as necessary. Obviously this has no place in intelligent banter.. because obviously we witnessed as conflicting EMERGENT ETHICS drove society's moral perception of slavery to an immoral perception.
This phenomenon occurred within recorded history.. much of the Civil Rights movement is on film.. the cultural evolution of our species brought forward a new ethical paradigm within which slavery was denounced as immoral.
So just because I recognize that certain Asian countries don't see the unethical use of child labor in sweat shops, does not make me any less disgusted by it.
Why?
BECAUSE THAT'S RELATIVISM!
As a relative individual I have the ability to define for myself what I view as moral and what I view as immoral, just as everyone else is free to do so as well.
Some believe life starts at conception, others say it begins at birth. Neither are wrong because neither is right. Because there is no such thing as right or wrong. There is only what humans AGREE there is. And humans, if nothing else, are incredibly fickle.
@11:14 that was not a good point.. 😂 you can't compare a metaphysical construct like morality to a physical constructs such as rain.
"Here pick up your universal morality and place it in my hand allow me to put it on a scale allow us to weigh morality."
No, this is simply absurd. The reason both can be right is because neither is wrong. Just because it is raining above your house does not mean that it is raining in the Sahara desert. you cannot expect that someone in the Sahara is going to agree that it is raining simply because it's raining for you in New York. They would say "no it is raining for you, not me." The same goes for morality. "This is immoral to you but not to me."
Nice points. Just a remark on what you mention at the end. One needs to be careful not to make the response sound as if the the disagreement is lost. If you claim that it is raining (in New York) and the other person claims that its not raining (in the Sahara), then you're not really disagreeing with each other. The whole point of relativism is to explain why moral disagreements can be substantive and the parties disagreeing can both be right.
@@Orlandismos The point is not the atmosphere of the physical spaces the individuals occupy, but their subjective perception of the world based from their viewpoint. The point wasn't that it's actually raining for the New Yorker, but that the New Yorker is demanding the Saharan acknowledge that New York's weather is actually universal, and not just a localized/relative event.
A similar example; Someone with just a dirty sense of humor may get offended by jokes about infanticide while someone with a dark sense of humor will be laughing so hard they cry. In a world of universal humor people wouldn't find jokes about infanticide offensive while other's laugh. Either everyone would say "that's not funny" or everyone would laugh.
Similarly, if 'morality' was a universal constant, there would not be 'immoral' behavior. That would be like us living in our matter based universe where anti-matter is constantly popping into existence & exploding on contact with random people, animals, etc. We know that's not the case.
Sure anti-matter can be forced to exist in our world, but it near impossible to maintain. Where as our world is not only full of people who behave "immorally" according to other's standards but who THRIVE by behaving immorally.
@@TheMartianReport Not sure I'm following you. Are you assuming that raining (simpliciter) is an event? The fact that an event is a localised event does not imply that it is relative. There is no such event as "raining", there is an event "raining in New York", "raining in the Sahara", and so on... those are not the same events, but all of them are "absolute". The context in which the utterance of 'it is raining' [in L] is performed fills the missing information in the "in L" argument. From either subjective viewpoint in your example it is raining in New York and it is not raining in the Sahara. They don't disagree about the events.
I agree with you that humour is somewhat subjective; but consider the following reply by an objectivist about humour: "sure, people can manifest different responses to jokes, but some responses are wrong; there is a fact of the matter about whether a joke is funny or not." Hence, it doesn't follow that "In a world of universal humor people wouldn't find jokes about infanticide offensive while other's laugh. Either everyone would say "that's not funny" or everyone would laugh. Your conclusion about morality would not follow either. Moral objectivism does not preclude moral disagreement. It precludes that both parties can be right.
Besides, you're assuming that facts about humour and moral facts are alike, which is a controversial assumption.
@@Orlandismos when discussing spatial orientation, being relative, is synonymous with being local.
that said it's no wonder you're not following because you're still attempting to frame the rain as an event instead of as an experience.
Morality is an individual's experienced sense of what is right. To imply what you believe to be morally correct is synonymous, in being identically contradictive, to a New Yorker INSISTING THAT BECAUSE IT IS RAINING IN NEW YORK IT MUST BE RAINING IN THE SAHARA.
It doesn't matter if it is sunny in the Sahara, or if the person in the Sahara knows that the person in New York is absolutely batshit crazy. It's not stopping the New Yorker from believing the weather they experience is the same weather the guy in the Sahara is experiencing or the guy on Mars. Because to the New Yorker their weather is a universal phenomena, not just a local/relative phenomena of New York.
And that's the whole point. It's absolutely asinine to assert that your perceived concept of morality is everyone else's perceived concept of morality, especially when our collectively experienced reality falsifies such magical thinking.
@@Orlandismos you don't seem to understand the word universal or absolute. if something is universal or absolute there is no example within the universe that can conflict/oppose that universal observation.
Real world example; light is not universal. Rather light is a relative phenomenon, which we observed in relation to it's absence; "darkness."
Thus to, because we have a concept of immorality, the very best argument which can be made for it's opposite, morality, is as a relative phenomenon. No more universal than the light which shines from our sun.
Before you try, while the electromagnetic field is a "universally observed phenomena" it is neither static nor absolute/universally uniform, which are qualities applied to morality by moral absolutism.
It's true that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - but that goes for the tooth fairy as well. On the other hand: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". Furthermore, yes, there are many similarities between cultures - but often these rules *apply only to their own tribe.* They do not apply to members *outside* their tribe. E.g. killing a tribe member is forbidden, but killing a member of another tribe is ok - or even encouraged! See the Bible for some nice examples.
And yes, "presentism" is a logical fallacy. And tell me: what is the moral foundation for forcing a Jew to refrain from eating kosher meat because it is considered bad to the environment and animal cruelty? Such act can only be performed if one claims moral superiority - which is pretty arrogant to begin with.
Then we jump to a "false dichotomy" fallacy. Moral judgments are neither right nor wrong - in as much as it can rain just a bit, not just being dry and raining cats and dogs. There is a clear gradient - otherwise everybody would either be found innocent or get life when tried.
We have a solution for this dilemma, though. It's called "contractual ethics" aka "the law".
I don't think a moral absolutist needs to explain why there is disagreement, any more than a math professor has to explain why he might have a test question that gets 12 different answers back. However the explanation is simple, people who do not like the moral law and intend on violating it want a different theory to dominate. It does not mean they don't believe it. How do you explain how we know that there are many people who totally continue to believe what their church says and don't go because they don't wan to be told to stop being irresponsible?
The combo theory at the end assumes morality can only consist in what Kant calls hypothetical imperatives. I think Kant is right that when we look at it from Reason, morality is supposed to command rather than advise.
somebody that thinks moral is absolute better shows that. i havent seen such a demonstration yet.
@@timber2lease Someone who thinks moral relativism is better should show it. I haven't seen such a demonstration yet. Mill says such matters are not amenable to strict demonstration, but I think that from what we mean by morality, it must command rather than advise. I woulld also suggest that our world, at least in the Western Civilization part, is worse off having moral relativism and nihilism becoming popular.
@@TheCRancourt you twisted my words, i dont think moral absolutism is better. there is no better or worse, only one is true. the demonstration you want or the opposite is not necessary nor possible, as one of both does not exist. a minority of humanity thinks moral absolutism exists, that is mostly christians. so if one makes the claim that absolute morality exists, even if you can clearly see that it is not necessary and just not reality, than you should explain yourself. it is the same in science. if you make the hypothesis, provide data/formula/instruction to falsify to prove your point
@@timber2lease It feels like it’s cope for you or it’s a lacking of simple empathy.
Just because you can’t comprehend something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist either
@@eggheadusa asking for evidence is not coping by any means. also i can comprehend that moral is relative by experience, accepting the opposite, too, would be a contradiction
You forgot to talk about subjective moral, which is not relative or objective, it’s just based on your egotistical point of view, the bigger ego, the more right you have against other people.
Wath about the masocist?
Wath if 2 peaple eats a brocory and dhe 1 saes it is delisios and dhe oder seas it is discusting?
So no answers?
There should be such things as universal moral code, when comes to stealing killing and bribery....
There is, the Categorical Imperative proves this.
@@KittyBoyPurr Hardly - there are examples where the categorical imperative fails (aka being counter intuitive). There is *NO* moral school of thought that is infallible.
The bible allowed slavery because the people at the time did not consider it to be immoral.
How do you reconcile that with considering the bible to be a guide for morality?
Will the answers we’re looking for come after death in the...after life? 🤔
Only a subject can find something good or bad
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But can we even put any moral claim into practice let's look at something simple suffering. We are obligated tjo decrease rather than increase suffering. I will assume that this is true and that were not talking about spending every waking moment doing that but just when we make a choice of one thing over another that we chose the one that reduces or at least does not increase suffering. You see a child suffering from hunger. You are morally responsible to stop that suffering. Do you feed the child? What if the child has a food allergy that might kill it. Perhaps it is just the appearance of hunger but something else like immediate need of medial attention. Are you also morally obligated to find out how the child came to be hungry and to provide a long term solution to the hunger? What if hunger is just one of a host of things that will cause the child to suffer learning disabilities, poverty, racism. Is simply telling the next person you see that you just saw a child that tooks very hungry. We are morally obligated to tell the truth. Your neighbors are in a nasty divorce with a custody battle and you must testify now you know that it is nte children's best interest that the father gets custody. The mother cares not at all about the children. The whole neighborhood knows it but you did see the father strike his son one time in flustration . So do you tell the truth knowing the harm it will cause or lie, that. Causing less harm than telling the truth? Either way you are not following the moral thing to do. In other words when we try to put moral principals into action and two actions collided what does do. Are we obligated to give up summer vacations to feed the poor? If we don't know if what we try To do to help someone will make things better or worse are we still obligated to try?
'Cold blooded murder' is subjective. It is committed constantly but not termed as such by the perpetrator.
No, perpetrator can commit cold blooded murder while thinking he's doing wrong. We don't always act as we think we should.
Well it’s subjectively correct to the murderer. There was one guy who got asked in my personal life, “Is murder wrong?” And he justified it by saying it depends on the circumstance. (Situational ethics). So to him it’s right or wrong in his own eyes . he thinks to the outside world that he’s right and not wrong for that evil behavior. Btw if someone disagreed with him he thought they were arrogant and prideful . I think the guy should look in a mirror 🪞
@@thecarlitosshow7687 Killing being wrong can depend on circumstances, but those circumstances can be part of objective rule. Objective morality doesn't say "don't kill", it says "don't kill, unless...". If circumstance can give justification to killing one time, it will give justification to killing every time (when same circumstance appears). Therefore, exceptions and situations can be part of objective morality.
@@goranmilic442 is murder objectively wrong? There’s a difference between killing and murdering. Because murder implies motive and intention with anger. For example, Hitler ; Escobar , Bundy didn’t kill they murdered and what not ? We’re they wrong ?
The way I could see your example is if someone trespassed into your house and you would have the legal right to shoot him to defend your self . However that’s not murder that’s killing cus their was no motive and intentionional anger and what not and self defense is justified.
@@thecarlitosshow7687 We define murder as unjustified killing, killing that is wrong. If there is no objective morality, then there is no such thing as murder.