i am so glad doc kaplan put his coursework up for all of us. its great brain exercise and makes me miss my old college philosophy classes. back then we would laugh that is was just mental masterbation, but as i am older more and err, moore i see how irl it is indeed quite practical.
Thank you again for all your videos - they are awesome: full of passion for thinking, entertaining, educational, convincing, precise and simply a lot of joy!
All well explained! ...but, it's also good to have the solution presented. Alasdair MacIntyre explains how we got into the confusing cul-de-sac of Moral-Sentimentalism, in his book _After Virtue._ I'm hoping you'll do a video or two walking through that book's thesis: It sees the issue much more broadly than either Ayer or Moore.
Wow! This video was a fantastic help for the undergrad essay im writing. I was stunned when I saw the view count, I was expecting hundreds of thousands, not hundreds. You will massive someday soon
@@Platonism474 from what the lecture said, Ayer doesn't know factually that murder is bad. Only that him and the opposing party have similar moral sentiments. Obviously that moral sentiment could be repugnant (i.e. both agree that murder is right), but that is past the point. Ayer is discussing a meta-ethical framework, and not actual ethical propositions. So, you may be utilitarian or Kantian or virtue ethicist, and each of them might answer the question differently (utilitarians may claim that murder is right), but what Ayer is focusing on is how we should even begin to discuss the debate between utiltiarianism or Kantianism 'in the first place'. I think this was the importance of the distinction that Kaplan made in the beginning.
This is by far my favorite video from the series until now. I've struggled with the relativism of truth for aesthetics and morality, because while both seemed entirely subjective, we still argue about it with facts and so there was some sort of conundrum my instincts didn't like. You either commit and say something is 100% arguable for a moral statement or aesthetics, or else you don't and it's meaningless to argue. And yet we do both and acknowledge both. This is why I was never in favor of moral relativism, whatever it means (time to watch more videos), because it implies absolute subjectivism and that it is futile to argue (which would ironically render useless the Oscar's and prizes, reviews for the arts) which is not what happens in fact.
Ethics and morality can still be emotivist and be the subject of rational dialogue; such a dialogue would merely presume that on some level the interlocutors share some basic emotivist values (emotional reactions), and have optimism that the criteria for evoking those reactions can on some level be quantified in a way that both parties agree with. Society can still function with a legal/societal framework based on a kind of hedonic ethical emotivism, based on the assumption that humans by nature hold sufficent overlapping boo/yay preferences
@Umbrellagasm speaking of overlapping boo/yay preferences, I have a theory that this is part of the pathological element of psychopathy. They lack certain preferences and have some others which widely don't overlap, hence the diagnosis. One could see the atrophy of empathy as the largest example. Perhaps this may be marginally true of all neuropsychiatric disorders...
@@eslaweedguygreyfantastic answers both of you, much thanks for elaborating on something I have missed. One issue I can derive from your last argument is that what happens if there is a missing shared emotivists value? Then if you argue solely from moral intuition (feelings) then it logically means that it becomes impossible to argue with the person because that person is missing the reason to care about that emotivist value. This is my same reflexion for moral skepticism. Whether this constitutes a real argument or not I'm not sure, because I realize it looks like I'm using a preference of consequence as an argument instead of the other way around. Hence, I don't like moral skepticism precisely because the sole reason of argumentation is moral intuition which I find too subjective and unreliable. Again, the irony of my argument is not lost on me. Emotivists may have a point.
According to subjectavism, "Violence is wrong" is shorthand for "I dislike violence." Could it be the view, that "Violence is wrong." means "I think violence is wrong but it indicates nothing about my predilection for liking or disliking violence." In other words, "Violence is wrong, but I recognize that I am not perfect and, to some degree, I don't mind a certain kind of violence whether it be enjoying boxing or MMA or watching an action movie." Meaning that thinking something is wrong is not an indication of whether they enjoy or participate in that thing because that person recognizes their foibles as a human being and contradiction is a natural part of the human experience.
You only stated that what we say has only meaning in the intention or intended result of doing so. Projection. But in a culture that treats truth and honesty with high esteem your statement is bound with your honor, family honor too, so if it's it's called as untruthful to your real practical stance it discards you from society. Subjectivism treats truth as a prostitute. Everybody knows indecency is bad and whoring is bad. Except those relativists who promote indecency as a viable option. Lack of standards never becomes a standard. It's a stance of claiming no standards existing. It's the highest level of disorganisation. It's beyond selforganising chaos. It's pushing for complete chaos and atomisation without any truths and any common meanings at all It's like a babel tower with every person having a different language. But because of math and regular distribution people tend to choose similarly and the most common choice becomes a standard. So relativism and subjectivism in practice is always a minority view and only in a particular view as ppl can agree in some cases and disagree in other cases. This also means they start cross organising their views too bundling them together. Synchronising views, believes, truths. Sadly because they are emotional objective understandings usually aren't the ones shaping standard. And so there is a fake impression that they are subjective but they are just illogical. Saying violence is wrong can be the emotional standard of a group which never thought about the truthfulness of the statement. So it's not really I dislike violence, it's rather I agree with emotional standard of my group and repeat like them that I dislike violence saying Violence is wrong. It doesn't say if the person believes it personally or not. True. But it predicts that the person being in the group will obey the standard as they obey standardised opinion repeating it. And outside the group he may act differently but conditioning will cause him to tend to obey the standard anywa. Except if the real group view is we obey they standard only in public group space but we don't really believe it as it's irrelevant or against our interest in privat. If there are exceptions to the rule, it means it's either not clear enough or doesn't really apply absolutely. other thought Some words are a part of language but weren't created by the rules of language as language got codified much later and can contain foreign words that doesn't comply with language system it's grammar ę.c. You can live with these exceptions just accepting or ignoring holes in system laws. You can replace exceptions to as not part of coherent system. You can try to adapt system to the exceptions changing it complicating it more making less coherent. In one case you will need to replace next new exceptions to keep system. In other you will need to constantly change system. In between you probably don't have any real standard. And then exceptions growing in nr will make a different system more viable maybe soon replacing old system. But there will be never a situation of lack of any system and things just happening on their own. It's only a moment after collapse of the old standard and usually because something replacing it appeared. Except if you will work actively against inertia what's coming with a cost. Or when two opposite standards collide creating chaos in between. Like in the world we live in now. Something will eventually win. And it won't agree to be subjective "truth" for every one person. Even if it's hypocritical it is still a standard. And exceptions are not welcome in it. Standard getting generalised on other fields in analogy is a different phenomenon. It's about standards lifecycle. It tries to be universal and all encompassing allorganising. What clashes with fields living by different rules. It causes miscategorising and seeing parts of other standards as exceptions of the main standard. Eventually standard becomes unusable as it becomes irrational opposite to what it supposed to be. Disorganising instead of organising and a better working approximation takes over the best systems know own limits of application Subjectivism has no application as it exists only in isolated unit. If somebody is totally disconnected it may work as it's truth contains the whole space and there is nothing to organise there.but it's a very unnatural case
I think the better way of stating the position is that if I were to say "violence is wrong", it'd actually mean "I believe that violence is a wrong thing for me and other people to engage in". As in, it is still a statement about ME and my opinions, rather than about violence in general.
@@gaseredtune5284 On the fence about it right now. The view described here is about moral _talk,_ not morality, so while I believe morality is subjective, I don't know if everyone talking about morality _means_ it that way. Of course, everything a person CAN express is always going to be subjective. So in theory, even a statement like "fire is hot" can be translated into "I believe that the fire is hot". I've likely been convinced in that belief by countless experiences, maybe I've even measured this particular fire. Maybe I have a thermometer in it right now. But I'm believing my eyes when they show what the thermometer is measuring, and I'm believing the device that's showing the measurement... Perception is inherently subjective. At the same time, I did make a statement about _fire_ and not myself. So by analogy, I think whoever says "violence is wrong" does make a statement about violence, even though its based in their own subjective beliefs and observations. As for right now, I've simply clarified how I understood the subjective view.
@@darth_dan8886 The problem with subjectivism, is any statement about truth (like "all experience is subjective") is an objective claim. Yes we are limited to our subjective experience, but we must assume the material world and other subjective experiences exist. Basically we can only live truthfully if we live with faith, for we cannot live without it. You have to believe that your own mother was not a solipsistic dream, because true subjectivism must believe in solipsism, and ultimately nihilism. Truth claims I make are not about me, we are all interacting with the world, though imperfectly. When I say abortion is abominable evil that denies the value of any life or choice, that is not a subjective claim, it's an objective one made by a person who operates through an subjective experience. If you disagree with me about abortion, you are wrong (im not saying you do, this is rhetorical, but most extreme subjectivists and extreme materialists do disagree that babies deserve life over my feelings) . You are free to make an argument, as to why one should be able to butcher their own child, but it's going to only show that you have no consistent moral. We all behave as if life matters, but many are so caught in extreme materialist (only "it" exists) or extreme subjectivists (only I exist) that they life double minded on this fact, they grow to believe in absurdities like moral relativism, anti-natalism, and nihilism which are pure evil, and must be fought. I will fight these ideas to my last breath, I will make sure my moral talk is seen as an actual disagreement. Light has no fellowship with darkness. Bless your day! I hope you understand my point here.
Your grind has been very worthwhile, teacher, please continue to spread your knowledge and educating the masses, knowledge is power and power is freedom, cheers!
If Jeffrey Kaplan is reading this, have you had the chance to take any class at Berkeley with the late professor James Gregor. I took his class and I remember he was a fan of AJ Ayer and assigned him for us to read.
35:54-36:04 ‘actually, pause the video, right now. And make up an argument either for the claim that marijuana should be legal or that it shouldn’t be… You di- you didn’t pause the video. You’re not actually gonna think of something, … you just wanna keep on watching… ’ 😅😂
I have to say I think I find ethical emotivism the most convincing and comprehensive description of morality I have encountered. If anyone can point me to any well-reasoned critiques of the philosophy I'd be happy to read them.
I’ve read a lot of philosophy but not moral philosophy - which is why I’m now binging these videos. And professor Jeff is a great presenter. But contra Jeff, I think a version of subjectivism is correct. Under this version “violence is wrong” isn’t an idiom for “I dislike violence” as subjectivism was presented in the lecture: it’s an idiom for “I dislike (or disapprove of) the commission of violence by anyone.” Personally, as a Humean and a physicalist I don’t see how moral talk could be successfully interpreted otherwise. To keep this short I will focus mainly on one argument here. In his video on moral relativism Jeff concluded that moral relativism is true between different societies: there are differences between the moral systems of different societies. Then to have moral talk be both truth apt and true in all societies (the latter seeming necessary if the spirit of relativism is to be preserved) statements like “violence is wrong” can only mean something like “we here dislike (or disapprove of) the commission of violence by anyone.” This form is also consistent with the point made in that other video that so-called toleration - the acceptance that members of other societies are moral when they follow their code even when it disagrees with ours - is not consistent with relativism. Under my proposed interpretation this is the case because “anyone” includes all those in the other societies. So my proposed interpretation has the virtue of being consistent with both the existence of relativism and the inconsistency of relativism with toleration. Reduce the proposed society-level moral assertions to the moral assertions of any single person in any of the societies and, once again, you have “I dislike the commission of violence by anyone.” Also, wouldn't any moral realist who believes "violence is wrong" also agree with "I dislike (or disapprove of) the commission of violence by anyone?” Such agreement is a necessary condition in order for my view that the first is an idiom for the second to be correct. But that condition appears to be satisfied.
What you believe and other people believe is truth to your group. Claims and opinions are real because we treat them as real. So moral talk becomes true when someone you consider truthful or guru tells it and you copy it automatically as true. That's how you change meaning of words from neutral to pejorative or trendy. Even sound of words is affecting their meaning in relation to other similar words meanings you remember. that's why people using different languages see a different reality and structure of their language also affects the way they think That's why ideology is shaping language. To manipulate society into believing something different. A logical person ignores emotional addition to words but majority is reacting emotionally.
I feel like there’s a fair number of issues with Ayer’s discussion. Most of which are involved with his theory turning “moral statements” from general statements into statements about the speaker. Like, if I say “Violence is wrong,” if that means “Boo, violence!” it becomes a statement about me and not a general statement. Creating the Sincere/ Insincere analog to true/ false creates a situation where the speaker of a statement plays more of a role in how that statement is evaluated than the statement itself. And in the end, there’s the assumption that there exist some type of behavior that will universally be accepted as “good” or “bad” by everyone.
I mean, with a truth-apt statement one could argue that the state of affairs is more important than the statement itself for determining its truthfulness the same way the speaker is more important than the emotive statement for determining its sincerity. And why do you say there's an assumption of a universal "good" and "bad"? I didn't get that from the lecture.
“Violence is wrong” can be shorthand for “the consequences of violence are most often counterproductive to the goals of society and it’s survival” spoken by one of limited verbal acuity
It is kind of "if x then y" statements to me. Violence and murder is wrong if safe society and a right to live is what you desire. Or the other way around. Violence and murder is permissable if unsafe society with no right to life is what you desire. It is because our desires are much aligned since forever that most of us think these acts are boo!
Everyone doesn't agree with that and therefore it is definitely not objective, so in the end it comes down to subjectivity. Your explanation only works within a very cooperative society where everyone has the best interests of the society in heart. But an outsider doesn't have to consider that , a violent society only gains by unleashing violence on a non violent one (raiders , conquerors , pirates are all examples). similarly an unequal society or a society with low cohesion also has high violence because some people benefit from it.
Ayer seems to be circling around something potentially significant using a complicated workaound. Yet, there is something compelling to me about the sincerity / insincerity evaluation of moral statements.
I request Shri Jeffrey to explain the theories on the basis of four subsets.... Factual agreement / factual disagreement / moral agreement / moral disagreement.... Please it will resolve the confusion around the Ayer's and Moore's theory...
An expression like "pickles barf" is basically shorthand for "i don't enjoy eating pickles" which, depending on the speaker's opinion on pickles could be true or false (assuming the speaker is honest). So "pickles barf" could be true or false?
This difference is explained in the video. "I don't enjoy eating pickles" is a statement which is about empirical truth, which could be confirmed by observation of the real world (even if there are some difficulties on doing so.) So, if someone is using "Pickles, barf" as shorthand for this then there is no difference and "Pickles, barf" can also be confirmed as true or false. "Pickles, barf" can also be used not as shorthand above. In fact, I think it is being used by Ayer not as an actual exclamation but rather as an instinctive thought. But even if it is exclaimed out loud, it can be used in this way. In this case, it is not a rationalized opinion, it simply happens to some and not others. (In fact it can even happen without any previous personal experience of having eaten pickles). In this sense, it is simply an 'emotion' - an instinctive reaction - and therefore, as a comment on pickles (not on yourself) cannot either be objectively true or false.
Ah man. I’ve only just now heard about this argument but I’ve been contending this same view for years. Moral disagreements are almost always disagreements on facts and judgements about the best way to achieve something. But the thing we are trying to achieve is almost always a point of agreement.
I personally don't see why we cannot go further and do this kind of translations: 'Violence is wrong' -> 'Boo violence' -> 'I don't like violence' || 'I think violence should be prohibited in our society,' etc. It can all be reduced to subjectivism. Also we never perceive the expression 'Buying coffee is bad' as 'I don't like buying coffee' just like we don't perceive it as 'Boo coffee.' We perceive it as a genuine ethical assertion.
I thought this too... like, when confronted with more complex moral language, Ayer's theory seems to melt down into subjectivism. Like, for example, take the sentence "Mary doesn't know killing is wrong." What does this sentence mean in the emotivist perspective? It seems the only answer is a reference to oneself, ergo subjectivity. However, I also feel like what Ayer is saying is that these speech acts are just expressing support or disdain for these moral principles, and more specifically that they are not trying to convey a message about the speaker. When you say "killing is wrong," you aren't trying to tell someone something about yourself, even if you do in the process. So perhaps what it is is that you can extrapolate the subjective from the speech act, but the act itself is emotive. Perhaps this is why it is so stressed that we are specifically talking about moral speech and not morality generally! Morality could be subjective while the speech acts are emotive.
Ayer also said that moral action was a mere whim. There may be no objective morality, but there is relative morality. That morality relates to us. The common human goal is contentment [happiness]. Whatever you do, you intend your actions to make you or others happy. Actions that reduce the sum of happiness in all those that are affected by those actions are immoral.
Deciding that the moral thing to do is to increase the total sum of happiness is already a moral judgment and it would need to be justified, which has never been done satisfyingly, in my opinion. Some people might just care about their own personal happiness and i don't really see any valid argument to say that they are wrong and that they should conform to this utilitarianistic ethic
So, as I understand it, in arguments about the physical world, we agree that things are true or false based on proving facts. But in moral talk, we agree that something is right or wrong based on our values (which comes from subjective experience). In other words, two people that agree with the exact same facts might still come to a different conclusion about a moral claim if they prioritize different values. Ex: we can both agree that suffering is bad and that violence causes suffering. We can also agree that there are contexts in witch violence is socially accepted like sports, self defense, protecting your loved ones, etc. And even if we agree with those things, one of us might think that violence is wrong in all circumstances and the other might think that violence is permissible in some contexts.
So, I was listening to concentration music while writing an ethics paper when the music trickled off without me noticing, and all of a sudden I heard someone exclaim, "PICKLES!" Good grief that is one heck of a way to have one's concentration broken!! 😂
Sentences that ends with a period can be T/F? 1) Would you stop confusing people? ( can’t be T/F ) 3) Sentences ending with , ; ! ( Can’t be expressed as T/F)
Will you ever do one on Logical Positivism? As I feel it needs to make a come back today more than ever. Also what about Wittgenstein’s Tractatus? Waiting impatiently for those.
Dude the entire last century was about the collapse of logical positivism and catastrophic failures of its paradigmatic parent, enlightenment-materialism. Watch 'Best of Enemies' its how this breakdown entered culture and now its everywhere and pathological. There is no going back
I think a great deal of moral disagreements is about moral values, eg. both parties agree that things that, in principle, people should have the right to take drugs, and that people driving under influence is bad, but one side might say that marijuana should be illegal because the risk of people driving under the influence of marijuana outweighs the benefits of people being able to take it recreationally, and the other one says that it doesn't outweigh the benefit. This example shows that people can agree about basic morals (one thing good, another thing bad), but still disagree about what's morals, based on weight of goodness and badness of things.
17:50 The counterargument for that claim would inevitably boil down to the fact that the T/F value of that proposition doesn't necessarily pertain to the objective state of the wrongness or goodness of a moral action, but to the objective state of an individual's psychological state.
3:45 Maybe I should watch the whole video first. But I reject the initial premise that emotive expressions don't have a truth value. The pragmatics of languages means I always translate the expression "Pickles- barf" into "You don't like pickles", but clearly you could say "Pickles - barf" and not mean it. And thus it would be false. Is Ayer's confusing the expression with the actual sensation or sentiment? Or am I not following that for the purpose of Ayer;s discussion the expression of the sentiment and the sentiment are taken to be equivalent? Maybe that's made clear later. But for me the expression is not the sentiment and the expression is pragmatically equivalent to a statement which has a truth value. So the rest of the discussion is probably going to go down a rabbit hole that leads nowhere.
In Sam Harris's the Moral Landscape, he defines Morality as the well-being of conscious creatures. I think this is the unspoken assumption of moral statements. So when people say, "Violence is wrong", what they actually mean is "Violence is bad for (reduces) well-being". In resolving questions like "Should we legalize marijuana?", we should just add up the consequences of marijuana that increase well-being and weigh it against the consequences that decrease well-being. Using Sam Harris's definition of morality resolves many dilemmas.
But the axiom upon which it is built has no truth value, and as such has no meaning. ‘Well-being is worth working toward’ - says who ? That is a statement of opinion (for subjectivists) or emotion (emotivists), an untestable claim with no corresponding truth value.
...uh, I think Ayers may say “I don’t want to record today” and the “another video lecture, ugh” would be similar sentiments. They express mental states, but contain no real ethical substance. If someone says, “I know I have to record my lecture today, but I will not do it.” The way I’ve read Ayers is parallel to how I consider Wittgenstein. We are way to opaque in our use of language to initiate many of moral or logical judgements that we float out to the world. But, I could be misunderstanding them. Like the content.
He's writing normal, and flipping the video. If you ever met him in person, he'd look a little odd, since you're only ever seeing a mirror image of him.
I would rather say that all three things are possible... 1) "X is wrong" might just be an expression like: "Boo, X!" 2) It might be also in some other instance, that the person just wants to express his disaggreement. 3) And then there are people really asserting that X was wrong. A moral disagreement could mean different things then. For 1) it could be just one screaming "Boo, X" while the other could go "Yey, X". For 2) it probably would be that one wants to change the others mind, change his (dis)liking towards X. In 3) there would be genuine disagreement. I think just reducing it to one of those would be too narrow to get the whole range of interactions. It seems to me as if one wanted to say, that a question is always just a question. But often enough something like: "You think X?" expresses disbelieve instead of a genuine question. Or if somebody knocks on the door and you state: "The door is open" you are not asserting something, but you are saying "come in". Language is used in too many ways and since I know myself, that I don't mean "Boo, X" all the time I say "X is wrong" I suggest they show different possible meanings of moral talk.
I think for Ayer, he would reject the *possibility* of 3) even existing. As a value statement, without extra qualification, X cannot be right or wrong. So it would then actually once again become a subjective opinion. ‘X is wrong’ -> ‘I believe X to be wrong, though I can’t prove it, I believe I can/have/don’t have to’. Or something, I got a bit circular at the end.
Yeah, I also think he would reject this. But I know what I mean when I say this. And there are people who claim that moral values are objective. If I'm not getting it completely wrong, even Kant is arguing for some moral values to be objective. Ayers view renders all these debates and thougts as mental aberrations, which I find hard to believe. It must be the case that moral values are subjective for Ayer to be correct in saying that.
@@anthonynork9718 I think whether or not somebody believes morality is objective doesn't really come into whether or not Ayer thinks moral language can be. For a start, moral language =/= morality, and secondly Ayer definitely doesn't think morality is objective. So... yeh. And anyway, Kant can think this thing, and Ayer can think something else. Kant isn't the be-all and end-all of moral philosophers, even if he is the most noteworthy. Ayer is rejecting Kant in this sense, and that's ok. It's part of philosophy, to engage with ideas of those before you.
@@finndaniels9139 It is also part of philosophy to compare different philosophical thougts and scrutinize them. Kant was just one example, because he most certainly was on the objective-side regarding moral values and most people know about him. It probably depends on what Ayer exactly means by moral talk. It might be that most of the talk in every day life is just an expression of ones own feeling towards a certain thing. Maybe that is just what Ayer's position was. For now I still would doubt that every talk about morality is just such an expression. Let's suppose, that moral values were objective. Then I don't see, why the propositions of moral language shouldn't be possibly true or false. In the other case: Sure, it is hard to see, how they could be true or false. Here it might still be, that there might be hidden assumptions, in relation to which they could get the status of "normal propositions". I don't want to say, that this is the case. I just want to think about the ideas put forward by people.
@@anthonynork9718 I get you man, but I think Ayer is literally writing in contradiction (or in furtherance of rationalism, but as he sees it) vs Kant. So almost necessarily the two ideas won't be the same. And yeh, certainly, you have to understand (at least be aware of) the broader area of philosophy, or it'll be impossible to build any meaningfully nuanced understanding
Combining what we have heard in this video with the explanation of Utilitarianism in prior videos, could the source of moral disagreements by any chance be the overwhelming challenge of measuring and weighing all outcomes postulated in the factual claims made to support moral statements that would need to be satisfactorily met to reach an aggregate value for pleasure/pain that would decide the matter for good? If that calculation was practically feasible, moral claims would in fact be verifiable, at least under the premises of Utilitarianism, contradicting Ayer‘s theory and Subjectivism at the same time.
I have this problem with utilitarianism that I haven't seen anyone else mention, though I'm sure someone else has. I just call it 'the assumption of the uniformity of values'. Basically I don't really think everyone's calculations of pleasure and pain are comparable, so ultimately I feel like moral disagreements would still exist even if some utilitarian supercomputer was made to determine moral facts. People would just have a problem with the criterion as opposed to the conclusion.
@@eslaweedguygrey they would, but at least they’d be testable in theory - if not practice. And it would also allow you to make some baseline assertions - ‘murder is wrong’ for example. The more nitty gritty bits, like ‘stealing more than £4 but less than £27 is 43 units bad’ are then obviously less testable in practice, but I think that’s ok.
If our opponent concurs with us in expressing moral disapproval of all actions of a given type t, then we may get him to condemn a particular action A, by bringing forward arguments to show that A is of type t.
40:20 Yeah this makes total sense I've seen moral system's disagreements where argument was impossible because the facts didn't matter the person on the other side of the argument was very far off the moral baseline.
'Is impairment correlated with peak THC blood levels? No. “While fewer studies have examined the relationship between THC blood levels and degree of impairment, in those studies that have been conducted the consistent finding is that the level of THC in the blood and the degree of impairment do not appear to be closely related. Peak impairment does not occur when THC concentration in the blood is at or near peak levels. Peak THC level can occur when low impairment is measured, and high impairment can be measured when THC level is low. Thus, in contrast to the situation with alcohol, someone can show little or no impairment at a THC level at which someone else may show a greater degree of impairment.” Compton at p. 7.' R. Compton, Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., Marijuana-Impaired Driving - A Report to Congress (DOT HS 812 440) (July 2017)
Can a question be considered false if it is making a false assumption? Like "why do all people only have one leg?" Because technically, though its a question, is asserting a statement
If I understood it rightly, Aquinas addressed this in Summa Theologica by saying that there are these two things, truth and goodness and each are convertible into the other. Thus one can convert a moral statement (i.e a statement about what is good) into a statement about what is true and vice versa. 1. Thus if one make the assertion there is currently a large city in Texas called Dallas. That is either true or false, and in this case is true. 2. Or one could say it is good that there is a large city in Texas called Dallas. That is a statement about goodness. So to convert 1 into a goodness statement one can say is it good to assert that as True, and the answer to whether it is good depends on whether it is true and assering what is True is always good. For perhaps sometimes making a truth statement may not be good, say revealing a military secret to the enemy is not good, and especially if it is true. And to convert 2 into a truth statement one can say, is it really true that it is good that there is a a large city in Texas named Dallas. And (once again if I understood him rightly) it seems he ascribes truth statements to the intellect while goodness statements to the will. Thus the province of the intellect is to assess what is true vs what is false while the province of the will is to assess what is good vs what is not good. And this conversion then is like changing dollar (which say the intellect measures things) into Rubles (which the will understands) and vice versa. But (once again if I understood that right, and its been quite a while that I read all this) that it is the heart that adjudicates this in that the heart rules on what is preferable. For it seems a rock or such has no preference as to being in one state or another. But humans do have such preferences and most humans would prefer to be healthy than sick, well fed vs starving, happy vs sad, have pleasure over pain, etc., know the truth vs be deceived, etc. that is the heart determines what one loves. So the intellect asses truth but the heart determines whether one loves the truth or not. And the will assess goodness but the heart determines whether it prefers the good over what s evil. Thus the heart it seems addresses more along the lines of what moore is talking about what is an underlying good, that is what outcomes if preferable over some other outcome e.g. thou shall not kill, while the will applies that to the situation at hand, i.e should marijuana be legal given it can cause people to kill others by impairing their judgement, while the intellect assess is that true that smoking marijuana n does impair the judgment and make it more likely for one to kill someone in a traffic action due to their impaired judgment. And this is something I have noticed that many philosopher seem to simply say something an earlier philosopher said just in a different way, albeit maybe they add something to what was said earlier in doing so, or maybe the opposite. For I was listening to the other day, The Enchiridion of Augustine e.g. see librivox.org/the-enchiridion-by-saint-augustine/ having posted it as a link in some other comment and noticed that he said pretty much the same as Descarte about I think therefore I am, by arguing with the Greeks (and I am paraphrasing this from memory so I might not be stating it quite right) that say there is nothing one can know with certainty to be true that in that if one can even assert that then obviously there is something one can know with certainty is true in that if one can be just being able to assert something means ione can be certain that they exist else they could not make any assertions to begin with. So it seems there is more than one way to skin a cat and similarly one can say the same thing different ways. So it seem that much of what you are cited here has been said in different ways by previous philosophers but in different ways but it seems that some get more press for what they say than others. And Aquinas in Summa Theologica argues that theology is a science and it seems that one can take these ideas in philosophy over into religion and argue that statements such as a matter should be settled by two or three witnesses might in part refer to these two or wo witnesses being the intellect, the will, and that third being the heart. Of course there is no way to prove that is what is meant but one can argue that these ideas do seem to track one another well, that is there being these two or three witnesses required to settle important matter vs the parts of the soul (or such) , the intellect, the will, and the heart and the ideas of truth vs goodness and what makes something true or good and why those both matter. So this seems to be another way of saying much the same as what those you cite in your presentation but approached perhaps from a somewhat different perspective or approach. And watching your presentation brought these to mind. So once again, I am finding your presentation both interesting and thought provoking, with the above being a few of those thoughts that were as such provoked. And BTW, I am a retired engineer and approach all this not as a philosopher but more as an engineer in that if I were going to build an architecture say of a robot that acted in a similar manner as a human how might I construct that architecture and what would be its components. Thus I might make a component I might call the intellect that asses truth, a one component that I might call the will that makes decisions as to what seems good, and another component one might call the heart that deines justy what that robots considers to be good, while the will asses how to obtain that good, but not what that good is. So I may be approaching this form a different perspective than one might form opurly a philosophical one but more as an engineer.
When you say your statement 1 can be converted to statement 2, you still haven't solved how the label of truth can be applied to your converted sentence. Statement 1 can be proven or disproven by appealing to physical evidence (and assuming the position of most expressivists, there is only the physical world to appeal to); either Dallas is a city in Texas or not. Statement 2 has no grounds to appeal to for truth or falsity; there are countless situations where it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas or it is bad that Dallas is a city in Texas (just imagine a game show with someone very unfamiliar with American geography being asked which state Dallas is inside, it is perfectly rational why the contestant would believe statement 2 is bad, it is an expression of wanting not to lose). To say something is true, you require truth conditions (typically, degree of correspondence to reality, hence the correspondence theory of truth). Beliefs are true on the condition that they correspond with reality. Things without truth conditions have no truth value and hence are neither true nor false. As for your conversion of statement 2 into statement 1, "it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas" is different from "it is really true that it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas" which is also different from "it is really true that many people believe it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas". As explained above, there are no objective grounds/truth conditions for claiming "it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas". This same problem carries into the next statement as it is impossible for anything to be true, that it is good. The last statement, "it is true that many people believe it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas", does have truth conditions and hence, truth value. It is possible for sociologists to carry out surveys that ask people where they think it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas. However, having a belief (even many people having it) doesn't mean that belief has any truth conditions and truth values. Like, think about the lecturer's example for hating pickles. On what grounds could you argue that this is a moral fact? It may be true that he, in particular, doesn't like pickles but pickles being bad is neither true nor false, simply a belief held by the speaker. This unavoidable detachment between how things are and how things ought to be is also exemplified by Hume's is-ought distinction (something Aquinas couldn't have understood as Hume's philosophy arrived much later with the benefit of hindsight from Aquinas' time). Hence when someone says "pickles are bad", many modern philosophers of language (Ayer, Wittgenstein, etc) theorised that this statement is not about the truth (as it has no truth conditions in the first place), the statement is about what that individual is expressing about the referred object (in the case of pickles, disgust). All moral statements have no truth conditions and truth values, hence it is theorised that all moral statements are simply expressing some belief of the individual professing it (expressivism). One type of expressivism is emotivism which is what the video above is covered. Hope this made sense!
@@brian-nx8ge I agree that one needs goodness conditions here. As such it seems there are three aspects to such goodness conditions. 1. Are these goodness conditions in truth all that good, 2. Does the thing in truth meet those conditions, and 3. how certain can one be in regard to assessing 1 and 2. But these three taken together does seem to be a way of converting goodness statements to truth statements.Thus one can ask is it good there is Dallas? It is good that there is a city that has a high contribution to the GNP per capita. Dallas has a high GNP contribution per capita, therefore (it is true that It is good that there is the city Dallas. And ofcourse one might find it problematic to devise or defend one's goodness criteria but one can still make the claim that it is a valid criteria. And having at one time lived in Fort Worth, many people in Fort Worth might take exception to all the above given there is a bit of rivalry between the two cities. I might add that anyone who has work much with optimization theory should be well aware of such goodness criteria or goodness metrics for that is what one tends to attempt to optimize, some goodness score (or minimize a badness score). For example a route planner might have several goodness criteria such as transit time, how scenic is the route, does it go near any Starbucks, etc. And it is hard to build multivariable optimizer so often if there are several criteria these are all somehow blended into an over all goodness score and that is what the optimizer tries to find the optimum solution. As most who work with optimizer can testify that the optimizer is not the hardest part (especially if one is happy with a sub optimization and not a perfect one) but rather coming up with the best goodness criteria to compute this goodness scores is the most problematic part. Thus one uses truth estimates, like distances, and traffic estimates and such, and convert these to goodness scores and the compute a route that is the best (or goodest) and thus the one the person ought to take, given they accept those goodness metrics and the factual information that was used to compute those goodness metrics. So what this might be called is converting goodness truth into goodness (scores and the goodness into truth (here is the best route). But say there was a traffic jam on that route that the optimizer didn't know about or that a driver that drove that route didn't think the route was all that scenic and thus did not agree with that scenic goodness rating. Thus in truth it may not have been the best route after all. Now whether this is what Aquinas was meaning by that I couldn't say. But that is sort of how I took it to mean. And thus I am looking at this more as an engineer that might build such a planner and not so much as a philosopher.
@@RonLWilson Biased filter brings back biased set of data. Biased assumptions the same. People living in cities is unnatural. Big cities forcing it's way through higher economic output on province are bad. City produces much more evil than province in proportion to population. Goodness is absolutely subjective idea. People look for it only because one type of goodness was established by as in group emotional standard that organises the group and is forced on others even by just own majority accepted framework. Any other set of conditions are equal. It's all about natural mechanism of organising. Agreeing common view always on expense of minority and as a psychological pressure as humans are wired to conform as a energy saving strategy. Like they aren't conscious most of time. And repeat brainlessly what others around them repeat agreeing to majority consensus no matter if objectively good (only assumed as good). practice doesn't like unknowns, chaos and tends to organise and agree commonality and and identify with the prevalent state of things like common belief of religion truth is only a logical term evaluation neutrally judging nonneutral question that expects non neutral answer robot only knows logic, programmed to operate with human assumptions and expectations becomes as nonneutral like dog become non neutral after domestication by human or rather a different human way nonneutral in opposition to wolf way nonneutral but wolf does what's good for him naturally while dog does it in human "culture" context under own survival in human conditions cat is more closer to natural state of it's original species human would be better off reconsidering everything he did walking away from his natural state what is one of causes of his luck if natural sense of living, mental illnesses, genetic diseases, fixation on blindly testing unnatural things on himself and becoming prey to anything he wasn't evolved adapted to to and what he made his standard but not natural condition of living asking unnatural questions bring unnatural results bringing more unnatural questions and results agreeing with that is optimal but only in context of no natural alternative as a standard that is mostly inhumane by definition as come to be exactly by moving away from origins and roots hunting and eating meat is good from biological point of view the same as giving birth to children regularly
@@planetary-rendez-vous True! But you can say an ought is an is. For example you can say it is (in general) good to tell the truth, the is here being to tell the truth and the ought is that one ought therefore to aspire to do that.
Correct me if my logic is faulty, but: I'm not sure if I can agree with the assertion that moral disagreements are really just factual disagreements. Going by your example of the marijuana argument, most of the time this discussion occurs in the real world, both the person arguing for and the person arguing against are aware of both of the facts that were brought up and might agree that both statements are true. So, actually, the disagreement is not about facts. What they really disagree on is which value - "preventing car crashes" or "stopping seizures" - is more important. Which is the more moral thing to pursue. So the disagreement is, in fact, about morality.
Ethics isn’t a matter of argument its a value system in which you agree that its inherent to a stable relationship and power struggle amongst people where tolerance is a way of abuse and people who tend not to have core values are easily persuaded.
Marijuana is denoted as a description of the state induced by (being under the influence of) smoking the plant named 'cannabis,' and as such, should be illegal (or treated like highly controlled substances) in states requiring true and logical usage of language, such as that of my own body, and furthermore, the plant named 'cannabis' should be legal to smoke in states that don't require additional external punishment in reaction to self-punishment.
It might occur to someone that "Is the door still shut?" is a question and is true or false. The question asserts that the door was previously shut. Never mind. :)
I'm reminded of the fallacy of fallacy; Just because the argument is presented poorly does not invalidate the argument. Oh if I only had a ghost writer and a platform, I could write an entire paper just off of this video. The enlightenment thinkers really are like Franklin, with his kite and key, trying to describe quantum theory. I think the search for absolute rules necessarily limits our understanding to the most simple situations only, like trying to use Newtonian physics in the relativistic universe of Einstein. There just isn't the bandwidth available in a comment to address this issue acceptably
This is all well and good about preferences and all that, however- Where is the talk about framing moral statements as IF THEN statements? Basically, every moral claim can be converted into an IF YOU DO THIS, I'LL DO THIS, form. examples: if you pick your nose in public, (in response) i will make a disgusted face and look at you funny if you cheat on your test and i find out, (in response) i will give you an F if you don't pay your credit card, (in response) i will lower your credit score if you don't pay your mortgage, (in response) i will take your house if you don't pay your rent, (in response) i will kick you out on the street if we are in a relationship and you cheat on me, (in response) i will end the relationship These examples illustrate (i hope) that if you try to articulate the application of moral statements (preferences), they will show up as an easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to analyze IF THEN form. for instance, if someone says if you flip me off in public, (as a response) i will punch you in the face :some people follow this rule other people follow: if you flip me off in public, (as a response) i will walk away other people say: if you flip me off in public, (as a response) i will try to have a level-headed conversation investigating why that happened maybe that's like Tom Cruise, who did that to a guy who squirted him in the face this is where preference comes in, you get to decide your reaction to any given event. how successful those actions are in real life (in respect your overall goals in life) determines how "good" your reaction is. Let's say my overall goal (SECRET BELIEFS/DESIRES) in life is to: 1)be the alpha male, protect my reputation, make everyone afraid of me this person will punch you in the face 2)safety is more important than needless violence, don't care what strangers think, get out of sketchy situations this person will walk away 3)want to make the world a better place, everyone who is mean is actually hurt in some way, maybe i can make a difference this person will try to start a conversation The interesting thing is this: you can find out a person's secret beliefs by observing how they react to any given situation.
I am just in love with this guy... I love listening to him and learning... I never get fed up... You are amazing ...
Comment for the algorithm. Get this man some views! Content is gold.
Jeffrey Kaplan, master educator. Novice speller.
Yes!
Pododys nerfect.
which is better than an educator who's better at spelling than educating.
He talks about not knowing how to spell things, but I've never actually seen him spell anything wrong. I haven't looked super hard though
@@Seifrietti I think he spelled "seizure" as "sea..."
i am so glad doc kaplan put his coursework up for all of us. its great brain exercise and makes me miss my old college philosophy classes. back then we would laugh that is was just mental masterbation, but as i am older more and err, moore i see how irl it is indeed quite practical.
Where are the readings
Thank you again for all your videos - they are awesome: full of passion for thinking, entertaining, educational, convincing, precise and simply a lot of joy!
All well explained! ...but, it's also good to have the solution presented. Alasdair MacIntyre explains how we got into the confusing cul-de-sac of Moral-Sentimentalism, in his book _After Virtue._ I'm hoping you'll do a video or two walking through that book's thesis: It sees the issue much more broadly than either Ayer or Moore.
I am ecstatic at my realisation of the topics in all new ways, as if ,kind of epiphany...Amazed at the teaching!
Best meta-ethics lecture ever. Well done.
Interesting discussion. Worth watching again.. Best meta-ethics lecture ever. Well done..
This argument is the most sensible of any on morals ive heard yet
Best Teacher Ever
Wow! This video was a fantastic help for the undergrad essay im writing. I was stunned when I saw the view count, I was expecting hundreds of thousands, not hundreds.
You will massive someday soon
Thanks! I have no idea how this youtube algorithm works. Maybe my lecture videos just need time.
Still true
@@profjeffreykaplan sir I've a question, how does Ayer know murder is bad? Like how did he find it out.
@@Platonism474 from what the lecture said, Ayer doesn't know factually that murder is bad. Only that him and the opposing party have similar moral sentiments. Obviously that moral sentiment could be repugnant (i.e. both agree that murder is right), but that is past the point. Ayer is discussing a meta-ethical framework, and not actual ethical propositions. So, you may be utilitarian or Kantian or virtue ethicist, and each of them might answer the question differently (utilitarians may claim that murder is right), but what Ayer is focusing on is how we should even begin to discuss the debate between utiltiarianism or Kantianism 'in the first place'. I think this was the importance of the distinction that Kaplan made in the beginning.
This is by far my favorite video from the series until now. I've struggled with the relativism of truth for aesthetics and morality, because while both seemed entirely subjective, we still argue about it with facts and so there was some sort of conundrum my instincts didn't like. You either commit and say something is 100% arguable for a moral statement or aesthetics, or else you don't and it's meaningless to argue. And yet we do both and acknowledge both.
This is why I was never in favor of moral relativism, whatever it means (time to watch more videos), because it implies absolute subjectivism and that it is futile to argue (which would ironically render useless the Oscar's and prizes, reviews for the arts) which is not what happens in fact.
Ethics and morality can still be emotivist and be the subject of rational dialogue; such a dialogue would merely presume that on some level the interlocutors share some basic emotivist values (emotional reactions), and have optimism that the criteria for evoking those reactions can on some level be quantified in a way that both parties agree with. Society can still function with a legal/societal framework based on a kind of hedonic ethical emotivism, based on the assumption that humans by nature hold sufficent overlapping boo/yay preferences
@Umbrellagasm speaking of overlapping boo/yay preferences, I have a theory that this is part of the pathological element of psychopathy. They lack certain preferences and have some others which widely don't overlap, hence the diagnosis. One could see the atrophy of empathy as the largest example. Perhaps this may be marginally true of all neuropsychiatric disorders...
@@eslaweedguygreyfantastic answers both of you, much thanks for elaborating on something I have missed.
One issue I can derive from your last argument is that what happens if there is a missing shared emotivists value? Then if you argue solely from moral intuition (feelings) then it logically means that it becomes impossible to argue with the person because that person is missing the reason to care about that emotivist value. This is my same reflexion for moral skepticism.
Whether this constitutes a real argument or not I'm not sure, because I realize it looks like I'm using a preference of consequence as an argument instead of the other way around.
Hence, I don't like moral skepticism precisely because the sole reason of argumentation is moral intuition which I find too subjective and unreliable. Again, the irony of my argument is not lost on me. Emotivists may have a point.
According to subjectavism, "Violence is wrong" is shorthand for "I dislike violence." Could it be the view, that "Violence is wrong." means "I think violence is wrong but it indicates nothing about my predilection for liking or disliking violence." In other words, "Violence is wrong, but I recognize that I am not perfect and, to some degree, I don't mind a certain kind of violence whether it be enjoying boxing or MMA or watching an action movie."
Meaning that thinking something is wrong is not an indication of whether they enjoy or participate in that thing because that person recognizes their foibles as a human being and contradiction is a natural part of the human experience.
You only stated that what we say has only meaning in the intention or intended result of doing so.
Projection.
But in a culture that treats truth and honesty with high esteem your statement is bound with your honor, family honor too, so if it's it's called as untruthful to your real practical stance it discards you from society.
Subjectivism treats truth as a prostitute. Everybody knows indecency is bad and whoring is bad. Except those relativists who promote indecency as a viable option.
Lack of standards never becomes a standard. It's a stance of claiming no standards existing. It's the highest level of disorganisation. It's beyond selforganising chaos. It's pushing for complete chaos and atomisation without any truths and any common meanings at all
It's like a babel tower with every person having a different language.
But because of math and regular distribution people tend to choose similarly and the most common choice becomes a standard.
So relativism and subjectivism in practice is always a minority view and only in a particular view as ppl can agree in some cases and disagree in other cases.
This also means they start cross organising their views too bundling them together.
Synchronising views, believes, truths.
Sadly because they are emotional objective understandings usually aren't the ones shaping standard. And so there is a fake impression that they are subjective but they are just illogical.
Saying violence is wrong can be the emotional standard of a group which never thought about the truthfulness of the statement.
So it's not really I dislike violence, it's rather I agree with emotional standard of my group and repeat like them that I dislike violence saying Violence is wrong.
It doesn't say if the person believes it personally or not. True.
But it predicts that the person being in the group will obey the standard as they obey standardised opinion repeating it. And outside the group he may act differently but conditioning will cause him to tend to obey the standard anywa.
Except if the real group view is we obey they standard only in public group space but we don't really believe it as it's irrelevant or against our interest in privat.
If there are exceptions to the rule, it means it's either not clear enough or doesn't really apply absolutely.
other thought
Some words are a part of language but weren't created by the rules of language as language got codified much later and can contain foreign words that doesn't comply with language system it's grammar ę.c.
You can live with these exceptions just accepting or ignoring holes in system laws. You can replace exceptions to as not part of coherent system. You can try to adapt system to the exceptions changing it complicating it more making less coherent.
In one case you will need to replace next new exceptions to keep system. In other you will need to constantly change system.
In between you probably don't have any real standard. And then exceptions growing in nr will make a different system more viable maybe soon replacing old system.
But there will be never a situation of lack of any system and things just happening on their own.
It's only a moment after collapse of the old standard and usually because something replacing it appeared.
Except if you will work actively against inertia what's coming with a cost. Or when two opposite standards collide creating chaos in between.
Like in the world we live in now.
Something will eventually win. And it won't agree to be subjective "truth" for every one person.
Even if it's hypocritical it is still a standard. And exceptions are not welcome in it.
Standard getting generalised on other fields in analogy is a different phenomenon.
It's about standards lifecycle.
It tries to be universal and all encompassing allorganising. What clashes with fields living by different rules.
It causes miscategorising and seeing parts of other standards as exceptions of the main standard.
Eventually standard becomes unusable as it becomes irrational opposite to what it supposed to be. Disorganising instead of organising and a better working approximation takes over
the best systems know own limits of application
Subjectivism has no application as it exists only in isolated unit.
If somebody is totally disconnected it may work as it's truth contains the whole space and there is nothing to organise there.but it's a very unnatural case
I think the better way of stating the position is that if I were to say "violence is wrong", it'd actually mean "I believe that violence is a wrong thing for me and other people to engage in". As in, it is still a statement about ME and my opinions, rather than about violence in general.
@@darth_dan8886 Are you supporting the subjective view?
@@gaseredtune5284 On the fence about it right now. The view described here is about moral _talk,_ not morality, so while I believe morality is subjective, I don't know if everyone talking about morality _means_ it that way.
Of course, everything a person CAN express is always going to be subjective. So in theory, even a statement like "fire is hot" can be translated into "I believe that the fire is hot". I've likely been convinced in that belief by countless experiences, maybe I've even measured this particular fire. Maybe I have a thermometer in it right now. But I'm believing my eyes when they show what the thermometer is measuring, and I'm believing the device that's showing the measurement...
Perception is inherently subjective.
At the same time, I did make a statement about _fire_ and not myself. So by analogy, I think whoever says "violence is wrong" does make a statement about violence, even though its based in their own subjective beliefs and observations.
As for right now, I've simply clarified how I understood the subjective view.
@@darth_dan8886 The problem with subjectivism, is any statement about truth (like "all experience is subjective") is an objective claim. Yes we are limited to our subjective experience, but we must assume the material world and other subjective experiences exist. Basically we can only live truthfully if we live with faith, for we cannot live without it. You have to believe that your own mother was not a solipsistic dream, because true subjectivism must believe in solipsism, and ultimately nihilism.
Truth claims I make are not about me, we are all interacting with the world, though imperfectly. When I say abortion is abominable evil that denies the value of any life or choice, that is not a subjective claim, it's an objective one made by a person who operates through an subjective experience. If you disagree with me about abortion, you are wrong (im not saying you do, this is rhetorical, but most extreme subjectivists and extreme materialists do disagree that babies deserve life over my feelings) . You are free to make an argument, as to why one should be able to butcher their own child, but it's going to only show that you have no consistent moral.
We all behave as if life matters, but many are so caught in extreme materialist (only "it" exists) or extreme subjectivists (only I exist) that they life double minded on this fact, they grow to believe in absurdities like moral relativism, anti-natalism, and nihilism which are pure evil, and must be fought. I will fight these ideas to my last breath, I will make sure my moral talk is seen as an actual disagreement. Light has no fellowship with darkness.
Bless your day! I hope you understand my point here.
Your grind has been very worthwhile, teacher, please continue to spread your knowledge and educating the masses, knowledge is power and power is freedom, cheers!
I love that you used the simple word, “sorry.”
Now… please do it again as a Canadian 😂 👍🏻
Jokes on you, I really did pause when you asked ^^
An excellent video as always! Keep up the good work :)
Thank you SO much. It only took about 4 hours to complete my homework...haha but this has helped tremendously.
thank you so much for this! honestly, I think I saw every video on this topic but NOW I FINALLY GET IT! "YAY LEARNING" (I hope you got my joke) :)
YAY! (Oh, I get it. Glad to help!)
Wait a freakin' second this makes way more sense than I anticipated
Interesting discussion. Worth watching again.
Thank you sir ...for this wonderful explaination
Thank you so much sir for amazing explanation.
I love your lectures. You are great. ❤️
😆I see what you did there.
If Jeffrey Kaplan is reading this, have you had the chance to take any class at Berkeley with the late professor James Gregor. I took his class and I remember he was a fan of AJ Ayer and assigned him for us to read.
35:54-36:04 ‘actually, pause the video, right now. And make up an argument either for the claim that marijuana should be legal or that it shouldn’t be… You di- you didn’t pause the video. You’re not actually gonna think of something, … you just wanna keep on watching… ’ 😅😂
I feel seen.
I didn't pause. And paused when he was disappointed in me. 😅
I have to say I think I find ethical emotivism the most convincing and comprehensive description of morality I have encountered. If anyone can point me to any well-reasoned critiques of the philosophy I'd be happy to read them.
I love A.J. Ayer's Emotivist Theory of Moral Language
Great job.
The opening statement is true because that is the way you feel, if you are telling the truth.
I’ve read a lot of philosophy but not moral philosophy - which is why I’m now binging these videos. And professor Jeff is a great presenter. But contra Jeff, I think a version of subjectivism is correct. Under this version “violence is wrong” isn’t an idiom for “I dislike violence” as subjectivism was presented in the lecture: it’s an idiom for “I dislike (or disapprove of) the commission of violence by anyone.”
Personally, as a Humean and a physicalist I don’t see how moral talk could be successfully interpreted otherwise. To keep this short I will focus mainly on one argument here. In his video on moral relativism Jeff concluded that moral relativism is true between different societies: there are differences between the moral systems of different societies. Then to have moral talk be both truth apt and true in all societies (the latter seeming necessary if the spirit of relativism is to be preserved) statements like “violence is wrong” can only mean something like “we here dislike (or disapprove of) the commission of violence by anyone.” This form is also consistent with the point made in that other video that so-called toleration - the acceptance that members of other societies are moral when they follow their code even when it disagrees with ours - is not consistent with relativism. Under my proposed interpretation this is the case because “anyone” includes all those in the other societies. So my proposed interpretation has the virtue of being consistent with both the existence of relativism and the inconsistency of relativism with toleration. Reduce the proposed society-level moral assertions to the moral assertions of any single person in any of the societies and, once again, you have “I dislike the commission of violence by anyone.”
Also, wouldn't any moral realist who believes "violence is wrong" also agree with "I dislike (or disapprove of) the commission of violence by anyone?” Such agreement is a necessary condition in order for my view that the first is an idiom for the second to be correct. But that condition appears to be satisfied.
These videos are so helpful
What you believe and other people believe is truth to your group. Claims and opinions are real because we treat them as real. So moral talk becomes true when someone you consider truthful or guru tells it and you copy it automatically as true.
That's how you change meaning of words from neutral to pejorative or trendy.
Even sound of words is affecting their meaning in relation to other similar words meanings you remember.
that's why people using different languages see a different reality and structure of their language also affects the way they think
That's why ideology is shaping language. To manipulate society into believing something different.
A logical person ignores emotional addition to words but majority is reacting emotionally.
I feel like there’s a fair number of issues with Ayer’s discussion.
Most of which are involved with his theory turning “moral statements” from general statements into statements about the speaker.
Like, if I say “Violence is wrong,” if that means “Boo, violence!” it becomes a statement about me and not a general statement.
Creating the Sincere/ Insincere analog to true/ false creates a situation where the speaker of a statement plays more of a role in how that statement is evaluated than the statement itself.
And in the end, there’s the assumption that there exist some type of behavior that will universally be accepted as “good” or “bad” by everyone.
"Boo violence" is an expression of feeling, not a statement about the speaker, thats the difference between subjectivism and emotivism
I mean, with a truth-apt statement one could argue that the state of affairs is more important than the statement itself for determining its truthfulness the same way the speaker is more important than the emotive statement for determining its sincerity.
And why do you say there's an assumption of a universal "good" and "bad"? I didn't get that from the lecture.
“Violence is wrong” can be shorthand for “the consequences of violence are most often counterproductive to the goals of society and it’s survival” spoken by one of limited verbal acuity
It is kind of "if x then y" statements to me. Violence and murder is wrong if safe society and a right to live is what you desire. Or the other way around. Violence and murder is permissable if unsafe society with no right to life is what you desire. It is because our desires are much aligned since forever that most of us think these acts are boo!
Everyone doesn't agree with that and therefore it is definitely not objective, so in the end it comes down to subjectivity. Your explanation only works within a very cooperative society where everyone has the best interests of the society in heart. But an outsider doesn't have to consider that , a violent society only gains by unleashing violence on a non violent one (raiders , conquerors , pirates are all examples). similarly an unequal society or a society with low cohesion also has high violence because some people benefit from it.
Thanks, this is awesome.
Ayer seems to be circling around something potentially significant using a complicated workaound. Yet, there is something compelling to me about the sincerity / insincerity evaluation of moral statements.
I request Shri Jeffrey to explain the theories on the basis of four subsets.... Factual agreement / factual disagreement / moral agreement / moral disagreement.... Please it will resolve the confusion around the Ayer's and Moore's theory...
An expression like "pickles barf" is basically shorthand for "i don't enjoy eating pickles" which, depending on the speaker's opinion on pickles could be true or false (assuming the speaker is honest). So "pickles barf" could be true or false?
This difference is explained in the video. "I don't enjoy eating pickles" is a statement which is about empirical truth, which could be confirmed by observation of the real world (even if there are some difficulties on doing so.) So, if someone is using "Pickles, barf" as shorthand for this then there is no difference and "Pickles, barf" can also be confirmed as true or false.
"Pickles, barf" can also be used not as shorthand above. In fact, I think it is being used by Ayer not as an actual exclamation but rather as an instinctive thought. But even if it is exclaimed out loud, it can be used in this way. In this case, it is not a rationalized opinion, it simply happens to some and not others. (In fact it can even happen without any previous personal experience of having eaten pickles). In this sense, it is simply an 'emotion' - an instinctive reaction - and therefore, as a comment on pickles (not on yourself) cannot either be objectively true or false.
Ah man. I’ve only just now heard about this argument but I’ve been contending this same view for years. Moral disagreements are almost always disagreements on facts and judgements about the best way to achieve something. But the thing we are trying to achieve is almost always a point of agreement.
I personally don't see why we cannot go further and do this kind of translations: 'Violence is wrong' -> 'Boo violence' -> 'I don't like violence' || 'I think violence should be prohibited in our society,' etc. It can all be reduced to subjectivism. Also we never perceive the expression 'Buying coffee is bad' as 'I don't like buying coffee' just like we don't perceive it as 'Boo coffee.' We perceive it as a genuine ethical assertion.
I thought this too... like, when confronted with more complex moral language, Ayer's theory seems to melt down into subjectivism. Like, for example, take the sentence "Mary doesn't know killing is wrong." What does this sentence mean in the emotivist perspective? It seems the only answer is a reference to oneself, ergo subjectivity.
However, I also feel like what Ayer is saying is that these speech acts are just expressing support or disdain for these moral principles, and more specifically that they are not trying to convey a message about the speaker. When you say "killing is wrong," you aren't trying to tell someone something about yourself, even if you do in the process. So perhaps what it is is that you can extrapolate the subjective from the speech act, but the act itself is emotive.
Perhaps this is why it is so stressed that we are specifically talking about moral speech and not morality generally! Morality could be subjective while the speech acts are emotive.
Ayer also said that moral action was a mere whim.
There may be no objective morality, but there is relative morality. That morality relates to us. The common human goal is contentment [happiness]. Whatever you do, you intend your actions to make you or others happy. Actions that reduce the sum of happiness in all those that are affected by those actions are immoral.
Deciding that the moral thing to do is to increase the total sum of happiness is already a moral judgment and it would need to be justified, which has never been done satisfyingly, in my opinion. Some people might just care about their own personal happiness and i don't really see any valid argument to say that they are wrong and that they should conform to this utilitarianistic ethic
I did pause the video!
I love the passive aggressive tone
So, as I understand it, in arguments about the physical world, we agree that things are true or false based on proving facts. But in moral talk, we agree that something is right or wrong based on our values (which comes from subjective experience).
In other words, two people that agree with the exact same facts might still come to a different conclusion about a moral claim if they prioritize different values.
Ex: we can both agree that suffering is bad and that violence causes suffering. We can also agree that there are contexts in witch violence is socially accepted like sports, self defense, protecting your loved ones, etc. And even if we agree with those things, one of us might think that violence is wrong in all circumstances and the other might think that violence is permissible in some contexts.
So, I was listening to concentration music while writing an ethics paper when the music trickled off without me noticing, and all of a sudden I heard someone exclaim, "PICKLES!" Good grief that is one heck of a way to have one's concentration broken!! 😂
"I dont know how to spell it" I see myself in this guy
"pickles, BARF!" can be sincere or insincere, and surely sincere and insincere do have truth values.
Sentences that ends with a period can be T/F?
1) Would you stop confusing people? ( can’t be T/F )
3) Sentences ending with , ; ! ( Can’t be expressed as T/F)
Very well explained and entertaining. Enjoyed it.
Will you ever do one on Logical Positivism? As I feel it needs to make a come back today more than ever. Also what about Wittgenstein’s Tractatus? Waiting impatiently for those.
Dude the entire last century was about the collapse of logical positivism and catastrophic failures of its paradigmatic parent, enlightenment-materialism.
Watch 'Best of Enemies' its how this breakdown entered culture and now its everywhere and pathological. There is no going back
No, it doesn't need to come back. Dryest philosophy.
I think a great deal of moral disagreements is about moral values, eg. both parties agree that things that, in principle, people should have the right to take drugs, and that people driving under influence is bad, but one side might say that marijuana should be illegal because the risk of people driving under the influence of marijuana outweighs the benefits of people being able to take it recreationally, and the other one says that it doesn't outweigh the benefit.
This example shows that people can agree about basic morals (one thing good, another thing bad), but still disagree about what's morals, based on weight of goodness and badness of things.
17:50 The counterargument for that claim would inevitably boil down to the fact that the T/F value of that proposition doesn't necessarily pertain to the objective state of the wrongness or goodness of a moral action, but to the objective state of an individual's psychological state.
3:45 Maybe I should watch the whole video first. But I reject the initial premise that emotive expressions don't have a truth value. The pragmatics of languages means I always translate the expression "Pickles- barf" into "You don't like pickles", but clearly you could say "Pickles - barf" and not mean it. And thus it would be false. Is Ayer's confusing the expression with the actual sensation or sentiment? Or am I not following that for the purpose of Ayer;s discussion the expression of the sentiment and the sentiment are taken to be equivalent? Maybe that's made clear later. But for me the expression is not the sentiment and the expression is pragmatically equivalent to a statement which has a truth value. So the rest of the discussion is probably going to go down a rabbit hole that leads nowhere.
In Sam Harris's the Moral Landscape, he defines Morality as the well-being of conscious creatures. I think this is the unspoken assumption of moral statements. So when people say, "Violence is wrong", what they actually mean is "Violence is bad for (reduces) well-being". In resolving questions like "Should we legalize marijuana?", we should just add up the consequences of marijuana that increase well-being and weigh it against the consequences that decrease well-being. Using Sam Harris's definition of morality resolves many dilemmas.
But the axiom upon which it is built has no truth value, and as such has no meaning.
‘Well-being is worth working toward’ - says who ? That is a statement of opinion (for subjectivists) or emotion (emotivists), an untestable claim with no corresponding truth value.
I love the B.S. abbreviation at 27:27 ;)
Love your videos. As much as i see it, your are a great Philosopher. Thank you .
Assertion/ Exclamation / Question /Order....... Types of sentences....
...uh, I think Ayers may say “I don’t want to record today” and the “another video lecture, ugh” would be similar sentiments. They express mental states, but contain no real ethical substance. If someone says, “I know I have to record my lecture today, but I will not do it.”
The way I’ve read Ayers is parallel to how I consider Wittgenstein. We are way to opaque in our use of language to initiate many of moral or logical judgements that we float out to the world.
But, I could be misunderstanding them. Like the content.
Yeah, but he hasn't introduced the stuff yet. Actually he was using subjectivism for this. The sentence was true if he felt like it.
Factual agreement vs factual disagreement
Can we talk about how this mans is writing backwards
i thumbed up this comment, but, it's more likely that he just flipped the video horizontally :P
He doesn't think like a left handed person.
I believe he has a video that shows how the set-up works. I believe there is a mirror involved.
He's writing normal, and flipping the video. If you ever met him in person, he'd look a little odd, since you're only ever seeing a mirror image of him.
If you can't even figure that out, then the topics will really be beyond you! 😉 (gentle teasing)
Aren't there genuine disagreements between utilitarianism and deontological ethics that are not factual claims?
I need to listen few more times 😅
I would rather say that all three things are possible...
1) "X is wrong" might just be an expression like: "Boo, X!"
2) It might be also in some other instance, that the person just wants to express his disaggreement.
3) And then there are people really asserting that X was wrong.
A moral disagreement could mean different things then.
For 1) it could be just one screaming "Boo, X" while the other could go "Yey, X".
For 2) it probably would be that one wants to change the others mind, change his (dis)liking towards X.
In 3) there would be genuine disagreement.
I think just reducing it to one of those would be too narrow to get the whole range of interactions.
It seems to me as if one wanted to say, that a question is always just a question. But often enough something like: "You think X?" expresses disbelieve instead of a genuine question.
Or if somebody knocks on the door and you state: "The door is open" you are not asserting something, but you are saying "come in".
Language is used in too many ways and since I know myself, that I don't mean "Boo, X" all the time I say "X is wrong" I suggest they show different possible meanings of moral talk.
I think for Ayer, he would reject the *possibility* of 3) even existing. As a value statement, without extra qualification, X cannot be right or wrong.
So it would then actually once again become a subjective opinion. ‘X is wrong’ -> ‘I believe X to be wrong, though I can’t prove it, I believe I can/have/don’t have to’.
Or something, I got a bit circular at the end.
Yeah, I also think he would reject this.
But I know what I mean when I say this. And there are people who claim that moral values are objective. If I'm not getting it completely wrong, even Kant is arguing for some moral values to be objective.
Ayers view renders all these debates and thougts as mental aberrations, which I find hard to believe.
It must be the case that moral values are subjective for Ayer to be correct in saying that.
@@anthonynork9718 I think whether or not somebody believes morality is objective doesn't really come into whether or not Ayer thinks moral language can be.
For a start, moral language =/= morality, and secondly Ayer definitely doesn't think morality is objective. So... yeh.
And anyway, Kant can think this thing, and Ayer can think something else. Kant isn't the be-all and end-all of moral philosophers, even if he is the most noteworthy. Ayer is rejecting Kant in this sense, and that's ok. It's part of philosophy, to engage with ideas of those before you.
@@finndaniels9139
It is also part of philosophy to compare different philosophical thougts and scrutinize them.
Kant was just one example, because he most certainly was on the objective-side regarding moral values and most people know about him.
It probably depends on what Ayer exactly means by moral talk.
It might be that most of the talk in every day life is just an expression of ones own feeling towards a certain thing.
Maybe that is just what Ayer's position was.
For now I still would doubt that every talk about morality is just such an expression.
Let's suppose, that moral values were objective.
Then I don't see, why the propositions of moral language shouldn't be possibly true or false.
In the other case: Sure, it is hard to see, how they could be true or false.
Here it might still be, that there might be hidden assumptions, in relation to which they could get the status of "normal propositions".
I don't want to say, that this is the case.
I just want to think about the ideas put forward by people.
@@anthonynork9718 I get you man, but I think Ayer is literally writing in contradiction (or in furtherance of rationalism, but as he sees it) vs Kant.
So almost necessarily the two ideas won't be the same.
And yeh, certainly, you have to understand (at least be aware of) the broader area of philosophy, or it'll be impossible to build any meaningfully nuanced understanding
Combining what we have heard in this video with the explanation of Utilitarianism in prior videos, could the source of moral disagreements by any chance be the overwhelming challenge of measuring and weighing all outcomes postulated in the factual claims made to support moral statements that would need to be satisfactorily met to reach an aggregate value for pleasure/pain that would decide the matter for good? If that calculation was practically feasible, moral claims would in fact be verifiable, at least under the premises of Utilitarianism, contradicting Ayer‘s theory and Subjectivism at the same time.
I have this problem with utilitarianism that I haven't seen anyone else mention, though I'm sure someone else has. I just call it 'the assumption of the uniformity of values'. Basically I don't really think everyone's calculations of pleasure and pain are comparable, so ultimately I feel like moral disagreements would still exist even if some utilitarian supercomputer was made to determine moral facts. People would just have a problem with the criterion as opposed to the conclusion.
@@eslaweedguygrey they would, but at least they’d be testable in theory - if not practice.
And it would also allow you to make some baseline assertions - ‘murder is wrong’ for example.
The more nitty gritty bits, like ‘stealing more than £4 but less than £27 is 43 units bad’ are then obviously less testable in practice, but I think that’s ok.
If our opponent concurs with us in expressing moral disapproval of all actions of a given type t, then we may get him to condemn a particular action A, by bringing forward arguments to show that A is of type t.
40:20
Yeah this makes total sense I've seen moral system's disagreements where argument was impossible because the facts didn't matter the person on the other side of the argument was very far off the moral baseline.
'Is impairment correlated with peak THC blood levels?
No. “While fewer studies have examined the relationship between THC blood levels and degree of impairment, in those studies that have been conducted the consistent finding is that the level of THC in the blood and the degree of impairment do not appear to be closely related. Peak impairment does not occur when THC concentration in the blood is at or near peak levels. Peak THC level can occur when low impairment is measured, and high impairment can be measured when THC level is low. Thus, in contrast to the situation with alcohol, someone can show little or no impairment at a THC level at which someone else may show a greater degree of impairment.” Compton at p. 7.'
R. Compton, Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., Marijuana-Impaired Driving - A Report to Congress (DOT HS 812 440) (July 2017)
Thanks!
Can a question be considered false if it is making a false assumption? Like "why do all people only have one leg?" Because technically, though its a question, is asserting a statement
29:33.......
Moore's objection..... .....we have genuine moral disagreements.....
Assertion does two things.... Either true or false...
Great talk, we’ll done. I’ve been poor at spelling my whole life, wild scribbled handwriting was my technique before computers with autocorrect etc. 🤣
I’m still struggling with how saying “Boo Murder” is not just a way of saying “I dislike Murder”. Surely “Boo” indicates dislike or disapproval ?
In philosophy, the lack of clear language often masquerades as deep thought. This seems to be yet another case in point.
What simple idea is this discussion unnecessarily complicating?
It would be helpful for everyone if you pointed out what is giving you trouble instead of just stating that it is unclear
If I understood it rightly, Aquinas addressed this in Summa Theologica by saying that there are these two things, truth and goodness and each are convertible into the other. Thus one can convert a moral statement (i.e a statement about what is good) into a statement about what is true and vice versa.
1. Thus if one make the assertion there is currently a large city in Texas called Dallas. That is either true or false, and in this case is true.
2. Or one could say it is good that there is a large city in Texas called Dallas. That is a statement about goodness.
So to convert 1 into a goodness statement one can say is it good to assert that as True, and the answer to whether it is good depends on whether it is true and assering what is True is always good. For perhaps sometimes making a truth statement may not be good, say revealing a military secret to the enemy is not good, and especially if it is true.
And to convert 2 into a truth statement one can say, is it really true that it is good that there is a a large city in Texas named Dallas.
And (once again if I understood him rightly) it seems he ascribes truth statements to the intellect while goodness statements to the will. Thus the province of the intellect is to assess what is true vs what is false while the province of the will is to assess what is good vs what is not good. And this conversion then is like changing dollar (which say the intellect measures things) into Rubles (which the will understands) and vice versa.
But (once again if I understood that right, and its been quite a while that I read all this) that it is the heart that adjudicates this in that the heart rules on what is preferable. For it seems a rock or such has no preference as to being in one state or another. But humans do have such preferences and most humans would prefer to be healthy than sick, well fed vs starving, happy vs sad, have pleasure over pain, etc., know the truth vs be deceived, etc. that is the heart determines what one loves.
So the intellect asses truth but the heart determines whether one loves the truth or not. And the will assess goodness but the heart determines whether it prefers the good over what s evil. Thus the heart it seems addresses more along the lines of what moore is talking about what is an underlying good, that is what outcomes if preferable over some other outcome e.g. thou shall not kill, while the will applies that to the situation at hand, i.e should marijuana be legal given it can cause people to kill others by impairing their judgement, while the intellect assess is that true that smoking marijuana n does impair the judgment and make it more likely for one to kill someone in a traffic action due to their impaired judgment.
And this is something I have noticed that many philosopher seem to simply say something an earlier philosopher said just in a different way, albeit maybe they add something to what was said earlier in doing so, or maybe the opposite.
For I was listening to the other day,
The Enchiridion of Augustine
e.g. see
librivox.org/the-enchiridion-by-saint-augustine/
having posted it as a link in some other comment and noticed that he said pretty much the same as Descarte about I think therefore I am, by arguing with the Greeks (and I am paraphrasing this from memory so I might not be stating it quite right) that say there is nothing one can know with certainty to be true that in that if one can even assert that then obviously there is something one can know with certainty is true in that if one can be just being able to assert something means ione can be certain that they exist else they could not make any assertions to begin with. So it seems there is more than one way to skin a cat and similarly one can say the same thing different ways. So it seem that much of what you are cited here has been said in different ways by previous philosophers but in different ways but it seems that some get more press for what they say than others.
And Aquinas in Summa Theologica argues that theology is a science and it seems that one can take these ideas in philosophy over into religion and argue that statements such as a matter should be settled by two or three witnesses might in part refer to these two or wo witnesses being the intellect, the will, and that third being the heart. Of course there is no way to prove that is what is meant but one can argue that these ideas do seem to track one another well, that is there being these two or three witnesses required to settle important matter vs the parts of the soul (or such) , the intellect, the will, and the heart and the ideas of truth vs goodness and what makes something true or good and why those both matter.
So this seems to be another way of saying much the same as what those you cite in your presentation but approached perhaps from a somewhat different perspective or approach. And watching your presentation brought these to mind. So once again, I am finding your presentation both interesting and thought provoking, with the above being a few of those thoughts that were as such provoked.
And BTW, I am a retired engineer and approach all this not as a philosopher but more as an engineer in that if I were going to build an architecture say of a robot that acted in a similar manner as a human how might I construct that architecture and what would be its components. Thus I might make a component I might call the intellect that asses truth, a one component that I might call the will that makes decisions as to what seems good, and another component one might call the heart that deines justy what that robots considers to be good, while the will asses how to obtain that good, but not what that good is. So I may be approaching this form a different perspective than one might form opurly a philosophical one but more as an engineer.
When you say your statement 1 can be converted to statement 2, you still haven't solved how the label of truth can be applied to your converted sentence.
Statement 1 can be proven or disproven by appealing to physical evidence (and assuming the position of most expressivists, there is only the physical world to appeal to); either Dallas is a city in Texas or not.
Statement 2 has no grounds to appeal to for truth or falsity; there are countless situations where it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas or it is bad that Dallas is a city in Texas (just imagine a game show with someone very unfamiliar with American geography being asked which state Dallas is inside, it is perfectly rational why the contestant would believe statement 2 is bad, it is an expression of wanting not to lose).
To say something is true, you require truth conditions (typically, degree of correspondence to reality, hence the correspondence theory of truth). Beliefs are true on the condition that they correspond with reality. Things without truth conditions have no truth value and hence are neither true nor false.
As for your conversion of statement 2 into statement 1, "it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas" is different from "it is really true that it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas" which is also different from "it is really true that many people believe it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas".
As explained above, there are no objective grounds/truth conditions for claiming "it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas". This same problem carries into the next statement as it is impossible for anything to be true, that it is good.
The last statement, "it is true that many people believe it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas", does have truth conditions and hence, truth value. It is possible for sociologists to carry out surveys that ask people where they think it is good that Dallas is a city in Texas.
However, having a belief (even many people having it) doesn't mean that belief has any truth conditions and truth values. Like, think about the lecturer's example for hating pickles. On what grounds could you argue that this is a moral fact? It may be true that he, in particular, doesn't like pickles but pickles being bad is neither true nor false, simply a belief held by the speaker.
This unavoidable detachment between how things are and how things ought to be is also exemplified by Hume's is-ought distinction (something Aquinas couldn't have understood as Hume's philosophy arrived much later with the benefit of hindsight from Aquinas' time).
Hence when someone says "pickles are bad", many modern philosophers of language (Ayer, Wittgenstein, etc) theorised that this statement is not about the truth (as it has no truth conditions in the first place), the statement is about what that individual is expressing about the referred object (in the case of pickles, disgust). All moral statements have no truth conditions and truth values, hence it is theorised that all moral statements are simply expressing some belief of the individual professing it (expressivism). One type of expressivism is emotivism which is what the video above is covered.
Hope this made sense!
@@brian-nx8ge I agree that one needs goodness conditions here. As such it seems there are three aspects to such goodness conditions.
1. Are these goodness conditions in truth all that good,
2. Does the thing in truth meet those conditions, and
3. how certain can one be in regard to assessing 1 and 2.
But these three taken together does seem to be a way of converting goodness statements to truth statements.Thus one can ask is it good there is Dallas?
It is good that there is a city that has a high contribution to the GNP per capita.
Dallas has a high GNP contribution per capita, therefore (it is true that It is good that there is the city Dallas.
And ofcourse one might find it problematic to devise or defend one's goodness criteria but one can still make the claim that it is a valid criteria. And having at one time lived in Fort Worth, many people in Fort Worth might take exception to all the above given there is a bit of rivalry between the two cities.
I might add that anyone who has work much with optimization theory should be well aware of such goodness criteria or goodness metrics for that is what one tends to attempt to optimize, some goodness score (or minimize a badness score). For example a route planner might have several goodness criteria such as transit time, how scenic is the route, does it go near any Starbucks, etc. And it is hard to build multivariable optimizer so often if there are several criteria these are all somehow blended into an over all goodness score and that is what the optimizer tries to find the optimum solution.
As most who work with optimizer can testify that the optimizer is not the hardest part (especially if one is happy with a sub optimization and not a perfect one) but rather coming up with the best goodness criteria to compute this goodness scores is the most problematic part. Thus one uses truth estimates, like distances, and traffic estimates and such, and convert these to goodness scores and the compute a route that is the best (or goodest) and thus the one the person ought to take, given they accept those goodness metrics and the factual information that was used to compute those goodness metrics.
So what this might be called is converting goodness truth into goodness (scores and the goodness into truth (here is the best route). But say there was a traffic jam on that route that the optimizer didn't know about or that a driver that drove that route didn't think the route was all that scenic and thus did not agree with that scenic goodness rating. Thus in truth it may not have been the best route after all.
Now whether this is what Aquinas was meaning by that I couldn't say. But that is sort of how I took it to mean. And thus I am looking at this more as an engineer that might build such a planner and not so much as a philosopher.
@@RonLWilson Biased filter brings back biased set of data.
Biased assumptions the same.
People living in cities is unnatural. Big cities forcing it's way through higher economic output on province are bad. City produces much more evil than province in proportion to population.
Goodness is absolutely subjective idea. People look for it only because one type of goodness was established by as in group emotional standard that organises the group and is forced on others even by just own majority accepted framework.
Any other set of conditions are equal.
It's all about natural mechanism of organising. Agreeing common view always on expense of minority and as a psychological pressure as humans are wired to conform as a energy saving strategy.
Like they aren't conscious most of time. And repeat brainlessly what others around them repeat agreeing to majority consensus no matter if objectively good (only assumed as good).
practice doesn't like unknowns, chaos and tends to organise and agree commonality and and identify with the prevalent state of things like common belief of religion
truth is only a logical term evaluation
neutrally judging nonneutral question that expects non neutral answer
robot only knows logic, programmed to operate with human assumptions and expectations becomes as nonneutral
like dog become non neutral after domestication by human or rather a different human way nonneutral in opposition to wolf way nonneutral
but wolf does what's good for him naturally
while dog does it in human "culture" context under own survival in human conditions
cat is more closer to natural state of it's original species
human would be better off reconsidering everything he did walking away from his natural state
what is one of causes of his luck if natural sense of living, mental illnesses, genetic diseases, fixation on blindly testing unnatural things on himself and becoming prey to anything he wasn't evolved adapted to to and what he made his standard but not natural condition of living
asking unnatural questions bring unnatural results bringing more unnatural questions and results
agreeing with that is optimal but only in context of no natural alternative as a standard that is mostly inhumane by definition as come to be exactly by moving away from origins and roots
hunting and eating meat is good from biological point of view the same as giving birth to children regularly
Uhh what? See Hume. You can't have an ought from an is.
@@planetary-rendez-vous True!
But you can say an ought is an is.
For example you can say it is (in general) good to tell the truth, the is here being to tell the truth and the ought is that one ought therefore to aspire to do that.
The first thing I thought of when you said true/false was realizing it could be honest/dishonest... then i got confused.
Moral agreement vs moral disagreement.....
How does the invisible white board work or can he right backwards very well?
Writing on glass and reversing the picture in editing
Moral claims X factual claims...
❤❤❤
Thank you
Correct me if my logic is faulty, but:
I'm not sure if I can agree with the assertion that moral disagreements are really just factual disagreements.
Going by your example of the marijuana argument, most of the time this discussion occurs in the real world, both the person arguing for and the person arguing against are aware of both of the facts that were brought up and might agree that both statements are true. So, actually, the disagreement is not about facts. What they really disagree on is which value - "preventing car crashes" or "stopping seizures" - is more important. Which is the more moral thing to pursue. So the disagreement is, in fact, about morality.
Its interesting he used an example of sports because people often argue with eachother over sports opinions as id theyre fact XD
how did you know I wouldn't pause the video 😳
I love how he misspelled ,,guy"
thank you!
At 16:19 I’m not sure I follow. Is “sorry” not short for “I am filled with sorrow?” Otherwise how could the person be insincere?
...denotes preference ...denotes vantage point
Ethics isn’t a matter of argument its a value system in which you agree that its inherent to a stable relationship and power struggle amongst people where tolerance is a way of abuse and people who tend not to have core values are easily persuaded.
6:00......morality and moral talk....
Marijuana is denoted as a description of the state induced by (being under the influence of) smoking the plant named 'cannabis,' and as such, should be illegal (or treated like highly controlled substances) in states requiring true and logical usage of language, such as that of my own body, and furthermore, the plant named 'cannabis' should be legal to smoke in states that don't require additional external punishment in reaction to self-punishment.
sub-stance wink wink this is divine comedy
It might occur to someone that "Is the door still shut?" is a question and is true or false. The question asserts that the door was previously shut. Never mind. :)
I'm reminded of the fallacy of fallacy; Just because the argument is presented poorly does not invalidate the argument. Oh if I only had a ghost writer and a platform, I could write an entire paper just off of this video. The enlightenment thinkers really are like Franklin, with his kite and key, trying to describe quantum theory. I think the search for absolute rules necessarily limits our understanding to the most simple situations only, like trying to use Newtonian physics in the relativistic universe of Einstein. There just isn't the bandwidth available in a comment to address this issue acceptably
27:47 I don't know. The sentences "I'm exhausted." and "Violence is wrong." both seem to be describing the speaker's mental state.
This is all well and good about preferences and all that, however-
Where is the talk about framing moral statements as IF THEN statements?
Basically, every moral claim can be converted into an IF YOU DO THIS, I'LL DO THIS, form.
examples:
if you pick your nose in public, (in response) i will make a disgusted face and look at you funny
if you cheat on your test and i find out, (in response) i will give you an F
if you don't pay your credit card, (in response) i will lower your credit score
if you don't pay your mortgage, (in response) i will take your house
if you don't pay your rent, (in response) i will kick you out on the street
if we are in a relationship and you cheat on me, (in response) i will end the relationship
These examples illustrate (i hope) that if you try to articulate the application of moral statements (preferences),
they will show up as an easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to analyze IF THEN form.
for instance, if someone says
if you flip me off in public, (as a response) i will punch you in the face
:some people follow this rule
other people follow:
if you flip me off in public, (as a response) i will walk away
other people say:
if you flip me off in public, (as a response) i will try to have a level-headed conversation investigating why that happened
maybe that's like Tom Cruise, who did that to a guy who squirted him in the face
this is where preference comes in, you get to decide your reaction to any given event.
how successful those actions are in real life (in respect your overall goals in life) determines how "good" your reaction is.
Let's say my overall goal (SECRET BELIEFS/DESIRES) in life is to:
1)be the alpha male, protect my reputation, make everyone afraid of me
this person will punch you in the face
2)safety is more important than needless violence, don't care what strangers think, get out of sketchy situations
this person will walk away
3)want to make the world a better place, everyone who is mean is actually hurt in some way, maybe i can make a difference
this person will try to start a conversation
The interesting thing is this: you can find out a person's secret beliefs by observing how they react to any given situation.
Isn’t “sorry” just a contraction of “I am sorry” which is a statement that can be true or false?
Ayer
36:10 No, I didn't pause butI DID make like 5 arguments
Do you do a lecture on Eastern philosophies, especially that of Persian's?
Pure Gold