I have considered your last point for a long time. And I have come to two conclusions on it: Firstly, as the nihilist, I would respond something like this: “I only care about truth and compelling evidence in so far as I can gain a martial (real) advantage from knowing it. Truth to me has no more value on its own than morality. If holding morality views would give me an advantage, I would hold them too, it just happens that (as a purely restrict force) they don't..” Obviously, this would then beg the question of why I would value my own advantage as good. Isn’t that a moral statement, at least in a moral relativism sense? And I think this would ultimately bring the discussion to free will itself. In my opinion the whole moral debatte has the hidden assumption that humans choose their actions. I don't think this is the case. I am ultimately a bunch of chemical processes in my brain that through evolution seek to survive (and reproduce). I have no influence over the fact that I will pursue my self-interest, any more than a series of dominos has of falling over. The way the personality, the chemicals construct, is ultimacy only another domino that is deluded into thinking it can decide to fall or not. It’s just the nihilist’s dominos happened to be standing in a way were the “person” doesn’t believe in moral facts.
I think when it comes to burning children the moral nihilists response would be to say it is not morally wrong but it shows that the man has poor mental health. We can then look at the cause of the problem instead of just demonising people as evil.
Nihilists cannot base mental health on an objective measure. Nihilism needs to be subjective otherwise it falls apart. However, if mental health is subjective, there is no way to say if he has or has not poor mental health. On top of that, poor mental health is attributing a human condition, which is also anti nihilism. The idea of there being something inherently human that gives us meaning is very non nihilism.
@Vooodooolicious you are mixing up moral nihilism with nihilism, moral nihilism believes their is no such thing as morality, no such thing as good and evil.
@@BlackMantisRed Moral nihilists still say that mental health is a subjective measure so there is nothing to say that burning children is objectively wrong. They need to prove that suffering is a subjective thing that doesn't exist in the real world. I guess that people who believe in this follow Kant with his categorical imperatives.
@@Vooodooolicious Saying burning a child is objectively wrong and saying burning a child is mentally unhealthy are too different claims. "It is wrong to burn a child" is a prescriptive claim. Saying "burning a child is mentally unhealthy" is a descriptive claim. The fact you would mix these claims up tells me you don't know what you are talking about.
Counterargument to argument 1 that "if moral nihilism is true, then positive moral sentences must have a truth value" The problem is premise 4): "So, if moral nihilism is true, then for any positive moral sentence, P, 'it is false that P' is true" which is supposed to logically follow (I guess) from premise 2 "any sentence that denies the existence of genuine moral features or properties is true". The point is "a sentence that denies the existence of genuine moral features or properties" can not be converted into the form "it is false that P" as denying the existence of something is not the same as saying that something is false. Moral nihilism is not stating all moral sentences are false, but all of them have NO TRUTH VALUE. For example, from the perspective of moral nihilism, the moral sentence "murder is wrong" is not false, but neither false or true, it has no truth value. Hence, it can not be written into "it is false that murder is wrong".
“Denying the existence of something is not the same thing as saying something is false.” The argument does not conflate those two things. What the argument is attempting to do is establish a *relationship* between those two things. If a sentence that denies the existence of certain features is true, that would mean that the sentence that it is denying would have to have a truth value. There are some moral nihilists that think moral sentences have no truth value, but there are plenty of others-error theorists in particular-that think they do.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons "If a sentence that denies the existence of certain features is true, that would mean that the sentence that it is denying would have to have a truth value. " If the denial sentence is true, that means the feature being denied does not exist. The truth value of the moral feature is a sub-property established on the existence of the moral content in the first place. For instance, "His left arm does not exist" is not the same as "It is false that his left arm is short". It appears to me the ambiguity resides on the subtle difference between a statement being morally false and the entirety of the system upon which the statement could be evaluated to false or any value being non-existent.
@@xunningliu "moral features" don't have truth values'; moral features either exist or don't exist. Again, the reasoning of the argument is not conflating existence claims with truth and falsity, but is merely pointing out a relationship between the two things. "His left arm does not exist" is not the same as "it is false that his left arm is short," but "his left arm does not exist" certainly *implies* "it is false that his left arm is short." If it is true that "there are no genuine moral features to the world" then "there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world" would be false. Therefore, if "there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world" is false, any statement that IMPLIES IT--such as "murder is morally wrong"--would also be false.
The nihilist friend can pretty easily give an answer and stay consistent to their beliefs. "They is no inherent reason we should care about what is true or care about what we have compelling evidence for." Just because someone might care about finding truth or evaluating evidence, you can't assume that they believe it is right or important to do so. You are correct at the end however, if you believe finding truth is an inherently right or good thing to do, then yes you are not a moral nihilist. I would just it be noted that the moral nihilist position was not fully or satisfyingly represented here, although only at the very end. up until then it was very good. To further illustrate my point about how a nihilist may respond to these types of situations. There is no objectively true reason for a moral nihilist to do anything. Conversely, there is no objectively true reason for a moral nihilist not to do anything. Yet, by the nature of existence you will always be doing things, making choices. Even killing yourself or staying completely motionless is doing something, making a choice. Thus, you can phrase anything the way you did with valuing the finding of truth. "Why did you eat that pizza? Why should you care about sustaining your body and surviving?" Nihilist response: "There is no inherent reason to care about that. (or anything)." Why they did it has no bearing or relation to what they fundamentally believe about the nature of moral realism. I hope this helps some understand the position of moral nihilist better.
The claim is not made in the video that nihilists don’t ACTUALLY care about anything. The claim being made is that the nihilist cannot give any reasons why one *ought* to care about what is true or what can be supported by evidence.
In the last slide, you said that moral nihilists do care about truth and think so based on evidence. Perhaps that is true of moral nihilists but what I understood about nihilism [general nihilism?] is not that they assert any position or that anything is true or false. It is that regardless whether whatever is true or false, it is devoid of meaning. It does not matter. A nihilist may think that we cannot know it, and even if we know it, it doesn't matter. Or am I wrong on the nihilist position? It is a lack of meaning. Perhaps moral nihilism means something different from nihilism per se. Or maybe I got nihilism wrong or as you said from the start, what I am talking about is existential nihilism and what your video is about is moral nihilism which is a different thing. Nonetheless thanks for your video, it is clear and informative. I came to your channel by way of your Grue video and that too was clarifying. Cheers.
Thanks for your interest! What you have in mind is more akin to existential nihilism than what I am talking about in this video. Generally speaking, nihilism about any given domain simply involves denying that there are any facts within that domain.
If there are no objective moral truths, how can the claim that there are no objective moral truths be objectively true? Also there is an oversimplification of error theory. Under error theory, things don't need to be literally true, they just need to be useful. The argument against expressionism is an assumption. Statements don't need to be true or false to be useful.
A moral claim involves purporting that there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world. “There are no objective moral facts” does not purport that there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world, so “there are no objective moral facts” is not a moral claim. The video does not explain error theory as the position that “moral statements must be literally true in order to be useful.” Error theory is the position that all moral statements are false. Whether they are useful or not is a separate issue-some error theorists are eliminativists about moral language, others (like Richard Joyce) are not. As such, the video is neither an oversimplication nor a mischaracterization of error theory. The same applies to your claims about expressivism. Whether moral language is useful is neither here nor there with respect to expressivism.
Answer to counter argument #1: it is neither "morally right nor morally wrong" because that is trying to categorize things into a criteria which in order to postulate exists we have to simply accept a moral realist position out of hand Answer to argument #2 with the 3 things we ought to do.. there isnt any "ought" from thin air in reality.. there is only an objective ought out of a postulated goal... So IF we want to live in accordance to reality.. THEN .. we OUGHT to care about what is true What is the "if" commanding the ought for moral realism.. because just about any "if" given is itself non universal and describes someones personal desire for the world.. and it must be pressed to specifics .. and thats exactly where views diverge Thats why there can never be any objective universal moral truth or ought
If some of our moral sentences are true, then there are moral facts. Having reason to think that some of our moral sentences are true is not simply "presupposing a realist position." The considerations being made in the last section involve the notion that we can properly be blamed for failing to care about certain things. That is consistent with caring about things for prudential reasons. If it is true that ought to care about certain things--in a way that we can be properly blamed for failing to care--then there are relevant moral facts concerning those things. In that regard, I'm not sure what you mean here when you say "that is why there cannot be any objective/universal moral truth." How does the fact that we have prudential reasons for acting imply moral nihilism?
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons 1. Moral sentences can exist without "actual" morality really existing.. they can describe a phenomena or category of thought and can be linguistic.. yet this doesnt create a real objective phenomena of morality considering how i can postulate nearly any proposition in which i can at least find someone who disagrees on this or that topic based on some context.. so moral statements can exist as a "thought process/category of thinking" without any universal objective morality Being blamed for things just implies responsibility and has no implication of morality inherently.. for example someone moved a glass .. thats neuteral.. they are responsible.. then someone comes along who didnt want that glass moved and is now upset and "blames that person for acting wrongly and moving the glass" Its just responsibility it doesnt imply morality inherently Once responsiblity is assigned punishment can be administered by a person or mutual agreement.. and if moral nihlism is true that doesnt mean punishment cant be administered since no moral justification is required to punish.. also punishment itself is just a linguistic term like "blame" which implies some wrongdoing.. yet one mans punishment is another mans injustice .. so really were looking at more the "response" if we were to speak more objectively about it Also even IF we were to able to find a statement on which every man on earth agrees as wrong.. the actual amount of "morals" would be so small relative to the everyday constant decisions people ascribe ethics and morals to.. at that point it would just be more clear cut to say some unique circumstances have universal agreement than to keep clinging to this ever fracturing shrinking morality thing which always depends on just not finding someone who disagrees in some way I hope i was able to follow your logic and answer appropriately
@@WAKMM it’s plainly obvious that moral sentences can exist without their being moral facts. What I said is that if any of our moral sentences are *true* it follows that there are moral facts. Likewise, there is a difference between people *actually* blaming others for their actions and people being *blameworthy* for their actions. In the video and in my comment I am talking about blameworthiness. You are largely confusing issues here.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons i think by how youre framing or defining "true" i would have to take the position that no true moral statements can possibly exist Yet the "descriptor" of moral is a thought category that exists For example if we lived in an alternate universe where people spoke of "lightness and darkness" and said "he has the light " or "he has darkness" and then proceeded to ascribe many.. but oft debated things as to what is light or dark.. for example darkness could be everything from murder.. to having 4 sports cars if someone deems that "excessive".. they could say "he is in the darkness.. If everyone spoke like this then darkness and lightness would be "real" like socially real as a spoken subject/aspect of mentality and thought Yet no actual objective "true lightness or darkness statement" could be made by the way youre defining true as far as i can tell I guess im saying moral statements cant be "objectively true" while at the same time saying they arent an in valid thing to discuss simply by common subject matters and social understandings.. theoretically we can make nearly any arbitrary categorization meaningful
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons to give the extreme example.. if someone were to kidnap and terminate the lives of live babies from families we could say well everyone would say this is pure evil Yet lets look at a state policy like when china had their strict one child policies.. this is what the state often did.. yet many citizens considered it "their failing" to produce more than one child and therefore disobey the law and they were the imoral ones for bringing the child into the world.. while putting no blame on the state I would personally argue that the state was kidnapping and terminating babies.. Its these sorts of contextual shifts which can make nearly anything possible It can really be seen if anyone does some honest inquiry into how totalitarian regimes have sold their brutal agendas onto the populations as "the right thing"
Great video, I like to clarify my position as a moral nihilist. I cannot definitely speak for all moral nihilist. I care about things and I have preferences. I may not have a objective reason for caring about anything yet I do anyway. I think it's safe to say that the way we operate in our daily lives is largely based off of emotion and induction. We trust things are going to behave as we expect them to without a completely objective and rational standard. Psychologically we could not function in this manner. For instance, before my commute to work, I don't need an inspection of the road before I get on it to make sure that a sinkhole won't open up on my way to work while I'm driving. I don't need every vehicle on the road to have their brakes inspected the day I'm going to commute. Because I can't objectively know that everyone's vehicle is working properly. I just have to trust that people are maintaining their vehicles. Before I get on a plane. I have to just trust that the pilot is sober and knows what he's doing. I'm not going to give him a blood alcohol test before I fly and check his qualifications. I just trust that the systems in place are working. I say all of that to say this. I think it is bad to murder people. I think it is bad to murder people because I would not want to be murdered. I don't want to be murdered because I have a preference for living and to not be in pain. These things are preferences and are not objective. If I don't exist. My preference no longer exist. If humans don't exist, morality would not exist. Unless you are some type of platonist, we have to acknowledge that morals are just preferences based on our emotions.
Thanks for your comments! In what sense do you think that murder is "bad"? You are certainly correct that if people didn't exist then *morality* would not exist--if by "morality" you mean sets of beliefs, practices, things people value, and theories people construct regarding these things--but that is neither here nor there with respect to the existence of *moral facts.* It is also true that if people didn't exist that the sciences would not exist--there would be no systematized theories, hypotheses, experiments, data etc. of any kind--but it doesn't follow that the *objects studied by the sciences* would not exist. By the same token, it can still be the case that individual preferences ought to be given moral consideration even if there are no individuals that *actually* possess preferences.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Your analogy between the objects studied by sciences and morality doesn't quite hold up because of the fundamental difference in their objects of study. The sciences deal with empirical, observable phenomena that exist independently of human thought or behavior. These phenomena would continue to exist even if human beings and our scientific theories did not. Morality, on the other hand, is inextricably tied to conscious beings capable of making value judgments and ethical decisions. It is a conceptual framework that we use to guide and judge our actions. If there were no conscious beings, there would be no morality in any meaningful sense. Moral considerations require the existence of moral agents, while natural phenomena do not require observers to continue to exist.
Are you referring to the section of the video where I am talking about theoretical entities? There I am not drawing analogy between ethics and science. I’m only explaining what a theoretical entity is and using particles of physics as an *example* of a theoretical entity. If there are moral facts, they are obviously completely different *kinds of things* than particles of physics are, but that doesn’t mean that moral facts and particles of physics do not play similar *roles* in their respective theories. Also, it’s worth pointing out that moral objectivists would say that moral facts are mind-independent entities in the same way that particles of physics are.
𝗔𝗿𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗶𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺 Premise 1: Atheism rejects all moral claims that rely on gods. Premise 2: Atheism rejects all a priori moral transcendentals. (e.g. Dao, Dharma, Divine Logos) Premise 3: Hume's guillotine refutes all moral claims derived from observable facts. Premise 4: Death/Entropy negates all moral claims derived from consequences. Soon, no one will care what you did. Premise 5: There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with changing or losing interest in one’s values. Value judgements are NOT actually moral claims, but mere opinions or preferences. Premise 6: Moral Nihilism is the only Atheism that is sufficiently rational to reject moral claims. Conclusion: Moral Nihilism is the only rational outlook for Atheism.
@@fij715 thats why we can say its convenient that most people have moral codes. but just because it is convenient that everyone has a moral code does not mean we absolutely need to have one too. I personally prefer moral nihilism since it gives me freedom while everyone around me still acts by the same rules.
Why *should* we care? There is no reason we *should* care. Caring is more interesting than not caring, but "should" doesn't follow from this.
I have considered your last point for a long time.
And I have come to two conclusions on it:
Firstly, as the nihilist, I would respond something like this: “I only care about truth and compelling evidence in so far as I can gain a martial (real) advantage from knowing it. Truth to me has no more value on its own than morality. If holding morality views would give me an advantage, I would hold them too, it just happens that (as a purely restrict force) they don't..”
Obviously, this would then beg the question of why I would value my own advantage as good. Isn’t that a moral statement, at least in a moral relativism sense?
And I think this would ultimately bring the discussion to free will itself. In my opinion the whole moral debatte has the hidden assumption that humans choose their actions. I don't think this is the case. I am ultimately a bunch of chemical processes in my brain that through evolution seek to survive (and reproduce). I have no influence over the fact that I will pursue my self-interest, any more than a series of dominos has of falling over. The way the personality, the chemicals construct, is ultimacy only another domino that is deluded into thinking it can decide to fall or not.
It’s just the nihilist’s dominos happened to be standing in a way were the “person” doesn’t believe in moral facts.
I think when it comes to burning children the moral nihilists response would be to say it is not morally wrong but it shows that the man has poor mental health. We can then look at the cause of the problem instead of just demonising people as evil.
Nihilists cannot base mental health on an objective measure. Nihilism needs to be subjective otherwise it falls apart. However, if mental health is subjective, there is no way to say if he has or has not poor mental health. On top of that, poor mental health is attributing a human condition, which is also anti nihilism. The idea of there being something inherently human that gives us meaning is very non nihilism.
@Vooodooolicious you are mixing up moral nihilism with nihilism, moral nihilism believes their is no such thing as morality, no such thing as good and evil.
@@BlackMantisRed Moral nihilists still say that mental health is a subjective measure so there is nothing to say that burning children is objectively wrong. They need to prove that suffering is a subjective thing that doesn't exist in the real world. I guess that people who believe in this follow Kant with his categorical imperatives.
@@Vooodooolicious Saying burning a child is objectively wrong and saying burning a child is mentally unhealthy are too different claims. "It is wrong to burn a child" is a prescriptive claim. Saying "burning a child is mentally unhealthy" is a descriptive claim. The fact you would mix these claims up tells me you don't know what you are talking about.
Excellent video. I think a lot of otherwise rational people are expressivist about their moral statements without realizing it.
Counterargument to argument 1 that "if moral nihilism is true, then positive moral sentences must have a truth value"
The problem is premise 4): "So, if moral nihilism is true, then for any positive moral sentence, P, 'it is false that P' is true" which is supposed to logically follow (I guess) from premise 2 "any sentence that denies the existence of genuine moral features or properties is true". The point is "a sentence that denies the existence of genuine moral features or properties" can not be converted into the form "it is false that P" as denying the existence of something is not the same as saying that something is false. Moral nihilism is not stating all moral sentences are false, but all of them have NO TRUTH VALUE. For example, from the perspective of moral nihilism, the moral sentence "murder is wrong" is not false, but neither false or true, it has no truth value. Hence, it can not be written into "it is false that murder is wrong".
“Denying the existence of something is not the same thing as saying something is false.”
The argument does not conflate those two things. What the argument is attempting to do is establish a *relationship* between those two things. If a sentence that denies the existence of certain features is true, that would mean that the sentence that it is denying would have to have a truth value.
There are some moral nihilists that think moral sentences have no truth value, but there are plenty of others-error theorists in particular-that think they do.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons "If a sentence that denies the existence of certain features is true, that would mean that the sentence that it is denying would have to have a truth value. "
If the denial sentence is true, that means the feature being denied does not exist. The truth value of the moral feature is a sub-property established on the existence of the moral content in the first place. For instance, "His left arm does not exist" is not the same as "It is false that his left arm is short".
It appears to me the ambiguity resides on the subtle difference between a statement being morally false and the entirety of the system upon which the statement could be evaluated to false or any value being non-existent.
@@xunningliu "moral features" don't have truth values'; moral features either exist or don't exist.
Again, the reasoning of the argument is not conflating existence claims with truth and falsity, but is merely pointing out a relationship between the two things.
"His left arm does not exist" is not the same as "it is false that his left arm is short," but "his left arm does not exist" certainly *implies* "it is false that his left arm is short."
If it is true that "there are no genuine moral features to the world" then "there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world" would be false. Therefore, if "there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world" is false, any statement that IMPLIES IT--such as "murder is morally wrong"--would also be false.
The nihilist friend can pretty easily give an answer and stay consistent to their beliefs.
"They is no inherent reason we should care about what is true or care about what we have compelling evidence for."
Just because someone might care about finding truth or evaluating evidence, you can't assume that they believe it is right or important to do so. You are correct at the end however, if you believe finding truth is an inherently right or good thing to do, then yes you are not a moral nihilist. I would just it be noted that the moral nihilist position was not fully or satisfyingly represented here, although only at the very end. up until then it was very good.
To further illustrate my point about how a nihilist may respond to these types of situations.
There is no objectively true reason for a moral nihilist to do anything. Conversely, there is no objectively true reason for a moral nihilist not to do anything. Yet, by the nature of existence you will always be doing things, making choices. Even killing yourself or staying completely motionless is doing something, making a choice. Thus, you can phrase anything the way you did with valuing the finding of truth.
"Why did you eat that pizza? Why should you care about sustaining your body and surviving?"
Nihilist response: "There is no inherent reason to care about that. (or anything)."
Why they did it has no bearing or relation to what they fundamentally believe about the nature of moral realism.
I hope this helps some understand the position of moral nihilist better.
The claim is not made in the video that nihilists don’t ACTUALLY care about anything. The claim being made is that the nihilist cannot give any reasons why one *ought* to care about what is true or what can be supported by evidence.
which app/ website did you use to create the video, sir?
VideoScribe!
In the last slide, you said that moral nihilists do care about truth and think so based on evidence. Perhaps that is true of moral nihilists but what I understood about nihilism [general nihilism?] is not that they assert any position or that anything is true or false. It is that regardless whether whatever is true or false, it is devoid of meaning. It does not matter. A nihilist may think that we cannot know it, and even if we know it, it doesn't matter. Or am I wrong on the nihilist position? It is a lack of meaning. Perhaps moral nihilism means something different from nihilism per se. Or maybe I got nihilism wrong or as you said from the start, what I am talking about is existential nihilism and what your video is about is moral nihilism which is a different thing.
Nonetheless thanks for your video, it is clear and informative. I came to your channel by way of your Grue video and that too was clarifying. Cheers.
Thanks for your interest! What you have in mind is more akin to existential nihilism than what I am talking about in this video. Generally speaking, nihilism about any given domain simply involves denying that there are any facts within that domain.
"Dancing shift sweeping the nation," 😂 💀
If there are no objective moral truths, how can the claim that there are no objective moral truths be objectively true?
Also there is an oversimplification of error theory. Under error theory, things don't need to be literally true, they just need to be useful.
The argument against expressionism is an assumption. Statements don't need to be true or false to be useful.
A moral claim involves purporting that there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world. “There are no objective moral facts” does not purport that there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world, so “there are no objective moral facts” is not a moral claim.
The video does not explain error theory as the position that “moral statements must be literally true in order to be useful.” Error theory is the position that all moral statements are false. Whether they are useful or not is a separate issue-some error theorists are eliminativists about moral language, others (like Richard Joyce) are not. As such, the video is neither an oversimplication nor a mischaracterization of error theory.
The same applies to your claims about expressivism. Whether moral language is useful is neither here nor there with respect to expressivism.
Nice video
Answer to counter argument #1: it is neither "morally right nor morally wrong" because that is trying to categorize things into a criteria which in order to postulate exists we have to simply accept a moral realist position out of hand
Answer to argument #2 with the 3 things we ought to do.. there isnt any "ought" from thin air in reality.. there is only an objective ought out of a postulated goal... So IF we want to live in accordance to reality.. THEN .. we OUGHT to care about what is true
What is the "if" commanding the ought for moral realism.. because just about any "if" given is itself non universal and describes someones personal desire for the world.. and it must be pressed to specifics .. and thats exactly where views diverge
Thats why there can never be any objective universal moral truth or ought
If some of our moral sentences are true, then there are moral facts. Having reason to think that some of our moral sentences are true is not simply "presupposing a realist position."
The considerations being made in the last section involve the notion that we can properly be blamed for failing to care about certain things. That is consistent with caring about things for prudential reasons. If it is true that ought to care about certain things--in a way that we can be properly blamed for failing to care--then there are relevant moral facts concerning those things. In that regard, I'm not sure what you mean here when you say "that is why there cannot be any objective/universal moral truth." How does the fact that we have prudential reasons for acting imply moral nihilism?
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons 1. Moral sentences can exist without "actual" morality really existing.. they can describe a phenomena or category of thought and can be linguistic.. yet this doesnt create a real objective phenomena of morality considering how i can postulate nearly any proposition in which i can at least find someone who disagrees on this or that topic based on some context.. so moral statements can exist as a "thought process/category of thinking" without any universal objective morality
Being blamed for things just implies responsibility and has no implication of morality inherently.. for example someone moved a glass .. thats neuteral.. they are responsible.. then someone comes along who didnt want that glass moved and is now upset and "blames that person for acting wrongly and moving the glass"
Its just responsibility it doesnt imply morality inherently
Once responsiblity is assigned punishment can be administered by a person or mutual agreement.. and if moral nihlism is true that doesnt mean punishment cant be administered since no moral justification is required to punish.. also punishment itself is just a linguistic term like "blame" which implies some wrongdoing.. yet one mans punishment is another mans injustice .. so really were looking at more the "response" if we were to speak more objectively about it
Also even IF we were to able to find a statement on which every man on earth agrees as wrong.. the actual amount of "morals" would be so small relative to the everyday constant decisions people ascribe ethics and morals to.. at that point it would just be more clear cut to say some unique circumstances have universal agreement than to keep clinging to this ever fracturing shrinking morality thing which always depends on just not finding someone who disagrees in some way
I hope i was able to follow your logic and answer appropriately
@@WAKMM it’s plainly obvious that moral sentences can exist without their being moral facts. What I said is that if any of our moral sentences are *true* it follows that there are moral facts.
Likewise, there is a difference between people *actually* blaming others for their actions and people being *blameworthy* for their actions. In the video and in my comment I am talking about blameworthiness. You are largely confusing issues here.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons i think by how youre framing or defining "true" i would have to take the position that no true moral statements can possibly exist
Yet the "descriptor" of moral is a thought category that exists
For example if we lived in an alternate universe where people spoke of "lightness and darkness" and said "he has the light " or "he has darkness" and then proceeded to ascribe many.. but oft debated things as to what is light or dark.. for example darkness could be everything from murder.. to having 4 sports cars if someone deems that "excessive".. they could say "he is in the darkness..
If everyone spoke like this then darkness and lightness would be "real" like socially real as a spoken subject/aspect of mentality and thought
Yet no actual objective "true lightness or darkness statement" could be made by the way youre defining true as far as i can tell
I guess im saying moral statements cant be "objectively true" while at the same time saying they arent an in valid thing to discuss simply by common subject matters and social understandings.. theoretically we can make nearly any arbitrary categorization meaningful
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons to give the extreme example.. if someone were to kidnap and terminate the lives of live babies from families we could say well everyone would say this is pure evil
Yet lets look at a state policy like when china had their strict one child policies.. this is what the state often did.. yet many citizens considered it "their failing" to produce more than one child and therefore disobey the law and they were the imoral ones for bringing the child into the world.. while putting no blame on the state
I would personally argue that the state was kidnapping and terminating babies..
Its these sorts of contextual shifts which can make nearly anything possible
It can really be seen if anyone does some honest inquiry into how totalitarian regimes have sold their brutal agendas onto the populations as "the right thing"
I enjoy being a nihilist
not idea it’s worth it than any other.
Great video, I like to clarify my position as a moral nihilist. I cannot definitely speak for all moral nihilist. I care about things and I have preferences. I may not have a objective reason for caring about anything yet I do anyway. I think it's safe to say that the way we operate in our daily lives is largely based off of emotion and induction. We trust things are going to behave as we expect them to without a completely objective and rational standard. Psychologically we could not function in this manner. For instance, before my commute to work, I don't need an inspection of the road before I get on it to make sure that a sinkhole won't open up on my way to work while I'm driving. I don't need every vehicle on the road to have their brakes inspected the day I'm going to commute. Because I can't objectively know that everyone's vehicle is working properly. I just have to trust that people are maintaining their vehicles. Before I get on a plane. I have to just trust that the pilot is sober and knows what he's doing. I'm not going to give him a blood alcohol test before I fly and check his qualifications. I just trust that the systems in place are working.
I say all of that to say this. I think it is bad to murder people. I think it is bad to murder people because I would not want to be murdered. I don't want to be murdered because I have a preference for living and to not be in pain. These things are preferences and are not objective. If I don't exist. My preference no longer exist. If humans don't exist, morality would not exist. Unless you are some type of platonist, we have to acknowledge that morals are just preferences based on our emotions.
Thanks for your comments!
In what sense do you think that murder is "bad"?
You are certainly correct that if people didn't exist then *morality* would not exist--if by "morality" you mean sets of beliefs, practices, things people value, and theories people construct regarding these things--but that is neither here nor there with respect to the existence of *moral facts.* It is also true that if people didn't exist that the sciences would not exist--there would be no systematized theories, hypotheses, experiments, data etc. of any kind--but it doesn't follow that the *objects studied by the sciences* would not exist.
By the same token, it can still be the case that individual preferences ought to be given moral consideration even if there are no individuals that *actually* possess preferences.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Your analogy between the objects studied by sciences and morality doesn't quite hold up because of the fundamental difference in their objects of study. The sciences deal with empirical, observable phenomena that exist independently of human thought or behavior. These phenomena would continue to exist even if human beings and our scientific theories did not.
Morality, on the other hand, is inextricably tied to conscious beings capable of making value judgments and ethical decisions. It is a conceptual framework that we use to guide and judge our actions. If there were no conscious beings, there would be no morality in any meaningful sense. Moral considerations require the existence of moral agents, while natural phenomena do not require observers to continue to exist.
Are you referring to the section of the video where I am talking about theoretical entities? There I am not drawing analogy between ethics and science. I’m only explaining what a theoretical entity is and using particles of physics as an *example* of a theoretical entity. If there are moral facts, they are obviously completely different *kinds of things* than particles of physics are, but that doesn’t mean that moral facts and particles of physics do not play similar *roles* in their respective theories.
Also, it’s worth pointing out that moral objectivists would say that moral facts are mind-independent entities in the same way that particles of physics are.
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons AAAAAAAAAAAARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGHHHHHHHHH 😨🤕
𝗔𝗿𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗶𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺
Premise 1: Atheism rejects all moral claims that rely on gods.
Premise 2: Atheism rejects all a priori moral transcendentals. (e.g. Dao, Dharma, Divine Logos)
Premise 3: Hume's guillotine refutes all moral claims derived from observable facts.
Premise 4: Death/Entropy negates all moral claims derived from consequences. Soon, no one will care what you did.
Premise 5: There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with changing or losing interest in one’s values. Value judgements are NOT actually moral claims, but mere opinions or preferences.
Premise 6: Moral Nihilism is the only Atheism that is sufficiently rational to reject moral claims.
Conclusion: Moral Nihilism is the only rational outlook for Atheism.
How can you have a society build on that?
@@fij715 thats why we can say its convenient that most people have moral codes. but just because it is convenient that everyone has a moral code does not mean we absolutely need to have one too.
I personally prefer moral nihilism since it gives me freedom while everyone around me still acts by the same rules.