Great video. However, Sean Carroll states at 1:16 that "most people both on the street and professional thinkers about this are what we call moral realists" Over the past twenty years, researchers have begun conducting empirical studies that directly assess whether nonphilosophers endorse moral realism or antirealism. Most of these findings suggest that antirealism is extremely common, at least among surveyed populatoins. The most rigorous and well-designed studies have found that a majority of participants favored antirealiasm. See the following paper: Pölzler, T., & Wright, J. C. (2020). Anti-realist pluralism: A new approach to folk metaethics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11(1), 53-82. In their study, Pölzler and Wright found that about 75% of participants favored antirealism across a variety of measures and paradigms. However, these findings were conducted among college undergraduate populations and participants on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Students are more likely to reject moral realism (Beebe & Sackris, 2016), and participants on Amazon's Mechanical Turk are more likely to be nonreligious (Levay, Freese, & Druckman, 2016). Since religiosity is correlated with realism, this would suggest that both populations likely over-represent rates of antirealism. Nevertheless, most research on how nonphilosophers think about metaethics consistently finds high rates of endorsement for antirealist positions. Given these findings, and the lack of evidence that most people generally endorse moral realism, there is little empirical support for the claim that most people are moral realists. However, the 2020 PhilPapers survey did find that most philosophers who responded to the survey (~62%) endorsed moral realism, so there is evidence most philosophers are moral realists. References Beebe, J. R., & Sackris, D. (2016). Moral objectivism across the lifespan. Philosophical Psychology, 29(6), 912-929. Levay, K. E., Freese, J., & Druckman, J. N. (2016). The demographic and political composition of Mechanical Turk samples. Sage Open, 6(1), 2158244016636433.
Why does morality seem to be improving on the planet if not for realism.. or is our constructivism just getting “better” if it’s getting “better” how do we know what “better” is ?
Nothing is “improving.” Our intuitions of morality are drifting, we then structure our culture to fit them, and then pat ourselves on the back for making an “improvement”. Realism relies on intuition to inform morality. Intuition obviously changes based on location, upbringing, era, etc. Therefore intuition is not a reliable informant, and so how could it inform us about something objective and static? We are much better off to explain morality with poetic naturalism. That way we don’t run into any silly circularities.
Well, some societies improve over time, you could frame morality as the set behaviors in those societies that promote their development, like maybe mutual respect or resource sharing or whatever, things that chaotic groups don't have and lead them to vanish. If you promote respect they prosper, if you promote stealing they dive into chaos and don't evolve, in the end, we just call those behaviors moral...
~ 20:30 - "my say so doesn't make it so" - seems like a strange argument after just backing up his own position with intuitions. Surely a reasoned argument is a better reason than intuitions which just emerge from the depths of your sub-conscious.
I don't think he was saying that his intuitions lend him moral authority, but rather that intuitions are a valid starting point for moral philosophy (tenable, sure), and that 99% of people would intuit that genocide is wrong. I suppose you could argue that assertion itself is a form of constructivism, but again, he's not basing his arguments on intuition, just saying that they shouldn't be so readily dismissed.
@@nickmorris2250 Well, I can try. Some philosophers understand intuitions as "intelectual seemings". What they actually mean by that is perhpas better shown by comparing it to "perceptual seemings". So when I say that I see a glass of water in front of me, thats perceptual seeming. (I guess most) philosophers would say that by this perceptual seeming I am *prima facie* justified in believing that there is glass of water in front of me. Prima facie justification (roughly) says that you are justified to believe what seems to you to be true until reasons to doubt it are provided. So back to example with glass of water in front of me - If I ask my friend if he can bring me that glass but he replies that there isnt one and then I ask more people and they also say they do not see anything, lets say they even put hand through "the glass" like it was not there, then my prima facie justification was owerthrown. Because my perceptual seemings doesnt explain why others do not see it or can not interact (hands through it) with it. So I hope by this analogy it is more clear what intuition as "intellectual seeming" means. To give an actual example of intelectual seeming (that cant be justified by other methods): *There is no object that is wholy red and at the same time wholy green.* You cant really justify this proposition by anything else than just saying "it seems true". Maybe you can think, well... I can justify it empirically by saying that no one ever observed such a thing so we have at least some inductive evidence that there does not seem to be such a thing. But than consider another example - *There is no object that is super thin and million miles long.* Similarly as in the first case we can say that we can justify this claim by saying that there is no empirical evidence for such object. But if we look closely, we can clearly imagine there being such object, there seems to be nothing about that thing that makes it existence impossible. But in the first example intuition says there really can not be such an object. So it is not the absence of empirical evidence that comits us to think that proposition in first example is true. It is our intuition. Hope it kinda make sense.
16:20 - there is something by definition wrong about a person accosting a child without reason, because there is no logical reason for them to do so. Or if they were considering for example a disproportionate punishment, it would be illogical (ie wrong) to treat another different than how one would expect to be treated all things being equal, because the only reason they value themselves is because their brain has encoded this belief, and it can be assumed like others share this same encoded belief. 16:10 - genocide is very common in human history (to this day) so it is highly unlikely people have universally considered it immoral. It depends on how people value (and discover) differences/similarities between populations, along with resource constraints etc. What confers relativism in morality is not its questioned existence (being equivalent to reason as applied to decisions) but the somewhat arbitrary nature in which we quantify/value difference between organisms, and our limited or evolving access to these differences/similarities.
It isn't wrong by definition. The typical Moral Nihilist idea is that only desires give us reasons. So, if a person has no desire which implies that they would want to reject treating another worse than they expect to be treated themselves then there's no reason for them against treating others worse. Or, a person might have desires that override the desires which imply that they don't treat others worse. Now, people usually have a sense of conscience which will give them a reason to not treat others worse. They also have desires that lead them to factor in responses to their behaviour. But if a person were to fulfill some desire by treating someone worse, and there's no sufficiently conflicting desires then it's not logically wrong to behave that way. So, a Moral Nihilist could reject that "their brain has encoded this belief" and go against your (probably?) constructivist notion in that way. A Moral Realist could explain the arbitrary nature of what you mention like this: just because there's difference in opinion -- even if it's in a seemingly arbitrary nature -- about what is moral doesn't mean that the truth value of morality is relative. Just how some people seemingly arbitrarily have conflicting opinions about climate change doesn't mean that the truth value of climate change is relative. And a Moral Nihilist or Error Theorist would question that this is supposed to count for relativism instead of their position. (Especially if it's a non-constructivist kind of Moral Relativism.)
@@mememachine171 According to the model of morality proposed desire has nothing to do with morality/reason. Desire influences bias/priors in reasoning, but the concept of reason itself (here described as morality when applied to decisions) follows abstract rules of deduction/induction/bayesian inference etc and these are of themselves independent of specific prior beliefs/axioms. Reason requires processing of information, so desire cannot of itself give reasons independent of such processing - it can only give erroneous or badly formed "reasons" (rationalisations).
most people that commit genocide do not view it AS genocide, and would still say "actual" genocide is immoral. so in some sense its more about recognizing what they are doing than about differeing moral codes
What a great listen. I majored in philosophy but did not take a class on meta-ethics as an undergrad. But I became very interested in meta-ethics and Russ Shafer-Landaus book "Whatever Happened to Good and Evil" is an excellent introduction to the material. But I think some people are dissatisfied with his argument because Shafer-Landau is much more interested in getting people to think about these positions than trying to convince people of his own position. He makes a stronger case against constructivism in the book than he did here in the podcast. One problem with constructivism that Shafer-Landau sort of hints at but doesn't spell out is that it is arbitrary like divine command theory. I did a blog about that here: trueandreasonable.co/2019/03/15/morality-problems-with-divine-command-subjectivism-and-anti-realism/
One thing I would like to have heard discussed is how evolutionary history plays into morality-the idea that morality is objectively real or that there are objective truths leaves out "but only for humans of course." (Otherwise all life on Earth is on the hook for murder and genocide, etc.) This isn't a problem for Constructivists (who already believe morality is something we create) so I'm not surprised Dr. Carroll didn't bring it up, but I would like to know how realists square that idea with evolution-was morality just floating out there waiting for us to evolve to a point where we could understand it?
what if you constituted allostasis of the 6 basic parts that make up a human being? the mental, emotional, psychological, physiological, intellectual and philosophical parts. if you were to create a morality based on allostasis you would be able to create a morality based on what creates and drives forward the tangible aspects of what your grasping for?
Regarding his point about "giving up intuitive knowledge" (around 17:00): intuition is a *terrible* guide anyway. That's why all the major scientific discoveries have been unintuitive. That's why naive, intuitive ideas about math had to be set on a rigorous basis. That's why religion is still around. And in any case, much of what people label as "intuition" is actually unexamined indoctrination. Your culture, and especially your parent figures, trained you from an early age that certain things are simply factual, and later in life you simply "know" those fact, thus calling them intuition. There is, of course, "something wrong" with the acts he described: our current culture *declared* that they are wrong. A great many cultures in history have declared that genocide was perfectly OK. Indeed, it was so prevalent that only our modern conception of morality even needed the word 'genocide'. The fact that *their* intuition on the subject was so different from ours makes it clear that intuition isn't much help here. His declaration that nihilists can't claim something is moral/immoral presupposes that morality is some objective thing. Since it isn't, they can make such a claim. The claim is just that *they* consider it immoral. Regarding "the people who *are* among the very best moral philosopher ever" (20:23): How do you determine that they are? He agrees that we and they are fallible, so how do we decide they are so great? (1:02:10) "whether ones intuitions have been formed in a good environment": Two points. One, this admits my statement above, that intuition isn't innate, it's formed mostly by your culture. Thus it's no different than simply referring to your culture's morality. Two, it's entirely circular, since you're using your intuition to define morality, which you have to use to judge the environment that formed your intuition.
Try Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer if you are *actually* interested in this topic. Perhaps then you would be able to do better critique that is not based on misconceptions and can be rebutted in minutes.
@@richardgamrat1944 I always have to laugh when people claim they could do something in minutes… then don't bother to do it. :D At the very least, I'd expect you to point out what you claim *is* a misconception in my statement. As it is, you've added nothing to the conversation at all. For what it's worth, I read a description of Huemer's book: "A defence of ethical intuitionism where (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know these through an immediate, intellectual awareness, or 'intuition'; and (iii) knowing them gives us reasons to act independent of our desires. The author rebuts the major objections to this theory and shows the difficulties in alternative theories of ethics." The "we know these" part is blatantly false, since different people and cultures come to different conclusions on what is moral. That fact alone destroys any such argument. It amazes me how many philosophers just breeze past the obvious flaws in their arguments.
I might be very naive, but isn't the case when comparing two options you can judge witch one is more moral by measuring witch one causes less suffering? Or if that is for some way difficult to judge you can also measure with one brings more order and less caos and does not waist energy in a given system... And I guess the systems that are always most relevant for moral judgement are social systems where the people live... If you can make those have less suffering and more efficient in a way everyone can benefit then those are moral actions...
@polka Yes I reach the conclusion that avoiding suffering is a good measure because I find that myself living a good and balanced life is a good thing. But by all means you don't have to use that as a measure you can just ask people what makes then happy and follow that as a guideline... Different people need different things, if can be flexible. Also I think you can tradeoff some suffering if the overall you gain in the long run, if you study today you can create great things tommorow and the net output makes the maybe unpleasant task of studying worthwhile. And like I hinted I do think that at least from as a point of view of constructing societies there is some measure that doing constructive and efficient processes is more moral than generating chaos... Those process that promote life ultimately... i almost want to say that maybe there is some measure of entropy that enables work that might be the bases of morality.
@Optimistic DeterministIt is not trivial or precise but it is possible to quantify suffering to some degree, the UN messuares HDI at several countries and you can clearly see places with higher HDI are among the best places to live, it might not be perfect but by any measure it is a great undicator things are being done that are good on those places. Also offcourse you can be efficient at delivering suffering, i guess that efficient can be applied to any objective, I mean applying it consciously to wellfare, it will be better then caos...
How does the moral facts influence our moral intuitions? If the moral realist believe that our moral intuitions are caused by brain activity then he need to explain how does the moral facts influence our brain activity causing in us our moral intuitions. If he thinks that the moral facts influence our moral intuitions without first influencing our brain activity, then he is a mind/body dualist since he believes that we have behaviors, belifs or feelings that aren't caused by our brain activity.
Another great podcast Sean! But I kept expecting one of you to mention John Rawls’s veil of ignorance. To me it sort of provides the “algorithm” to work out what moral positions are correct.
Really? Starting out with an appeal to emotion? This is a day-1 fallacy. I'll say it with a straight face, and I'll be specific about it instead of using loaded terminology: there is no stance independent fact of the matter, in a non-naturalist moral sense, that _anything_ is wrong. However, I am extremely opposed to child abuse, and will defend children with my life if I observe them being abused. I have no problem saying this with a "straight face" or in other words: completely honestly.
Russ seems to keep attributing acceptance of his moral model to the effectiveness or usefulness of the model according to his subjective valuation of how they would prefer things to happen. When he says a view is "repugnant", he is simply making a descriptive statement about how he feels (Emotivism). And when he expresses that he values a certain set of actions, he is just conveying what he prefers. Russ keeps stating, "I think that's problematic," but he is not substantiating his own standard for saying that, as being objective. He also claims, "that will be hard for the antirealist to answer," yet he is seemingly only offering a moral-realism-of-the-gaps for his own position. The categories he gives for "explaining the data" are question begging: "is someone more morally wise"?; "it's actual that there are moral truths"; "reasons for doing 'moral' things"; "moral judgements are given by belief, and are true or false"; "realities demands are inescapable". These examples assume moral realism to start with, so of course moral realism would account for them if moral realism is assumed. He even says, "at the outset of inquiry". He is literally explaining begging the question, and confirmation bias. The concept: "if everyone can't be convinced of the thing, the thing cannot be objectively true", was such a miscommunication. That would be such an odd claim, especially coming from a physicist. So much time gone... Then, the following epistemology reframing isn't much better. Epistemology is based upon our capability to know things, along with _how_ we _might_ know things. Not being able to actually _have_ an epistemology that includes an assumed real thing (not that this can be known), doesn't negate the actual existence of that thing, and for all we _know_ it would just be the case that we couldn't _find_ the epistemology; but this doesn't provide good reason to accept the idea that this thing might be true. One move for the discussion from here is to return to usefulness again, which it seems to be circling with all this talk about "intuition" and "repugnance". Again, without a path to an epistemic foundation for the assumed thing, there is no epistemic reason to accept that assumed thing; it seems to leave us at subjective preference. And his response to the "skeptic about the outside world", was oddly rudimentary; it seems uncharitable to assume that running into objects wasn't considered by the skeptic. "The place to start is our intuition". How does that support knowledge? "If your beliefs are true, then you've got knowledge." But he hasn't determined that the beliefs are true (and hasn't offered a way to do so), he has simply said to follow your intuitions, and if you can't prove your intuitions wrong, accept them. This, of course, can be critiqued with the problem of varying intuitions across individuals, cultures, and species. So there would be countless contradictory "truths". _Wanting_ to call something "wrong" isn't substantive evidence that something _can be_ "wrong". And again, it comes up, "you might have to give up more than you're comfortable with". Why is subjective comfort undergirding this? To conclude, this doesn't seem to help provide any substantiation, because there isn't even a way to determine what the morally "real" standard is, epistemologically. This seems like nothing but wishful thinking.
"When he says a view is "repugnant", he is simply making a descriptive statement about how he feels (Emotivism)" In emotivism "moral claims" are not descriptive statements about how one feels, they simply are *expressions* of emotions. What you are describing is more like some kind of subjectivism, where you are making descriptive statements about your attitude.
@@richardgamrat1944 I know what Emotivism is, but I wasn't very clear. For a basis, we can work with this simple definition: Emotivism "an ethical theory that regards ethical and value judgments as expressions of feeling or attitude and prescriptions of action, rather than assertions or reports of anything." So, for clarity, when I put (Emotivism) there, I was simply pointing out that his statement could even be perceived from the Emotivist position, as that's how lacking in substance his explanation is. He is making a _value judgement,_ and all the judgment consists of is a word expressing a feeling. I wasn't saying that it "had to be" Emotivist, because that statement could be perceived through almost any moral theory. The important distinction between Moral Subjectivism and Emotivism is Cognitivism. Moral Subjectivism is a Cognitivist position, which assumes that moral statements express _truth-apt_ propositions. That wasn't even discussed for the "repugnance", and isn't relevant to my point, but again, I wasn't clear initially.
@16:12 At least from my view the Nihilist position would say that morality isn't involved in genocide because an entity that is capable of performing such acts has a power dynamic that allows them to ignore any future negative consequences. To put it another way... you are like flies to Vigo and I eat my steaks maggot-free.
This is not a nihilist position, this is a supremacy position. For you to assume otherwise is a gross misconstrued version nihilistic philiosophy imo seems like is someone who obviously never went to higher education learning the damn subject. Would not surprise me coming from a someone who leans towards an elitist supremacist mindset for confirmation bias to whatever personal ideology you mistakenly have about genocide.
I found his argument against a scientific foundation for all of reality to be very unconvincing. It's still a good discussion, but if anything, he turned me more away from his view than he did anything to attract me towards it.
I agree... if a common moralistic reality existed it should be able to be explained by science, not that it is exempt from scientific judgment. It seems like his beliefs are founded upon the belief itself and not upon empiric observation. For that reason, I can't accept it myself
@polka No I don't feel smart, it's just the feeling I get based on my viewpoints. I'm fine with a deterministic viewpoint because I don't mind not knowing the reason. You said, "Our desire changes depending on circumstances." If our desires change on our circumstances, doesn't our morality change with it? If that is the case, is there a common morality? I interpreted what the guest was saying as there is a common morality that exists for a reason, but one that should not be subjected to scientific observation. If there is a reason, shouldn't that pattern / relationship be able to be explained by the underlying mathematics? P.S. I appreciate your comment because I like to share and understand how others view things as well. I should have not have been so dismissive in my original comment.
@Oners82 why should something non-natural exist? Consciousness is a natural phenomenon that arises from increasing complexity of neural tissue, which can be observed through the various levels of consciousness across animal species. If morality is born of consciousness, then why should it be non-natural? I don't understand
@Oners82 I accept what you are saying regarding me presupposing that my point of view is naturalistic. However, when non-naturalists state that morality is a concept that exists outside of the mind, is that not doing the exact same thing? How is the concept of morality separate from consciousness, or any other mental concept like aesthetic enjoyment? Is morality not simply the framework of thoughts and actions that allow us to feel the most safe / that there is a structure of compassion and positive feelings? In that case, aren't we simply avoiding pain, which is hardwired by evolution?
@Oners82 Thanks for your response, I do appreciate the discussion, as it's helped me to better understand the state of philosophy and given me some concepts to look into. "It's not so much a presupposition as it is that they have been pushed into that position by what they see as insoluble problems on naturalism." I believe that this could be considered a pre-supposition for anyone that is not already aware of their 'non-naturalist' viewpoints. "So for example even if everybody thought it was okay to torture babies for fun, there would still be a fact of the matter that torturing babies for fun is wrong, and that everybody is just incorrect in their belief that it's okay. " This is difficult for me to accept because this scenario creates an environment in which behavior is being judged based on criteria that are native to our reality. In creating such an environment, why is there an assumption that our morality still applies? Why wouldn't an alternate morality native to that environment apply instead? "moral statements express facts." I also find difficulty with this statement because morality varies across culture. How can a moral statement express fact if not all people accept the same morality? For example, "cheating is bad because it creates an unfair playing field and devalues the efforts of those who played within the rules". Isn't this an opinion, not a fact? "you don't need to think for long to come up with thought experiments where we would say a person is acting morally even if they are not avoiding pain." It is not that each moral action taken is purposefully done to avoid pain. As I said, I believe morality is a framework of thoughts and actions that allow us to feel the most safe / that there is a structure of compassion and positive feelings. I believe it is the mental framework itself that provides a stable sense of safety, 'rightness', and self-confidence that serves as a buffer against fear in difficult/unfamiliar situations (being guided by our values), as a means of ensuring that we do not cause pain unto others, and to optimize the feelings of 'rightness'. All of these purposes can be explained by seeking to reduce negative feelings and enhance positive feelings, which can be explained by the underlying physiology of the brain having evolved to seek pleasure over pain.
I'm not convinced. It's painfully clear to anyone paying attention that morality is a construct in the most literal sense of the word. Now that's not to say that constructs don't have their uses, but that doesn't change their nature.
@Oners82 Thanks for the input, but I don't need your approval. I am simply stating my opinion of the conversation, other people have different opinions I'm sure, yourself included. And just because the "majority" of a group agrees, doesn't make them right. I have yet to see or hear a single argument for the reality of morality (ha I'm a poet) that is convincing...Fact.
Great video. However, Sean Carroll states at 1:16 that "most people both on the street and professional thinkers about this are what we call moral realists"
Over the past twenty years, researchers have begun conducting empirical studies that directly assess whether nonphilosophers endorse moral realism or antirealism. Most of these findings suggest that antirealism is extremely common, at least among surveyed populatoins. The most rigorous and well-designed studies have found that a majority of participants favored antirealiasm. See the following paper:
Pölzler, T., & Wright, J. C. (2020). Anti-realist pluralism: A new approach to folk metaethics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11(1), 53-82.
In their study, Pölzler and Wright found that about 75% of participants favored antirealism across a variety of measures and paradigms.
However, these findings were conducted among college undergraduate populations and participants on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Students are more likely to reject moral realism (Beebe & Sackris, 2016), and participants on Amazon's Mechanical Turk are more likely to be nonreligious (Levay, Freese, & Druckman, 2016). Since religiosity is correlated with realism, this would suggest that both populations likely over-represent rates of antirealism. Nevertheless, most research on how nonphilosophers think about metaethics consistently finds high rates of endorsement for antirealist positions. Given these findings, and the lack of evidence that most people generally endorse moral realism, there is little empirical support for the claim that most people are moral realists.
However, the 2020 PhilPapers survey did find that most philosophers who responded to the survey (~62%) endorsed moral realism, so there is evidence most philosophers are moral realists.
References
Beebe, J. R., & Sackris, D. (2016). Moral objectivism across the lifespan. Philosophical Psychology, 29(6), 912-929.
Levay, K. E., Freese, J., & Druckman, J. N. (2016). The demographic and political composition of Mechanical Turk samples. Sage Open, 6(1), 2158244016636433.
Thanks for the peer-reviewed papers 👍🏾
I would like to see you interview Huemer.
I’m 30 minutes in and straight up addicted to this chat. Subscribing now
thank you for deliberately exposing us to advocates challenging the more dominant views on the podcast
@Matheus Borges yikes, interesting
41:30 I think you might want to prefice that with "and the objective rules at least sort of match up with your values"
Why does morality seem to be improving on the planet if not for realism.. or is our constructivism just getting “better” if it’s getting “better” how do we know what “better” is ?
Oners82 please expand:)
Nothing is “improving.” Our intuitions of morality are drifting, we then structure our culture to fit them, and then pat ourselves on the back for making an “improvement”.
Realism relies on intuition to inform morality. Intuition obviously changes based on location, upbringing, era, etc. Therefore intuition is not a reliable informant, and so how could it inform us about something objective and static? We are much better off to explain morality with poetic naturalism. That way we don’t run into any silly circularities.
Well, some societies improve over time, you could frame morality as the set behaviors in those societies that promote their development, like maybe mutual respect or resource sharing or whatever, things that chaotic groups don't have and lead them to vanish. If you promote respect they prosper, if you promote stealing they dive into chaos and don't evolve, in the end, we just call those behaviors moral...
~ 20:30 - "my say so doesn't make it so" - seems like a strange argument after just backing up his own position with intuitions. Surely a reasoned argument is a better reason than intuitions which just emerge from the depths of your sub-conscious.
I don't think he was saying that his intuitions lend him moral authority, but rather that intuitions are a valid starting point for moral philosophy (tenable, sure), and that 99% of people would intuit that genocide is wrong. I suppose you could argue that assertion itself is a form of constructivism, but again, he's not basing his arguments on intuition, just saying that they shouldn't be so readily dismissed.
Philosophers use intuition in slightly different way than we think of it. Huemers book Ethical Intuitionism is good for explaining that.
@@Horsicorn Hmm, perhaps. But I just take issue with his catchphrase and would answer with 'what my intuitions say doesn't make it that way'.
@@richardgamrat1944 Yeh, I've wondered about that. Care to give your brief understanding of it here?
@@nickmorris2250 Well, I can try. Some philosophers understand intuitions as "intelectual seemings". What they actually mean by that is perhpas better shown by comparing it to "perceptual seemings". So when I say that I see a glass of water in front of me, thats perceptual seeming. (I guess most) philosophers would say that by this perceptual seeming I am *prima facie* justified in believing that there is glass of water in front of me. Prima facie justification (roughly) says that you are justified to believe what seems to you to be true until reasons to doubt it are provided. So back to example with glass of water in front of me - If I ask my friend if he can bring me that glass but he replies that there isnt one and then I ask more people and they also say they do not see anything, lets say they even put hand through "the glass" like it was not there, then my prima facie justification was owerthrown. Because my perceptual seemings doesnt explain why others do not see it or can not interact (hands through it) with it. So I hope by this analogy it is more clear what intuition as "intellectual seeming" means. To give an actual example of intelectual seeming (that cant be justified by other methods): *There is no object that is wholy red and at the same time wholy green.* You cant really justify this proposition by anything else than just saying "it seems true". Maybe you can think, well... I can justify it empirically by saying that no one ever observed such a thing so we have at least some inductive evidence that there does not seem to be such a thing. But than consider another example - *There is no object that is super thin and million miles long.* Similarly as in the first case we can say that we can justify this claim by saying that there is no empirical evidence for such object. But if we look closely, we can clearly imagine there being such object, there seems to be nothing about that thing that makes it existence impossible. But in the first example intuition says there really can not be such an object. So it is not the absence of empirical evidence that comits us to think that proposition in first example is true. It is our intuition. Hope it kinda make sense.
16:20 - there is something by definition wrong about a person accosting a child without reason, because there is no logical reason for them to do so. Or if they were considering for example a disproportionate punishment, it would be illogical (ie wrong) to treat another different than how one would expect to be treated all things being equal, because the only reason they value themselves is because their brain has encoded this belief, and it can be assumed like others share this same encoded belief.
16:10 - genocide is very common in human history (to this day) so it is highly unlikely people have universally considered it immoral. It depends on how people value (and discover) differences/similarities between populations, along with resource constraints etc. What confers relativism in morality is not its questioned existence (being equivalent to reason as applied to decisions) but the somewhat arbitrary nature in which we quantify/value difference between organisms, and our limited or evolving access to these differences/similarities.
It isn't wrong by definition. The typical Moral Nihilist idea is that only desires give us reasons. So, if a person has no desire which implies that they would want to reject treating another worse than they expect to be treated themselves then there's no reason for them against treating others worse. Or, a person might have desires that override the desires which imply that they don't treat others worse. Now, people usually have a sense of conscience which will give them a reason to not treat others worse. They also have desires that lead them to factor in responses to their behaviour. But if a person were to fulfill some desire by treating someone worse, and there's no sufficiently conflicting desires then it's not logically wrong to behave that way. So, a Moral Nihilist could reject that "their brain has encoded this belief" and go against your (probably?) constructivist notion in that way.
A Moral Realist could explain the arbitrary nature of what you mention like this: just because there's difference in opinion -- even if it's in a seemingly arbitrary nature -- about what is moral doesn't mean that the truth value of morality is relative. Just how some people seemingly arbitrarily have conflicting opinions about climate change doesn't mean that the truth value of climate change is relative.
And a Moral Nihilist or Error Theorist would question that this is supposed to count for relativism instead of their position. (Especially if it's a non-constructivist kind of Moral Relativism.)
@@mememachine171 According to the model of morality proposed desire has nothing to do with morality/reason. Desire influences bias/priors in reasoning, but the concept of reason itself (here described as morality when applied to decisions) follows abstract rules of deduction/induction/bayesian inference etc and these are of themselves independent of specific prior beliefs/axioms. Reason requires processing of information, so desire cannot of itself give reasons independent of such processing - it can only give erroneous or badly formed "reasons" (rationalisations).
most people that commit genocide do not view it AS genocide, and would still say "actual" genocide is immoral. so in some sense its more about recognizing what they are doing than about differeing moral codes
What a great listen. I majored in philosophy but did not take a class on meta-ethics as an undergrad. But I became very interested in meta-ethics and Russ Shafer-Landaus book "Whatever Happened to Good and Evil" is an excellent introduction to the material. But I think some people are dissatisfied with his argument because Shafer-Landau is much more interested in getting people to think about these positions than trying to convince people of his own position. He makes a stronger case against constructivism in the book than he did here in the podcast.
One problem with constructivism that Shafer-Landau sort of hints at but doesn't spell out is that it is arbitrary like divine command theory. I did a blog about that here:
trueandreasonable.co/2019/03/15/morality-problems-with-divine-command-subjectivism-and-anti-realism/
When are you going to speak to Stephanie Kelton ( The Deficit Myth )?
One thing I would like to have heard discussed is how evolutionary history plays into morality-the idea that morality is objectively real or that there are objective truths leaves out "but only for humans of course." (Otherwise all life on Earth is on the hook for murder and genocide, etc.) This isn't a problem for Constructivists (who already believe morality is something we create) so I'm not surprised Dr. Carroll didn't bring it up, but I would like to know how realists square that idea with evolution-was morality just floating out there waiting for us to evolve to a point where we could understand it?
what if you constituted allostasis of the 6 basic parts that make up a human being? the mental, emotional, psychological, physiological, intellectual and philosophical parts. if you were to create a morality based on allostasis you would be able to create a morality based on what creates and drives forward the tangible aspects of what your grasping for?
49:03
49:39 (objection starts)
Why Moral realism is hard for me to accept
What did you think of Shafer-Landau's objection by comparison with the debate about whether God exists or not?
Regarding his point about "giving up intuitive knowledge" (around 17:00): intuition is a *terrible* guide anyway. That's why all the major scientific discoveries have been unintuitive. That's why naive, intuitive ideas about math had to be set on a rigorous basis. That's why religion is still around.
And in any case, much of what people label as "intuition" is actually unexamined indoctrination. Your culture, and especially your parent figures, trained you from an early age that certain things are simply factual, and later in life you simply "know" those fact, thus calling them intuition.
There is, of course, "something wrong" with the acts he described: our current culture *declared* that they are wrong. A great many cultures in history have declared that genocide was perfectly OK. Indeed, it was so prevalent that only our modern conception of morality even needed the word 'genocide'. The fact that *their* intuition on the subject was so different from ours makes it clear that intuition isn't much help here. His declaration that nihilists can't claim something is moral/immoral presupposes that morality is some objective thing. Since it isn't, they can make such a claim. The claim is just that *they* consider it immoral.
Regarding "the people who *are* among the very best moral philosopher ever" (20:23): How do you determine that they are? He agrees that we and they are fallible, so how do we decide they are so great?
(1:02:10) "whether ones intuitions have been formed in a good environment": Two points.
One, this admits my statement above, that intuition isn't innate, it's formed mostly by your culture. Thus it's no different than simply referring to your culture's morality.
Two, it's entirely circular, since you're using your intuition to define morality, which you have to use to judge the environment that formed your intuition.
Try Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer if you are *actually* interested in this topic. Perhaps then you would be able to do better critique that is not based on misconceptions and can be rebutted in minutes.
@@richardgamrat1944 I always have to laugh when people claim they could do something in minutes… then don't bother to do it. :D
At the very least, I'd expect you to point out what you claim *is* a misconception in my statement. As it is, you've added nothing to the conversation at all.
For what it's worth, I read a description of Huemer's book: "A defence of ethical intuitionism where (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know these through an immediate, intellectual awareness, or 'intuition'; and (iii) knowing them gives us reasons to act independent of our desires. The author rebuts the major objections to this theory and shows the difficulties in alternative theories of ethics." The "we know these" part is blatantly false, since different people and cultures come to different conclusions on what is moral. That fact alone destroys any such argument. It amazes me how many philosophers just breeze past the obvious flaws in their arguments.
Your arguments suck. Imagine making a claim about morality without referencing early hominids evolution science.. Lol
@@I2yantheGreat Early hominid evolution doesn't appear to have much to do with my statements about *intuition.*
@@jursamaj do you support the blank slate model?
1:05:00 what if he said moral field
What exactly is the point of his philosophy if there is no way to Point to any actual morality
The point is that there is some money to be earned with it.
I might be very naive, but isn't the case when comparing two options you can judge witch one is more moral by measuring witch one causes less suffering? Or if that is for some way difficult to judge you can also measure with one brings more order and less caos and does not waist energy in a given system... And I guess the systems that are always most relevant for moral judgement are social systems where the people live... If you can make those have less suffering and more efficient in a way everyone can benefit then those are moral actions...
@polka Yes I reach the conclusion that avoiding suffering is a good measure because I find that myself living a good and balanced life is a good thing. But by all means you don't have to use that as a measure you can just ask people what makes then happy and follow that as a guideline... Different people need different things, if can be flexible. Also I think you can tradeoff some suffering if the overall you gain in the long run, if you study today you can create great things tommorow and the net output makes the maybe unpleasant task of studying worthwhile. And like I hinted I do think that at least from as a point of view of constructing societies there is some measure that doing constructive and efficient processes is more moral than generating chaos... Those process that promote life ultimately... i almost want to say that maybe there is some measure of entropy that enables work that might be the bases of morality.
@Optimistic DeterministIt is not trivial or precise but it is possible to quantify suffering to some degree, the UN messuares HDI at several countries and you can clearly see places with higher HDI are among the best places to live, it might not be perfect but by any measure it is a great undicator things are being done that are good on those places. Also offcourse you can be efficient at delivering suffering, i guess that efficient can be applied to any objective, I mean applying it consciously to wellfare, it will be better then caos...
I don't understand nihilism. Obviously hitting a random child is wrong. Why do mental gymnastics to say it's not? Seems to be just pedantic.
How does the moral facts influence our moral intuitions?
If the moral realist believe that our moral intuitions are caused by brain activity then he need to explain how does the moral facts influence our brain activity causing in us our moral intuitions.
If he thinks that the moral facts influence our moral intuitions without first influencing our brain activity, then he is a mind/body dualist since he believes that we have behaviors, belifs or feelings that aren't caused by our brain activity.
I am reading human compatible artificial intelligence and the author goes off on a track like this I find it hard to wrap my brain around it
is that the best he could do?
Another great podcast Sean! But I kept expecting one of you to mention John Rawls’s veil of ignorance. To me it sort of provides the “algorithm” to work out what moral positions are correct.
Really? Starting out with an appeal to emotion? This is a day-1 fallacy. I'll say it with a straight face, and I'll be specific about it instead of using loaded terminology: there is no stance independent fact of the matter, in a non-naturalist moral sense, that _anything_ is wrong. However, I am extremely opposed to child abuse, and will defend children with my life if I observe them being abused. I have no problem saying this with a "straight face" or in other words: completely honestly.
Russ seems to keep attributing acceptance of his moral model to the effectiveness or usefulness of the model according to his subjective valuation of how they would prefer things to happen. When he says a view is "repugnant", he is simply making a descriptive statement about how he feels (Emotivism). And when he expresses that he values a certain set of actions, he is just conveying what he prefers.
Russ keeps stating, "I think that's problematic," but he is not substantiating his own standard for saying that, as being objective.
He also claims, "that will be hard for the antirealist to answer," yet he is seemingly only offering a moral-realism-of-the-gaps for his own position.
The categories he gives for "explaining the data" are question begging: "is someone more morally wise"?; "it's actual that there are moral truths"; "reasons for doing 'moral' things"; "moral judgements are given by belief, and are true or false"; "realities demands are inescapable". These examples assume moral realism to start with, so of course moral realism would account for them if moral realism is assumed. He even says, "at the outset of inquiry". He is literally explaining begging the question, and confirmation bias.
The concept: "if everyone can't be convinced of the thing, the thing cannot be objectively true", was such a miscommunication. That would be such an odd claim, especially coming from a physicist. So much time gone...
Then, the following epistemology reframing isn't much better. Epistemology is based upon our capability to know things, along with _how_ we _might_ know things. Not being able to actually _have_ an epistemology that includes an assumed real thing (not that this can be known), doesn't negate the actual existence of that thing, and for all we _know_ it would just be the case that we couldn't _find_ the epistemology; but this doesn't provide good reason to accept the idea that this thing might be true. One move for the discussion from here is to return to usefulness again, which it seems to be circling with all this talk about "intuition" and "repugnance". Again, without a path to an epistemic foundation for the assumed thing, there is no epistemic reason to accept that assumed thing; it seems to leave us at subjective preference.
And his response to the "skeptic about the outside world", was oddly rudimentary; it seems uncharitable to assume that running into objects wasn't considered by the skeptic.
"The place to start is our intuition". How does that support knowledge? "If your beliefs are true, then you've got knowledge." But he hasn't determined that the beliefs are true (and hasn't offered a way to do so), he has simply said to follow your intuitions, and if you can't prove your intuitions wrong, accept them. This, of course, can be critiqued with the problem of varying intuitions across individuals, cultures, and species. So there would be countless contradictory "truths".
_Wanting_ to call something "wrong" isn't substantive evidence that something _can be_ "wrong".
And again, it comes up, "you might have to give up more than you're comfortable with". Why is subjective comfort undergirding this?
To conclude, this doesn't seem to help provide any substantiation, because there isn't even a way to determine what the morally "real" standard is, epistemologically. This seems like nothing but wishful thinking.
"When he says a view is "repugnant", he is simply making a descriptive statement about how he feels (Emotivism)"
In emotivism "moral claims" are not descriptive statements about how one feels, they simply are *expressions* of emotions. What you are describing is more like some kind of subjectivism, where you are making descriptive statements about your attitude.
@@richardgamrat1944 I know what Emotivism is, but I wasn't very clear. For a basis, we can work with this simple definition:
Emotivism
"an ethical theory that regards ethical and value judgments as expressions of feeling or attitude and prescriptions of action, rather than assertions or reports of anything."
So, for clarity, when I put (Emotivism) there, I was simply pointing out that his statement could even be perceived from the Emotivist position, as that's how lacking in substance his explanation is. He is making a _value judgement,_ and all the judgment consists of is a word expressing a feeling. I wasn't saying that it "had to be" Emotivist, because that statement could be perceived through almost any moral theory.
The important distinction between Moral Subjectivism and Emotivism is Cognitivism. Moral Subjectivism is a Cognitivist position, which assumes that moral statements express _truth-apt_ propositions. That wasn't even discussed for the "repugnance", and isn't relevant to my point, but again, I wasn't clear initially.
@16:12 At least from my view the Nihilist position would say that morality isn't involved in genocide because an entity that is capable of performing such acts has a power dynamic that allows them to ignore any future negative consequences. To put it another way... you are like flies to Vigo and I eat my steaks maggot-free.
This is not a nihilist position, this is a supremacy position. For you to assume otherwise is a gross misconstrued version nihilistic philiosophy imo seems like is someone who obviously never went to higher education learning the damn subject. Would not surprise me coming from a someone who leans towards an elitist supremacist mindset for confirmation bias to whatever personal ideology you mistakenly have about genocide.
@@koala83r72 please elaborate.
I found his argument against a scientific foundation for all of reality to be very unconvincing. It's still a good discussion, but if anything, he turned me more away from his view than he did anything to attract me towards it.
I agree... if a common moralistic reality existed it should be able to be explained by science, not that it is exempt from scientific judgment. It seems like his beliefs are founded upon the belief itself and not upon empiric observation. For that reason, I can't accept it myself
@polka No I don't feel smart, it's just the feeling I get based on my viewpoints.
I'm fine with a deterministic viewpoint because I don't mind not knowing the reason.
You said, "Our desire changes depending on circumstances."
If our desires change on our circumstances, doesn't our morality change with it? If that is the case, is there a common morality?
I interpreted what the guest was saying as there is a common morality that exists for a reason, but one that should not be subjected to scientific observation. If there is a reason, shouldn't that pattern / relationship be able to be explained by the underlying mathematics?
P.S. I appreciate your comment because I like to share and understand how others view things as well. I should have not have been so dismissive in my original comment.
@Oners82 why should something non-natural exist? Consciousness is a natural phenomenon that arises from increasing complexity of neural tissue, which can be observed through the various levels of consciousness across animal species. If morality is born of consciousness, then why should it be non-natural? I don't understand
@Oners82 I accept what you are saying regarding me presupposing that my point of view is naturalistic. However, when non-naturalists state that morality is a concept that exists outside of the mind, is that not doing the exact same thing? How is the concept of morality separate from consciousness, or any other mental concept like aesthetic enjoyment? Is morality not simply the framework of thoughts and actions that allow us to feel the most safe / that there is a structure of compassion and positive feelings? In that case, aren't we simply avoiding pain, which is hardwired by evolution?
@Oners82
Thanks for your response, I do appreciate the discussion, as it's helped me to better understand the state of philosophy and given me some concepts to look into.
"It's not so much a presupposition as it is that they have been pushed into that position by what they see as insoluble problems on naturalism."
I believe that this could be considered a pre-supposition for anyone that is not already aware of their 'non-naturalist' viewpoints.
"So for example even if everybody thought it was okay to torture babies for fun, there would still be a fact of the matter that torturing babies for fun is wrong, and that everybody is just incorrect in their belief that it's okay.
"
This is difficult for me to accept because this scenario creates an environment in which behavior is being judged based on criteria that are native to our reality. In creating such an environment, why is there an assumption that our morality still applies? Why wouldn't an alternate morality native to that environment apply instead?
"moral statements express facts."
I also find difficulty with this statement because morality varies across culture. How can a moral statement express fact if not all people accept the same morality? For example, "cheating is bad because it creates an unfair playing field and devalues the efforts of those who played within the rules". Isn't this an opinion, not a fact?
"you don't need to think for long to come up with thought experiments where we would say a person is acting morally even if they are not avoiding pain."
It is not that each moral action taken is purposefully done to avoid pain. As I said, I believe morality is a framework of thoughts and actions that allow us to feel the most safe / that there is a structure of compassion and positive feelings. I believe it is the mental framework itself that provides a stable sense of safety, 'rightness', and self-confidence that serves as a buffer against fear in difficult/unfamiliar situations (being guided by our values), as a means of ensuring that we do not cause pain unto others, and to optimize the feelings of 'rightness'. All of these purposes can be explained by seeking to reduce negative feelings and enhance positive feelings, which can be explained by the underlying physiology of the brain having evolved to seek pleasure over pain.
I'm a drunk Irish man and dont have a clue what I'm listening to
But no harm in listening...
Great comment
I understood everything when he said "scientism" . I can't believe you didn't say anything about that!
I agree with Russ Shafer-Landau.
There is new research pointing out that the average person is probably not realist.
I get the feeling that he is some sort of panpsyclist where he thinks that matter may have some sort of morality to it
Yes it seems like you totally red hos work! thats exactly him!
thirst
Hotel?
Trivago
I haven't listened yet but I like Sam Harris' take on this subject so I have high hopes.
I'm not convinced. It's painfully clear to anyone paying attention that morality is a construct in the most literal sense of the word. Now that's not to say that constructs don't have their uses, but that doesn't change their nature.
@Oners82 Thanks for the input, but I don't need your approval. I am simply stating my opinion of the conversation, other people have different opinions I'm sure, yourself included. And just because the "majority" of a group agrees, doesn't make them right. I have yet to see or hear a single argument for the reality of morality (ha I'm a poet) that is convincing...Fact.
@Oners82 You forgot to quote the part where I said I don't need your approval. Why are you so tRiGgErEd?
@Oners82 Yes, "owning me", that's what you are doing. Ok 👍, what else do you have?
I'm not convinced. Your criticism is highly lacking.
@@I2yantheGreat Then prove me wrong, otherwise you're just as impotent as the last guy.
Good pointless babble.
*thirst*