A Modal Argument for Moral Realism

Christian Coons claims to have proved that some acts have moral properties. I doubt he's done that.
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OUTLINE
0:00 Intro & Outline
1:52 Moral Realism & Error Theory
7:20 Supervenience
12:53 Coons’ Argument
17:36 Symmetry Problem
20:03 Breaking Symmetry: First Pass
29:01 Breaking Symmetry: Second Pass
39:21 Summary & Conclusion
RESOURCES
(1) Coons' (2011) paper: link.springer.com/article/10....
(2) Brown's (2013) paper: link.springer.com/article/10....
(3) Moral Argument playlist: • Moral Argument
(4) My website: www.josephschmid.com

[@adriang.fuentes7649]

I loved the video. Metaethics is one of my favorite philosophy subjects. I dont know exactly why, so I will have to give it some thought, but my intuition seems to find this argument more persuasive than the modal ontological argument. Thanks for what you do!

[@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices]

What is YOUR meta-ethics, Sir?

[@adriang.fuentes7649]

@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices Non-natural realism, but I am also a theist and dont find the modal ontological argument (the standard version) persuasive. Maybe I find this more convincing because I take some moral truth as self-evident meanwhile I donk think God's existence is self-evident.

[@sathviksidd]

Great video Just shows symmetry breakers are difficult to construct

[@kito-]

Took a quick look at the paper, I can see where this is going. Good stuff!

[@vaclavmiller8032]

Looking forward to Shafer-Landau's appearance on the channel (and the publication of his upcoming project with Cuneo and Bengson...)!

[@MajestyofReason]

I CANNOT WAIT for the Shafer-Landau-Cuneo-Bengson publications. So excited

[@thedigitalodyssey1103]

I was literally discussing this with my friend yesterday and then this video was in my recommended

[@thedigitalodyssey1103]

@Human Checks out

[@danielkelly4361]

Just started the video but… Kane B and Shafer-Landau? Oh that is going to be a cracking one!

[@supremeagnostic516]

Havent watched yet, but im sure that as always, it would be quite interesting if you invite him as a guest to this channel. Anyway, keep up the good work.

[@Hello-vz1md]

Joe are you aware of Dr Alex Malpass 3 hours long discussion on Thought adventure podcast KZbin channel? Thanks

[@MajestyofReason]

Yep! I listened

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@MajestyofReason thanks for replying Joe And Congratulations for your book I have a question Some people in the comment section of that discussion and especially the comment section of 4 hours long Review video of that discussion said Alex Malpess is Playing a game he is being little dishonest and trying to Avoid God or Finite past no matter what Will you agree with them that Alex is Playing a game? Please share your overall thoughts on that discussion Logos also posted 3 long review comments on that discussion video i want to know your thoughts also TAP will also do a discussion with Josh Rasmussen soon

[@MajestyofReason]

@@Hello-vz1md yeah, those comments that he’s playing a game are ludicrous. Alex is a serious thinker - indeed, a genius - and his criticisms of the arguments have been published in the greatest peer-reviewed philosophical journals in the world

[@yourfutureself3392]

Great video

[@Autists-Guide]

Thanks for the video. I keep trying with this morality stuff but I just can't get further than ... moral properties and moral truth. What does that even mean? Treating morals and ethics as separate but connected information systems makes sense to me but how to get everyone to use Britannica instead of Stanford? IDK.

[@lanceindependent]

I would recommend dropping, cognitivism, the first of your three theses, from your account of moral realism. You describe as the claim that "our moral statements express beliefs aiming to represent moral reality." Well, who is "our"? Is this an empirical claim about what people generally mean when they make moral claims? If so, it may simply be false. This isn't idle speculation Davis (2021) found that noncognitivism was the most common response when asked participants about their metaethical beliefs: Davis, T. (2021). Beyond objectivism: new methods for studying metaethical intuitions. Philosophical Psychology, 34(1), 125-153. Meanwhile, Pölzler & Wright (2020) found that a majority of their participants favored various antirealist positions, such as subjectivism, cultural relativism, noncognitivism, and error theory. Empirical evidence suggests that it's possible moral claims have no stable and consistent meaning. And in many cases, perhaps the majority, they are not used to make claims about moral reality. But if it turns out that most ordinary people use moral claims to express subjective moral standards, or nonpropositional attitudes, or something other than claims that aim to represent moral reality, it would not follow that moral realism is false. Moral realism does not necessarily require, or turn on, claims about what people mean when they make moral claims.

[@MajestyofReason]

Great comment! Yes, there’s lots of weeds (that you’ve helped me appreciate) concerning moral discourse and appeals to what ‘our’ ‘common’ or ‘commonsense’ normative and metaethical commitments are. I was mainly just trying to define moral realism as many have traditionally done in the metaethics literature to give people a sense of the view. It might be better to say “some moral judgments express beliefs/propositions aiming to represent reality; the truth values of moral judgments in this class are stance-independent; and some of them are true.”

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

Any chance you and Pat Flynn can dialogue on your arguments against divine simplicity?

[@RandomYTubeuser]

What's a good argument for moral realism? I never encountered one that was convincing

[@CosmoPhiloPharmaco]

Hey Joe. When is your paper on wave-function monism going to be released? You talked about it a long time ago, but I haven't seen it yet. :)

[@MajestyofReason]

A lot of it is being incorporated into my book manuscript being published with Springer 🙂 That book won’t be published for a long while. But patrons of the channel recently experienced a cool gift…

[@CosmoPhiloPharmaco]

@@MajestyofReason Got it. :p

[@crabking6884]

Nice critique. Do you think an argument from phenomenal conservatism could provide some reason to think moral realism is true? Also unrelated, but will you ever interview Arif Ahmed? I really like his critiques of miracle testimonies.

[@MajestyofReason]

Re your first question: absolutely. Re your second question: potentially! (V busy, but I can consider bringing him on🥰)

[@GodisgudAQW]

I may be misunderstanding the water example for the argument against reasoning from coherence to metaphysical possibility, but I don't think that the coherence of water as H3O instead of H2O actually shows that something can be coherent without being metaphysically possible. This is simply because I don't think it's actually possible to construct a coherent H3O water given the definition of hydrogen. If the electron bonding and chemical processes worked differently, then it wouldn't be hydrogen, but hydrogen*. So the only way to coherently create water with H3O would be to assume different laws, which assumes different hydrogen atoms, rather than true hydrogen atoms. And in a world where H3O is coherent with the definition of water, the non-moral properties of that world differ vastly from ours, and hence no such world provides a counter-example to the reverse possibility premise. Thinking ahead, though, my understanding of coherence while keeping non-moral properties equivalent just is the actual world. And hence the possibility premise begs the question. That would be my critique.

[@timhorton2486]

When will that Discussion between Kane B and Shafer-Landau be?

[@adriang.fuentes7649]

Joe, I want to ask you a question unrelated with this video (wich is awesome), regarding studying philosophy. I hope you can help me. Formally, I studied economy and, because somehow is conected, I studied political philosophy by my own. I started to learn more philosophy (ethics, epistemology, philosophy of religion, etc.). So I decided I wanted to become a profesional philosopher and started a degree. (In the meantime, I have learned to read and listen in english, because almost nothing in analytic philosophy is translated here, althought I have some trouble writing and speaking that I will solve.) I am from Spain and for personal reasons I could't go out to study, so basically my degree (wich I need) is all about continental philosophy. But that's okay, I dont like it, but it is very easy and I still can use my free time to study analytic philosophy by my own. So, sorry for my personal history. I will get to the point. I started reading the Pruss cosmological argument in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, and honestly I cant grasp most in it. I understand the majority of your channel, I understand everything in political philosophy, and most things in ethics and alike. I understand pretty well Plantinga's Where the conflict really lies, or Fesser's Five Proof, for example. So I conclude that I missed something relevant in my studies to be able to comprehend the Pruss work I mentioned (and I suppose the rest of that Companion), because it might be too much advance for me, according to my current knowledge. So, I realized that not having some professor guiding somehow my studies has been detrimental, because I dont know what readings are apropiate and... I dont know, I hope you can understand me (and sorry for my english, I am writing in my phone whithout checking the grammar too much). Can you give me any advised or recommend me some books (lets say in philosophy of religion) less advanced but can help me to improve my understanding in the topic, so I can, in the future, confront more complex material? Thank you!

[@MajestyofReason]

Sure! There are three very good intros to Phil religion that you should read: one by William Rowe, one by William Wainwright, and one by Brian Davies

[@adriang.fuentes7649]

Thanks a lot! I will buy and read the three as soon as I can. Taking into account the complexity of the Companion to Natural Theology, Am I doing well assuming the Routledge Handbook and the Blackwell Companion (phil of religion) are also advanced?

[@MajestyofReason]

@@adriang.fuentes7649 yeah, those will probably be more on the advanced side. But I recommend reading them after you get a good handle on the more foundational issues/topics/books❤️

[@tammygibson1556]

I want to comment, but I am just in awe. I discovered how much I did not know about logic about 5 years ago. Ever since I have found videos like yours to be a great source to learn more. The video is understandable, but slightly above my head. I inferred that symmetry involves opposites. I need a better understanding of symmetry to authentically comprehend this video. It seems like you defeated the argument successfully. I am not qualified to judge this one.

[@pesilaratnayake162]

I don't understand why moral supervenience should be accepted, other than for the sake of argument. Surely worlds W and W* could have different moral facts X and Y, respectively, and identical non-moral facts Z or Z*, as long as no entity whose knowledge of X or Y affects Z or Z*, respectively. Examples are: no entity knows X or Y, or a deistic god initiates Z, then applies X or Y but has no access to Z afterwards, and informs no other entities of X or Y. Moral supervenience would be more convincing if there was a way to confirm any entity with access at least in part to any moral facts.

[@connormccormick6298]

Do you have a video where you explain why you're a moral realist? Or could you recommend a paper/video that has a good argument for it?

[@MajestyofReason]

A helpful video is one on the Analytic Christian channel (with philosopher Eric Sampson) that covers 4 arguments for moral realism

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@MajestyofReason you should Add that video in your moral argument playlist :)

[@sathviksidd]

I'm having trouble differentiating b/w non cognitivism and error theory

[@MajestyofReason]

So, error theory affirms cognitivism (and so denies non-cognitivism). Cognitivism says, roughly, that moral judgments express beliefs/propositions aiming to represent (moral) reality. It thus allows (unlike non-cognitivism) that moral judgments can have truth-value. (Things get complicated with quasi-realism, but that can be ignored for present purposes.)

[@ceceroxy2227]

I see no reason why anyone would have any moral obligations or duties on naturalism. I think you can make up all the philosophical arguments you want, I would just counter with "says who". What makes anything morally binding on naturalism.

[@gabri41200]

I am naturalist and you are right. No one has any moral obligations. But as humans, in order to function as society, we kinda need that most people believe that there are moral facts.

[@naparzanieklawiatury4908]

Did you just say "what butter way to end" at 42:23? xD

[@goldenalt3166]

What's the benefit of being a moral realist? Is there any ought claim that couldn't merely be rewritten to match some other form of moral theory?

[@craigreedtcr9523]

Great video!

[@senkuishigami2485]

4:22 😲😲😲EEEE disappointed unsubscribed

[@squatch545]

You have 'Christopher' Coons in the description. Is it Christopher or Christian?

[@MajestyofReason]

Fixed!

[@logos8312]

This is an interesting argument (always a fan of modal arguments, though I have no idea what "metaphysical" possibility means exactly so I'll just use logical possibility instead). To me, trying to posit that there's any possible world (logically possible) that has non-moral properties like ours, but some acts are morally wrong, seems to run afoul of Moore's Open Question. It seems to me that in any possible world, given any act which is supposedly morally wrong, we can always nontrivially ask "ought I think this is wrong"? And it's not clear how one can just assert that there "just is" a world in which that question becomes trivialized. What would it look like for any possible world to reduce that question down to a trivial one? Until that's addressed, I just don't see how I could accept his second premise. Undercutting defeater aside, let's try to really dig in to why I don't like this premise. It seems to me that the only way this question could become trivialized is that the person MUST have an answer to the question in some trivial deductive sense. But if that is so, it seems that in this world, we have people who are now not moral "agents" with respect to this question at large. But if people aren't moral agents with respect to some moral question, we now have to ask if we can generalize this to more? To all? Can we use the patchwork principle over all the moral questions to suppose that in this world, possibly, there are no moral agents with respect to all moral questions? But that poses an even bigger problem. If moral questions are things concerned with by moral agents, given that there are moral agents, then whether someone is or is not a moral agent can't be a moral question. But then if this line of reasoning works, this possible world constructed by Coons actually DOES change a non moral fact, i.e. whether there are moral agents at all! And therefore the second premise is actually wrong. The possible world he thought he constructed (no non moral changes) didn't turn out to be what he thought it was, given what else he wanted out of that world. And so this is a rough sketch of my reasoning asserting the premise is false, not merely that I have no reason to accept it.

[@MajestyofReason]

Another worry I have that is somewhat similar to what you say here is as follows. I don't think there can be two worlds that are exact qualitative duplicates of one another. Worlds are at least extensionally equivalent to maximal collections of propositions. But there cannot be two distinct collections with exactly the same members, since collections *just are* those members (plurally). So, any worlds with all and only the same truth values assigned to the propositions true in/at such worlds will be identical. Thus, any two worlds must differ in terms of the truth value of at least one proposition. But differences in truth value plausibly require differences in reality or being. (This is TSB principle, which I think should be accepted by correspondence theorists; and I'm a correspondence theorist.) Hence, any two worlds must differ in terms of what exists in such worlds. Hence, there can be no exact duplicate worlds. But in that case, Coons' second premise really just amounts to asserting the very thing he wants to demonstrate, since [granting supervenience of moral on non-moral] the only 'world like ours' is precisely our world.

[@logos8312]

@@MajestyofReason Yeah that was my first thought as well. I thought I'd steelman Coons a bit by saying "well OK there is at least one proposition in this other world that's false, namely a moral one, and maybe worlds are built from non moral truthmakers rather than moral ones." My immediate question then would be "what does that say about moral REALISM and truthmaking about moral propositions if metaphysically possible worlds don't hinge on their being true / false?" Cheeky but MAYBE still unfair (but funny, and I won't be convinced otherwise!). So I dialed it back one further and just focused on the pure intuition between non moral facts that constitute moral agents (maybe mind / brain dualism, free will, etc.) and thought what it might take for certain questions to become "morally trivialized" in the sense of Moore's Open Question. And it's like one of those pictures where the longer you look at it, the worse things get.

[@Nickesponja]

So why exactly are you a moral realist? Your playlist on the moral argument doesn't seem to include an argument for it

[@FactitionalistNetwork]

Check my understanding: Supervenience - Two physically identical situations can't be morally different. Basically: there must be a material change in circumstance to change the moral value of the situation. (You don't get to appeal to etheriel morality, morality is about what happens in the real, physical world) yes?

[@dominiks5068]

Shafer-Landau

[@VeNeRaGe]

when atheist tier list??

[@logans.butler285]

I call for a theist tier list part 2. Joe needed to include Andrew Loke in A tier and Trent Horn in B tier

[@vaclavmiller8032]

@@logans.butler285 There's no way Loke can be above Craig lol. Don't know Horn's work but I seriously doubt he's B-tier material.

[@Joelsugiarto]

@@vaclavmiller8032 horn is mostly a debater and apologist, doubt he'd be in b tier. Loke has done a bit of work on kalam but I dont think he's on par with Koons/Pruss/Rasmussen, much less be an A-tier :)

[@MajestyofReason]

Eventually🙂

[@logans.butler285]

@@vaclavmiller8032 Be that as it may, Andrew Loke developed an all-new cosmological argument model that combines both Thomism and the Kalām. For so long Thomism and the Kalām have been in disagreement and for once in a lifetime Loke found a way to reconcile both, that’s something that Craig or even Feser have never done. Not to mention, he destroyed Malpass and Oppy, (so far we haven't heard anything from Oppy in regards to his objections to the Kalām - Loke successfully destructed them all). Not even Craig stood a chance against Oppy, the leading voice in atheism on philosophy today smh. Heck, Loke should be on S tier.

[@dazedmaestro1223]

An act is moral if it does go in accordance to the thing's (that carries such act) nature. An immoral one is one which goes against the thing's nature. Since we are all minds we all have the same nature. Morality is thus universal (because every subject, by the virtue of being a mind, has thus the same nature) yet subjective (in the sense of being an expression of the subject's nature; not in the sense of being arbitrary to one's liking since natures are objective obviously) and yet not being some sort of absurd platonic entity. Of course, this requires God to exist the same way an imperfectly intelligent subject requires a perfectly intelligent subject (i.e, God) to exist (argument from degrees of perfection type). The grounding of morality is a pretty trivial thing.

[@snowfall4734]

Kane B:Debunk time 😠

[@fakeoutlife9920]

Kane b will like to challenge you on this matter.

[@achyuthcn2555]

If you exclude God in discussing grounds for morals, then there is nothing to base any moral value.

[@MajestyofReason]

Wrong. Check out my moral argument playlist

[@11kravitzn]

Moral Realism is utterly nonsense, in a technical philosophical sense. The MOA is utter nonsense in the same sense. So this argument is utter nonsense squared. Does this argument pass for philosophy, nowadays? How? What a sad state of philosophy. Aristotle to Ockham to Spinoza to Hume to Nietzche to this? Honestly, wtf.