Discussing moral realism with Sam Rosen

[@itstandstoreason]

10:30 I appreciate Sam’s position. The problem is there isn’t any such thing as “we” when it comes to motivation. There is only a bunch of “I”s. And holistically one can take a “view from nowhere” with a certain goal of “getting off the island” and make those claims. The problem is, what happens when someone of the people just want to pick flowers and don’t have a goal of getting off the island, and getting off the island requires some participation from the flower pickers? How can it be the case that “we” want to get off the island? And assume you can’t reason with them to want to get off the island?

[@itstandstoreason]

2:21:54 Lance, have you read the “Children of Time” series? Your “octopus” reference is straight out of book 2. 👍🏼

[@lanceindependent]

Yea I have. Ha, I didn't even think about that.

[@squatch545]

I don''t mind numerous videos on metaethics, I'm just tired of it always being moral realism. Could you possibly devote a video to each metaethical position? e.g. error theory, emotivism, irrealism, moral constructivism, subjectivism, quasi-realism, non-cognitivism, and your own non-determinism, etc. I think discussing each metaethical school of thought (with a well known exponent from that school) in-depth would be more interesting. Thanks!

[@lanceindependent]

I could do that. I haven't quite done that kind of content on this channel. Have you seen Kane B's coverage of these topics?

[@squatch545]

@@lanceindependent Yes, I like those videos from Kane B. He's really good at explaining the arguments. However, I'd like to watch an actual discussion about them, between you and an emotivist, or error theorist, subjectivist, etc. I guess the tricky part would be lining up those kind of guests, I don't know.

[@lanceindependent]

@@squatch545 Oh yea, that would be interesting. Several people have recommended I speak with Matt Lutz.

[@itstandstoreason]

31:10 Sam, there’s already a great example of what you’re talking about with your “witches” analogy in real life: the term “atom”.

[@mind_onion]

2:13:00 The building is so beautiful because people spent literal lifetimes on these buildings. And these single buildings were such resource sinks that they are often the only surviving structure. So basically we got such beauty by making everyone's lives miserable and their own homes barely standing shacks. It's basically a product of extreme oppression.

[@lanceindependent]

@@mind_onion Modern tech can achieve a lot without all the suffering.

[@mind_onion]

​@@lanceindependent Can it? The Taj Mahal was mentioned and took 22 years to build. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, was built relatively recently, and it took only 6 years, and was also basically built using oppression of the labor force: people had passports confiscated to basically turn them into slave laborers. But you can see the extreme disparity in the time taken. Basically what you see in the beauty comes from much greater relative resource expenditures, and the tradeoffs of modern technology don't allow such intricacies, especially given the much quicker turn around. We need things done this minute, which means a lot less time spent planning all the little details, and we don't throw all our resources into making these single massive superstructures like we used to.

[@mind_onion]

​@@lanceindependent Can it? The Taj Mahal was mentioned and took 22 years to build. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, was built relatively recently, and it took only 6 years, and was also basically built using oppression of the labor force, although maybe less extreme, not sure. But you can see the extreme disparity in the time taken. Basically what you see in the beauty comes from much greater relative resource expenditures, and the tradeoffs of modern technology don't allow such intricacies, especially given the much quicker turn around. We need things done this minute, which means a lot less time spent planning all the little details, and we don't throw all our resources into making these single massive superstructures like we used to.

[@anzov1n]

Haven't finished yet but... Something to keep in mind is that the prisoners dilemma is a very specific contrived scenario. Tweak the payouts or introduce variations on choices and you may get different facts. This doesn't shut the door on realism but I suspect realists aren't super interested in an infinite set of, essentially, mathematical, facts that can make cooperation look rational or not depending on some variables.

[@MsJavaWolf]

Yes, game theory gets pretty complicated. One thing is that in general there can be multiple Nash Equilibria. In a multiplayer game you also get effects that look like collusion, even if the players play independently and some of the equilibria can be pretty bad for one of the players. If the players can form coalitions it gets even more complicated and bad for one of the players.

[@lanceindependent]

They may be contrived in the specifics but prisoner's dilemmas probably reflect many real-world payoff schemes.

[@DigitalGnosis]

Props to Sam for being nice and trying to understand and engage with your views!

[@lanceindependent]

We go way back so that isn't an issue.

[@MsJavaWolf]

One pragmatic consideration for not calling a position a form of moral realism might be that proponents of other forms of moral realism can see this as evidence for their views. We already see this with the PhilPaper survey and non-naturalist realistss always saying that moral realism is the majority view, even if they have different metaphysics than naturalists. This can then be used as ammunition by even weirder, more fundamentalist types of views. I think if I had the choice to plausibly call my theory either a form of realism or anti realism, I would prefer to call it anti realism.

[@lanceindependent]

@@MsJavaWolf Yes, agreed. I made a similar point in my discussion with Huemer. People leverage that 62% are realists fact a lot.

[@MrGustavier]

The facts that you talk about seem to me to be entirely contingent on us being a social species...

[@realSAPERE_AUDE]

Right off the bat, his view strikes me as stance dependent if I’m understanding correctly. I took him to be saying that once we establish a sort of goal, then there may be some fact of the matter about what the best strategy is to satisfy the goal-but this seems straightforwardly stance dependent. It seems like, given this view, he would also be committed to something like chess realism in the same sense as he’s considering his view to count as moral realism-once we establish rules/goals for chess, there may be a fact of the matter about the optimal strategy for checkmating an opponent.

[@nicholaswheatley1909]

I wonder then what the nature of a 'stance' is. Are they objective? subjective? Is it possible for an agent to be incorrect about their own stances?

[@cristiancam5251]

In meta-ethics, that morals are derived from a particular stance means that their truth is fixed by the perspective of some oberserver (or observers). For instance, the divine command theory suggests it is God's attitudes (or stances) over certain actions that ultimately makes them wrong or right. It is only after God's prescriptions that some things can be said to acquire their moral status.

[@mind_onion]

44:00 Suddenly thinking about 40K. For Chaos!

[@devos3212]

I’d like to see more videos on epistemology

[@ReflectiveJourney]

This just sound standard constructivist account to me. Only quibble i would have is that the change in framing from my goals to our goals is a categorical shift. In kantian terms, it would be respecting the dignity of another autonomous agent. It is intersubjective universality but you might have a different cognitive model than kant and would require more explicitation.

[@tomatopotato2881]

I always rooted this functionally in collective survival combined with epistemic humility in the face of enormous epistemic uncertainties. P1: For an ethical system to function, its followers must persist. P2: Humans that follow an ethical system contradictory to survival cannot persist. C: A functional ethical system must be harmonious with the collective survival of its followers. A group of philosophers who conclude that it's "bad" for human beings to breathe oxygen will perish within minutes of asphyxiation along with their malfunctional ethical system, for a blatant example. When we acknowledge this root prerequisite of a functional ethical system, we can derive many other functions, like so: P: Neglecting our children's needs is maladapted for collective survival. C: We ought not neglect our children. P1: Unjust societies lack societal stability and devolve into vengeance. P2: A vengeful and unstable society is counter-productive to its collective survival. C: We ought establish a just society. P1: Starving humans often behave in desperate and forceful ways. P2: Forceful human behavior is counter-productive to our collective survival. C: We ought seek measures to prevent famine within our society. P: Letting blind and drunk people drive is counter-productive to human survival. C: Blind and drunk people shouldn't drive. We can even arrive at human rights unless my premise is objectively wrong, and the data we can gather around the world and throughout history seems to support my premise: P: A society that protects the rights of its citizens is better-adapted for collective survival than one that violates them. C: We ought to protect human rights. We can also ethically justify the need for undercover law enforcers despite their need to habitually lie in ways that might pose ethical conflicts for deontologists, virtue ethicists, and theists. P1: Undercover law enforcers are functionally necessary to stop organized criminals. P2: Organized criminals threaten our collective survival. C: We ought to have undercover law enforcers to stop organized criminals. At the end of the day, we're objectively either moving towards our preservation (ethical) or extinction (unethical). Determining which direction can be incredibly complicated, demands epistemic humility and risk-aversion in the face of the sea of uncertainties, and even contextual -- as with determining the optimal human diet for a given person (but that doesn't mean that excess sugar consumption is only malfunctional when it's misaligned with someone's preferences or cultural values). "Complicated" isn't the same as "subjective". "Subjective" implies a judgment towards something which has no functional requirement. Humans have a functional requirement, as with human societies and their systems of ethics. Malfunctional ethical systems are prone to premature extinction, as with a maladapted species, and as buildings constructed on faulty foundations are doomed to collapse.

[@tomatopotato2881]

>> Like optimizing them in the absence of the other, or something like that, but those kinds of facts still -- in a way -- are dependent on there being agents with goals. This is why I personally root this in survival, and in a proximal fashion (I reject impartiality as it's impractical; for example, it would be impractical for parents to expect complete strangers to contribute equally to raising their children). Survival is a simple binary concept and not prone to subjective variability as with the concept of "well-being". Either my loved ones continue to exist or cease to exist, and either I'm working in alignment with their continued existence or misaligned towards their extinction. Also it's a more modest evaluation that risks less intrusions and costly errors. I can reasonably trust a government with the competence and required knowledge to protect the survival of myself and loved ones. I would find many reasons to rationally distrust a government who consistently interferes in order to optimize my family's hypothetical well-being. >> Because the agent is still going to be making these cost-benefit analyses about what it could get away with. If you could always get away with defecting and reaping all the rewards, why wouldn't you? We're habitual creatures for a start besides social. If I could hypothetically smoke cigarettes every now and then without becoming addicted, it might be beneficial even to my health to do so and benefit from the occasional focus and stress relief. Yet nicotine is extremely addictive and chain-smoking is almost certainly maladapted for survival. The safest method is to never start. Life is never absent risks but wise people invest. The foolish ones gamble and almost always guarantee their bankruptcy in the long run. It's for the same reason I don't start smoking that I don't start stealing even in cases where I think my odds are weighted in my favor of getting away with it. Also it's another matter entirely whether I would steal in a situation vs. whether I think stealing is maladapted behavior counter-productive for our collective survival. >> I would bet a lot of money that any aliens that has conscious agents interacting with each other wouldn't be constantly murdering each other, they wouldn't be constantly torturing each other, they wouldn't be constantly beating each other because that is -- in some sense -- better for them. I'd just point out that they'd likely have gone extinct long before they could encounter us if they condoned such behavior. It's not just better for them; it's functionally required for their continued existence if they are at all analogous to our species. >> I don't think there are objective facts about what food tastes good or bad, do you? No, okay, so we're we're gastronomic anti-realists. What I'd point out as a type who roots my realism in functionality is that it matters not whether you enjoy the taste of turpentine. If we drink it, everything we reliably know of our species tells us that we're going to die. An aesthetic "good" (as in "pleasing/desirable") is hopelessly subjective for sure, but that's different from a functional "good". We're not bound to unanimously agree on what type of software design is most desirable. What is objectively malfunctional is a software that crashes soon after startup. We can't even begin to subjectively determine if the software design is desirable in that case. >> It's a question I think people should pose to moral realists more: why do you care if there are moral facts? It threatens the survival of my loved ones and community if people ignore them too much. For example, if many ignored the idea that drunk driving is unethical (maladapted for survival) to the point where we have drunk drivers everywhere, then the odds of someone I care about needlessly and prematurely perishing will likely go up substantially.

[@dharmatycoon]

30min in, sounds like utilitarianism. I need an explanation for why I *should* care about the *we* hypothetical imperative. And like someone already commented here, prisoners dilemma is a specific contrived scenario. What if both parties want to kill each other? What's the "cooperate" vs "defect" then?

[@lanceindependent]

The outcomes in question would be ones that would be optimal from the perspective of being a kind of consequentialist about optimizing outcomes in your favor and operating on a kind of expected utility calculus.

[@MissInformati0n]

I’d appreciate if you or anyone else could timestamp the conversation topic changes.

[@lanceindependent]

Yea I usually don't topic jump like this so much.

[@devos3212]

Have you ever talked to Richard Carrier? He wrote an article on his blog in 2017 on how morals can be both invented and true. Maybe you could do a stream digging into that if you’re not interested in getting him on.

[@lanceindependent]

Never talked to him.

[@cpt.kimintuitiondemon]

👌

[@itstandstoreason]

Is Sam’s view really all that different from Sam Harris’s?

[@lanceindependent]

In some ways, perhaps. Sam Rosen doesn't insist morality is about wellbeing specifically, and instead is receptive to agents having different goals and those goals not being "incorrect" in any straightforward way.

[@itstandstoreason]

@ That may just end up being a semantic dispute. My guess is that any value Rosen posits as a basis for negotiations, Harris would put on one of his “peaks” of well-being.

[@lanceindependent]

@@itstandstoreason Maybe. But Sam makes more sense than Sam.

[@itstandstoreason]

2:37:10 Do you not think you are exercising some “narrative control” when you label natural realist views like Sam’s and mine (Desirism) “trivial”? (Which definitely comes across as a denigration)

[@lanceindependent]

Not really, no. My position on the matter isn't stemming from a position of power and I'm not leveraging the terms to discourage people from holding the views. So there's a lack of both intent and efficacy were narrative control the goal. If there are more neutral terms that fit the bill I might even opt to use them, but the sense in which I mean the terms are trivial can be cashed out subjectively (and I think I'm entitled to have express my personal views about how unimportant things are) or in technical terms (no new information is provided by the view, etc.). More importantly, triviality is a position I am arguing for, and others are welcome to deny that the positions are trivial in the relevant respects. What I am not doing is insisting on framing the discussion in such a way that my opponents are expected to grant that the views in question are trivial. As such, I don't see how I could be engaging in narrative control since I am not offering taxonomy or labels I expect my interlocutors to endorse.

[@Catofminerva]

First