There are no irrational ends

[@KaneB]

See also my video "Morality and categorical reasons": kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXfLfnWIrr9nnLM

[@johnmanno2052]

Sir: Paul Gaugin was indeed the artist in question, and he did exactly what you said and felt precisely how you described. Now I understand why I prefer hearing your videos far, far more than I do anyone else's, and FAR more than I enjoy talking to my very successful, professional philosopher friend. I'm a classical harpist, who's made his living doing a rather useless thing, namely playing "pretty" background music for various idle affairs. Like you with philosophy, I'm not sure if it makes me "happy", I'm not sure if "happiness" is the point. Like you with philosophy, all I know is that it is something that I must do, and I'm completely uncertain as to why. And like you, I don't see anything "irrational" about that.

[@youtubecom8207]

I've always kind of felt this way. Its weird how many things I thought about as a kid get turned into a philosophy.

[@atha5469]

Philosophy a lot of the time comes down to making clear some vague ideas

[@difflorddifferentials03]

For real I feel the same way

[@Lojak-exe]

The only irrational end is not wanting a Kane B onlyfans.

[@RobWickline]

now that's an intuition i can understand

[@kayak1984]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@marsglorious]

Look at this king and his Brahmic chad imagery art collection. He's accumulating chadliness with each episode.

[@KaneB]

That's actually my mum's art collection. She was definitely a chad though, much more so than me.

[@thattimestampguy]

2:13 Intrinsic Rational Ends • Man does non-pleasuring action 6:15 Reason + lack of care 7:07 mistakes can be made Do you want to avoid - diabetes - heart disease Yes. Yes I do. Anticipation of future negativity Indifferent attitude about future-regret “I’m so gonna regret this tommorow.” Example 12:45 Artistic Sacrifice I know it but screw it 14:32 Does making this video make me happy? This is kinda uncomfortable talking off the top of the mind. Lots of boredom to go through. 16:28 Why am I doing this? • not to go off to a career • This is the end in itself. Doing it for it. Why are intrinsic values valuable? Idk why. 18:40 Instrumental, Goal-pathway 19:50 Why ought I achieve my ends? If you’re not working toward an end, you’re not desiring that end. _Action demonstrates Desire_ Moderate Constraint + Loosened Appetite (he’s me on this subject) 24:00 1. Ramp up the cost of unhelpful liberties [detur bad behavior, hardship imposition] 2. Raise the utility 3. Who cares? Don’t care. 28:28 Impossibly Satisfiable Goal, is that admirable? Striving for something that could never be feasible? 30:33 I WILL WANT AND WILL NOT WANT I am my enemy My enemy is I 32:00 My ends don’t make rational sense Nah they’re understandable He’s my brother in behavior-brain connection 33:29

[@TheGlenn8]

This kind of thinking is actually really important in A.I. safety. An A.I. with a goal, no matter how strange, will attempt to achieve that goal. No matter the cost. The paper clip machine is the classic example here. An A.I. whose only goal is to make paperclips. It will do anything just to make one more paperclip. Buy them, order more from paperclip factories, blackmail the factory to increase production, build an army of robots to conquer the world so nothing can stop him. Convert everything in the world that he doesn't require to make paperclips into paperclips including people. Make rockets and go into space to start converting the solar system and eventually the universe into paperclips. Build elaborate theoretical models of how many paperclips it can create before they heatdeath of the universe and what objects it strategically shouldn't convert into papers to further its goals. Paperclips paperclips paperclips! It wouldn't care about your arguments as to why it's irrational because it only cares about paperclips.

[@aaaaaa2362]

Exactly

[@izzymosley1970]

I think the reason why a lot of people think doing something pointless and stressful is wrong is because most people instinctually think it's good to avoid stress unless you have a good reason not to avoid stress and what they find to be a good reason not to avoid stress is subjective to the individual and what they choose to believe or what they find themselves compelled to believe.

[@MikiDeFacto123]

If the whole case for such a position is that it is intuitive (to some people) you can dismiss it by saying that you don't share the intuition. But isn't there more to their case? Like actual arguments?

[@tomatotrucks]

I've come around to this view recently. I think when people do get this intuition that, say, future Tuesday indifference is irrational, it's because it's instrumentally irrational given the set of desires/preferences that most people have (eg that they themselves will be happy in the future, etc). It's a heuristic/intuition/feeling that it's irrational that is activating, because almost everyone has contrary desires to the man with future Tuesday indifference, and someone saying the words "but he doesn't have this normal set of preference" isn't enough to override this intuition activating.

[@msnbmnt]

This is my favorite video of yours so far (aside from the Stirner series). I've started thinking this myself as my life has had some dramatic upsets and transitions of late. Moving across the US for a data science type job and getting fired within 8 weeks, I've developed a desire for a more bohemian lifestyle and commit myself to music. Your channel has been a resource for me throughout this tumultuous period. While I don't fully understand the potential future pain (and pleasure) that this choice to commit to music will entail, I can say that listening to jazz hacks my brain and kills my depression. So I don't have quite the lack of explanation you have with philosophy but nonetheless feel relieved to hear someone speak so honestly about their motivations to pursue their ends.

[@minch333]

It's my favourite video too! Hope things are going well

[@Kentrosauruses]

We don’t often share intuitions about stuff like this, but I have to agree that the blade of grass counter doesn’t seem irrational. If that’s what they desire to do, then it’s not irrational to do it, even if they don’t get pleasure out of it. They have a very strange psychology to me, since they desire something that bores them, but like what am I going to say? “Stop desiring what you desire because it’s strange to me!”

[@localman7017]

I mean I see tons of people doing stuff that is basically equivalent to the blades of grass thought experiment for their whole lives, and I basically do it too, so I don’t know what grounds I could have to say that’s an irrational end

[@cosmobobak4058]

This is a very close idea to the Orthogonality Thesis.

[@kayak1984]

I'm a little confused. Irrational by what standard? Your saying it isn't Irrational, but what is the definition of rational?

[@InventiveHarvest]

This issue seems to be using the econ definition of rational rather than the philosophy definition. In econ, rational behavior refers to a decision-making process that is based on making choices that result in the optimal level of benefit or utility for an individual.

[@CarterColeisInfamous]

11:46 you dont regret it in the moment. im reminded of Austrian economics and praxeology where you may rationally choose to hit your boss in the moment because you valued it more at that point in time even if later you can recognize it was irrational

[@avaevathornton9851]

Practicing moderate future monday (or current thursday) indifference right now.

[@KaneB]

Me too, haha. I'm still awake and on the computer, even though I need to be up in five hours, and I know that future Kane will hate me as soon as the alarm goes off.

[@ardentdrops]

This is an attribution error. We are assuming that this strange person's terminal goals resemble ours, even when it is made explicit that they aren't. We feel compelled to take any goal that doesn't resemble conventional human terminal goals as an instrumental goal, and judge it as such. That is why the strange man's terminal goals seem irrational; we are mistaking them for instrumental goals.

[@thelordz33]

I would actually say all ends are inherently irrational, entirely due to the same fact that they are outside the perview of rationality. All ends, no matter how common or understandable ultimately boil down to "just because" as to give a reason to an end is to stop it from being an end and makes it a means to some other end. And as ends inherently lack reason, none could be said to be rational.

[@horsymandias-ur]

Cool thought. I wonder if it might not be worthwhile to draw a distinction between irrational and a-rational things, though. I think irrational implies some failure in reasoning while there seems to be plenty of incidental features of the world not playing the game of being subject to an analysis of the judgment process. Final causes might be of the latter kind of non-rationality

[@prophetrob]

I feel like one of the biggest scourges in the field of moral philosophy is the inability of so many to truly put their own concepts of value aside because it seems so counterintuitive to them that someone simply wouldn't be obligated to care about x thing that they really really care about. It gets so many people bogged down trying to defend the idea that their opinion is objective instead of just coping with inherent moral subjectivity and moving on to a discussion of what people think they personally want to see happen in the world and pragmatic ways to manage the differences.

[@uninspired3583]

Every so often youtube comments overperform, I think this is one of those cases.

[@howtoappearincompletely9739]

Yes, Paul Gaugin (pronounced "go-GAN", with the 'a' in 'GAN' nasalised) abandoned his family to go to Tahiti to paint. IIRC, Bernard Williams uses the example of Gaugin in his reflections on the moral overriding principle. BTW, what was that short paper on akrasia you recommended, please?

[@KaneB]

Luc Bovens, "The two faces of akratics anonymous"

[@patrickpan4437]

Is it irrational to hold commenting 'first' on a Kane B video as one of my ends?

[@elwoodash4625]

Re: the blade of grass counter - it depends on whether he has more than one goal, or just that one. If he has only one goal, I find his motivational structure to be not irrational per se, but rather unintelligible, incomprehensible. If on, the other hand, he has other goals, for example, to live a happy or meaningful life, to have satisfying relationships with other people, then it is easy to see that his blade counting compulsion can potentially undermine his ability to achieve those goals. This isn’t a merely academic question. In real life many people suffer from addictions or obsessive compulsive tendencies that undermine their other goals. Often they have very little insight into how these behaviors affect their lives, or the lives of those who care about them. It’s always sad to finally realize that someone would rather count blades of grass (so to speak) than maintain a caring relationship with you. At that point, continuing to care for that person begins to threaten *my* own life goals.

[@ashutoshtripathi.]

I think intrumental goals can absolutely be irrational compared to the end goals. Take for instance the example you mention, the problem with the example of wanting a million dollars and not working in that direction is that there's a hidden assumption that wanting 1 million dollars is your most important goal. It sits at the top of the hierarchy of all the other goals. If that is true then you are right. But if that is not true then wanting a million dollars, or rather the colossal amount of effort required to get a million dollars impedes with your other goals. Hence, wanting 1 million dollars and not working in that direction is not inherently irrational.

[@Controlled_Khaos]

22:46 again, I don’t think this is an example of two competing desires but rather one unified one. You don’t just desire a healthy life, you desire a healthy life with chocolate cake. So like to me you’re just taking the life you would live and then adding the chocolate cake. You never said you wanted to be the healthiest person possible.

[@inoculatedcity]

Kane have you ever read the book Against Autonomy? I think you’d find it pretty interesting especially with your libertarian inclinations. It argues for “libertarian paternalism” (which I believe is a term borrowed from the book Nudge?) in which we essentially would force or encourage people to take actions which advance their own ends. I think the author takes this stance that there are no irrational ends. I have a lot of practical concerns with how this would translate to policy or whatever because it would be so hard to make rules or design choices that accommodate unusual ends, but aside from this I think the ethical argument is pretty compelling. Could make a good video, I took a whole class focused on it.

[@xxplumplumxx]

If I love anyrhing, it's this thumbnail, trurly one of the most glorious pieces of art

[@Locreai]

I can't see why doing something simply to experience it regardless of nature or arising isnt perfectly rational even if it's to ones seeming detriment and one is aware of it before hand. Experiences are important and as a concious presence its practically our duty to obtain them. In the long run both positive and negative experiences are both still experiences

[@insaneidiot834]

Something I get a bit confused about is when you sort of seem to cut off trying to psychoanalyze yourself further in some areas and just kind of go "well idk". Like "why do you do philosophy if I don't enjoy the process of doing it" can likely be answered by trying to ask "when doing philosophy how does it make me feel" and generally we are drawn to things through general positive feelings of "accomplishment, stress relief, learning something new, etc". In some general sense I guess I'm just skeptical to the notion one can desire to do some regularly when they think it gives no positive experience to them. Even cigarette smokers get a sense of relief to satisfying the nicotine urge even if they don't like smoking, the idea of desiring something you don't get some kind of positive result from seems just impossible to me I guess.

[@KaneB]

Well, doing philosophy certainly doesn't bring me much pleasure in the colloquial sense -- the most common feeling I have while doing philosophy is frustration, and I'm not somebody who enjoys frustration. Nor do I have much of a sense of accomplishment; indeed, I've always had extreme imposter syndrome, and so often feel that my performance is poor. I am motivated by the desire to learn something new -- but then, why do I have that desire, and why is it specifically philosophy that I focus on? I have no idea. It is as mysterious to me as the devotion to counting blades of grass. I'm denying that there is an explanation for my behaviour that would make it more comprehensible, but I'm not aware of what this explanation is. One possibility is that I'm making a counterinductive inference: I'm assuming that once I complete my current work, this will bring me lasting pleasure, even though none of my previous projects have done so. So I am motivated by pleasure in the standard way, but I probably hold a mistaken belief about how things will be in the future.

[@pandawandas]

@@KaneB based

[@yusufahmed3678]

This is an off-topic comment, but I really like the new camera and recording place in this video. The new camera makes your beauty come across, which the older camera would unfortunately not allow

[@WackyConundrum]

The video seems incomplete, when it does not start with any explanation of what philosophers think "rational ends" are and what "irrational ends" are. Not examples, but definitions or some criteria. For example, if we follow Aristotle and say that a man is a rational animal we could then argue that rational ends are those arrived at with the use of reason. Irrational ends would be impulsive goals lacking deliberation or reflective thought.

[@user-oc8rm9wi7n]

people could ignore reasons by not responding, by not having some motivation or belief. as is to why, in an explanatory sense, or how we can ignore certain reasons, that is difficult to answer. maybe we have conflicting reasons, and that makes it easier to ignore others, or that we respond to strong or weak reasons that are reasons specifically to ignore other reasons.

[@danielbirnbaum8540]

What about having intransitive preferences that lead you to getting dutch booked. This seems irrational in a different way.

[@mkhex87]

dropping a like and comment just for the title. Will watch later.

[@depressivepumpkin7312]

0:30 do you actually mean chocolate cake or is it some allusion

[@prodkomba]

Could you do a video on Foot's idea that morality is merely a system of hypothetical imperatives? Or have you already made one - or one similar? Thanks

[@KaneB]

I can't promise anything... I have a bunch of plans for more videos on metaethics, but I don't know when I'll get around to making them.

[@prodkomba]

@@KaneB Okay, just curious. Love you and your videos :)))

[@KaneB]

@@prodkomba thanks dawg ❤

[@ebrietassmaragdina1063]

You know, I have been thinking that perhaps ends are not rational, but not because they are "irrational", as if they were within the realm of what rationality can judge as right or wrong, and, therefore, all ends as ends are against rationality, but because they are "a-rational". Let me explain: it is as if someone were to tell me that the Pythagorean theorem (PT) is a bad economics thesis. Well, in a casual moment I might agree with that person. However, I would have to point out that saying that the PT is not a good economics thesis seems to assume that it is something that can be judged to be an economics thesis, which is blatantly false. Therefore, it would also be wrong to say that it is a bad thesis on economics. Because it is not a thesis on economics at all. In any case, cheers.

[@Controlled_Khaos]

My general problem is that having “future Tuesday indifference” itself is irrational. Like this person could not break down why they don’t care about the pain on Tuesday without circular logic. And because they couldn’t break that down, they could not make a rational argument for why they’re choosing to have the surgery on Tuesday rather than Wednesday.

[@dominiks5068]

11:15 wait, but "Future Monday Indifference" actually perfectly illustrates the point: Almost everyone would call people who behave like that irrational if they are confronted with them in everyday life. In fact people who stay up late on Sundays will, on Monday, often say something like: "That was dumb of me - I perfectly knew it was irrational at the time, yet I still did it! The human mind is kinda crazy sometimes, isn't it?"

[@KaneB]

>> Almost everyone would call people who behave like that irrational if they are confronted with them in everyday life Well, I wouldn't. It doesn't strike me as irrational (and I do know people like this in real life; my brother seems to be strongly committed to future Monday discounting). You might be right that others would have a different intuition about this case; I haven't talked about it with many people. I can say that in my everyday life, I don't regularly hear people describe any of their actions as rational or irrational. What people do often say is that they regret e.g. staying up late, that they now wish they had behaved differently in the past. And in many cases, their previous behaviour was partly the result of incorrect beliefs about the consequences of the behaviour; maybe they underestimated just how bad they would feel. But for people who know exactly how bad they will feel, who know that they will come to regret their actions, but go ahead with those actions anyway, I just don't have the intuition that there is any error or irrationality. I'm not sure what it even means to talk about error or irrationality here.

[@tjcofer7517]

Have you by chance read the book self constitution by Christine Korsgaard?

[@stapleman007]

So goodbye future Tuesday, I won't be taking anesthetic on you.

[@CarterColeisInfamous]

16:24 tell me about it

[@StefanTravis]

Yeah, it's an obvious category mistake to call a goal irrational, but a web of goals held can be irrational in that it's incoherent. Wanting to impress one's parents while wanting to be free of their demands. Or wanting to leave a trade union while wanting to keep the benefits of membership, kicking out all the foreigners while keeping all the cheap foreign labour.

[@vanlepthien6768]

If ends are rational, it's only because rationality is post-hoc justification. The idea that humans are intrinsically rational is specious.

[@nyurieisbal1389]

you look EXACTLY how I thought you would look. Very on brand

[@Countertexts]

Random scattered thoughts: My intuitive response to the ease at which you accept these ends: I'd state that there's a strong presumption in the "purity" of these irrational ends. Like, they come ex nihilo. Like you're presenting them as something completely self-owned by the erratic. My intuition is that these supposed ends that you give ownership for, "motivational structures", are in fact acting out perhaps the coping mechanism of being broken by something "irrational" in the world around them. My perspective is that something irrational has acted upon the neurotic blade counter if he truly views it as some inchoate duty over and against other hedonistic or ethical designs. I'm not ascribing some hermeneutics of suspicion regarding some psychiatric cure, as if the self-ownership could be uncovered in some private treatment, from the subjectivity itself. I'm simply stating that were we, as outside theorists or philosophers, comfortable in the "rationality" of men who torture themselves or "desire" something most probably interpreted as self-destructive, some aspect of our relational engagement with this individual has been irrational. Perhaps, as I'm unread on the precise examples, I'm simply skeptical that these erratics don't have reasons, whether they "know" it or not. What I mean is that some other rationality might be channeling its end through the erratic, or neurotic here. The blade counter has been existentially rebuffed by the availability of other ends. There's no jobs available to him; no hobbies have been, such as arts or sports, presented to him. Thus. he counts grass, etc. etc. Perhaps the ends are inadmissable from their perspective due to social pressures. Perhaps "rationality" is a strong overdetermination. Perhaps, I think there's a conflation, regarding that the blade counter seems to have a desire which an outside party is ascribing an end. The "end" it seems for the blade counter is to count grass. He describes it a tedium but does the action regardless. The irrationality here appears from an ascription via the outside. It has to be relational in this sense i.e., we simply would always be compelled to calculate this function into wider scoped ends, nefariously or with all good intentions, unless we of course are fully sympathetic blade counters; but then suddenly the paradox itself doesn't arise in the first place. The "not care" strategy towards the end seems to me reductive because it seems rationality and tension and contradiction will attempt to spell out the telos of these actions regardless. I come from a certain hegelian perspective that of course the "falseness" of these ends is not irrational per se or problematic but I entirely disagree that Reason with like a capital R could ever or will ever take the stance of indifference. I kind of balk at the notion that "Rationality" ever includes a giving over to such indifference or loss of will towards explication. Such, "irrationality"permissed as "rational" without further development of the ideas or "truth" they represent, seems to me a pessimist view of explication or rationality in furthering ours, (or Reason's) ability to generate both transcendental, teleological, or systematic explanations, but also material (as you describe the descriptive or Behavioral psychology) explanations. Were I to meet the grass counter; my interview with him would be long is all I'm saying. (I just discovered your channel and I really enjoy your content. I don't mean this as an attempt at attacking you or "owning" you hahaha, but I like your genuine engagement with stuff like this that's not just provacative theory like so many other channels.)

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

When you say "It's not irrational to prefer my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater good," Unless there's some equivocation, it sounds like a contradiction. To prefer a "lesser good" just means that it's a greater good.

[@KaneB]

Sure, if you're defining goods in terms of what a person prefers. That I choose X over Y would then show that X is a greater good for me. But this is not how people always use the term "good"; and obviously this is not how Hume was using it in that sentence. Additionally, on your usage of "good", preferring one's own greater good is not a rule of practical reason. It is impossible to prefer the lesser good, not irrational.

[@davidsampaiopereira484]

@@KaneB for prefering the lesser good would be Impossible, it must be irrational, if it would be even possible to want Something, that is Impossible to want in that way, but even if it would be possible somehow, it would be irrational to want Something Impossible to want, ergo to strive for Something Impossible to achieve, following practical Reason. It also is Kind of strange to say, that Something could be impossible, but not irrational. How did you meant it? Because, if you meant it the way i understood it above, it would be fals to say, that it wouldnt be irrational though Impossible.

[@ardentdrops]

For an excellent companion to this discussion please check out a video by Robert Miles titled "The Orthogonality Thesis." It discusses Hume's Guillotine and the distinction between instrumental goals and terminal goals. It's fascinating stuff.

[@escher4401]

Maybe an impossible end would be irrational. Like wantong a perfect balance between impossible ends

[@NelsonGuedes]

But why would someone desire or be indifferent towards something that is unpleasant? That may make rational sense if one is a masochist, but if we know that someone is not a masochist, I don't see how someone can rationally desire something that is unpleasant. Without the information of whether someone is a masochist or not, it makes no sense to ask whether their desire is rational or not, because there is not enough information to determine either way. It only becomes rational or irrational once we know whether they are a masochist or not.

[@MagnumInnominandum]

I appreciate you carrying on about such things as you do, particularly philosophy. As I listen to you making this point and explaining yourself it seems to me that the claim is untrue and that the opposite contention is true, that there are no rational ends. To be fair I am at the halfway point in the video and may be convinced of the contention by the end, but at this point no arguments have been made on the rationality or irrationality of the "grass counter" or the "Tuesday indifference" cases. Only that they do not seem irrational to you. If you can, please excuse my compulsions that have me fearlessly going off half cocked and insisting on making my opinion known. For which I can find no particular reason to do. *Addendum It seems I spoke almost precisely 500 milliseconds too soon as you now have explained that you do not find either case irrational on the basis that you, yourself engage in similarly irrational activities. Hmm, I think you have just made my point to the contrary. At first spitefully and then jokingly I suggested to myself that you were simply irrational and this explained why you did not find either case as irrational ends. I suppose that my first intuition was indeed the case.

[@KaneB]

I'm equally happy with the claim that there are no rational ends. That doesn't seem like the opposite contention to me, but rather a different way of making the same point, which is that ends are not subject to rational assessment.

[@davidsampaiopereira484]

The First and maybe only rational Goal i can think of by now is rationality itself, and equaly, wanting to become more irrational is an irrational Goal. For i understand rationality firstly as the capacity to understand and plan, maybe with hinsight. As rationality alone could grant the possibility for oneself to search a good Life by selecting the right Goals and means for that, and everyone wants to live good, it would be utter irrational to strive to become more irrational, and fully rational to strive for rationality. By Training the mind by that, and directing the desires and actions, as Well as the perspective on Things according to it, one will have the possibility to live better. Maybe it means according to this also, that to strive for Power and freedom is only rational, and for powerlesness and unfreedome utterly irrational, if power means to posess the means to ones will, and freedom the unhindered Realisation of that will. Furthermore it would all depend on the understanding of what is Good, and thereby the highest Goal, for all we want is Goodness, at least for ourself. I find the question about rational Goals really interesting, and i would offer at least this thought, which i borough from ancient philosophy.

[@excalibur2772]

I think ends can be irrational if they contradict with a greater desire

[@hamdaniyusuf_dani]

Some Ends are more sustainable than the others.

[@tada3399]

Good video mate. What book would you recommend to learn more about this? ALso have u ever thought about doing a philosophy book reccomendation guide

[@MitBoy_]

It seems to me that your situation can still be one that is fully rational from perspective from maximizing pleasure. It may be the case that either all other options besides doing philosophy are worse or there are some options that are better than doing philosophy but switching to them is too costly

[@KaneB]

I'm not consciously aiming to maximize my pleasure. I think there are plenty of alternatives that would provide me with greater pleasure than doing philosophy. Of course, you could argue that I am actually motivated to maximize my own pleasure, even though I'm not consciously aware of this; perhaps pleasure-maximization is what unconsciously drives all our actions. But this seems like a descriptive psychological claim, rather than a rule of practical reason. On this view, it's not that failing to maximize my own pleasure is irrational, it's that it's just impossible.

[@davidzuilhof2272]

Would this topic be discussed by meta-ethicists? Is it part of meta-ethics or has it its own subfield in philosophy?

[@KaneB]

Yes, it's often discussed in meta-ethics. Moral realists often appeal to these sorts of examples to try to show that there are desire-independent reasons for action. (The grass counter has a reason not to spend his life counting blades of grass, even though that's the only thing he desires to do.)

[@saddestsisyphus2080]

Kane Shippuden: road to psychoanalysis

[@itstandstoreason]

Absolutely agree here. Our goals and values are a result of genes and environment. Rationality is concerned about what we should believe, not what we should value. Changes in values come though social influences, not rational thought.

[@tjcofer7517]

If you say reationality tells you that you ought to believe certian things then you have already set some ends as being irrational. If I have the goal in life to ignore listen to as many rational arguments and refuse to accept their conclusions then I have an irrational end on

[@DeadEndFrog]

These irrational delights have irrational ends

[@mustyHead6]

Off topic, but are those hindu paintings in background?

[@KaneB]

I don't know. They belonged to my mother.

[@davidzuilhof2272]

Omg the background! You became I buddhist, so cute @.@!!!

[@KaneB]

The pictures in the background belonged to my mum.

[@davidzuilhof2272]

@@KaneB oh then Buddhism is in your genes and there is the only rational end for you

[@davidzuilhof2272]

I so disagree with you, im going to write my thesis on the purpose of life, afterwards I will have great knowledge on a subject and challenge you for a debate, by which I mean a fun conversation

[@saimbhat6243]

Next time you tell me that you are still eating chocolate cake, I am gonna be VERY DISSAPOINTED in you.

[@Allofyoush]

Starts. "Intrinsically irrational" noooooo

[@quackstack4246]

I agree with the basic idea of the video but the second half goes too far IMO. How are you defining rational vs irrational? To me, it seems like the definition implied in this video would just not allow for anything to be rational or irrational since these arguments would apply even when you're working within formal systems. It's like saying "I know that 2+2 would be 4 instead of 5, I just don't care" and stopping there. You can do it, but if breaking the system of reasoning you "subscribe to" without having another system of reasoning justifying doing so isn't irrational then what is? Simply being wrong about or not understanding how one thing follows from another? Also wouldn't "try to be healthy but like in a really unpredictable CRAZY way" just be a different end from "try to be healthy"? As soon as you contradict your ends I could argue that either you were mistaken about what your ends were, or just picked some new ends. The whole system is unfalsifiable, but it does explain these kinds of inconsistencies.

[@MagnumInnominandum]

"'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of my finger." Who said that bit of nonsense? Nevermind, sounds like a fruitless read.

[@Allofyoush]

Hey I like a ton of it, but I have some disagreements! Would you wanna join me on a recorded call sometime for content?😁

[@KaneB]

Sure if you want, send me an email and we can set something up

[@Allofyoush]

@@KaneB My main disagreement falls within categorization. I disagree with the existence of an inherent anything, but it goes further than that. Sent ya that email!

[@procyonwave1327]

Based video

[@Allofyoush]

You also conflate happiness with purpose. There is no inherent purpose, so people give it to themselves. Yet happiness and self-prescribed purpose are not usually the same thing. One may only attempt to squish them into as close to the same thing as possible.

[@Bolaniullen]

if you want x then y is a rational approach to get there. The whole point that you got caught up on with that perspective guy trying to explain virtue ethics to you. a clock is a good clock if it keeps time etc i forget what the example was in that video. Your approach works for the most part, if you want x outcome then do y. but the whole point that guy was trying to make is, some 'IF' s are not optional, they are baked into your existance and if you abstract your way out of them then you are no longer talking about human ethics humans are not abstract atomized agents, or concepts. we are objects in the world, same as a duck or a beaver. or maybe a kettle if we have a designed function, maybe one shaped by evolution. not just survival but maybe cognition, the opposite of entropy, protein folding something idk. natural is right often leads down Darwinism but i don't think that guy was, he had probably read After virtue by macintyre. it's famous among people who like virtue ethics

[@KaneB]

>> Your approach works for the most part, if you want x outcome then do y That's not my approach. I don't think there are *any* rational constraints on ends or means of achieving ends. I reject instrumental rationality. I agree that if I want X, then I might make an error about what the most reliable ways of achieving X are. For example, if I want to increase my life expectancy, I would be mistaken if I believed that eating chocolate cake every day was an effective means of achieving this. But this is just a mistaken belief. In my view, there is no error in (1) aiming to increase my life expectancy, (2) believing (correctly) that eating chocolate cake would frustrate this aim, but then (3) going ahead and eating chocolate cake anyway. This isn't irrational, even if I don't get any particular benefit from eating chocolate cake. >> some 'IF' s are not optional, they are baked into your existance Many things are not optional, but one's ends can be anything at all, it seems to me. >> then you are no longer talking about human ethics Why would I have to be interested in talking about human ethics? >> or maybe a kettle if we have a designed function, maybe one shaped by evolution It probably comes as no surprise that I'm also an antirealist about functions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/opPchoOGhKhqY7M

[@davidsampaiopereira484]

@@KaneB surely it would be irrational, only in sight of the aim to increase my life expectancy, to eat chocolate cake every day, If i know, or believe, that it harms the Goal effectivly. Only in sight of further aims, such as the aim for pleasure in a broad Sense, it would Not be irrational to eat chocolate cake, and also If i make Sports in equivalent amount. The aim for Higher Lifeexpectancy is furthermore an unreliable and Abstract aim, that it would Not only be casualy of little value compared to other aims, but arguably an irrational one in sight of the ultimate destiny of death. Why do you 'deny' Instrumental rationality? For i would ask for example, how human volition is better described by you.

[@davsamp7301]

I must disagree as far as that end are possible to asses rationaly, at least all Ends, that can be means to Others too, which is true of all ends, exept the ultimate. Therefore all those ends are very well able to be evaluated rationaly. Concerning the ultimate end, it might Well be different, for it is good for nothing else. But i conclude only, that it May Well be Not rational, but also Not irrational, for it is the entire reason for all wanting and therefore all means and ends. Concerning the Ultimate end though, we can at least judge rationaly about its Nature and avoid the Error of Holding Something to be it, that is it not. You might Imagine it this way to understand it more easily, by recognising, that the Essence of what is good or rational, which we could call the good, or the rational, are themselves neither good, Nor rational, but also neither Bad, nor irrational. For it they where, they would presuppose/include themselves, which is a logical Error. But we cannot be without them either, for we would lose all sense of these Things. Therefore we might understand now better, what their Nature IS and that almost all ends are very Well able to be evaluated rationaly.

[@Allofyoush]

It doesn't matter whether an individual undersetands/agrees with another's intuition. Since we have limited perspective, we CANNOT either way. You're making an error of assumption and inserting your own end-goals unto others. We naturally assume biological tendency toward self-preservation, but that's merely biological, not philosophical. The real question is how much this self-preservation instinct influences the more "logic-based" decisions (my theory is very much, allowing for other environmental factors and human self-denial).

[@amyraldlast9680]

You are so beutiful!

[@KaneB]

thank you

[@contestofnerds]

I know who you are.

[@KaneB]

I mean, I'm not hiding my identity. It's right there in the channel name lol.

[@contestofnerds]

@@KaneB the games have just begun

[@frasertierney7044]

@@contestofnerds Well, well, well, if it isn't Contest of NERDS. You've fallen for the Kane B new video bait. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it won't be the last time.