Metaethics - Moral Underdetermination

[@KaneB]

Moral Disagreement: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnjbpZ1sarusm9k Underdetermination in Science: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z5CrnpesqJyXo7c Marquis de Sade's Moral Philosophy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4eWg3lrgrOiga8

[@IapitusMcHeimer]

The more I watch your philosophy videos, I definitely get a better understanding of moral philosophy, but I also realize that it's really hard to actually find the terms to describe one's own moral position. I wish there was some like reverse dictionary to find the academic version of general moral and philosophical ideas. I love philosophy, but i usually dont engage with it using much jargon outside of specific unique concepts. It's wild to me that (if I understand these terms right) one could believe there are objective elements of morality, believe that there are universal moral truths relative to humans, and believe morality is bound by logic yet not be considered a moral realist. I'm half writing this comment to drive the algorithm, but the feeling of lacking the proper terms to articulate my positions frequently plagues me when Watching your videos

[@KaneB]

I think that would usually be considered moral realism. Baumann is using the term "moral realism" in a much more narrow sense than is standard.

[@therealb888]

So a lot of these logic, morals, ethics, comes under philosophy. I have been thinking of these topics for sometime now. Re discovering a lot of ideas philosophy. But there is an entire subject on these dilemmas. Subscribed!

[@tefkah]

uh oh gang, how will moral realism get out of this sticky situation?

[@jolssoni2499]

Find out in the next episode of Dragon Ball Z.

[@yololololo9081]

WHATS UP DOGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[@jordanh1635]

The mf sky bro.

[@SkyrimFanForever1]

@@jordanh1635 idk man, the empirical evidence seems to be for multiple hypotheses. Seems like an under determination problem here

[@jordanh1635]

@@SkyrimFanForever1 shit u right dawg

[@hian]

Personally, my biggest issue with moral realism, or rather moralism as a whole, is that I don't think it is apparent on any view in the relevant schools of thought what it actually means to make deontic verdicts and why the metric of the deontic verdict ought to be valued in the first place. Simply put, all moralisms seem to reduce into eternal regress once you ask why exactly their particular metric is what it is and why you ought respect it. What's worse, the verdicts themselves seem neutered and pointless in the large scheme of things whenever any particular one of them conflicts with an individual preference that said individual possesses the means to pursue and/or actualize if and when the moralists are powerless to prevent it anyways. Thus, whether a virtue ethicist and a social contractarian can arrive at equivalent verdicts seems like a red herring and in no way intersects in a case for their view. Ultimately, their verdicts are grounded in decreeing, by definition, that their respective metrics for judgements ought be the standard for understanding when an act is right or wrong(I.E it's a good act if it is virtous/respecting social contracts/propagating well-being/reducing suffering), however no argument can ever be provided for why the definition should be granted outside of practical concerns. As a thought experiment, imagine that you stand in front of a box with a big red button. If you push it, you will doom all other conscious life in the universe to an eternal state of maximum suffering but you will be consigned to a state of everlasting bliss in a separate reality. You will also have any memories of having done this wiped from your mind and you will suffer no consequences for doing so. I suppose most people and moral systems would consider this a heinous thing to do. And yet, there seems to be no compelling reason why the individual shouldn't do this. No appeal can be made to consequence for the person pushing the button, and any appeal not rooted in personal consequences raises a separate, and to my mind, fatal question for systems that posit deontic verdicts separate from individual consequence- Namely, if a moral system posits normative demands that don't favor the clearly best outcomes for the individuals laden with it, what possible reason could they have to respect its metric of value or its verdicts in the first place? Why, given no substantive reason, should the individual care to act for the sake of avoiding the label "evil", or in pursuit of the label "good", if it is not aligned with their preferences or best outcomes? And, even if, for whatever contrived reason, the proponents of these systems feel like reserving the label of "evil" for those who reject the metric and subsequent verdicts, what purpose does the label or exercise even serve? Okay. The man or woman who pressed the button is "evil". Now what? Presumably there ought be a purpose to the attribution of the label - it being, in many ways, a condensed form of expression towards a normative demand(asking by implication the individual to stop being evil, or for others to rise up and interfere with the person's evil). But, insofar as that appeal requires the argument or moral system to begin with - and insofar that the argument has already failed to provide any incentive to the agent with the button - it betrays the vaccuous nature of the entire exercise. Ultimately, morality and moralisms just come off to me as ad-hoc intellectualizations of human preferences, crafted for the sake of justifying an internal "moral license" to act against certain impulses or to superimpose one's preferences onto others or pursue conflict where non-violent superimposition has failed. This, however, does not require its own obtuse language game or faux rightousness fueled by contrived and incoherent ideas about reality. If it were my preference to relish in the suffering and blood-shed of my fellow man, then I would be at an impass with most people and we would be forced to resolve that issue through either dialogue or force, wholly separate from any pointless conversation on which of us are supposedly "good" or "evil". If our preferences are anything from nominally aligned to very close in nature, our ability to compromise and find mutually agreeable states of existence is possible and often trivial(hence why so many systems arrive at similar decrees and judgements), again, without any need for or anything added by moralistic language. There are no oughts. Only what is. And, the successful coexistence of conscious creatures is just an exercise in the balancing of preferences to whatever extent they can - which agents would pursue regardless insofar it's necessary for them to achieve their individual ends whether they engage in mental gymnastics to provide a normative framework beforehand or not. Yours truly, Friendly neighborhood nihilist.

[@haydenwalton2766]

well put -I whole heartedly agree. although I wouldn't necessarily call MYSELF a nihilist :-)

[@hian]

@@haydenwalton2766 Thanks. Given how many people use that term wrong and/or as a character attack, I can't really blame you. I consider my moral nihilism to moral philosophy the equivalence of my atheism to religious/supernatural claims =) I see my nihilism, both morally and existentially, as opportunities to view meaning and human enterprises as blank canvases that I can interact honestly with and adapt to without reservation. In so far that I'm a fellow human ape and not a psychopath or a sadist, even though my modus operandi is fundamentally self-serving, a part of that will involve social interfacing with others, and desire for harmony and positive feedback from my fellow creatures on an instinctual level anyways. Under this view moral systems and language seem entirely superfluous and like a waste of time.

[@haydenwalton2766]

@@hian yeah, I think most people misunderstand the term nihilist. the thing I find most interesting here is the strong thread of misplaced virtue signalling from many people to claim to be 'moral realists'

[@tennicksalvarez9079]

Bro good comment.

[@IPlayWithFire135]

Keep going my friend. One day you'll have 300k+ views on your videos.

[@JumperDorian]

I love me some Kane Bizzle

[@brettlemoine1002]

What is the reasoning behind the idea that one _must_ choose to believe (or endorse) a _single_ moral theory? If we understand our moral intuitions as the result of aeons of psychological evolution as members of a social species, then there's no particular reason that they'd necessarily converge to a single conceptual theory. The construction of moral theories seems to be an attempt to sort of reverse-engineer the results, but using _very_ different tools than evolution. Further most moral theories (as far as I've looked) tend to overlook the way that human behaviors and moral intuitions _change_ based on in-group and out-group dynamics.

[@maciejsuszka8754]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

[@tennicksalvarez9079]

That what i been wondering because we r a system that self replicate if something would inhabit that process then we evolve under that pressure inorder to keep replicating

[@Jupa]

Personally I just consider that Carthage must be destroyed

[@TheNaturalLawInstitute]

Hmm... (a) Morality refers to the terms of the demand for cooperation (positiva) and demand for retaliation for violation of terms of cooperation (negativa) (b) morality always and everywhere on earth consists of reciprocity in demonstrated interests within limits of proportionality - that's the empirical evidence. (c) that definition is the formal law of morality AND the common law - which demonstrates by convergence everywhere (d) those conditions of reciprocity and proportionality differ in each civilizational context because of the degree of development, and the degree of development the atomization of rules from tribe to clan to family to the individual - but the rule is invariant. (e) Reciprocity provides universal decidability (as we have found in international law); AND due to contextual (environmental) differences, moral portfolios differ by civilization, culture, class, and sex; AND individual moral demand for cooperation given our temperament (personality), sex, class, culture, and civilizational differences combined with indoctrination, education, and random experience. (f) regardless of our individual intuitions, perceptions, and reason the universal law of moral decidability in reciprocity in demonstrated interests AND by variation in the limits of proportionality within group AND by variation in the limits of proportionality by individual, and variation in his or her demands for cooperation remains the same. Ergo the silver rule is correct, because of the increased burden of knowledge not the golden which requires no knowledge - because we are unequal. I have found no moral question undecidable (and I have had to address hundreds of them). Instead, I have found variations in WHO decides each: the individual to the polity to laws of nature. So moral realism exists, and is true and. universal. But that's akin to saying that the laws of logic are true and universal. We can determine if questions are logical or moral (true or false) or whether they remain undecidable, and whether they are undecidable by the individual, the group, the polity, the world. But as far as I know there are no moral questions that are not decidable by the laws of the four sciences. And that claim has only been possible in this new century. General Tip: Philosophy is to sets and mathematics and Science is to operations and computation. AFAIK the science tells us that morality tells us only that which is not bad (universal) but not what is good (particular). Philosophy provides us means of determining which of those things it is not bad (not immoral) provides best individual and group return for some individual or subgroup and once in a while the majority of the group, but almost never everyone. So AFAIK science (truth, decidabilty) and philosophy (value, choice) are fully disambiguated. -Curt Doolittle, The Natural Law Institute

[@unknownknownsphilosophy7888]

“The natural law institute” hahahahaha

[@jonathacirilo5745]

​@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 "Unknown Knows Philosophy" hahahahaha

[@SerifSansSerif]

Somewhere around the 15 minute mark you start talking about moral intuition and it feels like Hume is worthy of mention as the gut moral reaction is that of a virtue we wish to implement, and then what follows is the ethical framework to justify the value. Also, rather than an assumption that one ethical framework is right and others are wrong, why not assume that virtues exist within our realm of experience in a way similar to emotions in their universal understanding and appeal, and that ethical systems are the methodologies we utilize to try and best gauge a course of action towards the fulfillment of that virtue. Laws, are formalized maxims based on our ethics. Just as we can easily find instances where the law can subvert or betray the ethics of a situation, ethical frameworks typically have faults and paradoxes within them. Kant's ethics are a gold standard, but at the same time can be a bit too inflexible and when you can't lie even though telling the truth will cause harm, for example, it may be a question more suited to using a utilitarian form of ethics to subvert the crisis by stating the least violation is in lying despite the paradox. Another form of ethics might better fill in for when we encounter the problem of utilitarianism such as Kant's ethics when we got a situation where there's juuuust a little too much calculus going on and we justify making another suffer. Mind you I'm being fairly loose and free, but the point being that there's other options than a very black and white approach to ethics, especially when ethics are not facts, but methodologies.

[@justus4684]

🔴

[@maxv3286]

🔴

[@Locreai]

I just started working on this thesis. Can you tell me what you think???

[@Locreai]

The sensory organs as the root of philosophy The sensory organs of the human body have been under attack from the philosophers of history for far too long, and a rebuttal has been long past due. This essay will be an argument in favor of the sensory organs as the principle cornerstone in all of philosophy and reassert its relevance within the philosophical scope of mans existance. That the senses have room for doubt in their accuracy and acuity in identifying the true nature of objects and reality is a point in which I do not disagree. The human eye does not see the true form of a tree in all its makings with its molecules and atoms playing about for power in a web built up from a fabric of frequencies, and that would make sense after all, as of what use would it be? To be able to see molecules would leave you blind and bewildered by the very air resting on your eyes. Similar examples can be made of each sensory organ in turn. I will not be arguing against these points or whether or not there is a specific reality in which the organs aught to uncover. Nor shall I be arguing at the inability for the senses to directly observe objects and reality, but Instead I would propose that the organs enable their concious observers conceptual abilities. Those conceptual abilities are the abilities of philosophy, and thus all philosophies are philosophies of the sensory organs. A blind man does not know colour, shade, contrast and light. He can consider them as subject matter only that he has heard of them, which is of course by virtue of ears. His rudimentary comprehension by oral lesson of colours enables him to consider colours only in so far as he can make assumptions about what he was told of their qualia and attributes by the speaker. Any rhetoric and creativity there of is hampered by his ignorance of the subject matter. None the less he forms idioms about the topic and relative to it has rules of engaging with it. Should the same individual, then, be gifted with a vision of all the colors, contrasts, light, and shade, his authority on the matter of such things would be far more immense enabling him to elaborate upon the rules and draw further distinctions and codes of conduct within the idiom than he had previously had, there by expanding his philosophy of vision his philosophy of colours and so forth. If we, at this point, were to allow the man a vision of form, symmetry, scale, and density to which he could apply the former then this individual would begin to form far more sophisticated and complex rules of engagement, and rhetoric, or creativity once more. As we extend this argument out into and upon the other senses you will find that the same holds true for each. First the ability to utilize the sense at all allows for such concepts as would be the consequence of the given stimuli received by the sensory organ, and as the organ is more acute the potential for sophistication of the idioms surrounding the sense expands in kind. The sensory organs not only allow a human body to function within reality but they are also the structure upon which every facet of concept is founded. Even many of a mans current ideas which were placed upon him by society fit within this paradigm. Let us say a man has a certain view of a given political party and then let us ask- did he not hear rumors and quotes of the party with the ears? Did he not witness their advertisements with his eyes? So although the ideas surrounding his political ideology have been further developed within his mind with some reflection it is that his sensory organs have introduced this stimuli that he may resort to further considerations to begin with. I should now raise a point relevant to the mind, and thinking which pertains to philosophy and explain why I do not feel that the thought process qualifies as the means by which a philosophical notion is formed, and draw a distinction between its activities and those of the sensory organs that I may further strengthen my argument. The Duty of the mind is to think. To judge and analyze data, to be creative, to critique, to process. What, though, can the mind process which has not entered it? Even our conceptual and creative thoughts are not random, but are faximilies or multiple ideas which one holds. A man creatively describes a goat driving a car, but both of those ideas had previously been introduced to the subject which is being creative. Further more the concept of goat first entered his body by means if the senses. The mind, how ever, is not an outcast just yet. You see although the senses open the conceptual pathways it requires mental engagement that one might walk then. I propose then that the mind is used in order to methodologically expand upon the philosophies which are introduced to the concious participant. To refine the idea. Its true origin being the sensory organs, and before that exterior to the man himself, refined within the mind of man for a more nuanced approach. You may now posit that if the mind refines the notion that the sensory organ is not that which is responsible for idioms which are constructed around the stimuli that they render into understandable data in the mind of a man and so I will leave you with one final example. If one lays eyes upon two flowers one being rich and colorful, fragrant and fresh, and the other being decayed, repugnant, and rotted, the one which sees them will instinctively have a preference and reaction in one direction or the other regarding which he favors and which he does not. He does not have to ponder and fret over the matter for some lengthy time before he comes to a conclusion as to which he prefers but instead requires time only to refine his descriptions and rules as to why he holds this preference into words he can relay to himself and others, and thus the idiom came before its reasoning was even worked out.

[@faeancestor]

Superior cognitive ability

[@justus4684]

You mean Kanes cognitive abilities far exceed those of us peasants? Yes

[@GallantKC]

Up 4 gustavo bueno

[@contestofnerds]

A Terrible Vengeance

[@Ansatz66]

Moral disagreement counts in favor of moral realism, not against it. It makes no sense to debate an issue unless there is some truth to be discovered about that issue. People would not usually debate the beauty of a painting because beauty is usually taken to be in the eye of the beholder. We may debate the skill of the painter, but the beauty itself is just a matter of how we feel about the painting. The only people who might reasonably debate the beauty are those who think that beauty has some objective reality so that people can be mistaken in their judgement of beauty. So every time people debate any moral issue, that speaks to those people having some conception of morality that somehow places it in objective reality. Most moral realists probably think that judging morality by intuition is ridiculous. If something has objective reality then we judge it by examining that objective reality, not by examining our internal intuitions. Just as it would be ridiculous to judge the height of the Eiffel tower by intuition instead of by measurement, so intuitions should be irrelevant to moral judgement from the perspective of a moral realist.

[@uninspired3583]

How do you make a moral observation without appealing to intuition?

[@Ansatz66]

@@uninspired3583 : That depends on what metaethical theory you subscribe to. Presumably any good moral realist should have some answer to that, but the answers will not necessarily be the same from realist to realist. I favor a naturalistic flavor of moral realism where morality is a measure of the consequences of an action, so that good actions make the world better and bad actions make the world worse, and we can observe whether the world gets better or worse by seeing people get happier or more miserable. We can measure people's prosperity and their pain.

[@JumperDorian]

@@Ansatz66 I favor the peanut butter flavor

[@uninspired3583]

@@Ansatz66 isn't the realist committed to an action being either moral or immoral in all cases though? If the idea is that something is wrong independent of opinion, killing for example would always be wrong. But we have self defense, abortion, and terminal cases where someone may ask us to end their suffering. Each of these have arguments in favor of them because the consequence brings about furthering goals of health and happiness. But clearly there are many cases where killing achieves consequences opposing those goals. If the same action has different moral measures depending on context, doesn't the relative nature of that scale undermine the realist position? I would also describe myself as a moral naturalist the way you've laid it out. I just don't see it as fitting with realism.

[@Ansatz66]

@@uninspired3583 "Isn't the realist committed to an action being either moral or immoral in all cases though?" Some realists might be committed to that, but it is also possible to have moral theories that include the possibility of some actions being of no moral value one way or the other. For example, if all possible actions have exactly the same consequences so that nothing we do makes any difference to the world, then we might say that whatever we do is neither moral nor immoral. This might happen if we are locked in cage. "If the same action has different moral measures depending on context, doesn't the relative nature of that scale undermine the realist position?" If we are measuring morality based on the outcome of an action, then the moral measure changes because the outcome changes. Killing someone in self defense produces a very different outcome than murdering an innocent person would produce. Morality is a measure of the outcome of an action. The outcome of an action is real, therefore morality is real. How would we use this to argue against moral realism? "I would also describe myself as a moral naturalist the way you've laid it out." Most people are. That is why it is the best moral theory. It represents how people tend to talk about morality in real life.

[@InventiveHarvest]

If philosophy students were required to learn multivariate calculus, they could see which moral theories held up to mathematical scrutiny.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@CambrianAnomalocaris if you can't graph a theory, it is meaningless. I can say any half-cocked words, but relationships are demonstrable.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@CambrianAnomalocaris the main part of mathematics is setting up the problem correctly. Appropriate variables should be chosen - in this case "joy", "harm", "rights of Person A", "rights of Person B", etc could be appropriate variables for this. Intercepts can be found by examining the extreme cases. From there, think about curvature and critical points. This should give you a good model for Lagrangian maximization and perhaps hypothesis testing.

[@orangereplyer]

This doesn't really make sense. Knowing multivariate calculua could help me, e.g., if I'm a utilitarian and want to find local minima given some measure of utility that can be computed from certain parameters. That doesn't have any bearing on whether theories that *don't* optimize are correct. Knowledge of multivariate calculus could be useful when one's theory has certain features, but it's not useful for all theories, and it can't decide between theories (though, given a fixed theory that can be expressed accurately in terms of optimization, it could help decide between candidate actions)

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@CambrianAnomalocaris with theories that can't be graphed, how are they useful? It's the same as just saying "because God". I did not say that "harm" had to be one of the variables, but a theory that uses no variables at all is useless.

[@unknownknownsphilosophy7888]

Remember when Kane and I debated you and you did really poorly?