What's wrong with moral arbitrariness?

[@KaneB]

I will soon be going away for a few days and may not have internet access, so if I seem to be ignoring your comments, that's why.

[@uninspired3583]

Enjoy your break of arbitrary length

[@nesslig2025]

In case you are already back, I was wondering if you have any interested to remark on the gender/sex topic. Perhaps reviewing this paper (which I don't agree with) *Evaluating Arguments for the Sex/Gender Distinction by Tomas Bogardus*

[@davidfoley8546]

This issue is the one that played a big role in my "conversion" from noncognitivism to some version of reductive naturalism. Here is what I see as the big issue with preference arbitrariness. Unless I believe that mental content and events are somehow non-natural, or consist in a substance that has some causal independence from physical stuff, then my motivations, feelings, preferences, etc. are amenable to study in the same way that any natural phenomenon is. When I report a preference, "I don't like garlic", I am describing myself. I'm saying something about a particular person's motivations or hedonic states with respect to garlic. And when someone says, "But you like garlic bread", it seems they have pointed out that my self-description is false. And it's plausible to me that although we have privileged epistemic access to the contents of our motivations, it is nevertheless limited. I can easily form false beliefs about myself. So maybe there really is something wrong with what I'm saying. We could say, "Well, I don't care about having perfectly accurate self descriptions." But this is just the same as saying you don't care about accurate descriptions of any other particular natural phenomenon. Maybe you don't care if there's evidence the world is round, but "not caring" about evidence doesn't make a flat-Earth theory rational. (I might go so far as to say that not caring about evidence is the definition of irrational.) Maybe a better reply is, "Look, I know my reported preferences are incomplete and sometimes false. But that doesn't mean the behaviors are wrong. The fact that I can't fully account for the mental states that led to the behavior just means my descriptions are wrong, not the behavior itself." This is more difficult to refute and I don't know that I can satisfactorily, but I think there is an issue here with the fact that our self-descriptions aren't just caused by our past behavior, but also cause our future behavior. If I never order anything off a restaurant menu when I see garlic listed as an ingredient, and this is caused by my belief in the self-description "I don't like garlic", then the behavior is formed by a false belief. A better informed me would disapprove, and I could come to view my past self as irrationally bull-headed about not eating garlic when I discover my self-description was false. So I suspect that your claim that there's nothing irrational about saying you don't like garlic, while liking garlic bread, is wrong. The problem with preference arbitrariness is that it indicates self-ignorance, and it could well be that certain preferences are only held by self-ignorant humans.

[@KaneB]

>> When I report a preference, "I don't like garlic", I am describing myself. I'm saying something about a particular person's motivations or hedonic states with respect to garlic. And when someone says, "But you like garlic bread", it seems they have pointed out that my self-description is false I agree. But then I could just say, "I don't like garlic, except for garlic bread." I can make an apparently arbitrary exception for garlic bread. I think that even for an antirealist there are probably good reasons to avoid outright inconsistency in one's moral views -- because, like you suggest, if my moral views are inconsistent, I'll probably be committed to inaccurate self-descriptions. (Though actually, I would say I don't care about having *perfectly* accurate self-descriptions, nor do I care about *perfectly* accurate descriptions of any other natural phenomenon. I don't think perfect accuracy is attainable. But that's a separate issue I guess. I do care about accuracy.) But I always resolve inconsistencies by making arbitrary exceptions. Rather than saying, "I don't like anything that has a garlic flavour" and "I like garlic bread", I'll just say that I don't like anything with a garlic flavour except garlic bread. >> If I never order anything off a restaurant menu when I see garlic listed as an ingredient, and this is caused by my belief in the self-description "I don't like garlic", then the behavior is formed by a false belief First, I don't think there's actually anything irrational about this kind of behaviour. But even if it is a problem, surely the source of the problem would be that the individual has stubborn and unadventurous attitudes, rather than the false self-ascription? I often try things that I've disliked previously, just because I'm open to the idea that my tastes can change. When I first heard Steely Dan's "Gaucho", I found it dull. It took about four or five listens, over the space of many years, before it clicked for me, and now it's one of my favourite albums. I would have believed the self-description, "I don't like Steely Dan's Gaucho" -- and actually, that was true for some time -- but that didn't stop me listening to it again anyway.

[@davidfoley8546]

​@@KaneB >>But I always resolve inconsistencies by making arbitrary exceptions. Rather than saying, "I don't like anything that has a garlic flavour" and "I like garlic bread", I'll just say that I don't like anything with a garlic flavour except garlic bread. I agree this is always possible, but it seems to have the same vice as ad hoc scientific theories. If I told you that all objects fall to earth, and then you pointed directly at a ballon that was rising, I could reply, "Except that one, of course." Not a very impressive theory, though.

[@BitchspotBlog]

@@KaneB That only counts if you're making very specific and self-contradictory claims. Saying "I don't like any garlic" is contradictory to liking some garlic, but that wasn't the original statement. Saying "I don't like any 80s music" is not the same thing as "I don't like most 80s music", which leaves it open to liking specific songs. Often, these are wholly invented problems that don't actually exist in the real world. Someone who decides that Karma Chameleon is a good song, they don't have to alter their entire paradigm, they only have to change one word. They don't like MOST 80s music. Problem solved.

[@LEMAN-AND]

Hi Kane! wanted to know if you have a video about theoretical virtues? I would like to learn more about the principle of simplicity, coherence, etc.

[@BurntCookiesYT]

Many people see things like racism, sexism, ageism as wrong, but being against these things entails being against arbitrary discrimination(at least of the other side). If you have objections to the former forms of devaluations of interests, it similarly makes sense to have objection to speciesism, unless you think racists, sexists, ageists, are similarly justified in their ethical calculations swinging in one direction for no reason. Perhaps being firmly against arbitrary discrimination would be much more common in those that experience more discrimination, such as minorities or holocaust survivors, as they realize first-hand that arbitrary discrimination can be used to justify horrible things. If you're an atheist, though, the only option against the vegan position is admitting selfishness, arbitrarily discriminating, or to unrealistically say all, or the vast majority of lives are worth living, including those in factory farms.

[@adamkennedy3800]

Sounds like moral particularism! I am definitely drawn to it but I just don't want people to be this way. If I can across a person who hated a differ race I would try to run a consistency check on them to get them to reflect on the reasons they have for those feelings. But if they are a particularist they would just be like, "well I just hate x people." and I wouldn't know how to reach them!

[@0ScienceIsAwsome0]

I agree that there is nothing wrong with arbitrariness, at least from a pre-moral perspective (in particular, a perspective in which you do not commit to any meta-ethical principles) -- I guess that from such a perspective, there is nothing wrong with doing ethics in any way. I'm also a moral antirealist at heart, but I do just value the non-arbitrariness of the rules that I make decisions according to. (That said, I also don't think there is any reasonable sense in which you are doing anything wrong from your perspective if you fail to take this into account when picking an ethics to follow yourself.) I guess there are at least two (partially overlapping) meta-ethical preferences that feed into this for me: 1) valuing simplicity in moral theories, and 2) valuing theories which have some symmetries, for instance the symmetry of similar experiences being valued differently if they have different carriers. My preference for simple moral theories feels quite similar to me to my preference for simple scientific theories. As for whether non-arbitrariness helps you spread your moral views, I think that non-arbitrariness is quite important even if most people never think about it, for instance because it helps one convince intellectual elites to adopt your views, and elites wield outsized influence over policy + their views tend to trickle-down. That said, I'm not sure I see a reason to care about your moral views being spread that would precede the choice of particular moral views. Like sure, after you have chosen some set of principles, (all else equal) you then prefer worlds in which these are easy to spread, because that is likely to lead a world with more of what you consider to be valuable. But it seems to me that this argument only makes sense after you have already committed to some particular values -- I don't see a way to construct an argument like this that would have appeal before making these object-level moral commitments. (Or okay, I might see a way to do this if you have a multi-tiered way of building up your morality, in which you first start to care about being happy or whatever, and then you choose a more complete moral system with partial consideration for your own happiness, and having your beliefs spread would make you happy. This seems sort of messy (e.g. how do you then trade off between different tiers), but I don't rule out that there is something along these lines that makes sense.)

[@KyleKortenhoeven]

Good stuff. It seems like moral arbitrariness necessarily flows from being a socially embedded subject that makes value judgements that tend to prioritize the local over the peripheral in addition to many other biases and that's ok cause our morals only make sense with the context of those value judgements. We would have to be machines to avoid moral arbitrariness.

[@yourfutureself3392]

Very interesting video. I think contractarianism, egoism and thomistic natural law theory and similar forms of moral aristotellianism are the only moral theories that can non-arbitrarily reject veganism. I think I'm either a contractarian or an egoist; either way, I reject veganism.

[@AlonzoFyfe]

Consider the question of arbitrariness with respect to keeping promises. When asked why you broke a promise, "arbitrariness" would be a weak answer. In fact, it would be no answer at all. Breaking promises for arbitrary reasons does not justify breaking the promise. People require "good reasons" - such as "because I needed to save a drowning child" or "because I was abducted by aliens and could not get away." Arbitrariness seems to imply that there is no such thing as a good or bad reason. In fact, it would make no sense to even ask somebody why they broke a promise or why they gave you a strong shove (e.g., to push you either in front of or out of the way of a speeding bus). One reason is as good as any other.

[@KaneB]

The answer might be "I broke the promise because I made the promise to a woman, and I do not care about women" (where the promise-breaker can give no grounds for why they don't value women) or "I broke the promise because it is a Sunday, and I think it's acceptable to break promises on Sundays" (where the promise-breaker can give no grounds for why it's acceptable to break promises on Sundays). Those are answers to the question. Of course, most people probably won't find those to be convincing justifications, but so what? >> Arbitrariness seems to imply that there is no such thing as a good or bad reason I'm not sure I'd consider this to be a problem. It depends on what you mean by "reasons". I find a lot of talk of "reasons" in metaethics to be nonsensical.

[@AlonzoFyfe]

@@KaneB I agree that a lot of talk of "reasons" is metaethical is nonsensical. Anything that appeals to objective, intrinsic prescriptivity as reasons for action is just plain false. (Mackie) However, I deny that moral claims are claims about objective, intrinsic prescriptivity. What I mean by reasons . . . Reasons are what spring from desires and aversions. My aversion of pain gives me a reason to choose actions that do not result in my being in pain over actions that result in my being in pain. Desire-based reasons are the only kinds of normative reasons that exist - the only kind of reason that selects actions in virtue to their service to some end or goal. Some desires and aversions are shaped by experience. They are not simply hard-wired. The primary environmental causes of changes in desires are rewards and punishments (in the biological - not the moral - sense). This means that it is possible to promote some desires and aversions by creating the relevant experiences - experiences of biological reward and punishment. As Mill argued, that which begins by being valued as a means to an end becomes valued for its own sake. Empirical research supports this. Rewards and punishments (in the biological sense) shape the character of the people living in that society. Praise serves as a reward in the biological sense, and condemnation as a biological punishment. Consequently, it is possible to use praise and condemnation to influence the desires (shape the character of individuals) that appear in a society. The desires and aversions that we have reason to promote are those that Hume identified as "pleasing and useful to self and others". Of these, "useful to others" is of primary importance because "useful to others" is what gives others a reason to promote a desire, and thus gives other people reasons to respond to one's actions with praise or condemnation. True, the desires that motivate this use of rewards and punishment (praise and condemnation) are desires themselves. This makes the view vulnerable to accusations of an infinite regress or circularity. This objection is handled by employing the concept of a virtuous circle - a coherence (or harmony) of desires. Desires tend toward a natural harmony. All reasons spring from desires. Good reasons spring from those desires that people generally have reasons to promote using rewards and punishments in the biological sense (esp. praise and condemnation) in virtue of those desires being useful to others.

[@uninspired3583]

In the trolly problem, I suspect there's a subconscious assessment of risk, that being what if the large man isn't enough to stop or deflect the train? In that case I've just murdered an additional person in a bad situation. In the case of flipping the switch, maybe its easier to do this because it more clearly is successful in actually saving g the 5 people on the track.

[@gideonwiley8961]

That, and I think it’s relevant that the man on the footbridge is not endangered by the trolly unless you go out of your way to make him So. The people tied up are already in a Schrödinger’s cat dilemma and you’re just deciding how many people to lose.

[@uninspired3583]

@@gideonwiley8961 well, the point of the guy on the bridge is to compare it to the other scenario where there is 1 person on the other track. In both scenarios, taking action saves 5 and kills 1, so in theory they should be morally equivalent. What is interesting is that most people feel right about pulling the lever, but not ok with pushing the man off the bridge. Usually people look at the difference between pulling a lever and putting your hands on someone to explain why we would do one and not the other. My hypothesis is that part of us is just not convinced pushing the man will actually work - even when we are told we know it will work. I don't know how to test that hypothesis, but if I'm correct it makes the whole thought experiment a red herring. It would mean we aren't testing what we think we're testing.

[@gideonwiley8961]

@@uninspired3583 I mean if you take a utilitarian view maybe they’re morally equivalent. I certainly don’t think that is the case... I think taking the action to cause someone outside the situation to die in place of everyone inside of it is wrong.

[@uninspired3583]

@@gideonwiley8961 pulling the leverage kills someone on the other track. How is that morally different than pushing someone off the bridge?

[@gideonwiley8961]

@@uninspired3583 Pulling the lever diverts the track from one on which 5 people have been tied up, to one on which 1 person has been tied up. Whatever circumstances conspired to make this situation occur, all 6 individuals have been tied up and put on the track to die. The guy on the bridge has nothing to do with this situation, and so sacrificing him seems exceptionally calloused. It would be as if you had to choose between two people a person should kill, and you advocate a third that should be killed instead of the others. Before, only the murderer was introducing persons to danger, but now, you would be guilty of doing that as well. Further, I think that the act of pushing a person off a bridge is a pretty bad action in and of itself. I tend to gravitate towards a virtue ethics conception, and I think that the kinds of things that a person does are of concern, regardless of just the raw consequences. Making the choice to divert the track is choosing the lesser of two evils, the pushing is committing an evil action yourself.

[@itstandstoreason]

I think the problem with moral arbitrariness is the unpredictability of others being morally arbitrary. There’s no way to know if they will arbitrarily decide to hurt you are someone you care about. This gives people reason to condemn moral arbitrariness where it wouldn’t give them a reason to condemn music arbitrariness. That is the symmetry-breaker. And given that people have reasons to condemn it, under Desirism (the model of morality in hold to and which we spoke about recently), is what *makes* it morally wrong. TLDR: It’s morally wrong to be morally arbitrary because of unpredictability.

[@TheoEvian]

Also it makes your moral principles impossible to communicate, with other systems you might at least learn or teach how you yourself would likely behave in a certain scenario, if somebody is completely arbitrary, there is no generalisation or sumarisation that one might do to communicate such a thing, which makes arbitrariness very negative in a society because it precludes planning.

[@holdengoodall8213]

Moral of the video: Thank goodness other people get an icky feeling when I am hurt.

[@hamdaniyusuf_dani]

No moral principle makes sense except in the light of universal terminal goal.

[@macattack1958]

This makes me think of Stanley fish’s collection of essays trouble with principle.

[@anothername5272]

Will you go over Pyrrhon and his school?

[@thehairblairbunchjones6209]

I think that one reason we might care about moral arbitrariness is that we care about having views that are respectable to others. Even if we don’t convince them of our precise principles, I think that humans as social animals do care about what others think of our moral judgments, and so it makes sense that we would want to base them on principles which others can recognise as an attempt to systematise certain widespread moral intuitions. Of course, we don’t care equally what everyone thinks about us, and so we might simply adopt the morality of our in-group. However, I feel that in a modern, post-religious society, social mores change more rapidly, and so it may be that cleaving to something relatively abstract is likelier to achieve this goal in the long run.

[@KaneB]

But if most other people hold views that are similarly arbitrary, then the arbitrariness isn't going to be a problem in this respect. Indeed, arbitrariness might actually be useful in making one's views respectable to others. With respect to the trolley problem, who would the average "man on the street" find more respectable: the Kantian who never sacrifices the life of one person to save others; the utilitarian who pushes the fat man; or the person who's willing to pull the lever, but who refuses to push just because pushing feels icky? I don't know, but I don't think it's just obvious that the principled moral positions will win this one.

[@silverharloe]

I arbitrarily reject moral arbitrariness. Other theories can try to persuade me that I'm wrong to do so, but not anyone holding to moral arbitrariness can. On their plus side, though, they don't care what I accept or reject or why I do or don't.

[@hegelsmonster5521]

I'm a moral realist (of course) and find this very unplausible. Imagine that you're handicapped. However you find yourself near at a beach. A lot of people are around you. At distance a child is crying for help, and nearly all the people around you are not handicapped. You -- in your wheelchair -- say: "Hey help that child, it will die!", but no one is moving by this. You insist: "We should help this child!". But all other just look to the child that is drowning. You ask one of the observers: "Why don't you help the child. It is that what you should do." And he/she replies: "Oh no, I don't like to swim in cold water. I don't like it.". You try to argument: "But if you would be drowning, you would wish that someone help you."."Oh yeah", she will said, "in that case, that would be the thing that should be done." And nearly hopeless you try to convice the other spectactors but they give similiar reasons, or even something like this: "no one is helping the child, so I won't do it." I'm not disturbed in this case that the people aren't saving the child (of course I would be disturbed if this would happen, but I want to focus now on something else), because people aren't always as courageous as they shold. But it bother me that the responses should understood as moral responses! That aren't moral responses at all! They express just their preferences. And at least a moral view imply a certain kind of preference. It must match with the presuppositions that distingish "moral talk" from other "non-moral talk". They don't take a stance that we normally call moral: a stance that tries to finding of life that is beneficial for everybody. -- Or if that is already presupposing too much content for a moral theory: a stance that tries to find what is really the best (I mean THE BEST -- that, that can't be better; so a strict egocentric view that only care for one ego, can't be the best, if it imaginable that someone else can also be gaining from someone else lifestyle). I think moral philosophy want to often give once-and-for-all answers and that is the problem for many moral theories. I understand each answer as an approximation to the moral truth. And I think we must be more clear about the content of the discipline moral -- but the content of the discipline (!) of moral (like every content for each science discipline, because we must first set up, want we want to study, before we can study) is arbitrary (I choose what I want to study), but that doesn't imply that the content that I choose to study is itself arbitrary (if I want to choose biological things, then the biological things aren't arbitrary things, they are things of nature -- things of the outer world.) Maybe I will eventually present my moral realism. By the way I don't believe in normativity at all! (but I do believe in values; but there is nothing "To do")

[@gideonwiley8961]

Yeah I think a large mistake that’s often made is determining that morality is just preference, by comparing it to preferences which don’t share meaningful features with our moral judgments. “Oh morality is just yay and boo, like at a sports match” makes sense until you realize how we often recognize the first category as play or taste or something, and the other as of upmost importance. If you like baseball, or eating blue cheese, I will not agree. However I can’t really put myself into the mindset that you have made a wrong judgment that I should correct. But like if you want to torture animals for fun, I’m not going to just shrug my shoulders and chock it up to different taste.

[@BitchspotBlog]

Not impressive at all. That's just an emotional response, not an intellectual one. You have made the emotional choice to value the life of the child. That doesn't make valuing the life of the child objectively true. Moral realism insists on an objective moral standard that is, by definition, mind-independent. It exists out in the ether somewhere beyond anyone's ability or necessity to make any decisions. It just is morally true (or false). That simply isn't defensible though. That's your choice but your choice doesn't exist absent your own will, outside of your own head. That makes it subjective and ultimately arbitrary, even if you live in a culture where such views are commonplace. Commonality doesn't mean objective.

[@gideonwiley8961]

@@BitchspotBlog first, there are natural theories of objective moral values that offer pretty forceful arguments. Second, there are non-natural theories that emphasize the definitions of acts to show that it would be incoherent for it to be good. Mind independence doesn’t necessitate it being a platonic form or something, although even neo platonistic objective moral theories are pretty interesting and thought provoking too.

[@BitchspotBlog]

@@gideonwiley8961 None that I've ever seen. They all appeal to emotion, not to intellect. It's all a bunch of wishful thinking, not demonstrable fact. Ultimately, it all comes down to "I like how this idea makes me feel, therefore I'm going to arbitrarily declare it to be correct." That's not impressive at all.

[@gideonwiley8961]

@@BitchspotBlog dude I’m literally referencing other videos from this Channel. I know dr. Kane Doesn’t agree with these arguments, but I don’t think he presented them as emotional at all.

[@low3242]

"What would Jesus do?" Lol

[@Dystisis]

13:10 But in any case when you are dealing with figuring out what to do, it seems there is a moral dimension to your decision. For example, you will be evaluating your family over general public, or animal life over inanimate objects, or staying busy over inaction, etc. This need not be an intended part of your decision, but it is a de facto part of it. And while the decision might not be guided by a general principle, a consideration that holds for any other case aside from this one, it seems at least that the decision can be placed in an ethical/moral context by considering its moral dimension. So, rather than "arbitrariness", isn't the position here (which you seem to be defending, at least in this portion of the video) actually one of moral particularism?

[@anzov1n]

I think one thing that complicates the issue is that, to varying degrees, morality often definitionally includes adherence to a consistent principle. So the very term "moral arbitrariness" may become somewhat contradictory. Whether or not this is how we _should_ define morality is hard to say but I think it is often an implicit assumption many people make.

[@KaneB]

It might be an implicit assumption that many philosophers make, but I'm extremely skeptical that this is an implicit assumption that many people in general make. I'd want to see some empirical evidence for that.

[@konraddapper7764]

Moral arbitrness has to exsist. It is well known that there is no axiomatic system that does not result in undecidable Questions. Thus there can never be a Moral theory that describes everything. At least not with only finitely many axioms(moral principles)

[@1999_reborn]

Kane have you watched the Netflix show "The Good Place" and if so what are your thoughts on it?

[@bigol7169]

Thanks Kane, I've been so confused about arbitrariness in metaethics. However, doesn't it seem here that we're 'moralising' about metaethics? That is, when saying 'you ought not arbitrarily ground your ethics', aren't we ourselves appealing to a higher ethic that needs justification? Couldn't it just be that, on that arbitrarily grounded ethical theory, arbitrariness isn't deemed a problem? in virtue of the fact that it itself is arbitrarily based, thereby condoning arbitrariness somehow? For example, imagine we accept the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma. God arbitrarily commands things, and his commanding of them is what makes them good. Where does 'oh but that's arbitrary' land anywhere as a critique here? On DCT, aren't 'reasons for God's commands' non existent, and thus the arbitrariness of them not a problem?

[@suzettedarrow8739]

What do you think about arbitrary lines in metaphysics? In epistemology? There ain’t a sorites problem that can survive an arbitrary line. I can solve epistemology if you left me draw some arbitrary lines around Gettier problems, aye?

[@KaneB]

I'm an anti-realist about objects and kinds. I think there's a great deal of arbitrariness in how we carve up the world, and I don't take this to be irrational. Re epistemology, I endorse voluntarism. My view in a nutshell is: (a) there is no justification for any belief, but (b) it's not irrational to hold beliefs without justification, and (c) the only constraint imposed by rationality is that it must be possible that one's beliefs could turn out to be true, by one's own lights. So I think it's fine to commit to beliefs for pretty much any reason you like, or even for no reason at all. (I explain voluntarism in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHnRqWqambtmnKM)

[@suzettedarrow8739]

@@KaneB Wouldn't condition (c) "it must be possible that one's beliefs could turn out to be true, by one's own lights" be trivially easy to satisfy no matter what beliefs are in question *if* the drawing of arbitrary lines is allowed?

[@Tschoo]

Btw what's next for Doctor Baker? Are you going to look for a teaching position now or what are your plans now that you've got your PHD

[@gideonwiley8961]

Doesn’t the Music taste example represent a non-arbitrary judgement? Like there’s plenty of times where I have changed my mind about various ‘subjective’ fields because I was exposed to examples of things I liked which broadly belonged to categories I disliked. Like it’s not really arbitrary if you are affected by reasons, right?

[@real_pattern]

but you won't know "why" and how certain novel interactions - experiences - phenomena, converge to change a state of consciousness with a certain degree of reliable familiarity, ie i didn't like experiencing x song... (this is also already immediately embedded in context, without an exhaustive explanation, which would anyway be impossible, because living systems in the mesh are not static, ever.) ...now that's changed. also, you won't know which part phenomena actually contributed, and the degree and kind of contribution to a perceived change in your conscious experience. since humans are processual, living systems, entangled as nodes in "the mesh" (that exact phrase is by Timothy Morton, but the idea is quite old) that is the highly networked, complex system of contingent interdependence with several nested subsystems - existence afawk, so as we exist as nodes in the mesh, it'd be virtually impossible to track and trace the contingent & interdependent streams of different threads that ceaselessly weave the unified, integrated conscious experience. it's perceived existence as a hyperobject with dimensions fractally presenting - the mesh, that's intrinsically uncertain, ambiguous, and mysterious, being entangled with very peculiar perceptual abilities and a highly specific type of consciousness. quick jump, even disregarding existing split-brain studies, it's as consistent with current data to expect multiple islands of consciousness in an organism, existing throughout several levels of biological organization, eg. at the level of cells or organs, because these systems partake in the same entropy resisting processes, (karl friston) as the organism does as a subscendent whole. ( OOO - graham harman, Timothy Morton). to reiterate, it's as plausable to assume that cells and an astonishingly large number and variety of biological systems of multilevel&scale organizations are conscious as it is plausible to assert that they are not, because of the inherently private nature of consciousness and the same entropy resisting, bayesian modelling, boundary maintaining dynamics. (the living mirror theory of consciousness - dr. james cooke)

[@dreamer1870]

IMHO, the basic problem with moral arbitrariness is that it precludes meaningful moral discussion. There can only be moral propaganda, moral marketing.

[@KaneB]

You don't think that marketing and propaganda are meaningful?

[@dreamer1870]

@@KaneB they are meaningful speech acts indeed, but not meaningful moral discussion, meaningful philosophical discussion. They belong in the realm of rhetoric, not of philosophy.

[@oochmagooch1787]

my question for you, and everyone i guess, is that concidering that most people seem to hold anti realist inclinations (i strongly believe so), why do they react negetivly when you point out arbitrariness? Like it seems like the default position of most people is that morals are opinions, feelings, etc. But in my experience it is also the case that people are hellbent on creating consistent theories. People will actually create very silly belief systems so long as they are consistent, even if it is only "believed" within the confines of a single argument (although admittedly you see this more in the political arena). It seems to me that pointing out arbitrariness can be important because it forces us to question if we have prejudices and biases; if you think murder is wrong, but support wars maybe it's because you don't empathise properly with victims of war, maybe due to racism, islamaphobia etc . Maybe we get so defensive because we are searching for a reason why one is different than the other, and the idea that propoganda or prejudice is the reason we make an arbitrary distinction is really scary. In other words: arbitrariness isnt bad in and of itself but we naturally fight it because it can disguise other bad influences on our thinking.

[@xx_pwn5lyr_xx463]

good video thank you. :)

[@impolitikful]

Do you have a video that explains exactly what your moral position is?

[@justus4684]

The question is: What is the criterion for not being arbitrary?

[@uninspired3583]

Having reasons

[@unknownknownsphilosophy7888]

@@uninspired3583 That criteria itself is arbitrary. Why not use an alternate criteria for what is arbitrary or not? Careful not to just circularly appeal back to the criteria you just mentioned. And if you grant circular appeals well then why that circle and not some other circle? Why not grant all circles? Why isn't the criteria for what is arbitrary or not just whether or not pineapples are mentioned in the justification? "Having reasons" is arbitrarily selected among infinite other candidates for what qualifies a thing as non-arbitrary, but why select that as the qualification criteria?

[@uninspired3583]

@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 that's just how meaning works. All words are arbitrary. We agree certain sounds are tied to certain meanings, that agreement is what allows communication to happen at all. Arbitrary definitionally means without reasons, or without criterion. We could have agreed that snakathuron means without reasons and we would been using those noises instead. This isn't really a philosophy problem, its just definitional.

[@unknownknownsphilosophy7888]

@@uninspired3583 Arbitrary doesn't have to mean "without reasons" since definitions are flexible and we can change them however we want. Just because you say that is what arbitrary means doesn't mean we have to agree about it philosophically. It is a philosophical problem because you assume that some definition that happens to be in colloquial usage should be respected and treated as accurately capturing something. But don't see why I should believe that. Colloquial usage typically departs from the type of precision that a philosophical examination provides.

[@uninspired3583]

@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 sure. The word can have various meanings, some defined more precisely than others. This in itself is an example of what I was saying about meaning. We take on definitions because they're useful, so if you have a use for a different definition than what I've stated thats entirely fine. If we're going to delve into the nuances of a particular definition it's useful to be clear. Thanks for pointing me to this channel btw, we often don't see eye to eye but I really enjoy working through the concepts

[@93alvbjo]

moral laws are quasi-arbirtrary, unlike natural laws. That doesn’t make them completely arbitrary, because many moral theories actually point out that the absence of critico-rational power of of personal choice around man-made laws is how we determine it's moral value.

[@Ryndika]

Those ceramic tiles belong in the bathroom, and that's an objective fact.

[@darcyone6291]

In your video "animals don't matter" I remember you said at the introduction: "if you think it's okay to eat cows but not dogs then you're worst than all the vegans out there" maybe not word for word but anyway, doesn't this conflict with this video?

[@KaneB]

Perhaps. I no longer endorse everything I said in that video. Bear in mind though that even if I do not think moral arbitrariness is irrational, I can still disapprove of arbitrariness in general, or just arbitrariness in particular cases. I might disapprove of attitudes that arbitrarily favour some kinds of non-human animals over others.

[@darcyone6291]

@@KaneB OK but, I'm interested in knowing what would this disapproval be based upon, if you think it needs justification!

[@impolitikful]

Is anti-realism the same as non-cognitivism?

[@lanceindependent]

No. Noncognitivism is one form of antirealism. Antirealism = There are no stance-independent moral facts. Noncognitivism = Moral claims express nonpropositional attitudes and thus cannot be true or false.

[@gert8439]

I'd say that when considering moral principles v moral arbitrariness (in which I'd include the evolutionary happenstance of our species' moral intuitions) we need to consider what is morality about, what is it for? If about right and wrong/oughts, then arbitrariousness isn't appropriate. The problem for a moral anti-realist is how do we ground moral principles, if there aren't 'moral facts' out there for us to discover. And I think that leaves us with the issue that right and wrong Matters, regardless of whether we call our principles objective or not. Why does it Matter how I treat you - because you are a conscious being with an experienced Quality of Life. If I harm you, you suffer, if I help you then you are more likely to flourish. And this doesn't need some sophisticated philosophical argument to persuade others - we all know this. Like-wise other sentient species have a Quality of Life, so on the same basis they should be shown moral consideration too, appropriate to what constitutes well-being for them. It's true that there are problems with this position, in that we can't objectively measure the wellbeing of experiencing subjects, but such a principle gives us a grounding to refer to, to aim for, albeit imperfectly. It's also true that consequences can be unpredictable, but that's true of all our actions, we're not omniscient so we have to use our knowledge and experience to do our best.

[@inoculatedcity]

One potential problem I see in this is that your examples with 80s music and garlic do strike me as irrational to the point that they should be corrected. The 80s music example in particular I think is weird because the person gives several reasons for disliking 80s pop which all apply to Karma Chameleon. I would say, if those are the reasons you hate 80s pop but you still like Karma Chameleon, then those must not be the actual reasons you hate 80s pop. It’s like if someone said they hate the song Baby by Justin Bieber because it’s too repetitive, but they love the song Rattlesnake by King Gizzard. Both songs are repetitive, so they must dislike Baby for some other reason. I would say something similar to the person who hates garlic but likes garlic bread: you don’t hate garlic, you just only like it in certain contexts. I guess this is still ‘arbitrary’, but to me it sounded more like you were talking about allowing contradictions than arbitrariness. Maybe that wasn’t the case but that seemed like what you were showing in these examples.

[@NickTSMINW]

Good summary. Ethics is aesthetics, and we can mostly agree on certain aesthetic claims (pulp fiction > 2 hours of static), which removes some of the arbitrariness in a practical sense. The "in principle" arbitrariness remains, but, as you said, most people don't think about that, much less care about it.