It is Rules and Moral Duty by the Elites, now bow down and obey your masters of the New World Order or get locked up in prisons for the rest of your lives! it's your choice!
Deontology USA!!! screw consequentialism, we all know the USA is going to go broke and collapse as a consequence of our Kantian Justice System locking everyone up in prisons and spending of trillions of dollars wasted on things that do not benefit society as a whole.
See you all when the Government Collapses, and goodluck with your Deontology Rule Bull$hit System!
Thanks dude, fantastic video and very informative. Speaking as a bioscience finalist your vid is clearly presented but with very deep insights. Keep up the good work. Pray tomorrows bioethics exam goes well :)
@Epydemic2020 Yeah, here in Europe we call it teleology and ontology. I have a great love for philosophy too. I'm not particularly smart but I love trying to get my head around philosophical concepts. It's a great hobby to have.
I'm not sure why you assume that innate value judgements must be about 'means' rather than 'ends'. If what we're talking about is essentially the innate capacity for empathy, then what we're doing when we make a moral judgement is we're assessing whether it will harm or benefit people (or other animals - I'm also not sure why you limit it to people).
A consequentialist isn't committed to the view that the best choice is a 'good' one. A lesser evil is still an evil. The rape example is somewhat unfair because it's hard to imagine it ever being a lesser evil, but it might be possible to imagine an act of rape that saves lives, etc. in a very unnatural thought experiment. It's also complicated by the fact that the perpetrator and victim will have different perspectives on its morality. To qualify as rape, the victim has to be non-cooperative.
@cavalrycome I wish sometimes people who where into ethics would stop using these violent analogies. Lol, the only place where I would reasonably expect someone to be talking about a man tied up, hung upside down, having a lion run loos and his brain being in a vat and whatnot is ethicists having a ´quickening´, lol
The situation where you imagine 1 person being killed to save the life of another is only superficially one where the consequences of acting and not acting are identical. If you take empathy to be the guiding factor, actively killing someone will have another consequence, namely psychological distress (death < death+distress). A similar thought experiment compares killing one person to harvest their organs to save lives of several others, but consequences would be perpetual fear of doctors, etc.
I think that moral principles are valued only in light of their ultimate long-term consequences. That's why we correctly condemn "the ends justify the means" for all but extraordinary circumstances, but compromise those principles when the situation is extraordinary. Murdering one innocent to save another is immoral, because "not murdering" has great value, as this vid describes. But it would be moral to murder one innocent to prevent a needless war. Morality is ultimately consequentialist.
I think our inability to predict outcomes is a big part of why we value moral principles so highly. In thought experiements, it's easy enough to set up no-win moral conundrums that make morality's ultimate consequentialism obvious. But in real life, you don't know for sure that, say, murdering one innocent will prevent a needless war that will otherwise occur without the murder. It might seem likely, but you can never know for sure. However, you do know that murder will cause a death.
Yes, but the problem though is the chessmaster´s fallacy. Longtherm and complex consequences can´t be objectively calculated. To do this you would have to build an accurate model of a society, by which time you might as well have created a society, like a god-mode computer game, but then one so accurate that it resembles the actual teleology of a society. Only then would you have grasped long-therm and complex consequences and be able to prophesize about future consequences.
I basically agree. Did you see my 2nd post that began "(cont) I think our inability to predict outcomes is a big part of why we value moral principles so highly. ..."?
Our ability to predict outcomes varies greatly with the situation - and the time scale. There are situations where many outcomes are fairly predictable with some confidence. It's the long term consequences that pose the major problem, and justify abiding by moral principles, but some situations warrant their
... violation. As in my example, things can't go much wronger, from a valuing human existence point of view, than the occurance of a needless war. As the severity of the bad outcome diminishes from such extremes, the wieght of moral principles grows. "Don't murder" is, in all but extreme situations, too important in its LONG term consequences for human civilization to ignore, even if in the short term it (one calculates with high confidence) saves a few more lives.
This is why I think things like theft and government corruption are much worse than the actual harm they directly cause. As their frequency grows, it undermines civilization, and creates chain reaction of ever more severe harmful consequences.
Ultimately, LONG term, we can't predict anything. It might be that by avoiding raping, pilliging, and plundering, we're dooming the human race. But that *seems* highly unlikely, and clear harms we're directly avoiding are at least avoided that way
Though interesting in themselves, my main purpose in mentioning those considerations was to show what morality is ultimately about. It's not about duty or rule following, but rather is about consequences. It's about chosing those actions that manifest and uphold the value we put on sentient life. That such choices are often difficult, and that we've insufficient information and so rely on heuristics that uphold that value in the short term, doesn't change what morality is about.
"If, hypothetically speaking, rape brought about more benefits to the man than costs to the woman, then it would become good under [Thunderfoot's] view."
You've ineptly confused a caricature of utilitarianism with consequentialism! And you've left out his actual statements which involved total benefit to society, not just the parties involved. I know it's just YouTube, but you should still put some effort into not appearing to be an idiot.
Maybe others have covered this. I'm late to the party.
Athiest or christian, how can anyone disagree with consequestialism? We don't live in an ideal world, using "conventional" morality doesn't always bring about positive change. Sometimes positive change must be brought about violently. Whatever benefits the people (and even animals) as a whole is what should be done, regardless of how you get there. All logic, not emotion or personal gain fueling the argument.
@Epydemic2020 Good question, it depends on the enemy. If the enemy doesn't attack our civilains, we shouldn't. That said, if they kill our civilians why waste the bullets on the extra soldier?
The reason I said asked "Whatever benefits the people (and even animals) as a whole is what should be done" is because utilitarian consequentialism doesn't take into account civilians vs soldiers. If killing 99 innocent civilians compared to 100 soldiers equally stopped the war, the act utilitarian would kill the civilians (whether the enemy resulted to such tactics or not).
Very interesting. In my mind, I think that it is a much greater crime to kill an innocent civilian compared to a soldier. For example, you can't kidnap a soldier in war, but you can capture one. You capture soldiers, and kidnap civilians--right? So I think for me, if I was put into that situation where I could stop a war if I murder 99 innocent civilians or kill 100 soldiers, I would have to kill the soldiers.
Am I wrong? lol Love this stuff! Thanks for posting this!
5:26 Are we obligated to follow moral standards? Is this begging the question? Or do we do this as a meta-ethical moral action - ie to achieve a beneficial consequence (such as a soundly functioning society)? Be careful when dropping in really loaded sentences which may seem intuitively fine, but are loaded with your own moral presuppositions.
As most people realise, deontology becomes problematic when pitted against itself. In other words, when two different consequences come about from action or inaction when both actions are deontologically wrong. Ie the trolley problem. It then defers to consequentialism. Thus moral absolutes do not exist, and it becomes harder to argue objective moral facts. To do this, you have to establish realism and the existence of objective abstracts. Not as easy as you think!
I'd argue the trolley problem deals with deontology and consequentialism.
We recognize a moral difference between "using a person as a means to save others" and "saving others with the foreseen but unintended side effect of killing someone". It's not just a numbers game.
I find it quite easy to argue for objective moral facts and see little reason to argue for moral absolutes. If you did argue for moral absolutes..continued
If you did argue for moral absolutes, I wouldn't recommend trying to establish blanket statements that are categorically wrong, but suggest that we look at a specific action combined with a specific intention and see whether or not that is always wrong.
I am a moral realist, but if I understand your terminology correctly I don't argue for objective abstracts (all I mean by that is that I'm not a moral platonist).
It depends what you mean by abstract reality. If you mean abstract reality as in "abstract ideas" or "abstract concepts" or even plato's version of "The Good" then we are not on the same page. If you just mean something like "immaterial" or "nonphysical" then I would be on board.
--Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 If you do the math with this verse in mind you then know the perfect system comes from a perfect God. Any appeal to psychology also ends in that we are a mind made in the image of God and are thus valuable to God.
The world around us is in constant flux, as should our moral imperatives. Keep in mind there is no such thing as a wise old man atop the mountain with a scroll of absolute truth. What works for one will NEVER work for all, by assuming there's only one true way to live will strip others of their dignity by demanding a sort of 'pliability' and unreserved self-adjustment. Neither theory is correct. That's the whole premise of the philosophy, you'll learn to let it go as you get older
I am still arguing for objective morality (right and wrong answers to moral questions) but I am just arguing that morality needs to factor in circumstances rather than rely on blanket statements.
@Epydemic2020 Would you consider me a Deontologist if I consider sticking to principles as more important than predicting near future results? I happen to think that overall your more likely to have more good and thus better results if you live by principles. This is kind of why I've abandoned consequentialism for the most part. Following it's principles doesn't seem like it is effective on a practical basis when you don't know the end result of much of your decisions.
That is really interesting. You presented a common critque of applying the theory of cosequentialism called "the epistemic problem" (the idea that we can't/don't know what will bring about good consequences) and then you advocated a position called "rule utilitarianism".
I hope to do a video touching on rule utilitarianism soon, I think it is actually self-refuting unfortunately.
Your view is very practical tho, despite what I see to be a problem in principle.
@Epydemic2020 I've never heard of that term but that probably is close to my view even though I've just learned that was a view. But I would probably disagree with the view because I don't believe their are principles that will guarantee you the greater good. All I'm saying it is a testable idea of what is better for the interests of humanity, I'm a nihilist as far as Objective moral values.
@Epydemic2020 Let me put it this way, both a consequentialist and a hedinist are both after self interest in some way. One seems to target immidiate self interest, hedinism, and one does not. Consequentialism in term is better for your self interest. Similarly, I think consequentialism is more direct in theory of what will give us the happiness or fulfillment we desire, but through virtues or through consistent moral principles we are going to be more likely to succeed in happiness.
As long as you posit that humans are not sure what action will bring about the greatest good, I would agree that rule utilitarianism is a practical way to go about attempting to succeed in achieving happiness. The problem's that actually make rule utilitarianism self-refuting come into play after humans gain knowledge (or if we just posit knowledge in hypothetical moral dilemmas).
@Epydemic2020 Your only supporting my view that all moral theories are flawed if you assume you must have a perfect system or something that get's at the metaphysics of absolute objective morality. I just consider values to be something useful psychologically and to the betterment of society than monkeying around with strategic consequentialism. This could be tested scientifically, but it seems likely to me that people are better off not being a practical utilitarian and calculating utility.
@Epydemic2020 I still haven't found a label for myself since I'm a nihilist in terms of rejecting objective moral values, yet assuming a set of values common to the human species I think normative theories like deonotology are superior to simply saying it's all a bunch of personal preferences. I think a similar comparison could be made between hard determinism and Compatibalism. Compatibalism simply adds a practical perspective even though you still aren't ultimately free.
@Epydemic2020 Also on a psychological basis if I live inconsistently I am not as happy with myself and I have a harder time making tough decisions for the good. If I don't constantly value honesty because it's convenient to not be honest sometimes I suffer more overall. I'm sure a consequentialist could argue this is consistent with their viewpoint, but I think the valuing something is a stronger benchmark than trying to determine results for every situation.
One thing to think about when doing the math on "killing to save a life" is that we intuitively weight action and inaction differently even when the consequences are the same. Most people would probably not feel as guilty about ALLOWING a murderer to die as they would about ACTIVELY killing the murderer.
This may be rational or not, but because we have the intuition, when we do the rational math on 1 killed = 1 saved, that nagging bias will alter our perception of the outcome
@Epydemic2020 True, but one thing to consider is that our intuitions are things that arise from emotional states and neurological functions, which can be either naturally occurring (instincts, or other "hard-wired" sort of neurological structures that occur during brain formation) or they can be the result of environmental conditioning, so those biases or "intuitions" do not have to be moral intuitions at all to function as a bias in how we solve a moral equation.
I personally believe, that much of our morality, is influenced by our culture. And ... For Europeans and Americans it is a Christian culture ...so the standard for the Western world is Christian culture.
I think culture shapes our perspective. It is kinda like a lens through which we see reality. You might like this little demonstration of the importance of perspective.
You should type in "liar face" into google and click the first link. I think you will figure it out from there, although you may have to look at the pic at different angles/perspectives to fully appreciate it.
I think both of these sides are one and the same(in a way). If God forbids something, it would obviously be because of some negative consequences He is aware of. The thing is, we are not always able to determine the negative consequences something might have, as we are less intelligent than God. It is very useful for us to have scripture so that we can transcend our own intellectual limitations. However, even scripture must be interpreted through human reason so discernment is important.
I think you're right that most people base their morality in a mix of the two ideas. As someone who favors consequentialism, however, I would suggest to this exercise:
Would you agree that, as a principle, allowing someone (via inaction) to die should also factor into the equation? Thus in the neutral example, you would add this 'cost' to the side of inaction. This simplifies the entire equation down to the question: is allowing someone to die just as bad as actively killing them?
Interesting example. I think intuition has something to say about your example as well. Marc Hauser (evolutionary pyshologists) happened across an intuitive principle called "the principle of unintended harm". Apparently, it we subconsciously recognize a difference between killing people as a means to an end, and killing them as an unintended side effect of an otherwise neutral means.
I think you're right, and this is one of the trickiest concepts in morality: whether there is a substantial difference between allowing harm or actively producing it. If you've heard the common example of pulling a switch to divert a train car away from several bystanders, but towards one unlucky fellow, it's the same problem and concept.
That is exactly how Marc Hauser came across the principle of untintended harm, by using the train car dilemma. That is pretty cool you came about it in almost the same way.
People recognize a difference between pushing a man in front of a train to save people, and pulling a switch (which happens to kill a person) to save people, even though they are usually not able to explain why they view the two scenarios as different.
Deontology is lazy consequentialism. Why is rape wrong? If you believe it is an absolute law from god what you are actually saying is that the consequence of it is ETERNAL suffering. Which means no matter the benefit, not doing it is ALWAYS more beneficial.
Intuition and reasoning is a bit shady with morality, because psychologists have tested it and demonstrated that people come to a conclusion and THEN they rationalise it, they don't reason it through (consciously)
"An absolute law from god what you are actually saying is that the consequence of it is ETERNAL suffering. Which means no matter the benefit, not doing it is ALWAYS more beneficial."
It is possible to believe violating of the principle is truly what make a thing wrong. Even if a deontologist believes evil doing is always correlated with something like eternal suffering, as long as they don't argue that consequence is what makes the action wrong, they are consistent.
@Epydemic2020 Ray comfort said if god didn't exist he would do all those things- punishment is his concern. I still think it's not a very satisfactory position. Why is is wrong? What makes it wrong?
Ray comfort is silly. However, he may be arguing that in the absence of right and wrong he wouldn't feel obligated to be moral, not in the absence of punishment. Either way, I don't think it is particular relevant what Ray Comfort personally thinks. As I mentioned earlier he already factors in consequences whether he likes it or not.
@kelarael I think God HimSelf is a consequentialist, in that the things He prohibits have functional reasons behind them, this is why humans pretty much agree with everything God commands. Even with our limited human intellects, we can see the obvious problems with sinful actions as they always lead to bad consequences, even if you forget about heaven and hell, that is the point. I don't think anything is inherently right or wrong, it is God's judgment on it based upon consequences.
Great video Epy, but the consequentialist does not have to appeal to the values of a deontologist to make a decision about not killing one stranger to avoid killing another. They can say that there are psychological consequences (or even social consequences like establishing the validity of actively killing people) for them in killing or not killing and thus determine the moral action. Put another way, means themselves have consequences by virtue purely of being means.
Indeed, but we can hold those consequences constant. For example, if we just argue that you kill them secretly, we avoid the potential negative societal impact.
Not everyone has the same psychological consequences, but even if we did there would still be other ways to hold that variable constant as well. I wasn't trying to make this overly complex, but to have a watertight look at the moral principles in question, you have to hold all variables constant. "ceteris paribus".
@Epydemic2020 Good response Epy, however you cant hold personal psychological consequences constant for personal or subjective moral systems. In the objective construction the consequentialist can appeal to objectively undesirable consequences (such as having to put in effort to do the killing, as a simple is silly example). You are free to disagree with their notion of objectively undesirable consequences, but they doesn't /need/ to appeal to the values of deontology to solve the moral dilemma.
Well, one thing you need to factor in is the rest of the world and the future. For example, you can make a consequential argument for harvesting healthy people for organs. But that only works if you isolate each incident. If you count in how this would erode the fabric of society the "equation" suddenly looks much different.
@Epydemic2020 Well, I agree that you create a new moral dilemma by looking at the societal impacts, but that is the dilemma that is real, the other is a rarefied version for a test lab, and it's applicability to real-world situations is, in my opinion, more than doubtful.
Thanks. I like the point about necessity. I would argue that when you solve a moral dilemma, you are usually left with a necessary evil. However, it can only be a "necessary" evil if there were no other actions that would have better brought about good.
@Epydemic2020 yes, and we usually can not be sure that we knew all the options and made the best decision; but i also mean the necessity of the end in question; for example is the objective saving lives, or just increasing well being somehow; like killing someone to save a number of people, or killing someone to entertain people- the latter would be immoral because the necessity of the end would n´t be high enough to justify the means.
I really don't think TF is a consequentialist, he just doesn't have any understanding of morality. Also Desirism isn't a very easily constrained consequentialist theory with the typical moral dilemmas. For instance the common dilemma that killing one person for organs to save 5 other people is really no issue for Desirism.
I am also curious why you say we should mix them, I thought you were a Divine Command Theoriest?
I am a divine command theorist, and as I argued I conclude that that position should factor in both principles and consequences. We are created in the image of God and have properties which make us objectively valuable, but also honesty, love, refraining from murder etc are objectively valuable.
You're on a mission trip to South America driving a bus full of saved Christians on a narrow mountain path. You turn a corner to see a native teen who you know to not be saved. You have two choices. Run the teen over and doom him to internal torture in hell or drive off the cliff and send a bus full of Christians to eternal bliss in heaven. Which is the right thing to do?
Your dilemma is overly complex. We don't know the future, and we cannot determine what will bring about the greatest good. The teen could have grown up to be the worlds most persuasive atheist, or one of the people on the bus could have been the next billy graham. Those are not even the only variables in play, but that alone is enough to make the greatest good unknowable.
@Epydemic2020 And any one of the people in the dilemmas you propose could end up being the next Hitler or Gandhi. That's a fundamental problem with consequentialism (the unknowable future). That is why many suggest that the "intent to cause" is more important than what is caused. Also since there are billions of non-Hitlers and non-Gandhis the odds of any given person being so influential is negligible. So, eternal bliss for a bus and a chance at the same for one, or eternal hell for one?
It seems you want the dilemma to be "Can you trade the physical life of many people to prevent one from going to hell, what do you do?"
But in your specific dilemma, we don't guarantee that one individual doesn't go to hell, we don't know the consequences that any of their lives will bring, an there is a difference in principle between accidentally running someone over, and intentionally throwing a bus off a cliff.
@Epydemic2020 You're right, we're dealing in probabilities here and yes, the scriptures are a bit vague as to whether or not you, the bus driver will go to hell for murder/suicide or if it counts as self sacrifice. So, all other passengers aside what you've got is a non-zero chance of both you and the teen going to heaven, or a 100% chance the teen will go to hell. We can't know if he will or not, but you're trading one certain hell, for two uncertain hells.
If you simplify this dilemma to "will you kill yourself to save someone else" I would like to think I would make the sacrifice. I can consent to that decision myself, but I cannot consent on behalf of the other passengers on the bus. I don't even really think adding hell to the equation is that important.
@Epydemic2020 Part of the structure of this dilemma is the fact that the existence of heaven and hell drown out all the pleasure/pain that we experience in this life. Buried in this is an interesting principle, that the lives of the unsaved are infinitely valuable while the lives of the saved are infinitely worthless... or perhaps only valuable in their capacity to turn others to god. In any case, like any moral dilemma, there's not meant to be a "right" answer, only an illumination of principle
I do not think either of them ended up making their cases particularly clearly.
The one problem that I had with Thunder's argument was that I do not see why he could not just say certain things were wrong for more simple reasons:
ex: I do not want people to steal my stuff, so lets agree to not take each others stuff <-- done
ex: I think that the rape society example would not be moral because even in the unlikely scenario that it creates net benefit, its on-face obvious there are better options
"ex: I think that the rape society example would not be moral because even in the unlikely scenario that it creates net benefit, its on-face obvious there are better options"
Well said. A necessary evil is only justified if it is "necessary", ie there are no other options.
You had said "certain things were wrong for more simple reasons ex: I do not want people to steal my stuff, so lets agree to not take each others stuff "
In that you have two examples, a personal desire that you have (your desire for people not to steal from you) and a social contract (the "let's agree not to take each other's stuff" part). Unfortunately, in opposition to your quote above neither personal desire nor social contract alone can account for why something is wrong.
@Epydemic2020 Unless you profess objective morality, then social contracts are in fact the only way for moral ideals to originate.
As I know you do profess this, it still works even in OM. Developmental psychology demonstrates that we learn moral reasoning in distinct stages (regardless of where from). These stages of reasoning are: "it is wrong because I got punished" followed by "it is ...because others approve" followed by "it is wrong/right because I hold *** principle regardless of others"
The reasoning doesn't tell us it is wrong, it just tells us it usually has costs and we would like to avoid those costs. That type of reasoning doesn't lead us to "this is wrong" or "I ought not do this". It just leads us to "given the costs and benefits, I personally don't want to do that".
@Epydemic2020 (part 2) so even in an OM interpretation of the bible, people will learn the rules based first on mom/dad punishing/rewarding them (pleasure principle ish), followed by wanting to fit in/do what they see as best for society (maintaining the beliefs because they uphold the social contract), followed by the position you profess which is "god has handed down these principles and I hold them to be true regardless of the society around me or their effect on my own life"
I was holding variables constant, you are introducing additional variables. You can just tweak the scenario to eliminate those variables by saying "is it okay to secretly kill 1 stranger to save another".
To respond to your central point: I'm a Utilitarian, making me a consequentialist, and I think that results are all that really matter, but I think that upholding principles in the cast majority of cases tend to yield better results. Take lying: If I don't have a principle of not lying, then people will come to distrust me, and if they need to trust me on something, bad results will ensue (think boy who cried wolf). So, principles exist, but they're derived from consequences.
In your view, principles only have value insofar as they bring about consequences. So is it morally good to secretly kill one random person to save 2 random people?
I agree with you completely on this. The methodology of constructing those moral philosophies tends to be unsubstantiated, though the foundations AND results are nearly indistinguishable.
We generally see shared objective goals with subjective disagreement about how to get there. The biggest REAL issue is in the establishment of an applicable foundation. Without a foundation, the method and the result are meaningless.
Excellent video. Just to give you something to chew on... in the example of the value of a random life vs another.... try changing that scenario... and giving value or "weight" to the equation. I.E. who is the person, on either side of the equation... is it a sibling? a parent? a political figure? This could apply to EITHER side of the equation... in any quantity that you wish to put on any side of the equation. I think that you will find the idea becomes much more interesting...
I thought about that too. I think there is a difference between subjective and objective value. For example, two strangers may be objectively the same value. If one of those people is my family member, they would still be objectively equivalent in value to the stranger, but subjectively I would weight the family member as more valuable.
@Epydemic2020 This idea will drastically change the equation... and will drastically complicate the idea of what is moral vs the moral outcome... I think scenarios like this are quite "grey"... and quite complex... and given a specific situation may be easy to figure out, but given a complex set of circumstances.... are quite open to interpretation, blurring the lines of moral or immoral... you've a tough task on figuring this out... I am most eager to hear your conclusions....
OK, let's say God commands you to kill someone. Evaluate THAT in both frameworks. I don't know anyone who embraces consequentalism or deontology in a pure form. Everyone I know uses some synthetic.
Notice that even TF and Ray Comfort are using synthetic, they just might not realize it. Ray Comfort clearly does not realize he is doing it which contributes to not factoring in situations half of the time.
Consequentialism includes the direct effects of the means being used as one of the ends. So for example in the case of rape one would need to include that the well being of the victim was harmed severely. That's a negative outcome that needs to be taken into account.
Rape wouldn't be wrong if the victim wouldn't suffer as a consequence.
Rape isn't wrong just because God says so, but because there is a victim that suffers as a consequence of it.
"Rape isn't wrong just because God says so, but because there is a victim that suffers as a consequence of it."
I am not arguing that rape is wrong because God says so. That is a position known as voluntarism. Why does everyone keep acting as if I am a voluntarist?
Also, saying "it is wrong because a victim suffers" only raises another question, "why is causing suffering wrong".
Both of those examples fall into the category of personal wants/desires. If what you desire ultimately determines what we ought to do, then a person who desires causing you harm > avoiding your suffering ought to cause you suffering.
If you are familiar with the is-ought gap my objection will be more clear. You have described two things about what is the case, and merely describing what is the case doesn't inform us of how we ought to behave.
"Both of those examples fall into the category of personal wants/desires."
No, they are not personal wants/desires, they are universal. Every human being wants to avoid suffering. It's not just a personal or cultural preference, but part of our very nature.
"[is/ought - gap]...merely describing what is the case doesn't inform us of how we ought to behave."
Right, but if it's not an universally shared value that should inform us how we ought to behave, then what else?
Our value hierarchies combined with our scope of knowledge ultimately determine what we perceive to be right/wrong. The twisted thing about individual value notions - we may not see the individuals notions, but their notions of what is an acceptable notion and thus we get the appearance of consensus on many notions.
@Epydemic2020 As a categorical thing...no... However, individually yes... and effectively from a group perspective a consensus of varying degrees of acceptance. The factors that are generally agreeable are issues of harm, consent, are personal freedoms. An action is generally considered acceptable if it harms no one and affects no property or person without consent - this is acceptable to most people. Those who want to impose their notions haven't considered other's notions imposed on them.
I thought another idea if killing is wrong, either according to TF or RC, then fighting in WW2 on allied side is wrong since by defending more people due on both sides. Fighting in ww2 or in ww1 is probably done out of various principles like defending of cultural identity, social values, political affiliation, survival by race, or revenge. I don't know what would either of those men say.
It wasn't so much "killing" that either TF or RC believed was wrong. They thought murder was wrong. That is killing within a specific set of circumstances. If you change one variable like that, you are making an entirely different equation, and therefore you might have an entirely different answer.
You’ve put your finger on why the dilemma based approach to exploring ethics isn’t very fruitful. It pretty quickly degenerates into two sealed camps throwing their pet thought experiments at each other: like a creationist and You-Tube atheist debating in a church car park ;-)
BTW, What do you make of virtue ethics; there has been some suggestion that it synthesizes deontic and consequentialist ways of thinking?
Ironically, we may be able to blend a bit of virtue ethics in there as well. If honesty is a valuable trait, being honest would be a valuable principle, etc.
The problem I think virtue ethics and consequentialism run into is not explaining what is moral (on occasion), but accounting for why those "virtues" or "consequences" out to be valued.
It is easier to recognize something is moral than to explain why.
When it comes to morality, it’s easier to have intuitions than understanding; there’s some debate as to whether or not the mere “recognition” of our moral intuitions constitutes a proper understanding. I myself doubt it, and thus don’t think having moral intuitions is sufficient for having good moral values. We have to work hard in order to get good values, they are not just a given.
Listening to your discussion, I was struck by a thought about our intuitive response to certain actions, which is what you base this innate reasoning on.
Dhalmer killed 17 people and is one of the more reviled people alive. However, when someone kills thousands in say Darfur, people barely respond at all. I could point to many such examples of people responding more strongly against the deaths of fewer numbers over larger numbers of deaths. What does this say about our innate knowledge?
It isn't a question about our innate reactions. It is a question about proximity, exposure, the emotional reaction of our peers, and about our difficulty grasping large numbers. Most people are also more intimately aware of Dhamer than Darfur.
@Epydemic2020 As I said before, I could cite many more such examples, including those that do not fit with the awareness factor. But, I want to hone in on two other points.
First, isn't the emotional reaction of peers exactly what I am talking about? I didn't say it was rational, just intuitive.
Second, regardless of how hard it is to grasp large numbers, we should still be more outraged at the loss of larger number of lives, right? (cont.)
However, when the losses are small, one can tie names and faces to the number. Now, it just isn't 300 dead, but Bob Smith from Anywhere, leaving behind two small children, etc. etc. That seems more personal, more real, and thus, it generates more outrage in the public. If we had innate knowledge of morality (ala Socrates), then I would expect that as people "remembered" the correct knowledge more, there would be less of this and more of the rational one. I just don't see that.
I agree w/ socrates a bit. However, I am arguing we have innate knowledge of moral values, not moral conclusions. We can tell that certain things are objectively valuable, not how those objective values are weighted. More will be explained in the next vid.
The whole "What do we value?" question is not spanned by consequentialism and deontology. Nor is it reasonable to search for correct ways to reason about morality. You can search for better or worse ways, measured by how many people will agree with your overarching principles like the golden rule and such(this is largely dictated by logic because things like fairness etc are needed to produce agreement) but there will always be disagreement about specifics.
I am not trying to decipher "what do we value" but rather "what ought we value". Both deontology and consequentialism fall into the category of "normative ethics", which means they deal with what we ought to do rather than just with what we actually do.
@Epydemic2020 Upon what grounds would one have an ought. If I want X, I ought to do Y - Is my understanding. Whether I do it or not is another matter...
@Epydemic2020 I don't believe he ought to do so. However, I am asking you what do you mean by ought. Since, this again is a subjective point another product of the mind...
@Epydemic2020 It is NOT a mind-independent duty to act a certain way. It is totally dependent upon mind. If we cannot claim that it is dependent upon a mind, the tenuous claim to free-will that many hold is totally broken.
So, how is it a mind-independent duty to act a certain way?
" It is NOT a mind-independent duty to act a certain way. It is totally dependent upon mind. If we cannot claim that it is dependent upon a mind, the tenuous claim to free-will that many hold is totally broken."
No. Having an objective moral obligation has nothing at all to do with whether or not I have free will. In fact, I have the free will to break my moral obligations.
As Thunderf00t explains, we are hardwired to have a conscience. Conscience being a combo of the words "with" and "knowledge". In other words, we are built "with knowledge" that some things should be done and some things should not. Or in other words... it is self-evident that some things are objectively valuable.
That leads us to figure out the "why", which is "an objective standard of morality must exist".
@Epydemic2020 I didn't ask whether we value things, I asked does anything (love, money, sex, god, people, one's self, etc.) have any inherent (intrinsic) value?
I have no objection to that fact the we do value things. It should be noted that this hard wiring is apparently not consistent across people given the dizzying array of conflicting values hierarchies.
IF you look closely, I am not arguing that we "do" value things, but arguing that we "recognize we should" value things. That is why I arguing for a conscience, not a compulsion.
If we recognize that we should value certain things, that informs us that those things are objectively valuable.
Disagree, obviously. I have argued that ethical intuitionism gives us reason to believe that objective morality exists. In other words, I have met my burden of proof by giving positive reasons to think that such a thing as intrinstic value exists. Since you are claiming that nothing has intrinstic value, the ball is in your court to undermine the reasons I gave or come up with another reason to think they don't exist.
If God exists then we cannot really imagine a world where no minds exist (since he would then exist out of necessity).
But to play along, yes objective morality would still exist, it would just be an empty set. Moral duties to being with minds would still exist, but would not be applicable because no minds would exist. Inapplicable =/= non-existent.
@Epydemic2020 I am not going for something as "high" level as morals. I want to stay basic and speak of just value - this idea of intrinsic value... since, I don't understand why you make the claim. I find that nothing has any intrinsic value. I see value as an emotional appreciation of a thing. The idea that a thing has value within itself make no sense to me.
Towards the end of the video, you're assuming that TF(or any atheist) would agree that it's possible to derive THE standard or THE correct answer. In fact, it's also really easy to show that humans care a lot more about people they know than random strangers. Take your 1 for 1 murder example and rephrase it as saving your girlfriend and suddenly your moral reasoning would change radically while other people's might not. And that brings us to it being important what we value.
"Take your 1 for 1 murder example and rephrase it as saving your girlfriend and suddenly your moral reasoning would change radically while other people's might not."
It doesn't make it moral to kill the stranger in this scenario. You may want to kill them, but unless you rationalize your desires then you won't conclude it is moral.
I think that moral thought problems are interesting, but ultimately not very illustrative. A huge component of moral decision making is the emotional content, and that simply cannot be reproduced in a rational setting (or, at least, I can't reproduce it). Questions such as these also have a subtle premise that there's a "right" answer, and that may be the big fallacy of all moral critique. It's always easy to point out why something was wrong.
Damn good video. I can see you worked hard to make things as clear as possible.
shlockofgod 2 weeks ago
@shlockofgod
Thanks, I didn't think you were a fan of my vids.
Epydemic2020 2 weeks ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Epydemic2020 "Thanks, I didn't think you were a fan of my vids."
The religious/ apologetics content of some of them winds me up sometimes but they're well made and thoughtful.
I appreciate anyone who tries to bring clarity to ethics even if I disagree with them about the source of those ethics.
shlockofgod 2 weeks ago
It is Rules and Moral Duty by the Elites, now bow down and obey your masters of the New World Order or get locked up in prisons for the rest of your lives! it's your choice!
XionXXXX 1 month ago
Deontology USA!!! screw consequentialism, we all know the USA is going to go broke and collapse as a consequence of our Kantian Justice System locking everyone up in prisons and spending of trillions of dollars wasted on things that do not benefit society as a whole.
See you all when the Government Collapses, and goodluck with your Deontology Rule Bull$hit System!
XionXXXX 1 month ago
Thanks dude, fantastic video and very informative. Speaking as a bioscience finalist your vid is clearly presented but with very deep insights. Keep up the good work. Pray tomorrows bioethics exam goes well :)
gyntaf 1 month ago
@gyntaf
Thanks :) I actually just enrolled in a bioethics course myself.
Epydemic2020 1 month ago
Thanks, very informative
InternetPeacemaker 2 months ago
@InternetPeacemaker
I am glad you liked it.
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Yeah, here in Europe we call it teleology and ontology. I have a great love for philosophy too. I'm not particularly smart but I love trying to get my head around philosophical concepts. It's a great hobby to have.
InternetPeacemaker 2 months ago
I'm not sure why you assume that innate value judgements must be about 'means' rather than 'ends'. If what we're talking about is essentially the innate capacity for empathy, then what we're doing when we make a moral judgement is we're assessing whether it will harm or benefit people (or other animals - I'm also not sure why you limit it to people).
cavalrycome 2 months ago
A consequentialist isn't committed to the view that the best choice is a 'good' one. A lesser evil is still an evil. The rape example is somewhat unfair because it's hard to imagine it ever being a lesser evil, but it might be possible to imagine an act of rape that saves lives, etc. in a very unnatural thought experiment. It's also complicated by the fact that the perpetrator and victim will have different perspectives on its morality. To qualify as rape, the victim has to be non-cooperative.
cavalrycome 2 months ago
@cavalrycome I wish sometimes people who where into ethics would stop using these violent analogies. Lol, the only place where I would reasonably expect someone to be talking about a man tied up, hung upside down, having a lion run loos and his brain being in a vat and whatnot is ethicists having a ´quickening´, lol
InternetPeacemaker 2 months ago
The situation where you imagine 1 person being killed to save the life of another is only superficially one where the consequences of acting and not acting are identical. If you take empathy to be the guiding factor, actively killing someone will have another consequence, namely psychological distress (death < death+distress). A similar thought experiment compares killing one person to harvest their organs to save lives of several others, but consequences would be perpetual fear of doctors, etc.
cavalrycome 2 months ago
I think that moral principles are valued only in light of their ultimate long-term consequences. That's why we correctly condemn "the ends justify the means" for all but extraordinary circumstances, but compromise those principles when the situation is extraordinary. Murdering one innocent to save another is immoral, because "not murdering" has great value, as this vid describes. But it would be moral to murder one innocent to prevent a needless war. Morality is ultimately consequentialist.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 months ago
(cont)
I think our inability to predict outcomes is a big part of why we value moral principles so highly. In thought experiements, it's easy enough to set up no-win moral conundrums that make morality's ultimate consequentialism obvious. But in real life, you don't know for sure that, say, murdering one innocent will prevent a needless war that will otherwise occur without the murder. It might seem likely, but you can never know for sure. However, you do know that murder will cause a death.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 months ago
Yes, but the problem though is the chessmaster´s fallacy. Longtherm and complex consequences can´t be objectively calculated. To do this you would have to build an accurate model of a society, by which time you might as well have created a society, like a god-mode computer game, but then one so accurate that it resembles the actual teleology of a society. Only then would you have grasped long-therm and complex consequences and be able to prophesize about future consequences.
InternetPeacemaker 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@InternetPeacemaker
I basically agree. Did you see my 2nd post that began "(cont) I think our inability to predict outcomes is a big part of why we value moral principles so highly. ..."?
Our ability to predict outcomes varies greatly with the situation - and the time scale. There are situations where many outcomes are fairly predictable with some confidence. It's the long term consequences that pose the major problem, and justify abiding by moral principles, but some situations warrant their
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 months ago
(cont)
... violation. As in my example, things can't go much wronger, from a valuing human existence point of view, than the occurance of a needless war. As the severity of the bad outcome diminishes from such extremes, the wieght of moral principles grows. "Don't murder" is, in all but extreme situations, too important in its LONG term consequences for human civilization to ignore, even if in the short term it (one calculates with high confidence) saves a few more lives.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 months ago
(cont)
This is why I think things like theft and government corruption are much worse than the actual harm they directly cause. As their frequency grows, it undermines civilization, and creates chain reaction of ever more severe harmful consequences.
Ultimately, LONG term, we can't predict anything. It might be that by avoiding raping, pilliging, and plundering, we're dooming the human race. But that *seems* highly unlikely, and clear harms we're directly avoiding are at least avoided that way
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 months ago
(cont)
Though interesting in themselves, my main purpose in mentioning those considerations was to show what morality is ultimately about. It's not about duty or rule following, but rather is about consequences. It's about chosing those actions that manifest and uphold the value we put on sentient life. That such choices are often difficult, and that we've insufficient information and so rely on heuristics that uphold that value in the short term, doesn't change what morality is about.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 months ago
u helped me study for my final haha
melanierocksalot 2 months ago
@melanierocksalot
Nice :)
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
good work! you're a clever guy!
graham2806 3 months ago
@graham2806
Thanks
Epydemic2020 3 months ago
"If, hypothetically speaking, rape brought about more benefits to the man than costs to the woman, then it would become good under [Thunderfoot's] view."
You've ineptly confused a caricature of utilitarianism with consequentialism! And you've left out his actual statements which involved total benefit to society, not just the parties involved. I know it's just YouTube, but you should still put some effort into not appearing to be an idiot.
Maybe others have covered this. I'm late to the party.
TenThousandSubbies 4 months ago
Athiest or christian, how can anyone disagree with consequestialism? We don't live in an ideal world, using "conventional" morality doesn't always bring about positive change. Sometimes positive change must be brought about violently. Whatever benefits the people (and even animals) as a whole is what should be done, regardless of how you get there. All logic, not emotion or personal gain fueling the argument.
Abignalessuccessor 4 months ago
@Abignalessuccessor
Is it better to win a war by killing 99 civilians or 100 soldiers?
Epydemic2020 4 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Good question, it depends on the enemy. If the enemy doesn't attack our civilains, we shouldn't. That said, if they kill our civilians why waste the bullets on the extra soldier?
Abignalessuccessor 2 months ago
@Abignalessuccessor
The reason I said asked "Whatever benefits the people (and even animals) as a whole is what should be done" is because utilitarian consequentialism doesn't take into account civilians vs soldiers. If killing 99 innocent civilians compared to 100 soldiers equally stopped the war, the act utilitarian would kill the civilians (whether the enemy resulted to such tactics or not).
Epydemic2020 2 months ago
@Epydemic2020
Very interesting. In my mind, I think that it is a much greater crime to kill an innocent civilian compared to a soldier. For example, you can't kidnap a soldier in war, but you can capture one. You capture soldiers, and kidnap civilians--right? So I think for me, if I was put into that situation where I could stop a war if I murder 99 innocent civilians or kill 100 soldiers, I would have to kill the soldiers.
Am I wrong? lol Love this stuff! Thanks for posting this!
ResolutionismTube 1 month ago
i'll reply to this by video over the weekend, time permitting.
johnnyp76 5 months ago
5:26 Are we obligated to follow moral standards? Is this begging the question? Or do we do this as a meta-ethical moral action - ie to achieve a beneficial consequence (such as a soundly functioning society)? Be careful when dropping in really loaded sentences which may seem intuitively fine, but are loaded with your own moral presuppositions.
johnnyp76 5 months ago
As most people realise, deontology becomes problematic when pitted against itself. In other words, when two different consequences come about from action or inaction when both actions are deontologically wrong. Ie the trolley problem. It then defers to consequentialism. Thus moral absolutes do not exist, and it becomes harder to argue objective moral facts. To do this, you have to establish realism and the existence of objective abstracts. Not as easy as you think!
johnnyp76 5 months ago
@johnnyp76
I'd argue the trolley problem deals with deontology and consequentialism.
We recognize a moral difference between "using a person as a means to save others" and "saving others with the foreseen but unintended side effect of killing someone". It's not just a numbers game.
I find it quite easy to argue for objective moral facts and see little reason to argue for moral absolutes. If you did argue for moral absolutes..continued
Epydemic2020 5 months ago
@johnnyp76
If you did argue for moral absolutes, I wouldn't recommend trying to establish blanket statements that are categorically wrong, but suggest that we look at a specific action combined with a specific intention and see whether or not that is always wrong.
I am a moral realist, but if I understand your terminology correctly I don't argue for objective abstracts (all I mean by that is that I'm not a moral platonist).
Epydemic2020 5 months ago
@Epydemic2020 If you argue for objective moral facts, what are they if not an abstract reality? The two are intrinsically linked...
johnnyp76 5 months ago
@johnnyp76
It depends what you mean by abstract reality. If you mean abstract reality as in "abstract ideas" or "abstract concepts" or even plato's version of "The Good" then we are not on the same page. If you just mean something like "immaterial" or "nonphysical" then I would be on board.
Epydemic2020 5 months ago
--Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 If you do the math with this verse in mind you then know the perfect system comes from a perfect God. Any appeal to psychology also ends in that we are a mind made in the image of God and are thus valuable to God.
rusty2029 5 months ago
The world around us is in constant flux, as should our moral imperatives. Keep in mind there is no such thing as a wise old man atop the mountain with a scroll of absolute truth. What works for one will NEVER work for all, by assuming there's only one true way to live will strip others of their dignity by demanding a sort of 'pliability' and unreserved self-adjustment. Neither theory is correct. That's the whole premise of the philosophy, you'll learn to let it go as you get older
janitarjanitar 6 months ago
@janitarjanitar
I am still arguing for objective morality (right and wrong answers to moral questions) but I am just arguing that morality needs to factor in circumstances rather than rely on blanket statements.
Epydemic2020 6 months ago
Have you ever seen 'Morality: From the Heavens or From Nature?' by Dr. Andy Thomson :
watch?v=jnXmDaI8IEo
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45
Yes
Epydemic2020 6 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Would you consider me a Deontologist if I consider sticking to principles as more important than predicting near future results? I happen to think that overall your more likely to have more good and thus better results if you live by principles. This is kind of why I've abandoned consequentialism for the most part. Following it's principles doesn't seem like it is effective on a practical basis when you don't know the end result of much of your decisions.
RuinSonic 6 months ago
@RuinSonic
That is really interesting. You presented a common critque of applying the theory of cosequentialism called "the epistemic problem" (the idea that we can't/don't know what will bring about good consequences) and then you advocated a position called "rule utilitarianism".
I hope to do a video touching on rule utilitarianism soon, I think it is actually self-refuting unfortunately.
Your view is very practical tho, despite what I see to be a problem in principle.
Epydemic2020 6 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I've never heard of that term but that probably is close to my view even though I've just learned that was a view. But I would probably disagree with the view because I don't believe their are principles that will guarantee you the greater good. All I'm saying it is a testable idea of what is better for the interests of humanity, I'm a nihilist as far as Objective moral values.
RuinSonic 6 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Let me put it this way, both a consequentialist and a hedinist are both after self interest in some way. One seems to target immidiate self interest, hedinism, and one does not. Consequentialism in term is better for your self interest. Similarly, I think consequentialism is more direct in theory of what will give us the happiness or fulfillment we desire, but through virtues or through consistent moral principles we are going to be more likely to succeed in happiness.
RuinSonic 6 months ago
@RuinSonic
As long as you posit that humans are not sure what action will bring about the greatest good, I would agree that rule utilitarianism is a practical way to go about attempting to succeed in achieving happiness. The problem's that actually make rule utilitarianism self-refuting come into play after humans gain knowledge (or if we just posit knowledge in hypothetical moral dilemmas).
Epydemic2020 6 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Your only supporting my view that all moral theories are flawed if you assume you must have a perfect system or something that get's at the metaphysics of absolute objective morality. I just consider values to be something useful psychologically and to the betterment of society than monkeying around with strategic consequentialism. This could be tested scientifically, but it seems likely to me that people are better off not being a practical utilitarian and calculating utility.
RuinSonic 6 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I still haven't found a label for myself since I'm a nihilist in terms of rejecting objective moral values, yet assuming a set of values common to the human species I think normative theories like deonotology are superior to simply saying it's all a bunch of personal preferences. I think a similar comparison could be made between hard determinism and Compatibalism. Compatibalism simply adds a practical perspective even though you still aren't ultimately free.
RuinSonic 6 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Also on a psychological basis if I live inconsistently I am not as happy with myself and I have a harder time making tough decisions for the good. If I don't constantly value honesty because it's convenient to not be honest sometimes I suffer more overall. I'm sure a consequentialist could argue this is consistent with their viewpoint, but I think the valuing something is a stronger benchmark than trying to determine results for every situation.
RuinSonic 6 months ago
Excellent video.
One thing to think about when doing the math on "killing to save a life" is that we intuitively weight action and inaction differently even when the consequences are the same. Most people would probably not feel as guilty about ALLOWING a murderer to die as they would about ACTIVELY killing the murderer.
This may be rational or not, but because we have the intuition, when we do the rational math on 1 killed = 1 saved, that nagging bias will alter our perception of the outcome
PhilStrohmann 7 months ago
@PhilStrohmann
"we intuitively weight action and inaction differently even when the consequences are the same"
I agree. That is where deontology comes in.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 True, but one thing to consider is that our intuitions are things that arise from emotional states and neurological functions, which can be either naturally occurring (instincts, or other "hard-wired" sort of neurological structures that occur during brain formation) or they can be the result of environmental conditioning, so those biases or "intuitions" do not have to be moral intuitions at all to function as a bias in how we solve a moral equation.
PhilStrohmann 7 months ago
interesting video!
I personally believe, that much of our morality, is influenced by our culture. And ... For Europeans and Americans it is a Christian culture ...so the standard for the Western world is Christian culture.
VyckRo 7 months ago
@VyckRo
I think culture shapes our perspective. It is kinda like a lens through which we see reality. You might like this little demonstration of the importance of perspective.
You should type in "liar face" into google and click the first link. I think you will figure it out from there, although you may have to look at the pic at different angles/perspectives to fully appreciate it.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
I think both of these sides are one and the same(in a way). If God forbids something, it would obviously be because of some negative consequences He is aware of. The thing is, we are not always able to determine the negative consequences something might have, as we are less intelligent than God. It is very useful for us to have scripture so that we can transcend our own intellectual limitations. However, even scripture must be interpreted through human reason so discernment is important.
danmeast 7 months ago
I think you're right that most people base their morality in a mix of the two ideas. As someone who favors consequentialism, however, I would suggest to this exercise:
Would you agree that, as a principle, allowing someone (via inaction) to die should also factor into the equation? Thus in the neutral example, you would add this 'cost' to the side of inaction. This simplifies the entire equation down to the question: is allowing someone to die just as bad as actively killing them?
FiverBeyond 7 months ago
@FiverBeyond
Interesting example. I think intuition has something to say about your example as well. Marc Hauser (evolutionary pyshologists) happened across an intuitive principle called "the principle of unintended harm". Apparently, it we subconsciously recognize a difference between killing people as a means to an end, and killing them as an unintended side effect of an otherwise neutral means.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020
I think you're right, and this is one of the trickiest concepts in morality: whether there is a substantial difference between allowing harm or actively producing it. If you've heard the common example of pulling a switch to divert a train car away from several bystanders, but towards one unlucky fellow, it's the same problem and concept.
FiverBeyond 7 months ago
@FiverBeyond
That is exactly how Marc Hauser came across the principle of untintended harm, by using the train car dilemma. That is pretty cool you came about it in almost the same way.
People recognize a difference between pushing a man in front of a train to save people, and pulling a switch (which happens to kill a person) to save people, even though they are usually not able to explain why they view the two scenarios as different.
Quite interesting stuff IMO.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
Deontology is lazy consequentialism. Why is rape wrong? If you believe it is an absolute law from god what you are actually saying is that the consequence of it is ETERNAL suffering. Which means no matter the benefit, not doing it is ALWAYS more beneficial.
Intuition and reasoning is a bit shady with morality, because psychologists have tested it and demonstrated that people come to a conclusion and THEN they rationalise it, they don't reason it through (consciously)
kelarael 7 months ago
@kelarael
"An absolute law from god what you are actually saying is that the consequence of it is ETERNAL suffering. Which means no matter the benefit, not doing it is ALWAYS more beneficial."
It is possible to believe violating of the principle is truly what make a thing wrong. Even if a deontologist believes evil doing is always correlated with something like eternal suffering, as long as they don't argue that consequence is what makes the action wrong, they are consistent.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Ray comfort said if god didn't exist he would do all those things- punishment is his concern. I still think it's not a very satisfactory position. Why is is wrong? What makes it wrong?
kelarael 7 months ago
@kelarael
Ray comfort is silly. However, he may be arguing that in the absence of right and wrong he wouldn't feel obligated to be moral, not in the absence of punishment. Either way, I don't think it is particular relevant what Ray Comfort personally thinks. As I mentioned earlier he already factors in consequences whether he likes it or not.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@kelarael I think God HimSelf is a consequentialist, in that the things He prohibits have functional reasons behind them, this is why humans pretty much agree with everything God commands. Even with our limited human intellects, we can see the obvious problems with sinful actions as they always lead to bad consequences, even if you forget about heaven and hell, that is the point. I don't think anything is inherently right or wrong, it is God's judgment on it based upon consequences.
danmeast 7 months ago
@danmeast sounds like a perfectly reasonable assessment to me.
kelarael 7 months ago
@danmeast
I think he takes into account both means and ends and brings about "the greater good".
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
Great video. I am currently studying the moral argument.
xchampx 7 months ago
Great video Epy, but the consequentialist does not have to appeal to the values of a deontologist to make a decision about not killing one stranger to avoid killing another. They can say that there are psychological consequences (or even social consequences like establishing the validity of actively killing people) for them in killing or not killing and thus determine the moral action. Put another way, means themselves have consequences by virtue purely of being means.
nanoduckling 7 months ago
@nanoduckling
Indeed, but we can hold those consequences constant. For example, if we just argue that you kill them secretly, we avoid the potential negative societal impact.
Not everyone has the same psychological consequences, but even if we did there would still be other ways to hold that variable constant as well. I wasn't trying to make this overly complex, but to have a watertight look at the moral principles in question, you have to hold all variables constant. "ceteris paribus".
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Good response Epy, however you cant hold personal psychological consequences constant for personal or subjective moral systems. In the objective construction the consequentialist can appeal to objectively undesirable consequences (such as having to put in effort to do the killing, as a simple is silly example). You are free to disagree with their notion of objectively undesirable consequences, but they doesn't /need/ to appeal to the values of deontology to solve the moral dilemma.
nanoduckling 7 months ago
Well, one thing you need to factor in is the rest of the world and the future. For example, you can make a consequential argument for harvesting healthy people for organs. But that only works if you isolate each incident. If you count in how this would erode the fabric of society the "equation" suddenly looks much different.
timeofwonder2009 7 months ago
@timeofwonder2009
I usually set up this dilemma as "is it acceptable to secretly harvest the organs of one homeless person to save a Ceo?"
The key to solving a dilemma is holding as many variables as you can constant. If you change one variable, you create an entirely new moral dilemma.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Well, I agree that you create a new moral dilemma by looking at the societal impacts, but that is the dilemma that is real, the other is a rarefied version for a test lab, and it's applicability to real-world situations is, in my opinion, more than doubtful.
timeofwonder2009 7 months ago
i dont see how real people believe in such a far fetched idea such as god or mircles. use logic please people. does that really make sense?
patwams48 7 months ago
these comments are so long winded......
AgsElysian 7 months ago
I agree with ya seems to make a good point
bellaanditsy 7 months ago
@bellaanditsy
Cool
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
This whole discussion reminds of that movie "Desperate Measures". Did you see it? What did you think of it?
evangelical1 7 months ago
@evangelical1
No, but I do like a movie that brings up some ethical issues to think about.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
this is what i like about you, you think for yourself!
i agree, both means and ends matter; i would also include factors like the endurance, necessity, and severity of an action into the equation;
nice video ;-)
aednil 7 months ago
@aednil
Thanks. I like the point about necessity. I would argue that when you solve a moral dilemma, you are usually left with a necessary evil. However, it can only be a "necessary" evil if there were no other actions that would have better brought about good.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 yes, and we usually can not be sure that we knew all the options and made the best decision; but i also mean the necessity of the end in question; for example is the objective saving lives, or just increasing well being somehow; like killing someone to save a number of people, or killing someone to entertain people- the latter would be immoral because the necessity of the end would n´t be high enough to justify the means.
aednil 7 months ago
@aednil perhaps i should ad, i think every decision can be seen as a moral decision or even as a dilemma.
aednil 7 months ago
@aednil
I dont think the decision whether or not to wear a blue or white shirt today, or the decision to take the bus vs the train has moral implications.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@aednil
That is a good point. If were were omniscient, our moral decisions may be quite different.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
Stop fucking your dog before making these videos.
FFS what is wrong with you?!?!
thisjerksaguy 7 months ago
I really don't think TF is a consequentialist, he just doesn't have any understanding of morality. Also Desirism isn't a very easily constrained consequentialist theory with the typical moral dilemmas. For instance the common dilemma that killing one person for organs to save 5 other people is really no issue for Desirism.
I am also curious why you say we should mix them, I thought you were a Divine Command Theoriest?
MaximumAxiom 7 months ago
@MaximumAxiom
I am a divine command theorist, and as I argued I conclude that that position should factor in both principles and consequences. We are created in the image of God and have properties which make us objectively valuable, but also honesty, love, refraining from murder etc are objectively valuable.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
My favorite moral dilemma for Christians:
You're on a mission trip to South America driving a bus full of saved Christians on a narrow mountain path. You turn a corner to see a native teen who you know to not be saved. You have two choices. Run the teen over and doom him to internal torture in hell or drive off the cliff and send a bus full of Christians to eternal bliss in heaven. Which is the right thing to do?
cyphonyx 7 months ago
@cyphonyx
Your dilemma is overly complex. We don't know the future, and we cannot determine what will bring about the greatest good. The teen could have grown up to be the worlds most persuasive atheist, or one of the people on the bus could have been the next billy graham. Those are not even the only variables in play, but that alone is enough to make the greatest good unknowable.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 And any one of the people in the dilemmas you propose could end up being the next Hitler or Gandhi. That's a fundamental problem with consequentialism (the unknowable future). That is why many suggest that the "intent to cause" is more important than what is caused. Also since there are billions of non-Hitlers and non-Gandhis the odds of any given person being so influential is negligible. So, eternal bliss for a bus and a chance at the same for one, or eternal hell for one?
cyphonyx 7 months ago
@cyphonyx
It seems you want the dilemma to be "Can you trade the physical life of many people to prevent one from going to hell, what do you do?"
But in your specific dilemma, we don't guarantee that one individual doesn't go to hell, we don't know the consequences that any of their lives will bring, an there is a difference in principle between accidentally running someone over, and intentionally throwing a bus off a cliff.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 You're right, we're dealing in probabilities here and yes, the scriptures are a bit vague as to whether or not you, the bus driver will go to hell for murder/suicide or if it counts as self sacrifice. So, all other passengers aside what you've got is a non-zero chance of both you and the teen going to heaven, or a 100% chance the teen will go to hell. We can't know if he will or not, but you're trading one certain hell, for two uncertain hells.
cyphonyx 7 months ago
@cyphonyx
If you simplify this dilemma to "will you kill yourself to save someone else" I would like to think I would make the sacrifice. I can consent to that decision myself, but I cannot consent on behalf of the other passengers on the bus. I don't even really think adding hell to the equation is that important.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Part of the structure of this dilemma is the fact that the existence of heaven and hell drown out all the pleasure/pain that we experience in this life. Buried in this is an interesting principle, that the lives of the unsaved are infinitely valuable while the lives of the saved are infinitely worthless... or perhaps only valuable in their capacity to turn others to god. In any case, like any moral dilemma, there's not meant to be a "right" answer, only an illumination of principle
cyphonyx 7 months ago
@cyphonyx
Interesting point.
" that the lives of the unsaved are infinitely valuable while the lives of the saved are infinitely worthless"
I disagree with this bit tho. There lives are equivalently valuable. It is the decision to change camps which is of infinite value.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
I do not think either of them ended up making their cases particularly clearly.
The one problem that I had with Thunder's argument was that I do not see why he could not just say certain things were wrong for more simple reasons:
ex: I do not want people to steal my stuff, so lets agree to not take each others stuff <-- done
ex: I think that the rape society example would not be moral because even in the unlikely scenario that it creates net benefit, its on-face obvious there are better options
squirrelywrath2 7 months ago
@squirrelywrath2
"ex: I think that the rape society example would not be moral because even in the unlikely scenario that it creates net benefit, its on-face obvious there are better options"
Well said. A necessary evil is only justified if it is "necessary", ie there are no other options.
continued
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@squirrelywrath2
"I do not see why he could not just say certain things were wrong for more simple reasons:
ex: I do not want people to steal my stuff, so lets agree to not take each others stuff <-- done"
What I want and/or social contracts do not possibly tell us what is wrong or what we ought not do.
I am sure you can think of immoral wants, and immoral social contracts.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Sorry dude, but your response makes no sense. I am not saying that I disagree, so much as I did not understand it.
I suggested people can agree that its against the rules and wrong to take each others stuff, because they dont want their own stuff taken.
I know what a social contract is (though how your relating it to my point is unclear)
Of course people would want to take each others stuff (else why would we need the rule?)
What are you trying to say??
squirrelywrath2 7 months ago
@squirrelywrath2
You had said "certain things were wrong for more simple reasons ex: I do not want people to steal my stuff, so lets agree to not take each others stuff "
In that you have two examples, a personal desire that you have (your desire for people not to steal from you) and a social contract (the "let's agree not to take each other's stuff" part). Unfortunately, in opposition to your quote above neither personal desire nor social contract alone can account for why something is wrong.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Unless you profess objective morality, then social contracts are in fact the only way for moral ideals to originate.
As I know you do profess this, it still works even in OM. Developmental psychology demonstrates that we learn moral reasoning in distinct stages (regardless of where from). These stages of reasoning are: "it is wrong because I got punished" followed by "it is ...because others approve" followed by "it is wrong/right because I hold *** principle regardless of others"
squirrelywrath2 7 months ago
@squirrelywrath2
The reasoning doesn't tell us it is wrong, it just tells us it usually has costs and we would like to avoid those costs. That type of reasoning doesn't lead us to "this is wrong" or "I ought not do this". It just leads us to "given the costs and benefits, I personally don't want to do that".
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 (part 2) so even in an OM interpretation of the bible, people will learn the rules based first on mom/dad punishing/rewarding them (pleasure principle ish), followed by wanting to fit in/do what they see as best for society (maintaining the beliefs because they uphold the social contract), followed by the position you profess which is "god has handed down these principles and I hold them to be true regardless of the society around me or their effect on my own life"
squirrelywrath2 7 months ago
@4iner2
I was holding variables constant, you are introducing additional variables. You can just tweak the scenario to eliminate those variables by saying "is it okay to secretly kill 1 stranger to save another".
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
To respond to your central point: I'm a Utilitarian, making me a consequentialist, and I think that results are all that really matter, but I think that upholding principles in the cast majority of cases tend to yield better results. Take lying: If I don't have a principle of not lying, then people will come to distrust me, and if they need to trust me on something, bad results will ensue (think boy who cried wolf). So, principles exist, but they're derived from consequences.
colossus999 7 months ago
@colossus999
In your view, principles only have value insofar as they bring about consequences. So is it morally good to secretly kill one random person to save 2 random people?
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
What consequentialist argues that only life is valuable? I've never met anyone who believes what you assert that the typical consequentialist thinks.
colossus999 7 months ago
@colossus999
Life/wellbeing is what I said, not just life.
The most popular consequentialist view is utilitarianism, and the greatest happiness principle is another way of saying the same thing I just did.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
I agree with you completely on this. The methodology of constructing those moral philosophies tends to be unsubstantiated, though the foundations AND results are nearly indistinguishable.
We generally see shared objective goals with subjective disagreement about how to get there. The biggest REAL issue is in the establishment of an applicable foundation. Without a foundation, the method and the result are meaningless.
robtbo 7 months ago
Nicely done much more intelligent than both of those numbskulls.
I think I agree on the mixture of moral thinking, the consequences and method are both worthy of thought when it comes to moral dilemmas.
GuyInHat1 7 months ago
Excellent video. Just to give you something to chew on... in the example of the value of a random life vs another.... try changing that scenario... and giving value or "weight" to the equation. I.E. who is the person, on either side of the equation... is it a sibling? a parent? a political figure? This could apply to EITHER side of the equation... in any quantity that you wish to put on any side of the equation. I think that you will find the idea becomes much more interesting...
brianthemayan 7 months ago
@brianthemayan
I thought about that too. I think there is a difference between subjective and objective value. For example, two strangers may be objectively the same value. If one of those people is my family member, they would still be objectively equivalent in value to the stranger, but subjectively I would weight the family member as more valuable.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 This idea will drastically change the equation... and will drastically complicate the idea of what is moral vs the moral outcome... I think scenarios like this are quite "grey"... and quite complex... and given a specific situation may be easy to figure out, but given a complex set of circumstances.... are quite open to interpretation, blurring the lines of moral or immoral... you've a tough task on figuring this out... I am most eager to hear your conclusions....
brianthemayan 7 months ago
@brianthemayan
I won't always have conclusions. but i will explain that in the next vid.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
OK, let's say God commands you to kill someone. Evaluate THAT in both frameworks. I don't know anyone who embraces consequentalism or deontology in a pure form. Everyone I know uses some synthetic.
RobTheMonk8 7 months ago
@RobTheMonk8
Notice that even TF and Ray Comfort are using synthetic, they just might not realize it. Ray Comfort clearly does not realize he is doing it which contributes to not factoring in situations half of the time.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
Consequentialism includes the direct effects of the means being used as one of the ends. So for example in the case of rape one would need to include that the well being of the victim was harmed severely. That's a negative outcome that needs to be taken into account.
Rape wouldn't be wrong if the victim wouldn't suffer as a consequence.
Rape isn't wrong just because God says so, but because there is a victim that suffers as a consequence of it.
xknowledgeisfreex 7 months ago
@xknowledgeisfreex
"Rape isn't wrong just because God says so, but because there is a victim that suffers as a consequence of it."
I am not arguing that rape is wrong because God says so. That is a position known as voluntarism. Why does everyone keep acting as if I am a voluntarist?
Also, saying "it is wrong because a victim suffers" only raises another question, "why is causing suffering wrong".
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020
"why is causing suffering wrong?"
Because no human being wants to suffer unnecessarily and because we have the ability to empathise with those who suffer.
xknowledgeisfreex 7 months ago
@xknowledgeisfreex
Both of those examples fall into the category of personal wants/desires. If what you desire ultimately determines what we ought to do, then a person who desires causing you harm > avoiding your suffering ought to cause you suffering.
If you are familiar with the is-ought gap my objection will be more clear. You have described two things about what is the case, and merely describing what is the case doesn't inform us of how we ought to behave.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020
"Both of those examples fall into the category of personal wants/desires."
No, they are not personal wants/desires, they are universal. Every human being wants to avoid suffering. It's not just a personal or cultural preference, but part of our very nature.
"[is/ought - gap]...merely describing what is the case doesn't inform us of how we ought to behave."
Right, but if it's not an universally shared value that should inform us how we ought to behave, then what else?
xknowledgeisfreex 7 months ago
@xknowledgeisfreex
"Right, but if it's not an universally shared value that should inform us how we ought to behave, then what else?"
If the is-ought gap is right, then universally shared value cannot account for oughts.
I would argue that oughts are not derived from is-statements at all. I hold to a position called ethical intuitionism.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
Our value hierarchies combined with our scope of knowledge ultimately determine what we perceive to be right/wrong. The twisted thing about individual value notions - we may not see the individuals notions, but their notions of what is an acceptable notion and thus we get the appearance of consensus on many notions.
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
The implication of your post is that there is no such thing as right and wrong.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 As a categorical thing...no... However, individually yes... and effectively from a group perspective a consensus of varying degrees of acceptance. The factors that are generally agreeable are issues of harm, consent, are personal freedoms. An action is generally considered acceptable if it harms no one and affects no property or person without consent - this is acceptable to most people. Those who want to impose their notions haven't considered other's notions imposed on them.
MyContext 7 months ago
A mix of deontology and utilitarianism are necessary for coherent, widely-applicable moral principles.
RaynorGo 7 months ago
I thought another idea if killing is wrong, either according to TF or RC, then fighting in WW2 on allied side is wrong since by defending more people due on both sides. Fighting in ww2 or in ww1 is probably done out of various principles like defending of cultural identity, social values, political affiliation, survival by race, or revenge. I don't know what would either of those men say.
StopFear 7 months ago
@StopFear
It wasn't so much "killing" that either TF or RC believed was wrong. They thought murder was wrong. That is killing within a specific set of circumstances. If you change one variable like that, you are making an entirely different equation, and therefore you might have an entirely different answer.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
You’ve put your finger on why the dilemma based approach to exploring ethics isn’t very fruitful. It pretty quickly degenerates into two sealed camps throwing their pet thought experiments at each other: like a creationist and You-Tube atheist debating in a church car park ;-)
BTW, What do you make of virtue ethics; there has been some suggestion that it synthesizes deontic and consequentialist ways of thinking?
wisdominnature7 7 months ago
@wisdominnature7
Ironically, we may be able to blend a bit of virtue ethics in there as well. If honesty is a valuable trait, being honest would be a valuable principle, etc.
The problem I think virtue ethics and consequentialism run into is not explaining what is moral (on occasion), but accounting for why those "virtues" or "consequences" out to be valued.
It is easier to recognize something is moral than to explain why.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020
When it comes to morality, it’s easier to have intuitions than understanding; there’s some debate as to whether or not the mere “recognition” of our moral intuitions constitutes a proper understanding. I myself doubt it, and thus don’t think having moral intuitions is sufficient for having good moral values. We have to work hard in order to get good values, they are not just a given.
wisdominnature7 7 months ago
Listening to your discussion, I was struck by a thought about our intuitive response to certain actions, which is what you base this innate reasoning on.
Dhalmer killed 17 people and is one of the more reviled people alive. However, when someone kills thousands in say Darfur, people barely respond at all. I could point to many such examples of people responding more strongly against the deaths of fewer numbers over larger numbers of deaths. What does this say about our innate knowledge?
balanceseeker 7 months ago
@balanceseeker
It isn't a question about our innate reactions. It is a question about proximity, exposure, the emotional reaction of our peers, and about our difficulty grasping large numbers. Most people are also more intimately aware of Dhamer than Darfur.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 As I said before, I could cite many more such examples, including those that do not fit with the awareness factor. But, I want to hone in on two other points.
First, isn't the emotional reaction of peers exactly what I am talking about? I didn't say it was rational, just intuitive.
Second, regardless of how hard it is to grasp large numbers, we should still be more outraged at the loss of larger number of lives, right? (cont.)
balanceseeker 7 months ago
However, when the losses are small, one can tie names and faces to the number. Now, it just isn't 300 dead, but Bob Smith from Anywhere, leaving behind two small children, etc. etc. That seems more personal, more real, and thus, it generates more outrage in the public. If we had innate knowledge of morality (ala Socrates), then I would expect that as people "remembered" the correct knowledge more, there would be less of this and more of the rational one. I just don't see that.
balanceseeker 7 months ago
@balanceseeker
I agree w/ socrates a bit. However, I am arguing we have innate knowledge of moral values, not moral conclusions. We can tell that certain things are objectively valuable, not how those objective values are weighted. More will be explained in the next vid.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
The whole "What do we value?" question is not spanned by consequentialism and deontology. Nor is it reasonable to search for correct ways to reason about morality. You can search for better or worse ways, measured by how many people will agree with your overarching principles like the golden rule and such(this is largely dictated by logic because things like fairness etc are needed to produce agreement) but there will always be disagreement about specifics.
Gnomefro 7 months ago
@Gnomefro
I am not trying to decipher "what do we value" but rather "what ought we value". Both deontology and consequentialism fall into the category of "normative ethics", which means they deal with what we ought to do rather than just with what we actually do.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Upon what pursuit do you claim an ought expectation?
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
You don't need to have a pursuit to have an ought unless you are using the term in a merely pragmatic sense, which I am not.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Upon what grounds would one have an ought. If I want X, I ought to do Y - Is my understanding. Whether I do it or not is another matter...
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
"If I want X, I ought to do Y - Is my understanding"
If Ted Bundy wants to rape people, do you really believe he ought to do so?
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I don't believe he ought to do so. However, I am asking you what do you mean by ought. Since, this again is a subjective point another product of the mind...
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
I would say that Ted Bundy ought not rape people regardless of what he personally wants. That is a mind-independent duty to act a certain way.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 It is NOT a mind-independent duty to act a certain way. It is totally dependent upon mind. If we cannot claim that it is dependent upon a mind, the tenuous claim to free-will that many hold is totally broken.
So, how is it a mind-independent duty to act a certain way?
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
" It is NOT a mind-independent duty to act a certain way. It is totally dependent upon mind. If we cannot claim that it is dependent upon a mind, the tenuous claim to free-will that many hold is totally broken."
No. Having an objective moral obligation has nothing at all to do with whether or not I have free will. In fact, I have the free will to break my moral obligations.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Let's address the core problem...
Does ANYTHING (Love, money, sex, god, people, one's self, etc.) have any inherent value? Why?
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
As Thunderf00t explains, we are hardwired to have a conscience. Conscience being a combo of the words "with" and "knowledge". In other words, we are built "with knowledge" that some things should be done and some things should not. Or in other words... it is self-evident that some things are objectively valuable.
That leads us to figure out the "why", which is "an objective standard of morality must exist".
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I didn't ask whether we value things, I asked does anything (love, money, sex, god, people, one's self, etc.) have any inherent (intrinsic) value?
I have no objection to that fact the we do value things. It should be noted that this hard wiring is apparently not consistent across people given the dizzying array of conflicting values hierarchies.
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
IF you look closely, I am not arguing that we "do" value things, but arguing that we "recognize we should" value things. That is why I arguing for a conscience, not a compulsion.
If we recognize that we should value certain things, that informs us that those things are objectively valuable.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I am making the claim that NOTHING has any intrinsic value. Do you agree or disagree with that claim?
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
Disagree, obviously. I have argued that ethical intuitionism gives us reason to believe that objective morality exists. In other words, I have met my burden of proof by giving positive reasons to think that such a thing as intrinstic value exists. Since you are claiming that nothing has intrinstic value, the ball is in your court to undermine the reasons I gave or come up with another reason to think they don't exist.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 If there were NO MINDS (nothing capable of thought) would things still have value?
MyContext 7 months ago
@MyContext
If God exists then we cannot really imagine a world where no minds exist (since he would then exist out of necessity).
But to play along, yes objective morality would still exist, it would just be an empty set. Moral duties to being with minds would still exist, but would not be applicable because no minds would exist. Inapplicable =/= non-existent.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
@Epydemic2020 I am not going for something as "high" level as morals. I want to stay basic and speak of just value - this idea of intrinsic value... since, I don't understand why you make the claim. I find that nothing has any intrinsic value. I see value as an emotional appreciation of a thing. The idea that a thing has value within itself make no sense to me.
MyContext 7 months ago
Towards the end of the video, you're assuming that TF(or any atheist) would agree that it's possible to derive THE standard or THE correct answer. In fact, it's also really easy to show that humans care a lot more about people they know than random strangers. Take your 1 for 1 murder example and rephrase it as saving your girlfriend and suddenly your moral reasoning would change radically while other people's might not. And that brings us to it being important what we value.
Gnomefro 7 months ago
@Gnomefro
"Take your 1 for 1 murder example and rephrase it as saving your girlfriend and suddenly your moral reasoning would change radically while other people's might not."
It doesn't make it moral to kill the stranger in this scenario. You may want to kill them, but unless you rationalize your desires then you won't conclude it is moral.
Epydemic2020 7 months ago
I think that moral thought problems are interesting, but ultimately not very illustrative. A huge component of moral decision making is the emotional content, and that simply cannot be reproduced in a rational setting (or, at least, I can't reproduce it). Questions such as these also have a subtle premise that there's a "right" answer, and that may be the big fallacy of all moral critique. It's always easy to point out why something was wrong.
jagmarz 7 months ago