Great video! And people should realize that God doesn't bridge the gap. Moore's Open Question Argument applies just as well to reduction to theological facts as to physical facts: "God IS...", "We ARE made in the image of God", "therefore we OUGHT...".
Maybe I just never got veritas's argument, but isn't it contingent upon there being objective oughts? Wouldn't objective oughts need to be proved for this argument to have any strength? Never seemed like a very good argument to me, but perhaps I am just being foolish.
"isn't the argument contingent upon there being objective oughts?"
Do you not believe that there's a correct way to reason?
...Imagine it was discovered through empirical research that people who reasoned circularly had more children & lived happier lives...Would that then make circular reasoning correct reasoning (since it's benefical)?
I'm not sure, though, that there's a HUGE problem.
Oughts have survival value, no? That's why we have them. Is there much more to it?
Oughts are positive ("I ought not kill") or negative ("I ought to drive 15mph") feedback loops, more or less? And we have all kinds of feedback loops built into us (hormones, etc.), because the control they exert has been beneficial for survival. Oughts have fundamentally the same origin as, say, the pituitary gland.
Given that morality is not an end but a means to establish a society, the normative power derives from the functioning fabric (or lack therof) of your society.
To recap:
I claim that
Oughts are describing relationships between entities.
The relationships can be conditional.
The oughts can be descriptive or prescriptive.
Prescriptive oughts have to be evaluated by the desired outcome / intent / goal as a normative standard.
Okay, it can't be that simple. What am I missing?
Hi Weltenweber, lets run through the list. (1) Oughts are describing relationships between entities. True. (2) the relationshiops can be conditional. True. (3) The oughts can be descriptive or prescriptive. False, by definition. "ought" is a synonym for prescriptive. (4) Prescriptive oughts have to be evaluated by desired outcome/intent/goal as a normative standard. False. For example, we can desire an outcome which we ought not to do, right? (cont)
(cont, to Weltenweber) Lets talk about morality not being an end in itself, but a means for creating a functioning fabric of society. I agree, but (to use the overused example) the nazi's had a fabric of society which functioned very well, yet what they valued I would not call moral. Morals cannot be defined by the goals and functions of society; rather, we use morality to help us decide which goals and functions society "ought" to have.
I think it depends on what one wants to say with it. Maybe he really just describes a scientific fact. In this case it would be an is, wouldn't it ? Of course it is possible that he does actually want to communicate an ought.
Right, I have been really trying to get behind the whole issue for some time now.
And honestly I kind of suspect that I'm still missing the whole point.
But here it goes:
Veritas claimed among other things that science can not come from an is to an ought. And I found that odd. Science has it's enormous value precisely because it has so much predictive power. Coming from an is to an ought is the daily bread of science.
However Veritas is right that you don't get from an is to an ought as such. Why? Because its a necessary but not sufficient condition. Ises are describing the nature of an entity, oughts are describing the relationship between entities. You need the is of an entity plus its relationship to another entity to arrive at the "is" the second entity should have.
For example: Before me is a glass of water. It`s liquid. Given that the pressure in my room is about 1013 hPa ...
... (actually a bit higher, it`s a beautiful day) the temperature of this water should be equal or above 0 degrees and well under 100 degrees Celsius (the water doesn't even steam).
This is how you arrive at "rational" or better said descriptive oughts.
The "moral" oughts are prescriptive, they tell you what the nature of your relationship is supposed to be. It does not explain why your relationship has to be such and such.
Randy is back and he's talking about the normative...[One of my favorite debates in ethics btw]. Yet again he's exposing the emperor's dodgy wardrobe choices.
Randy if you say it's inter subjective would you agree that there are no intrinsic oughts ? I think what Veritas is talking about are intrinsic oughts...i.e. oughts that are independent from anyone and anything. Now if they are inter subjective they do depend on someone or something and thus are not intrinsic.
What Veritas argues is: Some oughts are intrinsic/unconditional. They can probably only be intrinsic if God exists. Therefore God probably exists.
Hi F.G.B., I don't think that what I'm proposing here is any more or less intrinsic than what veritas is proposing. I think the authority which promulgates the oughts is humans, Veritas thinks the authority which promulgates the oughts is God. In either case, they would be relative/conditional/whatever on the choices of a thinking agent(s). Also, consider the brake example again: a brake ought to stop a car, (cont)
(cont, to F.G.B.) but does a brake *intrinsically* stop a car? After all, brakes were invented by humans and not by Gods. Or money--money was invented by humans, but does that mean money doesn't *intrinsically* or *uncontintionally* store value? Just because something is manmade doesn't make it unreal or bogus, so I don't see any problems whatsoever with manmade morality.
Well the value of money depends on inter subjective agreement and therefore is conditional. Of course this does not make the value any less real... I agree on that.
However, I really think Veritas would not agree at all. He believes that value is somehow intrinsic to God. He does not believe normativity comes from God's preference. Rather from God's intrinsic goodness.
I think the idea is that if the totality of all things and beings would cease to exist then moral facts would still exist. As far as I understand this is not the case in your philosophy because normativity depends on inter subjective agreement in your opinion. Veritas got those ideas from Koukl and Craig. Have you seen Craigs video on the argument from morality. I am quite certain that he means intrinsicism (morality does not depend on God's preference but value is intrinsic to God).
Hi F.G.B. if the totality of all things and beings would cease to exist, it still makes sense to say that if there WERE metal and asbesthos in a certain configuration, it WOULD make a good brake. That is a manmade truth, but no less eternal for that. I don't know what Veritas's true beliefs are on this subject, and he's left youtube, so we'll never no. But from what he's said (that it is God's telos and design which underwrites the oughts) I don't see how his position is unconditional.
Veritas would never accept inter subjective agreement as a source for normativity...trust me...I've had countless discussions with him on this.
> But from what he's said (that it is God's telos
> and design which underwrites the oughts) I
> don't see how his position is unconditional.
Many apologists believe that goodness is intrinsic to God. They don't say normativity comes from God's preferences. They say it comes from God's intrinsically good nature.
Perhaps you are right about veritas not accepting this, but he has never really explained to me why that isn't implied by his other positions. Looks like I won't get an answer either, as he has left youtube.
Yes he never really explained why intrinsicism is true or how the belief in God supports the idea of intrinsicism to me either. In the beginning he said he recognizes the existence of absolute intrinsic values intuitively. He also told me he didn't know exactly how God supports intrinsicism but he somehow felt it was that way.
William Lane Craig's argument for the existence of intrinsic morality is: "Deep down our heart we all know it".
I was hoping for Veritas to explain it in his next video but unfortunately it seems like it's not going to happen. I'm kind of sad about this. I really like Veritas and his videos. He was my first subscriber and I think I was about his 60th. He's a nice guy and he's basically being harrassed off Youtube. That sucks.
It's ashame that those of us that want to dialog and support Noah don't outweigh the negatives one endures in this media. I sent him a PM wishing him the best and asking that he consider staying in touch in some form or fashion.
Is it then an eternal truth that; if there WERE metal and asbesthos in the configuration used in mechanical drum brakes during the infancy of the automobile, it WOULD make a good brake.
We are in general agreement about the manmadeness of this kind of truth, but I hardly think it is *eternal* without some *serious* qualification. This kind of truth is only true for the people and technology of that time.
I'm glad you used this example though because it illuminates how truths can be very real and objective without the corresponding property of universality (ze germans may make better brakes) or eternality (except in the trivial sense that it is eternally true for the specific context in which it was discovered or made to be true).
Rational oughts are the same for everyone though. In every language and culture, they are the same, and they oblige us, we do not oblige them. How then can we intend them into being? If that were the case, we would not be obligated to obey them, and we could change them if we so desired. But this is not a correct view of rationality. Even if everyone agrees that a fallacy is true, it's not. To say that oughts obey us, instead of us obeying them, is to simply deny the existence of oughts.
Hi NomosCharis, it would be more persuasive to me that rational oughts were the same for everybody, in every culture, langauge, etc, if we all could agree on exactly what they are, but if you dig into the details, there is hardly any law of rational thought which isn't seriously disputed. Quantum logicians (e.g. hillary putnam) have proposed that the laws governing disjunction be changed in the light of discoveries in physics. Intuitionists (e.g. Dummett) question double negation, (cont)
(cont, to NomosCharis) Free logicians (e.g. Garson) propose changes to the laws governing quantifiers. Quine wonders whether second order logic is needed, or just first order logic is needed. And that's not even toughing modal logic--nobody can agree wiether S4, S5, or another system is the proper logic for necessity. But really, even IF we could all agree on what exactly was rational, or which patterns of reasoning are falacious or not, so what? (cont)
(cont, to NomosCharis) it could still be the case that we invented it, even if it were universal. For example, language is universal among human communities, but it is obvious langauge didn't exist before humans. Also, do you think we can create new oughts? For example, when we invent money, can we create a new set of oughts which go with that, like you ought not conterfit the money? If we can create some oughts, why can't we create them all?
"there is hardly any law of rational thought which isn't seriously disputed."
Rational principles do transcend language and culture. In every language they are the same (though the words for them change).
Discoveries in physics and the like cannot change them, because they must be interpreted using them. There are mysteries in physics, but mysteries and contradictions are not the same thing. A contradiction is always false. [cont.]
Suppose for instance we attempted to disprove the law of non-contradiction. How would we do it? Using the law of non-contradiction, of course. But that simply establishes the truth of non-contradiction. Non-contradiction is axiomatic. It cannot be disproven; it's just true. And it's wrong for all people, in all cultures and all eras, to affirm a contradiction.
As for the "new oughts," you switch from rational oughts to ethical oughts when you talk of "counterfeiting the money." That's just an old ought in new clothing; people have always deceived each other, and it's always been wrong. Nothing much new there.
Nevertheless, my point stands: that if we are over the oughts, and not they over us, obliging us, then they are not actually oughts, and Veritas' "oughts" don't exist. Either we ought the oughts or the oughts ought us, not both.
Hi NomosCharis, even the law of noncontradiction has been seriously challenged by lucasawitz and other people, for example, as proposed solutions to the liar paradox. Or again, the fuzzy logic people reject the laws of noncontradiction. If you really dig into the philosophy of logic, you see that all of these laws are negotiable. W.R.T. rational oughts vs. moral oughts, good point, but I could use a rational ought example: there was a guy named Sheffer who invented a new logical law (cont)
(cont to NomosCharis) governing the so-called "Sheffer stroke" logical constant. This proved so useful that it is used in all of today's computers. New logics and new logical rules are being proposed all the time.
Hi randy. The NAND operation ("Scheffer's stroke) is just a new way of saying an old concept. It's nothing more than an extremely simple version of "true if not both p and q," which is expedient for computers to process more quickly.
To reject the law of non-contradiction is to be irrational, period. There can be no knowledge without the law, since then you cannot distinguish one thing (or concept) from another, which means you can't even know if the law is not true! [cont.]
Non-contradiction cannot be denied without being asserted. To deny it is to assert it, to assert it is to prove it. In short, It cannot-not be true, because the only way to falsify it is to contradict it, which proves it!
It's not unlike the question of truth, and whether it is objective and absolute or not. If we say it is not, then either it is absolutely true that it is not, or it is not absolutely true that it is not, and either way... it is! So... it is!
This is not a truth that someone invented. It remains true whether we agree or disagree about it. If anything, this is a truth that someone "discovered," and Aristotle didn't invent logical principles any more than Franklin invented electricity.
Hi NomosCharis, well do you assert or deny the truth of the sentence "This sentence is false?" if you are hardcore about philosophy of logic, I'd encourage you to read up on the Liar paradox and some solutions people have come up with trying to solve it. Relaxing the law of noncontradiction is something which is on the table.
In the sentence that I put forward, I was distinguishing between one kind of truth and another (between two different concepts of truth). In contrast, the statement, "This statement is false," contains no content within it. It is an empty statement, and neither true nor false.
Well NomosCharis, that is your opinion. The greatest logicians of last century (Saul Kripke, Alfred Tarski) and of this century (Hartry Field) disagree with you.
Good to see AND hear you, randy. Nice response, too. So I'd imagine when V gets to "moral oughts" you'll be chimin' in then as well - yes? Hope so. ;-)
Loved it, nice video as always, Randy! Doesn't mean that I agree, lol! ;P
Language being invented simultaneously with rational oughts..hmmm...I wonder if these are yet links in a longer chain on inventions...Intentionality is intrinsic to inventions, as I see it, so what motivated us as human beings to invent language and rational oughts?
Another thing is: I think your explanation opens a door to either "rational subjectivism" or "rational relativism".
Hi valyok, glad you are still watching! I would answer your questions like this: what motivated us as human beings to invent language and rational oughts? I would say it would be kind of like asking what motivated birds to develop wings and fly; just circumstance and evolution, and the environments we found ourselves in, perhaps combined with a self-reinforcing loop (if you are competing against smart humans, you have to be smarter yourself). (cont)
(cont, to valyok) I don't think I'm leaving myself open to rational subjectivism, because I think rational oughts are mor like money than they are like personal preferences. In other words, I get to decide whether I like vaniilla ice cream more than chocolate, but I don't get to decide which pieces of paper are dollar bills or not. That is up to society to decide. Does this leave me open to rational relativism? (cont)
(cont, to valyok) Well I'd call it "rational intersubjectivity", but even so, it is not more or less relative than what Veritas was proposing. Veritas was proposing that God is the one who creates these rational oughts, I'm proposing we create them. In either case, they would be relative to a creator.
Social teleology is the best answer to this problem in my view from the naturalistic framework, but I still think it is quite problematic, because it in itself already presupposes an oughtness. It only tells us what to qua member of a society, but not as a rational (non-instrumental) actor or a human. The assumption lies in an implicit ought that we should act as rational citizens or members of some other group, rather than as some other identification that we have.
A perceptive comment indeed. I suppose the way I would put it is that we cannot characterise ourselves at all without using normative language, and since we cannot reduce normative language to descriptive language, we have to accept that some of these terms are not going to be defined, they will just be exemplified.
That's like saying that atheists cannot critique Christianity because they don't *really* understand it. There is no is/ought problem. Facts are something we know, values are something we want to keep and morality is how we use facts to fulfill values. Values are themselves derived from various biological needs. Furthermore, the is/ought dichotomy is contradictory, since it asserts that you ought to hold that no ought can be derived from is because there exists some fact that prevents this".
I'm not sure I understand this analogy. From the Christian perspective, morality is a meaningless concept without god, so the problem of evil appeals, according to that perspective, to the stolen concept fallacy with regards to morality.
Hi Mattara, well, if you presuppose (perhaps more accurately put, prejudice) the case against somebody from the start, of course you are going to conclude they are concept-stealing theives, confused, and otherwise irrational. I don't think that is how Jesus looked at the woman at the well, nor do I think it is how anybody, regardless of their religion or lack thereof, should view each other. These concepts are the common inheritance of us all, we all have the right to use them.
Oughts could be construed conventionally, like you say, but they could also be metaphysicalled rooted in the Platonic forms. For example, certain acts could embody the Pure Form of Goodness, or Justice.
That view has a long and venerable history, but it has some problems. Ironically, probably the best critique of it was written by plato himself; read his diaolog "Parmenedies" where he basically deconstructs his entire life's work....
"Where do these oughts come from?" isn't that hard of a question.
They come from desires of people and the desires of others impressed upon us. You ought not to eat that cookie comes from the mothers desire for the child to be calm You ought not to rape that woman comes from the woman's desire not to be raped.
Good to see you making vids again. But I think you and V missed this. From the comments and a few vid responses I saw, no one seemed to be making the gross is-ought fallacy, or missing the problem, as you claim. What I'm about to say is pretty much what I heard others saying. V didn't seem to get it. I'm not sure if you do either, since you seem to think those saying the following were missing something. What is it that I'm missing?
Well for example, tooltime, saying that the rational oughts could be accounted for just by your desire to be "close to reality" whatever the hell that means. It still grossly commits the falicy: you IS closer to reality, therefore that is what you OUGHT to do. I didn't watch every video response, so perhaps others didn't make this mistake, but the ones I did watch people completely missed the boat.
I think as soon as you include the goal/desire/objective/preference/etc into the mix, you no longer have an Is-Ought problem. Rationality obviously has a lot to recommend it, "being closer to reality" being just one benefit. (Irrational people, if their irrationality is extreme and pervasive to their thinking, are living in a fantasy world. They're nuts.) Where these goals come from is a fair question, but a different question - the Is-Goal problem if you like. It's also very easy to answer.
We OUGHT to understand reality, therefore we observe and test. If you think a belief is more important than reality, then you reject the ought. That's what tooltime was saying
Hi loveisalineed, well, I agree that "we ought to understand reality, therefore we should observe and test" is a valid argument. But if that was that tooltime was saying, then he has missed the point of Hume's problem. Notice, the premise "we ought to understand reality" is already normative. Therefore, its not an argument from what IS to what OUGHT to be. It is completely unaccounted for why we OUGHT to understand reality.
I prefer to not be in pain, not get maimed, not die, eat when hungry, see others happy, be happy, not be sad, etc.. I'm a material being, so ultimately these preferences come from arrangements of neurons, which in turn trace to my developmental and evolutionary history. So what? As a human being, I seek some scenarios, and avoid others. THAT'S the foundation of oughts. One ought to eat one's vegetables because, presumably, one seeks to have good health. Oughts follow from human preferences.
I suspect that this is reductionist. Values, created by a community of minds, can shape our preferences according to socially defined oughts. Hence we can morally behave in ways that contradict such base preferences and morality can even shape the way we satiate such preferences, e.g. all the diverse cultural mores that surrounds food; eating, fasting, sharing, tabooing, etc. You are a conscious being capable of creating, contending and reformulating values, right?
that's kinda ironic, your comment below says that you don't see people making these sorts of gross is-ought falacies, but you just did right here ;-) How is "I desire to eat when hungry, therefore I should eat when I'm hungry" any different from "I desire only men and women get married, therefore only men and women SHOULD get married?"
Re: "I desire only men and women get married, therefore only men and women SHOULD get married?"
That's not an is-ought fallacy. It's a claim that others should behave as I desire. The "should" is either a suggestion, a moral duty, or a redundancy, depending on speaker and context. Regardless, it's not relevant to the is-ought issue. Let me clean it up and point out what I think is going on.
With the goal/desire/preference added, the fallacy ends. The goal is usually so obviously implicit in statement that it's dropped as unnecessary wordiness. If you tell me "You ought to eat your spinach", you're making a recommendation to me for my presumed interest in maintaining my health. If you think I'm Popeye, then you again might say "you ought to eat your spinach", but the implicit goal will have changed to "it's desirable that Bluto gets clobbered."
Hey cool to see you back! I took a half hour to write you a comment that made me look wiser then I'm really am (lol), but it didn't show up as my five stars!?!?
I ought to be careful from now on when I'll be writing you a comment ;-)!.
Hi BoSteveD, compare with this: "I should kill my mother, because I won't get caught and then I'll get the inheritance." Do you think that somebody who feels this way 'ought' to kill his mother?
Randy, I don't think that this kind of "ought" has any more intrinsic weight or obligation behind it than the other, aside from the obligation we place on one another to believe it, combined with I think a hardwired evolutionary imperative not to kill ones own mother.
There are about 5% of the population who really don't believe, say, that murdering somebody is wrong, if they could get away with it. We call these people psychopaths :-) Really, I hope you see there is a vast difference here between things you don't do because you fear the consequences, and things you don't do because of an ethical ought.
I worry about that 5% as well Randy. Sometimes when I hear Christians saying "If I didn't believe in God I'd just go rape, and murder people" I wonder whether it's rhetoric, or sociopathy.
I really don't think that the assertion that there are no "intrinsic" oughts naturally leads to the position that "if I could get away with it I would do it". If you think so, then I'm afraid you've drunk the of the kool aid too deeply. This is however, a good demonstration of the obligation that we place on one another (and that we TAKE from one another) that I was talking about. It doesn't take the threat of punishment to dissuade objectionable behavior. Just a bit of stern disapproval.
Here's a question; if you met one of these fellows and were able to convince him that murdering somebody was wrong BECAUSE it would reduce his own well being (purely selfish reason here) whether or not he was ever caught, and he was fully convinced and henceforth determined to do no murder...
Let me be clear here, he's not in "fear" of the consequence (in the sense of fearing punishment) but you've simply helped him to recognize that doing murder is by itself through it's own consequence and not any artificially imposed punishment going to reduce his well being.
Yes, if somebody doesn't see the difference between "x is in my self interest, therefore I do x" and "x is morally correct, therefore I do x" they are a psychopath. About 5% of the population just doesn't see any difference between the two, just like some people are red/green colorblind. But 95% of the population sees a hugh difference between the two.
Seems more of a personal attack against those you disagree with rather than a "psychological fact" (whatever that is). Furthermore, computer simulations with prisoner's dilemma-like premises has shown that to maximize your own success (egoism), you should cooperate with others. Care to try again?
So calling someone insane for holding a position does not have any evaluative connotations? I find this a strange position. Maybe you are confusing egoism with egotism., or you would have to hold that all evolutionary biologists are suffering from psychopathy due to their investigations into the evolutionary origins of morality. But again, I suspect we are just confusing egoism with egotism here and if we are, I'm sorry for that.
Hi Mattara, for things which are recognized disorders (like psychopathy, or anxiety, or depression) psychologists use terms which do not have any evaluative connotations. Diagnosing somebody as being a psychotic is like diagnosing somebody with eplilpsy or high blood pressure. 5% of evolutionary biologists are psychotics, but 5% of televangilist, and 5% of christians are too.
Be so that it may, you are not claiming this, but claiming that everyone who subscribes to ethical egoism are psychopaths because they do not agree with your moral theory. This is really no different that Christians saying that all atheists are really satanists because they do not agree with Christian theism. Don't you think that such personal attacks are a tad unproductive?
Hi Mattara, "psychopath" is not an evaluative term, to call somebody that is not a personal attack. That alone makes it quite different from calling somebody a satinist, because satinist is not a term of diagnosis, with internationally accepted criteria of application.
Maybe what i am saying is simply not couched in flowery enough language for you. What if you help him to understand the connectedness of humanity, and how his good fortune even in the smallest of benefits that he obtains is absolutely dependent on human relationships and society, and that murder (even when the culprit is unknown) is ultimately undermining to the fabric of those relationships. Is this kind of understanding sufficient to be a "moral" creature in your eyes?
Or does morality simply require acceptance of and adherence to a set of seemingly arbitrary rules in absence of any reason for them?
This is I think the fundamental difference between a Theist moralist and a Non-Theist moralist. The theists bitch about everything being "arbitrary" while being perfectly happy to follow and spread "morals" in a completely arbitrary vacuum in absence of any REASONS for those morals apart from "God doesn't want you to do that".
Normative "facts" all have reasons behind them and those reasons must ultimately appeal to the goals of those being asked to follow them. So sorry if you feel that couching them in those terms takes something away from them. I think it takes far more away from them to just toss them out there and say "some behaviors are JUST wrong".
That (IMHO) is a stupid and primitive way of advancing morality.
Hi sammcalpine, well he might be moral, but it wouldn't be because of understanding those things. Just because humanity is connected doesn't mean that it SHOULD be connected (for example, the mafia is connected, that makes it easier for them to do evil and harder to bring them to justice, so they shouldn't be connected).
The problem with your mafia example is that the mafia are as a group sociopaths. What I mean by that is that although they may value their own families and foster relationships with one another they don't hold that same value for the rest of society. As a group, the Mafia are parasites on the rest of society whom they view as a kind of human cattle for their own benefit.
The bottom line is that morality is not *obligation* in any kind of universal sense. The obligations that we do feel toward moral behavior come either from the obligations that well meaning people like yourself try to impose on others or the obligations that we ourselves can create in response to a deeper understanding of the value of human relationships to our own well being.
It is much better IMHO to foster morality with the carrot (real carrots, not heavenly ones) than the stick.
Actually, I think morals should be based on the consequences that follow from those actions to the individuals and society, otherwise its just arbitrary crap.
Don't kill your mother because we don't want to live in a society where people kill each other, people who love her would suffer and she would lose the opportunity that life brings. Not because it says it in a book
Ok, it is moral for you to give me all your money, because the consequence is that it would benefit me :-) Oh, another consequence is that it would benefit you? Well how do we decide which consequence wins? We need a way to determine which consequence was more moral than the other in order to decide...therefore, consequences alone can't determine. We need a way to decide which consequences are good and which are bad.
In my culture, I have observed and learned that people do not give away their money easily and that it is hard to earn. If I lived in a different culture, where people freely shared things more, I might be inclined to be more giving. So, there is no absolute right answer. It all depends on the circumstances, even day to day. If I have no family and find out I have only a few days to live, maybe I do give you the money
Hi loveisalineed, even if what is moral or not is dependent on circumstances, even if it changes from culture to culture, that still doesn't make it determined by goals. You would still need some way to determine which goals you should have.
The fact is some people are always going to think that way, but neither God, nor society saying you ought not kill your mother for the inheritance makes it an Ought. It's only an "if you want to avoid hell, or prison you ought not kill your mother for the inheritance".
Obviously we can come up with rational reasons other than the threat of prison for why you ought not. To use your "gay people shouldn't marry because they can't have children" example.
Gays ought be allowed to marry because the world is overpopulated, and they won't have children.
I added a second part to my comment. You may not have seen it before you replied so I'll expand on it.
Of course I think we should obey laws even if getting caught isn't an issue, but I think we should because I have empathy, and because there are rational argument as to why it's beneficial, but I also realize those arguments will probably be meaningless to a sociopath.
A solid rational argument still doesn't make it a capital O Ought. It's still contingent on caring about the benefits.
Hi TheNakedAtheist, yeah I see it now; sometimes these comments take a while to show up. I agree, its not a rational argument which creates these Oughts, nor is it any way the world is. It has more to do with the way we want the world to be, but that's not the whole story either, because we could want bad things to come to pass too.
Hi TheNakedAtheist, can you think of anything which somebody or some society might want to come to pass, but neverthelesss, you would still call it "bad"?
LOL well of course, you are right if WE arn't evil :-) but we could be (and often are) evil, and we want evil things to come to pass. Look at how many people are rejoycing in the evil which has befallen Michael Jackson. If you asked George Bush, I'm sure he would tell you murder was wrong, but he wanted to kill untold numbers of iraqi's. Let me put it more snappy: if good=what we want to come to pass, that means we could be in error about what was right and wrong. But we can be wrong.
I'm not just saying the consequences of law or even society at large serve as the reason for oughtness alone. I'm saying we have evolved to become very good avoiders, and that we are capable of avoiding decisions we know will culminate with consequences we see as unfit, whether it be not killing mothers out of fear for the law's consequences or out of fear for personal consequences (i.e. losing one's mother...).
there are so many examples that you really have to wonder about what mathematics actually is. mathematics seems to be a part of nature that we can discover simply by doing mathematics, without even looking at nature. and then all the connections come later, even highly unexepcted ones, noone ever expected to find something like a "multiplicative group of integers modulo n" in nature. now its part of the standart model and apparently describes some properties of particles.
Hi kurtlein3, platonism in mathematics has a long and venerable history, and even Goedel thought that his incompleteness theorem was evidence for it. Personally, though, I remain unconvinced... I think it was an act of creative genius the first time somebody put 1 stone, one fist, one cloud, one sunset (these are things which have literally nothing in common) into the same bucket and says "I'll call this quantity of things 1". I think math is just exploring the ramifications of that idea.
i think this concept of 3 universes is quite useful, i dont know if its well-known or not, i picked it up in a book about the laws of nature by roger penrose.
the first one would be all the stuff in our minds, all the memes. the second one would be mathematics. the third one would be actual physical reality.
now there are the following connections: everything in the physical realm can be described using mathematics, while just some of it can be observed directly by us. (to be continued)
and everything in mathematics can (according to the model) be understood by us, while only some of the stuff in our minds is part of mathematics. and everything in our minds is part of physical reality, thats obvious, all on the surface of our planet (or a few miles above it). but only parts of physical reality do have a corresponding representation in our minds, what is not directly observable can only be filled in using the more complete view of reality mathematics offers.
i think it makes sense to put everything in those 3 categories, partly because if you apply it rigurously the naturalistic worldview directly follows from us. god would be a part of physical reality that cannot be asessed using mathematics, a violation. a soul would be something like a mind that is not part of physical reality, again a violation.
but it also means that mathematics is an aspect of reality interrelated to but not part of physical reality.
okay, i need another comment, i just noticed that i forgot one of the connections...
not everything in mathematics does have something in physical reality corresponding to it.
and to sum it all up really quick: physical reality = A, mathematics = B, memes / the stuff in our minds = C. then C is a subset of A, A is a subset of B, and B is a subset of C. but it does not work in the other direction, otherwise we would be omniscient and omnipresent and other strange things would happen.
no video for 5 months, and now suddenly... another video :)
but i think you need to seperate between oughts that we came up with, and mathematics and logic. i think mathematics and logic are obviously at least partially created by us, but also partially discovered. does it make sense to say that we invented fractals or fibonacci spirals or prime numbers when those can be found in broccoli and nautilus and 13- and 17-year periodical cicadas?
You are absolutely correct when you say that "these sorts of oughts do not come apart from mind and intentions", the design part is incedental. Design merely shapes the functionality of a thing. It is intention that imbues it with it's purpose. Something can be completely undesigned and still have purpose and functionality IF there is an intentional mind which decides that the thing "ought" to serve a specific function.
Hi Sammcalpine, I'll go along with that. I could try to stretch it by saying, e.g. that somebody who sits on a stone in a woods has just designed a chair, but perhaps that's stretching words too far.
Yeah, I think it is stretching words a bit too far to use "design" in that way. I work in a design field, so I am very aware of how we take preexisting things (designed or not) and then shape them to fit our specific requirements and goals and THAT is what we call design. And I think that calling the intention to use an object for a purpose "design" obfuscates this line that we are trying to draw with regard to how human intentionality can explain the existence of these kinds of "oughts".
No offense, but I didn't hear anything new. I thought I heard the same thing in most of the responses. Cristofer7 for example said almost exactly the same thing at the beginning of his video response, even though he wasn't taking veritas seriously.
Maybe it's just so basic to me that I assume it's implied. I also assume veritas' reply would be that we can't do it because it wouldn't be an objective absolute ought, like Gods ought would be, so explaining it to him is pointless anyway.
Hi TheNakedAtheist, perhaps you are right; I certainly didn't have time to watch all the responses to ver's vid, so this might be ground tread already. I just made this vid because Ver asked the question how does an atheist account for rational oughts, so I thought I'd answer that.
Hi bitbutter, its not clear to me that Veritas is talking about unconditional oughts. If God is the source of these oughts, then they are conditional on God. They wouldn't be essentially any different from the oughts promulgated by a king or congress, or any other legitimate authority. Which is why I still don't see why God has to underwrite these, why can we create authorities here to underwrite them?
I think this might be clearer if we make a subtle distinction here. I'm not so sure the oughtness in Moreland's brake example comes from the designer of the brake. It seems to me the oughtness comes from the driver of the car. In these terms I think the point you're trying to make becomes much, much clearer, and likewise Veritas' error becomes much, much clearer. The driver's intentions and the engineer's intentions match, so it looks like the oughtness comes from the engineer. It doesn't.
Hi ianw115, do you think a driver could misuse a brake? For example, if I drive away with my emergency brake engaged, have I misused the brake? If so, its not the driver who dictates, its the designer.
You've only misused it if you want your car to last as long, your emergency brake to last as long, if you want your gas mileage to be as good as it would be if you hadn't driven away with your emergency brake engaged. The designer certainly shapes the car to have certain optimal functions but it is the user of a tool who decides if he has "misused it"
There is some shared sense of "proper" use of a designed thing in some cases, especially if the user is not the same as the owner. If I borrow your car and drive it with the emergency brake engaged then you are certainly going to think that I've misused your car. But that is because it is your intention to get as much use out of your car as possible and I've unnecessarily destroyed some of it's usefulness.
I'm not sure, it seems to me like it hinges on what you are using the brakes for. Granted, we really only use brakes for what they were designed to do, but that's my point, the structure of Moreland's example lends itself very favorably to the idea that oughtness comes from the designer. But all you really need to do is think of a thing not designed that has, or can have, a specific use, or something that IS designed but has clear alternative uses.
Like, just off the top of my head, take newspaper. Newspapers are designed to be read. But, I could for example use newspaper to start a fire. This would of course make the paper unreadable, but I don't think you could say I'm misusing the newspaper here, or that if there was a design error (say it was issued unreadable for some reason) it would have anything to do with my use for it. It wouldn't be dysfunctional unless it failed to catch fire.
Or, to take the example further, say I see you reading a newspaper, and I ask you what you're doing and you say "I'm trying to start a fire." In this case, to go back to your original question, you absolutely would be misusing the item in question (you aren't using it the way it _ought_ to be used), even though you are using it the way it was _designed_ to be used.
Interesting vid, Randy. I saw your comments on V48's first vid, stating the position you did here. I agree that oughts are a human invention, but a human invention for what? Aren't they invented to fulfill the conditions of hypothetical imperatives, much as many atheists were arguing? Oughts for conflict management, oughts for representing reality as best we can, for abiding by consensus principles etc.
They are for making us the sorts of people and society we feel we should be. The main point is that they are not derived by syllogistic reasoning from physical facts, they are invented by us, they are something we do, rather than something we conclude.
I have been thinking about this case for 'ought to be's' and I've come to the same conclusion that you have. I really appreciate you laying the groundwork for questioning supposed foundations. It really challenges us all to think. Love you randy.
Great video! And people should realize that God doesn't bridge the gap. Moore's Open Question Argument applies just as well to reduction to theological facts as to physical facts: "God IS...", "We ARE made in the image of God", "therefore we OUGHT...".
GodlessPhilosopher 2 years ago
Maybe I just never got veritas's argument, but isn't it contingent upon there being objective oughts? Wouldn't objective oughts need to be proved for this argument to have any strength? Never seemed like a very good argument to me, but perhaps I am just being foolish.
WayOfTheBastard 2 years ago
@WayOfTheBastard
"isn't the argument contingent upon there being objective oughts?"
Do you not believe that there's a correct way to reason?
...Imagine it was discovered through empirical research that people who reasoned circularly had more children & lived happier lives...Would that then make circular reasoning correct reasoning (since it's benefical)?
soultorment27 1 year ago
Excellent video. An even handed and humane approach to the whole business.
SirAxiom 2 years ago
I'm not sure, though, that there's a HUGE problem.
Oughts have survival value, no? That's why we have them. Is there much more to it?
Oughts are positive ("I ought not kill") or negative ("I ought to drive 15mph") feedback loops, more or less? And we have all kinds of feedback loops built into us (hormones, etc.), because the control they exert has been beneficial for survival. Oughts have fundamentally the same origin as, say, the pituitary gland.
naphra2 2 years ago
He's back! He's back!
naphra2 2 years ago
Given that morality is not an end but a means to establish a society, the normative power derives from the functioning fabric (or lack therof) of your society.
To recap:
I claim that
Oughts are describing relationships between entities.
The relationships can be conditional.
The oughts can be descriptive or prescriptive.
Prescriptive oughts have to be evaluated by the desired outcome / intent / goal as a normative standard.
Okay, it can't be that simple. What am I missing?
Weltenweber 2 years ago
Hi Weltenweber, lets run through the list. (1) Oughts are describing relationships between entities. True. (2) the relationshiops can be conditional. True. (3) The oughts can be descriptive or prescriptive. False, by definition. "ought" is a synonym for prescriptive. (4) Prescriptive oughts have to be evaluated by desired outcome/intent/goal as a normative standard. False. For example, we can desire an outcome which we ought not to do, right? (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont, to Weltenweber) Lets talk about morality not being an end in itself, but a means for creating a functioning fabric of society. I agree, but (to use the overused example) the nazi's had a fabric of society which functioned very well, yet what they valued I would not call moral. Morals cannot be defined by the goals and functions of society; rather, we use morality to help us decide which goals and functions society "ought" to have.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Hi Randy, I read your reply to this guy and you said there are no descriptive oughts. But what about this statement:
If you want to comb your hair you ought not use a hammer.
Isn't this statement simply a description of what is the case (using a hammer to comb your hair is not efficient) ?
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
That statement is one way to express or communicate an ought. But that doesn't mean its doesn't communicate an ought :-)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I think it depends on what one wants to say with it. Maybe he really just describes a scientific fact. In this case it would be an is, wouldn't it ? Of course it is possible that he does actually want to communicate an ought.
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
Hmmm.....if something is an ought, sure, there is something it is, it is an ought. I don't quite see the difficulty, I guess...
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Right, I have been really trying to get behind the whole issue for some time now.
And honestly I kind of suspect that I'm still missing the whole point.
But here it goes:
Veritas claimed among other things that science can not come from an is to an ought. And I found that odd. Science has it's enormous value precisely because it has so much predictive power. Coming from an is to an ought is the daily bread of science.
-cont.
Weltenweber 2 years ago
However Veritas is right that you don't get from an is to an ought as such. Why? Because its a necessary but not sufficient condition. Ises are describing the nature of an entity, oughts are describing the relationship between entities. You need the is of an entity plus its relationship to another entity to arrive at the "is" the second entity should have.
For example: Before me is a glass of water. It`s liquid. Given that the pressure in my room is about 1013 hPa ...
-cont
Weltenweber 2 years ago
... (actually a bit higher, it`s a beautiful day) the temperature of this water should be equal or above 0 degrees and well under 100 degrees Celsius (the water doesn't even steam).
This is how you arrive at "rational" or better said descriptive oughts.
The "moral" oughts are prescriptive, they tell you what the nature of your relationship is supposed to be. It does not explain why your relationship has to be such and such.
- cont
Weltenweber 2 years ago
Randy is back and he's talking about the normative...[One of my favorite debates in ethics btw]. Yet again he's exposing the emperor's dodgy wardrobe choices.
YES!
2bsirius 2 years ago
:) thanks 2bsirius, I'm glad you're still here too.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Yeah!! Randy is back!! *Happydance*
And with one of my favourite topics on top of that. :-)
Wise as usual. Welcome back, Randy.
koenichfuerst 2 years ago
lol thanks koenichfuerst :-)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Randy if you say it's inter subjective would you agree that there are no intrinsic oughts ? I think what Veritas is talking about are intrinsic oughts...i.e. oughts that are independent from anyone and anything. Now if they are inter subjective they do depend on someone or something and thus are not intrinsic.
What Veritas argues is: Some oughts are intrinsic/unconditional. They can probably only be intrinsic if God exists. Therefore God probably exists.
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
Hi F.G.B., I don't think that what I'm proposing here is any more or less intrinsic than what veritas is proposing. I think the authority which promulgates the oughts is humans, Veritas thinks the authority which promulgates the oughts is God. In either case, they would be relative/conditional/whatever on the choices of a thinking agent(s). Also, consider the brake example again: a brake ought to stop a car, (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont, to F.G.B.) but does a brake *intrinsically* stop a car? After all, brakes were invented by humans and not by Gods. Or money--money was invented by humans, but does that mean money doesn't *intrinsically* or *uncontintionally* store value? Just because something is manmade doesn't make it unreal or bogus, so I don't see any problems whatsoever with manmade morality.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Part 1:
> Or money--money was invented by humans,
Well the value of money depends on inter subjective agreement and therefore is conditional. Of course this does not make the value any less real... I agree on that.
However, I really think Veritas would not agree at all. He believes that value is somehow intrinsic to God. He does not believe normativity comes from God's preference. Rather from God's intrinsic goodness.
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
Part 2:
I think the idea is that if the totality of all things and beings would cease to exist then moral facts would still exist. As far as I understand this is not the case in your philosophy because normativity depends on inter subjective agreement in your opinion. Veritas got those ideas from Koukl and Craig. Have you seen Craigs video on the argument from morality. I am quite certain that he means intrinsicism (morality does not depend on God's preference but value is intrinsic to God).
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
Hi F.G.B. if the totality of all things and beings would cease to exist, it still makes sense to say that if there WERE metal and asbesthos in a certain configuration, it WOULD make a good brake. That is a manmade truth, but no less eternal for that. I don't know what Veritas's true beliefs are on this subject, and he's left youtube, so we'll never no. But from what he's said (that it is God's telos and design which underwrites the oughts) I don't see how his position is unconditional.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Veritas would never accept inter subjective agreement as a source for normativity...trust me...I've had countless discussions with him on this.
> But from what he's said (that it is God's telos
> and design which underwrites the oughts) I
> don't see how his position is unconditional.
Many apologists believe that goodness is intrinsic to God. They don't say normativity comes from God's preferences. They say it comes from God's intrinsically good nature.
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
Perhaps you are right about veritas not accepting this, but he has never really explained to me why that isn't implied by his other positions. Looks like I won't get an answer either, as he has left youtube.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Yes he never really explained why intrinsicism is true or how the belief in God supports the idea of intrinsicism to me either. In the beginning he said he recognizes the existence of absolute intrinsic values intuitively. He also told me he didn't know exactly how God supports intrinsicism but he somehow felt it was that way.
William Lane Craig's argument for the existence of intrinsic morality is: "Deep down our heart we all know it".
IMO it's just an appeal to emotions.
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago
I was hoping for Veritas to explain it in his next video but unfortunately it seems like it's not going to happen. I'm kind of sad about this. I really like Veritas and his videos. He was my first subscriber and I think I was about his 60th. He's a nice guy and he's basically being harrassed off Youtube. That sucks.
FatGermanBastard 2 years ago 2
What? I had not heard this. I mean...did he really leave or is this just another break?
TheEdge012 2 years ago
nah, he always announced when he was taking a break. This time he's gone.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
It's ashame that those of us that want to dialog and support Noah don't outweigh the negatives one endures in this media. I sent him a PM wishing him the best and asking that he consider staying in touch in some form or fashion.
TheEdge012 2 years ago
Hi Randy,
"*but no less eternal for that*."
Is it then an eternal truth that; if there WERE metal and asbesthos in the configuration used in mechanical drum brakes during the infancy of the automobile, it WOULD make a good brake.
We are in general agreement about the manmadeness of this kind of truth, but I hardly think it is *eternal* without some *serious* qualification. This kind of truth is only true for the people and technology of that time.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
I'm glad you used this example though because it illuminates how truths can be very real and objective without the corresponding property of universality (ze germans may make better brakes) or eternality (except in the trivial sense that it is eternally true for the specific context in which it was discovered or made to be true).
sammcalpine 2 years ago
FINALLY a new randy video!
Honestly, I think tooltime got it right...but that's just me.
BENY0HAMA 2 years ago
ha Ben thanks for not forgetting about me altogether!
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Rational oughts are the same for everyone though. In every language and culture, they are the same, and they oblige us, we do not oblige them. How then can we intend them into being? If that were the case, we would not be obligated to obey them, and we could change them if we so desired. But this is not a correct view of rationality. Even if everyone agrees that a fallacy is true, it's not. To say that oughts obey us, instead of us obeying them, is to simply deny the existence of oughts.
NomosCharis 2 years ago
Hi NomosCharis, it would be more persuasive to me that rational oughts were the same for everybody, in every culture, langauge, etc, if we all could agree on exactly what they are, but if you dig into the details, there is hardly any law of rational thought which isn't seriously disputed. Quantum logicians (e.g. hillary putnam) have proposed that the laws governing disjunction be changed in the light of discoveries in physics. Intuitionists (e.g. Dummett) question double negation, (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont, to NomosCharis) Free logicians (e.g. Garson) propose changes to the laws governing quantifiers. Quine wonders whether second order logic is needed, or just first order logic is needed. And that's not even toughing modal logic--nobody can agree wiether S4, S5, or another system is the proper logic for necessity. But really, even IF we could all agree on what exactly was rational, or which patterns of reasoning are falacious or not, so what? (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont, to NomosCharis) it could still be the case that we invented it, even if it were universal. For example, language is universal among human communities, but it is obvious langauge didn't exist before humans. Also, do you think we can create new oughts? For example, when we invent money, can we create a new set of oughts which go with that, like you ought not conterfit the money? If we can create some oughts, why can't we create them all?
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
"there is hardly any law of rational thought which isn't seriously disputed."
Rational principles do transcend language and culture. In every language they are the same (though the words for them change).
Discoveries in physics and the like cannot change them, because they must be interpreted using them. There are mysteries in physics, but mysteries and contradictions are not the same thing. A contradiction is always false. [cont.]
NomosCharis 2 years ago
Suppose for instance we attempted to disprove the law of non-contradiction. How would we do it? Using the law of non-contradiction, of course. But that simply establishes the truth of non-contradiction. Non-contradiction is axiomatic. It cannot be disproven; it's just true. And it's wrong for all people, in all cultures and all eras, to affirm a contradiction.
[cont.]
NomosCharis 2 years ago
As for the "new oughts," you switch from rational oughts to ethical oughts when you talk of "counterfeiting the money." That's just an old ought in new clothing; people have always deceived each other, and it's always been wrong. Nothing much new there.
Nevertheless, my point stands: that if we are over the oughts, and not they over us, obliging us, then they are not actually oughts, and Veritas' "oughts" don't exist. Either we ought the oughts or the oughts ought us, not both.
NomosCharis 2 years ago
Hi NomosCharis, even the law of noncontradiction has been seriously challenged by lucasawitz and other people, for example, as proposed solutions to the liar paradox. Or again, the fuzzy logic people reject the laws of noncontradiction. If you really dig into the philosophy of logic, you see that all of these laws are negotiable. W.R.T. rational oughts vs. moral oughts, good point, but I could use a rational ought example: there was a guy named Sheffer who invented a new logical law (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont to NomosCharis) governing the so-called "Sheffer stroke" logical constant. This proved so useful that it is used in all of today's computers. New logics and new logical rules are being proposed all the time.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Hi randy. The NAND operation ("Scheffer's stroke) is just a new way of saying an old concept. It's nothing more than an extremely simple version of "true if not both p and q," which is expedient for computers to process more quickly.
To reject the law of non-contradiction is to be irrational, period. There can be no knowledge without the law, since then you cannot distinguish one thing (or concept) from another, which means you can't even know if the law is not true! [cont.]
NomosCharis 2 years ago
Non-contradiction cannot be denied without being asserted. To deny it is to assert it, to assert it is to prove it. In short, It cannot-not be true, because the only way to falsify it is to contradict it, which proves it!
NomosCharis 2 years ago
It's not unlike the question of truth, and whether it is objective and absolute or not. If we say it is not, then either it is absolutely true that it is not, or it is not absolutely true that it is not, and either way... it is! So... it is!
This is not a truth that someone invented. It remains true whether we agree or disagree about it. If anything, this is a truth that someone "discovered," and Aristotle didn't invent logical principles any more than Franklin invented electricity.
NomosCharis 2 years ago
Hi NomosCharis, well do you assert or deny the truth of the sentence "This sentence is false?" if you are hardcore about philosophy of logic, I'd encourage you to read up on the Liar paradox and some solutions people have come up with trying to solve it. Relaxing the law of noncontradiction is something which is on the table.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
In the sentence that I put forward, I was distinguishing between one kind of truth and another (between two different concepts of truth). In contrast, the statement, "This statement is false," contains no content within it. It is an empty statement, and neither true nor false.
NomosCharis 2 years ago
Well NomosCharis, that is your opinion. The greatest logicians of last century (Saul Kripke, Alfred Tarski) and of this century (Hartry Field) disagree with you.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Appeal to authority.
I guess when there are no rational oughts, that's what people are free to do.
NomosCharis 2 years ago
'Whoomp, There He Is'!
Good to see AND hear you, randy. Nice response, too. So I'd imagine when V gets to "moral oughts" you'll be chimin' in then as well - yes? Hope so. ;-)
Stay thirsty, my friend. (lol)
justchemicalz 2 years ago
Hi Justchemicalz, well, I'm just about starvin' tonight! :-) unfortunately, it looks like Veritas has taken a perminent hiatus...
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Ha!!! Is it moral 4 me to even B laughin' at that?...;-)
Either way, you are still "The Most Interesting Man in the World."
More along the lines of the rhetoric than the "look," though.
justchemicalz 2 years ago
lol you gave a shout out to problem of induction woot
EverettsVLOG 2 years ago
ha Everett, you know I was thinking about you when I said that:-)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Yes, that is exactly right! That is part of what I messaged him with a couple days ago.
I followed that up by stressing that we came from natural selection and that things in the natural world have no designer.
I'm glad that someone else gets this. I was as frustrated as you that most people didn't seem to get that point.
sonnygll 2 years ago
Loved it, nice video as always, Randy! Doesn't mean that I agree, lol! ;P
Language being invented simultaneously with rational oughts..hmmm...I wonder if these are yet links in a longer chain on inventions...Intentionality is intrinsic to inventions, as I see it, so what motivated us as human beings to invent language and rational oughts?
Another thing is: I think your explanation opens a door to either "rational subjectivism" or "rational relativism".
Does it make sense?
valyok 2 years ago
Hi valyok, glad you are still watching! I would answer your questions like this: what motivated us as human beings to invent language and rational oughts? I would say it would be kind of like asking what motivated birds to develop wings and fly; just circumstance and evolution, and the environments we found ourselves in, perhaps combined with a self-reinforcing loop (if you are competing against smart humans, you have to be smarter yourself). (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont, to valyok) I don't think I'm leaving myself open to rational subjectivism, because I think rational oughts are mor like money than they are like personal preferences. In other words, I get to decide whether I like vaniilla ice cream more than chocolate, but I don't get to decide which pieces of paper are dollar bills or not. That is up to society to decide. Does this leave me open to rational relativism? (cont)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
(cont, to valyok) Well I'd call it "rational intersubjectivity", but even so, it is not more or less relative than what Veritas was proposing. Veritas was proposing that God is the one who creates these rational oughts, I'm proposing we create them. In either case, they would be relative to a creator.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Social teleology is the best answer to this problem in my view from the naturalistic framework, but I still think it is quite problematic, because it in itself already presupposes an oughtness. It only tells us what to qua member of a society, but not as a rational (non-instrumental) actor or a human. The assumption lies in an implicit ought that we should act as rational citizens or members of some other group, rather than as some other identification that we have.
AestheticizeAnalog 2 years ago
A perceptive comment indeed. I suppose the way I would put it is that we cannot characterise ourselves at all without using normative language, and since we cannot reduce normative language to descriptive language, we have to accept that some of these terms are not going to be defined, they will just be exemplified.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
That's like saying that atheists cannot critique Christianity because they don't *really* understand it. There is no is/ought problem. Facts are something we know, values are something we want to keep and morality is how we use facts to fulfill values. Values are themselves derived from various biological needs. Furthermore, the is/ought dichotomy is contradictory, since it asserts that you ought to hold that no ought can be derived from is because there exists some fact that prevents this".
Mattara 2 years ago
Hi Mattara, I think its like Christians saying "there is no problem of evil" when they obviously don't understand what the problem of evil is.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I'm not sure I understand this analogy. From the Christian perspective, morality is a meaningless concept without god, so the problem of evil appeals, according to that perspective, to the stolen concept fallacy with regards to morality.
Mattara 2 years ago
Hi Mattara, well, if you presuppose (perhaps more accurately put, prejudice) the case against somebody from the start, of course you are going to conclude they are concept-stealing theives, confused, and otherwise irrational. I don't think that is how Jesus looked at the woman at the well, nor do I think it is how anybody, regardless of their religion or lack thereof, should view each other. These concepts are the common inheritance of us all, we all have the right to use them.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
So you would agree that given their premises, there is no problem of evil?
Mattara 2 years ago
Yes, but trivially yes---if I agreed with the principles of hitler, I'd be a nazi too.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Very eloquently explained. A lot of us hold the same view as you, yet fail to express it coherently enough. Nice vid.
psyjax 2 years ago
thank you psyjax.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Good to have you back!
touchingstoves 2 years ago
lol thanks toughingstoves :-)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Oughts could be construed conventionally, like you say, but they could also be metaphysicalled rooted in the Platonic forms. For example, certain acts could embody the Pure Form of Goodness, or Justice.
scottvska 2 years ago
That view has a long and venerable history, but it has some problems. Ironically, probably the best critique of it was written by plato himself; read his diaolog "Parmenedies" where he basically deconstructs his entire life's work....
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
"Where do these oughts come from?" isn't that hard of a question.
They come from desires of people and the desires of others impressed upon us. You ought not to eat that cookie comes from the mothers desire for the child to be calm You ought not to rape that woman comes from the woman's desire not to be raped.
Desires come from our evolutionary history.
Why is this hard?
paulmarko 2 years ago
Oops. Didn't wait until the end of your video before posting. :)
Looks like we came to the same sort of conclusion. hehe
paulmarko 2 years ago
Good to see you making vids again. But I think you and V missed this. From the comments and a few vid responses I saw, no one seemed to be making the gross is-ought fallacy, or missing the problem, as you claim. What I'm about to say is pretty much what I heard others saying. V didn't seem to get it. I'm not sure if you do either, since you seem to think those saying the following were missing something. What is it that I'm missing?
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 years ago
Well for example, tooltime, saying that the rational oughts could be accounted for just by your desire to be "close to reality" whatever the hell that means. It still grossly commits the falicy: you IS closer to reality, therefore that is what you OUGHT to do. I didn't watch every video response, so perhaps others didn't make this mistake, but the ones I did watch people completely missed the boat.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I think as soon as you include the goal/desire/objective/preference/etc into the mix, you no longer have an Is-Ought problem. Rationality obviously has a lot to recommend it, "being closer to reality" being just one benefit. (Irrational people, if their irrationality is extreme and pervasive to their thinking, are living in a fantasy world. They're nuts.) Where these goals come from is a fair question, but a different question - the Is-Goal problem if you like. It's also very easy to answer.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 years ago
We OUGHT to understand reality, therefore we observe and test. If you think a belief is more important than reality, then you reject the ought. That's what tooltime was saying
loveisallneed 2 years ago
Hi loveisalineed, well, I agree that "we ought to understand reality, therefore we should observe and test" is a valid argument. But if that was that tooltime was saying, then he has missed the point of Hume's problem. Notice, the premise "we ought to understand reality" is already normative. Therefore, its not an argument from what IS to what OUGHT to be. It is completely unaccounted for why we OUGHT to understand reality.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I prefer to not be in pain, not get maimed, not die, eat when hungry, see others happy, be happy, not be sad, etc.. I'm a material being, so ultimately these preferences come from arrangements of neurons, which in turn trace to my developmental and evolutionary history. So what? As a human being, I seek some scenarios, and avoid others. THAT'S the foundation of oughts. One ought to eat one's vegetables because, presumably, one seeks to have good health. Oughts follow from human preferences.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 years ago
I suspect that this is reductionist. Values, created by a community of minds, can shape our preferences according to socially defined oughts. Hence we can morally behave in ways that contradict such base preferences and morality can even shape the way we satiate such preferences, e.g. all the diverse cultural mores that surrounds food; eating, fasting, sharing, tabooing, etc. You are a conscious being capable of creating, contending and reformulating values, right?
RowanFortuneWood 2 years ago
that's kinda ironic, your comment below says that you don't see people making these sorts of gross is-ought falacies, but you just did right here ;-) How is "I desire to eat when hungry, therefore I should eat when I'm hungry" any different from "I desire only men and women get married, therefore only men and women SHOULD get married?"
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Re: "I desire only men and women get married, therefore only men and women SHOULD get married?"
That's not an is-ought fallacy. It's a claim that others should behave as I desire. The "should" is either a suggestion, a moral duty, or a redundancy, depending on speaker and context. Regardless, it's not relevant to the is-ought issue. Let me clean it up and point out what I think is going on.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 years ago 2
(cont)
Is-Ought fallacy:
1. It IS the case that reproduction requires a man and a woman.
2. Therefore, men and women OUGHT to reproduce.
NOT an Is-Ought fallacy:
1. It IS the case that reproduction requires a man and a woman.
2. Human reproduction is a GOAL. (Whose goal isn't really important. to the structural form.)
3. Therefore, men and women OUGHT to reproduce.
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 years ago 2
(cont)
With the goal/desire/preference added, the fallacy ends. The goal is usually so obviously implicit in statement that it's dropped as unnecessary wordiness. If you tell me "You ought to eat your spinach", you're making a recommendation to me for my presumed interest in maintaining my health. If you think I'm Popeye, then you again might say "you ought to eat your spinach", but the implicit goal will have changed to "it's desirable that Bluto gets clobbered."
VeryEvilPettingZoo 2 years ago 2
Hey cool to see you back! I took a half hour to write you a comment that made me look wiser then I'm really am (lol), but it didn't show up as my five stars!?!?
I ought to be careful from now on when I'll be writing you a comment ;-)!.
Boucrate 2 years ago
It seems to me normative "oughtness" is simply a biproduct of consequentail thinking.
i.e.-- "I 'should' remain at below 50 miles per hour if I don't want to run the risk of getting a ticket."
BoStevoD 2 years ago
Hi BoSteveD, compare with this: "I should kill my mother, because I won't get caught and then I'll get the inheritance." Do you think that somebody who feels this way 'ought' to kill his mother?
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Randy, I don't think that this kind of "ought" has any more intrinsic weight or obligation behind it than the other, aside from the obligation we place on one another to believe it, combined with I think a hardwired evolutionary imperative not to kill ones own mother.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
There are about 5% of the population who really don't believe, say, that murdering somebody is wrong, if they could get away with it. We call these people psychopaths :-) Really, I hope you see there is a vast difference here between things you don't do because you fear the consequences, and things you don't do because of an ethical ought.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I worry about that 5% as well Randy. Sometimes when I hear Christians saying "If I didn't believe in God I'd just go rape, and murder people" I wonder whether it's rhetoric, or sociopathy.
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
I really don't think that the assertion that there are no "intrinsic" oughts naturally leads to the position that "if I could get away with it I would do it". If you think so, then I'm afraid you've drunk the of the kool aid too deeply. This is however, a good demonstration of the obligation that we place on one another (and that we TAKE from one another) that I was talking about. It doesn't take the threat of punishment to dissuade objectionable behavior. Just a bit of stern disapproval.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Here's a question; if you met one of these fellows and were able to convince him that murdering somebody was wrong BECAUSE it would reduce his own well being (purely selfish reason here) whether or not he was ever caught, and he was fully convinced and henceforth determined to do no murder...
Would you still consider him a psychopath?
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Let me be clear here, he's not in "fear" of the consequence (in the sense of fearing punishment) but you've simply helped him to recognize that doing murder is by itself through it's own consequence and not any artificially imposed punishment going to reduce his well being.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Yes, if somebody doesn't see the difference between "x is in my self interest, therefore I do x" and "x is morally correct, therefore I do x" they are a psychopath. About 5% of the population just doesn't see any difference between the two, just like some people are red/green colorblind. But 95% of the population sees a hugh difference between the two.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Are you really claiming that everyone who subscribed so ethical egoism as a meta-ethical theory are insane? How rational.
Mattara 2 years ago
Hi Mattara, no, this isn't my claim, this is an accepted psychological fact, just google for "psychopathy" and read up on it.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Seems more of a personal attack against those you disagree with rather than a "psychological fact" (whatever that is). Furthermore, computer simulations with prisoner's dilemma-like premises has shown that to maximize your own success (egoism), you should cooperate with others. Care to try again?
Mattara 2 years ago
Hi Mattara, "psychpath" is a technical term, like "autistic" and it does not have any evaluative connotations in the way I'm using it.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
So calling someone insane for holding a position does not have any evaluative connotations? I find this a strange position. Maybe you are confusing egoism with egotism., or you would have to hold that all evolutionary biologists are suffering from psychopathy due to their investigations into the evolutionary origins of morality. But again, I suspect we are just confusing egoism with egotism here and if we are, I'm sorry for that.
Mattara 2 years ago
Hi Mattara, for things which are recognized disorders (like psychopathy, or anxiety, or depression) psychologists use terms which do not have any evaluative connotations. Diagnosing somebody as being a psychotic is like diagnosing somebody with eplilpsy or high blood pressure. 5% of evolutionary biologists are psychotics, but 5% of televangilist, and 5% of christians are too.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Be so that it may, you are not claiming this, but claiming that everyone who subscribes to ethical egoism are psychopaths because they do not agree with your moral theory. This is really no different that Christians saying that all atheists are really satanists because they do not agree with Christian theism. Don't you think that such personal attacks are a tad unproductive?
Mattara 2 years ago
Hi Mattara, "psychopath" is not an evaluative term, to call somebody that is not a personal attack. That alone makes it quite different from calling somebody a satinist, because satinist is not a term of diagnosis, with internationally accepted criteria of application.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Homosexuality use to be classified as a mental disorder as well. Do you subscribe to this perspective? If not, why?
Mattara 2 years ago
no, because its wrong.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Maybe what i am saying is simply not couched in flowery enough language for you. What if you help him to understand the connectedness of humanity, and how his good fortune even in the smallest of benefits that he obtains is absolutely dependent on human relationships and society, and that murder (even when the culprit is unknown) is ultimately undermining to the fabric of those relationships. Is this kind of understanding sufficient to be a "moral" creature in your eyes?
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Or does morality simply require acceptance of and adherence to a set of seemingly arbitrary rules in absence of any reason for them?
This is I think the fundamental difference between a Theist moralist and a Non-Theist moralist. The theists bitch about everything being "arbitrary" while being perfectly happy to follow and spread "morals" in a completely arbitrary vacuum in absence of any REASONS for those morals apart from "God doesn't want you to do that".
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Normative "facts" all have reasons behind them and those reasons must ultimately appeal to the goals of those being asked to follow them. So sorry if you feel that couching them in those terms takes something away from them. I think it takes far more away from them to just toss them out there and say "some behaviors are JUST wrong".
That (IMHO) is a stupid and primitive way of advancing morality.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Hi sammcalpine, well he might be moral, but it wouldn't be because of understanding those things. Just because humanity is connected doesn't mean that it SHOULD be connected (for example, the mafia is connected, that makes it easier for them to do evil and harder to bring them to justice, so they shouldn't be connected).
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
The problem with your mafia example is that the mafia are as a group sociopaths. What I mean by that is that although they may value their own families and foster relationships with one another they don't hold that same value for the rest of society. As a group, the Mafia are parasites on the rest of society whom they view as a kind of human cattle for their own benefit.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
The bottom line is that morality is not *obligation* in any kind of universal sense. The obligations that we do feel toward moral behavior come either from the obligations that well meaning people like yourself try to impose on others or the obligations that we ourselves can create in response to a deeper understanding of the value of human relationships to our own well being.
It is much better IMHO to foster morality with the carrot (real carrots, not heavenly ones) than the stick.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Actually, I think morals should be based on the consequences that follow from those actions to the individuals and society, otherwise its just arbitrary crap.
Don't kill your mother because we don't want to live in a society where people kill each other, people who love her would suffer and she would lose the opportunity that life brings. Not because it says it in a book
loveisallneed 2 years ago
Ok, it is moral for you to give me all your money, because the consequence is that it would benefit me :-) Oh, another consequence is that it would benefit you? Well how do we decide which consequence wins? We need a way to determine which consequence was more moral than the other in order to decide...therefore, consequences alone can't determine. We need a way to decide which consequences are good and which are bad.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
In my culture, I have observed and learned that people do not give away their money easily and that it is hard to earn. If I lived in a different culture, where people freely shared things more, I might be inclined to be more giving. So, there is no absolute right answer. It all depends on the circumstances, even day to day. If I have no family and find out I have only a few days to live, maybe I do give you the money
loveisallneed 2 years ago
Hi loveisalineed, even if what is moral or not is dependent on circumstances, even if it changes from culture to culture, that still doesn't make it determined by goals. You would still need some way to determine which goals you should have.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
The fact is some people are always going to think that way, but neither God, nor society saying you ought not kill your mother for the inheritance makes it an Ought. It's only an "if you want to avoid hell, or prison you ought not kill your mother for the inheritance".
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
continued...
Obviously we can come up with rational reasons other than the threat of prison for why you ought not. To use your "gay people shouldn't marry because they can't have children" example.
Gays ought be allowed to marry because the world is overpopulated, and they won't have children.
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
Hi TheNakedAtheist, so do you think you ought to obey the law even if you won't get caught? If not, that's pretty scarey.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I added a second part to my comment. You may not have seen it before you replied so I'll expand on it.
Of course I think we should obey laws even if getting caught isn't an issue, but I think we should because I have empathy, and because there are rational argument as to why it's beneficial, but I also realize those arguments will probably be meaningless to a sociopath.
A solid rational argument still doesn't make it a capital O Ought. It's still contingent on caring about the benefits.
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
Hi TheNakedAtheist, yeah I see it now; sometimes these comments take a while to show up. I agree, its not a rational argument which creates these Oughts, nor is it any way the world is. It has more to do with the way we want the world to be, but that's not the whole story either, because we could want bad things to come to pass too.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
It seems to me that bad by definition is things we don't want to come to pass.
How else would we define bad?
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
Hi TheNakedAtheist, can you think of anything which somebody or some society might want to come to pass, but neverthelesss, you would still call it "bad"?
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
You said "WE might want bad things to come to pass", and I said WE wouldn't consider them bad if we wanted then to come to pass.
I wasn't talking about THEM, they'll always do "evil" crap. The only way to stop that is for us all to be on the same team. :p
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
LOL well of course, you are right if WE arn't evil :-) but we could be (and often are) evil, and we want evil things to come to pass. Look at how many people are rejoycing in the evil which has befallen Michael Jackson. If you asked George Bush, I'm sure he would tell you murder was wrong, but he wanted to kill untold numbers of iraqi's. Let me put it more snappy: if good=what we want to come to pass, that means we could be in error about what was right and wrong. But we can be wrong.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I'm not just saying the consequences of law or even society at large serve as the reason for oughtness alone. I'm saying we have evolved to become very good avoiders, and that we are capable of avoiding decisions we know will culminate with consequences we see as unfit, whether it be not killing mothers out of fear for the law's consequences or out of fear for personal consequences (i.e. losing one's mother...).
BoStevoD 2 years ago
"we have evolved to become very good avoiders"
Hmm, A Dennet fan perchance?
sammcalpine 2 years ago
continued....
there are so many examples that you really have to wonder about what mathematics actually is. mathematics seems to be a part of nature that we can discover simply by doing mathematics, without even looking at nature. and then all the connections come later, even highly unexepcted ones, noone ever expected to find something like a "multiplicative group of integers modulo n" in nature. now its part of the standart model and apparently describes some properties of particles.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
Hi kurtlein3, platonism in mathematics has a long and venerable history, and even Goedel thought that his incompleteness theorem was evidence for it. Personally, though, I remain unconvinced... I think it was an act of creative genius the first time somebody put 1 stone, one fist, one cloud, one sunset (these are things which have literally nothing in common) into the same bucket and says "I'll call this quantity of things 1". I think math is just exploring the ramifications of that idea.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
i think this concept of 3 universes is quite useful, i dont know if its well-known or not, i picked it up in a book about the laws of nature by roger penrose.
the first one would be all the stuff in our minds, all the memes. the second one would be mathematics. the third one would be actual physical reality.
now there are the following connections: everything in the physical realm can be described using mathematics, while just some of it can be observed directly by us. (to be continued)
kurtilein3 2 years ago
... second comment
and everything in mathematics can (according to the model) be understood by us, while only some of the stuff in our minds is part of mathematics. and everything in our minds is part of physical reality, thats obvious, all on the surface of our planet (or a few miles above it). but only parts of physical reality do have a corresponding representation in our minds, what is not directly observable can only be filled in using the more complete view of reality mathematics offers.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
... third and last comment
i think it makes sense to put everything in those 3 categories, partly because if you apply it rigurously the naturalistic worldview directly follows from us. god would be a part of physical reality that cannot be asessed using mathematics, a violation. a soul would be something like a mind that is not part of physical reality, again a violation.
but it also means that mathematics is an aspect of reality interrelated to but not part of physical reality.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
okay, i need another comment, i just noticed that i forgot one of the connections...
not everything in mathematics does have something in physical reality corresponding to it.
and to sum it all up really quick: physical reality = A, mathematics = B, memes / the stuff in our minds = C. then C is a subset of A, A is a subset of B, and B is a subset of C. but it does not work in the other direction, otherwise we would be omniscient and omnipresent and other strange things would happen.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
no video for 5 months, and now suddenly... another video :)
but i think you need to seperate between oughts that we came up with, and mathematics and logic. i think mathematics and logic are obviously at least partially created by us, but also partially discovered. does it make sense to say that we invented fractals or fibonacci spirals or prime numbers when those can be found in broccoli and nautilus and 13- and 17-year periodical cicadas?
would seem arrogant to me. no, we discovered it.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
Randy,
You are absolutely correct when you say that "these sorts of oughts do not come apart from mind and intentions", the design part is incedental. Design merely shapes the functionality of a thing. It is intention that imbues it with it's purpose. Something can be completely undesigned and still have purpose and functionality IF there is an intentional mind which decides that the thing "ought" to serve a specific function.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
Hi Sammcalpine, I'll go along with that. I could try to stretch it by saying, e.g. that somebody who sits on a stone in a woods has just designed a chair, but perhaps that's stretching words too far.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Yeah, I think it is stretching words a bit too far to use "design" in that way. I work in a design field, so I am very aware of how we take preexisting things (designed or not) and then shape them to fit our specific requirements and goals and THAT is what we call design. And I think that calling the intention to use an object for a purpose "design" obfuscates this line that we are trying to draw with regard to how human intentionality can explain the existence of these kinds of "oughts".
sammcalpine 2 years ago
No offense, but I didn't hear anything new. I thought I heard the same thing in most of the responses. Cristofer7 for example said almost exactly the same thing at the beginning of his video response, even though he wasn't taking veritas seriously.
Maybe it's just so basic to me that I assume it's implied. I also assume veritas' reply would be that we can't do it because it wouldn't be an objective absolute ought, like Gods ought would be, so explaining it to him is pointless anyway.
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
continued....
I wanted to clarify that these oughts that we create are always based on what we want to achieve.
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
Hi TheNakedAtheist, perhaps you are right; I certainly didn't have time to watch all the responses to ver's vid, so this might be ground tread already. I just made this vid because Ver asked the question how does an atheist account for rational oughts, so I thought I'd answer that.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
It's great to see a new Randy Vid... You always get me thinking. ^_^
StevenErnest 2 years ago
Thanks Steven, glad to know you've got the big ears on.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Hi Randy. I disagree strongly, this was one of the weakest videos i've seen from Veritas.
"Where the hell do these oughts come from?"
I do understand the 'problem'. The answer is "What oughts?".
There is no good reason to believe that unconditional oughts, of the kind V is talking about, exist.
bitbutter 2 years ago
Hi bitbutter, its not clear to me that Veritas is talking about unconditional oughts. If God is the source of these oughts, then they are conditional on God. They wouldn't be essentially any different from the oughts promulgated by a king or congress, or any other legitimate authority. Which is why I still don't see why God has to underwrite these, why can we create authorities here to underwrite them?
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Ok i see.
bitbutter 2 years ago
I think this might be clearer if we make a subtle distinction here. I'm not so sure the oughtness in Moreland's brake example comes from the designer of the brake. It seems to me the oughtness comes from the driver of the car. In these terms I think the point you're trying to make becomes much, much clearer, and likewise Veritas' error becomes much, much clearer. The driver's intentions and the engineer's intentions match, so it looks like the oughtness comes from the engineer. It doesn't.
ianw115 2 years ago
Hi ianw115, do you think a driver could misuse a brake? For example, if I drive away with my emergency brake engaged, have I misused the brake? If so, its not the driver who dictates, its the designer.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
You've only misused it if you want your car to last as long, your emergency brake to last as long, if you want your gas mileage to be as good as it would be if you hadn't driven away with your emergency brake engaged. The designer certainly shapes the car to have certain optimal functions but it is the user of a tool who decides if he has "misused it"
sammcalpine 2 years ago
There is some shared sense of "proper" use of a designed thing in some cases, especially if the user is not the same as the owner. If I borrow your car and drive it with the emergency brake engaged then you are certainly going to think that I've misused your car. But that is because it is your intention to get as much use out of your car as possible and I've unnecessarily destroyed some of it's usefulness.
sammcalpine 2 years ago
I'm not sure, it seems to me like it hinges on what you are using the brakes for. Granted, we really only use brakes for what they were designed to do, but that's my point, the structure of Moreland's example lends itself very favorably to the idea that oughtness comes from the designer. But all you really need to do is think of a thing not designed that has, or can have, a specific use, or something that IS designed but has clear alternative uses.
ianw115 2 years ago
Like, just off the top of my head, take newspaper. Newspapers are designed to be read. But, I could for example use newspaper to start a fire. This would of course make the paper unreadable, but I don't think you could say I'm misusing the newspaper here, or that if there was a design error (say it was issued unreadable for some reason) it would have anything to do with my use for it. It wouldn't be dysfunctional unless it failed to catch fire.
ianw115 2 years ago
Or, to take the example further, say I see you reading a newspaper, and I ask you what you're doing and you say "I'm trying to start a fire." In this case, to go back to your original question, you absolutely would be misusing the item in question (you aren't using it the way it _ought_ to be used), even though you are using it the way it was _designed_ to be used.
ianw115 2 years ago
I missed watching your videos Randy ;)
bwhahrhr 2 years ago
:-) thanks bwhahrhr.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
You're back!
AmericanApostate 2 years ago
lol :-)
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Really appreciate this response Randy. I was hoping I could get you out of hiding eventually.
Veritas48 2 years ago 3
ha Noah, you are apparently the only one who can :-) thanks for getting us all thinking.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Glad to see a new video, and I agree, the question if is and ought is hard to answer.
DeletedDelusion 2 years ago
Thanks DeletedDelusion!
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Interesting vid, Randy. I saw your comments on V48's first vid, stating the position you did here. I agree that oughts are a human invention, but a human invention for what? Aren't they invented to fulfill the conditions of hypothetical imperatives, much as many atheists were arguing? Oughts for conflict management, oughts for representing reality as best we can, for abiding by consensus principles etc.
What am I missing?
riversonthemoon 2 years ago
Great to see you making videos again. I trust that we won't have to wait another few months for another.
:-)
riversonthemoon 2 years ago
They are for making us the sorts of people and society we feel we should be. The main point is that they are not derived by syllogistic reasoning from physical facts, they are invented by us, they are something we do, rather than something we conclude.
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
I have been thinking about this case for 'ought to be's' and I've come to the same conclusion that you have. I really appreciate you laying the groundwork for questioning supposed foundations. It really challenges us all to think. Love you randy.
thinkmorepink 2 years ago
Shan!!
randyhelzerman 2 years ago
Language did not exist prior to human beings? What an absurd claim.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
- John 1:1
:-P
LennyBound 2 years ago
LOL touche'
randyhelzerman 2 years ago