The Queerness Argument Against Moral Realism
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- J. L. Mackie's queerness argument is one of the most influential arguments against moral realism. This video outlines some different ways of interpreting the queerness argument.
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0:00 - The queerness argument
4:32 - Metaphysical queerness
7:17 - Non-naturalism
9:29 - Inexplicability
13:28 - Occam's razor
17:37 - Supervenience
28:18 - Motivational force
32:45 - Irreducible normativity
42:24 - The way the world should be
49:34 - Epistemological queerness
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As a raging homosexual, I can confirm moral realism has been abolished.
A lot of people out there want to subject you to their morality while claiming that they are being objective.
The argument:
'thats gay'
'oh shit!!!'
I thought that the queerness argument was just when you call you oponent gay when they say that they are a devine comand theorist.
Divine command theorists aren't just gay, they're the filthiest people alive.
Certified hood classic
Yessss, been thinking about this argument nonstop these past few days
Not too long ago, I found a CZcams video where they had Jonas Olson as a guest, and the host gave a very interesting characterization of the queerness argument. He called it a "reverse Moorean argument". Surprisingly, Olson agreed with this characterization, which I find really amusing.
I can only imagine a debate where the error theorists tells the realist: "You think 'torturing babies for fun is wrong' is self-evident? Surely you can do better. How about this: 'objective prescriptivity is garbage'. Now, THAT is obvious. More obvious than any philosophical claim could hope to be!".
On a more serious note, this might explain why I've always been a bit suspicious of queerness arguments despite being sympathetic towards moral error theories. I find Moorean arguments in general to be really unsatisfying (though, I cannot necessarily point out what's wrong with them).
I have a friend who sometimes talks about "evil Moorean facts", where these are like Moorean facts except they support skeptical conclusions. For example, while it's a Moorean fact that I have hands, it's an evil Moorean Fact that there's clearly nothing I can do to tell whether these are really hands of if I'm just hallucinating or deceived in some other skeptical scenario. So maybe the queerness of objective prescriptivity is another evil Moorean fact.
@@KaneB I think Moore would just grant this evil fact. We don't believe in the external world hypothesis because of empirical data, but because all the other hypotheses either rest on highly contentious premises (e.g. the simulation hypothesis rests on the substrate independence thesis which loads of philosophers of mind reject) or are intrinsically insanely unlikely (e.g. Descartes' demon)
@@dominiks5068 I think that's kinda the point, though. The idea isn't to refute the common sense hypothesis. It's simply to counter the Moorean appeal to supposedly obvious facts that establish the common sense hypothesis, so that we force the argument back onto the sort of terrain you describe there, where we have to assess hypotheses on the basis of theoretical virtues or try to make probability assignments, or whatever.
I would say what's wrong is that it isn't an argument at all. I mean you can format as an argument but the heart of it is just the claim that "x is wrong" where x is something everyone likely agrees with.
It's basically dismissing any skepticism at the gate. We have perfectly scientific explanations for *why* we have moral beliefs, there's no mystery why people (act as though they...?) believe certain moral sentiments. Moore is ignoring these explanations and basically claiming, "You experience rightness and wrongness as much as you experience anything else, therefore we should not question it unless we're going to question our basic interface with reality."
Maybe it is an argument... Either way.
Do moral realists believe moral facts always existed, or exists out of time ? Like it's seems queer that the fact "deepfake images are wrong" exists prior of us inventing deepfakes. What if we didn't, would it still be a fact, and what would it mean ?
Babe wake up new Kane B metaethics video jus dropped
You know what's really queer, by all these definitions of queerness? Consciousness. Yet I can guarantee that at least one exists 😃
Banger
What do you think about transcendental argument, are you familiar with Jay Dyer?
Yessss!
I don't belive in irreducible normative facts because if they don’t causal power then we wouldn't be able to discover them.
On the other hand, if they do have causal power then they are simply a kind of object of nature, there's nothing normative about them.
I never heard about any form of normative facts that have causal power and also is irreducible to descriptive facts.
❤
The big problem is that the metaethical arguement against morality is a moral argument, because if error theory is true, then torture babies or stuff like that are false, but that seems a infamous moral argument. Whole metaethics rest on a mistake based on the distinction between moral statements and “pure” metaethical statements.
It is wrong to say, that one would Not necessarily do, what one has understood as Something that ought to be done, for 'ought to do' means nothing else then 'good/right' , and everyone by all their capacity would do, what seems good. The crux lies in the Question, If one has really understood this to be so, for If i only know, that it would be demanded from me, but i dont see the Truth in it myself, i would not understand it really, If it is in fact good or Bad. It is needed to know the ground of all morality to understand it really.
couldn't you say that moral properties, under the lining of elevational theory as to create them, are no different than any judgment if any so decision can be morally acted upon. Therefore based on any cause is such morality. The idea that morality cannot be of the world is one that can only allow certain statements to be considered moral decisions. And there for limiting morally to the abstract.
I
just because you express incredulity does not mean you have an argument. a platonist or theist could ground their moral seeming that way ontologically. pointing to relativism ( different cultures supposedly have different moral rules) doesn't mean there is not a set of true moral declarative statements and therefore a fact of the matter about it. (see the work of Robert Adams, William Alston, and William lane craig.) also, naturalism cannot ground meta-ethical claims, see the debate between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. they have to deal with the is-ought problem and identity issues (good is not natural property x in all possible worlds).
One of the major issues with non naturalism has to be that no scientific study can provide evidence for or against. If so, any moral theory under non naturalism, the strongest case you can make for it is loud shouting, as you've eliminated any stronger position.
Note: the domain of mathematics is both scientific and non-natural. However, stuff that is exclusively in this domain is eternal and unchanging, or in other words, you can't do anything about bad moral situations so you have no moral responsibility or need.
Just to be 100% clear, if physical actions affect how bad or good a situations is (and this change is measurable or deducible in any way), that is scientifically reachable. You can build a study around that. Morality is made natural by this link. This is a hard definitional link. The only way around this would be to redefine words like naturalism.
The “small” problem is that Mackie’s error theory is fighting a straw man: morality seems “queer” because Mackie believes that is implausible that some “moral objects” or “moral particles” exists on a metaphysical level. But if you turn to philosophies like Hegel, Kant, Rawls, Dworkin, Levinas, Derrida or Aristoteles, they dont argue that this moral particles exist so… why we must follow error theory?
Hegel, who thinks politics "shows" truth to society. Strange how they act inside political dynamics, arguments don't work using classical logic (always contradiction or contigency) and the agressive behaviour when you pointing out
@@ingridsantos7815 ?
Привет ютуб
morality has evolutionary biology roots. the need to please other humans is a sense in of itself, we just haven't found the sensory organ or the neurological structure that facilitates it. these effects are so powerful in our consciousness that it is engrained in our instincts and standard intuition, this is probably because social cohesion is paramount in survival. interactions with other humans can result in your deliverance or your downfall; moral decisions are all downstream from this basic evolutionary reality, whether we realize it or not.
Moral realism always seemed like a very lazy and arrogant opinion to me. It is literally believing that your particular values are not your own, but those of the world itself; in the same way that many religious people believe that their values are not their own, but those of God. With this I do not mean that all values are equally acceptable, because there are some values that, if everyone agrees to follow them, are much more efficient in organizing society and satisfying the desires and needs of the people in it; but believing that these values exist in the fabric of reality, in a literal sense, is too big of a leap and also completely unnecessary.
that's a pretty unfair ad hominem
Would you say the same about other beliefs? That is, realism in any domain involves assuming that your representations are not your own, but those of the world itself, in the sense that your representations "match" the world or "carve the world at its joints" so the world itself has the structure of your representations. Is there a difference between moral realism and other realisms here?
@@KaneB "Is there a difference between moral realism and other realisms here?"
Non-moral perceptions are more or less the same across all people and cultures. It would be very rare for a person to see a cow where I see a tree. Our non-moral perceptions almost always agree, even if we disagree on the theories or concepts we use to make sense of said perceptions. But moral "perceptions" in themselves are different across people and cultures, prior to any theory of morality we use to make sense of them. It's the exact same reason why we all think that personal preferences about ice-crem flavor are not objective and do not exist in the fabric of reality.
Desires and needs? Are these real needs or perceived needs?
Why should we care if beliefs are efficient or desire satisfying?
Quantum physics isnt a good analogy. Even the founders of QM only accepted it after decades of exhausting every possibly alternative explanation, no such attempts at falsification are possible in ethics.
Before anyone deals with the metaphysics of morality or the epistemology of morality, they should always deal with the semantics of morality. It does no good to try to talk about morality without a clear understanding of what the word "morality" means. All moral language is highly controversial in its meaning, so we cannot depend upon people all agreeing upon what these words mean. We don't have to _settle_ such controversy, but we should at least clarify how we are resolving the controversy for the purpose of this particular argument. What do words like "good", "bad", "ought", "should", "moral", "immoral" mean to Mackie?
Mackie agrees with the non-naturalist analysis of the semantics.
@@KaneB : I must admit that I have little idea what non-naturalists mean by moral language. I imagine it's some sort of spooky spirit stuff. Obviously it is something objective, but that hardly narrows it down. Trying to figure out what non-naturalists mean by "morality" seems a bit like trying to figure out what libertarians mean by "free will."
We shouldn't believe in things if they are problematic? Idk, sounds like realism to me
Perhaps you have noticed that from a moral point of view, how you see yourself morally has no relevance. You are only socially moral.
What is relevant is society's reaction to your individual behaviors.
Your moral reaction to your own behaviors is secondary. Your shame or your expressions of guilt have almost no effect on the reactions of the people in your society.
If you kill, your regret, shame or feeling of guilt plays a minimal role in the general indignation that your act produced and the punishment to be applied. They are minimal mitigating factors.
Morality is the rules you must follow so that your society does not kill you or take away your freedom.
Individual moral conflict is the tension between your supposed internal morality (what you have learned you must do so that your society does not kill you), the motives of your agency, and what will actually make your society turn against you.
Morality is what allows you to survive among individuals of your own species, who are very aggressive if they get upset. It's what your parents teach you about what bothers your group, along with biological instincts developed during evolution. All combined to give you a better chance of surviving in a group with idiosyncratic likes and dislikes.
Morals are not an ethereal and abstract guide that resides on an ideal plane that is accessed transcendentally.
My opinion :)
In treating morality as a “survival guide to live in society” you are collapsing morality and right: penal laws take your life and liberty in some cases, but moral principles doesn’t.
@@nicolasavila6047 I do not treat morality (the criterion that distinguishes good human actions from bad ones) as a guide to living in society. I do not believe that there is a universal guide to living in society. I do not believe that the purpose of morality is social harmony. I believe that the origins of morality are the warnings that parents instill in their children to give them a greater chance of surviving gangs of humans (from their society) angry about certain behaviors that motivate them to attack in groups. We are a biological species with instinctive behaviors as the basis on which cultural teachings are based.
Morals begin as warnings to offspring and you may notice these behaviors in other species. Humans react as an aggressive group to the offender of their sensibilities. That's what morality tries to avoid.
You should take a look at human society.
The confusion is understandable, but a cold look at our species would let you see the behavioral patterns and their causes.
I think that slavery is wrong because it's more likely that it will cause more problems for distant future conscious entities, compared to if it is abolished. Since the past cannot be changed, we shouldn't worry about it too much. We can only change the present, and plan for the future and execute the plans when their time has come.
one of the worst arguments in the history of philosophy
It's not a good argument, but there are no good arguments in metaethics. I don't think it's much worse than many other famous arguments in this field, like companions in guilt, or the evolutionary debunking argument, or the open question argument.
@@KaneBJust curious, but why do you think that there are no good arguments in metaethics? Do you mean no good theories, or just that the arguments for those theories are poor?
Goodness must be treated analogous to Truth. Truth cannot be subjective, therefore it is objective, for it cannot be either subjective, nor nothing, as it would be a contradiction. Truth might Well be the 'sound' Relation of thought to reality. Analogous to this theoretical Relation, Goodness might Well be the practical Relation of volition to purpouse. Goodness must therefore be objective, for it cannot be either subjective, nor nothing, as it would be contradictory. It would be so, because no purpouse could be reached If postulated by oneself, as no Truth lies in Imagination. It can also be nothing, as we are creatures with volition, for we are living creatures. To now ultimately know goodness and truth, one must know the ultimate reality and the Ultimate purpouse. Both now must be in accordance with each other, for No ultimate Purpouse could be found, if it is Impossible.
The Reason why Humans are by far the Most affected by Moral and epistemic reasoning lies in the capability to grasp the ultimate by their mind.
Following Kant, 'should' is nothing more then 'want', only in an ultimate Sense.
moral realism is gay