Moral Disagreement

Moral disagreement is often taken by laypersons to pose a serious challenge to moral realism. Although professional philosophers tend to be more dismissive of this argument, there are a variety of different ways of using moral disagreement against the realist, so it worth examining this problem in detail. This video examines several arguments from disagreement.

Contents:

0:00 - Introduction
Eight arguments from disagreement:
5:23 - Tolerance
8:49 - Self-evidence
11:02 - Inference to the best explanation
22:21 - The semantic argument
26:55 - Absence of a method for resolving disagreement
38:16 - Rationally irresolvable disagreement
44:16 - Undermining realist epistemology
48:38 - Moral intransigence
Two general problems for disagreement arguments:
1:03:26 - Self-defeat
1:05:29 - Moral agreement

[ThatGuyWithHippyHair]

Wow, your ability to fairly represent moral realism despite disagreeing with it strongly is impressive.

[LittOnTheFifty]

Just found this channel and I'm here to stay! Great work -- excited to start going through it! :)

[GodisgudAQW]

On the moral peer intransigence argument against moral realism, I want to make sure my reason for rejecting it is sound. I would argue against P2 (that peer-intransigent judgments are not beliefs).

Just because one's judgment is unchanging does not necessarily mean that it did not track evidence to the contrary. It is possible to dismiss counter-evidence when the contrary evidence is perfectly accounted for by other evidence that leads to a certain belief.

For instance, I believe that the Earth is round. However, the fact is, whenever I look at the landscape around me, all I see is flatness. Thus, my immediate visual sensory information gives me evidence contrary to my belief that the Earth is round. However, other evidence for the roundness of the Earth is compatible with the perceived flatness of the landscape around me, so my belief of the Earth's roundness is completely intransigent to this counter-evidence. Nevertheless, the fact that my belief did not move in the slightest to this counter-evidence does not entail that my judgment that the Earth is round is not a belief.

Now, of course my example was not a case where the counter-evidence was perceived peer disagreement. However, I have demonstrated that, in principle, it is possible to account for contrary evidence without being moved in the slightest, particularly when counter-evidence is compatible with the required minimally consistent set of facts that lead to the opposite judgment.

Therefore, is it not possible that Putnam's perceived peer disagreement counts as evidence, but that Putnam tracks this evidence in such a way that is compatible with his other foundational facts and beliefs that lead him to the opposite conclusions of Nozick?

But, you may argue, the fact is that the seed of disagreement is on something more foundational, what Putnam called a difference in "moral sensibility." All this means is that if you start from different axioms/foundational beliefs, the objective conclusions entailed will differ. This is true both in morality, philosophy, science, and everything objective in life.

So intransigence need not comment on evidence tracking.

[DarkSideoftheMeta]

I wonder what your thoughts would be on Justin Horn's argument from disagreement. I find their argument to be a fairly plausible argument in favor of first-order moral skepticism.

[eternalbyzantium]

Could you do a video on human rights and national sovereignty?

[Wouda_fr]

Hello Kane B

Thanks for the good work.

Around 1:01:00 you quote three different definition of what evidence can mean I didn't understand the last name you quoted can you give me the detail please ?

Thanks a lot

[ashwanigarg]

Can you please answer this out a case in which there is a genuine moral disagreement. Why do you think there
is a moral disagreement in the case?

[e]

There are no partial moral realists, in the manner your epistemic attitude can vary in science?

[squatch]

Re: definition of moral realism. I thought there was a difference between 'realism' and 'objectivity' philosophically speaking?

[Ansatz]

In some places this video makes it sound like moral realism claims that our opinions be true, while in other places it seems less clear on that point.

1:21 "The moral realist is committed to holding that in principle everyone might be wrong about what the moral facts are."

But if everyone were wrong, then it would mean that no moral propositions are known to be true. Wouldn't that make moral realism false?

19:24 "The points raised by the realist will threaten the justification for the realists own beliefs, because the realist is also going to be subject to biases.... So the realist is going to show that her circumstances are such as to mitigate these distorting effects."

But why should the realist be burdened with that? This seems to be saying that the realist claims that her beliefs are knowledge even if so many others have false beliefs. Is this claim part of realism? It seems more natural that upon recognizing that moral propositions can be objectively true or false, therefore anyone might be mistaken about the actual truth of such propositions, including the realist herself.

[kravitzn]

Why is it irrational to be in favor of e.g. slavery?

[kravitzn]

A very long winded apologia for western chauvanism.