Consciousness and Moral Realism | with Sharon Rawlette PhD

Does moral truth exist? In this episode of Waking Cosmos I talk to the philosopher Sharon Rawlette about her work on moral realism and consciousness, and her pursuit of a universal ethical theory grounded in the intrinsic value of conscious states. We discuss her book, The Feeling of Value, utilitarianism, the deep nature of value, hedonism, darwinian suffering, and Sharon’s belief in the teleological (purpose-driven) nature of reality.

00:00 Introduction
01:52 Defining Consciousness
04:20 The Feeling of Value
08:47 Moral Realism
19:14 Fundamental Consciousness and Ontological Value
25:25 Hedonism
28:39 Utilitarianism
43:21 Ethics and Personal Identity
53:09 Transhumanism and Paradise Engineering
59:15 Longtermism
01:06:57 Darwinian Suffering and Conscious Evolution
01:14:29 Meaningful Coincidences and "Synchronicity"
01:23:40 Outro

[fredfunk]

your documentaries are one of the most enjoyable things i experience these days!! keep up the fantastic work, uve made a fan for life!!!

[midi]

The last thing Sharon said is where my ideas begin., but I just have one thing I want to assert here. Pain and suffering are completely different things. Suffering is a comparison between what is and what you think should be. It's a result of not being present. if you are completly present, you will feel pain, but there will be no judgment about what it means. We continually program ourselves with judgments about what everything means, yet are unaware that we always have a choice as to whether we react to any given situation and how to react if we choose to react. We've just been trained that our reactions are given. They are not.

[ughalyx]

I've been hoping you would post again

[AmidstTheLight]

I hold my intuition of moral realism serious enough to try to fight for a perennial perspective. I'm definitely going to look into Dr. Rawlette's books to further my search. I don't necessarily consider the position to be one of utilitarian more than essentialist, but this could be my lack of understanding. All religions are examples of moral realist expressions as they are the outward ethical manifestation of deeper truths. The obvious differences between traditions I think does fit together well with the asymmetrical nature of our brains that Dr. Ian McGilchrist's espouses in The Master and his Emissary thesis and Carl Jung's process of individuation. There is something compelling in the coincidence of opposites that maps to most of, if not all, systems that highlights the need to grapple with the unity of unity and nonunity. To only discuss pleasure and pain for me sounds just like what Sam Harris is about. Correct me if I'm wrong but the core to this conclusion denies.. well something I can't articulate yet. Tradition and progress are certainly at stake here. Again we are talking about a coincidence of opposites, or a duality. Pain can be very meaningful, but is pain evil? I believe without a doubt that evil exists as does pain, but I wouldn't equate them unequivocally. If I'm honest the pain I endure day to day isn't evil but if I had the pain of witnessing one of my children in pain I'd consider that evil. Pastor Paul Vanderklay told his audience the other day about a woman he used to visit who was blind and deformed from cancer. She lived in a nursing home for like 25 years and she would express the deepest love of Jesus. She said she was blessed by him and had a great relationship with him. Paul was there originally to try to help the residents find peace before they passed away, and yet here she was, a cripple who was deformed and drooling on herself, a woman who the new nurses would be sent to in order to see if they could handle being in a place like this, a blessing to Paul. Is this kind of revelation irrational? Just recently I watched Beauty and the Beast with my daughter and wife. Paul's real story of his friend is reminiscent of the old haggard and revolting woman whom the prince had turned away from his castle at the beginning of the fairy tale. In much of the same way this also reminds me of the prince who witnessed suffering for the first time in India and instead of turning away dedicated himself to facing it. The first prince is cursed for denying suffering, while the second was the Buddha. Anything I've ever accomplished has had some amount of pain involved and through it I've progressed. My wife is currently tending to a haggard woman who is given up on by society. I too know I'm a Moral Realist as well, but I guess I'm still rooted in Essentialism over Utilitarianism. Again an asymmetrical coincidence of opposites I guess. Thanks for this discussion and I think I'm missing something.

[neoman]

Wow I was about to get her book after finishing Mind and Cosmos, and now you upload this! Thank you so much <3

[hitaloaquino]

welcome back sensei!

Hítalo from Brazil 🇧🇷

[alim_j]

Great keep going!!! Please upload more frequently! Hello from Uzbekistan 🇺🇿

[sambo]

I'd been meaning to listen to that for a long time, it was a really interesting and thought provoking conversation!

[BigWill]

Welcome back! Yet another excellent, thought-provoking interview. I hope that you will have her back again soon.

[MutantMessiah]

This was awesome. I'm definitely grabbing her books.

[troytice]

Can't wait to listen to this. Please interview Jeffrey J. Kripal!

[GrahaminKorea]

This was such a great interview! Brilliant, insightful questioning as ever. So glad you’re back on YouTube!

[Polaris_Videos]

Can't wait to listen to this later

[jasonhumber]

I just remembered this channel yesterday and realized I hadnt seen a notification in literally forever. I went to see if youtube had unsubscribed me again and I was sad to see that he just hadnt uploaded in 9 months. Im happy your not done its a great unique channel. What are the chances you uploaded the very next day!

[DW-ngke]

Glad to see you’re back. I love your conversations and documentaries. ❤ fascinating conversation, gonna put her book on my reading list.

[ymgisi]

This was a great conversation. I really like the both of you.

[nathanyadon]

Wonderful interview Adrian! 
Adrian, have you read Franz Brentano's books "The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong" and "The Foundation and Construction of Ethics"? Much of what Sharon said here concords well with Brentano's insight. Brentano subsumes virtue ethics into his utilitarianism. Since I've always had strong intuitions towards both, he was able to persuade me to adopt his 'pluralistic' utilitarianism. Anyhow, thought I'd bring it to your attention just in case. 
Fyi, a helpful introduction to the cornerstone of Brentano's philosophy is his "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint" :)

[alexkennedy]

Regarding pleasure/pain, I think you also need to consider biological peptide releases in the body. Also regarding identity, you need to consider DNA/RNA memory and not just the brain's memory. I have also read that the heart is an important part of human identity. Then regarding transhumanism, would changing the measurement parameters of pleasure and pain (eliminating pain as we choose to define it today) actually change anything because the low pleasure may be equal to pain in the new measurement scale and so "suffering" would continue to persist. The ideal is existing as pure consciousness but then there would be no reason to exist. Ergo, we exist to experience suffering and pleasure to give meaning to existence but not only to the existence of ourselves but also to the ideal.

[anxious_robot]

hi. are you alive and conscious still? i just found this channel and love it. i believe we're in a sim and our consciousness is here to bring reality into existence.

[johngrundowski]

GREAT, thank you. Tough concepts to think about -_-_- but society MUST do the work ( before the decisions no longer exist ).