A Critique of Natural Moral Realism

Special thanks to Maximus Confesses for reviewing and helping with the content for this video. To follow Max, and a bunch of other Catholic writers, for their posts and dank memes, subscribe over on medium, and/or like their Facebook group:

Sources:

Moral Realism - Kevin DeLapp

Principia Ethics - G. E. Moore

Intentionality - John Searle

Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong - J. L. Mackie

Morality, Politics, and Law - Michael J. Perry

Metaethics: An Introduction - Andrew Fisher

Moral Realism: A Defense - Russ Shafer-Landau

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[hewhositsuponfroggychair]

well-being well-being well-being, well-being wellbeing.

[proud_proletarian]

Excellent explanation and presentation as usual IP. Thank you for these.

[ricktane]

No one:

Nobody:

Not a single soul:

IP: hypossesis

[Nithin_sp]

Mannnn! I was struggling against Naturalists with their Moral Realistic claims and how their worldview is compatible with both subjective and objective morality 😑 You really are a life saver! ❤️ Btw, Please update this video with new updates 🙏🏻 God bless ☺️

[tangerinesarebetterthanora]

Pain is not innately bad. Growing pains are necessary for people to grow into adulthood. Muscles tear after lifting weights makes them bigger and stronger. In order to overcome anything important pain or at least discomfort is necessary.

[meh_sgb]

"The moral landscape" is a naturalistic moral realism, isn't it ?

[withoutlimits]

Watching this after watching WLC destroy Sam Harris

[stayinawesum]

hey IP, im goin for my higher studies and just curious which courses did u took, and what do u do for living im asking this because u r very knowledgeable and that requires lot of money for books( i know u didn't bought all at once of course, but still), im not a book guy so im just ignorant

[karl]

IP you should put it in the playlist God, Morality and ethics. This is important because it is popular

[cunjoz]

It seems to me that if we take categorical imperative or doing good for the sake of good itself as an absolute, moral goodness has no consequences outside of itself and thus we empty goodness and virtue of all meaning and purpose.

And if doing good for the sake of good itself is the principle, one can always ask the questions: "Is it good to do good for the sake of good itself? If it is, why? If it isn't, why is it not?" And ultimately: "Is it (morally) good to do (moral) good? If yes, why? If no, why?"

[mikecheswick]

was with you up until the end when you tried to list examples of altruistic acts that "dont benefit the performer".

all those acts benefit the performer. had the person not done the action, they would have felt guilt and regret. and/or doing the action gave them some positive feeling of some sort. youre ignoring those benefits and are instead using some superficial definition of "benefit" that doesnt include psychological rewards in order to suit your argument.

[Tdisputations]

In my view, the good is that which fulfills a natural end. With respect to humans, the word "desire" means the characteristic of the intellect as being directed to some end. When that end is reached, there is a sort of rest, which we call happiness. Since I think we can determined what these ends are by looking at nature, I'll address what you say in this video.

@3:11 So, this entire section can be reduced to the is/ought problem. You are asking, 'why ought we do that which fulfills our natural end?' The reason is because that will make us happy. We should do that which will ultimately make us maximally happy.

Why should we do that? At this point, this breaks down into a matter of fact. Everyone who acts is ultimately acting for happiness necessarily. It is a matter of fact that people are ultimately seeking for all of their desires to be fulfilled. It is a matter of fact that people act because they are directed to some end by their nature. You can ask, 'why are people seeking for all of their desires to be fulfilled, ' or 'why are people directed to some end by their nature, ' but that isn't a moral question. We have absolutely no choice in the matter, and so it is outside of the realm of morality, but that doesn't mean that there is no reason for us to act in accordance with this natural law.

@7:22 I think categorical imperatives refer to a real feeling that we have. I think that most of us have negative feelings regarding incest, for example. I don't think that we primarily think about the fact that incest could be quite a risk for our happiness when we decide not to engage in it. I think the reason we have these feelings is because of biological and social reasons. In other words, because it was selectively favorable for us to have negative feelings towards incest, these feelings were engraved into our genetic code, and because it was beneficial for society as a whole, people in society have told us that incest is gross.

Now, usually, these feelings that we ought to do something are enough for moral actions, but are they always? The obvious answer is no. In communist China, for example, people felt that they ought to actually worship Chairman Mao. They felt a great deal of loyalty, and a duty to perform actually objectively wrong actions to obtain the communist state. This was due to brainwashing. And you can find many examples of people's feeling about what they ought to do being clearly wrong (e.g. gay marriage, transgenderism, immigration laws, feminism, etc.).

My position would be that these feelings are sometimes good, and sometimes bad. Since we have the ability to think rationally, we should use our reason to determine whether these feelings are in accordance with our striving to obtain the ultimate good (aka God). When they are valid, categorical imperatives do not refer to a new kind of morality which is disconnected from happiness, but simply a case where you do not see the connection to happiness.

@9:35 There are two possibilities when it comes to altruism:

1) Altruism is due to a feeling which is ingrained into us because it was selectively, or socially beneficial. It isn't actually morally good to save the enemy soldier regardless of how you feel about it, unless that feeling has some role in your happiness.

2) Altruism is actually good because acting altruistically will ultimately lead to happiness in the next life because it is God's will that we act altruistically.

@10:53 Because we don't actually have a choice about what makes us happy. What makes us happy is grounded in our nature, which is the will of God. People these days think that any self-determined end can lead to happiness, but that is clearly false. You can will all you want to sleep out in the cold without anything to keep you warm, for example, but you will not be happy because you are directed by your nature to stay warm. Human happiness is determined by natural ends much more than people are willing to admit today in an age of radical freedom, and subjectivism.

[RanchengLu]

Kant is moral constructivist..it is quite weird to use categorical imperative to justify moral naturalism, as Kant doesn't essentially believe that moral truths are knowable, categorical imperative is used in a practical sense.

[TheBrunarr]

G.E. Moore's argument is essentially a modal argument, because it basically says that it is possible that good and bad aren't identical to pleasure and pain, and since identity is a necessary relation then good and bad are in fact not identical to pleasure and pain (or whatever natural property), and I think it does prove ethical naturalism false.

[dragonsagesummoner]

So let me present this idea for consideration for the is/out problem.

The universe is completely definable in terms of matter and energy. And there are physical laws that determine who energy works in a closed system. There are really only 2 states: ordered entropy states and chaotic entropy states. I submitted when we say we should do something, that something is an energy input in to a system, and should would be how that energy influences the chaos or order of the system.

I submitted evolution has determined that ordered entropy states benefit life while disordered entropy states at least don’t provide any benefit and potentially harm life.

[BlackPhillip]

Elevator background music is bad, naturally.

[RustyShacklefordistheman]

Great video, one complaint is that you mispronounced John Searl's last name.

Aside from that, amazing!

[fujiapple]

If only Cosmic Skeptic had watched 4:34-5:08, maybe he would not be a non-cognitivist.

[TheBabyDerp]

A video about why/how God exists would be nice. Although I don't think that's a question that is answerable. That question drives me crazy and creates doubt.

[OzanYarman]

It is pleasing to see traces of Kantian deontology here. We do good deeds not because it makes us feel goor or because it is beneficial to us or the ones we care, but because it is a prescribed DUTY. As a result of this conclusion, we see that almost everybody is in dereliction of their DUTY to do good, and reciprocate in goodness and kindness. The bleak conclusion is, everybody knows what morality is, what right and wrong is, but cannot follow through with their DUTY to do good and avoid bad most of the time.