88. Hume's Guillotine & Rational Morality | THUNK

Hume saw problems using facts to justify morals. Learn about Hume's Guillotine & where reason fits in morality!

-Links for the Curious-

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[PyrosEnjoyPieHW]

"Leibniz's Lesbians" -An all female band which sounds like a bunch of screaming Renaissance men.

[tbrandonlane]

After watching this, I'm suspicious that I had to read hume in college or something, and forgot about the context, but somehow the points stuck. I have often found it incredibly difficult to give people advice, because I can't tell them if what they are doing is right or wrong until they first give me a definition of right or wrong that includes the specific situation they're referring to. On the other hand, if someone can state their goal, then it's much easier to come up with a logical process for determining if their actions are right or wrong, in the context of accomplishing that goal.

I also often find it difficult to talk about politics with people because of this. That is to say, if someone's definition of right is [insert political ideology], and their definition of wrong is anything but said ideology, then of course they can make a valid argument that that ideal is good, since "if P then P" is always the case, tautologically true.

I've always had these ideas filed away as post-modernism. But Hume was about a hundred years too early for that, yeah? I even just googled "hume post-modernism", and quickly glancing through the articles, it looks like a lot of other people have had similar thoughts, weird...

[Nightcoffee]

I had the very experience you speak of at 5:35 with the game Fallout 3. I false started a few times because I just kept dying and dying and dying. It put me off for a while. After a bit it dawned on me: I had been playing a lot of Skyrim. I had become accustomed to storming into a dungeon and smiting foes left and right. I sorted out that this was the wrong approach for Fallout. It's not about epic heroism, it's about survival and not attending every fight you're invited to. I adjusted my play style with this in mind and started having an absolute blast playing it.

[parapapapa]

You got yourself a new sub. As a non native speaker I find tricky following some videos but you explained yourself pretry clear! Thanks!

[Fiddling_while_Rome_burns]

Aristotlenihilator, Iron Meditations, Heavymeneutics or Occam's Chainsaw. Though the Venom song Satanarchist is best.

[ardidsonriente]

Great video. It is surprisingly hard to find a decent explanation of Hume's gap concept. Most videos aout there either assume you already know how it works, or try to persuade you the idea is wrong so they can feed you some biased moral stuff. Thank you for doing things fun, clear and neutral.

[gennebelcher]

Thanks i know this is 5 years late, but by far the best video on youtube discussing humes law

[Vak_g]

I just found your channel! I cant stop watching your videos! Thank you for all this excellent work!

[malaikatareen]

Im trying to study Finnis and this clears up soooo much about the is/ought issue i cant find this good of an explanation in my notes anywhere. Thanks!!

[sketchdoll]

6:50 - not so fast...how do you know I don't want a camel sandwich?

Great video. Very helpful!

[String.Epsilon]

"Newton's Flaming Laser Sword" would make for a decent band name.

And for a punkband "Not even wrong" (though it's more of a science thing than a philosophy thing)

[thegamephilosopher]

Dasein would be a great name for a philosophy metal band.

[ramonveracruz]

Philosophy Metal band? Ummm...Tales From the Kripke.

[TheSicknessUntoDeath]

My philosophy metal band name is "I Still Love You, Regine Olsen": It's a melodic post-hardcore band that gets beaten up by the proper philosopher metal bands because its just a little too emo.

[UwU_for_Christ]

I found that opening joke way too funny

[Anomalocaria]

i literally have a solo djent/metal project that i've been working for the last two years on called Hemlock Dynasty and i have a whole explanation for it but the short version is that it comes from Socrates' execution.

i just thought it was funny that you asked what the name of my philosophy metal band and i already had one in the chamber.

[movierecapland]

I just got THUNKED ON!!!!. hey thats a nice shirt!! GET THUNK'D!!!

[joaomarcelobritodasilva]

Hello, I found you video very interesting. What's the book of David Hume that he exposes the guillotine argument?

[videotrash]

moore's naturalistic fallacy seems to be heavily reminiscent of this.

[alicec]

What if, instead of focusing on "is" vs "ought" statement, we focus on "ethics" as a system of exploring values (and values about values, about values etc.) Values can be logically contradictory, or constrained by various facts about the external world... new information can cause an update to values. If there is an objective pattern convergence in values, then value propositions are mind-independent. (Moral realism)

One might retort that the physical world is different from morality, but is it really? Physical realism is to say that the process of mapping the external physical world is necessarily constrained by objective patterns, hence mind convergence. To engage with morality is to map the space of possible values. To say that values/morality/physical reality is/are mind-independent is simply to say that there are patterns and convergence.