Moral Realism: Defined

This is a short video explaining what moral realism is and what it is not.
A 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:
Metaethics: An Introduction - Andrew Fisher
Truth in Ethics and Epistemology - Nathan Nobis
Moral Realism: A Defense - Russ Shafer-Landau
Moral Realism - Kevin DeLapp

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[geo.ies]

Your channel is a gem. This was 6 years ago?! How come I only came across it now?? God bless you.

[misspiggy]

At first I was afraid it would be too difficult for me since English is my third language. You explained it really good. Thank you. God bless you and your family. Love and peace to all.

[Chann]

I loved how you pointed out that moral facts are not dependent on humans. We are not perfect and and are still working toward having a better understanding of the world and reality we live in. Though some I know would seriously deny this and state we know more than enough already.

[kaylynn]

For all those people who are going to challenge theism by using the subject of this video:

1. This is not an argument for theism.
2. This is *not* an argument for theism.
3. This is *not* an *argument for theism.*
4. This is *not an argument for theism.*
5. *This is not an argument for theism.*

Thank you.

[MultiMobCast]

Sooo many people don't even know they are moral realists. Thanks for the great vid

[daviddoch]

Man, this is a refreshing discussion, great work, really!
This content is exactly what I need each week. Keep it coming. EVERYBODY! We need to support the content you wish to see! What's a 10 a mth? Help out you content creators. They need it, . money will drive content.

[TheGer]

Your videos are awesome, but I feel so stupid sometimes because I can't understand what you're trying to say sometimes even though you explain it in such simple terms.
But God bless you because What you're doing is amazing.

[LtDeadeye]

I really liked this series of videos. I think it would have been helpful, for apologetics sake, to not only define realism, then moral realism but also morality.

[Daz]

Wouldn't say Ken Ham has a scientific theory

[iamnolan]

I have rlly taken the time to check out your channel and I’m impressed. You should make a video on your testimony I am intrigued

[FiverBeyond]

4:00 - "If the universe never existed, the laws of logic and causality would still be true."
But the physical laws of the universe would not, obviously. Similarly, if there were no moral agents (sometimes mis-described as 'no humans'), there would be no morality.

This shows that morality is dependent on subjects, not objects, suggesting that morality is subjective (not objective).

[paeanthesurreal]

Interesting! A lot of thought went into this video. Looking forward to see how the rest of this series develops.

[whatistruth]

The question is why is any type or form of morality part of our very being in the first place.... would our existence without any moral reasoning benefit us as a human race and if so what would that mean?

[denniswilkerson]

This is where the idea of God comes in... to me as justification for Moral Realism, Jesus Christ claimed that he is The way, the *Truth* and the Life...

So he is the literal incarnate of Truth, if I where to say that murder was wrong that would be my subjective opinion when the focus is of orgin - me the individual, but if God were to give a commandment where he were to say "murder is wrong" it would not be subjective, the creator of the universe, all knowing, all powerful would mean truth is telling you that murder is wrong and since truth is telling you that murder is wrong that would make it a Truth Statement and would take precedence over subjectivity and opinion.

The conscience plays a big role in objective morality, some people can feel automatic regret or disparity over actions they've never been taught were wrong, and that would be your God given conscience telling you of that Objective Immorality.

Ps: I'm taking admission for this, this is something I've recently thought of, I don't know if it's apart of the Moral Realist community, so pls let me know if there is any misconceptions in my thinking....

[rostamferdowsi]

Good video on moral realism. Some points to highlight in order to better the understanding of what we mean by "real" in context of "moral".

Remember that "objective" can be understood in at least two senses (or at least it seems to my mind).

Sense 1: Objective (universal): That is, X is real for all species or X is real for all members of the universe. E.g., X is objectively real for humanity and for any other species of the universe (it's real all over the universe).

Sense 2: Objective (partial): That is, X is real for one species and it is not necessary real for any other members of the universe. E.g., X is objectively real for humanity but not necessarily for any other species of the universe (it's not real all over the universe). Sense 2 is also perfectly comfortable with situational ethics.

Therefore, when we use "real" in context of "moral" we mean "real" for humankind (or partial objectivity). An example of capturing objective (partial) moral reality in context of naturalism is known as "the social contract theory". That is, rational creatures come to an agreement via a theoretical contract (by agreeing to be part of society) to limit their actions (e.g., to maximize wellbeing and to minimize illbeing "i.e., do help and don't harm" - see Sam Harris on this point) and submit to the contract (inline with "A Theory of Justice"). This form of moral reality is only true for humanity and it would be unfair to say that other non-human beings ought to be part of the contract.

I also hope that no person confuses moral metaphysics (what makes morality real) with moral epistemology (how do we know what is moral). Both moral metaphysics and epistemology can be understood in context of partial objectivity.

OK, now on one form of contact.

Science is limited to the epistemology that is founded on. Therefore, science is not "objective" but it's based on levels of confidences. There are no scientific facts (scientific theories are based on high probability via their evidence).

All in all good job. Doing us moral realists really proud.

[jordantyler]

I guess if you believe in moral realism, I want to know why, more than I want to hear you respond to other positions. If moral claims have truth values, how do we access those, or know that we access them.

[jeffreyscott]

"Depends upon human beliefs and desires" is ambiguous. There are two ways for some judgement to be affected by our beliefs/desires. One way is that how we are determined, determines the manner of judgement in a way seperate from the object of judgement. The second way is by being the object of our judgement.

In other words, objective judgements _about_ subjects, are certainly possible. Antirealists regularly confuse these two senses of "dependant".

Finding murder to be wrong is not like finding chocolate to taste better than vanilla, not because it does not depend upon us in the first sense.

It does indeed depend upon the fact of our nature as living beings engaged in a mutual effort to remain so, but since that fact itself (while being about our desires) is not subject to our desires, it is an objective fact about us, not a subjective one.

[georgemissailidis]

One of the points of moral realism in the video was:

- Moral actions between humans are just manifestations of objective moral facts.
I could compare it to this analogy:
- Physical actions between particles are just manifestations of objective physical laws.

Would this mean that physical laws would still be true if particles did not exist? Generally, what compelling reason is there to suppose that some physical or material body is more or less necessary than another? On account of my comparison, it seems that the moral realist might treat of moral facts similarly to physical laws (but perhaps may give different expression to moral facts compared to physical laws).

Thoughts?

[mrnyc]

Causality is a relationship between two things. How could that relationship exist if the underlying things do not exist?

[AlexanderLayko]

If morality is so self evident. Why are there like 500 different moralities? If morality is so innate and natural. Why does it need to be taught? Also why does liberal transgenderism think its specific morality is THE morality?