DEBATE: Is Morality Objective? | Alex O’Connor vs. Craig Biddle

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[craigbiddle]

UPDATE 2: Read “Alex O’Connor’s Red-Herring Thought Experiment vs. Facts that Support Morality”

UPDATE 1: Thank you for the great questions! Here’s a video in which I answer 11 of them:

Enjoy!

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Thank you all for engaging with these ideas—especially those of you who have posted challenging questions.



And if you have a question you’d like me to address, please post it in the comments below. I’ll make a follow-up video addressing the best of them next week.

In the meantime, keep loving life!

[timcrowe]

It was game over when the moral objectivist came to say through cross examination, “he’s acting immoral by my standards”

[dragonslayer]

I'm a bit weirded out by Craig's inability to test his moral system using thought experiments and his comfort in labelling people with non-average moralities (suicidality, psychopathy, ...) as defective. Alex phrased his points beautifully and I'd say he brought me over more than Craig did.

[dohpamne]

I was really thrown off that someone who actively sought out this discussion needed Alex to explain to him why thought experiments are applicable to the real world even if they're counterfactual. The fact that anyone who participates in public philosophical discussions doesn't immediately understand the value of thought experiments is very odd.

[Doug-jfhx]

Craig you have so many exceptions to your objective moral standard that depends on your opinion. Alex is asking good clarifying questions that you just keep asserting apriori. Morality is based on life that I deem is normal? So I can imprison or enslave a psychopath because he is not “normal”? What happened to something is alive so it has objective value to control its own life. Dude This is the Swiss cheese version of objective morality.

[dylansmith]

Bro continually describes subjective morality to a tee and answers every hypothetical in a subjective way with new qualifiers and asterisks, but then he thinks saying "it's based in the value of human life tho" makes it objective.

Nah, dawg.

[dylansmith]

If your moral framework relies on pointing to any and all "outliers" and saying that they don't count, then it's not very well defined, is it.

[shadowc]

What is truly strange is that, on one hand Craig asserts that he doesn't care if a psychopath is killed because he is not capable of moral agency, and therefore isn't a moral agent; yet would object to killing a flower even though a flower definitely isn't capable of moral agency and is not a moral agent.

[tdhoward]

Wow. This was a very lopsided debate. Alex used pointed questions, solid logic, and thought-provoking counterexamples. Craig responded with filibustering non-answers, circular reasoning, and complaining that thought experiments aren't real life.

[jeremyhansen]

In short objectivist are subjectivist that personally value life, but find the term subjectivist to be distasteful.

[atlasxatlas]

it's funny and sad how alex has to point out the circular reasoning of Craig

[Mbonic]

Graig proposing objective morality and then trying to avoid answering a hypothetical which is supposed to test that objective morality is extremely amusing. You are making a big claim here, dont cry about the “realness” of a hypothetical. It is supposed to provide a logical challenge which if found is a very real thing. Even if the hypothetical is not.

[vXx]

Labelling a psychopath as a sub-human creature is an unusually psychopathic statement to make.

[pedroito]

its crazy listening to Craig speak of other humans as "sub-rational" and "broken" while disguising it with the virtuosity of "objective morality".

[carlosdemare]

the complete inconsistency between "destroying a flower for fun is wrong" and "killing an animal for flavour is ok because animals have no rights" is staggering

[Genghis_Sean_]

Imagine speaking on moral philosophy and not understanding the utility of a hypothetical 😂

[He.knows.nothing]

"I can't answer your hypothetical because my ethics are relativ.. cough cough.. contingent upon aspects of our experienced mortality."

[raydosson]

Alex absolutely swept the floor as he always does. Bravo!

[scottfauber]

If nothing else, I appreciate Alex reducing the number of moral philosophies I need to take seriously.

[skeptcode]

I find Craig's reasoning completely ad-hoc and that's probably because his framework has too many holes