Meta-Ethics #1... Moral Realism in 10 minutes.

Meta-Ethics AQA Philosophy... for students so please be kind.

[daniel]

Seems like there was a lot on moral anti-realism in this video too!

[AnonyMous-ogct]

I'm curious as to your insight on where I am in terms of morality. From my perspective, morality is "subjective" but can reach an overwhelming consensus in terms of broad guidelines excluding a few outliers provided we share the same understanding of what is true, how the world works, and the most probable consequences of our actions because we largely share the same overarching goal of minimizing the long-term (emphasis on long-term) suffering of ourselves and our loved ones.

In terms of the "is-ought" gap, I don't think the difficulty is agreeing on what we "ought" to do, but what "is". The reason I differ from Europeans in the Middle Ages who massacred healthy people in response to the Black Death is not that I disagree with their fundamental desire to put an end to the plague and protect their loved ones, but because I disagree with the idea that the cause of the Black Death was heresy and/or poisoning of the water supply. I believe our modern scientific understanding of what causes plagues today is more accurate (maybe not perfectly accurate but more accurate) than the understanding of those Europeans who participated in the persecutions and massacres. It's why I derive a different "ought" of quarantine and medical treatment rather than killing healthy people in response to the plague because I disagree with them about what "is" and the most probable consequences of our actions.

Where I find morality complicated is not only achieving consensus on what is true or the most accurate hypothesis but also because there are so many matters which don't guarantee outcomes. We're navigating unknowns and probabilities. I can't guarantee that being kind to a stranger will be reciprocated. I can confidently say that treating all new faces with hostility will net few allies and maximize the number of enemies someone has which should be undesirable for most if they agree with my analysis. If I had a magic crystal ball that told me for certain that being kind to a stranger would result in him murdering my family, then I would no longer see it as moral to be kind to that stranger. But I don't know that. I'm navigating unknowns.