Can Ethics be Objective?

[danbull]

Alex's argument here could just as well be used by a theist about God. He's saying that his ethical framework is as valid as the claim that the sun will rise in the morning, because both are unprovable intuitions. This works both ways - it's just as valid as every unprovable intution such as "there is a God" or "I shouldn't date an Aquarius".
Having watched a few of his videos recently and been impressed, I was surprised to see this claim, I hope there's wider context in the conversation here!

[celestialmangos]

I’m not sure if Alex’s views on morality have changed or if he’s just the G.O.A.T at playing devils advocate, but I really loved this vid!!

[HawtLS]

I hate this argument more than words can describe. It’s essentially “well we can’t prove ANYTHING without intuition, so anything that’s intuitive is on equal ground”

2+2=4
The earth is round
Blue is the best color
It’s wrong to steal from someone who’s mean

Two of these are SUBJECTIVE, and two are OBJECTIVE. Alex doesn’t realize it, but he’s arguing that since we can’t confirm the laws of logic are sound, 2+2=4 is the same as saying blue is the best color.

It’s true there are presuppositions we must make. In order to operate in the world we apparently live in, we must assume certain things, like our own existence, is true and objective. This is completely different than presupposing that morality intuitions are objective, or that god exists. Making the smallest presupposition is the best path to truth.

[person]

You could easily justify religious intuitions with this as well.

[lllULTIMATEMASTERlll]

The difference is that “the earth revolves around the sun” is a coherent idea. “Murder is wrong” needs to be qualified and explained in a coherent way before we can even talk about it being in the same category of unprovable intuitions. Meaning: “wrong” doesn’t have a coherent meaning yet. You need to say what it even is. We know what the earth is and the sun are. We don’t know what “good” or “wrong” are or if they even make sense.

I know Alex knows this so I’m hoping the video just didn’t show us enough.

[drixcel]

“Unprovable intuitions” are called axioms. That’s where the objective science of ethics begins.

[azerliartock]

I have three objections to this.

First, we can't just automatically believe every intuition at face value, because down the line these beliefs can contradict each other. You have to make choices.

Second, I may have the intuition that "murder is wrong" but I certainly don't have the intuition that "'wrong is wrong' is objectively true". On the contrary, because of my other believes and my world view, my intuition is that "murder is wrong" is subjective.

Third, you don't have to reject objective moral facts on the basis of skeptical arguments. And most anti-realists don't. At least I wouldn't. I would give a positive argument for why I think they are subjective rather than objective: I recon that moral facts, values or behaviors seem to be the product of evolution, culture and social interaction as a winning strategy for survival and development. Many species of animals adopt similar strategies of high socialization and low violence. Others don't. Indicating that it's all contingent, and could have been otherwise. And in fact it is otherwise, given the trans-cultural moral differences. From all this I infer that moral facts are subjective. They don't exist out in the space regardless of the existence of subjects that make them up. It would be bizarre to claim that murdering humans is wrong in a Universe where there were no humans. Wrong to whom?

[genericuser]

In Buddhism, these kinds of discussions are considered "imponderable" or "beyond reason" and you would be advised to steer clear of them. They are an obsessive distraction from what matters to you by making you question what matters at all.

[celestialmangos]

Alex has a good point in that, when it comes down to the bare essentials, every belief is rooted in values that are ultimately subjective. However, this doesn’t put all these beliefs on the same playing field, as there is a spectrum of how arbitrary the beliefs are.

The preference for vanilla over chocolate is more arbitrary than the preference for peace over violence, which is more is more arbitrary than the value of sense data and reality correspondence.

For one, the level of universality of the values plays a big role, but also there is a difference in quality between “is” and “ought, ” which Alex fully understands.

[daddyleon]

There's a massive difference between the "intuition" that the sun is going to rise and the sense of moral objectivity. We know the sun exists, we measured what it did before. But the only morality that we can measure is the descriptive kind (sociology, psychology, etc.) not a prescriptive one.
So..moral error theory might be right.

[crw]

Yk u can disagree with destiny and not hate him folks.... this was a respectful and interesting discussion, lets simply critique him, no need to insult him as i see many comments doing

[charliewalker]

…..because that is not objective? You just said so yourself. Wishing it to be does not make it so.

[JM-usfr]

It was a great discussion! I hope you didn’t scare off Destiny from ever coming back lol

[jamessylar]

Another take is that, regardless of it being objective or subjective, civilization couldn't exist of we didn't agree on certain principles of condduct. Most of us like to live on a society, not only it is convenient, most of us will die if we tried to live on our own, quite a lot out of pure loneliness. So we come to agree on these points for our own benefit, and it benefit all of us.

[poljenol]

Laws of physics do not change per definition.
Whether we can reason them is quite irrelevant to their existence.

[thoughtrover]

His argument is on point. The only issue is that from the intuition "my wellbeing is good for me", or "maximisation of experiences" it does not follow that you can't eat meat.
That's a jump cosmic was not able to argue in the debate or even tried.

[lilithium]

This can be a slipperly slope if you allow yourself to be manipulated by those around you with less than good intentions

[ghostapostle]

Ethics and scientific truths about the material reality are different categories.

[panhandle]

The Earth orbiting the sun is an observable fact.

[kendallburks]

A similar line of reasoning can be used to ground a belief in free will/agent causation… which as far as I can tell is always implicit in any notion of “obligation”.