The Moral Argument Against Moral Realism

This video outlines the moral argument against moral realism. I begin by presenting the case that non-naturalist realism is immoral, then I turn to some objections to the argument, and finally, I suggest how the argument might be extended to naturalist realism.

I have drawn primarily from Hayward's article "Immoral Realism". Other articles on this topic:
Bedke, "A dilemma for non-naturalists: irrationality or immorality?"
Enoch, "Thanks, we're good: why moral realism is not morally objectionable"
Erdur, "A moral argument against moral realism"
Golub, "Is there a good moral argument against moral realism?"

0:00 - Introduction
1:48 - Why moral non-naturalism is immoral
16:59 - Objections
32:08 - Extending the argument to moral naturalism

[ChrisBandyJazz]

Hi Kane, I just watched your video on abstract objects and it was amazing! I was wondering, do you believe in any concrete things that are not constructed? Like fundamental particles, or quantum fields? It seems to me that even if constructivism is true, there still needs to be some base reality out of which things are constructed. Thank you so much!

[TheGlenn]

Could you make a video about the Experience machine? It's honestly quite interesting to me.

Personally I would be the kind of person who would want to be plugged in but despite that I feel kinda guilty for it. Like I would be giving up on my loved ones and disappointing them. Kind of like becoming a drug junkie or something similar. I'd be "squandering my potential" to them. Note that I personally don't care about something like squandering my potential for pleasure. I only care that the people I love DO care about that and that I'd be letting them down. Though getting to actually live out the fantasies I have that aren't possible in reality would probably win me over.

It's quite a weird spot to be in in my opinion.

I also think it's interesting to consider that we might feel repelled by the experience machine because it simply messes with our status quo. The standard argument about the experience machine is about whether or not we want to get in it. But image if we already were plugged in and living some wonderful fantasy full of joy and pleasure and everything we desired would we want to get out if given the chance to go live a non-ideal but real life. I'd honestly think most of us would not.

[Mon]

Great video as usual.
A point of note: you sometimes bring up the trolley problem involving pushing a fat man on the tracks to stop the train and say that a Utilitarian would be committed to pushing the man to save the five people. Not all Utilitarians would agree with this assessment, for instance, Rule Utilitarians may say that they would not push the man because that would be contrary to following rules that tend to lead to the greatest good. Precedent Utilitarians may find the pushing of the man ambiguous depending on the number of people on the tracks and so on and so forth.

[conorleisky]

Really fun video, thank you.
I think objection 3 is saveable. I think the non naturalist can consistently hold 'if there are no non-natural facts, then there are still moral facts anyway' alongside 'if moral non-naturalism is true, then if there are no non-natural facts, there are no moral facts' and 'non-naturalism is true'. This is because I might think that the nearest worlds where there are no non-normative facts are just those worlds in which moral non-naturalism is false.

If they can hold the above beliefs consistently (and I think it would be a cost to say they cant), then holding non-naturalism doesnt commit you to the morally problematic conditional. I recognize this is a little different to the original objection 3 tho.

[mileskeller]

The conversation about obligations has to precede this conversation. We need to establish to whom we have a rational reason to have an obligation to.

[tartarus]

Super interesting video. I’ve watched the first 20 min about 4 times now.

Something seems off about the response to the first objection. If the MAAR is saying it’s morally objectionable to conditionalise all our moral commitments on there being non-natural facts and non-naturalists hold that moral facts are a typology of non-natural facts it just seems like it is saying ‘it’s immoral to conditionalise our moral commitments on there being moral facts.’ It just seems trivially true to say moral commitments would be conditional on moral facts and a non-naturalist would grant this. If this is begging the question then MAAR just hasn’t actually responded to the commitments of the non-naturalist at all because it wouldn’t be using the term ‘’moral fact” or “non-natural fact” in the way a non-naturalist is using them. Wouldn’t it just be equivocating terms?

For Hayward to divorce the terms he would have to mean something other than a non-natural fact by “moral fact” and if that’s the case then in what way is he talking about the commitments of a non-naturalist at all?

[Ansatz]

A naturalist almost certainly doesn't conditionalize her moral commitments on the moral bridge laws, because moral bridge laws are semantic, not normative. Talking about semantics can be awkward because it is so prone to equivocation, so let's split moral language into two versions, one for each proposed semantics. Let's say that N-morality means morality as understood by the moral naturalist including the naturalist moral bridge laws, and we an use X-morality to mean whatever moral semantics we end up with when it turns out that the bridge laws are false, such as if the semantic theories that support the bridge laws turn out to be wrong. Now let's imagine a conversation between Nate the naturalist and Alice the antirealist.

Nate: I'm committed to not torturing people because torture is N-wrong.
Alice: Haven't you heard? The naturalist bridge laws are false. The word "wrong" doesn't actually mean N-wrong. Now we're all talking about X-right and X-wrong. So what does that do to your commitments on torture?
Nate: That's fine. I'm still committed to not torturing people because torture is N-wrong.
Alice: No, stop using the word N-wrong. It's semantically incorrect.
Nate: That has nothing to do with my commitments. I'll just have to find different words to talk about N-wrongness and N-morality. My commitments don't come from semantics; they come from nature.

If we somehow determine that N-wrong does not reflect the true meaning of "wrong" and X-wrongness is what moral language has always truly been about, then moral naturalists will be proven wrong about their metaethical claims, but there's no reason why that should have any effect upon their actual commitments. A moral naturalist who is concerned about N-morality can continue to be concerned about N-morality even if moral language isn't actually talking about N-morality. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and N-morality by any other name would still drive the commitments of a moral naturalist, since nature still exists.

Whether a moral naturalist has any concern about X-morality or not will depend upon what X-morality turns out to be. If X-morality turns out to be some spooky non-natural property, then most likely a moral naturalist won't care about it at all. If X-morality turns out to be some noncognitivist nonsense, then surely no one has any reason to care about X-morality.

[Trynottoblink]

Completely unrelated to the content of the video but is the background of the thumbnail taken from a Francis Bacon painting?

[markbirmingham]

Great video & there’s a lot here. Just some rambling thoughts: I think the first objection has merit by my lights.

I don’t think the fact that some people change from non-naturalism to naturalism but don’t substantially change their ethical behavior has as much force as presented. Surely counterexamples exist, and conversely every religion can point to converts whose ethical behaviors & attitudes change following their changes in metaphysical perspectives. So I think counter examples exist in all cases. Likewise, I’m Sure some people engage in worse behavior after becoming non-naturalists too.

By my lights I do think it’s a grounding issue. For me, natural law flowing from a divine simplicity metaphysical worldview is sufficient to ground morality. In helps solve the is-ought gap (by my lights) All non-naturalism ethical views seem to boil down to either personal/subjective preferences and/culturally determined Beliefs, placing our epistemology above ontology. Multiple times in the video examples were stated that we would find such a worldview “morally vicious”. My retort is according to what? The mere empirical fact that most people would find something morally vicious isn’t enough to ground something as ultimately wrong. Appeals to intuitions don’t accomplish enough as intuitions can mistaken/misleading by my lights, and what’s to say that intuitions ought be considered so primarily even under naturalism. Again it’s a grounding issues.

Similarly, the fact that ethics is often discussed separately from metaphysics (I would argue this is primarily done for practical considerations to gain traction & allow discussions to get off the ground) doesn’t ontologically prove that moral claims are merely natural, or that the two metaphysics and ethics aren’t inherently connected. At least by my lights.

[manorbros]

Wouldn't it be wrong to say it begs the question? Like the contention doesn't seem to be whether or not moral non-naturalism is true but rather an argument of "Assuming it is true it leads to an immoral conclusion", no?

[sivan]

This is a terrible argument. The moral non-naturalist, if they come to think non-natural facts do not exist, most likely becomes an anti-realist! (They don't adopt a "second-best" realist position). Sure, their moral intuitions may not change, but they recognise that these have no truth value and are just personal preferences or sentiments.
Also, it’s ironic, as the argument claims question begging on part of the non-naturalist, but there is clear question begging on part of the one making the argument (i.e. by asserting that certain things are inherently wrong or "vicious"), without which the argument cannot be made!

[ferdia]

The argument is basically the equivalent of saying "If moral realism is wrong it would be wrong"

[fountainovaphilosopher]

How would this argument be explicated in a deductive form? I'm not sure if i fail to understand the argument, objection number 1 or their response to it.

Would this be proper?
-Moral non-naturalist is committed to some conditionals of the form X=>nothing matters
-Moral non-naturalist is committed to believe conditionals of that type are immoral to believe
-Therefore, moral non-naturalist is committed to something immoral

If this is proper, can i appeal to some sort of OIC to do the Moorean shift?

[TechyBen]

There seems to be some ability for a moral realist to save some of these concerns. In that they may be able to attribute realism to internally consistent models of morals as a rational and thus real thing. This incorporates some of the "metaphysics" of religion without the metaphysics. We can accept personality and thoughts are real things, thus keeping morals even in the absence of observed "utility" is still a "good" thing, as it helps keep us consistent.

PS, you're date vs God example is a poor argument. Because unlike a date, "God" is a substitute to "universal" thus the claim is "if nothing universal exists, then universal morals don't exist". It's a tautology argument from (possibly) religion. It's wrong because it's a tautology, not because "God" is a poor argument. The base problem is they only wish for a universal decision, and miss the need for individual (thus specific) morals to check before they act.

Overall, it's an averages vs specifics argument, that there is no true "answer" to, in the same way we cannot provide a generalised answer to the halting problem. However, we can chose a subset! :) So the subset of morals (anything less than universal) is possible. An example of this for both realists and non realists (in this example I'm assuming religions vs non religious etc), is asking "what about humans" or "what about nature" and groups/subgroups. As long as we don't go to too large a scale (the galaxy of aliens, or God and angels), we can consider possible solutions and understandings to morals (though Arrows Theorem also limits the scope and amount of success for each individual).

[mooseyzed]

So if the conclusion is “we ought not be moral realists”, what position ought the anti-realist take if moral anti-realism turns out to be false?

[florentbourbeau]

This is basically "moral realism is counter-intuitive, therefore fuck it". I mean, unless you think that whatever is intuitive is true, then I don't think that this argument makes any point. Even then, moral realists probably intuitively think that there is such a thing as moral facts, that X is intuitively good, Y intuitively bad, etc., so why would this intuitive thing trump all of that? And that's if I accept the idea that the conditionality thing is intuitive, which I don't.

[martinsoto]

How could a metaethical theory per se have immoral implications? Stating or defending the theory might be an immoral action (and even this presupposes a certain moral framework, which is exactly what we are questioning), but trying to draw moral conclusions from a metaethical fact is impossible, given the inversion of the order of discourse. The attempt at self-reference fails given the confusion of two distinct levels. Of course, the way this argument hides this impossibility is by sneaking up a moral framework (in your formulation, one that states that people suffering is bad and the correct thing is to get involved and try to avoid it) once we have put into question the reality of one possible construction of moral frameworks, exactly the one you are trying to disprove.
That is, to try to disprove non-naturalism, you assume in the argument that indeed moral facts exist even when no non-natural facts exist. You mentioned one of the non-naturalist rebuttals begs the question, but that's just because the MAAR itself does! If non-naturalism is true, the argument clearly doesn't work because you couldn't sneak up the moral framework if non-natural facts didn't exist. Only if non-naturalism is false does the argument work, so it is vacuous.
Some other arguments against non-naturalism mentioned in the video are actually sound, and maybe even the MAAR can be understood as a heuristic intuition pump against moral realism, just a clumsy restatement of "If we somehow found out that the only moral universal norm is to eat babies, we still wouldn't do it. So it's apparent that the concept itself of a moral universal norm is senseless and the morality we talk about is grounded on our feelings and beliefs". But the MAAR understood as the rigorous argument it tries to be strikes me as just dumbfounded, not even understanding what it attempts to prove.

[TheGlenn]

Wouldn't not conditionolising non-natural moral facts being immoral be a non-natural moral fact in by itself or am I in over my head here?

[sivan]

The analogy to the mind-brain identity theory (24:50) is nonsensical. Of course, one can come to believe the antecedent and thereby reject the conditional in the claim “If I don’t have a brain, I don’t have thoughts”, as the consequent is self-evidently false (i.e. Descartes’ Cogito) – we KNOW that we have thoughts. This is NOT comparable to the non-natural moral realist’s claim that “if non-natural properties don’t exist, then moral facts don’t exist”, as we do NOT KNOW that moral facts exist:
The consequent in this claim is NOT self-evidently false (in fact the host himself identifies as a moral anti-realist!) so even if the antecedent is accepted, the consequent CAN still follow – the conditional is still true.

[daraghaznavi]

I do not agree with the MAAR. And one point that you seem to have missed: This argument bites error theory even worse. Moral error theorists claim that nothing really matters. And that would be immoral according to Heywood.