An Explanation of Terminology used in Metaethics 

Not a boring lecture at all. Very entertaining and illuminating as usual.

I guess I'm a bit strange 'cause I was really excited to watch this kind of terminology lesson. Like omg a lot of terms to understand and categorize 😂

Best ethics lesson I’ve ever had. Help me get a big picture of the ethics landscape in 20 minutes. Unbelievable! Thank you so much!

The more videos I watch from you the more I appreciate your facility to make things clear. Thanks

Thank you for the video. I am not convinced by your (or Shafer-Landau's?) categorisation of consequentialism and non-consequentialism. As you say, they are normative theories, not meta-ethical ones. I see no contradiction between the claims "I believe that actions ought to be morally judged on the basis of their consequences" and "I do not believe that consequentialism is an objective moral truth". I may believe in consequentialism and still acknowledge that it is just a subjective belief of mine. For instance, Richard Joyce argues for fictionalism in meta-ethics, according to which the denial of the existence of objective moral truths is totally compatible with the adoption of a specific normative framework insofar as it is a useful fiction.

I appreciate how you clearly laid out all of these diverse perspectives to the question of morality.

Its actually really interesting to learn what my own theory and idelogy is called and how they work in opposition to different ideologies. I would have never known that i was a moral subjetivist ol

It would not matter if it was boring or not as this discourse and knowledge of these terms is what will help us progress as a modern, democratic, and pluralistic society.

How I would love to know a philosopher personally and be able to engage in a discussion about these topics. I think that would be time well spent.

Great lecture. Absolutely necessary to make your meaning of terms as clear as possible first in order to avoid confusion later.

1) Subjective facts are a subset of Objective facts. 2) I am a moral Objectivist-> Consequentialist, and so is everyone. Disputes arise from ignorance. 3) Consequentialism gets a bad rap because people look at it superficially. A sufficient consequentialist view requires many reiterations. 4) Ontological morals are only derived from a sufficiently iterated Consequentialist analysis. I realized towards the end that I am impressed by your ability to write backwards such that it is forward facing, though no doubt you get a lot of practice.

Far from boring. I felt motivated to take notes!

@jeffreyKaplan Just found your channel. I appreciate your enthusiasm, and that glass board thing? Excellent. I've always preferred the terms deontological and teleological, when discussing ethics. Thank you

Spot on! Good for you and God bless 🙌

I just recently found these videos and I think they're great - this one was not boring at all. One thing about the error theory pertaining to flat earth: the analogy doesn't seem to hold up. The error theory for morality is that statements like "murder is wrong" and "murder is not wrong" are both false, but for flat earth a statement like "Antarctica is an ice wall" is false while "Antarctica is not an ice wall" is true. In other words, flat earth propositions do have truth values (they can be true or false, not just only ever false). Edit: I suppose if there were two flat-earthers arguing about whether the ice wall was 1,000 km tall or 2,000 km tall, both would be making false claims. But if we assume that everyone in the world is a flat-earther, with some believing the ice wall to be 1,000 km tall while others believe it to be 2,000 km tall, there would still be a true proposition "Antarctica is not an ice wall" even if nobody in the world holds that proposition in their mind. Error theory, on the other hand, claims that there are no true propositions about some subject, i.e., if this pertained to flat earth theory, then neither the claim "Antarctica is an ice wall" nor "Antarctica is not an ice wall" would be true (both propositions would be false).

please continue these online lectures!

Thank you for clarifying that you did not invent the table

Definitive not boring at all!

Thank you!

Near the end of the video: I think it's nice to think that we made the words "good" and "bad", but that there's actual good or bad that we simply discovered and we didn't create the actual good or bad. The problem is that Venus is definitely a real planet, but it might be harder to show how good & bad are real things and not simply Platonic Forms like a triangle.

SO very late to this, sounds really good so far. Does Landau end up giving his grounding for this objective morality?

presumably, in many cultures that practice human sacrifice, only certain members of those societies, priests, maybe, are allowed to do it, and only under certain circumstances.

How do we read along with his students?

I am a moral hierarchical subjectivist. We all have a personal moral code, but an infinitely powerful being’s moral code is the only one that matters because He would be the ultimate arbiter of punishment and reward

What is my label if I both believe there are objective moral facts AND that there are also individual moral facts? As an example, not everyone can do what spider man can do, yet spidey’s entire argument is “I have power, I must act”

I’d say our discourse is 80-90 percent moral discourse. Not 2 percent moral discourse. Am I wrong? 🤣

The flat earth example is a pretty great example. It's also pretty easy to imagine that 5000 years ago, a lot more people (as a %) would have made statements consistent with flat earth, so maybe the volume of moral statements made today isn't really an issue.

❤

I don't know about calling people who believe in non-objective moral facts relativists. I'm glad you didn't write that down. It would make Plato a relativist and Plato is usually seen as opposing relativism of the sophists.

How do you write backwards?

The obvious question is what do we even mean by the word moral. What do we mean by right and wrong.

The following is meant as a thought experiment, rough sketch of an idea and is therefore underdeveloped and simply meant for fun. A mystical meta moral-realism system, coined MAM. Multidimensional Adaptive Morality or MAM is a conceptual meta-morality-framework that seeks to bridge various individual and collective moral understandings into a cohesive, overarching metaphysical structure, grounded in moral realism. MAM suggests that the diversity of moral frameworks humans operate within actually are expressions of a deeper more complex meta-moral system that exists beyond our full comprehension. This system is envisioned as a dynamic, multidimensional space where different moral perspectives and values interact, negotiate, and sometimes compete for precedence in determining what is considered right or morally superior in any given situation. In MAM, the meta-moral framework is not static but highly adaptive, capable of contextual adjustments to integrate diverse values and priorities. It's as if the meta-moral space hosts a continuous dialogue among various moral positions, with the outcome of this dialogue shifting based on the specifics of each situation and the relevant variables at play. This process acknowledges the existence of multiple valid moral stances that coexist and sometimes converge to form a consensus on what is morally right for a particular moment and context, reflecting a complex interplay of factors both within and beyond human understanding. MAM posits that the true extent and nature of this meta-moral framework are ultimately unfathomable, encompassing an infinite array of variables and potential interactions that far exceed human cognitive capacities. MAM in essence is a combination of moral pluralism, Non-Reductive Moral Realism and mystical realism.

We did invent planets though. Whether or not Pluto is a planet or it deserves to be in a dwarf planet category is entirely up to us and what things we care about. There is no inherent planetness.

Wait…if we go back to everyone having their own morals and how they are right in their own ways. Would that mean if my morals are that murder and stealing is good and not wrong, would it make it right?

One glaring omission here seems to be any distinction between particular moral facts, vs. abstract moral facts. It's objectively true that there is a computer on my desk. But that is not a universal truth, but rather a particular truth. It's certainly conceivable that moral facts, if such exist, exist as particular facts, rather than abstract facts. But objective here is equated with universal, But that makes the Aristotle view (that morality is a kind of relation between the nature of an act and the nature of the person doing the act) into ... well, it claims to be an objective statement about a fact, but it's not universal as it varies from the nature of one thing to the nature of another what is moral.

Are there other common terms for moral skeptics within the same branch as moral subjectivism and moral relativism? Neither satisfies my intuitions as i believe both the impact of an action on a group and the individual is relevant to determining the moral good. For instance the right to bodily autonomy/ the right to consent is a very individual dependent moral principle one that is nowadays widely held to varying degrees. Usually this principle holds true so long as negative societally consequences are not believed to be imminent/ of consequence. Thus societal impact has a role in moral truths through the evolutionarily selected trait of shame and guilt by members of our group.

This guy looks like Jake Gyllenhal and his expressions also look like him and that’s one reason I watch this guy. I like to imagine he’s explaining philosophy to me after he just murdered someone

I'm a Moral Subjectivist, but I'm also an a**hole, so I don't care what your moral beliefs are or how you arrived at them. I'm going to judge you based on my moral code. I also recognize that there are laws and rules set by society, or just people in power, that I need to follow or not follow at my own peril.

Does he write backwards ?

I like how much time was dedicated to Flat Earth

Don't call this a boring lecture. Some of the hardest errors to overcome are those that are baked into the terminology. I think the only tenable position on moral relativism is that there are moral truths, but they refer to characteristics of the situation. Moral objectivism specifically about swinging one's arm, for example, is untenable: it fails to distinguish between punching a person and punching a punching bag, let alone between punching a person in self-defense and punching a person in a boxing match. Similar conclusions apply, very pervasively, to many aspects of almost any situation, including cultural ones, for almost any action we might want to evaluate. But that's not the same as saying that no matter what any culture believes, their answer is right for them. It's not even close. "Error theory" as described is a complete non-starter. If a flat-earth "theorist" points to a photograph and says 'the horizon in this photograph is a straight line, to within the precision of the camera's optics', that's true if the horizon in the photo is straight, and fals if it isn't, regardless of whether the statement is embedded in a bunch of word salad purporting to argue that the earth is flat. The word salad, by contrast, is typically neither true nor false. It's just word salad. Then there's non-cognitivism. It's mostly true: most putative moral statements do not express moral propositions. They express a mish-mash of group affiliation, emotion, and social-desirability bias. That doesn't mean that there aren't genuine moral statements. I skipped a point earlier: it's probably worth distinguishing between facts and propositions here. Within any formal axiomatic system, we have lots of propositions. But no matters of fact can follow from that, without the additional premise that the axiomatic system is applicable to the description of something we include in our ontology. I think there are moral facts, not just moral truths. But it may be tenable to classify moral truths in the same category with the formal truths of axiomatic theories, and facts as another pure category, so that putative moral facts belong in some hybrid category rather than being strictly factual.

What about a different spin on moral subjectivism? Whether an action is morally right or wrong is determined not just by the person who performs the action, but subjectively by each spectator. I think that is closest to reality. Everyone judges everyone according to their own moral code and I will always claim the right to hold everyone accountable to my personal moral standards. If different moral codes clash on the most fundamental level, then perhaps neither is objectively wrong. It is just very difficult to form a society or maybe even coexist peacefully. That is why most have a similar idea of what is right or wrong, at least for the most important things.

21:00 There is huge error in this. It assumes that because there is a word describing the fact/entity, this fact/entity exists. It's not true in many cases, e.g. "unicorn". The word has been invented, but unicorns aren't true. Some people treat word "good" or "evil" as such unicorns.

Don't know the point yet Jeffrey is trying to make.

It's not true that Venus was a planet long before we got here. The reason it's not true is that "planet" is not just a word, but a scientific category that has not always been defined the way it is now defined. We know that because Pluto was a planet from 1930, when it was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh, until 2006 when it was demoted to dwarf planet. Categories are not always unchangeable. When they are changeable, things that fit into those categories only fit temporarily. If they fit only temporarily, we cannot say that they were always the thing that is the category. That is, nothing was a planet before the category was defined. There may be undiscovered objects that fit the "planet" category now, but that doesn't mean they will still fit the category when they are discovered since the category may be redefined by that time. Were they always planets? No. Nothing is a planet until it fits the definition and is only a planet as long as it continues to fit the definition. They were objects of some kind before then, but they were not "planets" until the term was defined.

Is there an objectivist camp that are non-consequentialist when the act is virtuous and consequentialist when the act is not? Like, you get credit for taking the virtuous risk regardless of the outcome and you don't get charged with a the gravest possible "sin" (for lack of a better word) when your immoral actions have no meaningful consequences just by chance alone? There would have to be a name for that since all legal systems (for the latter) are set up that way... Well all but white collar crime because our system is corrupt.

Vultures. The birds you're thinking of are vultures.

Wait wait...does he have to write this, backwards?

I'm not sure if it classifies as invention but more so our nature towards morality. The very real virtually universal emotions of guilt, and shame are foundational to that truth. Though you could argue that these emotions are nurtured within us towards or against certain actions, however I think the primal nature of it could be well traced to something as ironic as spilling milk. In a survival situation where everyone's lives are at stake in a tribe or small group even, if one person is definitively at fault for the loss of vital resources, there is no doubt in my mind for there to at least be serious mental ramifications that include shame and guilt, or if there are none in the individual there would be fingers pointed at them from the group they are from as a result. Something like that indicates to me that although we all instinctually have associated these feelings like righteousness and guilt or shame to morality in essence, to question the objectivity of morality is to first question what you are instinctually driven to defend or condemn. Those actions determined by your instinct are then reinforced throughout your life as a consequence of the decisions you've made to apply them to other situations. The way our brain works these emotions into reasoning is through the association of memories and consequences as well as survival. We don't learn empathy so much as we experience it, or acknowledge it. Similarly, morality is inherently apart of our instinctual nature, but our complexity overrules or replaces the conditions to which morals are applied due to social experiences and our own perception over time.

Fun story I was suspended from working as a substitute teacher because I “challenged their core beliefs” I was using flat earth to teach critical thinking skills and have them apply those skills to their beliefs - all of them, even the ones they think are 100% true 😅 I got Socrate’d

I reckon you get a lot of students hitting on you

Morality is a human construct so I just pick between all of them.

cringe but red-pilled: non-cognitivism based but blue-pilled: moral subjectivism based and red-pilled: consequentialism cringe and blue-pilled: moral relativism

Morality is a proud selfish expression of one’s own ignorance for the importance of desired social behavior. Pride and ignorance Pride is ignorance boasting. ignorance is life’s greatest adversary and denial is ignorance’s strongest ally. An opinion is a deep seeded selfish desire to express one’s own ignorance. A desire so selfish that even ignorance wants to be alone. ignorance miss uses the power of persuasion by transforming little knowledge into as if it were a greater knowing. Pressing one’s nescience point of view by oneself over another person. A willful disregard for the limitation of one’s own reference, and ignoring the evidence to the contrary. Pride is ignorance boasting. G. B.- Garcia (cc)2019 ◦

It's wrong to say that something is wrong.

It seems to me that moral relativism is unexplored. Lets say human sacrifice is done in society A Then, society B doesn’t accept it. If society A conducts human sacrifice with unwilling members of society B, that means they are transgressing, and what does the more relativist say here? He can say that it’s moral, because it’s their society, or, he can say that it is immoral, because it may be their society, but they are spilling over into another society, which makes it immoral. Transgressions = immoral However, the latter moral relativist does acknowledge that taking someone’s life is a transgression, which means, even within society A, he still recognizes that as “globally immoral” but, at the same time, “locally moral” within society A.

This analysis is confused by presuming that "moral truths", "moral facts," and "moral laws" are synonymous. They are three different categories of thinking about morality.

We have not invented anything...we are not Gods we cannot create or destroy only remix what is already here.

Moral Subjectivism is the closet answer. Humans have a social instinct to be with others. The group decides what is good for society, usually based upon knowledge. We call these rules "morals". They will vary between societies based upon that societies knowledge. None of these are objective except the original instinct. The results may repeat or conflict between societies. Replace "moral" with "legal" and it becomes clear. So Kaplan's question "is something universally legal" is obviously no.

Amazing lecture, not boring at all thank you for sharing! @jeffreykaplan1 Still curious if good an bad exist regardless of our invention of the words to define such facts? And even more curious if we can ever answer that question?

Audio is low, Jeffrey.