Best Video To Send To Non-Believers On Morality

LotW said:

Found a video that proves the existence of God that even my non-Christian friends were willing to watch all the way through.

This is probably the most approachable and amicable version of the Moral Argument I've seen:

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Oh cute....it thinks there's a place called "outside our universe".

FireDragon76 said:

Morality isn't objective or subjective, it is intersubjective and relational.

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I agree but I'm curious how you came to this conclusion.

I got there by imagining a moral landscape that exists with a severely limited number of actors....and realized in a world of 1 person, I can't think of any moral statements. In a world of 2 people, it's an almost anything goes situation based on intent and consent between two mutually understanding individuals....and that allows for basically any number of horrible scenarios to play out.

Ultimately concluding several points like....
1. People don't interact with the world as if they have morals. The have reasons for doing things, they generally see them as being good or righteous, moral consideration is really reserved for one's actions when they are so acutely against the moral norms of those around them (peer group) that they cannot reconcile their reasons in a way that wouldn't invite severe social reproach.
2. The secondary position of moral behavior, or the subject of a moral behavior or action aka the recipient or person acted upon, likewise gives little moral consideration to any behavior of the 1st position (person acting) beyond the justification of their emotional reactions to said behavior. As long as said behavior falls well within the peer groups norms it's rarely considered. When it falls well outside it is noticed and justification for the emotional reaction or lack thereof gets created in the mind of the person acted upon. When someone cannot reconcile emotional reactions they tend to seek justification from the 1st party or alter their relationship to them.
3. The third position, the detached observer, is really where we see any sort of significant consideration of morality. Primarily, two or more detached observers consider the appropriateness of a certain behavior in a certain situation. They generally do this as a matter of value exchange, expressing their approval or disapproval of the behavior and explanation for such, in attempt to....
A. Influence the other party's view of their moral nature.
B. Learn about a peer or social groups moral norms, what can and cannot be transgressed, and the repercussions of transgressions so ones own behavior can be suitably altered.
C. Learn the rules of peer group acceptance and what behaviors are favored.
D. Alter the rules of peer group morality to one that is more favorable for personal emotional reasons.

So yeah, intersocial and circumstantial or situational is probably how I would label it...but in all, I'd encourage people to drop the whole subjective objective dichotomy entirely because it ends up being a long and pointless argument about what is essentially the "truth" or validity of someone's emotional reactions. It's an attempt to rationalize something irrational. I think it's easier to approach an accurate conception when the question of objectivity is dropped, subjectivity is accepted, and people simply move onto a conception based on the idea that moral considerations primarily occur in social settings with larger groups of people for reasons that primarily involve social interaction with those people.

Lol so again, I'm curious how you came to that conclusion of "intersubjective and situational"....and whether what you meant by it is what I described above or something else.

FireDragon76 said:

Numbers aren't real... they are abstractions of reality and exist only as concepts.

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Lol pi is an awfully useful abstract concept if it's just an idea.

I don't think the expression of "mathematics is the language of logic" is 100% accurate....but it's close. Numbers are symbols used in a language that expresses pure reason or discusses purely objective reality.

To say they only exist as concepts without any relation to a physical material reality would require me to either ignore a lot of stuff (like the usefulness of pi) or invent some extremely bizarre explanation for what is happening when someone poses one of these extremely difficult mathematical problems that doesn't get solved for decades until some new mathematical genius comes along and takes a shot at it.

You're not some social constructivist are you?

Ana the Ist said:

Lol pi is an awfully useful abstract concept if it's just an idea.

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I don't disagree. Math is useful. But I don't believe Pi exists as if it were some Platonic ideal.

The happy Objectivist said:

This statement is self-refuting.

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Some axiomatic statements are self refuting.

That's not a thing to hold against a person. I'm pretty sure you understood what he meant. Nobody is on a timeline long enough to know if the descriptions of reality that can be made and proven true hold true at all points along the timeline.

Ultimately, what we consider true is an aspect of reality we are very confident we can describe accurately and perhaps demonstrate to be so with evidence. Should these aspects of reality always be true is an unknown, but when we imagine they are and describe reality as such we call this objective reality.

Chriliman said:

But isn’t whats happening within my mind a part of objective reality?

If not, then how can I actually think at all?

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Yeah....what is happening in your mind is objective reality. However, only you can experience it, and that's why we call it subjective. We will never have a language to perfectly describe it nor will I be able to know if your experience of something is similar to mine.

So when you describe something as morally good....yes, those thoughts are real and exist in a physical environment of electric and neural activity.

We don't know if your idea of "morally good" actually means the exact same thing as my idea of morally good. It may seem that way when we agreed on what is morally good, but it won't seem that way the more we disagree.

I don't doubt for a moment that you see things as morally good. I can never know what that really means to you though, it's not something provable, we can't measure moral goodness. We may have wildly different ideas about it.

That's because ultimately, I think we're trying to put words to an emotional reaction that results from observing a person's behavior and the way that behavior relates to certain values we hold or believe we hold regarding the way that behavior affects other people.

When the behavior largely conflicts with the values we believe we hold....we judge the behavior morally bad. When it asserts the values we believe we hold....we say it's morally good.

To put it in the most general of terms....the emotional reaction, the judgment of behavior, and the expression of moral value seems to relate primarily to ideas of fairness. I don't ascribe any morality to someone eating a handful of French fries. When I see someone take them off someone else's plate when they aren't looking, I decide that's morally bad. It's not because of eating or French fries....but rather my ideas of what is fair regarding ownership of property. Someone else may come to a completely different conclusion when observing the same thing. Is it so unfair that I would call it theft or an injustice? Probably not....but I'd we imagine these two men are starving and this is their only food for awhile....perhaps it rises to an injustice then. Circumstances change these values and ideas of fairness rapidly, but some I think can change them rather consistently, and in doing so create the illusion of objectivity. It seems like a rational explanation for why so many appear to agree and change agreements in the same way.....but it's not objective. They didn't change what they thought....the circumstances changed the value of the fries from something cheap and easily replaced to something very valuable and sorely missed.

It seems to me that if we are claiming objectivity....then behavior X is always good or bad....circumstances will not alter this, and it would be an aspect of reality that we could prove at least by consensus. Morality would stop being something created by our emotions and beliefs.....and something inherent in a behavior.

Ana the Ist said:

Some axiomatic statements are self refuting.

That's not a thing to hold against a person. I'm pretty sure you understood what he meant. Nobody is on a timeline long enough to know if the descriptions of reality that can be made and proven true hold true at all points along the timeline.

Ultimately, what we consider true is an aspect of reality we are very confident we can describe accurately and perhaps demonstrate to be so with evidence. Should these aspects of reality always be true is an unknown, but when we imagine they are and describe reality as such we call this objective reality.

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Lotsa people figure their God is the only sure
permanent reality

Gregory95 said:

i always just ask...explain why murder, rape and child abuse are wrong WITHOUT morality....

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That's just a goofy construction of a negative claim. Burden of proof lies upon the positive claim, not the negative.

If you're claiming that those things are wrong, how would you go about proving so?

Gregory95 said:

if morality is subjective truth must be subjective

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proposition A...

If morality is subjective

then proposition B...

Truth must be subjective.

morality and truth aren't the same. Prop B doesn't logically follow A. We can dismiss the rest of your question.

Gregory95 said:

if morality is subjective how is truth not subjective? for TRUTH determines if somthing is acctually moral

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I don't think you genuinely believe that.

Tinker Grey said:

Dude, do you even English?

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Mo Loach is an ancient Sumerian deity that demanded children sacrifice upon some alter, sometimes shaped like a mouth.

Mo Loach is also the name of a cab driver I had in New Jersey once.

FireDragon76 said:

I don't disagree. Math is useful. But I don't believe Pi exists as if it were some Platonic ideal.

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What use is it?

Give me an example of something pi can be used for.

Estrid said:

Lotsa people figure their God is the only sure
permanent reality

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Sure....and most people believe their God is an arbiter of morality, there to judge and guide them. You'll often hear them talk about how they wouldn't need to act morally without a God because they believe that it's that sense of being judged, even when alone, which keeps them from behaving badly.

In fact, I think if you want to convince people to behave morally when no one is looking....and you don't already have an omniscient God judging the behavior of people....you should definitely just make one up. There's a lot of people out there who will believe anything....and you can't keep an eye on them all the time.

Ana the Ist said:

What use is it?

Give me an example of something pi can be used for.

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Memorization contests

Estrid said:

Memorization contests

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The circumference of a circle, right?

Not an easy thing to measure in reality. It's tricky to get a measuring took flush with the surface of a circle. Pi is an infinite number which allows us to measure the circumference while only knowing the diameter.

In fact, it can do so precisely and it's repeatable by anyone.

Numbers aren't just abstractions....they are terms that allow us to measure aspects of reality. The relationship between these aspects can be simple or complex but the ones that can be reliably measured tend to be things we can describe with numbers.

Same could be said of sheet music. To anyone who understands the language, there's no real ambiguity, nothing subjective about what that language describes.

Ana the Ist said:

The circumference of a circle, right?

Not an easy thing to measure in reality. It's tricky to get a measuring took flush with the surface of a circle. Pi is an infinite number which allows us to measure the circumference while only knowing the diameter.

In fact, it can do so precisely and it's repeatable by anyone.

Numbers aren't just abstractions....they are terms that allow us to measure aspects of reality. The relationship between these aspects can be simple or complex but the ones that can be reliably measured tend to be things we can describe with numbers.

Same could be said of sheet music. To anyone who understands the language, there's no real ambiguity, nothing subjective about what that language describes.

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I just mea t like how many digits can you remember

Estrid said:

I just mea t like how many digits can you remember

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Oh....I try not make sure I'm not wearing mittens when digit counting...

Slows me down.

Ana the Ist said:

Some axiomatic statements are self refuting.

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Hi Ana,

Can you give me an example of a self-refuting axiom. It may be the case that we have a different understanding of what an axiom is. I hold that true axiomatic statements are conceptually irreducible, and identify a fundamental primary fact.

The happy Objectivist said:

Hi Ana,

Can you give me an example of a self-refuting axiom. It may be the case that we have a different understanding of what an axiom is. I hold that true axiomatic statements are conceptually irreducible,

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You mean tautalogical?

and identify a fundamental primary fact.

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Do you mean they assume a fact?

Ana the Ist said:

You mean tautalogical?




Do you mean they assume a fact?

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Yes and Yes.