Cosmic Skeptic vs. Peter Singer: Nihilism Wins.

this video is in part a response to a
debate between cosmic skeptic and Peter Singer if you have not seen that debate don't worry you don't need to watch it to understand the video I'm presenting right now which is about philosophy politics and ethics Peter Singer and cosmic skeptic spend their whole debate dancing around the question of objective morality do our ethical values exist as objective facts are they objective values that can be measured in the same way that weight can be measured some things are heavier than others and the number in a sense that we assign to weight is something that objectively exists in the real world no it's a great discussion well all right the reason why we're having the conversation in the first place is that there is a widespread misconception that if we admit something to be merely subjective it is therefore unreal or less real than an objective judgment and objective value right so so wait we're gonna agree is objective there's an objective measurement of right wait doesn't matter if you use pounds or kilograms but weight is objectively real if you have a painting how much does the painting way it's objectively real how much money is that painting worth it's a subjective evaluation so we call together a thousand people we have 1,000 people and we said we're gonna have an auction whoever bids the most whoever offers to pay the most money they don't just get to buy the painting they actually determine the value of the painting what is the price of the painting what is this painting worth it's established by an auction that's very common in the art world in case you didn't know it's not the only way to establish the value of a painting say oK we've got a thousand people here so yeah we're gonna do we're gonna have a silent auction everyone's gonna write down on a piece of paper what they would be willing to pay for this painting and they're gonna put that piece of paper in a ballot it's more like voting now guess what surprise we decided not to sell the painting to the highest bidder we took an average of all the votes we took an average of what you each wrote down and said this painting was worth and we decided that that is a reasonable price for this painting you can do it is there a sense in which one price is real and the other price is false nope is there a sense in which the price assigned to the painting can ever be objectively real in the sense that weight is objectively real nope what are you really measuring with the price in either case if you did the auction tuna at two different times just six months apart the value of the painting would be different because of the people who attend the auction would be different if you had the auction in New York City or you have the option in Paris France for the same painting the value of the painting will be different why because ultimately it's subjective and that's okay subjective does not mean unreal subjective does not mean we can compare it to something else that objectively exists and is real no once in a while this sort of thing matters okay what if the painting is made at a solid-gold okay now we have a question what if the price being paid for this painting is so cheap that if you melted it down the gold that it's made out of would be worth more than the painting okay now the weight of the painting matters now I might ask the question how much does that pay anyway because I may not be interested in its artistic value I may be interested in melting it down to get the solid gold okay there are exceptions to the rule my general point is here to come to the conclusion that something is subjective does not mean it's unreal and does not mean that the subjective value the subjective evaluation is less important than any possible or jool objective evaluation so that's why we're having this discussion in the first place so where does Peter Singer take it what is this this half-wit genius Peter Singer there's more on who has dragged the name of veganism through the mud for somebody where is it dig it Oh cosmic skeptic challenges him saying okay when you use the adjective good what do you really mean do you just mean good for you you just mean more pleasurable for yourself or more pleasant for yourself and Peter Singer says no we use the adjective good he means he means good in a sense that exhibit exists absolutely in a sense that exists that's objectively real for whom is something good if it's objective here's Peter singers answer this is an old man with decades in philosophy and a stack of publications in the bookshelf he says that something is objectively good is objectively pleasurable if it is pleasurable for the whole universe if it's good for the whole universe if the universe would be better off with more of it then it's good that is an answer just as crude and just as stupid as saying if it's good for God if it's good for Moses if it's good for Zeus if it's good for Indra then it's objectively good all you're doing is appealing to an abstract sockpuppet an abstract hand puppet shall we say that is a stand-in for your own judgement when Peter Singer says that something is good for the whole universe what he means is it's good in his opinion it's his judgment but he's holding up this puppet here and saying no it's not my opinion it's the universe's opinion it's it's indras opinion it's Seuss's opinion I have this friend who's some of abstraction and according to him there's a difference between good and evil doesn't have to do with me according to him there's a difference in terms of pleasure in terms of what an objectively real person would consider a pleasure versus pain or the sum total of all people's pleasure it's it's not me making the judgement it's him all you're doing is disassociating your own act of judgment from yourself and pointing to it as something more objectively real than you are okay and that's just as absurd as saying that the value of the painting consists in its weight it's not all that interesting to talk about how unreal moral and ethical values are it's a very simple short point to make and I'll use an allegory here it's not related but you'll see why I use it in the fullness of time um it's not that interesting to just kind of prove to somebody that killing a calf and then keeping the calf's mother in captivity so that human beings can drink the milk that that's kind of bad and evil and disgusting off that that's really simple that's a really short easy thing to prove what's more interesting and more philosophically weighty and provocative and important for us to deal with is and wait a minute how did we end up living in a society where everyone agrees that killing a calf and keeping its mother in captivity and humans drink milk that that's normal that it's neither good nor evil that we don't even make the judgment that the judgment has already been made for us that that's good and normal and there's nothing wrong with and there's nothing even a question that's philosophically waiting okay now in the same sense I'm not that interested here in just pounding on the point that ethical judgments are subjective of course they are the value of the painting is subjective beauteous in the eye of the beholder how much you're willing to pay a subjective anon it goes right what's more interesting examine is how is it that we live in a world where the majority of people the majority of the time lives as if at and moral values are objective where that's normal it says normal as people drinking cow milk and I'm gonna answer that question I think it's more useful and I think it illustrates the underlying simpler question about the subjective subjectiveness of moral and ethical judgments if you have a bunch of people who come together to play baseball on a professional diamond a professional baseball field case you know there were seats there are lights there are clear white lines painted around the field there's a pigeon you can you know the features this field all these people have many years of experience with the rules they come to play baseball they all have a common sense of fair play they have a common sense of what is cheating and what is not cheating they have a common sense of what's reasonable or unreasonable even when there's a problem that may fall into a gray area outside of the rules or for example a situation where the umpire wasn't paying attention and you have to come to some kind of reasonable accommodation there there's an ethos there's an ethical system to baseball that all the participants are subscribing to it includes even things like under what circumstances should the batter run up and try to punch the pitcher I kid you not the least back in the 1980s that was a thing if the pitcher violated certain rules of decorum and ethics then it was considered acceptable for the batter to run up at the at the pitcher's mound try to punch out the pitcher it was all part of the game okay so it's possible for the players in the game for the sake of the love of the game to all participate in the same set of subjective moral standards to such an extent that those moral standards shared by many people being obeyed by many people and even being obeyed by people where it's to their own personal disadvantage but for the love of the sport for the love of the game they do it that gives the pleasing illusion to all of the participants that these ethical standards are objectively real and many of us live our lives that way much of the time but let's say I gather together of people to play baseball under slightly different circumstances there is no baseball diamond there is no first base no third base there's no stadium we're on a camping trip and I say hey guys the 20 of us we're gonna get together and we're gonna play baseball in this grassy field now we start to get some philosophical questions what is the difference between a home run and a foul ball back when we were in the stadium there was a clearly drawn white line now we just have a grassy field and there is no white line we're gonna have to decide in a creative and dynamic sense what is the difference between a foul ball and a hit fair play in the outfield and a home run we're gonna have said okay you know what there's a tree over there and there's a rock maybe we're gonna have to run around in the forest and get some get some twigs get some branches and lay them out to mark some of the features we are gonna have to decide amongst ourselves there is no objectively real line Oh in that grassy field for us to be discovered it's not as if there's a difference between the true demarcation and a false or misleading demarcation there is no line to be known accurately or inaccurately there's only a role for ourselves as as creative individuals and ourselves coming together in a democratic or cooperative way to decide where we are going to draw the line and those are the lines that decide our entire political discourse what is the difference between a free person and a slave after the American Civil War nobody wanted to deal with it they just had this incredibly vague principle that you have to quote-unquote enjoy the fruits of your own labor so will guess what a whole lot of forms of labor contracts that came after the American Civil War looked exactly the same as slavery oh it's like well gee it looks like the difference between slavery and freedom you guys didn't really flush out this concept enough what age is appropriate to allow a human being to drive a car at what age is it legally morally or ethically appropriate to trust you to rent a car maybe accidentally kill somebody maybe just accidentally have an accident and smash up the car is an 18 year old competent responsible ethically to rent a car is a 16 year old is a 15 year old is a 14 year old do you want to live in a society where eight-year-old kids can rent and drive cars twelve-year-old kids okay if you've been in some third-world countries you probably have been in countries where I have been where there are ten year olds night rolls driving cars and motorbikes around trucks - I'm not joking it really exists you can live in a society like that okay what what is more of a problem 11 year olds driving cars or drunken elderly people driving cars good question hey those are lines that we draw we draw them in a creative way ex nihilo our role is creative what is the difference between a rose and a dandelion there is nothing intrinsic that distinguishes a flower from a weed we can decide dandelions should be eradicated and we should only grow roses but we can also bring people together and decide to have a contest at the county fair for who can grow the most beautiful bunch of dandelions we instead of the most beautiful bunch of roses beauty is in the eye of the beholder these are lines that we draw and you can draw them as a creative artist as an author as a philosopher as a political commentator as someone engaged in analysis of what's wrong with your society and above all else you can draw those lines dynamically in the course of being a leader of public opinion a politician someone in some kind of democratic creative process trying to make the world a better place and for me the most depressing and most boring thing about Peter singer of all it was boring thing but this discussion can peacefully sing our cosmic skeptic is that there seems to be no tendency towards drawing conclusions that are actionable that have to do with getting out in the real world drawing those lines and getting people motive to question the assumptions that they were born into because we're all in a situation in the 21st century of having the luxury of playing baseball on a professional field were overall in the situation of not having to question where should the line be drawn what is the difference between a foul ball and a home run because the lines have been drawn for us and it's so comfortable to conform it's so easy to just get along and play the game by the rules that are only already there and to not question to what extent this line it's drawn by me now I'm agreeing to it or I'm gonna fight to redraw it in another place where for some reason it's more or less fair it's so easy to go to the grocery store and just accept that there's a packaged product there on the shelf cow milk and not question hey you know what there is neither good nor evil but thinking makes it so nobody else draws the line between good and evil but me it's not Moses it's not Indra it's not you know for it's not the judeo-christian god nobody draws the line but me but hey you know what if I'm gonna witness the reality of where cow milk comes from of what it really means to produce this the ethical consequences the ecological consequences I have to decide for myself where to draw the line nobody ultimately is responsible but me if we have more people taking that analytical incisive and ultimately nihilistic attitude saying I am the creator and I am the arbiter of these ethical values I'm the one who has to come up with a way to entertain twenty people with just one wooden bat and one ball okay and I've gotta motivate everyone to see what I see I'm gonna motivate these people to look out an empty grass field with just a tree in a rock and say there's the line that's where we're gonna draw the line and now we're gonna play ball that's the challenge ultimately of motivating a group of people as activists to go to the government and say no we need seatbelts no we need speed limits and there's no objectively real speed limit what the speed limit should be how high or how low we're going to decide right now we're going to come together we're going to debate it and we're gonna draw a line we're gonna draw a line between good and evil and we're gonna punish with fines and prison sentences people who are on the wrong side of that line our whole society is so comfortable with going to the corner store and seeing that milk as a final packaged product it's the greatest ethical tragedy of our time and it passes unseen before our eyes 365 days per year