#metaethics — Public Fediverse posts

What can we say about trust and guilt? Not as much as we might think.

https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/guilty-as-charged?r=pvxh5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=masto&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#philosophy #language #substack #blog #metaethics #ethics #epistemology #linguistics #law #legaltheory #guilt #semantics #truth #wittgenstein #speech

A new colleague, Alaka Oluwatobi, shared his decolonial essay with me. I share this interest, so I read it and wrote a blog post. The essay is linked there as well as in the first comment if you'd like to read it without my opinions.

👉 https://philosophics.blog/2026/05/07/the-masters-concepts-decolonising-the-house-without-keeping-the-furniture/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

#philosophy #politics #society #culture #humancondition #language #morality #colonialism #liberalism #imperialism #hegemony #sovereignty #agency #autonomy #assey #blog #podcast #metaethics #metaphysics #fanon #hegel #history #critique

In this Substack, I reveal the sleight of hand psychologists use to domesticate ideas from philosophy and other disciplines by critiquing an essay on nihilism and Anhedonia.

https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/nihilism-is-not-a-symptom?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

#Nihilism #ExistentialNihilism #PsychologyCritique #Anhedonia #Metaethics #LanguageInsufficiency #Philosophy #MeaningOfLife #SemanticDrift #LanguageInsufficiency #PsychologyCritique #blog #podcast #essay #reading #writing #pathology

Folke Tersman has revised his SEP-entry on Moral Disagreement, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/disagreement-moral/

The author on Uppsala University's pages, https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N8-3

#ethics #morality #moralPhilosophy #philosophy #filosofia #etiikka #metaetiikka #metaethics #disagreement #erimielisyys #kiista #hyvä #paha #good #evil #bad #right #wrong #MorallyWrong #cognitivism #psychology #relativism #skepticism #realism #epistemology #uppsala

@burnoutqueen @kaye

Those inversions can be demonstrated to be incoherent. If good and evil are immature, that implies that there is no reason to act one way over another. If that is true and someone really believes, the question is why aren’t they behaving randomly.

Believing incoherent notions of good and evil is bad as is the case with evangelicals.

#philosophy #moral #morals #ethics #MoralRealism #metaethics

A moral philosophy paper recently written by me, presenting a new liar paradox-like argument about contradictions within consequentialism:

https://philpapers.org/rec/IONCJP

#philosophy #ethic #consequentialism #deontology #metaethics #morality #paradox #research

RE: https://mastodon.online/@citify/115900961961050202

Aesthetic value has an objective component for the same reason that moral value has an objective component. Minds are physical systems. A consequence of that is that they can, in principle, be computationally modeled. We can talk about an infinite-time Turing machine running all these mind models and have it search for regularities in behavior in the limit (morals) or aesthetic appreciation.

What do you think is #ethics or aesthetics objective?

#philosophy #metaethics #morality

A nice video about moral dialetheism :
https://youtu.be/bWdJ8BRl9lA?si=sYOEggapwwGCpy92

#philosophy #analyticalphilosophy #continentalphilosophy #metaethics #moralphilosophy #ethics

CAN PHILOSOPHY SAVE HUMANITY IF AI->AGI? While not one mention of "AI" in this paper, there are certain implications that may be worth an ☕ of contemplation. #philosophy #ai #ethics #agi #law #order #judgement #systems #consequentialism #metaethics #errtling www.researchgate.net/publication/...

(PDF) Consequentialist Judgmen...

@AlexanderKingsbury

Rationality has no motivation, this isn't a fringe position its formulated more thoroughly by philosophers like David Hume I wont keep replying but don't presume to be in the right just because you dont understand a philosophical position

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/132/what-did-david-hume-mean-when-he-said-that-reason-is-a-slave-to-the-passions

#DavidHume #Philosophy #Metaethics

@AlexanderKingsbury Basically thats what everyones axioms are. You can't get away from being a utility maximising machine. Everything you do and justify is because you want to do it, and you don't choose what you want.

#Metaethics #FreeWill

@jlou Property rights are not objective any more than the right to life or any other so called rights, they are intersubjective constructed based on shared experience, it can appear close to objective but its ultimately the same thing as preferences they are just widely held preferences.

"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND
GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND
THEN *SHOW* ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET-- Death
waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS
IF THERE IS SOME... SOME *RIGHTNESS* IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE
JUDGED
"
Terry Pratchett

#Metaethics #Rights #Property #Leftism #Socialism #Anarchism

Many disagreements don’t persist because people are irrational or uninformed. They persist because the parties involved are not standing on the same conceptual ground.

New essay on ontological incommensurability, moral disagreement, and why convergence is sometimes the wrong expectation.

Disagreement Without Referees
🔗 https://philosophics.blog/2025/12/16/essay-disagreement-without-referees/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social

#Metaethics #Philosophy #Morality #AntiFoundationalism #metaethics #referee #ontology #redcard #disagreement
#blog #podcast #writing #essay

Sixth #Groningen #Metaethics #Workshop, April 10, 2026. #CfP until January 23. All details here: https://philevents.org/event/show/143053

#CallForPapers #Philosophy #Conference

What if the Frege–Geach problem isn’t a problem at all?

Analytic philosophy built a logical puzzle by assuming moral language works like empirical language. My Language Insufficiency Hypothesis says that’s a category error. Moral predicates live in different conceptual terrain entirely.

https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/17/what-if-the-frege-geach-problem-isnt/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social&utm_vampaign=lih

#Philosophy #AnalyticPhilosophy #PhilosophyOfLanguage #MetaEthics #Emotivism #Wittgenstein #Metaphysics #Logic #Language #PostEnlightenment #CriticalTheory #Epistemology #Psychology

Moral Realism and Anti-Realism vs. the Metaethics of Life

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://objectivestandard.org/moral-realism-and-anti-realism-vs-the-metaethics-of-life/

My new essay Objectivity Is Illusion: An Operating Model of Social and Moral Reasoning is now archived with a DOI.

I argue that what passes as “objectivity” is consensus disguised as granite. Truth is rhetorical, morality prescriptive, and our real obligation is care: tending the scaffolding we walk on.

Read the full essay (open access):
👉 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17195641

#Philosophy #MetaEthics #SocialEpistemology #Pragmatism #PhilosophyOfScience #Truth #Morality #pschology #society #social

We’ve never lived on granite foundations. What we call “objectivity” in social and moral life is scaffolding: provisional, rhetorical, maintained through care, reciprocity, and revolt.

In my new essay, I map an operating model for reasoning without granite illusions — and argue for an ethic of repair.

Read the full post:
👉 https://philosophics.blog/2025/09/24/stop-pretending-we-live-in-marble-halls/

#Philosophy #Ethics #MetaEthics #PhilosophyOfScience #Epistemology #MetaPhilosophy #SocialEpistemology #CriticalTheory #Subjectivism #Relativism

"Within the Meta AI app, a “discover” tab shows a timeline of other people’s interactions with the chatbot; a short scroll down on the Meta AI website is an extensive collage. While some of the highlighted queries and answers are innocuous—trip itineraries, recipe advice—others reveal locations, telephone numbers, and other sensitive information, all tied to user names and profile photos."

Oh no.

https://www.wired.com/story/meta-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-conversations/

#AIethics #Privacy #MetaAI #MetaEthics #UserPrivacy #PrivacyBreach #AItools #ChatBots #LLMs #ChatBotPrivacyBreach #MetaChatBot

I have a question for the philosophers, ethicists, and adjacent people reading this.
Suppose you discovered that all of the people you most ethically admire in the world shared the same metaethical view.
Would you take this as a reason, even a small one, in favor of that metaethical view?
If yes, would you take this to be an *epistemic* reason?

I admit I can't sort out for myself what to think about this, and don't know of any work on it.

#philosophy #ethics #metaethics #academia

On 9 April 2025, we will host the Fifth #Groningen #Metaethics #Workshop

Keynote by James Lenman (Sheffield): “The Truth in #Conventionalism”

Papers by:
Singa Behrens, Sofia Berinstein, Graham Bex-Priestley, Nils Franzén, Will Gamester,
and Thomas Schmidt

For info and registration, see https://philevents.org/event/show/129346

#Philosophy

Pekka Väyrynen has revised his SEP-entry on Thick Ethical Concepts, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thick-ethical-concepts/

His homepage at Leeds University, https://vayrynen.org/

#etiikka #moraali #ethics #concepts #filosofia #philosophy #metaethics

There's no such thing as #good or #evil; objectively speaking. Either you abide by #society's rules, or you don't, and society doesn't serve all of the people the same.

The slave is considered evil by the policeman who is considered good by the fascist.

If you want people to be "good" you have to build a society that works for them.

#philosophy #ethics #metaEthics

Plan Expressivism: A Non-cognitivist Metaethical Theory
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jf1pecp2fRs

Plan expressivism - non-cognitivist metaethical theory.

New TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@answersinreason/video/7135943229790244102

#morality #moralityshorts #ethics #ethicsandmorality #morals #purpose #purposeofmorality #metaethics #normativeethics #moralcognativism #moralnoncognstivism #moralsubjectivism #ethicaltheory #shorts #shortshorts #planexpressivism

#TikTok #Philosophy

Quasi-Realism: A Noncognitivist Metaethical Theory
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Lks8ld1wxrs

blackburn's quasi-realism is a bit different from other noncognitive approaches in that it states we are entitled to act as if our moral statements are truth-apt even though, strictly speaking, they do not.

New TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@answersinreason/video/7137964638041312518

#morality #moralityshorts #ethics #ethicsandmorality #morals #purpose #purposeofmorality #metaethics #mora

Some critiques of horizontality/non-hierarchy are basically: "horizontality/non-hierarchy+ABC bad things or minus XYZ good things = some less than good/effective thing." But that's an issue of the absence of XYZ good things / the presence of ABC bad things-- not horizontality

The same could be said of many critiques of direct democracy (direct collective decision making). Direct democracy+ABC bad things or minus XYZ good things is unsurprisingly not as ethical/effective as Direct democracy + XYZ good things and minus ABC bad things.

It is when there is a gestalt of multiple liberatory processes/practices/goals that various necessary but insufficient features for liberatory organizing can meaningfully thrive and mutually qualify each other.

https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/gestalt-of-the-good-2023-remix/

#anarchism #anarchy #communism #communalism #libertariancommunism #libertariansocialism #democracy #directdemocracy #selfmanagement #mutualaid #directaction #nonhierarchy #antihierarchy #horizontalism #horizontality #freeassociation #socialecology #ethics #normativeethics #metaethics

Everyone in ethics and metaethics knows this quote from Hume:
“Reason Is and Ought Only to Be the Slave of the Passions”

It's always given as a statement of a Humean theory of motivation - beliefs alone can't motivate, only once coupled with desires.

But do Hume scholars (or ethicists) ever give an explanation of the "ought only to be" part of the quote? It is very curious and seemingly incompatible with the Humean theory of motivation: Why make an ought claim about an action-type which literally can't be violated?

#philosophy #academicchatter #ethics #metaethics

Metaethicists and philosophers generally, did we ever come to an agreement about the most plausible reformulation of Moore's Open Question Argument in light of externalist metasemantics?

It's one of those arguments that everyone hates but still it gets cited as telling us *something* important. What is the important thing it tells us?

#philosophy #ethics #metaethics

I'm excited to see recent developments with LLMs may provide effective modeling of our aggregate values (multi-level, fine-grained), increasingly coherent over increasing context of meaning.

LLMs such as ChatGPT and Gemini already impress us with their ability to produce coherent (but not necessarily correct) abstractions from massive collections of data relevant to our interests.

Now, what if we run multiple instances of LLMs with diverse priors, collaboratively (at lower levels adversarial, at higher levels cooperative) selecting for increasing coherence over increasing context in the domain of present but evolving values?

Of the two orthogonal dimensions producing the expanding space of moral (right in principle) agency —our values, and our methods for their promotion — we already have much attention on our evolving methods (science, technology) and it appears we are on the cusp of rapid development of an effective model of our evolving values!

Cause for (Promethean) hope!

Research remains to be performed on theoretical and practical questions involving expected signal-to-noise improvements of "synthetic data" extracted from latent information in our datasets, regression due to synthetic data added to the data set, biases, gaming of the system, and on and on… Interesting, exciting, and dangerous.

#LLM #LargeLanguageModels #AI #GenerativeModels #SyntheticData #DecisionMaking #CollectiveDecisionMaking #Ethics #MetaEthics #Morality #ArrowOfMorality

An interesting read - but not sure I am convinced #ethics #philosophy #metaEthics #reading @rwcupp

https://aeon.co/essays/ethical-values-can-be-both-objective-and-yet-without-a-foundation