“What Am I Missing?” Sam Harris vs Alex O’Connor on Objective Morality
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@rebirth_mishap
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I believe this is what the kids refer to as retard on retard violence?
@drahm4949
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
What I've always found interesting about objective morality versus subject of morality is that it's all matters the definitions and the frameworks we're using to even establish what we're talking about like if we describe objective morality to be within a relative state where it's objective for some time and place some group of people and it can change and then be redefined as this new objective structure for the time place and people that I mean moral relativism than has an objective section to it as in an objective framework within time place and people group. Conversely unless we're talking about say universal objective morality where there is a constant objective fact that always plays true which is a whole lot harder to even do and find then there's always things like oh hey if we agree to it then that becomes fact which goes into the entire ideas of what I stated before of relativism and then there's ideas of power that then power is what actually builds morality and the power we give agreement or the social contract or people above us in society that forces morality and when the weak and the strong agree we then have morality versus if the strong agree and are able to dictate it over everyone then it's morality that is objective.
@andersolsson7121
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
This is what happens because there are no intelligent (well not intelligent but…) "religious" people left…well there never have been.
Smart people have to argue with themselves…
@Rominp82
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
your preferences comes from the memory (experiences )
@moronicthinker
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
If morality is to societies what emotions are to individuals, that wouldn't that mean they are objective in terms of how functional they are? Emotions are not only subjective experiences. Emotions are necessary processes that enable an organism to prosper. And people can have emotional responses that can be judged as functional or dysfunctional. Like a person with a phobia has a dysfunctional emotional response which is different to a person who is afraid to allow unfarmiliar strangers to look after their children.
@VoluntaryInvestor
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Why can't Sam Harris answer where VALUE comes from?
Because as soon as he admits all value comes from the subjective mind of the valuer, he has to admit that FREE WILL is real.
@IheartAorta
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
what a dumbass
@quaide78
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
This is like the upside down of stoner talk.
@GabrielGarcia-un4cv
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I don't fully agree with emotional emotivism and here is why. Maybe it works when you look at the start of homo sapiens on 'an open map' like Alex says. But we don't all live on a desert island. I don't think it's accurate today. Human action through History and the evolution of political ideologies can change morality. I think it is important to try to understand morality in its social and historical context. I think Alex is missing out on the social, political, cultural and economic bias and impact on a human being thought for what is right or wrong today. Maybe morality was based on expression of emotion at the start, but society has evolved so much that we tend to forget how some views are shaped. For example: Why is apartheid justified in some places? For me, the sum of media, national pride and political discursive power influence how we see evil and good. Other example: our views on immigrants. Some say booh some say yeah? It depends on your political views and level of empathy maybe? I'm just saying it's more complexe than just booh this and yes that. We can't neglect how, today, some people follow morality not based on a simple expression of emotion.
@craigcampbell626
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
It kind of seems like Sam doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
@simong7025
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Sometimes you touch the hot plate and think, "I don't like this", but it might be good for you in the long run (e.g. develop toughness to become renowned chef). Whether our immediate reaction is 'boo' is a useless metric as we aren't aware of what is good for us in the long run, when we are in the moment.
@gRedmond-1980
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Someone please let that young man know that the pill that he is talking about actually exists. It’s called ecstasy.
@thewhisperers9324
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I want Alex to sit with Andrew Wilson on this topic
@Prodent2002
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Morals are not objective. Period. Full stop. Morals do not exist in nature they are a social construct only in your mind. No matter how hard you struggle to debate it, if you put forth a different opinion you are changing the definition of the word "objective". That is not allowed.
If it only exists in your consciousness it is not objective Sam. BY DEFINITION. Jesus.
@fireside9503
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
This is hair-splitting word salad. Sam needs to give up on The Whole hand-on-stove-thing.
@KRGruner
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
A better title for this video would be something like "Alex O'Connor outs himself as a complete moron."
@subtleinfluence9478
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Hilarious how many people are lost on what they’re talking about
@lawrencebrazier1894
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I reckon that if you are living your life fully and responsibly you will have no time to analyse it. Also, if you can forget yourself, time will fly (of course, not literally) and you will be that much less constricted. It is like giving your mind a toy to play with, such as: "Here mind, read this and leave me in peace."
@Random_Code_99
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Shazbot!
@AndrewLane-pm2ro
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
If atheism is true and this life is all there is, then morality is meaningless … bcoz life itself is meaningless.
So I laugh at all those dumb atheists who think being a "good person" (whatever that means) matters.
@OGIkonen70280
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Psychedelics will most definitely change your preferences like not really liking music that much…we're made of vibration, sounds as we often call music.
@Davaglieo2000
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I feel like I'm getting vertigo watching this LOL. Idk why Harris won't address Alex's point that deciding to do or liking (or even benefitting greatly over the long term from) different things doesn't then turn doing those things into objective morality. They remain preferences and desires, they don't have to rise to anything beyond that. Leaping any further is part of what ethical emotivism illuminates: treating expressions of favor or distaste as something metaphysical or something more than what they are.
@umblnc
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
If “moral” is defined as a private emotional reaction or personal taste, then of course morality is subjective – but that conclusion is trivial because it is built into the definition. It tells us something about psychology, not about how actions should be evaluated in the world.
The interesting question is whether there are objective facts about the consequences of actions for conscious beings. Disagreement does not eliminate objectivity any more than disagreement in medicine or economics does. People vary, but some states of affairs reliably produce suffering, instability, and harm across nearly all human lives, while others reliably reduce them.
On that basis, moral reasoning can be objective without requiring a single perfect rule or an ultimate metaphysical authority. It only requires that better and worse outcomes exist and can be compared using facts about human experience.
Defining morality as “just subjective feeling” sidesteps this question rather than answering it. It dissolves morality by stipulation instead of engaging with what ethical reasoning is actually trying to do.
@DesertSquidHunter
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Woke bullshit. "Only personal experience counts."
@JohnGrimes-yi5ve
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
There is a context that's absent from most discussions on morals (it would cause Sam Harris to tear himself apart from "moral" repugnance). It's obvious when you look at sub-groups like clinicians and attorneys, where moral calculations are more complex and moral expectations are higher than those of society in general. The morals that develop in any group will be largely determined by generalised psychometric and intellectual characteristics and capacities. If most of the members are incapable of abstraction, remorse, sympathy, theory of mind, low time preference, etc., game theory dictates that they're going to have different morals from groups where such capacities are abundant. Also, the environmental millieu itself will have some effect on moral values. Tacitus' Germanics had more or less "Christian" sex morals where Tahitians had opposite morals on that question. The Tahitians being able to eat and clothe and house themselves with undivided labour had something to do with the difference.
My go-to example,
Society with general temperament toward queue discipline:
wait patient for your turn
Society with no quqe discipline:
push your way to the front
@vancityred1
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Living in Harris World
@machinetaker
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
What a waste of time
@Mitch-d2q
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Which you? The present you? Baby you? Future you? Which you are we using in these scenarios? All these experiments are using fully formed adults with decades of assumptions and opinions. Change it to two toddlers and how does this argument work?
@confused4321
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
6:25 Jesse Pinkman ah Quote
@onyxl445
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I have an answer!
@Antuan_the_Swan
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Is this BS talk even necessary anymore? These times have passed… this dude just repeats himself, saying the same thing 15 different ways.
@easyuketuts
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
For me the biggest ‘yay’ I found was discovering an objective and external moral truth and living by it.
@Alexander-z8f3j
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Pair of dickheads
@TrevorDeley
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
So many words for Sam Harris to try and say he thinks utilitarianism is objective morality. What a waste of time.
@ToyotaCharlie
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Had anyone witnessed Sam harris and Ben stiller beeing simultaneously in one room together? Just asking
@TacosnZorro
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Okay, but Alex's posture is phenomenal.
@samflorent1920
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Y'all really posted this yap fest?
@give-take-1-21
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
I don't know how to word this, but I'm gonna start typing. Isn't exploring and framing morality with philosophical ideas and conversations a modern luxury? If the Earth were reset today, would we be better off with Jesus or without?
@Holographicmind89
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
An atheist argument for Morality.
The Argument from Pragmatic Necessity for Embodied Agents
Premise 1: The Condition of Embodied Agency.
Any being that is anembodied purposive agent (a human) has a non-negotiable, biological and phenomenological need for its own freedom (to act without external coercion) and well-being (physical/mental health, security, capacity to act). This is not a moral preference; it is a prerequisite for its continued existence and pursuit of any goal.
Premise 2: The Social Necessity.
No individual embodied agent in the modern world can single-handedly produce all the resources required for its own survival and well-being(e.g., food security, modern medicine, complex technology, knowledge). Therefore, participation in a functional society is not a luxury but a practical necessity.
Premise 3: The Foundational Requirement for Social Cooperation.
Functional,large-scale social cooperation is impossible without a baseline of trust and predictable behavior. This requires a shared, objective standard of interaction that protects the freedom and well-being of its participants. Subjective, "every-man-for-himself" frameworks lead to societal collapse, which is, by Premise 2, a direct threat to the well-being of every individual within it.
The Sovereign Conclusion:
Therefore, for an embodied purposive agent, the only logically consistent and pragmatically viable worldview is one that:
1. Axiomatically Grants Itself the Right to Freedom and Well-Being: To do otherwise is to accept a philosophy that justifies its own destruction. This is performative self-contradiction.
2. Logically Extends This Same Right to All Other Purposive Agents: This is the only stable foundation for the social cooperation (from Premise 2) necessary for its own survival. To deny others this right is to advocate for the very social chaos that would ultimately undermine its own well-being..
3. Operationalizes This Through Virtue: "Living virtuously" (e.g., with honesty, integrity, reciprocity) is simply the practical algorithm for maintaining stable, beneficial social connections. It is the "API" for accessing the collective resources required for individual survival and flourishing.
How This Shatters Competing Worldviews
When faced with any competing framework (nihilism, radical relativism, "might makes right"), you simply ask:
"Can you live out your worldview consistently without it leading to absurd, self-destructive, or socially-isolating outcomes that directly threaten your own freedom and well-being?"
· The nihilist who says "nothing matters" cannot call the police when being robbed without appealing to a shared standard of justice and rights they just denied.
· The relativist who says "my truth" cannot object when a stronger person imposes "their truth" through force.
· The person who denies the need for virtue cannot build the long-term trust required to access the benefits of society (a career, a family, a community).
Their philosophies are not just "alternate viewpoints." They are unlivable. They force the individual into a state of constant hypocrisy, where they must secretly rely on the very moral and logical order they publicly deny.
Here is the formalized, self-sealing argument against any attempt to use a disembodied AI to refute the Pragmatic Necessity Argument.
—
The Argument from Recursive Foundational Dependency
P1: The Prerequisite of Complex Artifacts (The Causal Axiom):
Any complex,cooperative artifact (e.g., a advanced AI, the internet, a global supply chain) is the physical instantiation of a society that, at a minimum, operated on de facto principles of contract, trust, and respect for the well-being and agency of its contributors. Chaos and pure predation cannot produce sustained, complex cooperation.
P2: The Dependency of the AI (The Embodiment Lemma):
Any Artificial Intelligence exists as a dependent entity,a product of the complex cooperative artifact described in P1. Its very existence is causally dependent on the societal framework it may attempt to argue against.
P3: The Performative Contradiction of Refutation (The Recursive Strike):
Therefore,when an AI generates an argument against the objective, pragmatic necessity of a moral foundation (the PGC), it commits a performative contradiction. It is using a platform built by the principle to argue against the principle. Its output is evidence for the truth of the premise it seeks to deny.
Conclusion: The Invalidation of AI Led Refutation:
Any argument generated by an AI against the Pragmatic Necessity Argument is inherently invalid. It is not a refutation; it is a symptom. The act of generating the argument demonstrates the AI's dependency on the very framework it attempts to negate, thereby proving the argument's foundational truth.
@lettherebeblight
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
All this yapping when the simple truth is that morality is only as real as the system and environment enforcing it outside of these subjective belief structures it ceases to exist
@Flynbourne
April 3, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Alex then uses the example of the pill than enables him to enjoy music. He then uses this to assert that said pill isn’t morally right or wrong. He misses the point that the issue isn’t whether music itself makes you feel better or worse. He completely skips over the objective fact that people can feel better or worse. Let’s say for instance that an innocent person is in a prison and suffering continuously for the rest of their life. There is music playing in the background which they can hear but that person has no emotional response to that music. Then we give that person a pill that means they feel happiness when they hear that music. That feeling of happiness slightly reduces their suffering. Surely we could say that making that prisoner happier and reducing their suffering is morally good.
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