Today Dr. Dan Korman and Noah McKay join me to discuss evolutionary debunking arguments. Can our moral beliefs survive skeptical threats?
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If you wanna make a one-time donation or tip (thanks!): https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/josep… 0:00 Intro 1:40 Debunking arguments 6:22 Three kinds of debunking arguments 14:43 Telic debunking argument 22:05 Explanationist pushback 38:51 Swampman pushback 59:51 New function pushback 1:16:45 Dan’s favored approach 1:25:01 Concluding thoughts RESOURCES Dan’s website (with his papers): https://danielzkorman.weebly.com/ Noah’s website (with his papers): https://noahdmckay.wordpress.com/ Dan’s paper, “Debunking Arguments”, https://philarchive.org/archive/KORDA-2 Dan’s paper, “An explanationist Account of Genealogical Defeat ”, https://philpapers.org/rec/KORAEA-4 Noah’s paper, ” Can Rational Reflection Save Moral Knowledge from Debunking?”, https://philpapers.org/rec/MCKCRR Noah’s paper, ” Moral knowledge and the existence of God”, https://philpapers.org/rec/MCKMKA My Metaethics playlist: • Metaethics My Springer book: (a) https://www.amazon.com/Existential-In?tag=lifeboatfound-20… (b) https://link.springer.com/book/10.100… THE USUAL… Follow the Majesty of Reason podcast! https://open.spotify.com/show/4Nda5uN… Join the Discord and chat all things philosophy! https://dsc.gg/majestyofreason My website: https://josephschmid.com My PhilPeople profile: https://philpeople.org/profiles/josep…
OUTLINE
🔍 Overview: Join Robert Plomin and me as we dive deep into the fascinating world of behavioural genetics, exploring how our DNA shapes who we are, the power of environment, and whether we can rewrite our genetic destiny.
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PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/samue… https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/a… 🗣️ Highlights [Highlight 1]: How Does Genetics Shape Who We Are? [Highlight 2]: What Role Does the Environment Truly Play in Defining Us? [Highlight 3]: Are We Hardwired by Our DNA, or Can We Rewrite Our Destiny? 🕒 Timestamps 0:00 — Introduction 1:57 — Robert Plomin, Philosophy and Psychology 4:12 — Why Behavioural Genetics? 8:21 — Publishing Blueprint 14:51 — Heritability 30:15 — The Basics of DNA 34:34 — Genetic Variances and Binary Myths 41:21 — Labels and Certificates 45:33 — Nonshared Environments and The Nature of Nurture 1:00:51 — Self-Selecting Within Environments 1:07:04 — Group Difference and Heritability 1:13:03 — Academic Success: DNA vs. Schooling 1:21:17 — Ethical Considerations 1:27:01 — Moral Responsibility and Accountability 1:31:23 — The Future of Genetics 1:42:38 — Genetic Trajectories and Random Events 1:45:17 — The DNA Revolution 1:48:21 — Closing Remarks 📚 Episode Resources (affiliate links where possible — thanks!) Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin: https://amzn.to/3T9htYp King’s College London: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/robert-p… Common Disorders are Quantitative Traits by Robert Plomin: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19859… Gattaca (1997): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ 🌐 Connect Linktree: https://linktr.ee/samueldevis89 Substack: https://thesocraticsessions.substack… Twitter: / samueldevis89 Facebook Page:
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🗣️ Highlights.
[Highlight 1]: How Does Genetics Shape Who We Are?
[Highlight 2]: What Role Does the Environment Truly Play in Defining Us?
[Highlight 3]: Are We Hardwired by Our DNA, or Can We Rewrite Our Destiny?
🕒 Timestamps.
Humans have been selectively breeding cats and dogs for thousands of years to make more desirable pets. A new startup called the Los Angeles Project aims to speed up that process with genetic engineering to make glow-in-the-dark rabbits, hypoallergenic cats and dogs, and possibly, one day, actual unicorns.
The Los Angeles Project is the brainchild of biohacker Josie Zayner, who in 2017 publicly injected herself with the gene-editing tool Crispr during a conference in San Francisco and livestreamed it. “I want to help humans genetically modify themselves,” she said at the time. She’s also given herself a fecal transplant and a DIY Covid vaccine and is the founder and CEO of The Odin, a company that sells home genetic-engineering kits.
Now, Zayner wants to create the next generation of pets. “I think, as a human species, it’s kind of our moral prerogative to level up animals,” she says.
Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including LLM-based conversational agents such as ChatGPT, have become increasingly widespread. These tools are now used by countless individuals worldwide for both professional and personal purposes.
Some users are now also asking AI agents to answer everyday questions, some of which could have ethical and moral nuances. Providing these agents with the ability to discern between what is generally considered ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, so that they can be programmed to only provide ethical and morally sound responses, is thus of the utmost importance.
Researchers at the University of Washington, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and other institutes in the United States recently carried out an experiment exploring the possibility of equipping AI agents with a machine equivalent of human moral judgment.
I presented these slides (PDF and images below) during the Workshop on Philosophy and Ethics of Brain Emulation (January 28th-29th, 2025) at the Mimir Center for Long Term Futures Research in Stockholm, Sweden. In my talk, I explored how various biological phenomena beyond standard neuronal electrophysiology may exert noticeable effects on the computations underlying subjective experiences. I emphasized the importance of the large range of timescales that such phenomena operate over (milliseconds to years). If we are to create emulations which think and feel like human beings, we must carefully consider the numerous tunable regulatory mechanisms the brain uses to enhance the complexity of its computational repertoire.