Objective Morals (aka Moral Realism)

Background

A friend and I were discussing objective morals. I thought all his claims and ideas were wrong. Of course, I liked my ideas. That lead me to look into the topic more. I looked up the leading logical arguments for moral realism, and I didn't find them very compelling compared to the arguments against moral realism.

Introduction

This is going to be a brainstorming post. I want to explain my ideas, thinking, and ask questions to guide the next phase of my inquiry.

My Biases

I don't believe in any creator, god, or religion. So the arguments built on a creator or attributes of a god are rejected because I reject the existence of those ideas. With that said, moral realism is not contingent on deism.

Evolution is one of the strongest theories in biology, if not all of science.

I believe in objective reality. Physical structures are undeniable. Ideologies and other abstract ideas are very much open for debate.

Epistemology wise, I'm a skeptic who leans heavily on 1) empiricism for knowledge that can be measured and 2) rationalism for knowledge that cannot be measured.

Logic is the best system of thinking.

The scientific method is the best system for understanding processes.

Questions (and how do we know?)

Are all, most, some, or few behaviors moral truths?

How many people have to agree for something to be a moral truth?

If people cannot agree, how do people decide what the moral truths are?

If there are moral truths, how can people know what they are? 

How do non human animals fit into the discussion?

How do psychopaths and or other sociopaths fit into the discussion?

How does the history of slavery and the abolishment of slavery prove/disprove moral realism?

How do laws prove/disprove moral realism?

If something like, do not murder, is a moral truth, how do we explain why people murder?

Even if everyone agrees murder is morally wrong, how do we know that's an objective truth and not culture?

For deist, what does it mean when a religion's god commands someone to break a moral truth?

If x is claimed to be a moral truth, does one situation where x is moral disprove x as a moral truth? 

My Priors

People do not agree.

The disagreement seems undeniable. I know that disagreement doesn't necessarily rule out moral realism, but it makes it obvious to me that people aren't going to agree. If we cannot agree, then how can we know which, if any, moral truths are true?

Let's look at killing.

A jainist might say killing a tree or plant is morally wrong. The US legal system might say killing is allowed in self defense. An army might say killing is allowed to protect and or conquer an area. Most people eat meat, so they think it is moral to kill animals for food. Hunters might hunt for sport. Many vegans stop eating meat because they decide it's morally wrong that animals have to suffer in factory farming conditions. And the list goes on. People have varying morals about killing. Maybe a moral realist would agree that killing isn't one of the moral truths.

It feels like I only need to find one black swan. Maybe this is a logical fallacy. But if a moral realist says x is a moral truth, I should only have to find one situation where x is moral.

What's Next?

Here are my next two stops. I'll add further resources as I find them. 

Moral Anti-Realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Moral Realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 

“The Legendary Muhammad Ali”

She watched her eldest son, Muhammad Ali, sharpen his knife. The woman knew Ali would avenge his father’s murder. Ali and his brother received news of their rival’s location. Ali sheathed his knife in the sash of his robe.

As her sons were leaving their home, the woman said, “Keep an eye out and a knife sharp.”

“Of course, yamma,” Ali said.

The woman tore papyrus leaves, like limbs from a body, from the old books next to her oven.

The day before, Ali had found the books in a six-foot jar while digging for fertilizer. Ali hesitated to break the jar because he feared an evil spirit might be inside. When he considered there could be gold inside, he smashed the jar to pieces with his mallet. Instead, the jar contained 13 papyrus-bound books. He took them home and placed them next to his mother’s oven.

The woman continued to tear, crinkle, and burn the leaves as kindling. The leaves smoldered. The edges curled inward as they turned from brown to gray to white. She added more leaves until a flame ignited. The words, written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language using the Greek alphabet, became smoke, disappearing for the final time. Neither the woman nor her sons knew the monetary, historical, or spiritual value of the words being burned.

The sons returned. Their robes and beards were stained. Ali was excited to tell his mother the good news. “Yamma,” Ali said, “I chopped his limbs off and dug out his heart. We all ate it.”

She was proud of her sons. She said, “My sons, have some bread while it is fresh. I will heat water for you to wash.”

The woman tore more leaves to start another fire.

Ali said, “We have to get rid of these old books. The authorities will search the house.”

The next day, the books were taken to a local Coptic priest. Ali was arrested. The priest's brother, a schoolteacher, saw one of the books and recognized its value. The teacher took the book to Cairo and showed it to a physician interested in Coptic. The doctor alerted the Department of Antiquities (DoA). The DoA seized the book from the teacher.

The rest of the books were taken to Cairo and sold to antiquity dealers. The sales and rumors of the books increased investigations from authorities. The DoA bought one of the books and confiscated another ten. The DoA gave the books they obtained to the Coptic Museum in Cairo. The thirteenth book escaped Egypt through a Belgian antiques dealer. The Belgian tried to sell the remaining book in New York, eventually selling the remaining book to the Jung Institute of Zurich. Today, all the surviving books and fragments are at the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

What were these ancient Coptic books discovered by the heart-eating murdering Muhammad Ali? They were mostly Gnostic texts with a few other philosophical works, including an excerpt from Plato’s Republic. The majority of the texts had been lost for close to 1,500 years. Today, anyone can read all of these texts online for the price of their internet connection.

Fact Checking "Ep 6 The Case for Sowell"

Here is a fact check of the Jimbo Radio episode "Ep 6 The Case for Sowell," performed by ChatGPT 5. The episode was published 27 May 2022, the fact check was performed 7 Sep 2025. 

From GPT-5:  

Here’s a tight fact-check and critique of your write-up, split into: (1) whether you represented Sowell fairly, (2) corrections/clarifications, and (3) what’s accurate vs. what’s debated among economists and policy scholars.

1) Did you represent Thomas Sowell well?

Overall: yes. You captured the central, recurring Sowell themes: scarcity and trade-offs; “who decides?” as the key institutional question; dispersed knowledge; skepticism of price controls; and the drift of decision rights from individuals/markets toward more insulated parts of the state. Those points are core to Knowledge and Decisions (K&D) and to Sowell’s broader project, which is heavily influenced by F.A. Hayek’s “dispersed knowledge” argument. Wikipedia

• Trade-offs. Sowell really does hammer “there are no solutions, only trade-offs.” It’s an oft-quoted Sowell line across books and interviews, and it fits K&D’s frame. (The exact phrasing is widely attributed to him; multiple sources quote it, though it’s a slogan more than a single pinpointable page citation.)

• Definition of economics. You quoted Sowell’s standard Lionel Robbins–style definition almost verbatim: “the study of the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses.” Sowell uses exactly this definition in his essays and books. Amazon UK

• K&D’s “who decides?” Your summary of the 1996 preface—focusing on who makes decisions, under what incentives/constraints, and what feedback corrects errors—is a fair rendering of K&D’s core question. A concise external summary of K&D highlights these same institutional/knowledge themes.

• Price system as information; suspicion of controls. Your description of Sowell’s view of prices as signals and of price/rent/minimum-wage controls as damaging that communication absolutely reflects his books. (See also his later Basic Economics.) Amazon UK

• Skepticism of centralized expertise / administrative growth. K&D and later books (Intellectuals and Society) do argue that power has shifted toward insulated institutions (bureaucracy, judiciary) and that “experts” routinely overestimate articulated rationality vs. on-the-ground feedback. That’s on brand for Sowell and consistent with reputable summaries.

2) Corrections & small fixes

• Age and styling. Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is 95 in 2025 (not 91). He was born in North Carolina, raised in Harlem, left high school, served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War era, earned a BA at Harvard (1958), MA at Columbia (1959), and PhD at the University of Chicago (1968). Also: it’s University of Chicago (not “Chicago University”).

• Attribution/quotes. Some of your long block quotes/paraphrases from K&D look accurate in spirit, but I can’t verify every sentence verbatim here. The short, emblematic lines you highlighted (economics definition; “who decides?” framing) align with how K&D is summarized by neutral sources.

• “Agencies make more laws than Congress.” Directionally true if “laws” means binding rules: the federal government issues thousands of final rules annually, while Congress typically enacts hundreds of public laws. Just note the nuance: agencies issue regulations under statutory delegations, not “laws” in the constitutional sense. (For context: watchdog and regulatory-studies reports regularly document far more rules than statutes each year.) NBERStanford Graduate School of Business

3) What’s accurate vs. what’s debated?

Largely accurate, widely taught economics

• Scarcity & trade-offs; prices convey information. These are bedrock principles in mainstream micro. Sowell’s emphasis is orthodox econ, not fringe. Amazon UK

• Dispersed knowledge & the case for decentralized decisions. This is Hayekian and widely respected—especially for complex, fast-moving, local information problems. Even many non-libertarian economists accept the basic insight (while adding caveats about market failures). Wikipedia

Accurate claims, but with important caveats / active debates

• Rent control harms vs. benefits. Traditional econ predicts supply distortions and misallocation; modern evidence is mixed on net, but very consistent about trade-offs.

  • The leading causal study of San Francisco’s 1990s expansion of rent control found large benefits to incumbent tenants (stability, lower rents), but reduced rental supply as landlords exited or converted units—raising citywide rents over time. That’s precisely Sowell’s “unintended consequences / trade-offs” story. NBER

  • Bottom line: Sowell is broadly aligned with the empirical consensus that rent control has significant costs; current literature stresses who wins vs. who loses and design details (e.g., exemptions for new construction).

• Minimum wage. Sowell is consistently skeptical; many classical studies found job losses among teens/low-skill workers. Today the literature is split.

  • A flagship QJE study (Cengiz, Dube, Lindner & Zipperer, 2019) finds small to no job losses at the low-wage margin for “typical” increases in the U.S., with income gains for affected workers. NBER

  • Other work (e.g., Neumark & Wascher, and some newer case studies) finds negative employment effects in certain settings or subgroups. The CBO has also projected that large federal hikes would raise incomes for many but reduce employment for some, i.e., a trade-off. (Different methods yield different estimates.)
    Takeaway: Sowell’s categorical dismissal of minimum wages is not a current consensus; economists disagree, with effects depending on hike size, labor-market structure (e.g., monopsony), and local conditions. NBER

• Price controls & subsidies (in general). Textbook analysis says binding ceilings/floors distort allocation; that part is mainstream. But economists also emphasize contexts:

  • Externalities / public goods: Some subsidies (e.g., basic science R&D) can correct under-provision.

  • Market power/monopsony: A minimum wage can, in theory and empirics, raise both wages and employment.
    Thus, while Sowell’s warnings about controls are valid in many markets, a blanket condemnation overstates the modern consensus.

• Growth of the administrative/judicial state and “insulation” from feedback.

  • Descriptive claim: Yes, the U.S. administrative state produces far more binding rules than Congress passes statutes in a typical year, and agencies/judges often shape policy details—consistent with Sowell’s drift thesis. NBERStanford Graduate School of Business

  • Normative claim: Whether this shift is socially harmful is hotly debated. Some scholars argue complex, national problems require specialized administration; others share Sowell’s concern about weak feedback/monitors. This is not settled “economics,” it’s contested political economy and public-law theory.

• “De-moralizing” policy analysis. Sowell urges analysts to resist moral grandstanding and focus on constraints and trade-offs. That’s a helpful discipline—but note two limits:

  1. Welfare economics inevitably embeds normative judgments (how to weigh equity vs. efficiency; distributional weights, etc.).

  2. Many policy choices are explicitly moral (e.g., rights, dignity, environmental risk tolerance). You can’t avoid values; you can only be transparent about them.

Points that are disputed or not well-established

• Strong, categorical claims against minimum wages as necessarily harmful—disputed. Modern evidence is mixed and context-dependent. NBER

• Sweeping claims that agency/judicial policymaking yields “no social gains.” That’s an overreach. There are famous failures, and Sowell is right about incentive problems—but there are also successes (e.g., lead removal, SO₂ trading, auto safety), where centralized rules delivered broad benefits. Whether the net is positive or negative is contested and domain-specific.

• Implied inevitability that decentralized processes dominate centralized ones. In many markets, yes (Sowell/Hayek). But for externalities, public goods, coordination problems, asymmetric information, and non-market values, decentralized choice alone may not reach socially preferred outcomes—this is standard micro. The right mix is an open question, not a settled theorem.

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Bottom line on your piece

• Strengths: You conveyed Sowell’s intellectual DNA well: scarcity → trade-offs; prices as knowledge; “who decides?”; skepticism of insulated decision-makers; and respect for bottom-up feedback. Those are faithful and important. Amazon UK

• Tune-ups: Fix biographical details (age; University of Chicago), and add nuance where modern evidence is mixed (minimum wage; some regulatory outcomes). Consider swapping “agencies make more laws than Congress” for “agencies issue far more binding rules than Congress passes statutes each year, under powers delegated by Congress.” NBERStanford Graduate School of Business

• Fair-mindedness: You already acknowledge “trade-offs.” Doubling down on that—by noting where the empirical literature shows benefits and costs (rent control; minimum wage; some regulations)—will keep your piece strong, accurate, and Sowellian in spirit. NBER+1

Ep 47 AI to Habenula to Willpower Depletion with Brendan Howard

The following is a fact check by ChatGPT 5 of Jimbo Radio episode "Ep 47 AI to Habenula to Willpower Depletion with Brendan Howard." 

Click here for a transcript of the episode. 

Habenula (“binula / habinula”)

• Name & location. It’s the habenula (part of the epithalamus), adjacent to the pineal region. ✔️ Correct (watch the spelling). PMC

• What it does. Strong evidence links the lateral habenula (LHb) to processing negative reward prediction, aversion, and value-based decision-making, via inhibition of dopamine and modulation of serotonin pathways. ✔️ Accurate. Frontiers+1

• Depression linkage. Human imaging/clinical work shows altered or elevated LHb activity in major depressive disorder; it’s an active research area. ✔️ Supported. Nature

• Sleep / circadian. There’s evidence the habenula interfaces with sleep/circadian systems, but it’s better to say it modulates (not “controls”) sleep-related processes. ⚠️ Nuance. Frontiers

• “Ancient” & conserved. Yes—the habenular circuit is highly conserved across vertebrates. ✔️ Correct. PMCPNAS

“Confidence > accuracy” culture point

• Anecdotal observation about rewarding confidence over accuracy (military inspections) is opinion, not a factual claim needing correction.

Socrates on writing

• Claim. “Socrates thought writing would harm memory.” ✔️ True (Plato’s Phaedrus—myth of Theuth & Thamus). History of Information

“Moral panic” about new media (novels/books vs smartphones)

• Claim. Earlier eras fretted that novel reading would rot minds, much like today’s phone worries. ✔️ There’s documented 18th–19th c. anxiety about novels/circulating libraries. harrell101.files.wordpress.com

Growth mindset

• Claim. Praising effort (vs “you’re smart”) improves persistence—Carol Dweck. ✔️ This summary matches Mueller & Dweck (1998). Nature

“Iterative mindset” & the habenula (Kyra Bobinet)

• What’s supported? Dr. Kyra Bobinet proposes an Iterative Mindset Method (test-and-learn framing) to reduce “failure” signals and sustain change; she explicitly discusses the habenula in talks and articles. ✔️ Her theoretical model is described in npj Digital Medicine (2023) and popular venues. (Note: this is theory & early validation work, not a large clinical RCT.) PMCNatureForbes

• SMART goals “work for only a small percent.” ⚠️ This is her stance; the broader goal-setting literature (e.g., Locke & Latham) generally finds specific, challenging goals improve performance. Evidence that SMART “fails most people” is not established at population level. (So keep as author opinion, not consensus.) Nature

Ego/“willpower” depletion

• What the classic study did. The famous Baumeister et al., 1998 experiment wasn’t “morning people resisted cookies, evening they didn’t.” It used a radish-vs-cookies manipulation, then measured persistence on puzzles. 🔧 Misdescribed. ⁠https:/doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252⁠

• Does depletion replicate? A large Registered Replication Report (2016) failed to find the effect; meta-analyses flagged publication bias. Current view: the simple “finite fuel” model is weak/unreliable; beliefs, fatigue, sleep, and context likely matter more. ✔️ Supported. UW FacultyStatistical Modeling

Hedonic adaptation (“treadmill”)

• Claim. People often drift back toward a baseline after big ups/downs. ✔️ Classic studies support substantial adaptation (not 100% for all outcomes). Esquire Deposition Solutions

Self-esteem “movement” in the 80s–90s

• Claim. There was a strong policy push (California Task Force) and later mixed evidence on broad benefits of boosting self-esteem. ✔️ True (Task Force records & critical reviews). ERICPubMed

“LLMs are very good at fact-checking”

• Reality. LLMs can draft helpful first-pass checks, but they hallucinate facts and fabricate citations; human verification is essential. ✔️ Keep this caveated. ResearchGateGoodreads

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Bottom line

• Your habenula discussion is broadly right (with spelling + nuance fixes).

• Ego depletion was misdescribed and is not reliably supported by modern replications.

• Socrates/printing-press analogies check out.

• Growth mindset summary is fine; Iterative Mindset is a current theoretical approach (evidence still emerging).

• Treat LLM fact checks as drafts—verify links (as you noticed!).

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Sources & links (for deeper digging)

Habenula (anatomy & function)

• Bianco & Wilson. The habenular nuclei: a conserved asymmetric relay… Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2009). PMC

• Baker et al. Lateral Habenula Beyond Avoidance… Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience (2022). Frontiers

• Hones et al. Response Flexibility: The Role of the LHb, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2022). Frontiers

• Fortin et al. The habenula in mood disorders (systematic review), Mol Psychiatry (2025). Nature

Ego/“willpower” depletion

• Baumeister et al. Ego Depletion… JPSP (1998).

• Hagger et al. Registered Replication Report: Ego Depletion, Perspectives on Psychological Science (2016). UW Faculty

• Carter et al. A bias-corrected meta-analysis of ego depletion studies (2015). Statistical Modeling

Socrates on writing

• Plato, Phaedrus (Theuth/Thamus passage). History of Information

Novel-reading panic / print moral panics

• “Novel-Reading Panic in the 18th century” (historical review). harrell101.files.wordpress.com

Growth mindset

• Mueller & Dweck. Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation… JPSP (1998). Nature

Hedonic adaptation

• Brickman, Coates, Janoff-Bulman. Lottery winners and accident victims (1978). Esquire Deposition Solutions

Self-esteem movement

• Toward a State of Esteem (California Task Force Final Report, 1990). ERIC

• Baumeister et al. Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance… PSPI (2003). files.clps.brown.edu

Iterative Mindset & habenula (Bobinet)

• Bobinet & Greer. The Iterative Mindset Method, npj Digital Medicine (2023). PMC

• TEDx talk: The Science of Becoming Unstoppable. (Popular talk; for the habenula framing). Nature

LLM hallucinations (why to double-check links)

• Nature News Explainer: What are AI hallucinations? (2023). ResearchGate

• NYT: The Lawyer Who Used ChatGPT and Cited Fake Cases (2023). Goodreads