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Sept. 9, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:15:09
861 Sun 9 Sep 2007 Sunday Call In Show

The FDR BBQ Update, morality and UPB

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Alright, so thank you everybody so much for joining us.
It is Sunday, the 9th of September, and we are the Digital Nomad Show going from...
Is that really loud? Oh, okay.
You can... There's a volume control on that, so you can turn that off while I'm talking.
So, yeah, thanks everyone for joining.
We have a dispirited, spent, drunken, overstuffed and over-sugared and somewhat over-caffeinated heap of philosophers left over from the Sunday show.
Sorry, from the Saturday barbecue, the first annual Freedom Aid Radio barbecue.
And by annual, I mean Mercury Orbit.
So it will be going on.
I would like to thank the people who came, who made it such a wonderful, wonderful time.
The conversation flowed well.
And what I mean by that is very few people interrupted me.
except for Christina.
And I'd like to thank everybody for joining in on the video.
If you haven't had the chance to check out the sadly truncated video of Vanity is Bad, which is available on YouTube.
And you might want to have a look at that just so that you can see what we were up to.
That's the only one that we could publish to public broadcasting.
Everyone else pretty much had to be by invitation only.
And for higher donations, we won't send you an invitation.
So, thanks everyone so much for joining.
I'm actually going to turn the introduction of the show over to some of the people who were here, who can talk about their experiences of the live Free Domain Radio experience, the Free Domain 3D audio, video, and, sadly, smell-enabled show, so that they can tell us what they thought.
And we're going to start with Guy, Guy One.
Hi, this is Carl.
I had a Great time at the un-barbecue.
But Steph blew up the barbecue just out of spite shortly before.
I don't know. It talked back crispily.
So anyway, I've had so many philosophical conversations for the last 26 hours.
My brain is just kind of melting.
But it was wonderful.
And, you know...
Come next time if you can.
Here's guy number two.
Alright, hey everyone.
It's Ricky. Ricky Siskel from the forum.
Had a good time this weekend.
It was crazy. We had beer bongs and...
No, no. I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to tell everyone.
Who was I? We had paper pennies.
Defeated by Stefan and Christina multiple times.
It seems that Stefan has gotten much better since he quit his job.
What? I don't know.
Anyway, but yeah, it was a great time.
It was definitely an experience that I won't get a lot back at home.
I didn't get to talk to all of you in person.
I don't spend too much time on the forums.
I'm not able to. But yeah, I definitely look forward to having this kind of conversation more often.
So I'm just going to be pitching the time in his backyard and stick around for the next few weeks.
But no, yeah, make it next time because it's well worth the plane ticket, the drive, whatever.
It's very hospitable.
And the same bad joke as the podcast.
And then some.
And then some.
So you won't be disappointed.
I'll hand it over to Greg or Stefan.
Just for those who may be confused by Ricky's phrase, pitching a tent.
He didn't actually come with a tent.
I think what he means is that he's sexually excited to be here.
So pitching a tent in our backyard, it's just something to remember.
Let's just say it's stimulating.
Yes, the fan has been fantasizing about Ricky all day long today.
But, yes, Ricky and I actually showed up a little bit early, and it's been a constant conversation ever since.
And quite frankly, that's what this should be, is a conversation.
There's no better way to get conversation than in person.
You can't have picked a better place for this sort of conversation.
That's how.
Salmon sandwiches.
Those were awesome. Yeah, we finally got to see the red room.
The famous red room.
And this little board of And it still has the nice Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, oil, Middle East, agnosticism theory he's been working on, and I think he's actually getting pretty close to coming through a pollution.
Only, what, a thousand more podcasts ago?
Okay. So, we're getting to it.
Yeah, but it's amazing how consistent Steph is in person.
I mean, even his lawn has ball patches.
It's amazing.
It really is.
And so definitely what you get in video and on the podcast is what you get in person.
He does not let you down.
We got to see him karaoke I think you're going to get a video of that.
I assure you, we do have a video of that.
And he even got a toasted at the end with a drink that you...
I don't even know what it's called, or if I want to say, but...
Mucked Eye.
Mucked Eye? Yeah, he got a complimentary Mucked Eye from somebody.
Exactly. So he did Britney Spears live, and that was well worth it.
I would have came just for that, to be honest.
I would have left right after, happy.
And that's actually where the tent came from that I'm going to be living in.
So... Anyway, I'll hand it back over to Stefan.
And yeah, I'd just like to thank everyone again who came up.
It was a great conversation flow.
Everybody had great stuff to contribute when we talked about everything under the sun.
And for a mere $6,000, you can get the audio.
And the only reason I have to charge that much is we have about 90 hours of audio and so on.
But about two-thirds of that is Ricky snoring.
So anyway, that's it for us.
If you had questions or comments, issues, problems, and so on, that would be fabulous.
This is your show, your chat.
So I am all too keen to hear what you may have to say.
I turn the show over to you, Nina Sirius.
Once more, we have the pattern of the call-in show with nobody who has any questions.
I'm not exactly sure why you don't download it.
Listen to it later. So this is the time where you all do the talking and me not so much or we can not do it and have a very short show today.
It's up to you. Are you still listening to recording?
No, this is the actual live show.
You are more than welcome to chat and I believe that Gizmo has it all open.
So if you'd like to chat, just chat away.
Questions, comments, issues, problems, suggestions, lawn maintenance offers, anything to do with that.
What did you all do with the weekend?
Don't make me put you on hold, people.
So...
I'll do it! How's the new book coming along?
The new book is coming along fine.
It is very slow going. Because it is a book really of radical intellectual vengeance and rage against everybody who's asked me 12 million questions about UPB without reading my simple article.
Pretty much for the last 18 months.
So it is consumed with bitterness, rage, and hatred.
So the problem, of course, is that the voice recognition software doesn't appear to handle strangled screaming very well.
So it's slow going, and there's the occasional fainting, just from the possession of the rage.
So what I'm doing is I'm trying to find a new way to describe the problems of traditional moral explanations.
So I've got this new, and Christina and I have talked about it, but I won't preview it sort of here.
I've got this new metaphor that I'm working with as far as helping tie together something like Status of religion with ethical theories that support them and show how the same patterns go through all ethical systems and all status systems and systems of religion and even science prior to scientific methods.
So it's a great challenge to make it all hang together.
You have to go at such a pace that you feel like you're making progress but you also have to deal with all of the picky stuff that can come from every single conceivable direction including out of your own chest like that little beast from alien.
So, and I also am trying to put it together so that I can conclude each chapter with the syllogisms that we've gone forward, right?
So that for the people who skip and say, well, I didn't quite understand it, you know, which syllogism exactly?
I'm going to number them. Oh, wait, here comes the rage again.
I'm going to number them so that people can say it's this syllogism that doesn't follow, and it's good discipline for me, and of course it's going to make, I hope, An irrefutable book, right?
Because I think the free will stuff is done pretty well.
The stuff I've done recently is not perfect, but it's working along well.
And I'd like to have that same kind of thing for UPB so that...
And I'm thinking maybe possibly exercise, right?
Sample conversations, maybe more in the appendix, right?
So a sample dialogue with the traditional objections that come up against UPB. So I'd also like it to be sort of a slightly practical book because, you know, if you're going to go out and argue UPB, there's lots of people who get the theory down.
Then they go out, and it's like three minutes into the conversation, they're stalled, right?
Because they just get the same tricks and habits that other relativists and subjectivists or religious people all use.
So I'm grinding my way through the theory, and there's lots of new stuff in there.
But it's slow going.
It's slow going. Enough that you've got momentum, but not so quick that people feel like you're overstepping stuff or making those leaps, like the Randian leaps, where it's like, well, so there's value.
What have you got? Are you evil for disagreeing with me?
Come on, put them up. Yeah, yeah, so that's a real challenge, and it's certainly going a lot more slowly than the other book, but of course with this book I'm much more concerned with quality.
It's not so much a quick money grab with this book, so that's obviously quite a challenge.
That's it, alright, that's it.
Enough from me, questions, comments?
Oh yeah, sorry, Mr.
G, we have your book. So you'll have to order another one.
Are you kidding?
So yeah, we have your book.
And basically what I did was I went through people's coat pockets while they were eating.
We have some wallets.
Listen, I mean, I can't believe we have wallets with credit cards.
You people have the saddest god damn spending limits I've ever heard of in my life.
I've heard of it. I've heard of it. Ah, that's better.
Ah, that's better. Now we have an echo.
Now we have an echo. Sorry, somebody who just joined?
Could you turn off your speakers, please?
Not that I don't...
Enjoy. Hearing.
My own. Voice.
You get to hear it three times.
Even better. Sorry, some of you just joined.
You have your microphone on.
If you could stop that, please.
Please.
I can keep going.
I guess I'm not going to do this kind of stuff.
Stop recording conversation.
Oh good, well, somebody left. Excellent.
I'd just like to thank whoever came in to giving me a little bit more of an editing job.
That's just beyond thrilling. All right, so whoever was talking before, please go ahead.
Recording conversation.
Hello. How are you doing?
I'm good, how are you? I'm pretty good.
You were talking about ethics?
I was. Pretty much, yeah.
I thought of a new abbreviation or something for UPB. Yes.
What about universally applied ethics?
It's a little tougher to say.
United Arab Emirates.
Yeah. So, universally applied ethics, you said?
It makes sense, yeah, because, I mean, from my understanding, UPB isn't Isn't an assertion of ethics existence that more is just a claim that they're universal, right?
Well, sure, but of course the definition of ethics can't include the word ethics, right?
Ah. Well, that's a good point.
Thank you for playing. Let's rename.
Sorry, you know, the reason is that I've had 12 cups of coffee now, so for me, like, no error goes by unnoticed except for all my own.
That's right, I'm a ninja.
That's the challenge. So universally applied ethics, you say, my ethical theory is universally applied ethics, but it's begging the question, right?
Because what is ethics?
You can't say it includes ethics as the term.
An ethic is a universally preferable behavior, right?
Well, that's mine, yeah, for sure.
And I'm certainly happy to change it, but it just can't include the word ethics.
Right, right, that makes sense.
So, I mean, with UPB, I mean, we don't have any proofs for things being right or wrong, right?
I mean, if someone was to say, I don't think killing is wrong, like, at all, is there any way you could prove that they're wrong?
Well, sure, of course, right?
Because, okay, so you be the guy and you say, you're telling me that you say, I don't think killing is wrong, right?
Right. Okay, so let's roleplay that.
So, you start the debate.
Nothing's wrong. You're wrong.
Oh, sorry. Can I get more?
Less coffee? Okay, so you say, you're saying nothing is wrong.
Is that right? Say someone said that, yeah.
I'm sure there are people who believe that.
He's breaking the role play already.
Okay, yeah. I don't believe that stealing is wrong.
Are you saying you don't believe that murder is wrong?
Let's just stick with something that might actually show up in a debate.
Is that right? So you're going to say, prove to me that murder is wrong or something like that?
Well, what about stealing?
Some people don't believe in property and stuff like that.
You know, stealing is easier, but yeah, I could go as far as murder or something like that.
Well, okay, the first thing, of course, is not the content of the theory, but the theory itself, right?
So, if somebody says to me, I think that murder is not wrong, well, that's fine, but there's a difference between a scientific theory and the scientific matter, right?
The scientific method is the framework that you use to validate scientific theory.
And you either are going to have reason and evidence as the criteria by which you prove things, or willpower, visions from pixies and a gun.
So if people are going to say that murder is wrong, I would say, well, that's a theory of...
Sorry, that's an ethical theory.
That's not a theory of ethics as a whole.
That's a proposition within an ethical framework.
So the first thing we do is we say...
Well, how do we know that there could even be an assertion called murder is wrong or murder is right that makes any sense at all?
And so the first thing we need to say is that there is such a thing as preferable behavior.
Because if you say murder is wrong, then obviously you're saying it's preferable not to murder.
And if you say murder is right, then you're saying it is preferable to murder.
And if you're saying murder is not wrong, you're saying it's preferable not to say that murder is wrong.
There's no way that you can make any proposition in any way, shape, or form that does not include a preference.
That does not include what?
A preference of some kind.
Well, what if you say that it's completely neutral?
It's amoral in nature, like whether the court should be on the right or the left.
But then what you're saying is, if you're saying that it's completely neutral, then you're saying it is preferable that it be completely neutral and that any positive or negative statements are not preferable.
Ah. That's interesting.
I never thought of it that way.
Wow, look at that. Something new.
God, how long has it been? Right, but see, that's the challenge.
Nobody can make any proposition of any kind without an implicit assumption of preferable behavior.
That is universal. Because nobody ever comes up to you and says, I think that you should not believe in ethics because I don't like ethics.
They don't say, like, I think you should do this just because, you know, because I don't like it, you know?
They always say, you should not believe in ethics because ethics don't exist.
Or, you should not believe in property because property is evil, or it's evil to believe in property, or property is not a valid concept.
It's always, you should believe in my proposition because my proposition is true.
Implicit in that is the statement, truth is better than falsity.
Language is better than Screaming or something like that, right?
So there's no way that anyone can attempt to change your mind about anything without implicitly accepting the premise that truth exists independent of opinion, that truth is better than falsehood, that, you know, clear language is better, that your ears work, that your mouth works.
And also that at least they have ownership over their own body, that it's not Satan sticking his hand up their ass, making their mouth move to put out the argument, because otherwise it's like, oh, don't talk to me, talk to Satan, he's the one working my ass to make my mouth move, right?
Okay. Well, I say ownership is more than just control of your own body.
Ownership is a moral claim over your body.
Well, sure, but I mean, the first thing...
Responsibility....is that the person who's making the argument is responsible for the argument, right?
Because, I mean, you could conceivably have an argument...
Well, no, first of all, it's a claim of responsibility, not necessarily...
Like, you could argue with a Christian who said, God is speaking through me, and you're not arguing with me, but with God.
Uh-huh. Oh, sorry, Greg's just asking, is not assigning responsibility in ethical positions?
I wouldn't say so, no, because you could say that somebody's responsible for stabbing, but stabbing is not wrong, right?
So that's just an identification of causality.
Like a rock bouncing a hill is responsible for destroying my car, but it's not moral, right?
Sorry, we're going to have to just...
In your mind, then, ownership is entirely control.
Ownership is control, for sure, but it doesn't necessarily have...
It's just an identification of causality.
It's not an identification necessarily of a moral...
The moral consequences of control, right?
An observation of the fact of the control over your own body or your own vocal cords, your own motivation.
Right. But then you're conceding the right to that control, right?
You're at least taking a neutral stance on it and saying that I own my own body, which only means that I control my own mouth.
What if somebody comes along and says, well, I think I should have control over that mouth, right?
Well, then you would just ask them to prove that by making your mouth move, which they couldn't do, right?
They're not asserting, I have control over your mouth.
They're asserting, I should have control over your mouth.
That's a moral proposition, because you have a should in there now.
It's not an identification of what is, but what should be, so that becomes a moral proposition.
Right, and so what I'm saying is that Saying, I own my own body.
If you're not including the moral proposition, then you're just making a statement of fact which has no ethical weight.
Well, no, but you have to stop with statements of fact, right?
We have to stop with statements of fact in order to get to universally preferable behavior, right?
Right, but what you're saying is that because I control my own mouth, I should control my own mouth.
No, no, you're just saying that you do control your own mouth, right?
Because if somebody came up to me and said, Steph, you don't control your own vocal cords or your own ears or your own whatever, whatever, right?
That's an implicitly self-contradictory statement.
It's exactly the same as saying you don't exist.
Again, that's just an assertion of fact, right?
You're just saying you control your own mouth, you control your own ears.
I'm not saying you should control your own mouth and you should control your own ears.
Well, yeah, because if it's a fact, then should doesn't mean anything else.
Right? Like jumping up a cliff and saying you should fall down.
Well, you're going to fall down. There's no choice, right?
So where there's no choice, there's no such thing as should, right?
There's no possibility that somebody else could control my voice or anything like that.
So there's no should or shouldn't or preferred or not preferred, right?
I mean, there are technological ways that they could do that.
Well, sure, but then we're into whether they should or shouldn't or whether I would submit to that or whatever, right?
But the basic fact, when you're debating with someone, they're not hooked up to some truth-telling machine or whatever, right?
When you're debating with someone, you have to assume that they have free control over their own vocal cords.
Right, but we're trying to establish that ownership implies that ownership is more than just the Well, no, not yet, right?
Owning a knife is not a moral or immoral action, right?
Owning your own vocal cords is not moral or immoral, it's just a fact, right?
If I say, these are my vocal cords, that's just a statement of fact.
It's not a should or shouldn't, right?
Right, but these are my vocal cords is not the same thing as...
Right. It's not the same thing as saying these should be my vocal cords.
So you're not saying, I own these vocal cords.
You're just saying, These are the chords in this row.
Well, if ownership is control, and only I can control my vocal chords, right, then I own my vocal chords, or I control my vocal chords as a statement of fact.
It's in any...
Yeah, I mean, it's like nobody else can make my voice do stuff except for Britney, right?
So that's simply a statement of fact, right?
And there's no shouldn't, but you have to start with the facts, right?
Like, human beings are equal in terms of ethics is a fact, and from that you can get UPV. I don't mean to get hyper-semantic here, but...
Okay, well, let's move on to the next argument.
But then, I can't see calling it ownership, right?
If it's control, call it control.
I control my own local government.
Yeah, but ownership is control, right?
Ownership of a car is control over the disposition of that car.
Ownership of your vocal cords is disposition over what they do.
So it's more than just saying, I do have possession of this car, I do control this car.
It's saying, I have a claim to this car by right of an action I took or by right of an exchange that took place.
There's a transaction that took place.
That I have control of it is not the same thing that I own it.
I could walk down the street and control somebody else's car, but I don't own it.
I have to have an additional claim on that property that says that not only am I controlling it, but I have a right to control it.
Right, that's going from the is to the should, right?
Yeah, and I'm perfectly comfortable with that, but the way that I would work to establish property rights is to say self-ownership has to be the foundation of property rights, right?
I mean, because the fact that we own ourselves and they're responsible for us, it's the foundation of both property rights and moral rights, right?
Because if I'm actually possessed by a demon and stab someone, the demon should go to jail, right?
So we have to have ownership over our own bodies in order to have property and morality, because otherwise, when people don't have control over their own minds, We naturally assume that they're defense by insanity or something like that.
So then, in other words, self-ownership cannot be established logistically.
You have to accept it as an act.
Well, sure. And this is part of thinking about debating, right?
So you can't debate that...
I can't say, Greg, you don't exist, because it's a self-conscious statement.
I can't say sound is invalid.
And I can't use my body to say self-ownership is invalid.
Somebody put this on the board some months back.
They typed that self-ownership is invalid.
And I said, well, that's freaky.
Whose fingers are you using to type this thing?
And of course, he said, I'm using my own fingers.
But they're not your fingers because self-ownership is invalid.
So you're exploiting your fingers like bad workers, right?
So whatever, right? But he couldn't...
If he said self-ownership is invalid, then I'm not debating with him if I respond to his post.
I'm debating with his fingers Which invites way too many jokes to be productive.
But you see, self-ownership is one of these things.
Like, if I say to you, self-ownership is invalid, so I'm asserting self-ownership to control the voice to move the idea out, that self-ownership is invalid, it's a self-destinating statement, right?
If you cannot establish, just axiomatically, that you not only control your fingers, but that you should control your own fingers, Then there's no basis for ownership at all.
Well, not even should. If I do control my own fingers to type a post saying, you're wrong about self-ownership, I'm exercising self-ownership to try and destroy the concept of self-ownership.
You're just exercising control over the fingers, but that doesn't establish whether you should or shouldn't.
No, because I'm saying that I should use my fingers to type this response about how self-ownership is wrong.
So I'm exercising self-ownership to argue against self-ownership, which is the free will versus determinism thing, right?
That I am asking you to change your mind about your capacity to change your mind.
These are all the self-contradictory statements that the UPB book is trying to unravel.
Because we argue so much about stuff that is answered by the very act of arguing.
If I debate with you using grammatically correct language, then clearly I'm preferring that to just making up my own language.
And if I use reason and evidence to try and sway your mind, then clearly I say reason and evidence are better than force.
So there's so much that's implicit in the very act of debating.
The act of exercising self-ownership, to speak to types, to pick up the phone and call someone, to dial, whatever it is, right?
You can't then use that to say self-ownership is invalid.
That's exactly the same as me sending you a courier message saying that couriers never deliver their messages, right?
If it reaches you, the whole thing detonates.
It's the same thing as using a courier to send you a message saying that couriers shouldn't deliver messages, not that they don't.
No, that's not the same. Because I could send you a message saying...
I could send you a mail through the government-owned postal system saying that the government-owned postal system shouldn't exist in its current form, it should be privatized, right?
But if I send you a courier message saying couriers don't exist, then I'm completely definating my own principle.
Yeah, but you're changing the focus of debate again from assertions of facts, whereas we're arguing assertions of...
That's a good point, right?
Well, no, it's just an assertion of logic.
If I put forward a self-contradictory statement, then my statement is invalidated, right?
That's the whole idea behind God, right?
You put forward a proposition that way, it invalidates God.
What I'm trying to identify is exactly where the self-contradiction is here in saying that Although I control my body, I cannot establish that I own it.
Well, the difference is, of course, I can steal your car, but I can't steal your vocal cords.
Right? Because you are your body, right?
Well, technically you could if you wanted to steal my vocal cords.
Not use them. It would be very painful for me, but...
They would no longer be vocal cords in a production.
They'd just be like a... Bag of meat or something, right?
But they wouldn't be your vocal cords that I could use, right?
I can steal your car and use it.
I can't steal your vocal cords and use them, if that makes sense.
Oh, sure. Well, right, yeah.
Steal your kidneys, right?
No, but I mean, we're just talking about the assertion of self-ownership, right?
I mean, so the body is different from an object insofar as you can steal an object, but stealing a body and having the consciousness still work is sort of self-contradictory.
But I'm sorry, we're kind of blowing this guy's argument out of the water.
So, are you still there, or did we drive you completely to sleep?
I'm here. So, did we even come close to...
So, anyway, the way to deal with the UPB question, if somebody says, well, the universal ethics are completely invalid, right?
They're saying, then, it is universally preferable to reject universally preferable behaviors.
Right, right. I understand how universally preferable behavior is valid.
I understand that. What I'm asking is, within the realm of universally preferable behavior, like, I guess the way I see it, and correct me where I'm wrong in saying this, but it's not itself ethics, but a methodology for testing ethics.
I think that we have to accept that universally preferable behavior exists, and the very act of debating accepts that as an axiom.
So then the only question is, what universally preferable behavior is valid and what is not?
What is truly universally preferable behavior?
That's all the definition of ethics that is, right?
Right. Sorry to interrupt, but it's like any physics theory that claims universality has to prove that it's universal, right?
That's sort of an axiomatic thing, right?
If I say that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, constant throughout the universe, and somebody finds that it goes three miles an hour in Detroit, then, you know, the theory has a problem, so to speak, right?
Yeah. But...
And I have no...
I'm really... I have no problems with the theory...
At all. I'm just trying to figure out like and just see if I'm right about thinking this or saying this but like any one like I guess all the things that it proves are can be ethics are like dealing with violations of ownership or self-ownership, right? Like murder, rape, theft, these are all violations of some sort of property rights.
Well, you could look at it that way, but you could also say that murder is either right or wrong or morally neutral.
Right. I mean, and of course there are differing degrees, right?
Like, you know, stabbing somebody in the little toe is different from stabbing them in the gut or something like that.
So there's lots of degrees, but basically there's a fulcrum, right?
So, like stone evil...
Not so bad, not so bad, not so bad.
Eh, who cares? Just kind of rude, impolite, whatever.
Neutral. And then ninth lesson, really great, excellent, virtuous, staggeringly virtuous, oh my god, he's levitating, right?
Or something like that, right?
Sure. So there's a sort of fulcrum, and then the fulcrum is fuzzy, right?
And there's some sort of, I mean, there's aesthetics and preferences in the middle, but that's sort of where actions are going to fall along the line of right and wrong.
Sure. But, and that applies to all human behavior, right?
No, it applies to all universally, like, everyone who says universally preferable behavior, it falls along those lines.
I mean, there are other things like politeness and so on or being on time or whatever, right?
That's nice, but I mean, there's no violence that you shoot people for being 10 minutes late or whatever, but you can shoot somebody who attacks you with a lead pipe or something, right?
So when you talk about things that human beings should or should not do universally, which is somebody saying that your opinions should bow not to my opinions or my preferences, but to that which is universally true and preferable, that's when things fall along that continuum.
Sure, sure. So some things are not universally true?
Well, sure. I like ice cream.
I mean, it's true for me. Other people may like it or dislike it, right?
Yeah, ice cream's good.
Well, so we're two people towards universality.
Sure, sure.
But I guess even the aesthetical stuff, I'd say, would fall on that Continuum, right?
You said they're somewhere in the middle, but like, some things are kind of just rude and bad.
I mean, not like extremely ethically bad, but like, they're negative behaviors, right?
Besides just murder, rape, and theft.
Yeah, absolutely, for sure.
Verbal abuse, stuff like that.
Sorry, what was the last thing you said?
Verbal abuse, you know.
Yeah, for sure. Being an asshole, these things are kind of...
I don't want to give too much out about the book, but basically this question comes around avoidability, right?
So if an action is avoidable, then it tends to fall more into the realm of...
less into the realm of sort of stone evil, right?
So if you're sitting home alone bothering nobody, and somebody comes in and clubs you around the head, that's one thing, right?
But if you go into a mafia den...
And start verbally abusing them, then you're pursuing a situation that results in violence.
So it's complicated for sure, because the question of avoidability and personal responsibility for resulting problems and so on is involved, which can be complicated, which is why, you know, there's legal systems that get very big and so on.
Sure. But the question around murder is simply like it's either good or it's immaterial or doesn't matter.
Or it's bad, right?
So if somebody says it's good, then clearly everybody should be murdering.
But that violates universality, right?
Because there are people who are in a coma who can't murder.
There are people who are asleep who can't murder.
And if you have two people in a room, Right.
Right.
Right.
Right. It can be.
It can be universal.
It can be better not to murder.
It can't be universally preferable to murder.
Right. That's impossible.
Sure. But it falls in the realm of possibility that murder is wrong.
Well, it certainly doesn't fall into the realm of possibility that murder is right.
Right. Then how do you...
Is it neutral or is it negative?
Right. And then how do you prove that it's not neutral?
I know you kind of just did that, but I feel kind of dense.
I didn't really catch it.
No, it's a tough question. I'm going to have to...
I haven't really thought of it. Because for me, murder is doing like rape.
It's one of these things that's just so...
Sure, it's just...
...that we don't think about the neutrality aspect of it.
Alright, so let's mull it over.
It's an excellent question.
Don't feel dense at all. Or we're both dense, so let's figure that one out.
But if somebody would have said to me, how do you know that murder is morally neutral?
Oh, okay. If murder is morally neutral, then to say that murder is good would be wrong, right?
Right, because the preference for broccoli is morally neutral.
But if I say you're evil to like broccoli, then I'm saying that it's universally bad, right?
Which is an incorrect statement.
Okay. Why? Well, because you might be allergic to broccoli.
Does that mean that you're evil because you don't like broccoli or you just don't like broccoli and other people do like broccoli?
Whatever, right? Right.
So, it would be an incorrect statement to say eating broccoli is immoral.
Well, and what about people who live in countries where there's no broccoli?
Are they all evil? Right.
So there's no possibility of universality.
Sure. Because then it's not you're saying about one person who lives in a country where you can grow broccoli, you're good because you have access to broccoli.
It's the whole Jesus Christ argument, right?
To talk to Jesus is evil because he didn't have Jesus Christ.
Why? They're just making up an arbitrary 2,000-year-old line, right?
Yeah. Okay. So it's not universal then if that's the case, right?
So if murder is in fact neutral, Then to say that murder is good would be bad.
To say that murder is bad would also be bad because it is in fact neutral, right?
Sure. So to impose your will that murder is preferred on somebody else would be bad because murder is in fact neutral.
Right. But murder is by definition imposing your will about murder on somebody else.
So it doesn't work.
Okay, I've got to think about that for a second.
Well, let's go back to broccoli, right?
So, if I say that broccoli is morally neutral, or liking broccoli, let's say eating broccoli, forget about the liking.
Eating broccoli is morally neutral, right?
Okay. Because broccoli is evil.
But eating broccoli is morally neutral.
Now, if something is morally neutral, imposing your will about it to somebody else is wrong, right?
If I say it's neutral, then forcing other people to eat broccoli would be wrong, because it's neutral, right?
Sure, yeah. But murder is, by definition, imposing murder on somebody else, right?
Okay. Yeah, I see the distinction there.
Man, I thought the whole theory was fucked there.
I'm so glad we got that one.
That was a great question. I was sitting here thinking, oh, I hope you forget about the neutral thing, because I don't know what the fuck the human can.
So I'm glad we worked it out.
Okay, okay, so it's an inherently different, and this is what I was kind of getting around, those three things are violations of someone else's choice to not have that done to them.
Right, now you can, if murder is evil, then imposing murder on somebody else is evil.
It's a violation of somebody else's choice, so self-defense then becomes morally balanced, right?
Sure, sure, yeah.
Okay, all right, this is, that's working even better.
That's great, wow. Already a great theory.
I thought you were about to murder the theory, so I'm really glad that we managed to find a little shield there.
No, no, great job there.
I could never have gotten around that.
You know, there's three dead goats in the room here, so I'm glad that sacrifice wasn't in vain.
Oh, and Ricky. Two days of philosophy, he's like, kill me now!
Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead with what?
You know, this is what I notice about listeners.
The moment they get something from me that they want, they get really mouthy.
It's like, hey, I'm done with you.
Get out of my bed. Make me some coffee and get the hell out of my house.
And do some laundry. You were sweet talking to me last night.
Well, I got what I wanted, honey.
Get out of here. Oh.
No, no, I just... This is something that I had been thinking about earlier.
I was talking about it with a friend of mine.
I came up with just saying basically the fact that it's not...
UPB is not ethics.
It just says that if ethics exist, they exist universally.
Well, somebody... Sorry, somebody just wrote in the chat window and when I say just...
Somebody who left the chat about 20 minutes ago fell asleep on the keyboard...
The thing is, what if saying UPP doesn't exist is an observation of a fact, not a statement of preference?
Saying UPP doesn't exist is a statement of preference.
Because saying that UPP doesn't exist is saying there's a difference between existence and non-existence.
That the truth is preferable to falsehood.
That we should say UPB doesn't exist because it's preferable to speak truth rather than falsehood.
That truth is compared to an external reality.
That it's better to compare truth to an external reality and blah blah blah.
Any statement of proposition, identification, existence, preference is always a confirmation of UPB. And any human communication is UPB because you're using comprehensible language.
Yeah. Well no, anything that you communicate is about better or worse.
Even if I tell you, I like ice cream.
I'm preferring to use a comprehensible statement that actually conforms to my preference, or maybe I'm lying to you, but I'm still using grammatically correct English and preferring that and using my voice rather than trying to concentrate or hire skywriters or, you know, have Tibetan monks dream about it or whatever, right? Right, so like saying the earth revolves around the sun is a statement of fact, but it's also an implicit statement that it's good to believe things that are true And it's good to know why, you know, that happens and all that stuff, right?
You're also, by saying the Earth revolves around the Sun, you're also saying that it is true independent of opinion.
And that the reason I believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun is because the Earth does in fact revolve around the Sun and our opinions should conform to empirical and testable realities.
Right? So all of that is implicit even in a mere factual statement, any statement that you make.
is UPB. Language is UPB because you're using correct definitions rather than making up, you know, some Elvin-Cardassian conglomeration or thinking in Aztec symbols or something like that.
So any conversation, anything is UPB. I mean, somebody who's alive is obviously life is better than death, you know, all these kinds.
Like, UPB is... preferences are inherent to any form of human communication.
That's why UPB... Like, saying UPB doesn't exist, it's still...
A universal practice.
And of course you would say that to someone because you would say, you should abandon UPB because it is a false proposition.
And you should abandon UPB because there is no such thing as UPB. In other words...
So what you're saying is...
Sorry, go ahead. Right, right.
I was just saying, you know, what you're saying is, if you should abandon UPB because it's false, then the principle there is, people should abandon false theories.
Right, and false theories should be abandoned because they don't correspond to reality.
Because people don't say, you should abandon UPB because I don't like it.
Right. It makes me feel anxious, or, you know, it makes my...
Even that, even that's immoral, morality.
People should abandon things that I don't like, universally.
Well, no, if somebody...
It's dumb ethics, but...
It's just you, and it's just me, and it makes me anxious, and you should just stop doing it because I want you to.
And there's no principle involved whatsoever, right?
You should just, because I want you to.
But people never argue like that because that really is a self-detonating statement.
Because if you're saying you should stop doing something because I want you to, then clearly, if you apply UPB to that, it's like, well, then you should believe in UPB because I want you to, right?
It doesn't work at all. Right, right.
You're changing, again, changing the scope of the debate, because originally you'd say, no, just you and me, if it was just you and me, and then at the end there you'd say, well, if you turn around and reapply the universality, then it doesn't work.
But he's saying you and me, right?
So at least there's two people who then, who have, right?
But if he's saying it's my moral rule, but everybody should just obey me, just because I want them to, that's no longer a moral rule, because there's no universality.
Well... It kind of is a moral thing.
You should stop, or you shouldn't do, because I said so.
But you should universally obey him, right?
Well, but why is it that we never hear that argument?
Why is it I've never in my entire life, after debating with God knows how many hundreds or thousands of people, why is it I've never had anyone say, you should believe what I believe or I'm going to hold my breath?
I mean, who's not to, right?
Or Greg. Just kidding.
But why is it that that is never a strategy that is employed, if it could be reasonably defended?
It's the parental strategy, right?
I'm not saying it's reasonable.
I'm just saying that they could be making that argument that it's just you and I, and I want you to conform to me.
That sounds very parental.
And so if I turn around and I say, well, if we apply universality to this, they're going to say, well, who cares about universality?
I just want you to conform to what I'm telling you.
But that, of course, is the ultimate argument from force, right?
Because the question is, well, why would I do that?
I mean, if it's just a, like, it would be nice for me, or I'd prefer it, right?
You just say, well, why should I care about your preferences, right?
Because there is something we kind of get in A, right?
Like, why should I care about your preferences?
But that's always what somebody says when they have a gun, right?
Or their parents, right?
Obviously, that's a fundamentally weak argument.
And of course, it's a fundamentally vulnerable argument, which is why you need the gun to back it up.
Saying that I'm begging you to believe just because I really need you to, that's really sad.
I mean, that's such a weak position to come from.
I'm going to cry. I mean, I've definitely done it, certainly on my honeymoon.
Yeah, well, of course, but that's this vulnerability that results in the force, or the force that results in the cover-up of that sort of naked plea.
But, yeah, for sure, that is something that people could definitely say, but they just never do.
Right, and...
Even a parent will not say, obey me just because...
Very rarely, at least...
Yeah, no, I guess it's true. People will say, just do it because I say.
Do it, right? Right, but also you have to look, is that person bigger or smaller?
Because they could be extracting principles like, do it because I say and I'm bigger.
Implicitly put it in there.
Then the principle is, people with more power should enforce rules on people with less power.
Right, and then of course the question then becomes when you turn 14 and you've been eating your broccoli, right, and you're now bigger than your dad, then clearly he could never complain about you beating the crap out of him.
Yet strangely, the rules seem to change at that point.
The rules change that elders or, you know, maybe weak people should, you know, tell strong people what to do because they're obligated to protect them or something like that.
I mean, it's still, there's just things implicit into the situation, because, like, the facts about the arguers, right?
I'm sorry, I just missed that last part, if you could go over it a bit more.
Well, yeah, it's kind of, I said it in a very convoluted way.
Like, if a big guy tells a small guy something, and he does that, uses that argument, just do this because I want you to, and you should do it because you should do what I want you to.
Well, there's already, like, that guy's a big guy, and so there's implicit stuff in there, like you were saying.
Even if a small guy came to a big guy and said, you know, give me your ice cream, like a child, you know, give me your ice cream because I want you to, you know, and that you should give me your ice cream, it's still the same thing.
It's that big, you know, other people, people with more power should help out people with less power.
I mean, you can always extract universality from it, right?
Right, right, right.
I don't know. It's kind of convoluted.
Could you clarify one thing for me, Steph?
The difference between it's good to believe things that are true and the difference between that and it's good not to murder.
I mean, in terms of the implication, right?
Because moral theory It implies the right to use force to defend, right?
So, if I say it's bad to believe false things, am I saying that I have the right to defend reality?
Yeah, I mean, I could, but, I mean, sorry, that's going to have to wait for the book, because that is a whole long series of arguments around avoidability and culpability and responsibility and So, I mean, I'm sorry, I want to make sure that we get other questions in, and if there aren't any, I certainly would be happy to jot over that theory.
We do have a, I just wanted to point out, we had a first review of somebody who came.
Somebody wrote, it was a good time, the first annual Freedomain Radio BBQ, it was a good time, Steph cracks a joke a minute, Christina's a doll, and Greg looks like he's a teenager.
So, that seems to be fairly accurate.
Somebody did. I really can't tell you because I don't want you to beat anybody.
But anyway, that's just something to notice that our reviews are in.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Alright, so did we have other questions or comments or issues or problems?
The show is yours.
You are the show.
The show you.
Hello.
Hello.
Well, we certainly have more than enough material from this weekend that we don't need a three-hour show today, so we can have a very short one if people prefer it.
I'll just give everyone a second to...
No, it looks not.
On the... Just to finish up here, I guess.
On the topic of avoidability, is that where the determinism ethics kind of falls?
Everything's unavoidable?
There's no ethics, basically?
I hadn't made that connection, but I'm definitely going to claim it for myself.
So we'll erase this part, and I'll pay you good money to never speak of it again, because that's pretty brilliant.
Go on. No, that was that, basically.
I don't know if you knew this.
I've been a determinist for quite a while.
And I had come up with some kind of UPB for determinism, but it kind of falls if you add the avoidability thing.
Because, I mean, basically, if UPB is just a statement that you use the scientific method for ethics, then even in a determinist universe, I mean, you still can't claim that the government's good, or something like that, because ethics are universal.
It's just a statement of fact that ethics are universal.
Right, you can't invent a conceptual category called government that reverses reality.
Right, even if things are determined.
Sorry, go ahead. Right, and so even in a determinist universe, I mean, they can't claim ethics on all the things that would lead to a government or lead to, you know, basically all the things that are wrong, murder, rape, and theft, because they're still invalid.
But then the problem is, like, Problem is avoidability.
Nothing's avoidable in a deterministic universe.
Right, and it is this question of avoidability that is foundational to ethics, right?
And the metaphor that I'm putting into the book, not that this is going to give the whole thing away, but the metaphor that I'm using in the book is something like this.
So, if a guy cheats on his wife, and he's obviously done her wrong, he's broken his vows, assuming they have a monogamous relationship or whatever, betrayed her trust and so on, right?
I don't think that she legitimately would get to blow him away with a shotgun.
However much she might feel like it, if a woman did such a thing and left like a country woman, West Virginia kind of rampant hole in his belly because she was so enraged, right?
Then we would say, I think that's a tad of an overreaction and we would prosecute her for murder, right?
Whereas if a husband locked his wife in the bank, And the only way that she can get away is to shoot a big hole through him.
We would say, that's a regrettable necessity.
Right? Because in the first situation, it's avoidable.
She didn't have to marry him.
She can leave him.
There's nobody compelling her to stay there.
Let me finish the series.
I know. I know.
One syllable isn't giving that.
Right? But in the second situation, There's no avoidability, right?
So if people come over to the Free Domain Radio BBQ and I say something really stupid and offensive and I keep going off, right?
And you had some self-respect to leave or didn't need the free food in the place to stay so badly, right?
You weren't held hostage by your biological needs.
But I mean, if I said something stupid and offensive and went off on some rampage and you were like, wow, he's a bit better in audio than he is in face-to-face, then you would have to challenge the least, right?
So, shooting me would not be about, I guess you could just leave.
You could avoid the whole situation.
Now, secondly though, if I tied you to a chair and bolted that chair to the ground, right, and then kept moving, and then you're in a situation where you can't leave.
It's not an avoidable situation anymore, right?
Right, right?
And it's funny that you add that last word anymore because going back to the first metaphor, they're both wives.
So they both have a choice to marry this guy or not.
Well, sure, but the choice is now taken away if you get locked in the basement, right?
Now, a therapist, a competent therapist would say, what choices did you make that led up to your choices being stripped away?
But there's still a difference between the woman who's locked in the basement and the woman whose husband says, I slept around.
Physically, there's a difference, right?
Only if we ignore the initial avoidability of courtship and merit.
Absolutely, for sure, but still, I would not have a problem with a woman who shot a guy who was imprisoning her in her basement.
I would have a problem with a woman who shot a guy who was unfaithful, right?
Psychologically, I would understand that there are steps, but still, at a foundational level, But this isn't about what you would have a problem with.
This is about establishing a logical criteria.
I'm not saying this is a moral argument, but there are shortcuts around an innate sense of justice that we have.
Would you feel in your gut that there is no difference between these two women in terms of their right to use force?
There are material differences, sure.
So you read one news story that says a woman blew her husband away because he confessed to infidelity, versus a woman who was locked in her basement and starved, ended up having to shoot her husband to get out.
Oh dear, I've disconnected his logical brain, and there is a massive seizure you should see.
Smoke killing the room!
Oh my god! Get the fire extinguisher!
You're saying...
Sorry, it's a Mac.
We're going to have to reboot it. The battery seems to have run out.
You're saying only the immediate circumstance managed to...
So it doesn't matter whether or not the first woman had a choice to marry or not.
Because if it doesn't matter for the second, it shouldn't matter for the first.
So only the immediate circumstances matter.
Well, okay, let's change it then, if you like, and we'll come back to this.
How about a first date? A first date, the guy says something offensive, the woman can get up and leave.
She can't shoot him, right, for saying something offensive, right?
Or something like that, right?
But if in the first date, she comes over to his house for dinner, first he says, you know, I don't know, something offensive, and she can just get up and leave, right?
She can't shoot him, right?
But if on the first date, he chains her to the table and won't let her go, and the only way she can get out is to shoot him, right?
There's first date, right?
Whatever, right? I mean, whatever circuit, there's still a material difference around avoidability.
Right. The choice to actually date the guy, to take his phone call in the first place, to talk to him when he approaches you...
All those choices don't matter.
Only the moment where he either says something offensive or gets up and changes her to the chair, only that moment matters in determining the morality of the situation.
Absolutely, but not in terms of just the responsibility, right?
Because you can be responsible for something like the woman who dates this crazy guy who ends up locking her in the basement, there was science at the very beginning.
Obviously this guy who's not the name of the crazy and so on.
So she's partly responsible for getting into that situation, but once she takes her choice away completely, then she's now no longer able to leave.
She can't exercise her choice to leave.
Psychologically it does, right?
But from a pure moral standpoint and a legalistic standpoint, yes, for sure, it doesn't matter.
The moment that somebody takes away your choice and renders the situation unavoidable, right?
It takes away your alternatives, right?
Then you have to get them out of the way in order to continue to exist.
And so in the same token, everything prior to the woman with cheating husband It doesn't matter.
Only in that moment where she makes the choice to blow him away does the morality count.
Well, agreed. I just wanted to set up something where we could at least understand the motives, right?
Because, you know, there's that song that we heard at karaoke last night by Carrie Underwood about he and the guy's car because he's unfaithful and something like that.
So I'm working with the country and western metaphors today.
So anyway, that's just part of sort of what I'm working around in terms of the UPB book, is sort of trying to put different criteria on so we can really understand how all this stuff sort of fits together.
Right. There's a material difference in that.
With having foresight...
With having foresight into circumstances you may be putting yourself into, that's like sacking...
Principles onto each other to create new ones, right?
Then you wouldn't have murder is bad.
Because murder is not self-defense, obviously.
Right, right. But if you're able to stack principles like that, or stack circumstances, then you can't have a set code, can you?
Because it's malleable. Right.
I mean, the principle has to be somewhat binary, otherwise three infidelities equals murder, and then everything's relative and sliding, and, you know, everything's circumstantial, and we're afraid we can have a modern state-based justice system.
So, oh, we've got overcrowding, so we're going to turn the criminals out, right?
All of that's just subjective stuff.
No, I agree. You have to have some sort of binary thing.
There's going to be some gray areas, because there's self-reporting, there may not be evidence, you may not know in every single case, but the principle has to be that if the situation is avoidable in the moment, Well, not just in the moment.
Because, again, if I said if I go into the mafia den and start verbally assaulting people or abusing people or I go into the biker bar dressed in a tutu, right?
I'm just saying that the people who do me wrong are absolutely wrong, right?
The people who beat me up in the biker bar because I'm flouncing around in a tutu just being me, right?
Those people are definitely wrong, but the situation was voidable.
But that doesn't make me...
No, no, it doesn't at all.
But there is, of course, times where that may happen, right?
There's circumstance, there's death by cop, right?
Where the crazy guy goes out and pretends to reach for his piece and the cops shoot him.
I mean, I know that that's right, but that's something where that's totally an avoidance.
That's a suicide, right? Even though other people are initiating force against you, it's because they spun exactly their sort of anticipatory preemptive self-defense or whatever, right?
So that doesn't break the situation, but it's the difference between, like, if somebody breaks into my house and steals my wallet, that's different than if I leave my wallet on a park bench for a week.
Whoever takes my wallet is wrong, but there's some culpability.
Not from a moral standpoint, but some responsibility.
Sorry.
We're just talking about implications here.
Assigning punishment. So, the woman who blows her husband away because he cheated, We would assign a certain gravity level to that that would have as a consequence a certain kind of punishment versus the woman who blows her husband away because she's been locked in the basement for the last three months.
That has a different gravity level in terms of consequence, so we would assign a different Level of punishment.
No, because the woman who's shooting is self-defense.
If you're locked in the basement, she's not culpable.
She's not morally wrong, right?
In that situation, maybe no punishment at all.
I have something to throw in.
Like, what are the steps that you took to end up in that basement, right?
Which is not just, out of nowhere, this great guy just locked me in the basement, right?
So, a psychologist would step her through that and say that this was avoidable, but she chose to avoid it.
Which doesn't make her morally wrong for shooting her husband who's trying to kill her, but psychologically, we would say you have a responsibility in the matter.
Not in the same way as death by cops, but you have a responsibility, but that's to avoid it in the future, not to punish her for the time.
But I would say we've gone beyond just defining a moral code at that point.
We're actually...
Right, exactly.
We're not dealing strictly with syllogisms here.
We're dealing with...
Right, like a how-to, you know, best behavior advice account.
Because once you get that things are avoidable, right, and there's a lot of psychological work that we do in Free Domain Radio...
It's around understanding that situations that you end up in can be avoidable, right?
So if you're in a situation where there's verbal or physical abuse in a romantic relationship or something like that, these things are avoidable.
If you don't think at all that they're avoidable, you're still morally culpable and responsible for not thinking that they're avoidable, but they are in fact avoidable.
But the final act of murder is a whole string of people thinking that Things aren't avoidable, and this is just how things are, and so on.
But if people avoid that and end up shooting someone, they're totally morally culpable, for sure.
But there's a lot that you can do as a philosopher to prevent, rather than...
The cure is the DROs, and the philosophers are more around the prevention.
Of course, that's why I want DROs, because they'll find...
All right, did we have more questions around that?
Issues? About that, what we were just talking about?
Anything you like, brother? Well, I mean, just...
Some things I was thinking like while you were saying that, the material difference between the woman in the first scenario and the second one is not that they're both wives, but that one's locked in the basement.
I know we've been through this, but the avoidability, you're getting kind of into lifeboat scenarios, and it can really help you in lifeboat scenarios.
The fact that the avoidability level is diminished the more Obscure the situation like that.
I mean, at that point she could not avoid not killing her husband.
It's like she's entering a state of nature the more he's doing immoral things to her, like locking her in a basement.
Fundamentally what she can shoot him for is his inflicted moral hypocrisy.
He's not locking himself in the basement with her, right?
He's saying, I should have perfect freedom of choice and you should have no freedom of choice.
In that contradiction, and he's imposing that on her.
So he's imposing, through his liberty, her lack of liberty.
It's a contradiction, fundamentally, that he's imposing upon her that she's striking back at.
And, you know, violently and justly, too, right?
Right. Of course, if he did lock them both in the basement, that would still be a problem, because she didn't choose to get locked in the basement, and he did.
But, you know, again, we get to extremes.
Sure, sure. Contradiction or just inconsistency?
No, it's not just an inconsistency, it's a contradiction.
If I say, I have all choice and you are in a state of neutral choice, like appliance or something, that's an inconsistency.
If I say, I have all choice and you have no choice, that's a contradiction.
Because it's an opposite.
All choice versus neutral is the inconsistency.
All choice I should have all liberties, you should have all liberties taken away.
I should do whatever I want, you should do exactly what I tell you, is a contradiction because I'm saying I have choice and you should have the opposite of choice, which is obedience and force.
And this goes back to the biological sameness of people, whereas it's different with children because they're not biologically the same.
Or retarded people...
Right, right, okay, so...
Even with the metaphor with the bar and going into the tutu.
How long ago did you do that, Sam?
But you know that you're going to be able to instigate those kinds of people.
Which isn't morally wrong, but it is morally wrong when they decide to beat you up for it.
And that just makes you an idiot for doing it, I guess.
But it doesn't make you morally wrong.
It doesn't make you morally wrong, but certainly intervention would be required because I'm clearly masochistic and trying to get myself beaten up.
So there's ways to prevent that in the future, but certainly the people who are in there can just laugh at me in a tutu, as you guys did last night, rather than beat me up or whatever.
So they're still morally culpable, but there's ways to reduce that, which is why philosophy works best with psychology to attempt to reduce these, quote, inevitable situations.
Just to help me clarify one thing.
As I see it, and maybe you can explain where I'm wrong.
As I see it, a contradiction would be me saying that I both have free choice and I don't have free choice.
That would be a contradiction.
Me saying I have free choice and you don't have free choice, to me that's a question of consistency.
But if we're the same entity, I don't know that the difference is there.
No, we are, because we're both human beings.
I think I understand what you're saying.
If I'm a physicist and I say, I'm sorry to use this rock shift, but it just works well.
If I say that A rock falls both up and down simultaneously, that's a contradiction for you, right?
But if I say this rock falls up and this rock falls down, that is an inconsistency.
No, but there must be contradictory laws...
It certainly is more immediate inconsistency to say that a rock falls both up and down at the same time.
Somebody just joined, we've got an echo.
Ah, that's a high quality.
Sorry, whoever joins, please stand up your microphone.
Or mute. Thank you.
So, yeah, so that's...
But to me, there is...
You're still talking about a rock.
So whether it's one rock falling up and down, whether two rocks, one falling up, one falling down, the fundamental contradiction still exists.
Because it would have to be opposing or contradictory forces to make one rock fall up and one rock fall down in the same circumstances.
I'm proposing opposite rules for the same circumstances.
That means to me not just an inconsistency, but a contradiction.
But I think this is mostly semantics, right?
Because we can certainly agree that there's something fundamentally wrong with it, whether we call it inconsistent or contradiction.
Contradiction is more extreme.
To me, there's self-contradiction, there's contradiction, then there's inconsistency.
And I think what we're talking about is the difference between a self-contradiction, which is I both have free will and non-free will.
And contradiction is the same entity's opposite rules.
Inconsistency is whatever.
So, from the start, if I'm going to imply universality, and then I later explicitly describe non-universality, then that would be a contradiction.
Yeah, I think that's a reasonable way of looking at it.
Somebody has posted, lifeboat scenarios are rather state-of-nature situations, and ethics isn't much help in a state-of-nature situation, right?
I mean, I think that's entirely right in a lot of ways.
You know, you don't see a lot of nutritionists who say, if you're stuck at sea in a lifeboat, then you only have practice to eat.
What should you eat? How should we apply nutrition to a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean?
Well, you hope you can catch some fish, and maybe you can eat some fish, or, you know, you eye your plump...
Maybe boatmate or whatever, but you don't see nutrition applied to lifeboat scenarios any more than you would see morality applied to lifeboat scenarios.
Alright, any other questions, comments?
I think we're down to just a couple of people, so if you have anything now, subscribe, my friends.
And the great silence greeted them.
Alright, well we can certainly stop now, because I think our food is ready.
So thank you so much everybody for joining us on this fine, fine Sunday afternoon and have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week and I will be back on the boards this week a little bit later after I go through the immense amount of material that we have from this weekend and dig my own ears out with an awl.
So thank you so much for listening.
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