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Nov. 5, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:11
2246 The Molyneux Problem And Universally Preferable Behavior

A listener debates with Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, about ethics and its opposite.

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So the Molyneux proposition is, if an action is moral, then not doing it is immoral.
And it seems to be a very important part of the UPB presentation in the book.
You reference it a couple times, usually prefacing it by saying, clearly this is true.
And I'm not so sure it is.
And I can explain it, the proposition being a function of two fallacies.
One was identified to me as being called denying the antecedent.
That is, if you assume...
If A, therefore B, therefore if not A, then not B. So if...
If doing action A makes you a moral person, then not doing action A makes you not a moral person.
And then the second fallacy is assuming that not moral is the same as being immoral.
And that's most right there.
I guess there's another...
Well, let's count one at a time, if that's okay.
Sure, yeah, go ahead.
Right, so if X is the good, then the opposite of X has to be evil.
Are we okay with that?
I don't think so.
I'm not sure.
Okay, help me understand that.
Well, there's neutral categories here, too, that we're denying.
No, no, I said the opposite.
Right, so if X is the good, then the opposite, like, okay, can we at least understand that evil is the opposite of good?
Yes, yes.
Okay, so if X is the good, then the opposite of X must be evil.
I mean, that's not even logic 101, right?
Okay, yes.
Are we okay with that?
Yes.
Okay, so if X is the good, then the opposite of X must be evil, right?
Opposite, yes.
We're all about that.
Okay, so you quote from the book, and so I say, if I say that giving to charity is a moral absolute, in other words, giving to charity is Is the good.
then the opposite of giving to charity must be immoral, right?
Maybe.
Maybe.
No, no, we just did this one.
This is exactly the same as the last one.
Right, so if giving to charity is the good, right, so X is the good, then the opposite of giving to charity must be immoral.
Because if X is the good, the opposite of X must be evil, right?
Okay.
Well, no.
You say, okay, like I'm convincing you of something.
I mean, isn't that exactly the same as what we just said, but instead of X, we have giving to charity?
Right?
If X is the good, the opposite of X must be evil.
If giving to charity is the good, then the opposite of giving to charity must be evil.
That sounds reasonable.
Well, I'm still not satisfied.
Tell me if it's not reasonable.
I want to sound reasonable, because that seems to me we've just taken the phrase X and replaced it with giving to charity.
And if you liked the X, but you don't like the giving to charity example, then there's something wrong with X, right?
I guess I'm just preserving some possibility here.
I guess I'm trying to get ahead of you about where you could be going.
No, no, don't.
I'm not trying to win.
I'm not trying to win anything.
I mean, if I've made a mistake, I've made a mistake, right?
I'm just...
But if X is the good, the opposite of X must be the evil.
Now, if we substitute giving to charity for X, then it's exactly the same to say, if giving to charity is the good, then the opposite of giving to charity must be evil.
Now, we can debate about what the opposite of charity is, but that is exactly the same statement.
Instead of X, we've put in giving to charity.
Okay.
Yes.
Now, I don't argue that giving to charity is a moral absolute.
Don't get me wrong, right?
But if we take the X and insert the giving to charity thing, if giving to charity is the good, then the opposite of giving to charity must be immoral.
Yes.
Okay.
Now, that doesn't prove that giving to charity is good.
We could insert strangling kittens is the good.
Then the opposite of strangling kittens must be immoral, right?
Yes.
That's correct.
It was an assumption that— So I'm not trying to make the case for the giving to charity argument.
I'm just saying that if we insert giving to charity, the opposite has to be immoral.
Now, you may say, if I understand it correctly, your objection may be, well, what is the opposite of giving to charity?
Yeah, that's part of it.
Right?
So what I say is that if giving to charity is a moral absolute, then not giving to charity would be immoral.
Just a little nervous here, I guess, talking to you, but I'm more of a visual person, so you might have to give me some time with the… Oh, no.
Listen, no problem.
Now, you could make the argument that says the opposite of giving to charity is stealing from charity.
Mm-hmm.
Does that make sense?
It doesn't really matter what the opposite is, but yeah.
Well, it has some relevance what the opposite is, but...
If I say that you have to give to charity to be a virtuous person, then it's immoral not to give to charity because you're not achieving virtue.
It's not a neutral action.
So if I say giving to charity is a moral absolute and you're going sailing, then going sailing isn't in that category.
It's not the opposite of giving to charity.
Right.
Now, of course, when you're going sailing, you're not giving to charity, I assume, right?
Because you're sailing.
Possibly.
Yeah, I mean, I assume you're not phoning it in while you're sailing or whatever, right?
And so, and this is the problem with positive moral absolutes, like an action you have to take, is that then when you're not taking that action, you have to be doing something wrong.
I think that's the leap that I really have a problem with.
Thank you.
Now, but you see, the word that I used was absolute.
If I say that giving to charity is a moral absolute, right?
Okay, what does that mean then?
I'm not sure how putting moral absolute in there changes things.
Well, it's not like it's nice.
Yeah, I'm not sort of trying to say, well, it's nice to give to charity.
No, I agree it's nice to give to charity.
But if it's a moral absolute, then it's something you must do.
To be moral.
Okay, is that how we're defining moral absolute?
Yeah, I mean, it's not optional.
It's not temporal.
It's not whatever, right?
It's not yes today and no tomorrow.
It's not some of your money but not all of it.
It's not whatever, right?
It's a moral absolute.
You must give to charity.
It's a moral absolute.
It's not optional.
It's not Tuesdays only or only in Wisconsin.
It's a moral absolute.
Or you could say, if giving to charity is UPV... So are we saying, are we assuming now, before we were just saying that giving to charity was moral.
So how does that change things to say it's a moral absolute?
Is there a difference?
Yeah, I mean, an absolute is...
I mean, I don't really know how to break down the word anymore, but an absolute is like a universal, you've got it all.
It's absolute.
It's not...
Okay, so they are distinct, though.
To say that giving charity is moral is distinct from saying giving charity is moral absolute.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Okay.
Okay.
I mean, technically, I would probably say it's virtuous.
You know, like it's not required, but it's nice.
Morality is to me sort of the good and evil, the required stuff and virtue and vice or whatever, right?
Drinking too much may be a vice or smoking too much may be a vice, but it's not evil.
And giving to charity is virtuous, but it's not, you know, don't get to throw people in jail for not giving to charity, if that makes sense.
Okay.
So where are we at here now?
Okay, so the opposite of...
So, if you create a moral rule which says it is a moral absolute, everybody must at all times give to charity.
Right?
Like, I think we can say that everyone at all times should not rape.
That's a moral absolute, right?
In other words, there are no conditions under which rape would be A morally virtuous choice, right?
In the absence of someone having a gun to your head or whatever it is, right?
But the moral absolute is thou shalt not rape.
Right?
Okay.
And so the opposite of not raping is raping, right?
That doesn't sound quite right either.
Okay.
Oh, sorry.
You can do many things that are not raping.
But the opposite of not raping is raping, because we've got the word raping in there, right?
So the opposite of not raping has to involve rape, right?
It's like saying, the opposite of up is blue.
It's like, no, we're doing vertical.
The opposite of up is down, right?
Are we saying what is the opposite of raping?
The opposite of raping would include things that are not raping.
No, no, sorry.
If we say that not raping is a moral absolute, thou shalt not rape is a moral absolute.
In other words, not raping is the UVB, thou shalt not rape.
So the opposite of thou shalt not rape is to rape, right?
Again, that sounds reasonable.
So we're saying that assuming that there's two states that a person can be in either raping or not raping.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, relative to that moral rule, right?
Relative to that moral rule, whatever would be the opposite of that moral rule has to involve that moral rule of some kind, right?
Otherwise, it's just a random category.
Okay.
Okay.
Then you say, the opposite of not raping is going bald.
I mean, that's just creating some new category that's completely unrelated to that.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Like the opposite of north is south, it's not tomorrow.
Because tomorrow is time and north and south is geography, right?
Okay.
So if you've got a category around rape and you can say thou shalt not rape and you can UPB validated and so on, then the opposite of thou shalt not rape must be thou shalt rape.
Again, it sounds reasonable.
Thank you.
And so, that's what I mean when I say, if X is the good, then the opposite of X must be evil.
Right?
So, if not raping is good, then raping must be evil.
And if raping is good, then not raping must be evil.
Now, I agree with you that if I say raping is good, what is the opposite of raping?
Is it smoking a cigarette?
Well, when you're smoking a cigarette, you're certainly not raping anyone, right?
But the opposite of a category has to include that category.
It has to be part of the same category.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, so if you're going to pick an action, then you can either be doing that action and the opposite would be not doing it.
Right, right.
But it's not just doing some other random action, right?
The opposite of...
Raping can't be going skydiving.
Because then it could just be anything, right?
Then there's no real point having any category of action.
Okay.
Now, where I do agree with you is that if you have a positive moral absolute, Then the opposite is really hard to find.
It's really hard to nail down logically, right?
Or it's tougher for sure, right?
So if I say thou shalt not rape, then clearly the opposite of that is raping, right?
Again, sounds reasonable.
And that's a specific action, right?
Yep.
Now, if I say the moral rule is thou shalt rape, what is the opposite of thou shalt rape?
Well, not raping.
But not raping can be anything.
Hang gliding, smoking a cigarette, going to the moon, having a nap.
Anything, right?
It's not a specific – if you have a positive moral absolute, then anything that you do that is not specifically that – Is immoral.
Does that make sense?
And that doesn't make any sense.
I mean, it makes sense, like, logically, it's a setup, but in sort of the real world, it really doesn't make any sense, right?
Okay, yeah.
And is that, again, I don't want to sort of tell you what you're thinking, but I think that's some of the issue that you have, right?
I would want to take some time to go over what I've written and put that against your observations.
I agree with you that if anyone were to say that rape is virtue.
To rape is virtuous.
You say, well, if to rape is virtuous, what is immoral?
What is evil?
Well, it must be the opposite of to rape.
Well, what is the opposite of raping?
Because then you're taking a specific action.
And saying, well, what is the opposite of that specific action?
Now, if you say, what is the opposite of a general ban?
Well, it's violating that ban, right?
So if you have thou shalt not steal, what's the opposite of thou shalt not steal?
It's stealing something, right?
And what's the opposite of thou shalt not murder?
It's murdering someone.
What's the opposite of thou shalt not assault?
It's assaulting someone.
Thou shalt not rape.
It's raping someone.
So the opposite actually is a specific action that can be measured, right?
Sounds right.
But if you have a positive rule that is thou shalt, not thou shalt not, right?
Thou shalt assault is virtue.
Well, what is the opposite of thou shalt assault?
It's really weird, right?
Because it's not assaulting, but not assaulting is everything but assaulting.
Does that make sense?
So what is the opposite?
It's everything but that one thing.
And so what on earth is the opposite?
Does that make sense?
Again, yeah.
If you could actually put all these observations together in a...
I don't know if it's so simple that I'm not giving its due attention and putting it all together, but No, it's tricky and weird because we're so used to moral commandments called thou shalt not, right?
Yeah.
But thou shalt is weird because the opposite is everything else, right?
Normally, we think of an opposite like a stick, right?
There's something at one end, that's the positive, and then there's something at the other end, and that's the negative, right?
So you think of like north.
Well, the opposite of north is the plumb line down straight south, right?
Yeah.
So you've finished all the observations you need in order to establish what I call a Molyneux proposition then?
Well, let me just sort of mention it though, right?
So, if I have a moral rule which says, you must go north.
Okay.
In a way, if you do anything other than go north, you violated the moral rule, right?
Yes.
Yes.
Whereas if I say, yeah, if you go north-north-northwest or something like that, or you veer off three degrees or whatever, right?
You don't actually have to be going south, right?
You just not, sorry, so it's every 359 degrees is all immoral, and going north is moral.
Yeah.
That's if you have a thou shalt, thou shalt go north, right?
Mm-hmm.
And that's the same thing as saying if you have thou shalt rape is the good, then the evil or the opposite of the good is a huge category of infinite actions, except for that one, right, which is the thou shalt.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
Whereas if you have a thou shalt not, you do actually have an opposite, and all the other actions are not relevant to that particular equation.
So if you have, thou shalt not rape, then clearly the violation of that is raping someone, whereas going hang gliding doesn't have any moral category.
Does that make sense?
It does.
But if you say, thou shalt rape, then if you don't rape, you're doing the opposite, or you're certainly not achieving the moral good, and therefore going hang gliding has moral content.
Because you're not achieving the moral absolute and ideal of raping someone and therefore hang gliding or going for a stroll or having a nap has moral implication in a positive moral obligation like thou shalt rape whereas going hang gliding doesn't have any moral content in a thou shalt not rape.
I think this is where I think your sense of things are awry I agree with.
How can hang gliding Have a moral content.
How can having a nap have a moral content?
But if you have positive moral obligations, thou shalt rape, then everything which is not achieving that has moral content.
So it has a moral evaluation.
Does that make sense?
I'm just going to read them all a new proposition to myself here again.
So, if an action is moral, then not doing that action is immoral.
Now, even reading this after going through this exercise with me, it does put it in...
Where are you reading that?
Well, it's what I described as the Molyneux Proposition on the board.
No, no, because you quoted me from the book.
Let's go with the book, right?
Because restating things, often you miss, anyone would miss a key phrase, right?
So if you go down a couple of posts, you actually quote from the book?
I did, but we can work from that if you want.
But even though the book is just a presentation of this idea, right?
It's not the only way.
No, no, no, because you leave out the word absolute, which is the key.
Right.
In your description of the Molyneux problem, you leave out the most important thing, which is the word absolute.
So from your quoting from your book, you say, if I say, quote, if I say that giving to charity is a moral absolute, then clearly not giving to charity would be immoral.
So, yeah, I was not really clear about how sticking the word immoral in It changes the situation.
So then, I didn't have any problem accepting that moral absolutes have an opposite of immorality, but I wasn't sure about how that changed the network of the argument.
And so you can say, well, again, I don't have all the ideas in my head at once.
Even trying to clear the ideas in my head on the board, it was hard to articulate what I was trying to say.
Yeah, look, I definitely, I've made a note of this thread in the rewrite, which of UBB2O. I definitely have to make moral absolute more clear.
Yes, if I can.
This is not early in the book, so I think I've talked a lot about absolutes and UPBs and so on, but it obviously could be more clear.
But a moral absolute is you have to, at all times, under every circumstance, do this.
I mean, that's absolute, right?
It's not preferable.
It's not nice to have.
It's universal in time and location and circumstance and so on, right?
Okay, so I think you've given me about as much as you can in order to sleep on this one.
Do you want to move on to the second observation?
Sure.
Which was about how you deal with the two men in the room scenario and then trying to get them to both murder each other or rape each other or...
What other immoral thing that you could put as moral absolute in?
Do you mind if I refer to it as the Molyneux proposition?
I'm just not sure which one that is.
You mean the one we were just doing?
Yes, so I was referring to the Molyneux proposition as if an action is moral, then not doing it is immoral.
Well, no, see, but you're rephrasing it in a way that I've rejected about five times already.
Okay, well then, so...
If an action is immoral absolute...
Okay, so that's what I need to put in there?
Then the opposite of that action must be immoral.
Okay, so then we're saying, so would you agree with the phrasing then, if an action is a moral absolute, then not doing it is immoral?
Well, no, because not doing it is begging the question.
Because if I have a ban, right, thou shalt not rape, what does it mean to not do thou shalt not rape?
I mean, it's kind of confusing.
What it means is that if you have a moral absolute that is good, right?
Then the opposite of that moral absolute must be evil.
Yeah, you could probably say it six more times, and until I read it, it's not going to do a lot of good to me.
Okay, well, no, just have...
So, if something is absolutely morally virtuous, then the opposite must be morally evil.
I'm sure you can walk me through another eight times, but just...
No, the key thing is absolute and opposite.
Moral absolute is virtuous.
The opposite of it must be evil.
Okay.
Okay, so just absolute and opposite.
Those are the only two phrases that I would remind you are sort of in the text that you quoted.
Okay, so can you get a succinct phrase similar to the one that I call the Molyneux proposition that you can endorse?
Yeah, I mean, if X is the good, then the opposite of X must be evil.
So what's the difference between the good and a moral absolute?
Well, in this, they're synonymous.
Okay, so then we could say if, by X you mean an action.
So the first part of the Molyneux proposition seems to work then.
So if an action is a moral absolute...
Well, the X does not necessarily refer to an action.
It could also refer to a theory.
Okay, good point.
In fact, UPB, as you know, is centrally focused on theories.
So if I claim that X is the good, then it can be, you know, don't hit your dog with a stick.
Okay, but that's an action.
But I also could say that a universal respect for property rights is the good, which is a theory, not a specific action.
So for my sake, to try and get me a little more focused here, can we call it an action just for the sake of this conversation?
Sure, yeah.
So in the first part of the revised Molyneux proposition should be, if an action is a moral absolute, then what?
Then its opposite?
Then the opposite of that action must be immoral.
Okay.
That sounds reasonable, and I'll do some meditating on that one.
So the second observation is about the people, the two men in the room, Bob and Doug.
And it seems like you're really going...
This is not a logical critique.
I guess it's a critique of the presentation in the book, which...
Which is that if you take this, it's really easy to show that positive actions are immoral.
And it's just really clunky to try and show how these two guys can't sodomize each other.
When you can just say, sodomy is a positive action, therefore it cannot be a moral absolute.
So I don't know if you have any comment on that.
I'm not sure what the criticism is.
If you use...
Is it style?
Is it the style of presentation or...
I guess it's saying that you're taking a long and confusing way around, at least in my reading of UPB, that if you can use this proposition to show that positive actions cannot be moral absolutes, then all you have to do is say, raping is a positive action, therefore it cannot be a moral absolute.
And Not have to go through the two guys in a room.
Right.
Okay.
So you're saying it could be a shorter argument, even though the other arguments I give against the mutual rape in the room are valid, they're unnecessary if I've already established that positive obligations can't be moral.
Well, not only that, but you use that argument that in the two guys in a room, If you don't have the Molyneux proposition in place, or something similar that you would endorse in place, then the two guys in a room argument doesn't even work.
And so the two guys in a room...
No, the two guys in a room argument works without the Molyneux proposition.
So, if we throw the Molyneux proposition aside, and we just look at the logic of the two guys in the room, then it works without any of that.
Because, I mean, I'm sure you get it, right?
The basic argument being that two guys in a room can't murder each other, because murder is something that is unwanted.
So you can't have an obligation called both men must murder because then one man must want to murder while the other man must not want to be murdered.
in order to make it murder and therefore for one man murder is a positive value but it is only achievable if for the other man it is a negative value and therefore it can't be universalized as a positive value because it requires one person want to murder the other person not want to be murdered at the same time as the other person wants to murder the first guy who doesn't want to be murdered so even within the same person two guys in the room murder has to be both a positive value and a negative value at the same time that doesn't touch upon them all any proposition but it's another way of getting to the same place Okay,
that's something else I can roll around my head then.
But it seems like at least you've addressed both my observations and...
Well, and to be fair, UPB has received some fairly extensive and I think fair criticism for being a Ted on the confusing side.
And this is why I strongly suggest, you know, the conversations are the best way to at least, I'm not saying that this is all resolved, right?
I mean, I may be full of crap and you may sort of wake up at two in the morning and say, Hey, wait a minute, that guy is full of crap.
In which case, please tell me and I will attempt to decrap myself.
But you can go for hours and hours and hours on a message board, but I think it's a lot easier to do it in conversation, which is why I appreciate you taking the time.
And I really appreciate you taking the time to read carefully and suggest improvements, which I think are really helpful and really advantageous to the work, and I hugely appreciate that.
So then just as it's written, I am having trouble internalizing it.
So for example, you've, on the board there, I mentioned some conversation I think was with a Belgian couple.
And you said that even if the argument in the book UPB might not be perfectly laid out, like you're You know that it's a correct theory, and that's just because of the same things that we talked about here today?
Well, I know it's a, I mean, I'm of the opinion that it's a correct theory because I've probably had 30 conversations about it with some very intelligent people.
I've done presentations, I've done speeches on it, I've received questions from the audience, and The theory has held so far.
Again, you know, it's contingent.
And I think that the essence of it, like the thing I just described about murder, is so clear and obvious that it can't be overturned.
It's almost a tautology, but not quite.
So that is to say that it might be a correct theory, but, well, I'm trying to internalize it, and I'm having trouble with that.
Have you had many people that have told you they've been able to internalize it?
I think people say that they get it and then if they hit a skeptic they have trouble with it.
And, you know, to be fair, you would hope that The solution of secular ethics would be really horrible and tough to conceptualize, right?
When I explain it, it usually seems pretty simple to people, but then they go off and then they think about it and then other people question them and it gets confusing again.
The reason I think that that is is not because UPB is so terrifically difficult, but simply because we have so much bad moral reasoning or bad anti-moral reasoning floating around in our head from the states and from religion and from relativism and postmodernism and all that kind of junk.
That what happens is like trying to do a math problem with somebody of two or three people yelling random numbers into your ears.
It's just like, man, I thought I had it.
It's really tough to do because of that.
I don't know that.
I like to think of...
We need to put it out in syllogisms, and I need to...
I was reading it again recently, and I need to take out the bit about the sort of middle truths, which I think is very interesting and insightful.
Yeah, I printed your book off there, and I was just...
I did print your book off, and I was just taking a sharpening entire thing, like, don't need that, don't need that, don't need that.
I was trying to cut it down to its essence.
Yeah, it needs to be happening.
But yes, that's exactly the word that was in my head.
And, well, not just that.
So it's one thing...
So I think more important than having it held up as not being refuted is to get people to internalize it.
And I do think that I've checked out of most of the mysticism that you've mentioned, and I still have a hard time internalizing UPB. Right.
No, I get it.
And I will take some responsibility for that, of course, as the writer and the thinker, but not all, right?
Because, I mean, it's not like we don't have moral theories when we come into it.
And unlearning, you know, if you've learned a really bad tennis swing, it's really hard to change.
If you haven't learned a tennis swing at all, you can learn the correct one the first time.
But, you know, most of us have spent 20 years immersed in bad moral theories, myself included.
And so...
I will take certainly some responsibility, and that's why it's sort of the next project after the documentary is to really grind through and get a shorter version that's easier to internalize and sort of an FAQ and all that kind of stuff.
But, I mean, there will still be challenges, I guarantee.
Do you have an estimated release time for the movie?
No, not yet.
That depends on the donations?
Yeah, it does depend on the donations to some degree.
It's grinding along, but I don't have anything firm yet.
Okay, then.
And if you're not going to post this, I assume you're recording this.
Why, yes, I am.
If you're not going to post it, then I'd like to have a link to it or something so I can listen to what you've said.
Oh, if you don't mind, I would, I mean, you didn't say where you would live or anything, so if you don't mind, I would love to post it.
I mean, anything which clarifies any aspects of UPB, I'm real happy to share.
Sure.
Yeah, that's not a problem at all.
Thanks very much.
I appreciate it.
And look, I feel incredibly honored that you're taking the time to post and to criticize.
That's exactly right.
Obviously, you know that.
And I really, really just want to tell you that I really thank you for it.
And I really appreciate the feedback and the questions because it also helps me to clarify better ways to communicate about it.
And I appreciate you shaking up this crazy world.
Take care.
Thanks, Jeff.
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