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Nov. 9, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
58:57
2253 Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio Explains Universally Preferable Behavior

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, answers questions about UPB on Adam Versus the Man.

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Well, we got a huge treat for you guys tonight.
While we got Heisclick here in studio, we got Stefan Molyneux live by Skype, one of the most influential intellectuals in the liberty movement, a floppy-headed Canadian himself, the author of Universally Preferable Behavior, which is what we're going to be getting into tonight.
He is the host of the Freedomain Radio podcast.
You can find it at freedomainradio.com.
He's also the author of...
Several incredible books that are all available for free online at freedomainradio.com.
He is a champion of getting past the myth of intellectual property and someone who is walking the walk in that regard.
Everything he does is copyright free, available online.
You can download, you can remix it, you can share it.
And all of his books are also available as read by the author, How's your internet there in Canada?
Is everybody in Canada just kind of pixely?
Every in Canada is just kind of what?
Pixely.
You know how they always have photos of Bigfoot and they're always blurry?
And you're like, that makes them even more scary because now there's a big blurry monster running around.
I'm more scared of Canada because you always come through a little pixely, Stefan.
Yeah, well, as you probably have not heard, I've decided, perhaps a little bit like locking the barn door after the horses left, but Adam and company, I've decided to go incognito from here on in.
And so I feel that the first thing to do is to pixelate myself through a slow internet connection.
But now I am international man of libertarian mystery.
And this is really, really part of...
Sorry, what I meant to say is this is really, really part of my disguise.
I'm going to talk like Marvin the Martian pretty much for all of my future podcasts because it makes me very angry.
Yeah, you don't sound smart enough with the accent.
Actually, I must point out that it is only the accent that makes it sound smart.
I worked in it for quite a long time.
I tried a wide variety of accents.
You wouldn't believe how many accents.
You know, it's what Jeff Foxworthy says about the southern accent.
Like, it just takes 20 IQ points off.
Like, you sound like Mater in Cars, no matter what you do.
I'm all about the ethics, boy!
It just doesn't No Southern philosopher.
You can be, you know, a vaguely depressed and alienated Southern writer in a white linen suit drinking yourself into an early grave, but you just can't be a philosopher unless you have that vague tour of the colonies, can't quite figure out where he landed, but I'm sure it's someplace covered in ivy walls.
That's the best I got to offer, I'm afraid.
Well, you know, that's...
I'm sorry, I meant let's go back to the original.
Well, that might be really profoundly true because we had Austrian economists, you could say economic philosopher at that point, right?
Bob Murphy was on the show last week.
And he's always wondering, like, why is Stefan Molyneux so popular?
And, you know, he has no academic credentials.
All he does is make YouTube videos and put stuff up on the internet.
He's not plugged into Mises.org, the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
But maybe the accent is really the secret behind it.
That's the key.
There's a whole lot that has gone into really crafting who I am.
And first of all, of course, I'm a hologram.
This is not how people know that.
And of course, when you see me live, I'm like a Princess Leia hologram.
I can have R2-D2 behind the podium that does my live shows for me.
But I actually have a full head of serious Patrick Dempsey hair.
But in the marketing research that we did to found Free Domain Radio, we really found that bald guys seem smarter.
And...
I actually just had half a mustache here and one giant beard coming out here and a full head of hair.
And we just kind of looked it over and we said, okay, who do geeks consider the smartest man alive?
And frankly, it's Jean-Luc Picard.
And so that really was the approach that we felt we had to take as a marketing machine, as a CGI entrepreneurship to take.
And it seems to have really worked.
That makes a lot of sense.
So, Stefan, in your book, Universally Preferable Behavior...
We're not done bullshitting Stefan onto the stage yet.
I'm sorry, are we going through the actual content of the show now?
Yeah, I know, I'm really curious.
It feels too soon.
I still feel like people need to buy me some flowers before you bend me over that way.
Hold on a second.
Exactly.
Come on, Allie.
Allie.
I want to know.
The viewers want to know.
Woo me a little.
Well, we should remind people who are listening live, if you want to ask questions, please join the conversation in the chat room.
Ali Havens is keeping up with that.
I'll be keeping up with Twitter, at Adam Kokish, if you want to tweet me while we've got Stefan on in high school here in studio.
But, Stefan, we had you on Monday before the election and before the third-party debate, and we were so grateful for that.
It was amazing.
Did I call it or did I call it?
Yes, Goldman Sachs won.
Nothing changed?
Yeah, the pear-shaped people in comfortable shoes drove the whole election in order to maintain their death grip on the healthcare needs as they age.
That's my particular philosophy.
But anyway, sorry, go ahead.
Well, do you have any thoughts on any significance of the election?
And more importantly, The big pleasant surprise was the successful passing of Amendment 64 to legalize recreational marijuana in Colorado, and similar but not quite as generous legislation in Washington State.
But in Colorado, you know, there's still 45% of the voters who would lock people in cages if they could just get other people to do it.
What is the significance of that, that we actually have slightly less Statism in our lives as a whole to look forward to as a result of that element of the election.
But do we?
Look, I mean, to me, it seems like Colorado is lit up With the laser tracers of the giant death star of the federal government, right?
Because, I mean, frankly, I think we've seen pretty clearly, I mean, under Barack Obama himself, a former turnip cokehead, that it doesn't matter what the states do because the feds are going to go in and bust them up anyway.
So, I mean, despite the fact that Portugal has legalized or at least decriminalized drugs, and now, of course, if you get repetitively caught with drugs, you'll get a treatment option or whatever, but it's become like a ticket.
They've seen massive drops in crime, drops in addiction, all of the usual goodies that we saw.
If we saw episode season two of The Wire, we all know this stuff.
It's not brain surgery.
Or anybody who studied prohibition knows what happens after you legalize stuff, which is that people stop trying to get you hooked on it.
They stop selling it to kids.
They stop having crime.
All of the innocent victims who never touch drugs stop getting blown away and drive by missing shootings or whatever.
And so it's all clear that the evidence is in from Amsterdam and Portugal and tons of other places, Exactly what needs to be done.
Anybody with any brain cells whatsoever and without a massive conflict of self-interest knows exactly what's to be done, which is to legalize the crap out of this shit.
That's all very, very clear.
There's no question about it.
But the prison industrial military complex just can't handle it.
All of the guys who were toilet trained and gunpoint and ain't really wound so tight that when you hit their hamstring, you get a high F.
They just can't let it go.
You know, there's that haunting fear in certain aspects of religiosity, Puritanism in particular.
Puritanism is the haunting fear that somebody somewhere somehow is having a good time.
And so it's just wretched and terrible.
The Fed is going to move in and the idea of states' rights is going to get blown away.
And I don't know that we're going to be further along other than people are going to have another view of the Death Star blotting out the sun.
So we legitimately have something to celebrate here, and Frank and Tony Trees are already celebrating.
You say no?
I'm all about just legalizing it and leave it alone.
I don't want to let them tax me.
So you don't even think that the step forward in Colorado and Washington...
I personally...
It's funny.
Buster medical marijuana has gone up vastly.
Yeah, they're going to...
They're going to completely rape the system even worse than it started out being by getting more control over it.
It's a fact.
The government never just lets it be.
They have to take it over.
So, I mean, let's say that maybe the people who are optimistic here that this represents or will eventually lead to a decrease in the guns of government being applied to the people of Colorado and Washington State.
If not the vote, what should people be celebrating?
What would that be attributed to, Stefan?
Well, I think that they're celebrating the illusion of progress.
And look, I mean, it is to some degree an illusion of progress, but we only look at it as progress because we lack our history, right?
As you all know, in the 19th century, all these drugs were perfectly legal.
And were there drive-by shootings with blunderbusses?
No.
No.
Were there subterranean hangings of people?
No.
Children could go and buy cocaine from the local corner store.
And there was no problem with drugs in particular.
So the idea that we have to have a war on drugs because there's bad things.
I mean, we can only hope in our wildest dreams to get back to, say, 1850 when it comes to looking at these things in a rational kind of manner.
So it's not progress.
It's not like a cell phone, which they didn't have in 1850.
We're just trying to get back to 1850 where you don't shoot people for putting things up their nose.
You know, that's just something that we can only hope to get.
I mean, in other areas, 1850, you know, it's astounding.
I mean, most people still believed in slavery, but not in shooting people for what they ingest or smoke.
So that just tells you how retrograde it's begun and how whenever there's a state, you get rid of one problem, they'll just manufacture another one to stay the same damn size they've always been.
Oh, we've ended slavery.
Let's start a war on drugs.
Oh, we have domestic peace.
Let's start a war overseas.
It's like a balloon.
You push in one end, the other end just pops out.
As long as we have a state, every problem that gets solved is simply going to generate another imagined problem that they can make up to keep their bureaucracy feeding off the jugular of the productive.
Well, I would just hope that things being shaken up at all in this day and age, making people question, is making libertarians every day.
And every time the issue of marijuana legalization comes up, and you're talking to a statist who says, woohoo, pot's legal now, and we get to smoke pot, and we say, well, why?
Do you believe in self-ownership?
Maybe pot shouldn't be legal because you like it.
Maybe pot should be legal because smoking it is a non-violent activity that by no stretch of the imagination hurts people who aren't you or in the secondhand smoke zone.
You own yourself.
I think it really comes down to self-ownership.
I mean, whatever.
If someone wants to drink bleach, I think they should totally be legally allowed to do that.
But I do have a question from the chat for Stefan from Providence Plant.
Where can he find the full Free Domain radio documentary?
In the future.
In a time machine.
Okay.
And listen, it's really, really important to remember, when you get your time machine, be sure that it's set not just for time and place, because you remember, the planet is always moving.
So if you go back three days, you're going to be hanging in a whole vacuum of empty space going...
Oh, I almost did that once.
I'm so glad I remembered.
It's really important information.
Reverse, reverse, reverse!
Yeah, it's coming.
Look, I mean, donations are coming in, and I'm paying off the people to get the thing made, but it's to some degree dependent upon the trickle or Niagara of donations, but we're working away on it every day, and it's coming along.
We also have a question from Twitter, from Arcus Marcus, who writes, Question for Stefan.
Isn't the confrontation between federal and state a good thing, at least for exposure?
Oh, you mean like if there's a bunch of drive-by shootings, people have a more negative view of the mafia?
Right.
Yeah, you know, I mean, I think that's pulling strategy out of an ass that's very, very dark.
But hold on, that's a drive, a mafia drive by shooting.
If they're shooting someone who's just a victim, that's one thing.
But what if there's a gang war, and they start shooting at each other?
And that's what I think that's what's being suggested here is that we have a conflict between state and federal governments.
And if nothing else, seeing that conflict played out so directly in a way that it's undeniable when anybody who cares about this can look at it and be like, why the hell is Colorado governor, Democrat, John Hickenlooper not standing up to the DEA, standing up to the Department of Justice, standing up to the Obama John Hickenlooper not standing up to the DEA, standing up to the Department of Justice, standing You're not going to operate here.
We're going to kick you out if you come and try to violate our Constitution in Colorado.
Isn't that something to look forward to?
Don't you like seeing the beast eat its own tail sometimes?
Well, I'm going to just describe to you what's happening off camera.
I'm putting on my fur glove and I'm taking my hand down below camera to do absolutely unholy things to myself at the very idea of them actually shooting at each other.
All right.
I wish that was slightly higher resolution.
They're not going to shoot each other because the whole point is you can't beat the Fed.
And the reason you can't beat the Fed is the Fed controls the money.
The Fed controls the money supply.
The Fed can print money, which means the Fed can bribe the governors to get out of the horrible mistakes they've made in funding their own public sector union pensions and crap like that.
Remember, the states are desperate.
They're desperate.
Their income has collapsed.
The property values have collapsed.
People are fleeing the less productive states.
Their whole tax base has collapsed.
I mean, their cows have buckled over, turned inside out, exploded, and fallen over.
So they're not going to get a whole lot of milk from those charred corpses.
So they're completely dependent upon the Fed to print money and send them money.
money, or at least to give them incredibly low interest or no interest loans.
So whatever the Fed says, it's like, how am I going to dance?
Whatever the Fed says, they're going to call the tune so they can have all the symbolic gestures they want about states' rights.
But when it comes down to got to put money in the hands of the big FED-ass public sector unions, they're going to go back to the Fed and they're going to say, yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.
Oh, and remember, there's this whole thing that happened in China in the 1960s, the Cultural Revolution.
Remember Mao said, let a thousand flowers bloom.
And the reason he did that was he wanted all these little independent free market flowers to go up so he could whack them down with a scimitar.
So I would not be at all surprised if this was to lure people out who were pro-drug and lure people out who wanted to set up head shops and so on so that they would be easier to target.
Because remember, when you eat a lot of donuts, you don't want to do a lot of running.
It's much better if people put the flashlights on themselves.
Well, that's why I still buy my drugs with Bitcoin.
That's why I say you're smart, everybody.
Thank you.
Alright, so we do want to get onto a serious topic tonight, although those are very important ones.
No more questions?
Those are good questions.
We do have good questions, but Ali has a question to get us into universally preferable behavior, which is so important, and really, I want to make a connection tonight for the audience between what otherwise might sound like a really geeky, esoteric, technical even topic.
And I think it's important that in universally preferable behavior, the book, The arguments are perfectly technically laid out, that they follow a procedure and there's a thoroughness in the methodology and the thinking, and that you have that as a baseline of proof, but that this is something that really is important to being a libertarian and looking at the world as a libertarian and understanding it from a consistent moral framework.
Right.
Someone in the chat mentions personal integrity, which I think is a big part of the book, the parts that I've read.
But my first question is just, what is universally preferred behavior?
Well, it's ethics.
I mean, we have this super juiced up Death Star, Star Destroyer.
Sorry about all the Star Wars metaphors, but it's my daughter's face.
So we have this idea, and I think it's a good idea, which is that there's stuff that is preferable that's kind of binding on other people, right?
So if I like chocolate ice cream and you like vanilla ice cream, I like jazz, you like country or whatever, then these are not binding on other people.
You're not evil, right?
For liking country, I'm not evil for liking jazz.
So artistic tastes, I know, we can pause for a possible debate about that.
So there's stuff that's kind of not binding, which are preferences.
And there's even stuff which is universal that is not binding, right?
So it's really great if you use math, right?
But you can also make up your own numbers if you want.
You can use tarot cards to do your mathematics.
I mean, you'll happen to be wrong, but it's sort of universal if you want to be right.
You can try and figure out things about the physical world using science, or you can rip open a chicken, spread its entrails around, and figure out your equations from there.
That doesn't work?
The entrail thing, unless you're incredibly lucky, is going to be wrong.
I must have just been incredibly lucky all these years.
Yeah, much to the detriment of the chickens.
Your luck is not the chickens' luck, because it's just going to encourage you to do more.
I was going to eat them anyways.
Yeah, so I mean, but when it comes to ethics, we all have this kind of sense that it's not just a preference like, I like ice cream.
It's not just, you can if you want, but you don't have to.
But there's this thing about respecting property rights and the non-aggression principle that That really is, our sense is that it's really binding.
But the problem is, I don't think we've ever had a really good explanation as to why it's binding.
And when something is necessary, but you don't have a good explanation, you tend to turn to bullshit.
It's sad but true, right?
Because you've got, like, you know, when parents are trying to explain to their kids why they shouldn't lie, I mean, you kind of want your kids not to lie.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh, he's getting too deep.
Frozen.
Kind of want your kids not to belt other kids.
They're so out of it.
They don't really have good answers, so they come up with stuff like, you'll burn in hell!
Santa won't give you presents!
I'm bigger and I'll hit you if you don't!
I mean, it's so sad.
The Easter Bunny will throw eggs at you.
Yeah!
I mean, the Easter Bunny, I mean, we come up with this crazy stuff because we don't have good answers.
And there's two other crazy things that we come up with.
One is religion.
And the other is the state.
To enforce our moral edicts.
So why shouldn't you murder?
Well, because God told you not to.
And you'll burn in hell!
And why shouldn't you murder?
Because it's against the law.
And you'll go to jail.
And you'll inject you and all that.
While first swabbing you with an icy alcohol rub to make sure you don't get an infection.
So because we don't have any good answers for this stuff, we come up with this hysterical nonsense that That is, that it only indicates to any experienced eye that we don't believe what we're saying.
We'd have a good answer for what we say.
Like, you can't imagine a science magazine saying, you have to accept the inverse square law or you will burn in hell forever and we'll throw you in a cage.
And like, it just, it would be, well, obviously you can't prove it.
If you've got to threaten me with all this stuff, it's because you don't have any real proof, but you feel it's really necessary.
And so my goal with the book...
Sorry, go ahead.
Well, I just thought that one of the most important things that separates the libertarian mind from the sheeple mind is the desire to ask why and the inability to be satisfied with bullshit answers.
And a lot of libertarians go, okay, I got the non-aggression principle.
And they never really challenge it.
They just say, okay, that's a fundamental truth.
And I don't think it's one that's challenged a lot.
But it really is at the premise of statism that the non-aggression principle doesn't hold true.
And it's important when you find someone who wants to drill down to that level with you, who's willing to say, okay, you believe in the non-aggression principle, I don't.
Because normally statists have to obscure that, or they have to deny it, or they'll say, well, yeah, I believe in the non-aggression principle, that sounds right, that makes sense.
Oh, but then, okay, that, I'm not even willing to apply it to that.
Oh, or, ooh, well, except in those cases, so obviously I got, yeah, well, maybe not.
But this is, when you ask why, for the non-aggression principle, this is the answer.
Well, I hope so, right?
So my whole goal was, I don't think we can get rid of superstition and statism if we don't have a rational answer.
As to why the non-aggression principle of respect for property rights are sound.
Why they're true.
Why they're inescapable and logical.
Like in the same way, you can't really get rid of Thor unless you understand where lightning comes from.
Like once you understand where lightning comes from, we don't really need Thor anymore.
Like once we understand where a tsunami comes from, we don't need Poseidon to be having sex with a whale or whatever the hell they believed in the past, right?
Yeah.
So, my goal was, like, we can't get rid of superstitious edicts and commandments, like, thou shalt not.
I mean, what the hell does that mean?
It's like...
Well, I mean, obviously God breaks all of his commandments regularly without batting an eye.
I mean, what the hell is the point of having a brain if we're just going to obey commandments?
Why give us all this frontal stuff and just make us robots?
So I really wanted to get rid of the superstition around ethics, which is religiosity, and the violence around ethics, which is statism.
And both of these things indicate that people don't have a good answer as to what is goodness and why be good.
So I'll sort of give you a simple example of what I sort of work through in the book, and there's all these arguments for it and so on, but here's a question for the panel.
Are you ready?
And for the audience, too.
So just think of one room, a little room, and there's two guys in them.
I'm Canadian, so they're going to be Bob and Doug.
And can Bob and Doug murder each other at the same time?
Yes.
If there's enough of a delayed effect, they can murder each other?
Well, I guess it wouldn't count as murder if, like, you could think of, oh, if one of them brings a bomb with them, then they could both die at the same time.
But, you know, can you commit suicide at the same moment as committing a murder?
I guess it's kind of ambiguous.
Wait a second.
I have to modify this example.
Because you said, because you're Canadian, it's Bob and Doug.
I think it really has to be Terrence and Phillip.
Terrence and Phillip?
South Park, come on!
Are you, really?
You don't know why we blame Canada for everything?
Oh, sorry, sorry.
Okay, South Park.
I try not to watch cartoons, that's why I can't watch Charlie Brown, but the hairdos are too similar to mine.
I can't get it.
Okay, so it's the answer that yes, although it would be tricky if you time it right, two people can murder each other at the same time.
Where are you going with this?
I guess...
I like that.
Hey, what are you trying to do?
Are you trying to enlighten me?
Who's watching me?
Oh, I have satellite.
Hello?
It's his lucky at the door.
Careful, you lean over too far.
We'll see the velvet glove there.
Oh yeah, the velvet glove has currently gone off to get itself disinfected, so don't worry.
It's good to know, good to know.
It's away.
It's never going to feel clean again.
Anyway, so is that your answer, that although it would be difficult to time it, if they both had a 10 second fuse and they could both murder each other at the same time?
Right.
I'm afraid, Bob, that is incorrect.
But thank you for playing ethical quandaries.
It's not possible.
And the reason being that murder, if you have a rule called thou shalt murder, right?
Everybody has to murder all the time.
Obviously, you know, people got to sleep, right?
So the time's where they can't achieve it.
But if two guys are in the same room and they both try to murder each other at the same time, it can't work.
Because...
Murder has to be something that is unwanted, right?
Okay.
I mean, otherwise you're in some...
What is the name of that...
In excess singer who strangulated himself, actually.
Michael Hutchins!
There you go.
I am young.
What?
I don't even know that reference.
I know of, you talk about gasping, the autoerotic asphyxiation.
We were just talking about that earlier in the week.
and David Carradine.
Oh, yeah, no, if we get back to more Fed state conflicts, I'll show you exactly what that looks like because I got a whole stack of fur gloves here just for this reason.
Cut the feed, cut the feed.
So if what makes something...
No, they can't, sorry.
Let me just sort of explain.
They can't both murder each other because murder has to be unwanted.
So if they're both trying to murder each other because murder is the good, because murder is morally good, then murder has to be both morally good and morally bad at the same time.
It has to be both desired as the greatest good and rejected as the greatest evil at the same time.
And that can't be possible logically.
That's like saying I have a physics theory that requires a rock fall up and down at the same time.
For two men to murder each other, they must both want to murder but not want to be murdered.
In other words, murder has to be both a positive and negative value at the same time because murder that is wanted is called euthanasia or something else, some kinky crap or whatever it is, right?
But in order for it to be murder, it has to be not wanted by the recipient.
Like rape.
Rape can't be something that you want.
Otherwise, it's lovemaking or S&M or something.
Sorry?
So you're saying that if someone is in the act of murdering someone else, them being killed is not murder because they have for themselves made it clear that being killed is something that is morally justified.
Well, it's something they want, right?
So you can't have a moral rule because two men can't both murder each other at the same time.
Because if murder is morally good, if murder is a high moral value...
So thou shalt murder can't work even with two guys in a room.
Because if murder is a good, then murder can't be a bad, right?
It can't be a negative.
And therefore it can't be murder.
It can be mutual euthanasia or something.
It's not the same as murder.
In the same way, two guys, you know, no matter how flexible they are, cannot rape each other in the same room at the same time because rape has to be an act that is sexual penetration or sexual assault.
Technically, if you had three or more men, they could all rape each other at the same time.
Oh, wow, Ali, that's getting creative.
I'm just saying.
Have you pictured this before?
Have you tried to work this out?
Yeah, I have.
So let's say you have a moral rule called rape is good.
But the moment it becomes good, it's not rape.
If the victim perceives it as something that is positive, then it's lovemaking or S&M or something, but it's not rape.
Does that make sense?
So if the person who's raping thinks that rape is good, which I guess the rapist does, at least good for him, if the victim also thinks that rape is good and has it as the highest moral ideal that he wants to submit to, it's no longer rape.
In other words, for something like rape and assault and theft and murder to occur, one person has to want it, the other person has to not want it.
Does that make sense?
So you're saying that if it's a non-consensual interaction between two people, then it has to, by definition, be immoral.
What I'm saying is that a commandment to violate someone else's rights cannot be universalized.
Because violation means the other person must not want it to happen.
Would every behavior have to either fall into the category of moral or immoral?
No, there's behavior like walking down the street.
That's not moral.
It's neutral, right?
Having a nap or whatever, right?
But actions which violate someone else's rights cannot be universalized.
because, like as a moral good, right?
So if I say theft is good, then if I believe that theft is good, I have to want to give you what you're stealing from me, in which case it's no longer theft, but charity, or I'm lending you something or whatever, right?
In other words, two guys in a room who are trying to steal from each other have to both think that theft is good if it's a moral ideal, And they also have to think that theft is bad so it becomes theft rather than just their lending or borrowing or whatever, right?
Trading.
And so you can't universalize, as a moral commandment, you can't universalize violations of other people's rights.
Because then, if both people want it, it's not a violation.
If both people want to have sex, it's not rape.
If both people want to steal from each other and want to not exercise their property rights, it's not theft.
In other words, these negative moral things, and there are four big ones, right?
Rape, theft, murder, and assault.
These negative moral actions can only occur if one person wants it and the other person really, really doesn't want it.
In other words, it can't be universalized as an ideal that they could both want.
Sounds so simple.
So, it's sort of like the idea which I've heard you talk about, Stefan, where the idea of theft implies, like the concept of theft implies that there's ownership of property, that property rights exist, just by the very idea, because if there are no property rights, then theft doesn't even exist as a concept.
I guess I just...
Yeah, and self-ownership doesn't exist in which case...
But the problem...
We'll get to property in a sec, but I really want to just sort of point out the four major violations of the non-aggression principle, theft, rape, assault, and murder.
They cannot be universalized as moral ideals.
Now, because then one person has to have it as a moral ideal, the other person has to reject it as a moral ideal in order for the violation to occur.
Otherwise, it's not a violation.
Now, two guys in the same room, can they both respect each other's property rights at the same time?
Yes.
Can they both not rape each other at the same time?
Just look around.
I don't know, are we raping each other?
We have evidence.
We have empirical evidence.
I'm going to assume that there's no fantastic scumbuggery going on at the moment.
No sand in the Vaseline, no disco lights.
You'd be surprised what we could do while this show is going on.
Alright, so the two guys, they cannot murder each other, they cannot assault each other, they cannot rape each other, they cannot steal from each other at the same time.
It can be universalized.
Everyone in the whole world cannot rape each other at the same time, and that can perfectly be achieved.
And with no logical contradictions, right?
Right.
Thou shalt not rape, right?
So, it's not a commandment.
If ethics are going to be universalized, then they have to be universalized.
Otherwise, they're not ethics, they're something else.
Taste, or aesthetics, or preference, or something like that.
And so...
When I talk about universally preferable behavior, I mean, can it be universal?
Can it be preferred?
And it's a behavior, because you can't, for reasons I go into in the book, you can't have morality about thinking.
It's not evil to think of something.
It's not the same as rape to think of it.
It's not the same, you know, despite what Jesus says, it's not the same as infidelity to think lustily about rabbit, I think it was.
And so...
Was that a problem back then?
Respecting the non-aggression principle can be universalized.
Violations of the non-aggression principle cannot be logically universalized.
They cannot be logically universalized at all.
And everybody knows this, fundamentally, which is why you invent new words for the same old crap, right?
Which is why you have to say theft instead of taxation.
Why you have to say war instead of murderer.
Or murder.
And so on, right?
And why you have to say arrest instead of assault.
You have to invent this whole other...
Because you can't universalize the stuff.
So you create this alternate universe of weird language where you redefine it and all that.
But the whole point behind libertarian ethics is they're logically consistent.
Statism is logically inconsistent.
Because you have to create these separate categories of people with opposing rights and pretend that they're both moral.
It's immoral for a private citizen to steal.
It's moral for a cop to steal.
It's immoral for a private citizen to murder.
It is moral for a soldier to murder.
Right?
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
As far as, like, taxation being theft, I noticed that when I look back on before I believed that to be truth...
It wasn't so much that I cared where the tax money went to.
It was more that it was hard for me to accept that people rightfully own all the money that they make.
I think that a lot of people support taxation because they think that no one deserves to actually keep everything that they produce.
Right.
And that's become kind of mixed in with statism, right?
Because they say, well, didn't the state educate you?
Well, answer, no.
Didn't the state provide roads?
Well, yes, it did.
But so what?
I mean, just because my slave owner gives me lunch doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be free at some point, right?
Doesn't mean I can't fight for my own freedom because a slave pulled out a rotten tooth at one point because he wanted me to go back and work in the damn field.
Anyway.
So the great thing about libertarian ethics, about property rights and the respect of the non-aggression principle, is that it can be universalized.
It can be logical.
And violations of it cannot hold up logically.
They create insurmountable contradictions.
And it's the same thing with property rights.
Violations of property rights...
Well, I mean, the fundamental thing is in order to...
I mean, property rights is basically saying, I own myself.
I'm responsible for my own actions.
I'm responsible for the effects of my actions.
Like if I go strangle some homeless guy again, then I'm responsible for his death.
And we all understand that morally.
You know, you don't put the cat on trial, right?
I mean, you put the person who strangled him on trial or whatever you're going to do with him.
And so property rights is I own myself and I own the effects of my actions.
Now, the great thing about this is you can't argue against this.
It's impossible to argue against this because you can only argue against this by exercising self-ownership, right?
In exercising your vocal cords or typing or skywriting or sending off carrier pigeons or whatever the hell you're doing to communicate your argument.
Right?
You can exercise self-ownership.
That's the only way to argue against self-ownership is to first exercise self-ownership and to create an argument that you are responsible for.
So you own the effects of your argument in the same way that you own the effects of strangling a homeless guy.
You're responsible for them.
And so if you're arguing with three guys, right, and person B makes an argument, and then you go and reply to person A and say, well, you just made this argument that I disagree with, person B is going to say, no, no, no, wait, wait, that was my argument.
I just said that.
It's like, boom, you're done.
You've just exercised self-ownership, and you've claimed responsibility for the effects of your actions.
That's it.
That's property.
That's all, whether it's sound waves in the air, a blog post on the message board, something on YouTube, a bridge, a coat, a car, whatever it is.
You can't argue against self-ownership and owning the effects of your actions without exercising self-ownership and owning the effects of your actions.
So to argue against is a self-detonating statement.
Okay, so what's your answer then to the people that are trying to be philosophically consistent who would also call themselves anarchists but are more – that are the left anarchists that would – Anarcho-communists or anarcho-syndicalists or anarcho-socialists or whatever they want to attach to that that is somehow based on some kind of non-properitarian philosophy to say, okay, Stefan, well, that's nice.
That works for your body.
You own your body and we're not going to challenge that.
But if it's outside your body, how can you claim ownership to it?
Well, they just made an argument, and they just said, Stefan, your argument is...
Well, they just told me that I've made an argument that I'm responsible for, that I own the argument I've put out into the world.
So they've just told me that I own what I create, that I own the effects of my actions.
They can't argue against it.
And they've made an argument that they're responsible for.
But how do you make that apply to physical property, then, outside of your body?
Well, what is sound waves but a physical property?
What is a blog post or a book or an article but a physical property?
Okay, so that's responsibility, but if you produce something and, you know, the collective needs it more than you, why can't the collective repossess it?
You know, how does that extend to physical objects in a way that says your claim is unique and people can't just say, you know what, if the collective decides, if The idea of owning physical property, you can own the responsibility, you can own the negative, but you can't own the positive because you didn't build that.
You had help.
Nothing outside of your body is something that you can claim.
How does that extend to that universal idea of property rights that we as libertarians hold so dear?
Well, first of all, I would ask this person, am I allowed to keep my kidney if somebody needs one?
Am I allowed to keep my eyeballs?
People are short of eyes.
Like, can people come and rip out my eyes and take out my kidney and my lung and disassemble me like a car in Detroit in a bad neighborhood?
Can they disassemble me to fill the needs of other people who are missing body parts or have a need for physical organs?
Yes, but only the left eyeball.
No, seriously, that's a big question, right?
Because, look, I grow my liver.
There are people who would say yes.
Right now, I'm not doing it a big service, but I grow my liver, I grow my spleen, I'm particularly fond of my left testicle, and so I've grown all these things like farm animals.
I mean, I water them, I feed them, I take them for walks, I give them sun.
I have grown all of these things my whole life.
I don't know if I want to ask you how you feed your left testicle.
Why is it that I don't own my body and what I've created?
And if my liver is mine, what the hell is the magic difference between in my skin and outside my skin?
I mean, if I've created, built some beautiful house in unowned land by cutting down trees and polishing and, you know...
...a wonderful mahogany out of my own forehead sweat.
I mean, if I've created all of this stuff, what's the difference between growing my liver and growing an apple tree?
I mean, it's just matter.
There's no fundamental difference between my liver, which I've grown, and an apple tree or whatever, a house that I've built.
I mean, this is all an investment of labor that has produced something of value, my liver or apples.
So to create this artificial division...
The laws of physics and ownership and property and philosophy and morality magically change inside your skin.
In here is a different moral universe.
Out here, it's the same stuff.
I mean, it's just matter.
I mean, I'm responsible for creating my eyeball and an apple tree.
I mean, to create these artificial divisions does not sustain itself logically.
So why is it important to have this deeper understanding of morality?
Why can't we just go, oh yeah, non-aggression principle and...
Leave it at that.
We've been doing that, and how's that been working?
Fair enough.
So you think that having this deeper understanding is going to bring the message to a wider audience?
Well, you know, the truth is not an effect, right?
I mean, the truth is not designed for an effect, right?
I mean, skywriting, fireworks, you know, my undershirt, Bustier and Spanx, they're all designed for an effect.
But the problem with—and look, I fall prey to this myself, too, and it's a mistake that we make.
We say, look, in a free society, the economy will grow faster.
In a free society, kids will be better educated.
In a free society, we'll have jetpacks and time travel and all this kind of cool stuff.
And in a free society, you'll have a Japanese geisha robot that will rope feet every night and so on.
We talk about all these goodies like we're Santa Claus time traveling from the future to give all of these wonderful free market goodies to everyone.
And that shit doesn't work.
Saying you'll get cool stuff under a free market doesn't work because people – Well, we're getting free stuff so fast anyways.
We're getting free stuff so fast anyways.
And stuff is getting faster and cheaper.
People who are crappy and stupid get free stuff from the state all the time.
I mean, how powerful would Barack Obama be in a free society?
I mean, if you're not that fly who was buzzing through that interview, you know, like people always, they used to say this, Barack Obama, you know, he's just very wise and he's very smart and all that.
And so we should, you know, we should really get him, we should really listen to what he says.
And my sort of answer is, yeah, okay, good.
So go do that, right?
And you should call him up.
And you should have him phone you every morning with a voicemail about what you should do every day.
And that's exactly how you should make it work.
But how powerful would Bill Clinton?
He'd just be some sleazy-ass, grabby used car salesman in a free society.
But man, in a state of society, I mean, he's like a...
Live in God among mortals.
I mean, these people have an immense, staggering, astounding amount of power in the free market, sorry, under a status system that they never would have in the free market.
So if you can argue from a fact, I don't think it really works, because...
There are plenty of, like, you know, government teachers, they come from the lower 10 or 20% of all students in college.
I mean, frankly, they're idiots.
I mean, on average.
I mean, so I'm sure there's a few smart ones who make it through the net, but they wouldn't get the kind of benefits that they get in a free market.
Certainly not in the short run, you know, maybe in half a generation or whatever, but, you know, some guy who's 50 who's about to retire...
I mean, he just wants what he's worked for.
His effect is to have a state.
You know, all these companies that get all these military industrial complex, their effect is that what's beneficial to them is to have a state.
I mean, even the mafia who runs the drugs and the drug cartels and all, their benefit is to have the state.
How well would they do if they were competing against some free market pharmaceutical company?
Absent of patents or whatever crap, right?
So they love having a government.
Police unions love having a government.
So we can't say that you'll be better off without the government because so many people, certainly in their own measurable short run, would be way worse off having no government around.
So we have to go back to principles.
And if our principles aren't rock solid and if we can't just find ways to lever people out of the way who are making irrational arguments, I just don't think we're going to win.
We have another question from Twitter from at Public Blame.
What are human rights?
If you can name some, which authority determined these rights?
Yeah, I mean, I used the word rights before because I'm a sleazy flip-flopper, but...
I mean, the word rights is a nice word, but clearly they don't exist, right?
I mean, I may have something that I've created, but I don't have any...
Umbilical cord that attaches me to it or some spider web that binds it to me.
Hold on just a second.
By saying you're some sleazy flip-flopper, which you're, just to be clear, if I understand you right, you're saying that rights as a term that you use is just a rhetorically convenient thing that doesn't speak to a more important philosophical truth or in some way is contradictory to the more important philosophical truth.
When I say I have a right to this, what am I saying?
I have a right to freedom of speech.
I have a claim.
I would like it if people would let me congregate peacefully or have free speech.
It would be really super cool and nifty and dandy if people let me keep my property.
I mean, it's a bank.
It's a please let me have my stuff kind of thing.
So the rights don't exist.
They're not real, which is why you say, well, God gives them to you.
It's like the soul.
I mean, it's just a fantasy.
It's nothing real.
I thought that rights sort of applied to behaviors, which if you're involved in and someone physically stops you from doing that, then they are violating your rights, as in they are taking away from you Your self-ownership, it's a violation, it's aggression.
So if that's the case, then rights is a poor construct that puts it into a physical positive entity, a right, something that you have that you own, when really what you're just using it to describe is immoral behavior and the violation of those things.
So it's an inaccurate construct, right?
Right.
Let's use the word right in two senses now.
Correct.
They don't exist, and I think human beings have properties.
I think that we have logically consistent arguments, but I don't think we have a right to something.
Like, I have a belly button.
But I don't have a right, like there's some physical thing that attaches to me, or I have maybe a claim, but then I might as well just use the accurate word, right?
I beg for liberty.
I beg to not be, but you know, that's obviously, it's not a moral claim.
So I don't think that we have rights.
And of course, the problem of rights is so dangerous.
Because people can just make up the crappiest rights.
I have a right to free healthcare.
I have a right to an education.
I have a right to, you know, whatever, right?
And so it's really, it's a dangerous concept.
I think that we want to look at logically consistent ethical propositions or universally preferable behavior.
We want to look at things philosophically.
But the moment we introduce the word rights, like I have a claim that other people have to fulfill, which obviously is not real.
I mean, other people can just violate them at will, as we've constantly seen.
Then if you say, well, I have a claim that other people should fulfill, what happens is it ends up being in the park or in the land called I would like a back rub.
I have a right to not be in back pain.
I have a right to free health care.
I have a right to a retirement.
I have a right to a job.
I have, like, stuff that I want that other people have to provide, whether it's freedom or some material good or income or resources.
I think that rights is a really, really slippery slope, and I think that it's sort of a sword we drew that, you know, other people turned into a bazooka with lasers on us.
See now, I'm not trying to approach it as you're saying what you're saying is wrong, but we kind of have to go through the stages because the reason why we in our country were given rights and most countries were given rights or tried to achieve their rights is because they had none from the base.
There was always a power structure that gave you nothing.
You got what you were given and that was it.
Well, you're pointing out that having rights is a step forward from you are property of the king.
From you're nothing, yes.
So what you're saying is basically our next step.
And to achieve the next step, we have to be able to explain to people on a larger scale to get them understanding there's a moral shithole in this country and many mentally.
Towards each other and towards a lot of things where it's hard to just step out of this darkness and dark age of thought that you obviously stepped out of.
A lot of us can understand and step out of, but so many people are like, what are you talking about if I don't have rights?
They can't even understand your argument, basically.
And I understand your argument, but what I'm saying is if you don't go through our steps of achieving rights, which we at one point, as most people did on this globe, had none of, you know, you can't get to the next...
Evolution of thought, which is, you know, what is a right?
Why am I even having a right?
I should be allowed to do everything.
Like, yes, but in all actuality, the power always dictates what you're allowed to do.
So until we change the mindset of what is a power structure controlling us all, we really can't take that next leap.
So we have to just keep pushing forward to tell people that, you know, look into what your moral beliefs are deeper and more educated sense because too many people are making decisions Without even having a thought about it, they'll just make a decision.
Just looking at the surface.
Just looking at a surface, not even looking at a surface.
I mean, you know, all of our governments are full of crooked people that just vote yes on a bill or no on a bill because somebody told them they should or shouldn't.
You know, just on opinion, you know, or whoever was paid enough to get them to vote one way or another.
You know, nobody even looks into anything, and the people that we need to look into things...
You know, because we all can't govern ourselves individually.
We need people on top.
You know, it's very corruptible when you give people power.
And again, it goes to the power.
You know, it goes to the ideal of maybe we don't have to change all of our ideals, but the people that are in those power spots, how are we going to really break through to them, you know, to not look at us like you're wackos.
What are you even talking about?
What do you mean, what are we talking about?
We're talking about peace and a loving society.
Why can't we achieve these things?
Yeah, I mean, you may have, and may justly have, more optimism around the intelligence and capacity to re-examine ethical norms for the average person than I have.
As you probably know, I place my hopes in the next generation and future generations, which...
You know, just based upon the science, the research, the experts that I've talked to, there are very few people out there who will change their minds based upon reason and evidence.
Most people...
In fact, the science seems to be pretty clear that if you bring facts to people who have prejudices, if the facts contradict those prejudices...
Selection bias.
Well, no, what happens is the prejudices actually get stronger.
Because they deny those facts, and then the denial reinforces them.
And then they avoid those facts, and they emotionally react to those facts.
So we're in this weird situation where it's like, you know, that which does not kill us, you know, if you strike me down, Lord Vader, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
I mean, this is the reality of what we're facing.
I have the lightsaber of truth.
Oh, Obi-Wan Kenobi has now become Zeus.
You look fancy for episode 7, are you, Stefan?
Something that you talk about a lot is, you know, the rampant abuse of children just in almost every society in the world.
And we had a question from the chat that's relevant to that.
If children and adults are products of trauma resulting from poor parenting, at what point must an individual take full responsibility and not fall back on their upbringing, like age 18, etc.?
That's just an example I think she wanted to give.
Great question.
Well, it's the moment that you use any technology that's newer than what was around when you were a child.
I mean, that's to me quite simple.
I mean, if you have a cell phone that isn't the size of a briefcase and that you don't need to actually stand outside away from trees and point directly at the satellite while dialing with your forehead, then you have accepted that it's really good...
To look at new technology, to upgrade what was around when you were a kid.
If you're not currently sending email on a Commodore 64...
Ooh, there's not many people who get that in reference.
But if you're not...
If you've upgraded from your digital...
Watch from 1982.
Then what you've done is you've said, okay, there's new stuff that comes along.
I'm willing to put the time and the energy into researching new stuff and figuring out what the best smartphone is, what the best plan is, what the best computer is, what the best car is and so on.
Now, of course, which is more important, your cell phone or how you raise your children?
Well, I mean, like, if you were living in North Korea or one of these places where the states just made it so that nothing really ever gets technologically better, at least not anymore.
Yeah, I'm not going to bitch and moan at the parents of North Korean kids, because, of course, they also have to train their kids not to get killed by the secret police.
Ah.
So it's a little different here, right?
So if you've done stuff, there's two things.
So if you've upgraded other forms of technology or knowledge in your life, then clearly you have no problem with learning new information that's important to you.
All you have to do is move parenting into that sphere of stuff that's important to you.
In other words, if you have kids, you have to raise them approximately to the same level as a smartphone in your hierarchy of values.
I don't think that's too much to ask for parents.
You have to have as much, let's just say, as much interest in how to parent as you do in how to buy a new car.
You have to just invest as much research into that.
You know, do you think spanking is a good idea?
Well, you know, maybe you could do a little research and look at the fact that it's almost universally been proven to be an unbelievable negative for children.
In the same way that you just don't go blindfold out and say buy exactly the same car that your father bought, you're not going to parent in the same way.
And so that's number one.
Number two, of course, is that you gain moral responsibility.
It's a legal theory called estoppel.
You gain moral responsibility when you inflict a moral rule on someone else.
Right.
So if I say it's really bad to lie to people, then it's kind of hard for me to get away with lying and say, well, I didn't know it was wrong because I've just been lecturing everyone else.
Right.
I know that The teary-eyed Christian preachers who've just been found with their hand up or whatever the hell they do.
I mean, they can't claim to not know that infidelity was wrong because they've been lecturing everyone about infidelity and so on.
Like, if I go steal stuff, I can't really get morally angry at people who steal stuff from me.
Oh, stealing is so wrong because I've just violated it.
You don't get to use it.
The law that you've broken, and you don't get to deny a law that you've upheld.
And so if, with your kids, you say, don't use violence to get your way, don't use violence to get what you want, and then you hit them, fail, baby!
That's just, you gotta just step back, look at what you're doing.
I mean, you can't escape a moral rule that you've inflicted on others.
And so you gain moral responsibility for not parenting the way you were parented the moment you upgrade anything in your life to something that's new and better.
And you, of course, if you inflict moral rules on your children, they can justly call you on it.
Well, we have just time for one more question.
I think one of the themes about these kinds of conversations is how do we elevate humanity?
Because we have to inspire people and show people how embracing these values makes their lives better, because we want other people to embrace these values so that our lives will be improved by living in a freer world.
And on that note, there is an incredible amount of empowerment that's happening with technology.
And one of the most important current events has been in Egypt.
They just try to make porn illegal.
And we saw when they shut down the Internet, you had a lot of angry young men with too much time on their hands.
And the slogan then was, if the government shuts down the Internet, it's time to shut down the government.
But...
We had some questions as well about child rearing and hitting and things like that.
And I think one of the things that is worth pointing out, and I have a background in psychology, by which I mean my undergrad degree was...
Partly in psychology.
Look at you.
Stefan Molyneux does an incredible job of incorporating an understanding of human psychology into his work and his analyses and understanding how raising your children aggressively affects them later on in life.
But I would like to talk about something much more important in terms of current events and make this our last question to end the night on here.
If people masturbated a lot more, do you think we'd have less war and less government, Stefan?
Yeah.
Well, I... And how much more?
Tony wants to know, how much more?
We have a hard-on for peace, right?
How much more?
Will we spill less blood?
I think that's really what we're...
Look, I mean, there is an argument that says that people who are sexually dysfunctional tend to be more aggressive, tend to be more screwed up.
Now, I don't know if sociopathy or psychopathy comes before the sexual dysfunction or comes after it or whatever, but There is the old thing that people get kind of testy when they don't get laid.
Right.
And so I think that, you know, one of the things that is problematic, of course, with religiosity, and not all of it, right, but Kama Sutra came out of, I'm sure, a pretty happy and peppy place, but is sexual dysfunction tends to come out of...
No, it was two dudes in the Gulag, actually, that wrote the Kama Sutra.
Sorry.
I'm sorry?
It was actually two dudes in the Gulag that wrote the Kama Sutra, if I know my history.
Wow, that is a feat of imagination to rival Lord of the Rings, then.
They made up some pretty bendy people, I will say, according to the illustrations that I've heard about.
Though never having perused them myself with dry hands.
I think that it's...
I would be very happy...
I'd be happy if people were more sexually functional.
People who are non-orgasmic tend to be more abusive, more destructive.
And so I think that teaching a healthy and positive sexuality would be a great step forward in helping to bring about the peace of the world.
It's just tough to start a war when you're in the post- Post-coital glow.
And so I would be very happy if...
So are you saying that masturbation is essential to generally being healthy and that the post-masturbation glow...
Can we call it that?
The post-masturbation glow is as effective psychologically?
It's tough to be a good fighter if you don't practice.
It's tough to be a really good singer if you don't do your scales.
It's tough to be a really great athlete if you don't stretch and do your warm-ups.
And so, yes, I think if you want to be good at sex, I think it's important to know what feels good and which way things point and how not to bend things backwards.
That's my key advice.
So, I mean, masturbation, of course, is a healthy and perfectly natural and normal thing.
I mean, all animals Do it, including us.
And so I think it's a great thing for, you know, figuring out what feels good.
And it's something that you can talk about with your sexual partner and say, you know, if we could ditch the artwork and the splints and the popple sticks, I think we'll all be better off.
If only we had more fur gloves.
Ladies and gentlemen, time-tested advice brought to you by constant decades of trial and error.
The International...
Man of philosophical mystery.
I came out of my teenage years with almost exactly the same forearm dimensions as Popeye.
So I will say that I do not try to sell any products.
I have not extensively tested myself.
Ladies and gentlemen, the most orgasmic philosopher in the world, the host of the most popular philosophy conversation in the world at freedomainradio.com, Stefan Molyneux.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
Thanks, guys.
Have a great night.
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