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Feb. 21, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
15:07
2621 An Introduction to Evil

Stefan Molyneux explains the basics of evil.

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So I'm talking to Mike, operations manager for Freedom Aid Radio, and I said, you know, I don't think I've ever done a show on evil.
He's like, no, that can't be right.
You must have done a show on evil.
You are a philosopher.
Really?
2,600, 2,700 shows, not one show directly on evil.
I really don't think I have.
I think I've referenced it, but I don't believe I have defined it clearly, and I think we could well argue that As a philosopher, it might be a good idea.
So, let's do it.
Let's do that show on evil.
So, the first thing to understand about evil is that evil must have some knowledge of virtue.
I know we should be defining evil at the beginning, but this is how it's going to work.
It really will work this way.
Trust me.
And hopefully I will prove that trust.
Otherwise, never trust me again.
Evil must know something about virtue for it to be evil, right?
Therefore, evil requires knowledge.
Now, this solves the problem, which is, or a problem, which is why is a lion not evil when it eats you?
you.
Well, because the lion doesn't know anything about self-ownership, property rights, non-aggression principle, all that kind of good stuff.
Right?
So, evil requires knowledge.
A virtue.
So, So, if we have that established as a principle, then, of course, we have to define what virtue is, and then we have to define what evil is.
So, virtue, universally preferable behavior.
For more on that, see my free book at freedomainradio.com forward slash free.
So, It has to be something that is a universally preferable behavior for it to be virtuous.
I like jazz, subjective, beyond time, aesthetic preference, but don't murder is objectively and universally preferable behavior for reasons that I go into in the books.
I'm like, chapter one.
So, that's what virtue is.
Evil is using universally preferable behavior to violate universally preferable behavior.
It is using desires to achieve its opposite.
It is forcing people to choose between a hierarchy of values that is lose-lose where the best they can hope for is the lesser of a series of evils.
So to take an example, I'm a mugger.
I'm not a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
I am a mugger.
So I slide up to you in an alley, put a gun to your ribs and say, give me your wallet.
Well, why is this evil?
I mean, UPB has got its own answers, but I'll just talk about some of the ways we can get there anyway.
There's a phenomenon called death by cop where a suicidal person will provoke the cops into shooting him.
I guess or occasionally her.
I think it's mostly a him.
In which case the person wants to be shot.
Now, if there's someone on his way to death by cop, They want someone to shoot them and the mugger says, give me your wallet or I'll shoot you.
Then the guy will not give the wallet, will taunt the mugger, will attempt to provoke the mugger into shooting him.
That's not what the mugger wants.
The mugger doesn't want to murder.
The mugger wants the wallet.
Right?
If the mugger wanted to murder, he would shoot you from a distance, right?
Poison your soup or whatever.
He doesn't want to murder.
He wants the money.
So the mugger...
Is a mugger because he believes that people will choose life over property.
But given the choice, they would not want to choose between the two.
Right?
So, if the mugger was standing on a subway grate and the subway grate gave way and the mugger vanished and didn't hurt you, you would be relieved, right?
Because you would then not be in the situation where you have to choose your money or your life.
So the mugger is mugging because of the proposition that people will prefer to stay alive rather than lose their wallet.
Well, the real choice is it's not your money or your life.
It's your money and your life or just your money, right?
Because if the mugger shoots you, he's going to grab your wallet anyway, right?
For two reasons.
One, to get whatever money you have.
And secondly, to make the identification of your corpse more difficult.
Really smart guys, sand off your fingerprints and remove your dental records.
Take away your teeth or whatever.
So the mugger knows that you want to live.
He also knows that you don't want to give him your wallet.
Because if you wanted to give him your wallet, he'd just walk up and say, Oh, listen...
Can you give me your wallet?
And you'd say, well, I've been waiting.
Thanks.
I mean, what took you so long?
Here you go.
So the mugger knows that you want to live and knows that you don't want to give him your wallet.
Now, the mugger is willing to threaten you with death in order to get your wallet.
In other words, the mugger's preference is at the direct expense of your preference.
He wants your wallet and you want your wallet.
So he's going to give you the choice of dying and losing your wallet or merely losing your wallet.
And then sensible, rational people say, here's my wallet.
Enjoy!
Now, the robber does not generally go up to squirrels and attempt to force them to reveal where their nuts are.
In the ground, because we know where the other ones are.
The mugger does not kidnap a bee and demand to know where their honey is.
The mugger only attacks people, right?
So he recognized...
And the mugger, if you were to ask the mugger, are you a person and is your victim a person, he would say yes, of course, right?
Which is why he only goes for people.
So it is the common humanity.
I don't mean like niceness.
I just mean that you're both human beings.
That is why the interaction is occurring.
The mugger is doing what he's doing because...
You're both people and therefore you have something to value, a value to steal and so on, right?
Don't tend to mug a lot of homeless guys unless you want scabies.
And the mugger is perforce saying, again, this is not explicit, but this is the way it works.
We are both human beings.
We both have desires.
My desires should be satisfied and your desires should not be satisfied.
Because my desire is for your wallet and your desire is for me not to have your wallet.
We are both human beings, but I must profit at your expense.
I may use force against you, but you may not use force against me, or I don't want you to use force against me.
We're both human beings.
I want to use force against you.
I do not want you to use force against me.
I want your property.
You want your property, but I will force you to give me your property.
Now, a thief knows the value of property because he wants to keep what he's stolen, right?
I mean, who would bother stealing if he knew the moment he stole that things would be stolen from him, right?
I mean, it wouldn't happen.
All right, so there's an old joke which is Scotsman considered to be cheap in these jokes.
I don't know if these jokes are still around.
They were around when I was a kid.
Englishman and a Scotsman are walking down the street and a guy jumps out with a gun and says, give me all your money.
Scotsman turns to the Englishman and says, oh, here's the 20 pounds I owe you.
Right?
That's funny.
Because he's going to lose the money anyway.
So he might as well pay off his debt.
Does cost him nothing.
Or, you know, an Englishman and an Irishman and a Scotsman are all at the funeral of a Welshman that they respected and loved, and they want to show off, I guess, and the Englishman throws a £10 note into the grave and says, that's for you, for buying drinks in the afterlife or something.
The Irishman throws a £50 note in, and the Scotsman throws a £500 cheque in.
Cheque's never going to be cash, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The thief respects and recognizes property rights.
He wants to keep what he's stolen, but you may not keep what you have legitimately earned.
Property rights for the thief, free choice for the thief, profit for the thief.
No property rights for you, no choice for you, loss for you.
And the thief is only doing it because he knows that people want to live.
He's only using a gun because he knows people want to keep their property.
And he's only doing it because he wants to keep what he has stolen.
So he knows a lot about property rights.
He knows a lot about human motivation.
He knows a lot about values.
He knows a lot about people's desire to not be hurt.
That's what he uses to achieve his end.
So he knows a lot about truth, universality, virtue, and so on, right?
And he uses these facts, this knowledge that he has, in order to violate the principles.
He wants to keep the property he can only get by violating property rights.
Property rights bad for his victim, very good for him.
He's outraged if somebody steals the stolen wallet from him, right?
So that is, I think in a nutshell, what evil is.
Evil is a deep knowledge of good used to violate that goodness.
I mean, if you look at things like, politicians, I mean, they do this all the time.
You see it everywhere.
People want to help the poor.
People want to help the sick.
People want to help the old.
People want to help the needy.
People want to feed the children.
They want to educate the ignorant.
And a politician will seize upon that yearning and that desire and those endlessly charitable impulses in people.
In order to violate their property rights, to use them as collateral, use their children as collateral, print money, counterfeit, bribe.
You care about the poor, so I'm going to steal from you and call it welfare.
Which doesn't actually end up harping the poor, really.
Evil is an acceptance of the general virtue of people, followed by an exploitation of that virtue.
You understand, I'm sure.
And what evil hates about philosophy, why philosophy remains an underrepresented, underappreciated, undervalued, if not openly marked, power in society.
It's because philosophy universalizes the principles that evil already knows about, thus revealing the exploitation of evil people.
The government is here to protect your property.
Well then, why does the government steal half my property?
Because you wanted to.
Well, if I wanted to, why does it need to throw me in jail if I don't?
That seems like quite an unnecessary overhead.
Because the majority wanted to.
So is the majority always right?
No.
The majority was not right in putting Hitler in power.
Three men and a woman don't get to rape the woman because they have a vote.
There are moral standards independent of the majority.
What are they?
When you start to push exploiters, sophists, and abusers to define Their virtues and values, society kind of as we know it, pretty much falls apart.
And this is why philosophers and sophists really are mortal enemies.
Sophists provide the linguistic confusion and artificial dichotomies that evil needs to breed.
Artificial dichotomies like state and citizen, police and person, a soldier and others, right?
The artificial dichotomies that create the illusion that opposing moral values are good.
I hope that helps.
Again, for more, you can go to universally preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics available at freedomainradio.com forward slash free.
But I think as a brief introduction to evil, I think it's hopefully of some value.
Of course, if you do and you still have one thin dime to your name, just kidding, if you can afford it, fdrurl.com forward slash donate.
And thank you so much as always for listening and your support.
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