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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:09:49
An Introduction to Rational Ethics
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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
I'm just going over a few of the greatest hits and one of the biggest and most repetitive questions that I get is, how do we get from what is to what ought to be?
From the facts to the shoulds.
From the is to the ought And that is a very fine question, one that has bedeviled and perhaps even bejeweled philosophers lo these many, many years.
And my answer, of course, is that the moment that you engage in any correction of another human being then you have accepted all of the essential characteristics and requirements necessary for philosophy and for morality.
So it's sort of like saying, how do you get from the way that the world is to believing in the efficacy of the scientific method?
How?
Oh, how do you do that?
And the answer is relatively simple, which is that if you go to a scientific convention, and you've trained as a scientist, and you accept the scientific method, then you no longer have to prove the scientific method.
If you are a mathematician talking to a group of mathematicians in a room and you say, why should we believe in mathematics?
Well, everybody there already does accept and value and submit to the objective discipline of mathematics.
I mean, because they're mathematicians, right?
You don't need to convince someone who speaks English that English is comprehensible.
You don't need to yell at someone who's listening to you that sound exists.
You don't have to talk to someone on the phone and try to convince them that phones exist.
You understand?
The moment that somebody accepts a discipline, you no longer have to prove that discipline to them.
Ah, so important to understand.
Someone would say, how do you get from an is to an ought?
Well, you just did.
Or you say, there's no way to get from an is to an ought.
Well, you just did.
We say we ought not to assume that there is an ought in the is.
Well, you just did.
So this is very very important to understand.
Everybody wants to debate as if debating occurs in a vacuum.
Everybody wants to correct others as if the act of correcting others does not have embedded within it so many philosophical premises and arguments, axioms, whatever you want to call them, propositions that 95% of philosophical problems are solved
If we simply look at the act of debating, and the act of conversing, and the act of arguing, and in particular the act of correcting, if all we do is we examine everything that is implicit in correcting another human being, we have solved 19 out of 20 philosophical problems.
So for instance, if I tell you there's no such thing as objective morality, Everybody focuses on the morality aspect of it, but it's the least important part of that sentence.
The most important part of that sentence is, there's no such thing as objective man.
Somebody says to you, there's no such thing as objective logic.
There's no such thing as objective engineering, or objective physics, or objective math, or you name it.
There's no such thing as objective language.
There's no such thing as objective sound.
It doesn't matter what is at the end.
What's important is the sentence fragment called, there's no such thing as objective... What does that mean?
There is is the most important part of that sentence.
We'll go in order of descending importance.
There is It's accepting a huge number of philosophical promises.
There is, is not, I believe, it seems to me, I like, it could be, I dreamt that, I fantasized that, I had a drug trip that, dragons told me that, voices in my head yodeled to me that.
There is.
There is.
There is out there.
If I said, in our dreams there's no such thing as objective physics, then I'm not saying there is.
Out there, beyond consciousness, in the universe, in the world.
Now, since everybody is trapped in their skull, or liberated in their imagination from their skull, depending on how you look at it, I always viewed logic and equations and so on as these big giant levers that cantilever us out of our skull and let us traverse the universe on wings of thought.
Beautiful.
The moment somebody says, there is, they're saying out there and is.
So what are they accepting?
Well, that there is, there it is again.
Oh, there it is!
Ah, it's breathing in my mouth.
There is, out there, objective universe.
The universe, since we're all trapped in our skulls, the universe that is transmitted to us through the senses, understand?
Out there, there.
Not in here, in the skull, not in the mind, not in the imagination, not in dreams, not in the subjective processes of consciousness, but there!
Out there!
Like if you and I are both standing at a sea and I say, look, there, a dolphin!
And you say, I don't see it.
I said, no, I just imagined it.
And you say, well, why did you point and say there?
There means out there, not in your head.
If you say, I'm thinking of a dolphin, OK, I'm not going to go look for it in the waves.
But if you point there and say, a dolphin, and then say, no, I was just picturing it in my head, then we understand that would be a little fruity, right?
A little fruit nutty cakey.
There means out there in the objective world, in the objective universe.
Like, if you know someone who sleeps restlessly and you're sleeping next to them and they say...
The bear is taking my food and they may even be pointing.
We don't look across the room to see the bear because we fully understand that this is a subjective process of internal consciousness.
This is a fantasy, a phantasm, an imagination, a projection, a truly vivid recreation of reality in ultimate 3D surround sound techno-vision called dreaming.
We don't look for the bear in the room even though he may be standing and pointing and asleep and the bear or whatever is taking my food.
So the moment somebody says, there, bingo, bango, bongo, fill your boots, subjectivism, it's time for you to leave because they're staying out there.
So, the universe, the world that is experienced external to consciousness that is only transmitted to or perceived or received by consciousness through the evidence of the five senses.
There, one word, entirety of metaphysics fundamentally solved and a good chunk of epistemology.
Right?
Nature of the universe, nature of knowledge.
There, five letters, five senses, almost all philosophies solved in one syllable.
So, the moment someone says there, or appeals to some external standard of universality, truth, reality, objectivity, or whatever, they're saying, you exist, I exist, because they're saying to you there, right?
They're not talking to a potted plant, or a question mark, or the concept apostrophe.
They are talking to you.
Someone talks to you and says, there, points at something.
You exist.
I exist.
The senses are valid.
Language has meaning.
Things exist external to our consciousness that we can both perceive.
The senses are objective.
Reality is objective.
We both exist within it.
We have the same thought processes.
Similar, sorry, but the same thought processes, not the same thought content.
We have the same, roughly, sensory, perceptory, perception apparatus.
The moment somebody points at something and says, there, They're directing your eyesight.
They're relying on the validity of your senses.
They're relying that language has meaning.
They're relying that you cannot perceive something directly but need to look at it through your eyes.
They're not wrapping your skull in their hands saying, there, I'm putting the image of a unicorn in your...
They're pointing at something saying there.
If you just stop and break down what is happening, rather than focus on the sentence as a whole, then you can solve almost everything in the realm of philosophy.
Philosophy is about slowing the F down.
Slow down, sweet-talking thinker.
Slow down.
So sad, but that's the way it's over.
Oh, wow, that was two and a half octaves done badly.
Anyway.
Hello.
Oh, 70s joke.
It's about slowing down and examining everything that's embedded in the first syllable.
In fact, even before the first syllable.
So in pointing at something and saying there, I'm saying a thought arises in my mind that I can use language which is objective and sound which is objective to convey meaning to your mind which shares the same language to direct your attention towards something outside in the world that we both accepted as real through the evidence of our senses and so on, right?
You exist, I exist, reality exists, the senses are valid, language has meaning, reality is objective, things exist independent of our consciousness.
All of this is not even implicit, it's directly stated in the act of pointing at something and saying there.
I know, it's a grinding level of detail, but this is so important.
You can solve almost everything in philosophy.
by examining what is occurring in the first sentence, in the first word, and sometimes even before the first syllable.
Do you grog me, baby?
Well, I think you do.
Let's move on to the second word.
Is.
It all depends... Oh no, that's not a British... It all depends on what the meaning of the word is, is.
I feel your pain and whatever else is in your bra.
So the second word, of course, is is.
What a great word.
Also, my daughter's, a shortcut for my daughter's shortcut, Isabella Izzy is my daughter, the ultimate philosopher.
She does not believe that we're animals.
She says we're animals because we walk on two feet.
I say, well, ostriches walk on two feet.
She says, I guess that means we're ostriches.
Socratic reasoning at the age of three.
Beautiful.
Is.
Specific existence external to consciousness.
That is a tree.
Not could be a tree.
Not has a vague matching to a tree imago that I dreamt of after reading too much Jung.
Is a tree.
Is specific concrete delineation of something which exists external to consciousness objective to perception to others I can't point to the hill and say, there is a dream I had last night.
There is a memory.
No.
That is a hill.
This is a podcast.
I am the host of Freedomain Radio.
You be wiggin'.
This beat be pumpin' pumpin'.
This beat go boom boom.
There is.
There.
External, right?
There.
Existence, sense, objectivity, external reality.
There is.
Specific delineation of something.
Either a concept or a thing.
A noun, a verb.
There is.
No such thing.
We'll do that all at once.
No such thing.
There is no such thing.
There is no such thing as a ghost.
There is no such thing as two and two making five.
There is nothing that is equally red and blue simultaneously.
There is nothing that travels north and south simultaneously.
There is no such thing as a square circle.
There is no such thing as the virtuous initiation of the use of force.
There is no such thing as a valid argument against property rights that is initiated by the exercise of self-ownership over the body.
There is no such thing as using language to invalidate language.
There is no such thing as saying everything is subjective.
There is no such thing as saying nothing is true and being valid.
There is no such thing as a valid contradiction.
There are no paradoxes other than those used as instructional tools.
There is no such thing as gravity without matter, or matter without gravity.
There is no such thing as existence in the absence of matter, energy, or the effects thereof.
No such thing.
You can imagine it, you can picture it, There's no such thing as a horse that can fly without wings or an airplane or a helicopter.
There's no such thing as a self-flying wingless horse.
You can imagine one.
You can make a wonderful CGI image of it.
You can make a movie about it.
You can make a flip cartoon in the corner of a Luke Skywalker scrapbook if you want.
But there is no such thing as a flying horse.
No such thing.
That which violates the laws of physics, a self-flying horse without wings, cannot be.
There is no such thing as life without matter.
There's no such thing as a soul.
There's no such thing as consciousness without matter.
There's no such thing as a God.
There's no such thing as life that neither comes into existence nor passes from existence.
There are no such thing as gods.
There is no such thing as the government or the police.
These are conceptual labels.
There is no such thing as labels having the power to alter the laws of physics.
If I point at a balloon filled with air and say that's a helium balloon, it does not start to float upwards.
If I say, I can fly if I put a beanie hat on, I am incorrect.
If I keep saying it and become a philosophy professor, philosophy would be best served by me testing this theory at the edge of the Grand Canyon.
There is no such thing.
No such thing is a statement that is not empirical.
We have not found a flying horse Right?
Horses could fly.
I mean, you get some alien planet with, I don't know, light gravity and big-ass wings.
You could get a horse that has wings on the back and it could fly.
It's not physically or biologically impossible.
A warm-blooded lizard is conceptually impossible because the whole definition of a lizard is that it's not warm-blooded.
A fish with feathers that flies in the air and has a beak is a bird.
It is not a fish with feathers that flies in the air and has a beak.
And hollow bones.
I don't know, whatever the hell else breathes air.
There is no such thing says that that which is impossible cannot exist.
There is no such thing as a square circle.
Not, we haven't come across one yet, not on some other planet there might be one, but there is no such thing as a square circle.
And please people, stop sending me these nonsense drawings where you try to create, I mean, come on, it's a more important moral issue.
Stop trying to twist your way out of every rule.
That's trauma.
There is no such thing as a fundamental statement of universal truth in philosophy that is independent of verification, of empirical verification.
If I say there's no such thing as flying horses and you say prove it, well I'd have to scour through the entire universe to find no flying horses and then by the time I was done they might have evolved in some place where I first started and I would never ever be done.
There is no such thing as flying horses.
No such thing means that which is logically impossible, that which is self-contradictory, cannot be.
Cannot exist.
Cannot be valid.
Is impossible.
Cannot exist.
Wonderful.
That which is logically contradictory cannot exist.
Cold fire.
There's an oxymoron.
Gaseous ice is a fairly decent name for a band and a contradiction.
It cannot exist.
Oh, well, if you hit a crampon into the ice, it sprays around and there's gas.
No.
Come on.
Ice is not a gas.
Ice is a solid.
You can fragment it.
It's still a solid.
There is no such thing.
Ah!
Delicious!
You realize we have solved 95, probably 98 percent of philosophical problems.
Everybody wants to jump into that, like that didn't happen.
And start debating it as if everything that is embedded in there's no such thing.
Didn't just happen.
Oh, don't do it.
Philosophy, best served by the phrase, whoa, Nelly!
Slow down, baby.
Slow down, you move too fast.
You've got to make the premise last.
Just kicking down the matter of physics.
Looking for truth and feeling groovy.
That's where we've got to be.
That's where we've got to be.
Stop, whoa, slow down.
Let's unpack everything that has transpired since you first thought about opening your mouth.
And pause with regret too.
Survey the damage you've done, usually since you did.
This is why my free book, Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, takes a long time to get into ethics.
Everybody wants to leap over the premises involved in communicating about philosophy and then pretend that the problems of philosophy are unsolvable.
I accept the scientific method, but I disagree with the scientific method.
You understand, somebody who says that would be considered kind of lunatic and would certainly have nothing of value to add in the realm of philosophy.
I deny that 2 and 2 make 5.
I accept that two and two make five.
Eh.
I'm calling you on your cell phone to tell you that cell phone technology doesn't work.
Right. - We understand that this would be somebody who would be so fundamentally confused that they would have nothing of any real value to offer until they had done at least a little something or other to overcome their fundamental confusion.
But this is how almost everybody sounds to me.
Not just how they sound, how they are.
There's no such thing as objective ethics.
So let's keep going.
There's no such thing as... Fine.
Objective.
There's no such thing as objective.
Well, there's no such thing as objective truth.
There's no such thing as objective ethics.
There's no such thing as objective logic.
This is such a self-contradictory, self-detonating statement that it takes a truly staggering amount of hyper-conditioning, brain-squeezing education to believe it.
and speak it with a straight face.
I'd say there's no such thing as objective truth.
Well, there, out there, objective truth exists, a concept that specifies something in particular as being valid or not valid, existing or not existing.
There is no such thing There are philosophical truths that can be proclaimed independent of sense data, independent of empirical verification, independent of universe-spanning search and define teams.
There is no such thing.
Well, you have just defined objectivity, sense validity, truth, falsehood, standards, existence, non-existence, contradictions as non-existent.
All of this has just been perfectly accepted.
There is no such thing as objective anything.
You have just contradicted yourself six ways from Sunday school.
And Sunday school is already pretty self-contradictory.
So that is a whole Gordian Knot mess of Medusa-haired contradictions, I'm telling you.
Right there.
So don't do that.
Kind of important.
It's exactly the same as somebody saying, trust me man, there's no such thing as trust.
You gotta believe me, there's no such thing as belief.
Listen, there's no such thing as hearing.
Look, there's no such thing as seeing.
Look, over there, you can't see it.
It's impossible.
There's no seeing, there's no there, there's no you.
Listen, you, you, right there, you don't exist.
There's no such thing as objective, is, The fallacious argument throwing itself on its own grenade.
Sadly, taking most confused bystanders with it.
There's no such thing as objective fail.
Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.
And how could this have been missed for so long?
Well, because the purpose of philosophy has been, in general, to serve evil.
I'm attempting to wrestle it back from the evil pirate captain of yore, but the purpose of philosophy has been to serve evil.
If I was on a team, and you, Han, you were on another team, my team had red jerseys, your team had blue jerseys, and we call our game the purple hug.
Sorry, the blob too.
Then, and I said, my team has the opposite rules because we have a red jersey.
You would understand that that would not be particularly sustainable, right?
I mean, it would not be believable.
It would not, right?
My team has the red jersey and the red jersey means that we have the opposite rules.
You have to get the puck in our net to win.
We have to not get the puck in your net to win.
Well that would be insane, right?
But that's exactly what statism is.
I have a blue costume on and therefore I have the opposite moral rules.
You can't counterfeit, I can.
You can't steal, I can.
For you to declare war is a mass shooting.
For me to declare war is self-defense and nation-building.
So the whole purpose of philosophy has been to paralyze people with ridiculous contradictions aggressively enforced by entirely corrupt academics.
It's all madness and nonsense.
And again, in the future they're going to look back and they simply will have no idea how we managed to tie our shoelaces in any way shape or form, given the kind of things we believe conceptually, how we were able to mouth our platitudes with any kind of straight face.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable what we're able to swallow with a straight face.
They'll look back at slavery and say, didn't y'all notice that they were human beings?
Look back at sexism and subjugation of women.
Didn't you all notice that women were people?
Now you can look back and say, didn't you all notice that the police and the government and the soldiers were just people?
I mean, how could you create all these opposite moral categories?
How did you get through your days?
Well, in some ways we barely do, right?
And certainly our children are going to have a tough time getting through their tomorrows.
So we say there's no such thing as objective truth.
We have just stated an objectively true statement that there's no such thing as objective truth.
Everything I say is a lie.
Same problem, we understand that, right?
There's no such thing as objective morality.
Well, if you ask someone who says that, is truth There's no such thing as objective morality.
Well, they'd say, well, yes, of course, right?
Honesty has to have something to do with morality.
There's no such thing as objective morality.
Well, you're saying that it's a true statement that there's no such thing as objective morality, and that truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood.
And if I'm saying there is such a thing as objective morality, then I'm telling something that is false.
Now that I am told that it's false, I am now lying.
Lying is wrong.
We must always speak the truth rather than lie.
That is objectively true.
So it is objectively true that we must speak the truth rather than lie, and that truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood.
And once we know the truth and continue to speak it, we are now lying, which is infinitely bad.
But there's no such thing as objective truth or morality.
You understand how mad that is?
You must tell the truth.
Truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy statements.
But there's no such thing as objective morality.
If there's no such thing as truth, there can be no such thing as morality.
If there is such a thing as morality, then truth has to be involved.
If truth exists, morality exists.
Because the truth is preferable to falsehood.
Anybody who corrects you tells you that there's a truth outside your consciousness that your consciousness should conform to.
You may be ignorant now that you're not ignorant.
If you can tell you to spout your falsehoods then you are lying, you are false, you are corrupt, you are bad, you are wrong!
We use the word wrong to mean incorrect and also immoral.
He has done great wrong to me.
He is wrong!
There's no such thing as objective truth.
Our minds must conform to objective truth.
If we don't, and we're ignorant, then we're merely wrong, uninformed.
Once we're informed, if we continue to be wrong, then we are wrong, really wrong, bad, wrong, a liar.
So the mere act of stating that there's no such thing as objective truth is to create an objective truth and then correct someone else with reference to that objective truth.
Saying there's no such thing as objective morality is to say that it is universally preferable behavior to accept truth over falsehood, to prefer truth over falsehood, and yet there is no such thing as right wrong, truth falsehood, lying or telling the truth.
Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad.
The moment you correct someone, The moment you correct someone, you are affirming universal, objective morality.
You are saying to someone, the contents of the mind may be in error, but reality is never in error.
Logic is never in error.
Actually, just listening back to that, I can sort of understand why Dragon, naturally speaking, sometimes thinks I'm saying E-R-A, ERA, when I'm saying E-R-R-O-R, E-R-R-O-R.
Great product, by the way.
A lifesaver.
Literally.
I mean, it's probably added five years to my life just by being so efficient in communications.
Anyway.
There's no such thing as objective morality.
Well, you have just affirmed that the truth exists independently of consciousness, that the truth is infinitely preferable to any falsehood that's out there, that
Reality exists independent of consciousness, that consciousness can err, can make mistakes, but reality doesn't, that the purpose of consciousness is to adapt itself to reality, to objective principles based upon the objectivity of reality, and that it is infinitely better to do that than to continue to participate in falsehood and lies, and then you say there's no such thing as any objective, universally preferable behavior.
The moment you correct someone you have completely affirmed Everything we've talked about, plus morality.
Morality is universally preferable behavior.
The universally part is you're correcting someone, the preferable is you're correcting someone, and the behavior is you're doing it, not just thinking it.
I don't care what people think, it's unverifiable.
It is, to all intents and purposes, non-existent.
I know it exists, but in terms of philosophy, thoughts are non-existent.
Philosophy is discussion.
I mean, you have debate with yourself and all of that.
That's very, very good.
But philosophy is that which is discussed.
Like, if you have a novel written down to the last comma in your head and you never write it down, never speak of it, and anyone to never publish it, it is empirically indistinguishable from not existing.
Right?
If you have a blueprint for the most amazing bridge in your head, then you never discuss it, never write it down, never record it in any way, shape or form.
It is empirically the same as non-existence.
It may be there, but it's empirically the same as non-existence.
And this is why I talk about universally preferable behavior.
Behavior can be anything that you do that is verifiable, right?
Which is making a debate, writing something down, making a statement or whatever, whatever is verifiable.
I say behavior because that is philosophy.
You know, it's like the Venus Project guys have this great algorithm for allocating resources far better than the free market ever could.
Where is it?
Show it to me.
Well, don't worry, it's there.
Well, I'd like to see it.
I don't believe it's possible.
See, I think it's fundamentally impossible.
An algorithm cannot replace the subjective and eventually, through action, verifiable preferences of billions of people.
And so I don't believe that this can possibly exist.
No, it's there.
It just hasn't... It doesn't exist.
This is why I focus so much on self-detonating statements.
I don't think the approach that I take, I think good philosophy focuses first on self-detonating statements, on everything that is implicit within what is being spoken of and how it's being spoken, or that it's being spoken at all.
That's what philosophy is.
Solving problems through prevention rather than cure.
I've always been into prevention rather than cure.
Nutrition rather than open heart surgery.
Exercise rather than insulin.
The eternal cure of eternal vigilance that is supposedly required to leash in a state which has infinitely more power is nonsense to me.
Prevention is always better than cure.
And prevention in philosophy is about looking at everything that's implicit in the very act of making an argument.
That's almost all of what philosophy is.
And that's never done.
Almost never done.
That's why people can say things like, there's no such thing as objective truth.
Morality is cultural.
They say.
Without ever stopping to think about what it is they've just said.
What did you just say?
And what does it mean?
Morality is cultural.
Truth is subjective.
The good is the greatest good to the greatest number.
Whatever nonsense that people are coming up with, you can't escape the fact that whenever you correct someone, you are correcting them according to an objective universal standard.
You don't say, I don't like that apostrophe there.
You say, the apostrophe is in the wrong place.
Ah, the ever-present internet.
Y-O-U-R.
A moron.
Oh, how tragic.
I know, I know, it's grammar.
And therefore it is not proof.
But it's a pretty good indication.
Especially something as obvious as that.
But I hope this helps you to understand why I focus so much on language, on everything that's embedded.
When I get round to, in UPB, in Universally Preferable Behavior, to pointing out that rape cannot be universally preferable behavior, I hope that helps this whole background, which I thought was too technical to put into a book.
And it frankly is too repetitive and I apologize for the repetition.
I really do.
But it really, really needs to be this repetitive because unfortunately propaganda is best combated through repetition.
Oh, I know it's horrible, but it's true.
Because propaganda is repetition.
And some people get bugged or bothered by the fact that I repeat myself in podcasts.
I sometimes have long drives and not many ideas.
But I need to repeat myself because propaganda is repeated.
And so there's very few Christians who just wake up one day or read some argument and the whole thing goes away and it's like they were never Christians.
That never happens, right?
Because Christianity is a bunch of nonsense, as is all religions.
It's repeated ad infinitum under vague or not so vague threats.
And you can counter repetition with repetition.
Sorry.
That's why I have 2800 shows if you count the premium podcasts.
Which you can get.
You can get the premium podcasts.
Those are the really high-powered ones.
The very specific ones.
And you know the ones on objectivism and so on.
They're all freedomainradio.com forward slash donate.
You donate and 50 bucks or more you can There's, I think, four or five levels of podcasts.
You can subscribe and get the premium podcasts and the private message boards for people who want to discuss stuff outside the all-seeing eye of Google Mordor.
But this is why I do this sort of deep background in philosophy before trying to get involved in anything particularly specific.
And this is why, with philosophical arguments, I'm always saying at the very beginning, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, slow down.
What?
What?
What are you?
My daughter would say, what'd you say?
Actually, she's outgrown that now, but she's said that for a long time.
So, I hope this helps.
This is sort of a deep background to UPB.
In the next podcast, we'll talk about how this stuff applies to particular moral propositions that are often considered subjective.
Thank you so much for listening, as always.
Hello, it's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio, freedomainradio.com, the donation-based show.
Toss a few shekels over the wall, gov, if you find the ideas valuable and useful.
And true, hopefully.
Supported, at least.
So the dichotomy between how things are and how they ought to be is the difference between description and prescription.
So if you see a man rape a woman and you say, this man raped that woman, that is a description.
If you see lots of men raping lots of women, then you can say, lots of men rape lots of women.
That is a description.
And moral skeptics, which is a perfectly valid and healthy thing to be, moral skeptics say, well, you can say that there is a true or false description, that is a tree, that is a cloud, that is true, that is false.
There is a valid description, a true and false description of things, but the moment you go from description to prescription, You're in trouble, mate!
You are not dotting your i's and crossing your t's when it comes to philosophy.
Nowhere is it inscribed in human nature, in atoms, in the equations of physics, that We ought not rape.
And just for those who occasionally say, dude, you talk about rape a lot.
Well, it's because it's the one unambiguous crime.
It's the one crime that cannot be self-defense or stealing something back or whatever, right?
Murder might be in self-defense.
Theft might be stealing something back and so on.
But rape is the one unambiguous crime.
There's no possibility that it can be good.
Under no circumstances could it be moral.
It does not lend itself to ambiguity.
So there's nothing in the world that says you ought not rape.
So, where do you get it from?
Well, you would say people generally have a moral horror of rape.
Rape has been banned in almost every civilized society.
Bloody, bloody, bloody.
But so what?
That only works with people who weren't going to rape anyway.
I mean, if you have a moral horror of raping, then you're not going to rape!
So nobody has to worry about that.
If you have a moral horror of murder, as most people do, you're not going to murder.
So don't worry about it.
Even in battle, prior to the Vietnam War, most soldiers, the vast majority of soldiers, threw their weapons away, hid, never fired at the enemy.
One of the reasons soldiers are so screwed up now is that the army figured that out and figured out how to...
Change it by breaking the minds of soldiers through a much harsher form of basic training.
So if it was in human nature to have a moral horror of raping, there'd be no such thing as rape.
But you cannot reliably find any universal that is not violent.
Human beings like to lie alive.
Well, some people commit suicides.
Human beings like to eat.
Some people have anorexia.
Human beings are lazy.
Some human beings are Olympic athletes.
I mean, whatever you come up with, you'll find exceptions.
People don't like to rape.
Lots of people do like to rape.
People don't like to murder.
Lots of people like to murder.
People don't like to steal, assault.
Lots of people like to steal and assault.
Enough that it's an issue that we're talking about.
So, it's not inscribed anywhere.
It's not written down anywhere.
It's not part of essential human nature.
This moral conscience that Adam Smith and others talk about, or what Socrates referred to as his demon, his daemon, his conscience.
Moral lecturing has been like diets for thin people, exercise regimes for the fit.
Well, the problem is a lot of people without a conscience.
So they're not troubled by that and they're fine with doing these terrible things.
So, given that it's not written down anywhere, and although a lot of people are repulsed by these kinds of evils, lots of people also, tragically, are quite excited and happy about them.
Love them to death.
So, what are you going to do?
How are you going to solve that problem?
A man rapes.
Ooh, a man shouldn't rape.
Nobody should rape.
Well, wait, wait, wait.
You've gone a lot further there than is embedded in reality.
There are no oughts in reality.
We don't say the rock ought to fall down.
We say the rock does fall down.
We don't say animals ought to evolve.
Animals do evolve.
We don't say fire ought to be hot.
Fire is hot.
The wind ought not to blow.
The wind is blowing or not.
So where do you get the shoulds?
Give me the goods on shoulds, baby.
Give me a snort of ought.
Oh no, I better stop now while I'm not even close to being ahead.
Give me the wanna on shoulda.
So the question, of course, why?
Why?
Ought we not to rape?
Or murder, or assault, or steal?
Or slander?
Or lie?
Well, the clear reality is we don't.
But that's not the end of the story.
If you question people deeply, which is one of the reasons why people don't like being questioned deeply, but if you question people deeply, you will very quickly understand that they have principles that underlie their behavior.
I mean, even the most predatory have principles that underlie their behavior.
The most predatory will say, well, it's a dog-eat-dog world.
If you don't have respect, you got nothing.
Get them before they get you.
Everything else is bullshit.
You take what you want, and you do not apologize to anyone.
And anyone who believes otherwise is a weakling who's trying to control you by making you feel, ooh, guilty.
And if you're weak enough to fall for that, then you ought to lie with them in the gutter and obey their lily-livered albino commandments of grey-faced, beseeching, whining and pleading.
The world is composed of those who take and those who are taken from.
If you want to be on the side of those who are taken from, you have my pity and my sympathy and my target.
Everybody tries to screw everybody else.
You're either ahead of the curve or behind the curve.
But there's nothing in the middle.
Everybody justifies themselves according to a principle.
Or a series of principles.
This is how we're built.
This is how the brain works.
The brain works through universalization.
You understand this language that I'm using because of universalization.
The computer runs on universalization.
The code, the TCP IP packets fly around the world based upon universalization.
It's all about... We can't help but universalize.
Racists have their universalizations.
Satans have their universalizations.
Masochists have their universalizations.
Those into democracy, totalitarianism, communism, all have their universalizations.
Universalizations are the most essential fact of human consciousness, and really what defines human consciousness from everything else.
The lion believed the gazelle, but the lion does not have to invent a world where the gazelle had it coming.
And if you talk to people who are evil, they have justifications.
If that guy is stupid enough to not have an alarm system in this kind of neighborhood, then he deserves to get stolen from.
I'm giving him a lesson.
Yeah, we took something from them, but they've got insurance.
They can write it all off.
The guy I punched had it coming.
Any idiot could see I was in a foul mood that night, and he just kept needling me.
I killed those children to save them from a world run by Satan.
Everybody has justifications and those justifications are universal.
And even those who don't explicitly define their principles as universal will object to irrational principles that claim universality.
So if you say to somebody that America should be isolationist in foreign policy and interventionist in foreign policy at the same time, almost everyone will say, in fact, everyone will say, just try it, everyone will say, wait, wait, which is it?
It's like that old Cheers episode.
Fraser starts reading from Tale of two cities.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
I think Cliff said, wait, wait, wait.
Which was it?
The ironic and ambivalent mind versus the concrete and literal mind.
If you say, America should increase the size of its government, while simultaneously decreasing the size of its government, people will say, what?
What are you talking about?
America should simultaneously decrease its spending on the military while increasing its military presence and obligations.
America should cut its spending while increasing its spending at the same time.
And people will say, well that doesn't work.
See, everyone has an innate understanding of universality.
I mean, it's functional, but language, right?
Even tell a very unintelligent person to mop the floor and wash the ceiling at the same time, they'll say, wait, which one?
Which one should I do first?
No, do them both at the same time.
With only one mop.
Or you say to someone, I need you to run me a hot and cold bath in the same bathtub at the same time.
I want you to bring me an iced hot coffee.
Sorry, which one is it?
Our innate understanding of contradiction is very clear.
Say to Adolf Hitler, craziest of the crazy, most evil of the most evil, I need you to invade Poland and France simultaneously with the same army.
They would just look at you like, what?
Opposite directions?
You cannot have the same army.
Go east and west at the same time.
So everybody rejects contradiction.
And again, if you doubt it, just pull these out and see how far they fly.
Both Shakespeare and Dickens are the very best writers in the English language.
The world is round and banana-shaped at the same time.
Stars are the glinting I-beams of gods and massive distance of nuclear reactions at the same time.
Fireflies are the lost spirits of fairies and bugs with luminescent asses at the same time.
2 and 2 make both 4 and 5 simultaneously.
I mean, you get it, right?
If you propose contradiction to people, people will seize upon them and immediately will be bothered by them and will generally expose and require them to be fixed or solved.
Just handed a math problem in grade 3 saying that this equation resolves to both 4 and 5 at the same time.
I'll say, well, It may be neither, but it can't be both.
So the moment that you propose any kind of universally preferable behavior, people ought not to rape.
People will either analyze that, hopefully in the UPB format style, which is nobody should rape is not A correct way of saying or a precise way of saying what UPB talks about or the standard that UPB requires.
The standard that UPB requires would be something like this.
Rape cannot be universally preferable behavior because if it is universally preferable there is no such thing as rape and therefore rape cannot be achieved.
Rape requires one person to want the sex and the other person to not want the sex.
Rape cannot be universally preferable behavior because if everybody wants rape there is no such thing as rape and therefore rape cannot be achieved.
So rape cannot be universally preferential.
For rape to exist as a moral category some people must want it and some people must really not want it.
Not be neutral about it but really not want it.
Neutral about it is bad in different sex.
Rape is forced sexual activity directly against somebody's will.
So rape cannot be universally preferable behavior because for rape to exist some people must want it and some people must not.
So it cannot be universally preferred or preferable.
Murder cannot be universally preferable behavior because murder is killing somebody specifically against their wishes.
If it is with their wishes it's a kind of euthanasia or a suicide pact or something like that.
It's still an interesting moral category but not an identical moral category.
Theft cannot be universally preferable behavior because you must not want someone to take your property in order for it to be theft.
If I leave something out on my front lawn saying take me and somebody takes it I can't charge them a theft because clearly I'm fine with them taking it.
Assault cannot be universally preferable behavior because it's only assault if somebody does not want to be assaulted.
Otherwise, it's some seriously kinky shit.
It's some sadomasochistic crap.
It's something in a dungeon with hot wax and fire-dipped ferrets or whatever the hell goes on in those places.
But it is not assault.
Any more than surgery or stabbing, if you agree to it.
If you agree to surgery, then it's not stabbing, right?
It's surgery.
Rape, murder, theft, assault cannot be universally preferable behavior.
Taxation cannot be universally preferable behavior because taxation is the moral right to take from other people by force.
If everybody has that moral right, then taxation is a universal good, a universal value, then everyone can tax and nobody doesn't want to be taxed because it's a universal value for everyone.
Or, even if we say taxing is only one way, then you say, Steph, I tax you $10,000.
And I say, well, I tax you $10,000.
And we just repeat that back and forth and nothing ever gets done.
So, the great thing about UPB, one of the many great things about UPB, is that it perfectly, explicitly, and specifically validates the major moral instincts of the good majority of mankind.
You cannot have a moral rule which says everybody must impose or can impose or should impose their will on everyone else.
It doesn't work.
Because if everyone should impose their will on everyone else, then no one should resist the imposition of anyone's will, because everyone should.
Or there's a stalemate.
If we say, everyone should impose their will on everyone else, well, if you want to take something from me and you're imposing your will on that, and I say, well, you can't take it from me, and therefore I can impose my will on you, and so on, and then nothing gets done.
Because will imposition cancels each other out as a universal.
So if everyone can impose their will on everyone else, then no one can impose their will on everyone else.
And of course it's not universal.
If I say my will is to give you $10,000, am I imposing my will on you if I give you $10,000?
Well, no.
You probably want the $10,000, right?
Not a bad thing to have.
Donations, welcome!
Not necessarily in the preceding amounts.
Although, I wouldn't mind.
So if we both want it, then I'm not imposing your will, therefore it can't be universal.
Because in order for it to be universal, one person has to want something the other person doesn't.
But then why should the person who wants to impose something, why should that principle hold out or win over the other person who doesn't?
So if I will that I want to tweak your nose, and you will that I don't want to tweak your nose, and everyone gets to impose their will on everyone else, well then it can't be universalized.
Maybe you want me to tweak your nose, in which case I'm not imposing it, or maybe you don't, in which case your desire to not have it done cancels out my desire to have it done because everyone gets to impose their will and therefore nobody can impose.
Only one person can impose their will at any given time and therefore it can't be universal.
So again, you could go on and on with these kinds of examples.
But any proposition for universally preferable human behavior must be universal.
It's right there in the first word of the book, or the book's title.
Universally preferable behavior.
And it's not descriptive.
It's not a description of what people do prefer.
It's, can it pass the logical test of consistency to propose that X is universally preferable human behavior?
And then of course the response, generally, once people understand the power of that argument, and isn't it ridiculously simple?
I mean, it's embarrassing.
Like, the theory of relativity, that's some complicated shit.
I mean, that takes some seriously wrinkled frontal lobes and some seriously electrocuted hair to understand.
But this rape, murder, theft, assault... I mean, it's ridiculously simple.
Once you get it.
I mean, we don't get it because it's like doing math with people yelling random numbers in your ear.
We've got so much propaganda about ethics that... I mean, did you get this is so simple?
Any ethical standard you propose, can it pass the test of universality, of preferability, and is it behavior?
It has to be behavior, because behavior can be universalized.
Thought cannot, because it cannot be verified.
If you say it is universally preferable that everyone think of Jesus all the time.
You say to people, you're thinking of Jesus?
Yep!
Can't verify it.
So it can't be universal.
It can't be universal if you can't verify it.
It's not empirical.
It's not objective.
Thoughts are not objective.
Thoughts are unverifiable.
So that's why it's behavior.
Behavior is something that can be verified, proven.
You know, it's like thinking of lying with another woman is like lying with another woman.
Well, no, because one of them actually can be verified.
And one of them, oh, I wasn't thinking of that.
Okay.
Can't be verified.
It's not objective.
Can't be universalized.
Doesn't fall in the realm of philosophy.
Now then, people will say, of course, but there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior.
Ooh, do you remember that last show we just did?
Remember that?
There's no such thing as universal... Doesn't work, right?
Because what you're saying is, it is universally preferable that nobody affirm universal preferences.
Nobody ought to talk about oughts.
Everyone should refrain from talking about what everyone should refrain from talking about.
No worky!
Brainfart!
Oly, oly, oly, fatang, fatang, biscuit barrel!
Reboot.
Logic fail.
Like, bring down a city grid logic fail.
It's like when really mean people tell you that you ought to be considerate.
To them, right?
Consideration is a universal value but somehow they've never managed to display it to you.
That kind of thing.
Old philosophy is like in a car wash when you get that rainbow crap, can't see through.
New philosophy is like that rinsing agent in the dryer and the wipers.
Look, a view, a clear view.
I was blind but I can see!
I was blind, but now I see.
People say they're trying to put aesthetics into the realm of ethics, right?
So aesthetics is like, it's preferred behavior, but it's not universal, right?
So that's like, you know, maybe kind of politeness or being on time or whatever, keeping your word in non-financial or contractual situations.
It's nice, you know, telling the truth as a whole, you know, it's nice, but it's not universal.
It can't be universalized.
Being on time can't be universalized.
You have to have a commitment, you have to go there, and so on, right?
Or you have to be late, and so on.
Being on time can't be universalized.
And also, being on time requires a voluntary positive obligation, both to meet someone at that time.
And voluntary positive obligations can't be universalized.
You just can't make them to everyone and you can't have an obligation to everyone and all that kind of stuff, right?
And of course, it's ridiculously avoidable.
I mean, if someone's always being late, just...
Don't agree to meet them anymore or, you know, come an hour later because they're always an hour late or whatever.
It's eminently avoidable and ethics really has to do with that, which is not avoidable.
And voluntary stuff is avoidable, like being on time, like being around rude people.
I mean, just don't be around rude people, right?
If they won't change.
This is eminently avoidable.
And there's, I mean, lots of rational reasons as to why this is all the case.
Right, so there's aesthetically preferable actions, or what I call APA.
Universally preferable behavior, which is ethics.
And neutral behaviors, like going for a walk.
Good or evil?
Well, it doesn't really fall into the category, right?
It's like saying, the wind.
Is it money?
Well, it's not even really in the category called money.
Clearly going for a walk can't be universalized.
It's not preferable.
People in wheelchairs can't achieve it.
And it is behavior.
I guess that's the only category that fits.
So if you propose universally preferable behavior and people say you shouldn't, then they've accepted it.
You shouldn't use words.
Words are incomprehensible.
Well then why are you telling me, using words, that words are incomprehensible?
Calling you up on the cell phone.
You shouldn't use cell phones.
They don't work.
They never work.
Why are you calling me on a cell phone to tell me that cell phones don't work?
There's no such thing as universally preferable behavior.
Why are you giving me universally preferable behavior called, I should not claim that there's such a thing as universally preferable behavior?
You just did.
Logic fail!
Logic fail!
Danger, Will Robinson!
Rational explosion!
Implosion!
Yay, barely.
You can't deny universally preferable behavior.
I mean, a possible response would be to simply stare at the person.
Rape cannot be UPB.
But the moment you respond to it, with a true or false statement, that's interesting.
I guess you could say that.
That's not denying it, it's not affirming it.
But at least you're not doing a massive logic fail.
Fascinating.
Ah, Mr Spock.
You say, rape cannot be UPB.
Do you agree?
Well, if you say yes or no, you just affirmed UPB.
At the moment you affirm UPB, you affirm that rape cannot be UPB.
And you cannot deny UPB without affirming that rape cannot be UPB, that murder cannot be UPB, that assault cannot be UPB, and that theft cannot be UPB.
You simply can't, can't, can't do it.
I know I'm repeating it.
It's really important you understand this.
First, you have to accept that rape cannot be UPB.
Say, forget that.
Forget that there's no such thing as UPB.
Forget that for a moment.
Do you understand that rape cannot be UPB?
Theft, murder, assault.
It cannot be UPB.
Because one person has to want it, the other person has to not want it.
Therefore, it cannot be universally preferable behavior.
These things.
Now, respect for property rights can be UPB, because people can respect property rights.
All people at all times can respect property rights.
You say, ah, but people don't.
It's not universally preferred, it's universally preferable.
Is it possible for everybody to respect everybody else's property rights at the same time?
Well, yeah, of course it is.
Is it possible for everybody to steal from each other at the same time?
No, it is impossible because stealing means some people must not want to have things taken from them.
So some people must have it as a universal negative and other people must have it as the universal positive for stealing to occur.
Or rape, or murder, or assault.
Do you understand that?
Do you understand that it is logically impossible for rape, murder, theft and assault to be universally preferable behaviors?
Don't call them ethics, don't call them... Do you understand that logically, technically, syllogistically, it is not possible for these behaviors to be universally preferable?
People get all kinds of static around this stuff, right?
Well, people don't, and there's no such thing as UPB, but just try and get them to get that, to understand that.
But when you cross that Rubicon, when you cross over that morally nihilistic void and hatred and all the puppet strings of your masters and you actually get and affirm and understand a principle as simple as murder cannot be UPB, rape cannot be UPB, theft assault cannot be UPB.
If you just get that simple logical affirmation, so simple, My daughter has understood UPP at about three and a quarter, three and a third years.
She got it and could explain it back.
Can we at least get to the moral understanding, not of a Kierkegaard, not of a Hobbes, not of a Nietzsche, not of a Rand, just of a three-year-old?
That's all I'm asking.
Can you get what a three-year-old can get?
Can you understand what a three-year-old can understand?
This is not an insult, because we've got so much propaganda against it.
But can you understand?
Rape, theft, murder, assault cannot be universally preferable behavior.
It is a self-contradictory, monstrous clusterfrack of self-attacking, self-eating, broken-up syllogisms and radical illogic.
Once you get that, once you get that, the magic four corners of UPB, rape, theft, assault and murder, can't be UPB.
Can't possibly be UPB.
And it only takes a moment to grasp that once you get past the propaganda.
Once you get that, government can't be UPB.
Government is a violation of universality.
Some people have positive rights, other people have bans.
Government must tax, you cannot tax.
Government must counterfeit, you cannot counterfeit.
Government can initiate force, you must not initiate force.
Government can violate property rights, you must not violate property rights.
Universality?
Broken.
Government?
Invalidated.
Once you get the sheer, elegant, beautiful simplicity of UPB, it is a foundation and a shield and a sword that will render you invulnerable.
To relativism, to nihilism, to all the machinations of psychopathic manipulative evil, it is the greatest power that philosophy can provide you, is a deep certainty about ethics, about virtue.
It's the greatest gift that I can give you, it's the greatest gift that philosophy can give you, is deep relaxed certainty.
About the nature of ethics.
About the rationalism of virtue.
What it will reveal to you, it's like putting on the ring and seeing the Nazgul, right?
It reveals to you the state of contemporary culture, which can be a tad horrifying, more than a tad.
But it's well worth it, just to get that certainty about ethics.
I hope you will do more than sample.
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