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March 21, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:52:38

STEFAN MOLYNEUX vs JF GARIEPY! Universal Ethics vs Moral Nihilism! (HD)

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	We are here debating moral nihilism versus universally preferable behavior.
	See, I always put the right one last.
	And we're here with J.F. Gary Eppie.
	Is there anything that you wanted to mention to the audience?
	There are, of course, some people who know you but don't know me, some people who know me but don't know you, and I'm sure a few people who know us both, and probably even fewer who know neither of us.
	Is there something you wanted to mention to the audience that is coming in?
	Well, for those who don't know me, my name is Jean-François Gariepi.
	I'm a PhD in neuroscience.
	I've been interested in evolution, cognition, social cognition, moral behaviors, and the emergence of life.
	I'm the author of a book called The Revolutionary Phenotype, which seeks to Describe the mechanism that happens when life forms start changing their own genes, which I believe is what happened 4 billion years ago, and I believe it's about to happen again in human civilization, and it has severe consequences on the patterns of evolution in which we will lock ourselves in.
	Yeah, I'm destined to be debating revolutionaries from here to eternity, pretty much at the moment, which is kind of cool.
	And you spent, was it, did I get this right, half a decade studying monkeys, not just in preparation for this debate, but as a whole?
	Absolutely. I've spent my postdoctoral work in Duke University and I lived among groups of monkeys.
	We were studying 16 monkeys approximately in the lab, playing computer games, doing social stuff.
	And we also had an island with many hundreds of monkeys living in the wild, studying their genes, the relation between genes and social cognition.
	Very, very cool. And you want to give your website and all that kind of stuff?
	Well, for those who want to follow me, jfgariepi on Twitter or just go to jfglivestream on YouTube.
	In fact, tonight after this stream, I'll do a coronavirus stream because we will be studying the medication aspect.
	There's lots of confusion about the coronavirus.
	And by the way, we're here to talk about moral nihilism.
	But what a spectacular world we live in and what a...
	Worrying time.
	And in fact, that's what I will be talking about, the medication aspect of coronavirus.
	There's currently three hypothetical medications.
	No one is sure if they will work, so I'll be doing that.
	That's at JFG livestream.
	Well, great. All right.
	So give me just one tiny split second here to get people updated with the actual...
	Live stream address and then we can start up.
	Now there's a couple of ways we can open about this.
	Somebody had a suggestion, I think it may in fact come out of Sam Harris, which is that we could try, we could start by I think I understand the moral nihilist position.
	You, of course, have criticized universally preferable behavior, my theory of ethics, which I think assumes that we understand each other's position.
	It is an interesting thing to see, and it does help avoid...
	Straw man. If we were thinking of taking the other person's position as the opening statement, we could try it that way.
	Or, of course, what we have to do, as you know, is rigorously define our terms to make sure we don't get lost in the swamp of not exactly straw man, but speaking past each other from these standpoints.
	Do you have any particular preference about ways to begin?
	I love this idea. I think we should represent each other's position and then go from there.
	Alright, so I'll need to do what?
	How do you do your hair here?
	Something like...
	No, that just makes me look like a rooster, doesn't it?
	Alright, something like that. Something like that.
	Yeah, no, I think that would be great.
	I could start off with the moral nihilist position.
	But just before we do that, did you want to define what nihilism is?
	I mean, I know it's a position not just delegated to morality, but did you want to define nihilism just to give ourselves a warm-up round?
	Absolutely. Nihilism is generally a position that something does not exist or that something is not subject to the analytical levels that is claimed by others to be.
	So when I say moral nihilism, it's the specific kind of nihilism that applies to morality.
	And specifically what people mean, although it's a broad...
	There are different strands of moral nihilism, but it means the denial that morality...
	is subject to either objective truth, either universal truth, or in fact totally truth apt.
	That is, the term truth does not apply to the domain of morality.
	My strand of moral nihilism is a little bit more specific.
	I said there are certain truths in morality, but they are all subjective.
	In other words, there is no objective standard by which you will demonstrate them as true or false.
	You will always need to adapt A certain belief or an axiom to get your system started, and that decision is a decision made by an agent with certain moral preferences.
	So I say that moral truths are not truth other than within axiomatic systems that have been subjected to and adhered to subjectively.
	Good. Thank you for that.
	I just had a couple of requests that we try and get our volume a little bit more in order.
	And if you could take your volume down a little bit, people are just finding the disparity to be jarring.
	All right. I have now lowered my voice and you guys can tell me on the regular chat if that's enough.
	All right. So, no, my volume's not low.
	My volume is my standard for live streaming.
	I haven't changed anything like that.
	So we'll just sound as fine.
	Molly up. Papa a little high.
	I guess Papa is you. Is that right?
	The younger guy's called Papa. All right.
	Fair enough. All right.
	How's that audio coming through?
	Hello. This is my voice.
	Sounds good. Soundcheck.
	Soundcheck. I'd say a couple of thumbs up.
	A little interestingly, what we're going to do is we're going to start off by stating the other person's moral position, or rather the other person's position on morality, I suppose we should say.
	And we can keep it, I guess, relatively brief, but I thought we could start off with this.
	So I'm not going to say that this is a perfect representation of JF's position, but what I will say is I think it's a fairly good representation.
	of moral nihilism.
	I know that this generally comes better with tattoos, but I didn't decide to do that level of commitment to do the cause.
	The pro-moral nihilist position goes something like this.
	There are facts in the universe.
	We all accept that.
	There are objective facts in the universe.
	There is the speed of light.
	There is the presence of gravity.
	There are two and two make four and all of that.
	There's electricity. There's sunshine, rain, all of that stuff.
	So there are objective facts in the universe.
	But those objective facts in no way, shape, or form give rise to a moral judgment.
	Just because something is in no way implies that it ought to be different.
	In fact, wishing that things ought to be different is kind of a primitive superstition.
	Like, if you park your car and a tree falls on your car, I mean, obviously you'd rather it didn't fall on your car unless you wanted to destroy your car.
	But let's take the simple example. You'd rather it didn't fall on your car But you have no right to scream at the universe in a sane way and say to that tree, you're a bad tree for falling on my car.
	It's something that just happened.
	And what people do is they have this superstitious addiction To trying to summon, like ghosts from dead bodies, they try to summon shoulds and oughts and good and right and rights and ethics and all of this from the mere mechanistic facts of the universe.
	You cannot get an ought from an is.
	It's true that if someone comes and chokes you out and deprives you of oxygen for a couple of minutes, you're going to die.
	That is a fact, and nobody's going to say that that's made up.
	Now, but the fact of the universe is that there's nothing in physics or biology or the nature of reality or anything like that.
	There's nothing in the atoms.
	There's nothing in the material processes or the physical forces that says, you ought not do that.
	Now, we may, of course, find it useful in society to create conventions of reciprocal altruism.
	We may find it productive in society to say, well, we really can't function super well without banning rape, theft, assault, and murder, and that's fine.
	And, you know, I can get behind some of those, but let's not pretend that these come from some inscription of a god in a book, or they come from some inscription of philosophy on atoms and how they behave.
	We may have conventions like, you know, Iran has a different national dance than Kenya, right?
	But let's not pretend that there's some objective scientific fact or reason as to why.
	There are just different customs around the world.
	And you can look at societies and you can say, well, in general, societies tend to become more wealthy or people may be even happier and so on if they follow certain conventions.
	Well, that's fine.
	And we can certainly explore those and we can aim to make little improvements here and there.
	But we're still just dealing with subjective local customs, nothing of which can be derived from the facts or the nature of reality.
	And this constant attempt by thinkers, obviously often quite speckled and bald thinkers, the obvious and false attempt to root ethical theories into some tangible, practical, empirical, objective reality, it's just like a fool's quest.
	I mean, they're just chasing a ghost off a cliff.
	We need to accept that God is not writing morality into the heart of man, that it doesn't exist in nature.
	Well, God knows. It certainly doesn't exist in nature.
	It doesn't exist in physics. It exists in our head as a subjective state, a subjective preference.
	Now, once we understand that, we can start to work productively With the various belief systems around the world, have a little bit of analysis, some cause and effect, look at the consequences.
	Sure, I think that's great, but let's not pretend we're identifying core foundational physics or rational principles of the universe.
	We're just going to different restaurants to see which menu we like the best.
	So that's my sort of introduction to moral nihilism.
	How did I do?
	Very good. I love most of what you said.
	There may be one thing I wouldn't say, and it's the part where you compare the moral beliefs or moral desires to superstitions.
	I believe that it's very serious, that essentially the human animal has evolved To send moral signals.
	In fact, that will be the title of my second book.
	I believe that we are in a signaling wire here and a signaling wire that has very real effects on people's behavior and on people's action and on people's existence.
	So I don't say that morality is merely superstitions.
	I say there is some error being done by a lot of people, yes, but generally what I say is that these moral signals that we send and that we make ourselves believe in, they really matter from an evolutionary perspective.
	All right, so do you want to take a swing at universally preferable behavior?
	Alright, so the position of moral realism in general would be to state that there is some objective source that justifies certain moral statements.
	And in particular for your version of it, which is UPB, I would say that your belief is that There is, within rational processes that are accessible to the human mind, there is a justification such that certain moral outcomes are preferable to others and preferable universally.
	They are to be chosen by any society, and that societies who may just diverge from this objective truth about morality can be said to be wrong by some standard, some objective standard that Maybe perceivable by our brain,
	but that ultimately comes from either nature itself or from a rational process that is independent of the agents and their beliefs.
	How was that?
	Well, I'm going to sound kind of churlish here, but no.
	I'm sorry, that's not the theory.
	It's not consequentialist.
	In other words, an ethical theory is not judged by its consequences any more than you would judge the truth of a scientific proposition by its consequences.
	The essence of UPB is to say that if you are going to propose a theory of universally preferable behavior, then it needs to fulfill all three conditions for reasons I go into in my book, Well, it's actually available in two places.
	One is, there's a whole book called Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.
	And it's also in my book, Essential Philosophy.
	You can get that for free on my website at freedomain.com.
	And so if you're going to make a statement about universally preferable behavior, it needs to be universal.
	In other words, independent of time and place.
	It also needs to be something which human beings can prefer, although it doesn't have to be what they always do prefer.
	And it has to be behavior because, as an empiricist, you can't just read minds and therefore it would be an incomplete state of mind to try and judge thoughts that have never been expressed in any tangible or recordable form.
	And so the first question in UPB is, well, is even the concept of universally preferable behavior Valid at all.
	And the answer to that is, well, yes, of course, but that's not much of an argument.
	The answer to that is, look, if you Correct me.
	And by you, I don't necessarily mean you, JF, but not anyone.
	If anyone tries to correct me according to some universal standard, if they tell me there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, then what they're telling me to do is to stop saying that there is such a thing as universally preferable behavior.
	And they're not saying, stop it because I don't like your accent or stop it because I don't like your word choice.
	They're saying stop it because it is objectively false to claim that there is such a thing.
	as universally preferable behavior.
	Now if you say to someone that it is universally preferable behavior That you stop arguing for universally preferable behavior, well, that, of course, is a self-detonating statement.
	It is a statement that falsifies itself in the very utterance.
	So if someone comes to me and says, there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, and therefore you should stop arguing for it, or they come to me and they say, universally preferable behavior is invalid, or your theory is invalid, and you should stop saying it, what are they saying?
	Well, they're saying... That there is a universal standard by which ideas are judged, and Steph, frankly, your ideas fall short of that universal standard.
	They're also saying that truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood.
	If I'm offered two food groups, one of which I like and one of which I don't like quite as much, maybe it's 60-40, maybe it's 70-30.
	But if you say, well, Steph, you should not advocate for universally preferable behavior at all.
	It's not 60-40.
	It's 100-0. It's infinitely preferable to say things that are true rather than things that are false.
	So the moment you engage in the correction of someone according to universal standards, you are enacting We can get into this in more detail, but if you follow the theory, Then, wow, it's really, really kind of cool.
	You find out that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behaviors.
	In other words, we have a theory of ethics that actually happens to validate the four major bands that exist in every reasonable moral system.
	I know reasonable there is a little bit of begging the question, but it's an old Aristotelian argument that if you end up with an ethical theory, That somehow says murder is the very best thing that you can possibly do, you kind of took a wrong turn at Albuquerque somewhere, right?
	It just kind of instinctively feels wrong.
	And again, I know that's not an argument, but you do then have to explain why most societies tend to ban rape, theft, and assault, and murder, at least at the citizen level, not necessarily at the government level.
	So once we've vaulted over the idea, or once we've accepted the idea that universally preferable behavior is valid, then we are left with the exciting task of figuring out which universally preferable behaviors can be valid.
	In other words, those which are not self-contradictory, or they don't contradict themselves.
	And that's a really, really productive case.
	Now, the last thing I'll say, and I'll then turn it over to JF for a nice long ramble, but the last thing I'll say is this.
	It certainly is theoretically possible that somebody might believe there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, but I will never know.
	That person is like Schrodinger's cat in a sense where you never open the box.
	I will never ever know.
	about somebody who does not believe in universally preferable behavior.
	Why? Because they will never correct me.
	They will never speak up.
	They will never say, Steph, your subjective argument falls short of the requirement for truth, integrity, and consistency with reason and evidence.
	They will never correct me, ever.
	The moment you correct someone, you are enacting universally preferable behavior, which is why we can vault over it in a debate.
	All right, so that's my sort of reframing of My theory, and if you want to take it from here, you are certainly welcome to.
	All right, thank you.
	Everything is very clear here.
	I want to say three things.
	First, concerning the attribution that you did to my description to be consequentialist.
	What I was describing was really any position of moral realism, and I don't remember using the term consequence or using anything similar.
	In fact, The only standard that I attributed to your UPB is that certain societies could be wrong if they happen to act in ways that are different from the UPB. So I don't agree that my characterization was consequentialism.
	You did use the phrase moral outcomes, so that's where I got that from.
	But I mean, that's fine. If you corrected me on that, I appreciate that.
	And I'm sorry to have mischaracterized you if that was incorrect.
	No, I mean, I think you're fair there that it could have been misinterpreted.
	By moral outcomes, I meant the state of the moral system, whatever it is, not necessarily in the future and in terms of consequence, but in terms of what preferences people are enacting.
	So it's great that I can precise this one.
	The second thing I would say is you seem to be assuming that someone who would be engaging in this discussion about UPBs would necessarily be making a statement about the content of your moral system saying that it is wrong.
	It is wrong to have UPBs.
	That's not my statement.
	So as a moral nihilist, that's not how I approach discussions on morality.
	What I point to is really a fact about your moral system.
	I say...
	There is a fact about moral systems and it's that they are subjectively determined and they ultimately rely on subjectively reached axioms.
	That is more a statement of fact.
	I'm not saying that your axioms are wrong.
	In fact, I'm saying that wrong and right are not the right words here.
	I'm saying that any moral action that you could evaluate by any moral system would be only right or wrong.
	Based on a subjectively established axiom.
	So I think that I can engage in undermining UPB without making a moral statement.
	At least that is my impression.
	And it's more a factual statement to say that, a factual statement about people's belief and what is the true source of people's behavior, than it is a moral statement.
	Okay, so sorry, just before we go into that, we do need to sort of define these terms of wrong and right.
	I guess those kind of apply to moral terms as well, but correct and incorrect.
	And if you could tell me what it means in your approach to be correct or incorrect.
	Well, since in my approach, there's no ultimate objective standard, I usually work with preferences.
	So what I say is that any agent, any structure in the universe, and any structure that can act in the universe will have choices between A, B, C, any future state of the world that they can attain by their action.
	Okay, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I just want to make sure I understand this.
	So, can you tell me what it means, there's no ultimate objective standard?
	What does that mean? Well, objective means outside of ourselves, so outside of our brain or outside of what we determine.
	So objective to me comes from the world outside of us.
	And a standard would mean something that would impose a certain choice to be right or wrong or to be preferable or not preferable.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	That would be a moralizing God, is that right?
	That would be... Well, here's the thing.
	God is one example of a potentially objective force.
	If it existed for real, if God existed, it would be objective and it would be an authority on everything you do.
	Now, I just happen to believe that God doesn't exist.
	Okay, so what's another standard that we could look at?
	What? Sorry, I mean, we all accept that standards exist inside our head and not outside in the real world.
	So I'm just trying to think when you say no objective standard outside of our minds, if it's not God, what else could it be?
	Okay, so one example of an objective standard that exists outside of our mind in the world of facts, for example, empiricism.
	The statement, there is a planet at the position that Jupiter is.
	Essentially, there's a planet there.
	That planet would exist if we weren't there.
	That planet sends signals so that we can establish its presence and therefore it comes to our mind and imposes an objective standard.
	That's where the statement Jupiter doesn't exist is false and it's obtainable from the universe itself without any particular belief other than an ability to catch its sensory inputs.
	Okay, so I think I understand that.
	I mean, I think the phrase that you used was Jupiter imposes itself upon us, and I know that you're kind of anthropomorphizing there because Jupiter imposes nothing, it just floats around there being gassy like me after a particularly virulent Thai dinner.
	But, um, so...
	What you mean, I think if I understand this correctly, is we have concepts in our mind and if they claim, if our concepts or if our description of those concepts claims to say something true and factual about the world as a whole, then we can judge the accuracy of the things in our mind by the degree to which they match up.
	To what is out there in the world.
	In other words, the standards still exist in our mind, but we have a comparison, right?
	I mean, for me, the biggest thing in philosophy is, well, compared to what?
	Like, you know, that old philosophy professor, someone comes up to him and says, how's your wife?
	And he says, compared to what?
	Sort of an important question in philosophy.
	So we have things that in our mind, I like blue or something like that, which is kind of subjective, although it has an objective element in terms of what wavelength we're looking at.
	But there's stuff that we say in our mind that should directly map onto things in the real world.
	The standard exists in our mind and the concept and the description exists in our mind.
	But we have a way of hooking what's in our mind into the world as a whole through evidence of the senses and so on.
	Is that a fair way to put it?
	Beautifully said.
	Okay, so I don't, so far, I think metaphysics, objective reality, objective universe.
	Do you believe, I don't think you do, from what I've seen, but do you believe in a higher realm, a new aminal realm, a platonic realm of forms?
	I assume not a heaven if you're an atheist, but do you believe in a higher realm outside of the senses?
	Not really.
	I say the question of God, I cannot determine it with 100% certainty.
	I mean, we could be in a box universe where some God exists above us and has created the substrate for our existence.
	But in the absence of any evidence for it, I use the Occam's razor and I say, as long as I don't see any such intervention or any fact that would necessitate God, I will not believe in God.
	Okay, so the world that comes in through the evidence of the senses is the totality of existence, at least the existence that we have to deal with.
	Is that fair to say? The thing is, I don't deny other possibilities.
	I don't deny that there may be things I can see from my limited position in the universe.
	So that's one important aspect of my philosophy.
	I recognize my limit as a finite agent in the universe.
	I cannot know everything.
	I cannot know other worlds.
	In fact, it's a serious question in physics whether there are infinite many worlds and all possible worlds.
	I don't deny these possibilities, but as a limited agent, I have to manage my resource in a way that makes sense.
	And the only thing that can make sense to me is something that reaches me in some way, a photon of some kind that I need to explain, some information coming from the universe.
	So I can live my life as if these other possibilities to which my body will never have access don't exist or don't matter, at least to me right now.
	Right. I mean, I think that's natural.
	Now, I wasn't trying to imply that everything we perceive directly is all that exists.
	I mean, obviously, in the same way that they couldn't see really, really tiny things until there was an electron microscope, they couldn't see much beyond Pluto before there was the Hubble telescope in some ways, or at least the smaller things.
	So for sure, but nonetheless, if something never impresses itself upon our senses, then that is the equivalent of non-existence, right?
	Like when you try and walk through a doorway, if you can walk through the doorway, it means the door is open.
	It's not sort of in the doorway.
	So that is the standard.
	Not to say that our current perception is everything that will ever be seen in the universe, but if something is never seen or never impresses itself upon our senses in any way, that is really the definition of non-existence.
	Would you... Go with me there.
	No, I mean, because it's a statement about some things that you don't know, really.
	It's a statement about something that you don't see.
	I don't make that kind of statement.
	It would be pushing the Occam's razor too far to assume that what the Occam's razor finds, essentially, what the Occam's razor chops out, certainly does not exist.
	I would say it's just...
	So what would your definition be of non-existence, then?
	Well, non-existence, I don't even know because I've never affirmed that something doesn't exist really in my life.
	So you're actually wrecking my brain a little bit there.
	Would you accept that there are things that don't exist?
	Or that non-existence is a valid concept?
	It's very hard, really.
	I don't know that I would ever affirm that something does not exist or cannot exist.
	I've studied possibilities that our universe would be underlined by a carpet of purple ponies.
	And I said, you know, technically it could.
	Technically there could be purple ponies everywhere underlying all of the atoms that we see, all of the waves that we see.
	We believe to measure in physics.
	They could all be underlined by purple ponies.
	Of course, I don't adhere to this belief because I don't have any evidence that forces me to, but I wouldn't affirm the non-existence.
	I don't think I've ever affirmed that.
	So when you said earlier that you don't believe that God exists, what was that?
	What do you mean by that? If you don't affirm the non-existence of something, how are you an atheist?
	Well, the thing is, what I've said about God is that I'm open to the possibility that it exists, but I go on in life as if it didn't exist because I have no sign coming to me.
	My empirical mind doesn't get hit by anything that forces me to believe in God.
	So I typically, if you want to be super precise about it, I'm an agnostic about God because I recognize that, okay, the universe could be into the mind or into the computer of some God-like teenager playing with us or doing a simulation.
	Okay, good, good. I appreciate that.
	I just wanted to sort of update my understanding on that.
	Now, what about something like a square circle?
	Can that exist in our universe?
	It can exist in certain mathematical systems like taxicab geometry.
	No, no, no. I mean something that exists not as a concept, but as...
	Because, you know, you can...
	I just said the square circle.
	It's a contradictory concept.
	Can a square circle exist in material reality?
	In the particular universe in which we live, a square circle probably can't exist in a perfect fashion.
	When you say probably, I don't know what you mean.
	What odds are we giving here of the Vegas bookies?
	Well, what I mean is that as far as the laws of physics, as I understand them, and I'm not a physicist, there would be a point at which you would find the curve conflicting with the square.
	There would be a level of zoom at which you would be finding for sure that it's not a square circle.
	Okay, so is it fair to say that a square circle cannot exist in the material world?
	No, in our material world, I would say...
	Well, okay, but we've just said we live as if this is the only material world, so let's not keep jumping back out this wormhole that we just sealed off.
	In the material world, in the sense data world, is it possible for a square circle to exist?
	In our universe, no.
	But in other universes, it may very well be.
	So there's an important difference there, which is I don't make statements of non-existence generally.
	And even if you're trying to push me to it, I'm trying to avoid it.
	I know that sometimes a loose language can appear as if I would, but ultimately I... I know that taxicab geometry is a virtual system that you can implement in your mind that does allow square circles.
	So why wouldn't there be a universe out there in which taxicab geometry is true?
	I don't see the problem there.
	Well, I see a problem myself, which is that you do make statements that are absolute.
	You've made statements about me that are absolute.
	You've made statements about my theory of ethics that are absolute.
	You haven't conditioned them and said, well, they could be true in some other dimension or some other universe, or I can't say for sure that UPB is false.
	I can't say for sure this, that or the other.
	You make absolute statements about me and about others.
	And I can quote them up for you if you want.
	I mean, you know that you have, right?
	And I'm just trying to sort of understand.
	Listen, I make absolute statements about people as well, but I believe in absolute statements.
	There is no place wherein a square circle can exist.
	There is no place in which two and two make five.
	There is no place where these things are valid in material reality or as consistent concepts.
	So being an absolutist, I sort of feel like you're You're encroaching on my turf.
	You know, you're putting your finger over the toe line and you're playing out of bounds.
	Because if you say, well, UPB is false.
	Steph is wrong about this.
	But I don't know if a square circle is impossible.
	That seems to me kind of a contradictory position, if that makes sense.
	And, you know, maybe there's a way to sort of understand it, but that I don't get.
	There's definitely a way to understand it.
	It's important to understand what my words mean as a local, finite, and limited agent.
	My statements, I don't mean them as absolute.
	I'm just an agent. And the statements that I do First, the statements that I do about the universe are limited to my resolution of sensory capacity to gather it.
	And there might be a level of zoom on the universe where I can't affirm if an atom is here or there.
	In fact, we know that there is.
	That's the Eisenberg principle.
	The same is true in my statements about morality or about belief systems.
	When I say, Steph, this is what you believe, what I'm really saying and what you should essentially add to every sentence I ever say, you could start the sentence by, I believe that.
	My brain believes that I'm just an agent who has beliefs and when I represent your beliefs, it's not in an absolute fashion.
	I don't mean that maybe I'm not wrong.
	I could be wrong about Steph's belief.
	There could be even another universe in which everything that I've ever heard about Steph is absolutely wrong and it was fed to me by some brain in a vat mechanism.
	What I'm stating are not absolutes.
	They are meant to be interpreted as the ramblings of a limited agent, really.
	And for many people in this domain, it is kind of the place where I lose the debate.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I really am. I get the point here.
	But you yourself, I'm not trying to get you here.
	I'm genuinely trying to understand this perspective.
	Because it seems contradictory to me, but I'm perfectly happy to be schooled on this.
	So... Without getting into, which we can get into a bit, your moral condemnations of me from time to time, you say, in the link that you sent to me, morality and moral preferences do not rest on an objective ground.
	That's a direct quote. Moral preferences are not subject to statements of falsehood or truth.
	Right? Now, these are absolute statements.
	Do you accept that at least the words that you said are absolute statements?
	No, I wouldn't characterize them as absolute.
	What I mean is that the behaviors of humans and the way we frame beliefs are not subject to such properties.
	Now, you could make up a fictive universe in which it is.
	You could make up a model program on a computer where morality has these properties.
	So I'm not saying absolute statements.
	No, but they are absolute statements.
	Because they're not conditioned, right?
	And you say morality and moral preferences do not rest on an objective ground.
	That is an absolute statement.
	That is a 100% absolute statement.
	And I'm just trying to figure out if you don't even know that square circles don't exist, how on earth do you know that morality and moral preferences absolutely do not rest on an objective ground?
	Well, you keep coming back to this square circle.
	I think I've demonstrated very well that there are coherent systems of belief in which square circles exist.
	Taxi cap geometry is one of them.
	So you keep coming back to this subject as if I had committed an error there.
	I think I'm actually right about taxi cap geometry and square circles.
	Yeah, I don't know what taxicab geometry means.
	If you want to break that out for me, I don't think...
	It's funny how you keep making these statements, like you keep saying taxicab geometry, like it's this magic spell that makes you right without explaining to the thousands of people watching what on earth you're talking about.
	That just seems like an odd thing to me to do.
	All right. Taxicab geometry is a form of geometry in which the rules of distance are not the same as Euclidean geometry.
	In fact, they are all reformulated such that pi equals four.
	And in these systems, it's possible to have a square circle.
	Sure. And in the New Doom, you can rip the head off a demon in hell.
	That doesn't mean that hell exists or demons exist.
	I mean, it's just a simulation.
	You understand, right? So how on earth would be to take the physics of a simulation that directly contradicts the properties of absolute reality and say, well, somehow This disproves absolute reality.
	Like if I make a game, what was there?
	There was an old game called Black and White where you got to play a god.
	You were a god in the game, if I remember it correctly.
	If somebody makes a computer game with a god in it, would you say that would make you religious?
	Well, no, because that would be a misattribution of a virtual world to the real world in which we live.
	Exactly. So why on earth are you bringing up a virtual taxicab geometry, which is a theoretical thing that's just kind of made up, that contradicts the property of reality, and say that that has something to do with reality?
	That's like saying, well, there's a God in a video game, therefore God exists.
	Well, in a certain context, you'd be right.
	But in my view of the world, there is a burden of proof to someone making a statement as opposed to someone saying, I don't know.
	And what I'm really saying when I say, I don't know if there's other universe out there where square circles exist, it's a statement of not knowledge.
	It's deeply agnostic.
	You are the one claiming that in no possible universe...
	There is a square circle, and I just presented to you one, at least in a virtual world, in a virtual space, and yes, that exists.
	So how can you affirm that out there, there is not a single possible world that behaves like taxicab geometry?
	Wait, did you say world or universe?
	Those two things are very different.
	Yeah, I mean, you can use them interchangeably.
	Any place out there, any place that is so distant that we haven't seen it yet.
	Because you're the one affirming, therefore you're the one who should have a burden of proof on this one.
	I'm just saying I don't know.
	No, but see, I don't need an empirical burden of proof to show that self-contradictory entities don't exist.
	This is just Aristotle's three laws of logic, right?
	I mean, self-contradictory entities don't exist.
	Because here's the thing, you say that UPB is invalid because it contradicts your proposition that morality and moral preferences do not rest on an objective ground.
	So you say that if my theory contradicts reality or contradicts reason, then it's invalid, right?
	So you're very absolutist and objective and rational and empirical when it comes to criticizing my theory.
	But then when I ask you questions, you retreat into this wormhole, other dimension, error becomes truth, black is white, up is down, and taxicabs can deliver square circles without getting coronavirus or something like that.
	And I'm just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
	If you think that my self-contradictions in my theory invalidate my theory, then how is it that contradiction in your theory you can just retreat to this alternate dimension where magically you're just right and square circles exist and something can be true that's completely false in this universe, right? Yes, it's a bit of a contradictory approach.
	First, whenever we're talking about universal statements, whenever we have a claim of universality, a claim that something is true everywhere, I think, yes, we should hold ourselves to the standard of possible worlds, since, in fact, the claim aims at possible worlds.
	Given that I'm not the one making claims of universality, but you are, I think it's fair to hold you to a possible world standard.
	You are making claims of universality.
	You said that my theory was wrong.
	And you made universal statements about morality and its relationship.
	He said moral preferences are not subject statements of falsehood or truth.
	And so you are making universal claims.
	It's just that you see what you do is you come on real strong And aggressive when it comes to criticizing other people, which is fine.
	I mean, this is a rough and tumble world and we need to get these things right.
	I have no problem with that whatsoever.
	But then, when the same standards you apply to others are turned on you, suddenly it's all other dimensions and wormholes and square circles and taxicab geometry and so on.
	That is a bait and switch, right?
	If you're going to live by absolutes in your criticisms of others, It's kind of easily, you understand, to then say, well, but subjectivity in other universes and other dimensions and so on, when those same objective standards are turned on what you believe.
	To be clear, my critique of UPB is not a statement that is of universality.
	I've pointed to certain contradictions.
	I've pointed to certain moral problems with the way UPB is laid out, and we can get into this subject.
	No, that's perfect. See, contradictions are a problem, right?
	Because you say UPB has contradictions, and that's a problem, right?
	So for some reason, UPB's contradictions that you believe you've identified are a big problem, but a square circle is just fine.
	They're not a big problem to me.
	When I point out that UPB, because first, as a moral nihilist, I do not believe that consistency in the moral domain is necessarily objectively right.
	That being said, when I hold UPB to the standard of being objective and to the standard of being consistent, what I point is that there are inner contradictions in it.
	And on the other hand, it claims to be a framework that is consistent.
	I'm making really a factual statement when I say I perceive this or that contradiction in UPB. It's a statement of an observer that looks at the framework.
	So for you, a contradiction is not a problem, though.
	It doesn't indicate falsehood or wrongness or anything like that.
	It's a characteristic.
	Like a car is blue, a theory has contradictions, and that's not an issue for you because, as a nihilist, you don't believe in truth or objectivity or anything like that with regards to these claims.
	So why would you bother pointing out contradictions if you don't believe that there's anything negative about them?
	Well, because as an agent, I have certain preferences.
	I have preferences for honesty and I have preferences for clarity in the communication of ideas.
	And so if I see an idea where I perceive a flaw and I want to point to that flaw and say, look, it claims to be coherent, but it's not.
	I think it's legitimate for me to be playing according to my own moral preferences.
	All I'm saying is there's no objective standard by which your preferences for consistency or my preferences for honesty are true or false.
	We're just that way. We're animals and we evolve that way?
	I'm not sure what that means.
	What I consider is that the sum of all our behaviors are ultimately influenced by brain networks that have been subject to the theory of evolution, to natural selection.
	Do you believe that?
	That our brain has evolved through natural selection?
	Yes. And not only do I believe that, I believe that absolutely, and I don't believe that in another universe that we'll never encounter, there's some other thing.
	I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm just sort of pointing out that I'm not going to back out of that if I'm found to be wrong and say there's another universe wherein I'm right.
	Well, I think that this very universe may make you lie because one day we may be not subject to evolution anymore and we may be fabricated by some device or by some computer or some copies of our mind may be made in computers.
	So I think that even in our universe it's possible that the human mind may not be subject to evolution one day.
	Okay, so if for you a contradiction is a problem, Right?
	Then why is a square circle not a problem, which is an innately...
	Like, whatever the flaws of UPB that you believe, that you see, and I'd like to get into those flaws because I always want to be able to improve the theory.
	But if a contradiction is a problem, then why is a square circle not a problem?
	Because that's a self-contradictory entity by its very definition.
	Very interesting. I think that I would take issue with a mathematician who says, Jeff, I have proven that a square circle is possible within the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
	I would say, well, you're wrong by the standards of the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
	But what I'm faced with this discussion where you are present is a different statement.
	You come to me and you ask me to deny the existence of a square circle where I know that there are some possibilities of worlds where it exists.
	So I'm faced with someone trying to make me do a statement about all possible worlds, and that's very different from a statement within a limited world.
	I know that a square circle does not exist in compass and straight edge Euclidean geometry, but I also know it exists elsewhere.
	Well, no, because what you talked about is a theoretical construct, not something that exists, right?
	You understand, like, the demons in Doom do not exist in the real world.
	They're just representations created by computer code, right?
	So when you say a square circle exists in, what was it, taxicab geometry?
	Well, the answer is no. It doesn't.
	It doesn't exist. It's just a theoretical made-up universe.
	Oh, well, it does. A square circle exists in taxicab geometry.
	I'm absolutely positive about this.
	But the reason I can be positive is that I know the axioms of taxicab geometry.
	Okay, now we have to get back to what it means.
	What does it mean to exist?
	It certainly doesn't exist in the real world.
	It doesn't exist in the tangible material objective universe.
	So when you say it exists in whatever taxicab geometry is, what do you mean by exists?
	And how is that different from something that can exist in the real world?
	Very interesting. My definition of exist moves depending on whether we're talking about theoretical worlds and mathematics or the real world around us, our particular universe in which we live.
	Well, we have to be talking about the real world because we could make up any theoretical universe where whatever we want.
	I could make up UPB-ville where UPB is perfect and can never ever be false and therefore there's nothing to debate.
	Of course, in order to meet in reality, we have to be talking about the real world.
	We can't just invent alternative worlds where contradictory entities exist and march off like we've achieved something.
	All we've done is we've said, okay, well, two and two make five.
	You say that's false. Well, I'm going to create Steph, Bill, where two and two do make five, and I win!
	That's not a healthy way to have a conversation about the truth.
	Well, I would love that to be possible, but this is only possible if my discussion partner, and by the way, no hate to you, okay?
	But there is a problem with your claims.
	You come to me making claims of universality, making claims about all possible worlds, and then you are criticizing me for bringing all possible worlds.
	Why don't you get rid of the world universally?
	And we could talk about the current universe and how we are the descendants of monkeys and we like a certain way to eat bananas and to do this or that.
	I don't know what you're talking about here, but let's try and get to a civil arrangement so that we can have a productive discussion, okay?
	Let's jump out of taxicab geometry and other imaginary alternative universes where whatever we say that's disproven in this universe could somehow be true in some other universe because you understand that's...
	That's like playing tennis and then if I hit the ball out, I say, oh, for this point, hitting the ball out, it wins.
	And then I hit the ball in and I say, oh, for this point, hitting the ball wins.
	We can't actually have a game unless we both agree on objective rules.
	And the only way we can agree on objective rules is to talk about things in reality and not jump out of these wormholes where alternative realities make every contradictory statement we make somehow magically true.
	Because then we just, I don't know.
	It's like a game of ookie cookie that never ends or something like that, right?
	So let's, for the duration, you can go back to your wormholes afterwards and you can go take your taxis in taxi cab land where square circles exist, but let's just for the next hour or so confine ourselves to tangible material reality where things are or are not.
	Is that acceptable?
	Very interesting. I'm excited about what will come out on your side, because then we're talking about the world, the world that we see.
	So we will do that, right?
	Yes, let's do it.
	Beautiful. Okay, good, because that has always kind of troubled me.
	All right. So in the world that is, contradiction is...
	A problem, right? So in the world that is, if I propose a square circle or I propose a self-detonating statement or I propose, like, you know, if you had a scientific theory that said that gases expand and contract when heated,
	right, that objects repel and attract simultaneously or an object falls down and up at the same time, that would be a self-contradictory And therefore, we wouldn't need to go and test it.
	I mean, if I designed a bridge based upon the fact that the Earth has its gravity, good.
	If I design a bridge based upon the Earth having reverse gravity, well, that's bad, right?
	So I think we can say that when it comes to making universal truth statements, self-contradictions, which is the issue you have with UPB, self-contradictory statements are an insurmountable problem, like a go-back-to-the-drawing-board kind of problem.
	Is that fair to say? No, I disagree with a lot of what you mentioned there.
	My first disagreement is about the world needing to be one way and not another and that two possibilities would be contradictory.
	I think that the progresses of quantum physics, to the contrary, are showing that fundamentally at the level of the universe, It works as if it had superpositions of state.
	That's the way it's called in quantum physics.
	And therefore, there are many things possible at the same time.
	And as long as they are not checked or they are not somehow decohered, as they say in quantum physics...
	The possibilities are progressing as waves of probabilities.
	And as far as we can tell, although I don't claim that it's the end of science, but for now what it looks like is that the world is made up of things that are contradictory.
	Yeah, it's always countdown to quantum physics with this stuff, right?
	So when I bar, or when we agree to talk about the natural world that is tangible and empirical and material, if you box off the wormholes to other dimensions, people always come up.
	It's kind of as predictable as sunrise.
	People always come up with quantum physics, right?
	Now, quantum physics, of course, is the bleeding edge of science to some degree, and quantum phenomena all cancel each other out long before you get to sense data, right?
	So there's, you know, freaky stuff going on deep down in the innards, but it all cancels itself out, and reality is ridiculously stable when you get to the sense data level, which is where moral philosophy occurs, right?
	So moral philosophy, which is really the subject of this debate, has absolutely nothing to do With quantum physics.
	Nothing to do with quantum physics whatsoever because it all occurs at the level of sense data.
	Rape, theft, assault and murder and so on, they all occur at the level of sense data and there's no quantum characteristic that has any effect on whether you've raped someone or whether you've killed someone.
	So I get that you want to hang on to this contradictory state of mind, but if we're going to talk about moral philosophy, we have to completely put quantum physics to one side.
	Well, I just disagree with your premise.
	So your premise has been contradictions cannot be coherent with an empirical view of the world.
	And quantum physics is the example to illustrate why I disagree with your premise.
	As far as the behavior, the moral behaviors of people in the actual world, you will find many contradictions in them.
	No, but not at the quantum level.
	Not at the quantum level, no.
	The quantum statement that I've made was merely to show that the thing that you were trying to introduce as a premise, I don't agree with it.
	In fact, scientific theories right now are contradictions.
	Are you going to argue then that UPB is correct, that UPB has contradictions, but it's correct at the quantum level because quantum physics has contradictions?
	Is that your argument? That is not my argument at all.
	My argument is simply that the premise that a proper view of the world must include exclusionary non-contradiction representations of the states of the world is false.
	But you have an issue with the contradictions within UPB. When I start talking about non-contradictions, you say that, well, because quantum physics contradictions are okay or valid or something like that, right?
	Well, I do have a preference for proper laying out of contradictions and proper laying out also of deceptive signaling.
	So if I have a theory that claims I'm not contradictory and yet I find contradictions in it, I will point it out because I'm a human being with preferences.
	I'm just that way.
	But there's nothing wrong objectively with contradictions within theory, right?
	Because that would be to have an objective standard.
	Exactly. There's nothing wrong from a moral perspective.
	There's nothing wrong about anything from my perspective.
	Okay, so UPB is not wrong.
	Because there's nothing wrong, right?
	Nothing can be wrong. Exactly.
	UPB is a moral statement.
	Therefore, it is not truth apt, in my view.
	Wait, it's not true in your view, or it's not true?
	Truth apt, that is, it is not subject to claims of truth that can be verified by objective standard.
	Okay, so if I say that UPB is true by objective standards, then I'm objectively wrong.
	Is that correct? I mean, you would have to point to the standard, but I would say probably, yes, probably wrong, yes.
	Wrong factually. Okay, so if I make a claim that is self-contradictory, Then I am objectively incorrect, right?
	If you are making a claim about the world that can be proven from my perspective to be wrong, yes, you can be wrong about the world.
	Something can't be proven from your perspective, something has to be proven objectively, right?
	No, I've never requested that something be proven objectively.
	What I'm saying is that you can be wrong about this statement about the world.
	I can say there's a table in front of me and there's no table in front of me and other observers could say, Jeff, you're wrong.
	There's no table in front of you.
	Okay, so you can be objectively wrong in a truth claim, right?
	You can be objectively wrong in a truth claim, yes.
	Okay, so good.
	It's been an hour and you can be objectively wrong in a truth claim, right?
	Yes. Okay, fantastic.
	Now, it's because there's a contradiction between your truth claim and that which can be verified in reality.
	Is that right? Yes.
	Okay. Now, if I say a table is something that flies of its own accord using giant wings like a bat, is that a true or false statement?
	I would say false in our world.
	No, no. We can't keep going.
	To hell with your wormholes, man.
	We gotta just deal with the world as it is.
	We already accepted that, right?
	Nobody's gonna hold you to this blah blah blah, right?
	Okay, so that's a false statement because I have a description of something that doesn't match what it actually is, right?
	Well, because I've not observed the cognitive mechanism in a table that would lead me to conclude that it has decision-making capabilities and will.
	Okay, and so if there is a contradiction between the mental construct and that which is in the world, It is always the mental construct that is falsified.
	Is that right? I would say not always.
	There is, for example, an example from physics again.
	I'm sorry to be bringing this...
	No, you just can't bring in quantum physics or wormholes because we're trying to talk about ethics here.
	It's not quantum physics, actually.
	It's called the ONRU radiation.
	And in the ONRU radiation, it's a phenomenon that happens when you accelerate in a certain direction.
	There is a creation of certain particles that you will perceive as the accelerated observer.
	You will see those particles, but the people who are stationary outside of your frame of reference will not see the particles.
	There is such a thing as things that two observers cannot agree on, and yet they would not be able to correct each other on because they would not see the same thing.
	And it's legitimately because the particles do not appear to the stationary observer.
	Yeah, but I didn't talk about things that we see.
	I'm talking about mental constructs, right?
	So if I point at a tree and it's actually a statue and I say, sorry, if I point to a tree and say, that's a statue, I'm wrong, right?
	Well, you're wrong, but what I'm saying is that if you weren't pointing at a tree and instead you were pointing at the atom perceived from a non-Ru radiation, you would actually be correct in saying that the particle is there and the other observer would also be correct to say that the particle is not there.
	Right, but I'm not talking about subjective perception of things at an extreme level of physics, right?
	Let's just deal with the everyday now and we can get to physics a little later because, you know, that's kind of where we need to deal with in terms of ethics, right?
	There's an everyday reality in which trees are relatively stable and we tend to be able to agree that the tree is there.
	Wait, we agree that the tree is there or the tree is there?
	Well, we have enough knowledge of the universe to affirm that the tree would probably be there without us.
	That if you were to bar us from the universe, the ongoing processes of the universe would still have led to the tree.
	Aha! Unless we planted the tree!
	No, just kidding. That's just taking one of these radical skeptical approaches.
	That's exactly what was in my mind.
	No, no, I get it. I know the mindset.
	Listen, I appreciate the skepticism.
	I think skepticism and humility is really, really, really important to these things, right?
	Okay, so we are making some significant progress, and I'm glad everyone is enjoying and engaging the debate so much.
	I know that I am, and I certainly appreciate the back and forth.
	It's very, very important stuff.
	All right. So in a conflict...
	Between a mental concept and a physical thing, we must decide in favor of the physical thing.
	That's empiricism as a whole.
	That's the scientific method. Like, if you have a theory that predicts something, but matter behaves in a different way, then your theory is incorrect.
	Would you agree with that?
	I wouldn't make that statement because I wouldn't say we must.
	I would simply say that I am an animal that has evolved to do that, to look at the world and to be really informed by it.
	In fact, my brain is highly synchronized with the world.
	That's why evolution gave me eyes with 108 million photoreceptors.
	It's because being in tune with the world was helping my survival.
	But I wouldn't say that I must be that way.
	I'm just that way. But let's put it this way.
	Would you agree that science rejects theories which contradict the behavior of matter as incorrect or incomplete?
	Can you repeat this one?
	I missed the beginning. Sure.
	Would you agree that science rejects theories that inaccurately predict the behavior of matter or inaccurately describe the behavior of matter as incorrect or incomplete?
	Yes, I agree. Science does this in our world by the scientists that do it, yes.
	Well, that's the scientific theory, right?
	I mean, the fact that scientists don't always follow it is not a condemnation of the scientific theory, but a note on the fallibility of human beings.
	You know, like, you can have a great diet, but if somebody doesn't follow it, that doesn't mean that the diet is now not great, it just means somebody's not following the diet, right?
	Well, to be clear, I don't believe that there's something objectively right about a given science that must exist and that is the right one as opposed to other science.
	I think that science is always a human enterprise, and so I don't attribute some sort of objectivity to science.
	Of course, our scientists, they have been doing it for a while, and they're very good at making predictions, but I don't say that you must...
	Be a scientist or that the universe somehow forces us to be scientists.
	Yeah, no, I mean, straw man noted.
	That's not what I was saying.
	But it is an objective standard, although, of course, human beings have to implement it, and therefore, right?
	I mean, you have a perfect circle, and you can draw a circle.
	It's never going to be perfect, right?
	But we still have that idea of the universal standard.
	So the pursuit of facts in the world, the pursuit of truth in the world, has to do with the relationship between the concepts in our mind and what actually exists.
	In the universe. And of course, if we are claiming something to be universal, again, no wormholes, no quantum physics, because we're talking about ethics, right?
	So if we claim that something is universal, I mean, it's really a tautology, but it does have to be universal.
	Is that a fair thing to say? Well, universal, can you define it?
	Well, in what context?
	I mean, it's a movie studio, too.
	I just want to make sure I know in what context you want me to define it.
	Well, when you say universal morals, for example, what does that mean?
	Oh, moral rules.
	Well, we haven't got to morality yet, although we will, I think, quite soon, but...
	Universally preferable behavior is behavior that can be preferred by all people at all times in all places.
	It doesn't mean that they do prefer it.
	It just means that they can prefer it.
	It is not a logical contradiction.
	For people to be able to pursue that universally preferable behavior.
	And so I will give an example more.
	I know you've read the book or at least the articles.
	But this is for the audience.
	Okay, this is UPB 101.
	We finally got here. Okay, so UPB says this.
	If you say...
	That stealing is universally preferable behavior, then it becomes very quickly, in fact almost immediately, a self-contradictory statement.
	Stealing can never be universally preferable behavior.
	Why? Because stealing is taking someone's property without his permission or against his wishes.
	But if stealing is universally preferable behavior, then every human being would want to both steal and be stolen from at the same time.
	If you want to be stolen from, in other words, if you want your property to be taken, then it's not stealing.
	Let me give you a silly example, right?
	So let's say that JF and I, as we are want to do, are learning how to juggle fire.
	You know, we've got those batons that you light up and you twirl the batons and they're full of fire, right?
	And I have my beloved Sweatshirt on or whatever, right?
	And let's say this is my sweatshirt.
	I love this sweatshirt, right?
	But let's say that one of my fiery batons falls on my sweatshirt.
	And as it did on my head some years ago, right?
	So one of these fiery batons falls on my sweatshirt and sets fire to it.
	I'm up in flames like I'm on the cover of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, right?
	I'm straight up flambe dude, right?
	And then I say to JF, Get it off me!
	Get it off me! And he says, no, because in taxi cab geometry, you're not actually on fire.
	And I say, for God's sakes, man, get this.
	And he rips the shirt off me and runs away with it, right?
	Because somewhere over there, there's a bucket of water he can put it out in, right?
	Now, I desperately want him to take my property, my burning shirt, right?
	So, he's not stealing from me.
	Now, can you imagine if I begged him to take it off me and then the police show up and I say, hey man, that JF stole my shirt!
	And it's like, dude, you were on fire.
	You begged me to take it off you and the police would just laugh at me.
	Because if I want someone to take my property, they're not stealing from me.
	Like, if you take something from your garage, you put it out on the road with a sign saying, take me, and someone comes along and takes it, you don't get them to, woo-woo, call the cops and say, hey man, that guy stole my rusty old lawnmower or something like that, right?
	So, with regards to theft, theft can never be universally preferable behavior because it would require everybody wants to both steal and be stolen from because it's universally preferable, but you see, theft is asymmetrical, right?
	In other words, somebody wants to take my property.
	For theft to occur, I have to not want them to take my property.
	In other words, stealing cannot be universally preferable behavior because one person wants it, the other person doesn't.
	It's the same thing with Rape, of course, right?
	Rape being highly unwanted sexual activity, right?
	So if both people want to have sex, it's called lovemaking and all of that.
	If one person doesn't want to have sex and the other person forces them to, that's rape.
	So rape can never be universally preferable behavior.
	Because if rape were universally preferable behavior, then everyone would want to be raped and want to be raped all the time, no matter what, right?
	But if you want to be raped, then I guess you could say it's some kind of kinky role playing, but it's not rape, right?
	Like if you sign a document ahead of time that says, I really, really want this sexual activity to occur, well, that's called consent.
	And therefore, it's not rape, feminist ideology, nonwithstanding.
	So you can go the same route down with murder.
	You can go the same route down with assault.
	That assault is when you don't want to be hit.
	Like if JF and I, which will probably be the next round, we go into a boxing ring, or we go play hockey, or I try to give a speech in Vancouver, obviously we're consenting to violence activities, violent encounters.
	So you can't charge someone in a boxing ring with assault because you're going in there knowing that that's part of the game and you kind of consent ahead of time, right?
	Whereas if you just go up to someone and punch them in the face in the subway, well that's assault, right?
	So rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behaviors, which is why the non-aggression principle, the non-initiation of forces, is universal.
	Now, can respect for property rights be universally preferable behavior?
	Well, yeah. You know, you and I can both stand in the same room at the same time and magically not steal from each other, right?
	Again, sometimes there'll be pickpockets, sometimes people will steal.
	UPB is not a denial of free will.
	There is, of course, people who will act badly and so on, the same way that there are scientists who will fudge their data.
	It doesn't mean that the scientific method is invalid.
	It just means that human beings are fallible.
	You and I can both not assault each other.
	We cannot murder each other.
	We cannot rape each other.
	We cannot steal from each other.
	That can be theoretically universally preferable behavior with no innate self-contradiction.
	So that's the essence of the theory.
	Now, people, once you accept that there is such a thing as universally preferable behavior, which you do by telling me I'm wrong, Then we've already vaulted over there, and then we just have to figure out what universally preferable behavior is, and lo and behold, it accords with our basic moral instincts.
	Do not initiate force, do not steal, do not rape, do not murder, do not assault.
	This all falls within universally preferable behavior, and that's the basis of the theory.
	And, you know, from here, I'll shut up and you can tell me where that goes wrong.
	This is very interesting.
	I won't tell you where that goes wrong, because my claim is not that I'm right, you're wrong.
	My claim is I have a system of belief that is different about morality.
	Of course, as far as your use of...
	No, hang on. You tell me that UPP is wrong.
	So if I put forward, you have to tell me how...
	Well, you know this, right? We can get to your system of ethics in a sec, but I wasn't out here criticizing publicly your system of ethics.
	You were out here criticizing my system of ethics, which again, I have no problem with.
	I'm a big boy in the public square, and I'm dealing with the most challenging aspects of human society, namely ethics.
	So you have to tell me how something like rape can be universally preferable behavior, or how my formulation that it's self-contradictory is incorrect, you know, that kind of stuff.
	Yeah, well, by this standard, yes, I'm arguing that UPB is contradictory, and I have a couple of moral problems to throw at you and see how you can handle them.
	Well, no, no, hang on, hang on. UPB has as its foundation these four issues, right?
	Theft, assault, and murder. There can be situations where you can come up with some very convoluted—and I don't mind talking about those, you know, these lifeboat scenarios and people on tram lines and a switch and starving in a lifeboat and so on—but the four main ones—like, if all I've done is proven without gods or governments that rape, theft, assault, and murder are philosophically— Anti-rational, immoral, wrong, and all of that.
	I mean, that's a huge deal, right?
	So if there's something on the other side of that where you say, okay, well, there is this blinding light called the sun, but there's a couple of sunspots.
	Okay, well, let's at least acknowledge the blinding light of the sun, right?
	So do you accept with UPB the fact that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior?
	No. Oh, good.
	Okay, well, let's get that done then.
	In my view of universality, it must apply to all possible worlds.
	So we're back to this.
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	Dude, we already went over this.
	You can't jump back through the wormholes.
	Just deal with the facts in evidence.
	No, I refuse.
	No, no, you already accepted that we were going to not jump to wormholes.
	We already had that agreement, so you can't just go back and change that now.
	As long as you're using the word universal, you're using a word that points to other worlds, and so you're trying to develop it.
	Oh, dude, just deal with the theory that's in front of you.
	Forget about the wormholes and the other dimensions.
	Just deal with the theory that's in front of you that you say is wrong.
	Now, you can't say it's wrong because in some other universe everything could be incorrect, because that would be a universal statement for you too, and therefore you could never say that anything was wrong.
	You could never disagree with anyone.
	You could never insult anyone.
	You could never get mad at anyone.
	You could never correct anyone if there's this other universe.
	So we have to put that aside.
	That is an emotional defense to have you avoid dealing with the four core arguments about rape, theft, assault, and murder that characterize UPB. If you can turn those over, I would be eternally grateful.
	But jumping out to other dimensions, we already agreed we weren't going to do.
	So let's not do that. I agree to that, only to the extent that you would stop using universal, but I refuse to treat the English language that way.
	Dude, the debate here is called universal ethics.
	I have something to say, Stéphane, can I say it?
	I refuse to treat the English language that way, where universal doesn't mean everywhere.
	I'm sorry, I have too much respect for the world.
	But the world is the world that we're dealing with.
	The world is the world that is.
	The world is the empirical world that is, not other dimensions where the opposite can always be true.
	The thing is, if you want to talk about the world that is, you can't talk about the universe, because we don't even know the universe in which we live, and let alone all possible worlds.
	If you want to talk about the world that is, just humans, that's us?
	I'm going to agree with you and make it easy, because this is really boring.
	Oh, I'm going to jump into another dimension because I don't want to deal with your argument.
	It's really boring. Let's say that universal here, and we can change it to another word if you want.
	I'm happy to take another. You can say underwater.
	I don't care, right? Let's just say that universal, just for the context of this debate, universal means the sensible, tangible, material, empirical world in which we exist, right?
	And then at the end of it, we can relinquish that, but just for the purposes of this debate, because this is where ethics live, is in the world that we actually live in, let's just say that you can deal with UPB In the context of the world in which we exist, the world in which you and I are debating, the world in which moral actions take place, okay?
	Can you overturn the four core arguments of UPB in that context?
	Well, the arguments are based around universality.
	Let's make it easy here and talk about the human species, okay?
	Are you claiming that the human species cannot prefer rape?
	I've already just told you that.
	I've already made that case a couple of times.
	Were you not listening? Well, what if the people who are rapists, eventually in the future, they end up being the dominant population?
	What if they are 100 persons?
	No. UPP is a theory of ethics.
	And if you say it's self-contradictory, you have to deal with it in the context of the claims that it makes.
	Because here you say, Steph, you've got to make these claims, right?
	You're making these positive arguments, and you've got to make these claims.
	Okay, well, I've just made the claims.
	Rate, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior.
	So you have to deal, I mean, if you want to debate in good faith, then you can't wander me off to some situation where everyone becomes Genghis Khan.
	Can you deal with the actual theory called UPB, which you said was self-contradictory?
	Yes, UPB is self-contradictory.
	I never got to explain why yet.
	That being said, as far as rape, the thing is you're trying to distill my statement down to, is everyone a rapist right now on Planet Earth?
	No, that's not what I said.
	Can rape be universally preferable behavior?
	Rape could be universal in the human species.
	It could. No, no, no, no. The theory is not, it's not anthropology, man.
	This is philosophy. Well, you're trying to limit me to plan a third and one pilot.
	Can rape logically be universally preferable behavior in theory?
	In theory. But we're back to the world of imagination here.
	No, no, this is the world of philosophy.
	It depends on what you accept as a frozen tree.
	I'm putting forward a logical argument which you asked for me to do.
	And now you either have to accept or rebut that logical argument.
	You know this is how debate works, right?
	So can rate ever be universally preferable behavior?
	Yes, rape could be universally adopted by all males of a species.
	No, no, no. I didn't say adopted.
	Can rape be universally preferable behavior according to the theory?
	Well, the thing is, you are keeping me from talking about imaginary world, and you are immediately going back to an imaginary world.
	If we talk about the world that's in front of us, the world that's in front of us has a certain percentage of rapists and thefts, and they could become the majority, and they could become the whole population at some point.
	UPP is a theory, right?
	Which says, what can be universally preferable behavior?
	Now, as I pointed out, rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior because they're asymmetrical.
	Because for something to be universally preferable, everyone would have to be able to prefer it at all times.
	And that can't happen with rape, theft, and assault, and murder because they are one person wanting something and the other person desperately not wanting that to happen.
	So it can't be universally preferable behavior.
	Now, you can rebut that, which you can't, because, I mean, that's just a fact, right?
	Again, maybe you can. Maybe there's something I haven't thought of.
	Or we can accept that that is the case, and then we can talk about what people actually do in the world, and we can talk about rapists, universal rapists and all that.
	But the question of UPB... It doesn't...
	UPB doesn't say nobody will ever want to rape.
	UPB doesn't say there will never be a world where there are a lot of rapists or everyone's a rapist.
	That's not... Like, that's a total straw man.
	UPB says rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior.
	That's what we have to deal with.
	That's what you were criticizing.
	And so if you say there's contradictions in that theory, you can't just come up with your own standards.
	That's called a straw man. Where you come up with your own standards and say, well, UPB doesn't...
	Do this. So UPB doesn't do that.
	It's like, but that's not what UPB is claiming to do.
	UPB is simply claiming to point out that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior.
	That's it. That's the whole deal.
	Now, if you criticize UPB and you say it's self-contradictory, then you have to say how it's self-contradictory based upon what it claims to do, not on some other standard that you're bringing in.
	Oh, absolutely. I think it is self-contradictory by the standard that it claims to have found an objective basis for morality when that basis really comes from a mind, your mind or the mind of those who agree.
	So all I'm saying in the case of rape, the case that you present about rape, Is for this to be true, for UPB to be true, you need to accept certain axioms.
	And these axioms come from a subjective mind.
	There is no objective standard by which these axioms are true.
	You have to tell me how the theory is self-contradictory.
	Just describing contradictions doesn't do it.
	That's just me saying, well, I'm going to describe myself being right.
	Oh, look, I'm right. How can rape be universally preferable behavior?
	Let me explain by which standard it is self-contradictory.
	Can you just give me the self-contradiction?
	Would that be possible?
	Listen, Stéphane, do you claim in your book that you have an objective standard or empirical standard for morality?
	Universally preferable behavior says that rape, theft, assault, and murder cannot ever be universally preferable behavior.
	That's the argument.
	Can you deal with that argument itself?
	Do you claim that the root of this statement is objective?
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	It's not called objectively preferable behavior.
	You're looking for a source of morality that is objective.
	Is that not a quote from you?
	Okay, so I'm going to just go with this, okay?
	You have not been able to rebut...
	The arguments about rape, theft, assault, and murder, you've just kept dodging them.
	And what that means, you understand that that is a loss, that is a concession that I'm right and you're wrong by definition.
	I put forward the arguments very clearly.
	Everybody in the chat room understands it.
	Everybody on my Discord server understands it.
	It's very clear. Now, if you say, I can't rebut those arguments, and you can't, right?
	Of course, rape can't be universally preferable behavior because it's asymmetric, right?
	So that's fine. Now, we can talk about something else, but let's stop with this filibustering and petty fogging and gaslighting and all of that and going off into other dimensions, right?
	Rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior.
	You either have to rebut that or you have to accept it and we can move on to something else.
	Now, accepting that doesn't mean that everything in the book is right, but those arguments are the ones you asked me to produce, which I did.
	I've never claimed that I would rebut that.
	I claim that I'm a moral nice.
	That is, that the source of morality is not objective.
	The source of morality, since we are subjective agents, comes from our own mind and our own choices and preferences.
	That is what I claim.
	And I'm asking you, do you say in your book or not that the UPB can be reached from an empirical and objective standard?
	Because I haven't heard what that objective standard is yet.
	All right. Okay, so I guess you haven't read the book then.
	All right. So, the objective standard is called rationality.
	Would you agree that rationality is an objective standard?
	Well, rationality is a process that exists within the mind and, in my view, is a subjective standard.
	So, rationality is a subjective standard?
	Absolutely. Are there any objective standards?
	Because you said that only, hang on, you said that only moral claims are not subject to truth or falsehood claims.
	And we had this whole argument before, or debates, about the objective truth values and standards and statues and trees and all of this, right?
	Now, are you saying that logic itself is a completely subjective standard?
	That if I say A is A, or I put out the law of non-contradiction or whatever, But if rationality is a completely subjective standard, how can you say that someone else's theory is wrong if it's self-contradictive?
	That's the key. I've never said that your theory was wrong by this standard.
	I said it was self-contradictory.
	That being said, how can you see rationality as subjective?
	Well, it's quite simple. You can see that rationality doesn't come from an empirical observation of the world.
	In other words, you have to start by agreeing with certain axioms to explore a certain subset of possible rational conclusions.
	Some of these are first principles.
	A equals A, the identity and all of the basics that we tend to take for granted.
	All I point to is that these first axioms, these first principles must be adhered to in the first place for rationality to emerge the way we expect it to do.
	So you think that rationality is just a subjective agreement, like language, like we can have one word for tree in English, we can have another word in Swahili or French or whatever it is.
	So that is a subjective agreement, language, right?
	Are you saying that rationality is of the same category, is in the same category, it's a subjective agreement rather than having any relationship to...
	It's a hard metaphor for me to subscribe to because there are ways in which it resembles language and its arbitrariness.
	There are other ways in which it totally differs.
	All I'm stating really is that first principles and the principles of rationality and whether we should or should or should not look at the world around us and be inspired by it and develop models of it, that all of it relies on adopting the axioms of first principle in the first place or accepting them in some implicit ways as we go forward.
	Okay, so if I were to define self-contradiction as consistency and truth, you'd have no problem with that.
	Yes, I mean, we can adopt these words for now.
	Where does that go?
	No, I'm just asking you if I or someone defines self-contradiction as accuracy and truth.
	You would be fine with that, because reason is subjective.
	I mean, to me, you would just have put relabeled stuff, but yes, I wouldn't take a huge issue with this relabel.
	So, if you identify a contradiction in someone else's belief system, all that person has to do is redefine contradiction as true, and it's perfectly true, right?
	I wouldn't say it's perfectly true.
	It may be false or true by my standard or by other standards, but I couldn't call them deceptive if they were to label their book and say, this book is self-contradictory, careful, you know, like the labels we see on cigarette packages.
	No, no, no, not self-contradictory, careful.
	Like if somebody says, my mathematics is based upon two and two make five, you would never contradict.
	Well, I would say here's a new type of mathematics.
	I don't think it's going to lead to much, but let's explore what that means and what it leads to.
	Because earlier you were saying that when a mathematician made an error, you would correct that person.
	To be clear, I would correct them within systems of axioms they have adhered to.
	So I would correct Euclid if he was to tell me, Jeff, with a compass and a straight edge, I have found a way to do a square circle in Euclidean geometry.
	I would say you're wrong.
	You're violating your own Euclidean geometry.
	But I wouldn't correct someone who explicitly states other axioms and adopts other beliefs and see where that leads.
	Okay, so if I define logic, whatever logical problems you have with UPB, if I simply define those as a new type of logic, then you can never say that UPB is incorrect ever again, right?
	Absolutely. You could say, I take UPB as an axiomatic basis to a future system.
	Let's see what it leads to.
	The same way you could say 2 plus 2 equals 5, and I have some questions to ask about this system.
	Are there prime numbers in a system where 2 plus 2 equals 5?
	I don't know. Let's look it up.
	So no one can ever be wrong.
	Well, it's that people can be wrong by the standards of local agents and moral nihilism...
	No, no, no, come on. Don't give me this word, glifuffle, right?
	Rationality, reason, reasoned argument is exactly the same as a personal taste in food, right?
	So if I say I like ice cream, I'm not...
	I'm not logically wrong or empirically right or wrong about any of that, right?
	Even if I never eat it, I might like it, but it's, you know, my teeth hurt or something like that, right?
	So no one can ever be wrong because rationality is subjective, right?
	They can be wrong by certain standards.
	The standards can be objective or they can be subjective.
	Oh, good! Okay, so good. We've got objective standards.
	Okay, so we're back to objective standards.
	I thought reason was the objective standard, but that's not.
	So what are, hang on, what are the objective standards then?
	Okay, because I really want to know this.
	Well, as I said, I recognize objective standards in the case of observations of common points about the universe.
	So, for example, the statement, is this table in front of me white?
	This is a statement that can be demonstrated by objective standard to be right, to be false or true.
	But logic is not one of those objective standards.
	Exactly. Logic is subject to subjective axiom systems that are built inside the mind.
	Okay, well let me ask you this then.
	Is UPB something that is based on logic and concepts or something that is empirical, like a white table?
	It is not empirical and it is based in concepts, subjective concepts.
	Okay, good. So how on earth can you say that UPB is incorrect if it's impossible to say that theoretical constructs are incorrect?
	Well, by the standards I use, is that UPB claims to be based on objective and empirical standards, and it is not based on objective and empirical standards.
	Therefore, it is wrong as UPB lies in itself.
	Lies? What do you mean?
	Yeah, essentially, UPB contains a false statement about itself.
	Which is that it is...
	Based in objective and empirical standards.
	Well, but if I make a logical argument, that to me is objective.
	But if you define logic as subjective, then you can call every theoretical construct wrong, right?
	Absolutely. That's essentially what I'm here to state.
	Okay, so your theoretical construct that self-contradictions in UPB cause the theory to be false...
	There's nothing to that either.
	Because you're getting up on your high horse calling other people's theories wrong because mental concepts can never be proven right or wrong.
	But your whole idea that contradiction is a problem is another mental construct.
	How on earth does your mental construct get to be right and other people's gets to be wrong?
	I don't understand. Exactly.
	Stefan, I think I just made you a moral nihilist.
	No, no, no. I disagree with you completely.
	You've actually firmed me up on the horrors of moral nihilism here.
	So how is it that your arguments, which are theoretical constructs, get to be absolute, and everyone else's that you're criticizing gets to be wrong?
	Because, listen, I've watched a bunch of videos, man.
	You're constantly telling other people that they're wrong.
	You're constantly contradicting other people.
	You're constantly telling them that they're not coming up to scratch.
	So how is it that all of your arguments are somehow objective and true, but everyone else's arguments against you is just subjective and relative?
	When I use the wrong word, it's not often that I use it, but it's a claim from a subjective agent.
	I have no problem recognizing that I'm a subjective agent with his own priors, his own subjective preference.
	That's what being a moral nihilist is all about.
	So it's not something that I have difficulty to accept.
	What I claim is that you're just like me, Stéphane, that you don't have access to something more objective and that your philosophical framework is just as objective as well.
	Please don't rummage around in my head with those gritty nihilist fingers.
	That's kind of gross to me. But let's go to where you feel, or your argument, or whatever it is that I don't even know what language to use.
	I guess that's kind of the point, right?
	So how is it that UPB... It fails in its claims, not in claims that you've invented, but in claims that I make in the book.
	And we can't use wormholes because I'm dealing with ethics and I talk about that at the beginning of the book.
	So how is it that UPB is either self-contradictory or anti-empirical?
	So it fails in the claim to offer a framework for morality that is based on objective standard or empiricism.
	It doesn't do that.
	Really what it does is offer a system of thought that comes from a mind that is preferred by certain minds, no doubt, but that is just that, a system without objective or empirical standards.
	Well, you just stated a conclusion without making an argument.
	So if you could actually make the argument, I would really appreciate it.
	Okay, the argument is, I've read every word in the book, I don't find an objective or empirical standard.
	All I find are thoughts from a subjective standpoint, that you need to agree on certain axioms before getting there.
	If you can make an actual argument, right, you're just making statements here.
	So if you could make an actual argument, I would appreciate it.
	Because, you know, you saying, I don't find this there, or this is not, I mean, that's just, that's not an argument, right?
	That is my argument.
	I consider it done. If you have an answer to it, I'm happy to hear it.
	I asked you what problems you found in UPB and you said UPB is false.
	It's not an argument.
	Notice that I've not even said that.
	Okay, UPB is deficient or UPB is not achieving its claims, but you actually have to prove that, don't you?
	I mean, you're making a statement here that UPB falls short of its claims or something like that, so please tell me how.
	My argument is complete.
	I can repeat it. There is a claim that is based on objective standard, yet nothing comes from the universe, nothing comes from an objective standpoint.
	Everything that constitutes the root of UPB comes from a human mind, and therefore it is subject to the preferences of that human mind.
	Okay, so I see your argument that UPB has within it no reference to empiricism.
	There is some lines about empiricism, but they don't form the root of the particular philosophy pushed in UPB. In other words, you talk about the world in UPB. Well, perhaps you can tell me then where UPB's empiricism...
	First of all, what claims UPB makes regarding empiricism and how they fall short of your standard?
	Well, there are certain claims.
	For example, in UPB, you claim that the world is filled with the disease, the disease of nihilism and relativism.
	And you list a couple of attitudes around this.
	You talk of people who believe in nothing.
	You talk of people falling prey to consumerism.
	Those are statements about the world.
	There's a standard by which they are false or true.
	Whether human beings are indeed addicted to consumerism or acting in ways A, B, C are demonstrable statements.
	What it doesn't allow us to conclude is that there is an empirical basis for this prior preference, which allows you to look at these behaviors and say they are objectively wrong.
	Okay, those throw away commentaries in UPB, they certainly don't form the core of the argument.
	So if you've not remembered, that's fine.
	I mean, it's a long book. I guess maybe you read it a while ago.
	But there is a fairly lengthy section in UPB wherein I talk about the relationship between theory and practice, right?
	So we generally would accept that science is more objective than, say, religion, in the same way that our waking life tends to be more objective and consistent than our dream life.
	It's one of the ways in which we know we're awake versus we're dreaming.
	And so the more consistent a theory is in general, the more productive an outcome it will be.
	In other words, if you're an engineer and you believe that the gravity varies enormously over the course of the day, you will probably not be a very effective or efficient engineer.
	So consistency of theory has a lot to do with practical value of outcome.
	And so I do talk about how if you have a society That is generally based upon universal and consistent bans on rape, theft, assault, and murder, then the more those societies tend to respect property rights and personal sovereignty and bodily integrity and so on,
	the more that Societies enact principles based upon UPB in general, the better those societies will become according to various metrics, which I think we can all say it's better to live on $100 a day than on $1 a day.
	It's better to have access to healthcare than not to have access to healthcare.
	It's better to, you know, have relatively comfortable temperatures rather than die of heat or cold every day or whatever it is.
	Better to have some way to store food than to starve to death over the winter.
	So there's some things that...
	Now, this is not proof of UPB, but this is a proof of the value of the effects of UPB. And so, like, in the way that if we apply a particular medicine to cure an illness, if the medicine does in fact cure that illness with few, if any, side effects, that's generally better than a medicine which...
	I do talk about how when societies do ban rape, theft, assault, and murder on a more consistent basis, they generally tend to do better.
	And an example that I've used more recently in my debates is around...
	Slavery is a violation of thou shalt not steal, and also since slavery is enforced through the threat of violence and fundamentally murder—all threats of violence are threats of murder in general—then It's a violation of thou shalt not steal.
	It's a violation of thou shalt not murder.
	And so when slavery was eliminated in the various countries in various locations from sort of the post-agricultural revolution in some places, pre-agricultural revolution in others, when slavery was When slavery diminished and wage labor took its place, society became enormously wealthier.
	In other words, there are empirical tests.
	So UPB perfectly predicts why communism fails.
	UPB perfectly predicts why a free market We're good to go.
	And so I do have a fairly lengthy section in the book talking about how does UPB predict the outcome of various societies?
	Well, when theft becomes universal, as it does in socialism and communism, we would expect a bad outcome, and lo and behold, we find it.
	If a free market is respected and personal property rights and the non-aggression principle are more respected in one society than another, we would expect that society to gain particular benefits with regards to material outcomes.
	And we can see For example, North Korea versus South Korea, where you have pretty much a genetically identical population, where South Korea people are much happier.
	They have, I think, 35 times the income, and they're not constantly trying to break out of South Korea and get into North Korea.
	And so if you look at these two societies, one is much more UPB compliant than the other, which violates murder and rape and theft and assault continually, right?
	And so there is a pretty significant section of the book which talks about how the theory of UPB would predict outcomes in various societies, and it does actually hold.
	So there is a theory, and there is kind of an empirical test.
	Unfortunately, there are horrible laboratories of totalitarianism and violations of persons and property all over the world, and UPB very well predicts the outcome of Levels of compliance with UPB standards.
	So, yeah, there is a very strong empirical component to it that does hold true, not just across the world, but throughout human history.
	Well, my view on this is it could very well be the case that certain moral systems, certain ways of behaving in society lead to more wealth.
	That would be, to me, a factual statement.
	It would be subject to science and we just count the wealth and count the rapes and make correlations.
	That being said, all I would point out here is that desiring wealthy societies is a moral preference in and of itself, and it stems from subjective considerations.
	This makes me think about Kyrgyzstan, a country where I've seen a documentary about recently on Vice, It's a documentary from 2012.
	And in this country, it seems that the majority of marriage are actually acquired by bride kidnapping, essentially a rape, essentially the man going to kidnap his bride by force, bringing her to the family.
	And within a few hours, it seems that, or within a few days for certain of them, it seems that they acquire a Taste for the husband, and they end up enduring it and accepting the marriage eventually.
	My point here is that this society works differently.
	It does violate the rape or violence standard that you set.
	Yet, it works, and it's not my belief.
	I wouldn't want to live in that society.
	But it works, and humans can have converged toward other systems of belief than those in UPB. But you don't consider that to be immoral?
	Well, I don't.
	No, because you don't believe in morality, right?
	I mean, I have my preferences.
	So as I said, what I would say is I would prefer not to live in that society where bribery is not common.
	Yeah, but that's just because it's not immoral.
	That's just what you're used to, right?
	It's another system of life, and there's no objective standard by which it's wrong.
	It's only my belief by which it is wrong.
	A rapist is not immoral in your formulation, right?
	That there's nothing morally wrong with rape?
	There is something subjectively, in my view, wrong with rape, but that is all.
	No, but there's nothing morally wrong with rape.
	There's nothing morally wrong objectively, but there is something in my preference, in my subjective experience as a human being.
	Yes, I despise rape.
	Well, no, but that's just...
	So if you saw a rapist, you would actually have no right to stop him, right?
	Because he prefers to rape and you prefer, say, not to rape, but you would have no right to stop him, right?
	There are certain circumstances in which I would act.
	Other circumstances, like Kyrgyzstan, I won't go there and fix the society for them.
	No, no, no, I'm not talking about Kyrgyzstan.
	Hang on. If you saw a man going to rape a woman, would you stop him?
	Yes, sometimes I have preferences for stopping others, if I can.
	But on what philosophical grounds, as a moral nihilist, on what grounds would you stop him?
	No philosophical ground at all.
	So your behavior would have absolutely nothing to do with your moral theory.
	In fact, it would be in complete opposition to your moral theory.
	It wouldn't be in opposition.
	It would simply be that I'm acting according to my preferences as an animal and I'm just the kind of animal that hates rape.
	No, I get that. But he's the kind of animal that likes rape and he's not better than you or worse than you.
	It's just different preferences, right?
	Yeah, but if I'm strong enough and I feel I can stop it, I may do it because not only am I an animal that has preferences concerning myself, I am an animal that is able to deploy force when I want to stop something that I don't want to see.
	No, I get it. I get it.
	So you would act as an animal in the same way that the rapist would act as an animal, and neither of you would be right or wrong.
	The rapist would simply be trying to achieve his goal, and you would be trying to achieve your goal.
	You would not be any better than the rapist.
	You would be acting on the same impulses.
	Is that right? Exactly.
	There would be no objective standard by which I'm better.
	I would just be better in my head.
	If you saw a man raping a child, You would also be no better than the child rapist, morally.
	Same thing with children.
	It's not because it's a child that it changes the moral problem.
	Does it trouble you at all that...
	You put yourself on the same amoral level as a child rapist.
	I'm just emotionally, I mean intellectually, I don't even know what's going on, but I'm just kind of curious.
	It's the same question I had for the communists.
	If you have a moral theory that puts you on the same level as a rapist or a child rapist, does that give you any pause about the theory?
	Does that make you think that maybe you've made a mistake somewhere?
	No, to the contrary, I think it empowers you with an understanding that whatever equilibrium we've reached as human society is very fragile and it could have gone other way and it could go other way in the future.
	And it gives you a kind of moral I would say an attitude against moral imperialism and an understanding that ultimately I'm that way, but I could have been another way.
	And it actually removes a will to act in certain situations, for example, respecting others when they choose to use drugs or not acting when they choose to do self-harm.
	It simply gives you The power to understand that society could have gone another way, could have been much more violent, and that the particular moralities that we have, they could go away eventually if they were selected out of us.
	Okay, so let me ask you this.
	So I did see a video that someone sent to me.
	We don't have to get into the details because it's all water on the bridge.
	I think this was some years ago.
	But you referred to something...
	To me blocking you on Twitter, you referred to this...
	You referred to...
	You said Steph is...
	It's extremely dishonorable behavior on the part of Steph.
	Extremely dishonorable behavior.
	This was your criticism of me.
	Help me understand how...
	I mean, I'm not offended.
	Again, it's all water under the bridge.
	But when you refer to my extremely dishonorable behavior...
	And you complain that I'm lying about you and that I'm wearing a mask of lies and all of this.
	How does that fit with moral nihilism?
	Well, moral nihilism doesn't keep one from having moral preferences.
	And so I don't know that I used the word dishonorable.
	Maybe I did. Yeah, you did.
	I'll put the link below just for those who don't know.
	I'll put the link with the timecode below.
	I wrote it down. Extremely dishonorable behavior.
	I have a concept of honor, and Stéphane is not according in line with it at this moment.
	That's what it meant, probably, but I don't remember.
	Oh, so you can make moral judgments as a moral nihilist, and that's no fucking problem at all, right?
	Absolutely. So when someone comes up with a moral theory, you can just dismiss it.
	And you can say, well, I'm basically the same as a rapist or a child rapist or whatever, a murderer.
	But you get to moralize and criticize people morally, even though you're a moral nihilist.
	So it just seems you can have it in your cake and eat it too.
	Because it seems to me that if I'm not a believer in a particular religion, I shouldn't go and kiss the hem of the garment of the priest.
	I shouldn't go to the church.
	But if you get to say, oh, I condemn this person morally, he's extremely dishonorable, he's lying about me, he's wearing a mask of lies, and you get to get on your high horse morally— Well, then you're a moralist.
	And then saying, well, no, no, I'm a moral nihilist.
	It's like, oh, come on, man. You got to pick one side of the goddamn aisle, right?
	No, you don't. And I would say moralizing is the cadet.
	Reason is subjective.
	I get to be a moralizer and I can then criticize other people for contradictions, but I don't have any contradictions because other universes and taxicab geometry and quantum physics, I can have all the contradictions that I want.
	It doesn't matter. I can be a moralist.
	I can be an anti-moralist.
	Depends whatever I want. Come on, you're just a hedonist.
	You just want to do what you want to do, and you're trailing all of these ex post facto justifications afterwards.
	It's nothing to do with philosophy.
	You just want to do what you want to do, but you want to have some intellectual defense for all of this stuff.
	You don't want to have any standards, unless you want to have standards and inflict them on others, but when those standards get turned around, suddenly everything's subjective again.
	Come on, this is a mess.
	Turns out I'm actually not a hedonist.
	I don't value very much pleasure.
	That being said, yes, the moral nihilism is the Cadillac of moral philosophy.
	It does allow you to get your cake and eat it too.
	And I welcome you in, Stéphane, if you ever want to go for it.
	No, thanks. I can never be lured into a dank and horrifying belief system, which puts me on the same level as a child rapist.
	I'm sorry. I don't care what the hell is on the other side of that table.
	You're never getting me over there.
	That is horrifying beyond words, and I don't think I'm alone in feeling that.
	All right. Well, I think that's about it.
	For us, that's about it.
	For me, I got to go and do something to...
	Changed my state of mind, but I do appreciate your time.
	If you want to help out, freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	I thank everyone who came by, thousands of people coming by to watch this chat.
	I really appreciate it.
	And I look forward to your feedback.
	And I guess we'll be doing this again with someone else sometime soon.
	But that's it for tonight.
	Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest free domain show on philosophy.
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