April 3, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
16:50
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| All right, so hi everybody. | |
| Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain. | |
| Sorry a couple of days without shows, but we're back in the saddle and we are talking about UPB. | |
| Thank you for the great questions. | |
| Let's dive right in. | |
| Now should a moralist, should a moralist ignore consequence and argue for UPB purely on the basis of epistemology and pure philosophical merit while ignoring the question we all subconsciously ask? | |
| How does this benefit my survival? | |
| UPB isn't validated or invalidated by its consequences but at the same time discussions of UPB inevitably involve consequences. | |
| How do we reconcile this? | |
| Especially since free will is in the picture and we don't want predictions about the future to invalidate a choice. | |
| For example, when asked about your thoughts on the success of UPB Close to 20 years after publication, you mentioned reductions in violence against children, with the expectation that this trend would continue if UPB continues to be spread. | |
| Would the theory and observation that UPB leads to reduction in violence against children be a deterministic portrayal of human beings? | |
| If we avoid discussing consequences to avoid this issue, then if somebody wants to discuss UPB on the merit of usefulness towards themselves and society as a whole, do we stick to purely philosophical merit? | |
| Or do we say, there are no guarantees, but it will make a desirable outcome more likely? | |
| If we use terms such as, more likely, in order to maintain philosophical integrity, how do we out-compete those who are certain-slash-dogmatic, benefiting from the momentum of societal norms in order to, quote, validate, end quote, their false theories? | |
| Regarding the first question about the relationship between moral frameworks There are consequences and free will. | |
| I was thinking that if your definition is used, where free will is defined as our ability to compare proposed actions to ideal standards, then UPB provides ideal standards. | |
| Increasing our capacity for free will, with this increased capacity, it becomes more likely for moral outcomes to occur. | |
| Each insight that UPB provides could then be, like water, added to the clouds, making it more likely for a rain to fall. | |
| Nourishing a drying and cracked earth, our conscience. | |
| If human beings are alienated from their conscience because of invalid moral beliefs, then UPB makes it possible for a greater union between ourselves and our conscience. | |
| Since the conscience isn't the only determinant of our behavior, we could say that this isn't deterministic. | |
| Instead, this establishes a non-deterministic cause. | |
| Okay, so this goes on and on and I appreciate these questions. | |
| I don't mean to So, should a moralist ignore consequence and argue for UPB purely on the basis of epistemology and pure philosophical merit while ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the question we all subconsciously ask, how does this benefit my survival? | |
| So, UPB is not primarily consequentialist but it has consequences and I think the best way to understand this is to look at the scientific method. | |
| The scientific method does not say that this scientific theory of the shape of the earth is more valid if it allows you to sail around the world more accurately. | |
| However, a valid theory about the shape of the earth does in fact allow you to To sail around the earth more accurately. | |
| If that makes sense, right? | |
| So, UPP is not consequentialist because consequentialism is really a form of mysticism. | |
| It is to say, well, my beliefs will have positive outcomes and therefore you should accept what I say to be true. | |
| My beliefs have positive outcomes therefore you should accept what I say to be true. | |
| Well, All that does is cause immense amounts of escalation, right? | |
| Because people say, well, the consequences of not believing what I say will be so absolutely disastrous that you have to believe what it is that I say. | |
| You must. | |
| If you don't believe what I say, the world will end. | |
| If you believe what I say, then the world will be saved and will become a paradise. | |
| Well, we would not accept that as a valid scientific argument or mathematical argument or biological argument or anything like that. | |
| So, the problem with consequentialism is it leaves entire moral categories and arguments open to immense amounts of manipulation by sophists and cold-hearted people who just want to promise you heaven and threaten you with hell in order to get you to fall in line. | |
| With their self-serving moral quote theories. | |
| Well, moral theories, but quote moral theories. | |
| So, the truth of the shape of the world is independent of the consequences of that belief. | |
| However, an accurate statement about the truth of the shape of the world does in fact lead us to be able to navigate, say, from Spain to the New World more accurately. | |
| An accurate statement about the shape and nature of the solar system is not consequentialist but it has consequences. | |
| If you thought that the earth was the center of the solar system you would have a very hard time sending a probe say past Mars and out beyond Jupiter and so on like you would simply not be able to do that because your entire conception of the shape of the universe of the solar system would be incorrect. | |
| Right? So, while beliefs have consequences, the truth or falsehood of those beliefs is not determined by those consequences. | |
| So, otherwise, you would simply have to experiment all the time, and humanity could not survive. | |
| So, if you're a hunter-gatherer, back in the day, and you're hungry, your family's hungry, you don't just start eating random things around and see what fills you up and what doesn't poison you and what is edible and you don't just eat tree bark and and bits of earth and a rock you know you just because that would be consequentialism you have to have a theory about what is tasty and what is healthy and what is going to give you fuel and energy and so on right so you can't just try things randomly like you couldn't | |
| say well i want to send a spaceship out past mars and jupiter so i'm just gonna Fire, you know a bazillion spaceships into the sky and see which one follows a path that is helpful, right? | |
| That would be consequentialism So you have a theory and this is you know, basic science, right? | |
| I don't mean to sorry sound that sounds kind of insulting but taking the scientific analogy over to Morality has for me at least with UPB always been very helpful. | |
| So So yeah, it's a basic science that you have a hypothesis That, say, the world is a sphere, and you then could test that hypothesis by attempting to navigate across the world as if it were a sphere. | |
| So, of course, you could say that it's a heliocentric solar system. | |
| It goes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and with that order in your thoughts, you could then try to predict where and when and how The retrograde motion of Mars is observed. | |
| So, for instance, you could say, well, Mars starts swinging back in the night sky because Earth is accelerating it. | |
| Because it's a shorter 93 million mile orbit, Earth is accelerating around the Sun. | |
| So you would have a prediction. | |
| So, the fact that there are consequences to moral belief systems is important. | |
| But they are not validated by those belief systems. | |
| The morals are not validated by those belief systems. | |
| Because validation, when you say, how does this benefit my survival? | |
| Well, validation is subjective according to that standard. | |
| Human beings are an ecosystem of predator and prey, for the most part, at least throughout most of our evolution. | |
| So, if you're Genghis Khan, how well does, you know, raping and pillaging and all these kinds of terrible things, how well does that all serve The survival of your genes. | |
| Well, isn't it like one out of every 17 people in that part of Asia is descended from Genghis Khan or something like that? | |
| So, you know, that does pretty well for him. | |
| But it doesn't do very well for all of the men he displaced in his, you know, raping and pillaging and so on, right? | |
| Would you rather be Aristotle in ancient Greece or would you rather be a slave? | |
| Well, it serves, at least in the short run, it serves Aristotle's Survival or interests to have slaves but it does not serve the slaves survival and interest so I think in general though you do have to have I think moralists do have to accept this you know fairly big and robust challenge which you know would be to say something like when moral rules UPP when UPP when | |
| moral rules are violated Things should get worse. | |
| And I'll get into sort of the things and the worse in a sec, but just in general. | |
| And when moral rules are more consistent than society does, better. | |
| So, of course, one of the big challenges is how is it that we get the modern world after the end of slavery? | |
| I mean, that certainly was a consequence of the end of slavery to a large degree. | |
| And, you know, we can haggle and go into details here and there, but in general, serfdom and slavery were the foundation of most of Western wealth, and then it turned to a much more free market in labor, and that changed everything to the point where we now have the modern world. | |
| So, you kind of do have to answer that question as a whole. | |
| So, if somebody is trying to sail around the world thinking the world is banana-shaped, they're probably not going to end up in the right place. | |
| If, on the other hand, somebody is sailing around the world on the assumption that the earth is a sphere, then they're much more likely to end up in the right place. | |
| Now, the absolute truth of a moral statement cannot be mired in consequentialism for individuals, for sure. | |
| You know, for the simple reason that it's entirely possible that the guy who thinks the earth is banana-shaped... | |
| I just realized it's a Monty Python reference. | |
| Anyway, it is The guy who thinks that the earth is banana-shaped might just be blown wildly off course and end up sailing to the right place. | |
| Right? So, that's no good because then you have a supposed proof that, well, this guy wanted to sail to the new world, he thought the world was banana-shaped and he ended up in the right place. | |
| So, can't be universalized, right? | |
| Because randomness does not reproduce, right? | |
| I mean, a blind guy who whacks at a golf ball might get a hole in one but he can't get it Can't get it twice, right? | |
| Or very unlikely. | |
| So, when you write here, UPB isn't validated or invalidated by its consequences. | |
| But at the same time, discussions of UPB inevitably involve consequences. | |
| How do we reconcile this? | |
| Well, I hope that this helps as a whole. | |
| If you look at a place where UPB violations occur in some very egregious ways, then you would be looking at, say, the draft. | |
| Right? The forcible conscription of young men for the sake of war. | |
| Of course, that is a massive violation of UPB, right? | |
| I mean, kidnapping, assault, the initiation of the use of force, the enslavement of people for the sake of murder and death is about as big a UPB violation as can be conceived of. | |
| So, we would generally say that given that conscription is A very anti-UPB position that conscription would have negative results. | |
| So, for instance, we can look at something like the First World War and we could say, even if we accept that the government should be responsible for the currency or hold all the gold or have its taxation powers and so on, then we would say, okay, so with regards to the First World War, if the governments did not have the power of conscription but instead Had to pay for their soldiers. | |
| Right? Had to pay for their soldiers. | |
| What would have happened to the length and spread and depth of the war? | |
| The First World War? | |
| Would it have resulted in 10 million people being killed? | |
| Well, no. | |
| So, that would be an example of a war that is paid for, is less totalitarian than Then a war in which the soldiers are forcibly conscripted. | |
| Also of course censorship would be bad. | |
| Censorship is negative in UPB because it's asymmetrical. | |
| One person is suppressing the voice of another and if everybody has that power there's no such thing as censorship. | |
| Just everyone would censor each other and nobody would actually get to say anything. | |
| So censorship has to be asymmetrical and that which is asymmetrical cannot be UPB compliant. | |
| So it certainly is the case of course that It's a censorship in the First World War so that the soldiers were prohibited from writing back about the actual conditions of the war. | |
| That certainly helped it last longer, right? | |
| So when we're looking at consequences there are a large number of general trends within the world, within history, within society that do need to be explained. | |
| The forcible or debt-based transfer of wealth from men to women in which characterizes most late-stage democracies is a UPB violation in that it is the non-voluntary transfer of wealth and so we would expect that given that the forcible transfer of wealth from either the unborn or man or whatever to women but even the unborn is based upon usually the collateral value of the goods and | |
| services the men will produce in the future that the society Will do more poorly in terms of family formation and birth rates as UBB violations escalate as more and more money goes to the to the women from from the men and Of course we see this right we see this happening quite quite clearly We would also I think generally assume | |
| that As government gains more and more power and control over education, the educational standards will decline because it's not a voluntary free market environment and so on, right? | |
| We could, you know, sort of do this all day but we would want to have some sort of explanation as to why increases in UPP violations generally have more negative outcomes in the same way that we would sort of have to explain that Increases in the number of navigators who believe that the world was banana shaped would result in fewer ships reaching their targets across long voyages, particularly across oceans. | |
| So I hope that helps. | |
| Great questions. | |
| We can go into more details if you like. | |
| And I really do appreciate these great questions. | |
| Really, really enjoyable stuff to work through and I massively appreciate these questions coming in. | |
| So please keep me posted. | |
| I will get to more questions later. | |
| And I'm going to get ready for the show tonight. | |
| Lots of love from up here. | |
| Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. | |
| Take care, my friends. | |
| I'll talk to you soon. |
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