July 24, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
04:40
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| And I have this thing in the book called the Coma Test. | |
| And the Coma Test is: if you say theft or stealing is universally preferable behavior, then someone who is stealing is good and somebody who is not stealing is bad. | |
| Yeah, I guess in that formulation, that would work. | |
| Okay, so then you have the challenge. | |
| It's just kind of a gut sense challenge, which is, can a guy in a coma be evil? | |
| Can a guy what? | |
| You broke up again? | |
| Sorry, can a guy in a coma be evil? | |
| No, but he can't be good either. | |
| I agree, but he can't be evil, right? | |
| Okay, so if you have a positive moral obligation, then a guy in a coma is not doing that, right? | |
| So if I have a positive obligation, you lend me 500 bucks, we sign a contract, I'm supposed to pay it back to you today, and I just dodge you and I don't pay it back and I never pay it back, I've stolen 500 bucks from you, right? | |
| I have a positive obligation to pay you the money back that I said I'm going to pay back. | |
| Is that fair? | |
| I would agree with that, but I would also point out that the guy in the coma doesn't have agency. | |
| No, no, no, I understand that. | |
| But what I'm saying is that if I have a positive moral obligation, then if I am not fulfilling that positive moral obligation, I must be a bad guy. | |
| Now, as far as agency goes, I'm just talking about the logic of it, right? | |
| So if you have a positive moral obligation, a guy can't achieve that while he's sleeping. | |
| A guy can't achieve that when he's in a coma or whatever it is, right? | |
| Sure. | |
| So this is one of the challenges of positive moral obligations. | |
| Well, I think they're nice. | |
| I think it's good. | |
| I think people should talk about virtue. | |
| I think they should try and inspire others. | |
| I think that they should spread virtue and thwart evildoers and all that kind of stuff. | |
| But again, we're a zillion miles away, even from people not giving up their fantasies about the virtues of rape, theft, assault, and murder. | |
| So I'm happy to have that in 500 years. | |
| Right now, we've got to deal with the rape, theft, assault, and murder thing. | |
| So my argument is that the coma test is important in that if you have, like, let's say, giving to the poor is a moral obligation. | |
| Well, first of all, that's asymmetrical because you're giving to the poor, which means they're receiving. | |
| And there's always someone poorer than you. | |
| So you're just constantly passing money down the chain. | |
| All of humanity cannot be moral at the same time because somebody's giving and somebody has to be receiving. | |
| The coma test is important because half the world is asleep, which means half the world, if you have a positive moral obligation, half the world cannot achieve that positive moral obligation. | |
| However, when somebody's asleep or in a coma, they are not stealing, they are not raping, they're not assaulting, and they're not murdering. | |
| So they can achieve, they can achieve, or at least they can achieve that which is morally good, again, without agency, but logically they can achieve that which is the good, which is respect persons and property, at least not don't violate persons and property. | |
| They can achieve that positive, right? | |
| And so these are just sort of gut level checks, which is that if you have positive moral obligations, then people in coma, it'd be like getting mad at someone in a coma for not exercising. | |
| It's like, bro, he's in a coma. | |
| I'll give him a break, right? | |
| And so UPB is not consequentialist. | |
| It doesn't say, well, the effects of stealing are bad. | |
| What it says is if you have a moral system that says stealing is good, it is invalid. | |
| It logically self-detonates. | |
| It cannot be achieved. | |
| It violates the coma test and it's just wrong. | |
| Now, if you have a moral system which says respect property rights, that can be logically and consistently achieved by all human beings at all times. | |
| Everyone cannot steal at the same time. | |
| And it passes the coma test in that the guy in the coma is not stealing, right? | |
| So that's sort of my argument for ethics. | |
| Of course, you know, there's other categories, right? | |
| But that's the general gist of it. | |
| And it's not consequentialist. | |
| It doesn't require a government. | |
| It doesn't require a God to punish or reward you. | |
| And it doesn't require an evaluation of the positive or negative effects of actions. | |
| It simply looks at the logical consistency and see if it's achievable. | |
| Yeah, I think I can see that from that point of view. | |
| I'd be interested to explore that idea further. | |
| Listen, man, thank you so much for this space. | |
| This is a lot of fun. | |
| Thank you. | |
| My pleasure, man. | |
| Great job. | |
| And I appreciate that. | |
| And yeah, please do poke at it and see what flaws you can find in it. | |
| And I appreciate all feedback on that. | |
| All right. | |
| Thank you, man. |
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