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Sept. 1, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:08:53
The Corruption of Atheists LIVE CALL IN SHOW
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Yes, yes, hello everybody, this is Fenn Mollini from Freedom Ain, hope you're doing well and it's the fourth of June 2025 and I am happy to chat with you all freedom ain dot com slash donate to help out the show, deeply, humbly and gratefully appreciated as always and I was hoping to go for a walk today and chat but no,
it's crazy windy it is a jolly green giant post bean burrito fart wind going on out there so um yes we shall we shall stay confined to the indoor see sometimes it's because of winter and other times it's because good to know that Canada brings that kind of variety to your outdoor experience.
Although I actually did a really nice hike today with my daughter along the Bruce Trail.
It was very, very nice, very refreshing, endless amounts of up and down.
And so I hope you're having a great day.
I'm going to pause here in case, well, not in case, I hope, of course, that people have questions and comments.
You can, of course, I think, just raise your hand or maybe this is one of those freaky situations where you can just, you can just speak.
Otherwise, I'm going to go over some questions from listeners, but I'm happy to chat with you if you have a question or a comment.
Yeah, I've got a question.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Yeah, what about the concept of somebody has a philosophical idea that they want to run by you?
Oh, listen, it's funny, you know, and I'm sorry to jump in just as you're starting.
But, you know, people are like, hey, man, how come you do call-in shows where people are talking about their life problems?
And it's like, because that's what people want to talk about.
There's nothing in the call-in show that says it has to be about, you know, it can be about UPB, it can be a philosophical issue, free will, whatever's on your mind.
So, yeah, I'm thrilled and happy to get to know.
get philosophical ideas run past me.
If that's on your mind, I'm all ears.
Yeah, and even if you were to tear it down, that would be no problem.
Like, you know, if you were to show me that I didn't know what I was talking about, that's fine.
I just can't do that to myself with, like, ninety nine out of my hundred ideas I shoot down myself.
So it's not just you, don't take it personally, but yeah, go for it.
Okay, so I have this idea.
What I've been finding is that a lot of people with words and language, we use it, but we never really deeply think about it.
Because, you know, there's a billion people using it, you think it must be legitimate, but when you stop and think about it.
I mean, there's a bazillion examples like that.
But I have an idea that the word atheist is not really complete.
I think that an atheist actually emerges out of something deeper and more profound.
And I don't think the word atheist quite does it justice.
And one of the things that I think about is that there may, I believe that there's something called a fake atheist.
which is, and I know that immediately you'll say, well, that's not the way the word atheist is used, but I would just bear with me here.
Just as much as Christians say that there there's such a thing as fake Christians, they call each other that.
I think that if we open up the idea that there's such a thing as a fake atheist, then it kind of opens up a kettle of worms about what atheist really means.
So that's my intro.
No, I think that's great.
Now, if you're going to say there's a real X and a fake X, of course, the challenge is to define X, right?
So hit me with your definition.
Yeah.
So what I think is that atheism is I know that atheism just means I don't believe in God or a spirit or anything or the supernatural.
But I think that atheism emerges out of something more profound.
And I believe that atheism is actually an element which is one of many elements which emerges out of healthy emotional maturity.
So as people grow more mature, they less and less need a parent and they less and less need a replacement parent.
So by the time you get to what I call a real atheist, they've discarded all forms of replacement parent.
Church, government.
teachers, everything else until they become healthily self-parenting.
So I think, like I said, a lack of belief in spiritual elements really points to a person having discarded all need for replacement parents, imaginary ones also.
So then that means that there could be such a thing as a fake atheist, which doesn't really work with the normal definition of the word, but if...
looks after them, cares about them, has their best interests in mind.
So that's my intro to the idea of such a thing as a fake atheist.
Okay, and I appreciate that.
So I still think you need to provide is your definition of atheist confined to someone who doesn't believe in a God?
Well, this is a part that needs discussed because the classical I'm using the word atheist in its classical sense, which doesn't really apply to what I'm talking about.
There would need to be a new word.
word which could come out of this or redefine atheist or something.
So I'm not there yet.
I'm just introducing the concept that there's a spectrum along which humans grow and atheism comes out naturally at the very peak of the growth of human emotional maturity is what I'm saying.
So the definitions that could remain to be seen.
That could be a piece of work right there.
So it's a little bit confusing now because I don't have the actual word for it.
I'm misusing the normal word.
Right.
Okay.
Now I don't want to jump in on your thoughts or your ideas.
So if there's more that you want to add, I'm happy to hear.
Obviously, it provoked a cavalcade of thoughts within me, which could be right or wrong, good or bad, but I don't want to sort of storm in and elbow you aside in this very important topic.
So if there's more that you want to add, I'm happy to hear.
Well, I have more to add, but I think I've given enough of a description where if you had questions about it, I may be able to provide a defense for it.
Now, if you tear this down completely, I'm happy, happy with that too, because I don't want to go off in the wrong direction.
Well, but you're not making a definitional or syllogistical argument.
You're saying that people who don't believe in in God are divided into two categories.
The emotionally immature who still need parenting and turn to, say, socialism instead, and the people who are mature and don't turn to either the state or God or any other kind of collectivist social construct for their belief system.
Is it something like that?
That's right.
So the problem we have is that, hey, you're an atheist.
Well, look at that retard over there.
He's an atheist too.
So the Christians run into the same problem.
Yeah, I'm a real Christian, but that retard over there is behaving like an insane person.
Well, that's a fake Christian.
So, I mean, not believing in God is a very specific subset of not believing in things that do not exist.
So there are lots of people who don't believe in a God but believe in the healing power of crystals or that weird thing where you heal yourself with drops of water or believe that the earth is flat or, you know, that's just so not believing in God if it is part of a general I don't believe in things that fail the reason and evidence test, then if somebody doesn't believe in God.
God and as you say shifts their belief in irrational things to other areas, then they may be an atheist with regards to God, but they're equally, if not more irrational when it comes to the existence of other things that don't exist or don't make sense, if that, if that, I'm kind of trying to trace your argument here.
No, that's that's really good, I think, because the difference there is that I'm talking about how atheism emerges from the lack of need for a parent figure.
So a parent figure from the childish perspective.
perfect, absolutely loving from their delusional perspective, is all-knowing and is omnipotent.
That's what I mean as a replacement parent.
So, if you believe in the healing power of crystals when it's not real, well, the healing power of a crystal does not really supply the idea of a replacement parent.
That's just you not being skeptical enough.
That's it.
Well, okay, but most people accept the healing power of crystals based upon an argument from authority, because it's not like they've experimented themselves and found them to work.
They just find some, you know, woo-woo dusty corner store, uh, by a fairground where someone says, Oh, you have this problem.
You should take these crystals.
They're guaranteed to heal.
And so there's some sort of argument from authority.
People don't usually come up with these irrational beliefs on their own.
And so it would still fall into the category of accepting things because you're told.
I mean, the big one is not God.
Like, the big question for me is, what can you tell about an atheist?
Just only on the knowledge that the person does not believe in a god or does not believe in gods.
What can you tell about an atheist based upon that singular piece of knowledge?
Now.
Statistically, what you would get from an atheist knowing only nothing else, only that he doesn't believe in gods, is that he's a state sucking violence toady who worships the oligarchical political power.
That's what you would know.
In other words, he is much more likely to be a socialist if he is an atheist.
In other words, he does not believe in an abstract God that has no direct power here on earth.
Instead, he worships an abstract conception called the state that has dismal, violent and sometimes genocidal power here on Earth.
So I think to your point, if he is immature, then he has said, Well, I don't want a God that tells me what to do.
Instead, I want a government that forces me to do things.
I don't want to be told or encouraged or bribed with an afterlife reward or punishment.
I don't want to be told what to do, to be exhorted or encouraged what to do.
I want people to pull out their weapons and force me to do things.
And that's what you know about atheists most likely, again, not all, but the most likely thing that you know about an atheist is that he's a socialist or a communist.
And therefore, he views the that he views God as an ineffective means of power compared to the state, because God does not directly compel people to do anything, whereas the state, of course, does.
So he worships a much more dangerous entity called political power rather than a faith based encouragement entity called God.
He wants force, not encouragement or it would be nice if or, you know, sort of afterlife reward or punishment.
He wants direct violence in the here and now, not abstract encouragement from a deity.
And he's far more dangerous than, say, a Christian, because a Christian will only encourage you, whereas the state will compel you.
So, right.
So, I think he has a bad panic.
Atheists have violent parents, which is why they're drawn to politics.
People who are religious, particularly Christians, tend to have less violent parents, at least if, you know, because the New Testament is not the same as the Old Testament.
Of course, I think Old Testament people have more violent parents.
So I would say that both are not completely self-actualized views of the universe, and we'll sort of get to that in a second, but the atheist, because he worships the state, is far more primitive and dangerous than the Christian.
Yeah, and actually the way that you describe that actually perfectly leads into my other missing element or not missing but a new element to introduce to help explain this and if I were to go through the typical spectrum of a child growing to maturity emotional maturity the first stage is the baby where they need a real parent like not not a not you couldn't raise a baby through zoom
they only want a real parent a real human and nothing else will satisfy But then by the time they get to kindergarten age, the only way that they can go to kindergarten and still not cry for the two hours that they're there is because they've learned to develop an avatar parent in their head, a stand-in parent, a parent that they can imagine where they know they can imagine where the parent is right now and it soothes them.
So that gets them through kindergarten.
And then eventually, the next stage is where they don't need a real parent and they can get by.
Like say you're a ten-year-old, you can get by with an avatar parent to soothe you.
So if your parents died at ten and you were orphaned.
There are people that continue to grow and can feed themselves and everything else like that.
But if you were going to go for like a weekend camping trip or something with friends across the province at 10, well, you need that avatar parent in your head to soothe you.
I mean, if you knew that you're going to go on a camping trip and your parents would be a moved house by the time you left and by the time you came home, they'd be gone, well, you wouldn't leave.
So you have this, now you're at the third stage, which is a pure avatar parent.
And then as you get older and you become a real adult, an emotionally mature adult, you don't need a real parent.
And you don't need the avatar parent either to soothe yourself.
You've now become self-parenting.
So if I compare that to what you just said, you've said that.
That the socialist has an extremely dangerous type of parent.
Well, that that matches the first level of parent, which is a real person.
It's the most immature need of a child, the most, the view that's least Sorry, you can explain that to me.
Sorry, hold on, I need to know what is the most immature view of a child or perspective of a child?
The baby, where the baby must have a No, no, no, I understand that the most immature is a baby.
What, what's the view that is the most immature?
I want to make sure I understand that.
They have an idealized view and they need a real human.
And they're only satisfied with the real human.
Okay, that's not immature for a baby or toddler, of course, right?
It's just immature if you hold on to that longer, right?
Exactly.
Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's appropriate for a baby.
But that also means that's why a socialist is the least mature because in in what I'm talking about, the the socialist, the communist is on the far left and they want a real person for their parent.
In other words, they want to see Stalin, they want to see Hitler, they want to see Mao.
And that's why it's much more dangerous because they're at the least, they're mimicking the least mature aspect of humanity.
And then next comes the fake Christian.
In other words, they believe in a spirit, but they also think that their pastor is perfect and is beyond reproach on how to raise a family, how to be married and how to raise children by a guy that is not married and has no children.
And they're like nodding and going, yeah, yeah, right.
So there's zero skepticism about people, which is the next stage of development.
So I'm saying that the fake atheist is absolutely the worst and most dangerous, as we see with communism.
And then next comes a real Christian where they've asked a real Christian before, what do you think about your pastor?
Do you think he—and they turn their nose up, no, he's just human.
He's not perfect, not at all.
So these real Christians have graduated to the next level.
Matching human emotional maturity, where they've got that fake avatar parented in their head for emotional soothing purposes, but they're way beyond thinking that humans are perfect or even needing that.
So this is how I get you.
I just thought I'd get your thoughts on that so far.
Right Now, outgrowing parenting, I understand, but the question is, to what?
To what do you outgrow parenting?
So parenting, of course, I believe in its foundation is the inculcation of a moral, of moral reasoning on the part of children.
And the problem is that prior to UPB, there was no rational proof of secular ethics.
So how are you supposed to inculcate or internalize moral reasoning if there is no reasoning morally?
So how are you supposed to outgrow parenting if like the syllogism, right?
If the purpose of parenting is to have you morally reason, but there is no moral reasoning to be had, then you can't ever really outgrow your parents.
Because parents inculcate moral reasoning through threats and bribes.
I mean, that's how moral reasoning, it's not really moral reasoning, but that's how the moral sense has developed over the course of human evolution is threats and brib bribes come from God, right?
Heaven or hell, approval or disapproval.
Or in some more extreme cases, the wages of sin is sickness and death, like you're sick because, like you got an illness because you defy God or something like that.
So there's some sort of punishment, some sort of reward.
Or, of course, it's through the parents punishing or rewarding, which is here's a piece of cake or here's a beating or a spanking.
And then, of course, in school, when I was a kid, it was rewards and punishment.
And you got beaten or you got some sort of pun benefit.
And of course, in school as a whole, it is punishment and reward still in that you can get held back at year, at least it used to be the case.
I think that's less the case now.
You get something negative or you get something positive.
And those punishments and rewards are kind of important, right?
Yeah, but then there's the concept of people that behave morally completely opposite to what they've been taught or even demonstrated or maybe it's because they were demonstrated but i mean i met a i met a young man who was in high school and he was just walking home in the middle of the day before school was done and it turned out that they had told everybody that to go into the gym they had to put on a pride flag on their shirt a clip to to be granted entrance to the to the to
the gym so he basically told them to go to hell and he just turned around and went home So there's an example of somebody with a level of morality that goes totally against what they're trying to put in him.
He's not religious.
So who knows and his mother didn't know anything about this, so who knows where that morality came from?
I'm just trying to say, could morality just be emergent from people who are emotionally healthy?
Well, no, you can't, that's like saying that the scientific method is just emergent among people who are emotionally healthy.
I mean, I don't think that would make sense.
I mean, he might just have had a very negative experience with gay people.
He might just be rebellious and hates being told what to do in any kind of way.
He could be gay himself and resisting it is a sort of stereotype goes.
There could be any number of reasons why he would resist such an injunction.
And so I don't think reason reason in morality is not a matter of maturity because prior to UPB, there was no rational proof of secular ethics, yet there were emotionally mature people in the world.
So if everybody who's emotionally mature grew into a rational morality, then all emotional all emotionally mature people would spontaneously generate UPB, which has not been the case.
So I don't know how you can reason morality without any kind of rational proof of morality.
That would be sort of like saying all emotionally mature people accept the scientific method.
Okay, we can say that that's valid.
However, there were emotionally mature people who did not generate the scientific method spontaneously.
That was like Francis Bacon and sort of other people in the 16th century.
It's not like if you're emotionally mature, you understand scientific principles sort of innately.
They still have to be sort of reasoned through and proven in an objective and rational and empirical framework.
So I don't think we can say emotional maturity leads you away from gods and governments.
Because, ah, in order to be led away from gods and governments, you have to be led away from the punishment and reward method of controlling human behavior.
We have to be more than zoo animals that are fed or punished based upon, well, not zoo animals, I guess circus animals that are fed or punished, rewarded or punished based upon our compliance with what the trainer wants.
You actually have to be able to think for yourself morally.
And prior to UPB, I mean, I may do this in the show tonight.
I was looking at a little bit more of the Jordan Peterson debate with the atheists.
And they're talking, there was a fellow who was talking about how well.
Well, you know, you can look back on Neanderthals and there are people who've got broken limbs.
The limbs are bound up and they're kept alive and this, that and the other.
And that apparently is morality.
But that's being nice is a terrible way to approach morality because it actually be, this sort of being nice or being altruistic and so on is a great way to destroy your society because you're then just preyed upon by cruel people who know that you want to be nice and then just promise to call you nice as long as you do what they want.
And so that ends up being a sort of terrible thing that wrecks society and destroys society on a regular basis, but that's what, that's generally what the perception of morality is.
Is, is, I mean, there's a fellow, there's a black fellow, who's talking about like the Neanderthals and monkeys and altruism and being nice and so on.
What the hell does that have to do with morality?
Being nice, my gosh.
I mean, so I don't think that people can outgrow the punishment and reward.
Sorry, are you clicking or talking or moving or is that you or someone else?
Like this concept Oh no, I'm not doing that.
I subconsciously move something on the table, but never mind.
Yeah, if you could not do that, it's kind of distracting to try and reason with the clicks and bops in my ear.
Yeah, I don't think that.
Oh, so I'll wait until that settles down.
No, there's more.
Okay.
No, it's good.
Okay.
So I don't think that we can move beyond the punishment reward metric.
And any more than we can move beyond mysticism until we get the scientific method, we can't move beyond the punishment reward system, and it's not a matter of emotional maturity.
Now, an emotionally mature person may resist certain immoral temptations, such as, you know, maybe going along with the mob, right?
Sort of the twelve angry men where you push back at some irrational thing that's going on.
So that it could be that there's some morality that is.
available to you or some resistance to the collective, right?
But if you sort of look at the modern world, right?
And look at, I mean, just sort of from my sort of direct experience, the punishment and reward metric is still, you know, entirely how modern society runs.
So, for instance, if you don't talk about X, Y or Z controversial or topics that upset people, then you get to have a platform.
And if you do talk about them, then they'll punish you.
They'll punish you by taking away your platform and destroying, you know, massive swaths of your life's work and access to the audience that you've built up over the years.
So that's still just punishment reward.
We'll reward you with money and a platform if you don't talk about things that upset us or go against the political power that we want.
If you do talk about those things, we will punish you severely, take away your income, savage your reputation, and we will just do the strangest background noises I've ever heard.
So I don't think that we can move beyond it's not just a matter of emotional maturity, although that may help with certain very kind of primitive go along with the group kind of stuff.
But until people understand UPB, and that's going to be 100 to 200 years until that's more generalized, just based on other paradigm shifts in human history, such as the development of the scientific method and anti slavery.
I mean, anti slavery took like 150 years to reach its fruition.
Now, of course, you can say, well, but yes, we have better technology for communication, and that's true.
However, of course, we also have better technology for miscommunication, for lying, and so on, right?
So that's also a challenge.
So I would say that, yeah, I like what you're saying about atheism, but I don't think it's just a matter of you becoming moral when you're emotionally mature because emotional maturity doesn't matter.
does not give you the rational proof of secular ethics.
But so sorry, I had a long speech there.
Tell me what you think.
Oh, well, I read your book on the art of the argument.
And that was really good.
I mean, that's a missing link that nobody's being taught.
So I wanted to first say that was a great book.
The other thing is that when we talk about philosophy, everything's interconnected to a hundredth degrees.
So a person can go off in all sorts of directions and then you just don't pretty soon you just lose a threadad of what we were talking about in the first place, right?
So here's my, here's my ask, could you ask me a question if you don't, if there's something that, let's just say, there's something about what I said that you totally disagree with.
Can you, I mean, there's other stuff you may just not know or you, or you may be, or you know or you don't, but if you, let's just say there's something you just don't, you know is wrong about what I'm saying, could you ask me a question about that thing?
And formally a question that I mean that I couldn't answer.
Yeah, I did it in a fairly long winded way, so I apologize for that.
So how does emotional maturityurity naturally arises empathy.
And out of empathy comes morality.
In other words, I just don't want to hurt other people.
So I'll give you an example is that my son, I've never talked to him about girls, never talked to him about how to behave around a woman, but he was dating one girl for like, I don't know, at least six months, and then he broke up with her and said, This is, I don't see this going anywhere.
But what was interesting is that he didn't have another girl to go to.
In fact, he was single for another six months after that.
So I thought it was really good that he didn't waste her time and he didn't monkey branch or anything like that.
But I've never taught him anything like that.
I never gave him those man talks.
He just he was empathetic to this to this young woman.
So that's my point there.
Okay.
So are you saying that empathy is the same as morality?
Well, what I could be saying is that morality No, no, no, morality is not what you could be saying.
No, hold on, hold on.
Not what you could be saying, what you are saying.
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, so empathy is the same as morality.
No, no, morality emerges from empathy.
No empathy and morality shovels.
Okay, and then you have to be taught it.
So hold on, so what is your definition of empathy?
Empathy is just knowing when you're hurting someone else or you could hurt someone else and you'd rather not do that because hurting them kind of hurt you.
I mean, sorry, aren't there times when telling the truth is going to upset other people and hurt them emotionally?
Yeah, well, I I've told people what they need to hear, which hurts their feelings, but it's for their own good.
Okay, so you understand that you've changed the definition.
You said empathy is not wanting to hurt other people.
And then you're saying, but you must hurt people for their own good sometimes.
Okay, then, so what if it was more accurate for me to say, I will not do anything, I don't want to do anything to anybody else where I degrade them, so to speak, by fraudulent or theft or violence?
So you don't want to do people, you don't want to do things to people that will degrade them, is that right?
Yeah.
So I did kickboxing and I would, and I would, you know, hit someone, but then once I hit them in this vulnerable spot, they knew where that vulnerable spot was for themselves to use against someone else.
I'm sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry, I don't follow the argument.
We've gone from your, your, um, your son to telling people things that are harsh that are good for them to kicking people in kickboxing.
I feel like we're dancing all over the place and I need to know what principles we're working with here, not some specific examples.
Oh, well, I guess we could say that my son hurt her feelings.
And he was the author of that, but he did it to not rob her of value.
In other words, he hurt her, but it was overall for her own good.
Okay, so I just asked you to not give me specific examples, but to give me principles, and you're giving me another specific example.
What is the principle?
Yeah, okay, then, yeah, we're talking about what does what is empathy, right?
Yes.
What exactly are you mean?
Well, you say you say morality grows out of empathy.
I'm asking for your definition of empathy.
You said it's not hurting other people.
And I said, but don't we hurt people sometimes when we tell them the truth?
And you said, yes, I've done that before.
So then it can't just be that.
So then you said, well, doing things that don't degrade people.
But then of course, if you say that being good is just not doing insert negative word here, I need the definition of what it means to degrade people and how does it apply and so on.
Yeah.
So I guess what we're thinking about is that we can hurt other people, but is it for their good or is it not for their good.
Um, despite being empathetic.
Okay, so you're saying that empathy, which is to not hurt other people, is less important than doing things for people that is for their, for their good, for what that is good for them, right?
Um, well, empathy can be where if I don't hurt this person, if I, you know, if, if their feelings don't get hurt right now, then I could be putting them in danger or I could be letting them down.
Okay, so these are very abstract phrases.
I still need to know what the principle is.
Me putting them in danger, letting them down.
I don't really know what that means.
So if you can give me a principle, again, just to nag you about it.
Well, yeah, well, we're working on this, which is good.
So empathy, okay, so empathy is not necessarily a lack of hurting someone if it's for their own good.
How about that?
Okay, how do we know what is for people's own good?
I mean, saying that empathy is acting in a way that is for people's own good doesn't solve much because I don't know how that, what, like, what principle is generally being applied here?
Because for someone's own right.
So again, we have subjectivity with regard to morality, which whenever there's subjectivity, people can legitimately disagree, right?
So if I say I like jazz and you say you like blues, we can legitimately disagree with each other's tastes and it's not a contradiction because we're talking about subjective preferences.
So what are the objective rules by which people because you're saying, listen, I want people to be emotionally mature, which means that they have their own reasoned sense of morality, then we have to give them away to reasoned morality.
Does that make sense?
Like we can't just say, well, empathy, right?
Because that's subjective or for people's own good, which is to some degree subjective.
So what are the principles by which we can come up with a rational morality so people can be independent of parental state and religious authority?
Yeah, so this is where we're getting all this branching off, each of which is important.
It's just that my original statement is really about the growth of emotional maturity.
So what Okay, sorry, you're not answering.
Sorry, you have decided to not answer my question because it sounds like you're going on a tangent.
No, that's what I'm talking about, it's tangents.
Like everything that you're doing is a legitimate.
I want you to hold on.
I don't want you to go on a tangent.
I want you to answer my question.
Yeah, I don't mind.
I'm just saying that.
I'm just trying I'm just trying to drag it back to the original statement that I made.
Well, okay, but you understand that it's kind of if, hold on, hold on.
But if I, you talk about empathy, right?
So you, do I want you to answer my question, which is, how do we know what objective morality is, right?
I mean, I want you to answer that, answer my question, right?
Otherwise, I wouldn't have heard it, right?
Okay, so you believe that empathy is being sensitive towards other people's feelings and addressing legitimate needs or requirements, something like that, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
And also for their own good right now.
Is it good for you and I and the listenership if you can answer my question about objective morality?
Sure.
Okay.
Is it empathetic?
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hold on.
Is it empathetic to me?
Are you being empathetic to me?
If when I ask you a question, you answer it or tell me you're not going to answer it?
Well, my empathy Okay.
I I'm not Is it if I ask you a question, which is definitely part of our discussion, if I ask you a question, is it empathetic?
Is it sensitive to my feelings to address my question or at least tell me you're not going to or is it not empathetic to go on a tangent that I don't follow?
Well, I also explaining to me what the purpose of the tangent is.
Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah.
So, um, if we were to include empathy for the audience, we would want to make sure that they're not confused with too many tangents.
That's all I'm saying.
Now, I'm not saying that we are going on too many tangents, but that is an empathy that I have towards the audience.
Okay.
So.
So if they can't follow.
But hang on.
So if we're not supposed to go on too many tangents, why would you go on another tangent rather than directly answering my question?
Well, I've been trying to answer the question and we're digging down on that, which is fine.
Well, but if I ask you a question and you go on a tangent that's incomprehensible to me, is that empathetic towards my needs and preferences?
Well, I think that our loyalty is to the question, the original statement.
I mean, not the question, the statement that I made that needs questioning.
No, so that's not loyalty because we've worked on that question and I'm asking you a more specific question, which is how are we going to define universal morality?
Right?
And I'm willing to work within your definitions of empathy and what's best for people and don't degrade people, but I just need definitions to know what that means.
Right?
That's fair, right?
Because otherwise, it's a subjective bunch of stuff.
Like what might be degrading for you might not be degrading for me.
Degrading is a somewhat of a subjective term, which doesn't mean we can't do anything to make it more objective.
But if, if you've given me a bunch of standards by which we can know if something is moral, and then I ask you for more definitions of those standards, that's, that's a reasonable place to be in the conversation, right?
Yeah, that's what I got from your book.
It's probably a standard philosophy.
So then my question, so then my question is, is it empathetic to not answer my question, to go on a tangent and not to tell me, I'm going to answer your question and here's how I'm going to do it.
I'm going to go X, Y or Z, right?
So earlier when you said people have emotional maturity and that means they get morality, and I gave you a case like, okay, not everyone who is emotionallytionally mature is moral because in the absence of UPB, it's pretty impossible to reason things morally and so on.
So I kind of gave you an answer to that that was directly related to your question.
I didn't go off in a tangent and say, well, my daughter did this when she was six and you can't really stitch it all together.
So I guess, I mean, the reason I'm kind of hammering this point, which I think is really a very interesting interaction that we're having here, is you're saying empathy and what's best for the other person is really important when it comes to morality.
So then what happens is I say, I need an answer to this question.
I need definitions of things like what's best for people and what it means to degrade people and so on.
But you don't act in an empathetic manner.
You act in a bit of an egoistic manner.
And this is not any big criticism.
I'm just kind of pointing it out, which is you talk about the things you want to talk about.
Like I specifically say, I don't want specific examples.
I want general principles.
And then you tell me more about your son and this girl, which is a specific example.
That's kind of egoistic because it's what you want to talk about rather than empathetic, which is what I need for satisfaction and reasonable satisfaction.
I need that for satisfaction in the conversation to move the conversation forward.
I need definitions of what you're talking about with regard to morality.
So, and the reason I'm saying this is not any big criticism of you at all.
I think it's very interesting what's happening, which is you say empathy and what's best for people is really important when it comes to morality.
But then when it comes to our conversation, you don't display empathy and what's best for people and you don't even notice that you're not doing it.
And that's what I mean when I say you can't define morality in these subjective kinds of ways because people always end up doing what they prefer rather than what is rational and empathetic, if that makes sense.
So sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, so I don't think that I brought up the subject of morality, or even maybe I spoke about empathy, but I didn't talk about morality.
I was really talking about just the spectrum of emotional maturity.
Come on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that's just not true, right?
You said morality grows out of empathy, right?
I said, well, what's the basis of morality if it's not going to be sort of rationality?
You said, well, morality grows out of empathy.
So you did.
Bring up morality.
Yes, because you asked me about that, but I'm just saying my original thing that I'm talking about, I'm only talking about the spectrum of emotional maturity.
Now, of course, that naturally brings out all sorts of other questions about what is that?
And so, and those are all legitimate, but I'm just saying that I'm hoping...
hoping to stay in a lane just so that it's more comprehensible.
And I'm saying that, of course, everything needs to be, you know, explained and given explanations for.
But that's kind of rude, which is you're saying, well, I have to keep it confined in these terms so that it's more comprehensible.
And I'm saying, it's not comprehensible to me.
And you're saying, well, Steph, I'm not going to answer your questions because I want to keep things more comprehensible when I don't understand what you mean by empathy.
I don't understand what you mean by what's the best for people?
I don't understand what you mean by don't degrade people, right?
Because definitions of terms are really important, right?
So we were that.
So when I say I need to have things be comprehensible and you say, well, I don't want to answer that question because I want to keep things comprehensible.
That's I mean, it's not comprehensible to me.
That's why I'm trying to ask.
And when you said empathy is not hurting other people, right?
That was your definition of empathy.
And I said, well, isn't there times when we tell the truth that's very upsetting to people?
And you said, oh, yes, well, no, we have to do that.
Right?
But you didn't include that in your original definition of empathy.
Right?
So I need to understand.
what is being talked about.
Now, of course, I approach the conversation with you with some skepticism because I've worked for forty years on the problems of morality and wrote a whole book fifteen years ago on rational proof of secular ethics.
So you don't have the answer to morality.
You have a bunch of nice sounding words, and I say this without criticism at all.
I mean, neither did I until UPB, right?
So you have a bunch of pleasant sounding words.
Oh, empathy, what's best for people, don't degrade people.
But that's just a bunch of adjectives, just a bunch of words.
I'm looking for a universal rationality, a universal understand proof of morality that is objective and does not rely upon any subjective terms.
Like UPB does not rely upon any subjective terms, like niceness or altruism or what's best for people or anything like that.
Doesn't rely on any of that whatsoever.
So you keep bringing subjective terms into your moral arguments, which is completely understandable and it is the default position of all moralists throughout human history because even Christianity has subjective terms in it, right?
Because God works in mysterious ways and sometimes people are rewarded by horrible punishments and, you know, in sort of spiritual matters and so on.
So you bring subjective term and largely emotional terms into a moral argument.
And then when I ask for definitions and clarity, you don't give them to me, which again, I completely understand, but you can't.
Because when I ask you for definitions of your moral terms, I mean, the very first thing you said was empathy was not hurting other people, not upsetting other people, not hurting other people.
And then when I pointed out something which is like, well, what about this?
And you're like, oh, well, we have to hurt other people in these kinds of ways.
You didn't even pause and say, holy crap, Steph, I was talking about empathy.
I said it was about not hurting people.
And then you pointed out, and I agreed with you, that hurting people was sometimes the best thing.
I guess I don't really know what I'm talking about because I just came up with a whole definition of morality which was not hurting people and then I immediately was corrected about hurting people for their own good.
So then I have another standard, but you just kept moving on and then you wanted to move on and more tangents and I know the answer to that.
The reason for that is that you don't have I guess you haven't read UPB or anything like that which is fine, but you don't have an objective definition of morality.
You have a bunch of nice words that don't add up to anything objective, if that makes sense.
And it's not a criticism.
I mean, that's the default position of moralists.
Well, I think the idea is not to criticize, criticism is not the problem.
The idea would be to ask me a question that I have no answer for, which would be me self-criticizing myself.
You know, there's no escape from me that.
But the thing I have to say is, sorry, I don't, I don't, sorry, I don't, I genuinely don't understand what you just said.
No, I'm just saying that you understand, I'd appreciate it.
When it comes to philosophical argument, you could criticize me or what is more powerful is ask me a question I can't answer, which is much more powerful as a criticism because then I'm But I have asked you questions and you haven't answered them.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
I've done exactly that.
Yeah.
So my statement is that nothing that I said at the beginning had anything to do with morality, empathy or UPB.
It was simply the only thing that got close to that was I was describing the spectrum of emotional maturity leading to adulthood.
So that's what I'm saying.
And adulthood was being free of external punishment, rewards, authority, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So if we're free of external punishment and rewards, morality, sorry, punishment and rewards, authority.
Then we need a moral guide, right?
Otherwise we're just hedonists.
And then we have an internal pleasure based hierarchy, right?
So if I'm going to say, well, I'm so emotionally mature, I don't need to listen to gods or governments, I'm beyond punishment and reward, that's great, but then what am I subjected to?
What am I controlled by?
How do I organize my moral hierarchies and decisions, right?
Because otherwise I'm just saying, well, governments can't tell me what to do, gods can't tell me what to do, and that's kind of Satanism.
I'm not calling you a Satanist, I'm just saying that that's kind of Satanismists are not confined by God's rules, Satanists are not confined by the laws of the government, they just do what they want, what they prefer.
It's kind of like an animal's existence.
So if we're going to say, well, I have this emotional maturity, I'm beyond punishment and reward from external authorities, then I do have to have an objective morality to subjugate myself to, right?
In other words, if I want to be a scientist and I say, well, I'm not going to get my science from the Bible and I'm not going to get my science from what the government tells me is true, I'm going to think for myself, well, then you have to have some methodology by which you're going to think for yourself, and that's going to be the scientific method, right?
You're going to have to pursue the scientific method.
Otherwise, you're just in chaos.
You've just rejected accumulated authority, both in terms of religion and government laws, and you haven't reached a place where you can reason and think for yourself.
And of course, we would say that emotional maturity has to do with reasoning and thinking for yourself, which means if we're going to escape the laws of the state and we're going to escape the commandments of the gods, we need a standard by which we can organize our own morality.
And that's why I was asking you about these things.
Well, what does it mean to be moral and all of that?
So that's why the questions came up.
Yeah.
Yeah, not a single thing that you're saying I consider to be an illegitimate question at all.
I'm just saying that a person illegitimate or illegitimate.
Nothing you're saying is illegitimate.
Okay.
Everything you're saying is legitimate to me and a perfectly sensible question.
My only thing is that this is always a problem with philosophy where it's all interconnected.
And can you have a discussion about the main thing without branching off so far that we forget what we originally talked about?
Like everything does need defining for sure.
Okay, so then why are you resisting my request for definition?
I'm just saying it can be endless.
And so like, I'll repeat myself, I I never mentioned anything about morality, empathy or UPB.
So, I mean, I'm Well, no, you hold on.
No, you did in response to my questions.
You did define morality as empathy.
You said morality grows out of empathy, right?
So we started having that discussion and then you said, well, it's not just about it's not just about being nice to people or not upsetting them because sometimes you have to upsett them.
And then so I asked for further clariarification and then you said, well, it's about not degrading them through theft or fraud or something like that.
And then I said, well, what's the definition of degrading?
And so for you to say, I have an argument for morality that it comes out of empathy, and then for me to ask what that morality is, that's perfectly legitimate, isn't it?
It's absolutely legitimate.
It's just where are the boundaries where we don't even remember what we're talking about in the first place, is all I'm saying.
No, no, I remember you just don't want to answer the question because you don't have answers.
And I don't blame you for that.
I mean, without UPB, there is no answer.
So I mean.
So when I'm asking you, so you say, well, I don't want to, you know, it's bad to degrade people.
And it's like, okay, sure, but what does degrading people mean?
That's a reasonable question.
And you're fogging up and around the edges because you don't have an answer to that question.
Now, if emotional maturity means being beyond gods and governments, but having a strong moral sense, if you don't have a strong moral sense or a rational set of moral arguments, then you can't be by definition emotionally mature.
And maybe that's not, maybe that's part of what you don't want to deal with or face is that if you don't have a rational way to examine moral questions or a rational framework for morality, which UBB would provide, then what you've done is you've said, well, I don't want to, I want to be beyond the rules of external punishment and reward systems, which is fine, but I also don't want to have a rational moral system because that would constrain my behavior or restrain my behavior.
Maybe it's something to do with that, but I just noticed when I, when I asked you for clarity with your definitions of morality, you jumped out of the argument and said, well, I didn't bring this up and it's too tough to, so I'm just trying to keep things comprehensible for the good of the audience.
That's all just a bunch of fog and nonsense.
Sorry to be blunt, but you know, we have to tell people the truth according to you, even if it upsets them.
But that's just a bunch of bluster and nonsense.
You don't have a rational system of ethics because you haven't studied UPB.
You just don't have it.
And again, that's no big criticism.
I mean, I spent most of my life with that one as well.
So, you know, we're all in the same boat as far as that goes.
But you have to be aware that you are strongly resisting giving me clear definitions of what it means to be moral.
Because you say, well, morality grows out of empathy.
Okay.
So you're claiming some expertise in morality.
But, you know, in the old Socratic reasoning style, when I ask you to explain your expertise in moralityity, you jump out of the debate.
I mean, that's clear to me.
It's clear to, I think, just about everyone in the audience.
It may not be quite as clear to you, but that's, that's the sequence.
But my original statement didn't contain the word morality.
Okay, so we're just going round and round in circles.
Yes, yeah, we are.
Yeah, so I don't really want to do that.
Well, I do realize that me posing a question, a philosophical question in front of you is like me putting my head on the chopping block, which is, which is on purpose.
And so I've got no problems being put through the mill at all.
I've done that deliberately.
I don't really know what that means other than you're not answering my questions and saying that somehow somehow because You didn't use the word morality in your original foundation that you don't have to answer any questions about morality, but given that you're talking, we talked about atheists as being addicted either to gods or to governments,
and the governments being the more dangerous of the two, and you talked about how people are supposed to outgrow the need for parental figures, and I said, okay, so we move beyond punishment and reward, but we need a moral argument, otherwise we're just hedonists.
So that's sort of the next stage of what it is.
And then you claimed some expertise on morality.
I started to ask you questions, and you jumped out of the argument rather than just admitting, you know, I don't really have a good argument for morality.
Empathy is not a strong argument.
So again, I don't want you just to repeat, well, I didn't bring up the word morality, like that's some magic shield about things.
So I'm happy if there's anything else that you want to add or we can move on to other questions or comments.
I appreciate the discussion.
Yeah, and just I'll rephrase what I said in terms of helping people understand a philosophical discussion is that by bringing up this, this idea of mine for review, that's me putting my head on the chopping block in front of someone who is experienced.
And so for me to be getting a hard time is not a big deal for me.
In other words, it's not a surprise.
I'm the one that put my head on the chopping block and I have no complaints.
Oh no, but you didn't keep your head on the chopping block because you just jumped you just jumped your head off the chopping block by not continuing the discussion and jumping into well, I didn't bring up morality and I'm trying to keep things more comprehensible for the audience and not answering my questions.
Right?
And so you just jumped your head off the chopping block, which again, I have no particular issue with.
I just that is that is what happened.
Okay, okay.
Keeping your head on the chopping block would be to continue on with the definitions until you realize that none of your definitions fit anything objective.
And then saying, well, you know what, I guess I don't have a very strong sense of rational morality.
And therefore, I lack some maturity because you need rational morality to substitute for gods and governments.
That would be to keep your head on the chopping block, which you didn't do because you kind of fogged out in tangents and irrational pushback.
Yeah, but that's still, even so, even if I didn't do it, it's still a good lesson for philosophical discussions.
So is that your claim that what we're engaged in in here is a good lesson for philosophical discussions.
How, how would you know if that's a good I think a good lesson for philosophical discussions is to stay in the discussion and admit where you don't have adequate definitions and work to refine them so that they make more sense.
I think jumping out and fogging is not, I mean, that's not a good example of it's a very common one, but it's, I don't think it's a good one.
No, a failure, even a failure is still a good example of what not to do.
For example, if I were to use, uh, what do you call it?
Logical, logical, what do you call them?
Logical fallacies and you pointed them out.
You know, that would be a failure on my part, but it's still a good example to show how it works.
That's all.
Okay.
Well, I appreciate your time.
And I guess I'm not even going to say we're going to agree to disagree, but we do disagree.
And I appreciate your time.
And it was a very interesting discussion.
And I do appreciate the chance to talk about the distinctions between the reactive atheists and the rational atheists.
So thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
And you're certainly welcome back any time.
And I will put, yeah, thank you.
I will put out anyone else who wants to comment on this or any other topic.
I am delighted to hear.
We've got about an hour till the show.
And I'm happy to spend another little bit of time if people have questions or comments or want to give me feedback on the interaction that we just had.
Rising nature, I don't know that if I need to unmute you, I'll allow you to speak if you want to bring something up.
Go for it.
You might need to unmute if you are muted.
You had your hand raised.
Maybe that was from a time ago.
All right, going once, going twice.
Testing 1, 2, 3.
Shelley, if you say, is this.
thing working?
You're not muted, So you can unmute yourself if you wanted to talk.
I'm certainly happy to hear.
I'm certainly happy to hear.
Oh, hi, Stefan.
Can you hear me?
Hello, yes.
Oh, hi.
Yeah.
Nice to talk to you.
And you too.
What's up?
Not much, but I didn't really have much to talk about.
I was just kind of listening.
So I figured you didn't.
No, that's fine.
No problem.
If you don't have anything that you wanted to add, that's totally totally fine.
I thought you had, is this thing working like you were trying to talk and you weren't, uh, being heard?
Oh, no, no.
I think that might just be like auto generated or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, no problem.
I appreciate everyone who dropped by tonight.
A nice little, nice little chat and I also appreciate the difficult questions and the challenging questions because they do help me map things out a little bit better.
So I will stop here, have a little food and then I will see you guys at 7 pm for the Wednesday Night Live.
So yeah, so go ahead.
Sorry.
Um, yeah, I'm just finishing sorting out my microphone.
Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Oh, wonderful.
Okay.
So I had a quick question that I've been thinking about just today and I haven't had much time to flush it out, but it's essentially the difference between morality and virtue.
Particularly the question.
Did you did you sell this as a quick question?
Oh, yeah, sorry.
No, hang on, hang on.
Is that honest?
Just, you know, just if you could just differentiate between morality and virtue stuff, that would be excellent.
Is that a quick question?
I'm just curious.
Are we starting off with the moral?
Are we starting off with the moral ideal called honesty or not?
Yeah.
I think what it was is I meant., quick for me to ask, but maybe not quick to answer.
Okay, go ahead.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's the difference between morality and virtue because I feel like, oh, maybe I think there is a difference between the two.
And I even asked the StuffBot AI, but the answer that it gave was a little bit, well, unsatisfactory.
If you like, I can go through the answer that I got from StuffBot AI, and then we could continue from there.
Okay.
And why would you assume there is a difference between the words morality and virtue?
And maybe there is, and I certainly have some thoughts on it.
But why what's important for you in the distinction?
So I think what it came down to was the definition of love that you gave before, which is that it's the involuntary response to virtue.
And I'm sorry, can you just slow down?
I had a little trouble hearing you.
Can you just speak to that again?
Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think it came from the definition that you gave before with regard to the love being an involuntary response to virtue.
So when I was considering why virtue specifically rather than morality, I think that's where I started to.
Think about it.
Yeah, okay.
Got it.
Because I was thinking, for example, yeah.
Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry.
Yeah, I was thinking, for example, that if you look at the coma test, someone who is in coma can be considered moral, but maybe they can't be considered virtuous because morality is about what you don't do, whereas virtue is about what you do.
So going on from there, the question would then be whether or not someone who is in coma could be considered someone who is, I don't know, lovable, maybe according to the philosophical standards that we're using here.
Okay, that's sorry I interrupted you before.
Is that the end of the question?
Yes, that's correct.
Okay, so this is sort of my way of formulating it.
I'm not saying this is what you'll find in Miriam Webster dictionary.
So in my way of formulating it, morality is the theory, virtue is the empirical practice, in the same way that the scientific method is the theory and an actual scientific experiment that conforms to the scientific method is the practice.
So virtue is what is manifested in action, whereas morality is the prac theory, it's the blueprint, right?
So in a sense you could say that morality is like physics and virtue is like engineering, like it manifests things in the real world, which is why, given that love is empirical, not theoretical, which is why, if someone says they're a pilot, we don't necessarily let them fly a plane, right?
If they fly a plane very well, then they're a pilot.
And love tends to be empirical.
If someone claims, it says, well, I believe in honesty, that doesn't mean that we love love them.
If they just say, well, I I I hold honesty as a virtue.
I believe in honesty, blah, blah, blah.
We don't necessarily love them.
However, if someone consistently practices the the morality of honesty, then he is a virtuous person.
He's manifesting the theory.
Because lots of people can have, like there are tons of people who, you know, they understand the theory of UPB, but they're not necessarily honest in their daily lives in any sort of big, big, old, consistent way.
So I would say that a virtue is a virtue is the physical manifestation in an empirical sense of the theories of morality.
Does that sort of and that's why I use the word virtue in my formulation of love because love is not just love doesn't respond to what people say, it is respond to what they do because love is an in a sense it's an operation of as much of the body as it is of the mind.
It's an operation of the heart, it's an operation of the gut sense, it's an operation of a sort of deep lucid brain respect and admiration and so on.
And because it involves the body more than just abstract conceptions, then it is empirical in the same way that if you read a diet book, it doesn't cause you to to lose weight.
Like if you want to lose weight effectively, it's probably a good idea to read a diet book or consult with a nutritionist or something like that.
But if all you do is read the diet book and then continue to stuff your face, your body responds not to the theory but to the practice.
And in the same way, love being as much an operation of the body and the mind, like the body, the heart, the gut and all this sort of stuff, it responds to empirical action.
It doesn't respond merely to theory.
Now, to be consistently virtuous, you do have to have good moral theories.
But good moral theories are necessary but not sufficient for consistent moral actions, which would be defined as virtue.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, it's definitely consistent.
I suppose what I would add to that would be the distinguish how one would distinguish between applications that are universal and applications that are not universal.
And what I mean by that is if, for example, we say that preferable behavior exists and universally preferable behavior is the best standard for morality, then anything that isn't universal, like let's say you decide that you're feeling because I mean, sometimes people say, for example, kindness is a virtue and generosity is a virtuee.
But you can be selective with regards to who you're kind or who you're generous to.
It's not necessarily universally applied or an expression of any universal principle.
Maybe it's just a context that determines who you're nice to on a given day, whether or not you stand up for someone on the bus and give them your seat, or whether or not you choose to volunteer to, I don't know, clean the beach when it's litted with plastic and any other sort of material or waste.
Acts of altruism too.
They're not necessarily founded, let's say, in any universal principles, then more to do with perhaps people's aesthetic preferences.
And so to that degree, sorry, have you read, sorry, have you read UPB?
Yes, but I would say I would hesitate to say I have a complete grounded understanding of it.
So I understand.
But you remember there are five categories.
There's UPB compliant and then there's aesthetically preferable actions or APAs.
UPB and then APAs, it's aesthetically preferable actions.
These are things like being on time or, you know, maybe generosity or obviously volunteering to clean up the beach.
Things that are positive but cannot be enforced through coercion, right?
So, body integrity can be enforced through coercion, right?
If some guy wants to stab you, you can shoot him and kill him, right?
Because he's initiating the use of force against you.
So UPP is what can be enforced through coercion, whereas you can't shoot someone for being late.
So aesthetically preferable actions are things which are positive, but not inflicted through coercion and therefore not enforceable through coercion.
If you have a friend who's consistently late, you can just stop doing things with him.
He's not holding a gun to your head and saying, Stand here and wait for me, right?
So, yeah, there are esthetically preferable actions.
Politeness could be considered one, but you can't you can't shoot someone for being rude, right?
And so if you just want to go over the bit in UPB on esthetically preferable actions, I think that's the answer you're looking for.
Okay, thank you.
You're very welcome.
And I thank everyone for your time today.
A great pleasure to chat with you all.
I will talk to you in about 46, 40, 49 minutes in the Wednesday Night Live.
I hope you drop by for that.
We're going to do, I think we're going to do some more Jordan Peterson stuff because I think that was very enjoyable for people, certainly for me, and the views are pretty good.
So I'm a slave to the market.
So thanks everyone so much.
I will talk to you soon.
A lot of love from up here.
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