A DEEP CRITIQUE OF UPB!
"Let me use Stefan's answer to the question "Can we be certain about the future?" – which you can find in his September 27 Wednesday Night Livestream at 1:23:07 – as an opportunity to publish a short essay I have written after reading The Art of the Argument...."
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See you soon!
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Transcript
00:00 I'll write you well. Good morning everybody, hope you're doing well. So somebody wrote me
00:04 an essay some time ago, I'm sorry it took me so long to get to it, but he wrote me an essay which
00:12 is wonderful, a great set of questions, I really appreciate the pushback and the critiques,
00:15 so let's see if we can't sharpen this diamond to a slightly brighter hue. He says "The Argument and
00:22 Consequentialism" and he said "Let me use Stefan's answer to the question 'Can we be certain about
00:26 the future?' which you can find in his September 27th, 2023 Wednesday night live stream at 1 hour
00:33 23 minutes and 7 seconds as an opportunity to publish a short essay I've written after reading
00:38 The Art of the Argument. Motivation. This is not a rebuttal to The Art of the Argument, I would have
00:45 to write a book to do that which I have no intention of doing so, I have no problem with 99%
00:48 of what Stefan is saying in the book. This is a criticism of Stefan's view of consequentialism
00:54 and determinism. As an empiricist he focuses on the evidence and I don't want to criticize
00:59 empiricism. In my opinion empiricism is crucial to rationality and true freedom and Stefan is saving
01:07 it where it needs to be saved in our everyday lives, but empiricism is only one side of the coin
01:12 and that's what this is about." And he makes a note that quotes in italics are from the book
01:17 The Art of the Argument, Western Civilizations Last Stand, artoftheargument.com, you should
01:22 totally check it out. What is consequentialism? So he quotes from the satanic temple of wikipedia
01:29 and says "in ethical philosophy consequentialism is a class of normative teleological ethical
01:37 theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about
01:44 the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus from a consequentialist standpoint a morally
01:51 right act or omission from acting is one that will produce a good outcome." All right so as a little
02:01 bit of... so normative simply means prescribing a norm or a standard which are pretty basic to
02:08 ethics. Teleological refers to something that has a design or a purpose particularly in nature so
02:17 that's consequentialism right? "Freedom and consequentialism" he writes and this is a quote
02:22 from me from page 36 of The Art of the Argument. "The argument occurs every time you try to convince
02:27 someone else of your position or preference without using threats or force." And then he
02:32 writes "from a consequentialist standpoint an argument occurs when the consequentialist tries
02:36 to convince someone of what he believes a good or bad outcome will be. Thus a consequentialist
02:43 argument is a value argument with its alleged value living somewhere in the future. The value
02:48 is not true yet but it could become true." All right I'm down with that as a definition not
02:55 necessarily as a final argument. And then he quotes from my book page 7 "a truth argument
03:01 cares nothing for consequences a value argument cannot be defined by consequences but cannot be
03:05 indifferent either." And then he writes "the main motivation of consequentialism is to be not
03:11 indifferent of the future." So when facing a consequentialist statement we are facing a person
03:17 who wants to affect our free will choices in order to achieve a behavioral change for the
03:22 sake of a different outcome in the future. This has everything to do with freedom so we must be
03:26 very careful. All right so it started off well with some great setup and all of that but here's
03:34 the problem. The main motivation of consequentialism is to be not indifferent of the future. Now
03:41 that's a kind of foggy goop that seems to mean something but really doesn't.
03:48 So with philosophy we should be little concerned with motivations. Why? Because motivations
03:57 are a subjective claim. If somebody says "I'm motivated by x" how on earth are you supposed
04:05 to disprove that statement? How on earth are you supposed to disprove that statement? And so
04:13 philosophy cannot take as is any of its moral axioms the question of motivation because moral
04:21 axioms have to be founded in facts, truth, empiricism, syllogisms. They have to be unassailable
04:27 and if you're trying to build something that's unassailable then you can't have a subjective
04:34 claim as the foundation for anything to do with that. Right? We, I mean you've heard this all the
04:39 time in the call-in shows with regards to parents who misbehaved in the past or did bad things in
04:44 the past. What do they say? We did the best we could with the knowledge we had. There's no way
04:50 to prove any of that and when people make subjective claims I think that's fine. If somebody says
04:58 "I prefer the color red over the color blue" I think, I mean what am I going to do? Argue with
05:03 them? They're making a subjective claim. But there's no place in philosophy. There's no place
05:09 in philosophy. Can you imagine judging the value of a scientific theory by the stated motivations
05:16 of the scientist? It would make no sense. Right? Can you imagine judging the validity of a
05:25 mathematical solution by the color preference of the mathematician? Would make no sense at all.
05:32 So when people say, he writes, "the main motivation of consequentialism is to be not
05:39 indifferent of the future" I mean I won't say he's already lost me because you know it's worth
05:45 examining these things in more detail but why on earth would I care from a philosophical standpoint
05:51 about the imaginary motivations of people who claim to be fans or advocates of consequentialism?
05:59 So I don't really get this and you know just when you are writing to me or to anyone you want to be
06:07 taken seriously the art of the argument is organized very sort of specifically and carefully.
06:12 There are syllogisms, there's inductive and deductive reasoning definitions, there's a
06:16 passionate plea for why reason and evidence is so important because the only alternative is threats
06:21 and force. So I put the book very carefully together and put a lot of thought into how to
06:27 make the case. So when somebody says to me the main motivation of consequentialism is to be not
06:33 indifferent of the future he's bringing in something called motivation which he doesn't know.
06:38 He can't possibly know and so when somebody starts off their truth claim by something they can't
06:44 possibly know and even if they know it I can't verify it and if I can't verify it it's not part
06:52 of a debate. If you say well I dreamt of an elephant last night there's no possible way for
06:58 me to verify that. I may believe you, I may not believe you but it doesn't matter. I mean can
07:03 you imagine if someone has a will like your grandfather has a will that leaves everything
07:08 to your brother and then you're with your grandfather when he dies and you say my
07:14 grandfather whispered to me that everything should come to me and not go to my brother
07:19 would any court in the world accept that? Well no because there's no verification, there's no
07:26 notarization, there's no test for sound minds, there's simply your word against the stated
07:32 notarized legal will of the document. So that which cannot be independently verified has no
07:42 place in moral philosophy. That which cannot be independently verified right so when I make a
07:48 case about UPB, make the case for UPB you can independently verify that. You can run that through
07:53 logic, reason, evidence and so on and you can determine whether what my claims are are true.
07:59 So when somebody says the main motivation of consequentialism is to be not indifferent of
08:04 the future he's saying that he knows the motivations of all people who are pro-consequentialism. He
08:12 knows their motivations or is he saying that the philosophy itself has a kind of motivation
08:18 but an argument doesn't have motivation. Human beings have motivations. You see the argument,
08:24 the argument doesn't see you right. So it's all quite confusing in terms of what he's saying and
08:31 when you are reading something that's particularly rigorous as in the art of the argument,
08:38 took great care in putting all that together. When you read something that's particularly rigorous
08:43 and then you start with subjective assertions of the motivations of all those who are advocates
08:50 for consequentialism, I don't really know what to say about that other than you're really missing
08:57 the boat. Right you're really missing the boat. I mean I kind of hate that phrase you've lost the
09:02 plot because it doesn't really mean anything but it's not anything substantial. And then he and
09:08 the other thing too is well of course philosophy is not indifferent to the future and I say that
09:12 right there. I say a value argument cannot be defined by consequences but it cannot be
09:16 indifferent either. So what I mean by that is if you're saying it's morally good to mass murder
09:25 then we wouldn't want you to put your theory into practice. Right we wouldn't want you to
09:32 test your theory. This is of course the great question that Dostoevsky poses in Crime and
09:37 Punishment. Raskolnikov has a theory about property. He has a theory about the legitimate
09:43 use of violence which he describes in great detail in an essay he writes before he commits his crime.
09:47 So value arguments can't be indifferent to consequences. We won't try a bunch of mass
09:54 murdering to see if it works but it's not defined by its consequences. So to be not indifferent of
10:02 the future well of course philosophy is about changing our behavior for the better. Now the
10:08 change of that behavior for the better will always exist in the future because we cannot change the
10:15 behavior that we have exhibited in the past. I mean if you go to a nutritionist and you're 300
10:20 pounds the nutritionist is doing what? Well the nutritionist is making the case that you should
10:27 change your eating habits in order to lose weight and be healthier in the future. I mean there's no
10:32 magic wand. I'm sure it would be pretty pretty popular if there were but there's no magic wand
10:36 that a nutritionist can wave to have you not eat excess calories for the past 10 years and end up
10:41 with 300 pounds. That doesn't exist. So to say that a nutritionist is indifferent to the future
10:49 is obviously false. Any doctor, any physical trainer and a moral philosopher are all making
10:55 cases and arguments for you to change your habits or solve a problem in order to improve something
11:01 in the future or at least not have it get worse. So all human mental disciplines that aim to change
11:08 behavior are designed for the future. I mean we even study history which is behavior that can't
11:15 be changed in order to make better decisions in the future. All human thought bends towards the
11:19 future because all human thought is designed to change behavior for the better and that change
11:24 of behavior for the better only exists in the future. So if you're saying the main motivation
11:30 of consequentialism is to be not indifferent of the future you would have to say why consequentialism
11:36 is the only mental discipline or a discipline wherein the major focus as opposed to other
11:42 disciplines is interest in the future. Sorry that was badly worded. Let me try that again.
11:48 Let's say I say the main characteristic of consequentialism is that it uses language.
11:55 If I say the main characteristic of consequentialism is that it uses language,
12:00 I mean of course you would reply and rightly so, "well yes I accept that consequentialism uses
12:06 language but if you're going to say that the main characteristic, the primary characteristic of
12:11 consequentialism is that it uses language you would then have to explain how it ranks with
12:17 all the other human disciplines that use language. If you say the main motivation of consequentialism
12:25 is to change behavior in the future, well again you'd have to say why it would be differentiated
12:32 from all other mental, scientific, medical or other disciplines that aim to change behavior
12:38 in the future. I mean every ad on TV or online aims to change your behavior in the future.
12:46 Every diet or nutrition book aims to change your behavior in the future. Every politician is trying
12:52 to get you to change your behavior in the future or at least maintain your behavior if you're
12:56 already going to vote for him, to have you not change to not voting for him. So everyone's
13:01 trying to convince you to change your behavior in the future. What differentiates consequentialism
13:07 from all other human disciplines that aim to change your behavior in the future? So yeah.
13:12 So he says so when facing a consequentialist statement we are facing a person who wants to
13:16 affect our free will choices in order to achieve a behavioral change for the sake of a different
13:21 outcome in the future. Right. So a person who wants to affect our free will choices in order
13:26 to achieve a behavioral change for the sake of a different outcome in the future, that's everyone.
13:29 And then he says this is everything to do with freedom so you must be very careful.
13:34 Now I do have a certain amount of impatience with the caution people. You've got to be so careful.
13:42 It's like yeah. I mean I'm afraid that sort of modern discourse has become such a low-rent
13:48 WWF oiled bicep brawl fest that all the people who are saying you've got to be super careful
13:53 probably aren't going to be doing much helpful stuff in that domain. Okay so then he says
13:59 consequentialism and threats. Now sorry what I would say, and just go back to the last paragraph,
14:04 what I would say is that consequentialism aims to change your behavior by claiming certain,
14:12 not to change your moral behavior or to make a moral argument by making certain claims about
14:17 the outcome of choice. To make certain claims about the outcome of choice. But he's not making
14:24 that. He's just saying consequentialism wants to change our behavior in the future but that's too
14:29 wide a brush right. Almost every human discipline, almost every human communication wants to change
14:34 behavior in the future. I mean when you go to a coffee shop and you order a coffee you're trying
14:38 to change the barista's behavior in the future to make you a coffee. Oh anyway consequentialism and
14:44 threats. He says a threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person
14:50 but harm or loss, in other words bad consequences, are not always the result of a threat.
14:55 The question is why would someone want to talk about or even promise bad consequences? Okay
15:03 sure. There's a large circle called bad consequences, being hit by a bus, getting
15:11 cancer or whatever right, hit by a meteor and or getting fired or something unjustly right. So
15:17 yes there's a big circle called bad outcomes and there's a smaller circle which says harm or loss
15:26 threat. Right small small right. So one is just bad stuff happens, bad outcomes. The bad outcomes
15:31 could be you smoke for a long time and then you get lung cancer. So you've got a big big circle
15:36 called bad outcomes. Now inside that there's a much smaller circle called threats right. So yes
15:41 a threat is always a threat of a bad outcome but not all bad outcomes in life are part of a threat
15:46 and that's you know that's so blindingly obvious that I don't even know what to say.
15:52 Right if somebody says you know a lot of people have bad outcomes based on their choices
16:00 but some people have bad outcomes not based on their choices. It's just bad luck and and is this
16:06 a profound statement? Is this a profound moral statement? It's not. Some people get into car
16:14 accidents because they're driving badly but did you know Steph that a lot of people get into car
16:20 accidents when they're not driving badly. It's bad road conditions, it's the error or even bad
16:26 driving of another driver, it's a mechanical failure when they've kept their car maintained
16:30 and it's just one of these statements that's it's it's not the end of the world when something is
16:36 blindingly obvious and adds nothing to anybody over about two and a half years of age right.
16:41 I mean if I said to my daughter when she was two and a half I said you know there's candy in the
16:47 house but did you know there's also candy in the world and that the candy in the house is just a
16:50 small part of the candy in the world she'd say well duh I know we see it every time. So if it's
16:55 blindingly obvious to a two and a half year old but it's intoned with great solemnity to me I have
17:00 a certain amount of hmm why you now it's one thing if somebody says look I know that this is
17:06 blindingly obvious I understand that this is plenty obvious I have a reason for telling you
17:10 I have a reason for telling you and just be be patient right be patient and I'm sorry to say
17:17 something so blindingly obvious but I have a reason or you know whatever whatever it is that
17:23 that's fine right I mean at the very beginning of UPB I say come on like what are the odds that
17:29 a software entrepreneur a software entrepreneur turned philosopher has solved the problem of
17:34 secular ethics which has bedeviled philosophy since there was such a thing as philosophy
17:38 what are the odds very low I understand your skepticism so I get all of that but when people
17:44 state the blindingly obvious to me and now there's been a bunch of them but they think that they're
17:48 adding great value I have I have questions okay so then he says the question is why would someone
17:54 want to talk about or even promise bad consequences and so on page seven in then he quotes me he says
18:01 for a truth argument to have value we must value the truth for a value argument to have meaning it
18:06 must be true all right fine with that he says a consequentialist argument about bad consequences
18:12 is made because the arguer believes he has knowledge about why the outcome will be bad
18:17 that's not true and that's not even close to true so hang on we'll get to that in a sec
18:21 seeing this as a threat and therefore invalidating the argument could mean to invalidate the person's
18:26 experience what so instead the empiricist should tackle it by asking for the evidence of the
18:31 experience which is what Stefan does when asking how do you know it's not a rhetorical question
18:36 all right so again we have to break the stand and I can very quickly tell I could very quickly tell
18:42 when someone is not being very critical of their own writing and I gotta tell you for me at least
18:51 somebody who's not critical of his own writing is a problem because they waste other people's time
18:59 right they waste other people's time because if I have to go through and critique your text right
19:07 if I have to go through and critique your text already then you have been somewhat disrespectful
19:14 I think and you have wasted my time it's sort of like if somebody sends me an email that's
19:21 full of spelling errors then I know they haven't carefully read the email to the point where at
19:27 least I don't have to try and puzzle out what they're saying because their words are misspelled
19:31 I get this in live streams though I understand live streams is more of a live typing situation
19:34 but I do ask people to proofread their text before they send them to me to make sure that
19:39 we don't waste everyone's time so he says a consequentialist argument about bad consequences
19:44 is made because the arguer believes he has knowledge about why the outcome will be bad
19:48 that's that's not true that's not true so the first thing is that the arguer of a consequentialist
19:58 argument bad consequences the arguer first claims that he has knowledge about what the outcome will
20:04 be that's what he first has to make the question of whether something is good or bad is subsequent
20:12 to the question of whether the thing will happen or not right so if I were to say to you being
20:18 kidnapped by other dimensional unicorns is a bad thing would we get into that debate right away
20:24 no you would say well hang on I mean being kidnapped by other dimensional unicorns is not
20:30 a thing at all it's not a thing at all now if I said being hit by a meteor is bad we could say
20:35 well yes I mean the odds are very small but you could theoretically be hit by a meteor but if I
20:39 say being mugged by a square circle is bad discuss right the first thing would be well not well is it
20:45 bad or not the first question would be well hang on sorry wait a sec square circles don't exist so
20:50 why are we talking about this thing that that doesn't exist right I hope that that makes sense
20:56 but so the consequentialist is first of all claiming that he knows what the outcome will be
21:01 and then he claims that the outcome will be bad and then he needs to claim that the outcome
21:06 will be bad but still better than all other possible alternatives so first he has to claim
21:12 that he knows what the outcome of a choice will be and the second thing he needs to claim even if he
21:20 wants to stay within the bounds of consequentialism first he has to claim he knows what the outcome
21:23 will be and second he has to claim that he knows for a fact that this is either the very best or
21:28 the least worst of all possible outcomes right so if you get cancer and you you take a chemo the
21:35 outcome will be that you lose your hair but I mean assuming that the chemo is going to save your life
21:40 it's better than the alternative right so there's a lot he says he has knowledge about why the
21:47 outcome will be bad but he doesn't he has to first claim that he knows what the outcome will be
21:52 and then he says seeing this as a threat and therefore invalidating the argument
21:56 could mean to invalidate the person's experience now that's very confusing that's very confusing
22:02 invalidating the person's experience I don't know what that means other than it seems kind of girly
22:09 to put it my tooth I'm sorry there's a bit of a negative statement about girls but what does that
22:15 mean to invalidate a person's experience I've this is sort of a modern thing that happens you know my
22:21 my lived truth or my my personal journey or whatever it is it's like well hey man I don't
22:26 want to invalidate your lived experience unless you're going to make a universal claim of truth
22:31 and objectivity then your lived experience is irrelevant right I mean can you imagine as a kid
22:37 you write two and two makes five and the teacher corrects you and say no no no my lived experience
22:41 is that two and two make five you say that two and two make four but my lived experience is that two
22:45 and two make five my my personal experience my my vivid sense of blah blah blah well I mean that
22:51 doesn't make any sense right my lived experience is that a square circle is possible or whatever it
22:55 is right so invalidating the argument could mean to invalidate the person's experience
23:00 why on earth would I care about invalidating the person's experience the person's experience
23:05 by definition is subjective if it's objective it's the person's argument so invalidating the
23:11 person's experience I don't I don't know I mean that's like basically saying I feel that it's
23:16 true it's like well that's that's an interesting feeling first of all it's not a feeling
23:20 it's a sophisticated quote argument masquerading as emotional manipulation all right so instead
23:26 the empiricist should tackle it by asking for the evidence of the experience which is what
23:31 Steph does when asking how do you know it's not a rhetorical question well when I say how do you know
23:38 I'm not asking for evidence of experience I mean if you had a dream about an elephant last night
23:45 you have that experience I can't get proof of that experience for obvious reasons so when I say how
23:53 do you know you had a dream about an elephant last night you'd say well I very vividly remember it
23:58 and I was riding on its back or this that and the other right so when I ask how do you know
24:03 the question is if somebody says this particular moral argument will have a bad outcome in the
24:10 future I would say well how do you know like you're making a knowledge claim about the outcome
24:16 of a moral argument which means that you know the future and there's a self-detonating statement
24:23 in that right if you know the future it means that there's no free will right physicists know
24:31 what's going to happen to the future right in the future they know how matter and energy are going
24:37 to behave as do engineers because matter and energy don't have free will like a bridge doesn't
24:43 have free will and can't decide to shrug off its itchy burden of back trucks and go scampering off
24:48 to pick grapes in Queensland right so where there's no free will we can accurately predict the future
24:54 whether it's free will we cannot because of free will so the reason that the consequentialist is
25:00 has a self-detonating statement a self-contradiction embedded is he's saying
25:06 I want to change your mind about the future because I know in the future there's no such
25:12 thing as free will I know in the future there's no such thing as free will I know that there's
25:18 no such thing as free will in the future therefore I want to change your mind by appealing to your
25:26 free will in the present which of course makes no sense at all over the course of making the
25:32 argument to change my mind to appeal to my free will in the course of making the argument he's
25:38 moving from the past from the present into the future over the course of making it and he's
25:42 saying free will exists in the future but never in the present which makes no sense at all if
25:47 you're going to change people's minds if you want to change people's minds you have to accept that
25:51 you don't know jack crap about what's happening in the future you just don't I mean you don't
25:57 even know if the person you're debating is going to change his or her mind I mean you hope if
26:02 you make good arguments that they will but you can't guarantee it trust me this one I know right
26:06 it doesn't matter how good an argument you make some people will change their mind some people
26:09 won't you can't predict which is which who is who so the moment you try and change someone's mind
26:16 you have to accept that you don't know what's going to happen in the future because of free
26:21 will because of free will so that's why consequentialism is so I mean honestly it's
26:27 just completely ridiculous so self-contradictory right you can't at the same time say I know for
26:35 certain what everyone's choices are going to be in the future which means that they're not choices
26:39 but people are a species of physics with no free will and I want to change your mind in the present
26:45 if human beings have free will you don't know what's going to happen in the future
26:50 if human beings don't have free will it makes no sense to debate them because you then you
26:56 might as well debate a rock right so then he says consequentialism and bribery he said bribery is
27:01 the offering giving receiving or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of a person
27:05 I mean again I what can I really say I mean I and I know what bribery is trust me I've been
27:16 offered bribes in my life I know what bribery is so we are talking about subjectively good
27:21 consequences the question arises can consequences also be objectively good now we are entering the
27:26 domain of the so-called common good concept every rational thinker should be at war with and it's
27:31 true it's the crucial concept hijacked by all political evildoers in the history of the universe
27:35 in other words people are bribed with the promise of a common good all the time other common good
27:39 okay a consequentialist argument about good consequences is made because the arguer believes
27:43 he has knowledge about why the outcome will be good the same logic applies how do you know and
27:48 what kind of good are you talking about at that point UPP can be applied the necessary action for
27:53 the achieving the outcome for achieving the outcome can be considered good as long as there is one
27:58 evidence of either a win-win situation or prevention of an unwanted win-lose situation
28:02 and two a good reason to assume that the outcome is universally consistent so a consequentialist
28:09 argument about good consequences and necessary the necessary action for achieving the outcome
28:14 can be considered good as long as there is one evidence of either a win-win situation or
28:18 prevention of an unwanted win-lose situation and two a good reason to assume that the outcome is
28:23 universally consistent yeah evidence of a good reason to assume these are not philosophical
28:29 arguments philosophical arguments for ethics need to be absolutely ironclad and undisputable
28:34 indisputable indisputable because we're talking about the use of force violence right violence
28:40 takes no prisoners so intellectually morality should take no prisoners right so of course
28:46 violence does take prisoners but you know what i mean right so evidence of either a win-win
28:50 situation or prevention of an unwanted win-lose situation i don't know what any of this means
28:53 so people will say of course well we can't end the welfare state because people will be poorer okay
29:00 i absolutely accept that that that people who are taking money from other people through the power
29:08 of the state if that stops then some people will be poorer i mean in the short run for sure yeah
29:13 absolutely so so what is that i mean here's here's a good question here's a good question for people
29:18 who want to be moralists if your argument can ever be used to justify uh slavery it's a it's like the
29:25 coma test right if your argument can ever be used to justify slavery then he's a bad argument my
29:29 friend he's a bad argument he's no good so if we say well you know some people are affected
29:37 negatively by the end of slavery well sure yeah absolutely slave owners slave catchers all the
29:42 judges who adjudicate slave contracts and disputes and so on right they will be affected negatively
29:48 negatively by the end of slavery so you say ah well but in general it's a good thing it's like
29:54 well the moment you start to say in general you're in the realm of subjectivity you're in the realm
29:58 of subjectivity and some people may do badly materially as the result of a moral change
30:06 but they may also be happier about that so i mean people who are addicted to a particular substance
30:14 if that substance becomes unavailable for some reason either the dealer moves away or they go
30:20 to prison or whatever it is right the substance becomes unavailable they would go through
30:23 withdrawal but they're happy about that so you know that they're relieved that the drug is no
30:29 longer available i mean i'm sure we've all had it if you have a particular food weakness right
30:34 whatever it is that you indulge if it's around so you decide not to buy it not have it in your house
30:40 and then you're kind of snacky and you go to the cupboard and you feel like whatever it is that
30:43 you like to snack on that's bad for you and then you remember oh i didn't buy it it's not here
30:48 and you're like oh thank goodness otherwise i would have eaten it right so a negative consequence
30:53 can be uh welcomed can be welcomed so it we're all talking about subjective stuff we make decisions
31:00 based on principles so consequentialism and principles consequentialists do not necessarily
31:07 stand in the way of principles again it's just a statement no definition and it's funny because
31:11 he's defined bribery but he hasn't defined principle which do you think is more which
31:18 do you think is more important to define bribery or principles all right he says every consequence
31:22 is the result of behavior for a consequentialist it doesn't matter whether a choice is made because
31:27 of principles or out of subjective personal interest consequentialism doesn't prefer the
31:33 one over the other there are consequentialists who prefer a subjective good without any moral
31:37 contemplation and there are consequentialists who act upon principles for what they believe
31:40 would be objectively good so he's just saying constant people who believe in consequentialism
31:46 don't care whether you make a decision out of principles or subjective personal interest
31:52 i mean that seems important if a moral a moral system aims to improve mankind it should promote
31:58 making decisions based on principles it seems to me it seems to me it's sort of like saying well
32:03 your body doesn't care if you cut back on calories because of willpower or because you're locked in a
32:08 basement okay i mean i get that and he says consequentialism doesn't prefer the one over the
32:15 other and okay he's just making statements i still don't know what his definition of principles are
32:21 or our outcomes or how consequentialists magically know the future which is unknowable because of
32:26 free will see everybody with bad arguments wants an external authority to appeal to right the
32:33 appeal to authority is foundational to almost all sophistry and so whether that authority is the
32:38 world health organization or dr fauci or a god or whatever right and and for some people the
32:46 authority is a magical knowledge of the future i mean honestly when people say well we should do
32:52 this because there'll be good outcomes in the future it's the exact epistemological equivalent
32:56 of somebody saying we should do this because my magical elf friend tells me it'll make him happy
33:00 my invisible magical elf friends tells me it will make him happy so you should do this thing
33:05 it's like okay i'm sorry that you have these delusions but that's not an argument so again i'm
33:12 lack of definition and and consequentialism doesn't prefer whether you make decisions based
33:16 on principles or subjective personal interest again you can make these claims but now you're
33:23 saying that all consequentialists are completely indifferent as to whether somebody makes a
33:27 decision based on principles or out of subjective personal interest but consequentialism is a moral
33:32 argument claiming that is a preferred state and that preferred state is better outcomes in the
33:36 future so you can't say that a moralist who claims a universal preferred state is completely
33:42 indifferent as to whether you prefer a universal preferred state or you just happen to like x y or
33:47 z right again a a moral argument is a universally preferred state that people should behave because
33:55 it's better universally and he says universally earlier and then he says well but it doesn't
33:59 matter if you're subjective or not so the moral argument is saying that it doesn't matter whether
34:04 you make a decision based on a moral argument or not well then why am i listening to somebody
34:08 make a moral argument anyway he says in fact everyone is acting upon principles anyway
34:12 that's kind of confusing right doesn't matter whether you act on principles or not but everyone
34:18 acts on principles anyway the principle of pursuing a subjective good disregarding morality
34:22 is called selfishness the principle of pursuing the objective good would be technically be
34:29 unselfishness but that term doesn't quite fit as the objective good encompasses the self as well
34:34 however the question is not whether and unfortunately he he spells whether without
34:39 the h1 whether you act upon principles or not the question is are you honest about the principles
34:43 you align yourself with now this the word principles here is doing a heck of a lot of
34:46 work right this is a a very hard working because principles a principled man generally means that
34:52 he has abstract universal ideals right some moral principles right and now he's saying that
34:57 principles now doesn't mean morality it means justification and the fact that he defines
35:03 bribery but then has contradictory definitions of principles is obviously kind of messy all right
35:08 the question is are you honest about the principles you align yourself with
35:12 so now we have it doesn't matter whether you make a choice because the principles are out of
35:18 subjective personal interest but now the most important question is are you honest about the
35:22 principles you align yourself with so now honesty is a great value so wait a minute if you're a
35:27 consequentialist it doesn't matter whether you have principles or not but it's really important
35:31 that you have the principle called honesty okay sorry it's a mess all right let's do do one or
35:38 two more i find this i find this stuff interesting and i hope it's helpful to you as well the
35:42 pragmatic mind is his note and he quotes from my book the art of the argument atheists also tend
35:50 to prefer consequentialism or outcome-based moral standards that which produces direct and immediate
35:54 benefits in society is considered the good the greatest good for the greatest number and so on
35:58 these are not principled arguments but pragmatic arguments the principled argument against the
36:02 welfare state is that it violates property rights thou shalt not steal the consequentialist argument
36:07 for the welfare state is that it immediately reduces the amount of poverty in society and he
36:12 says stephan is technically correct about it being a consequentialist argument but incorrect in this
36:16 assumption of every consequentialist argument being limited to direct and immediate benefits
36:22 well of course right so if i say that butter contains fat right and if you want to lose
36:29 weight you might want to cut back on your butter not advice just an example right if i say butter
36:35 contains fat and you know fat is a lot of calories and then somebody loftily informs me that there
36:40 are other things in butter besides fat and and by the way steph didn't you know that there are other
36:46 foods that also contain fat i'd be like well yeah isn't this kind of taken for granted so when i
36:52 give an example of a consequentialist argument i'm not saying that every consequentialist argument
36:58 follows this pattern i never made that claim right the principled argument against the welfare state
37:04 is that it violates property rights the consequentialist argument for the welfare state
37:07 is that it immediately reduces the amount of poverty in society but i didn't say that all
37:11 consequentialist arguments follow that pattern so again it's a straw man right he says this as
37:16 far as i'm concerned is because an empiricist tends to be pragmatic yeah the word pragmatic
37:20 is just another one of these words that people use to create vague sounding positive noises
37:26 from their mouth hole without actually making an argument he's not he's defined again he's
37:30 defined the word bribery he defined a bunch of other stuff but he hasn't defined the word
37:35 pragmatic right the empiricist wrestles with reality for evidence so he prefers direct and
37:40 immediate evidence over long-term evidence in the same way a selfish person would prefer direct and
37:44 immediate benefits over long-term benefits the empiricist wrestles with reality for evidence
37:49 what does this mean the empiricist wrestles with reality he hasn't defined reality he hasn't defined
37:55 evidence he hasn't really defined empiricist so i just have to kind of gloss over that right so
38:01 then he says the duality of consequentialism consequentialism can be divided into moral
38:05 consequentialism and amoral consequentialism focusing on direct and immediate benefits
38:09 would be amoral consequentialism because it doesn't care about moral issues i call that
38:14 benefitism because the benefit is considered the highest value while the potential costs are
38:18 overlooked a good example for moral consequentialism is upb itself why is the behavior universally
38:24 preferable because acting upon universals is believed to result in good consequences
38:27 what on earth is that there's nothing to do with anything when have i ever said
38:32 believing acting upon universals is believed to result in good consequences now i do think
38:38 of course that a respect for property rights is going to generate more wealth in society than
38:42 an endless violation of property rights sure and i do talk about the evidence of
38:48 an adherence to universals there is evidence historical evidence because acting upon
38:54 universals is believed to result in good consequences is there any evidence for that
38:58 there certainly is but is the evidence universal the empiricist cannot give a final answer that's
39:03 why stephan provided logical proof through deductive reasoning okay yeah so that's fair
39:06 okay you know what i mean but he says why is the behavior universally preferable because acting on
39:11 universals is believed to result in good consequences consequences so he's saying that my
39:14 that upb has as its preference good consequences you should follow upb because of good consequences
39:21 nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope not at all not at all and i don't know consequences
39:28 short term or long term the whole reason that we need ethics is because we want to do evil right
39:33 there's a whole reason we need ethics is we want to avoid virtue and do evil like the whole reason
39:37 we need nutrition is because we want to eat things that are bad for us right so because we have
39:41 temptation we need standards to wield against those temptations so upb results in negative
39:47 consequences if you want to steal something and you're like ah upb right so like if you want to
39:53 eat a particular food like you want to eat cheesecake and they say oh we're out of cheesecake
39:57 or we're out of desserts as a whole and you're like oh actually you know it's probably better
40:00 for me like you have a negative consequences you don't get your cheesecake but it's good consequences
40:04 later when you feel better about it so consequences means very little all right so i write he has a
40:10 sit yeah moral consequentialism and amoral consequentialism yeah so can be divided it's
40:15 like yeah i mean okay yeah you can divide things but give me definitions and give me arguments all
40:20 right divine reasoning he wrote deductive reasoning assumes 100 proof assuming all
40:25 premises are correct inescapable perfect divine proof yes divine proof sounds great but how much
40:32 evidence do we have to collect to reach divinity sounds impossible but is that even necessary
40:37 i don't know what to say about that deductive reasoning is 100 proof all men are mortal
40:43 socrates is a man therefore socrates is mortal if all the premises are correct it's 100 certain right
40:48 so this is not evidence to collect to reach divinity this is by definition and then he
40:54 quotes from my book given that premises one and two are valid the conclusion three is inescapable
40:59 what this means is anyone who tries to escape the conclusion is actually trying to escape
41:02 rationality and reality and then he says this is where so many people go into opposition because
41:06 they feel someone is wanting them to not escape regarding the fact that a child generally is not
41:12 allowed to escape its parents in the context of the prevalence of violent parenting that reaction
41:16 shouldn't be surprising i mean to be bullied by lies may lead you to be susceptible to the
41:24 absolutes of truth like feeling bullied quote bullied by truth but i mean what does this mean
41:29 it is a psychological thing and it's interesting that he throws some sort of psychological thing
41:33 into what's supposed to be a moral philosophical and rational argument people don't like reason
41:40 because they were beaten as children okay i mean maybe maybe they don't like absolutes
41:45 because unjust absolutes were inflicted upon them okay yeah i can i can understand that
41:49 i don't know what it has to do with a moral argument about consequentialism but
41:52 all right apophatic inquiry deductive reasoning provides 100 through proof through so-called
42:00 apophasis apophysis the divine proof can't tell us what something is it can only tell us what
42:06 something is not to better understand that concept have a look at mark passio's explanation in the
42:10 second part of his natural law seminar starting at three hours eight minutes and 45 haven't done
42:14 that for example the main premise of upb is that it is universally applicable the main premise of
42:20 upb is that it is universally applicable it's not a premise that's the result of the argument
42:26 in other words you can universally everyone can respect property rights everyone like the respect
42:32 for property rights can be upb the violation of property rights stealing cannot be upb
42:37 because stealing is asymmetrical one person who's the thief wants to take the other person's property
42:42 but it's only stealing if the other person doesn't want the thief to take his property
42:46 so it's asymmetrical the thief wants to take someone else's property violating their property
42:52 rights the other person wants to keep their property maintaining their property right so
42:56 you have an argument for it to be universal that property rights have to be both violated and
43:00 respected which is a contradiction and therefore upb cannot be universalized it's an argument
43:03 so i don't know what the premise of upb is that universally applicable in other words the outcome
43:09 of upb is supposed to result in consistent consequences independent of time space and
43:13 whether the bubble dingles are swollen or not i mean i get he's joking right so it's a logically
43:19 correct consequentialist argument what the outcome of upb is supposed to result in consistent
43:24 consequences independent of time space no i mean the it's i mean it's almost like a tautology if
43:31 you claim that your premise i'm sorry if you claim that your argument is universal then it has to be
43:37 universal it's sort of baked into the definition right if you claim to have an argument about the
43:41 behavior of matter and energy then it's universal right e equals mc squared is universal the inverse
43:47 square law is universal gas is expanded when heated that's universal it's not one place in
43:54 philadelphia and another place in arkansas right a different so if you make a claim that applies
44:01 universally then that claim has to apply universally and if it doesn't then it's not universal right
44:07 all right let's see here but do we have non-divine evidence that it is true well we have thousands of
44:13 years of empirical data indicating that ignoring upb results in harm abuse in slavery chaos you
44:18 name it we know what upb is not and we see its opposite manifesting in the world that's a hell
44:22 of a good start no right yeah so i mean yes of course i think that i think that pursuing virtue
44:28 will often lead to positive outcomes but it leads to negative outcomes for a lot of people who
44:32 profit from evil doing so all right determinism he writes determinism is the philosophical view
44:38 that events are completely determined by previously existing causes there is no atheist that considers
44:42 determinism to be true and for good reason because one could ask what's the first cause then what do
44:48 many atheists consider determinism to be true sam harris i think richard dawkins has stumbled in
44:53 this so and again there are lots of atheists that consider determinism to be true so i don't know
44:57 what that means who would ever be able to prove that what the first cause is so let not look at
45:03 god creating the big bang but instead of reality all right does determinism occur in our everyday
45:07 lives is it observable how many people walk over the edge of a skyscraper and survive how many fly
45:11 away like superman okay so it's human beings are subject to physical laws yes absolutely you cannot
45:17 walk off a skyscraper and not fall right but you have a choice about whether to walk off a
45:22 skyscraper that's where the free will is not the free will to completely surmount reality that would
45:25 be being a god he says we have a lot of experience in falling but not so much experience in levitation
45:31 so we have a good reason to assume that gravity is determined however that is done but does that
45:36 mean that everything is predetermined again there are physical laws yes and there's human beings
45:43 who have free will so predeterminism now predeterminism is the idea that everything is set
45:48 in stone and we have no say in what is happening at all predeterminism denies the existence of
45:52 free will it's based on it's based on the oversimplification of the concept of free will
45:58 stemming from a childish understanding of what freedom is you see just because you can't fly
46:02 like neo in the matrix doesn't mean you are not free yes there's gravity yes it's pulling us down
46:06 every one of us and empirical data so far shows it's working 100 of the time do you know how to
46:11 overcome gravity by willpower alone no well then you are not free of gravity now like everybody
46:16 else does that mean gravity can't be overcome by willpower ever how do you know well i mean
46:22 saying that human beings are subject to physical laws is not any big profound statement now you
46:26 could say of course that you can a will overcoming gravity right you can't fly but you can build a
46:35 plane you can get in a plane you can choose to quote fly because you have chosen to defy gravity
46:42 in a sense right by creating aircraft or hot air balloons or hang gliders or whatever that can
46:48 propel human beings through the air which human beings can't do on their own so choosing like i
46:53 can't choose to go for an hour walk in the bitter cold without you know risking death unless i choose
46:59 to put on bulky warm heavy clothing and so on right i can't choose to slide down a snowy hill
47:06 unless i put skis on right so i mean choices can not i mean they obviously airplanes use gravity
47:15 and wind resistance and someone for their propulsion and elevation but human beings can't
47:21 fly but we can quote defy gravity by making the choices to build things that allow us to do what
47:26 we couldn't do on our own so yeah gravity can't be overcome by willpower ever how do you know
47:32 so what he's saying is that there should be grave doubt or there could be legitimate doubt about
47:41 the universality and existence of gravity right but so so that which we have experienced
47:48 100 we see everywhere all the time and there's no exceptions and there are scientific
47:54 conjectures hypothesis theories and proofs that gravity is 100 so if we can't be certain of
48:02 gravity then we can't be certain of anything right so he's saying that consequentialism is good
48:08 because people can know the future they can know the outcomes of complex socio-economic decisions
48:15 like the welfare state or whatever right so he's saying that consequentialism has value because
48:20 we can know the future but you can't know gravity i mean you see what i'm saying we can't know that
48:26 which is objectively empirically universally true and proven by every facet and evidence of
48:30 our experience in science and theory and reality and atoms and right so a foundational aspect of
48:36 the universe that is 100 validated by experience and theory well we can't be certain of that but
48:42 boy we can be certain about the outcomes of complex socio-economic decisions that made by
48:47 the state right so i don't quite i mean if we can't be certain of gravity let's say that we
48:51 can't we can't be certain of anything then there's no such thing as consequentialism because if we
48:54 can't be certain of reason evidence and everything we've ever experienced and everything that science
48:59 validates if we can't be certain of that then of course we can't possibly be certain of anything
49:04 that happens in the future and therefore consequentialism is invalid all right uh he
49:10 says let's oh then he quotes from my book one of the reasons why clear definitions at the beginning
49:14 at the beginning of a debate are so important is that they help you avoid wasting time in
49:18 synonym logic i agree with that it's from page 13 of art of the argument heart of the argument.com
49:24 he says let's be clear about that predeterminism is not the same as determinism
49:29 predeterminism is a foolish concept leading to the destructive mindset of a nihilist
49:34 okay predeterminism is the idea that everything is set in stone and we have no say in what is
49:39 happening at all he says it's a foolish concept why i mean saying that something is a foolish
49:44 concept is not an argument leading to the destructive mindset of a nihilist okay let's
49:50 say it does that's a consequentialist argument right that's like saying you shouldn't die because
49:55 you'll be unhappy a determinism he says on the other hand doesn't touch the future as it causes
50:00 as causes by definition will exist as long as there is time what determinism on the other hand
50:06 doesn't touch the future as causes by definition will exist as long as there is time so who causes
50:12 causes can you cause something to happen you see it doesn't matter who began it's like trying to
50:17 make the case that a thunderstorm in 10 000 bc caused water damage in your apartment in 2023
50:21 that's what you do if you want to win the nobel prize prize in nitpicking i don't i don't understand
50:28 sorry i don't i don't understand anything about this determinism on the other hand doesn't touch
50:33 the future oh is this that idea that you don't know what's coming next in a movie but you know
50:40 that it's prescriptive i've heard that argument before compatibilism i think it's called it still
50:46 doesn't make any sense all right i mean i don't argue with a movie if i'm arguing with a person
50:49 right you know you hear these people in movie theaters uh when there's a horror movie saying
50:54 don't do that don't run don't go down that hope you know that the movie's already done right you
50:58 know i mean it's kind of a foolish thing it's kind of a goofy foolish thing to do to argue with a
51:02 character in a movie where the movie's already been shot and it's fixed in stone right so
51:06 consequentialism sorry compatibilism doesn't make any more sense so what actually matters is what is
51:11 happening here and now and what we choose to do to better understand how determinism and free will
51:16 coexist have a look at mark pastries explanation of the mental schism and the worldview schism at
51:20 the beginning of the second part of the natural law seminar yeah i mean i i kind of get where
51:25 you're coming from but if you're going to make an argument like if you're competent to make the
51:30 argument then make the argument if you're saying this guy has a great argument then you're not good
51:35 at explaining it and so if you're not good at explaining the argument then i won't particularly
51:41 care what you have to say right if you're saying well mark mark passio or whatever he makes the
51:47 really good argument well if you can't summarize it for me then you don't understand it well enough
51:53 to explain it to someone else right just a big test of whether you understand something is can
51:56 you explain it particularly in fairly simple terms to someone else i mean i think it was einstein who
52:01 boiled down the theory of relativity or someone did boil down the theory of relativity into like
52:05 less than 300 words for a telegram and it was it was masterly right or the old quote from
52:10 wisden churchill i'm sorry that i i'm sorry this is such a long letter i didn't have time to write
52:14 a shorter one right so can you can you make the argument now he hasn't actually defined
52:21 what determinism is he just says it doesn't touch the future as causes by definition will exist as
52:28 long as there is time so he he literally quotes me in saying one of the reasons why clear definitions
52:34 at the beginning of a debate is so important is that they help you avoid wasting time on synonym
52:38 logic and he but he doesn't define determinism and how it's differentiated from predeterminism so
52:46 that's somebody who's not alive in thought in the moment right so if i say clear definitions
52:52 are important and he's trying to explain to me the difference between predeterminism and
52:58 determinism and he hasn't defined the differentiation differentiation between the terms then he's not
53:04 thinking in the moment this is all i don't know some sort of emotional defense usually these are
53:07 people who've done bad things in their life and they take refuge in determinism so they don't
53:10 have to confront their own conscience which doesn't work but it's strangely compelling for a lot of
53:14 people so yeah i hope this helps i really do appreciate people sending me this stuff in i do
53:19 find it very interesting and valuable to go through freedom.com/donate bye everyone talk to you soon