"Moral frameworks are intrinsically social because they rely on social acceptance and enforcement. When a new moral framework is conceived, it has to overthrow an existing moral framework, and if the adherents of the old framework aren't happy to be labelled as evil or lacking morally, they will fight the new framework tooth and nail. Does this mean that introducing a new moral framework requires a compromise on some issues in order for it to even have the chance of being widely adopted?
"This is like a presidential candidate compromising some of his stances on particular issues in order to be more acceptable to the public. Or as you’ve once said, ‘Are there any public philosophers who aren’t fighting one evil while appeasing another one?’ Even with the abolition of slavery, the racial discrimination continued through state power.
"I understand that philosophy is more for the future than the present. I'm just curious how a philosophical movement survives the test of time when it relies on people in order for it to get to the future. We only see the successful religions for example, but we don't see all the religions that failed to gain traction, and a part of me wonders if there is more to morality than providing a rational proof, especially since the means of transmission is social.
"I understand you haven't stopped at a rational proof either, and have applied it to many facates such parenting, relationships, psychology and history. I also struggle to consider what could be compromised on here without losing something essential about UPB and NAP which is their universality. But at the same time, I have doubts about the future success of these ideas when faced with the seeming momentum of social norms and institutional forces.
"Is no compromise the answer? Or is my ambivalence warranted?"
0:00 - Introduction
1:05 - The Complexity of Moral Frameworks
9:45 - Evolution and Selective Breeding
12:00 - Neoteny and Animal Husbandry
13:02 - Universalizing Local Principles
19:05 - Understanding Enforcement in Morality
23:21 - Compromises in Advancing Moral Frameworks
25:53 - The Challenge of Introducing New Morality
31:02 - Advancing Philosophy Without Certainty
36:49 - The Importance of Action in Philosophy
39:35 - Balancing Philosophy and Daily Responsibilities
41:45 - The Con of Abstract Nonsense
In this episode, Stefan Molyneux delves into a deep discussion surrounding moral frameworks, social acceptance, enforcement, and the philosophy of consistency. He reiterates the importance of being consistent in moral principles and not rushing to oversimplify complex philosophical issues. Stefan gives examples from physics, evolution, and historical power structures to highlight the significance of universalizing local concepts.
He emphasizes the value of consistency in philosophy and the role of philosophers in challenging societal hypocrisies and power structures. Stefan talks about the need to question existing moral frameworks and the necessity for new moral frameworks to gain acceptance by society. He discusses the concept of compromise in moral movements and the challenges faced by public philosophers in addressing societal norms and institutional forces.
Stefan encourages listeners to spread virtues like truth, reason, and morality in their personal relationships and to prioritize living philosophy rather than indulging in abstract philosophical debates. He emphasizes the importance of feeding one's conscience with truth and honesty, even if it means sacrificing convenience or social approval. Stefan warns against using abstract philosophical distractions as a way to avoid taking real action towards promoting moral principles and engaging in meaningful relationships based on honesty and virtue.
[0:00] Well, well, well, hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux. Great questions. We're having a mellow afternoon and we're going to dig into some core philosophy here. And thank you, of course, to all of the great community questions at freedomain.locals.com. If you'd like to help out the show, it would be most appreciated. We few, we happy few who labor deep in the salt mines of philosophy would be happy to have a small couple of coins rolled down the mountain. And you can support the show at freedemand.com slash donate. Freedemand.com slash donate. All right. Here's the first question. Moral frameworks are intrinsically social because they rely on social acceptance and enforcement. Ooh. Back to the philosophy nerds right up front. Right. Moral frameworks are intrinsically social because they rely on social acceptance and enforcement.
[1:06] All right. You sneaky, sneaky people. All right. So this is somebody who, and we're all tempted by this. I try to resist the temptation. Occasionally I succeed. So what does a package do? Right. So it's like, okay, I'm going to take this incredibly complex argument and I'm going to just barrel it through as if it ain't no thing, as if it's completely self-evident. It's like, okay, given that two and two make four, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So moral frameworks are intrinsically social because they rely on social acceptance and enforcement. Okay, what's your definition of moral? What's your definition of a framework? What's your definition of intrinsically? what's the definition of social and acceptance and enforcement you have just rolled a massive package of incredibly complicated or sophisticated or detailed philosophical issues and rolled them all into one and jammed it through as if it's completely self-evident to which i say slow your Dear old sailor, how about you lube me up and buy me a drink before we go to that extremity of aggression? So what does that mean? Moral frameworks are intrinsically social because they rely on social acceptance and enforcement.
[2:31] And what does intrinsically mean here? So is it true that people need to believe in a morality in order to enforce that morality? Yeah, I think that's true. True, I think that's certainly true. They rely on social acceptance and enforcement.
[2:50] So, the greatest gift that thinkers can give to humanity is consistency.
[3:02] Consistency. I am the least revolutionary philosopher in history.
[3:10] Because I'm not inventing any radical new perspectives or morals or approaches or anything like that. I'm not inventing new gods. I'm not saying that we shouldn't use reason I'm not saying that we shouldn't debate I'm the least revolutionary philosopher in history while of course being the most radical philosopher in history in many ways because I'm just doing this radical little thing called consistency you know there are these little posters everything I need to know about life I learned in kindergarten well everything I need to learn about morality was taught to me when I was very little. Use your words, not your fists. Don't take what isn't yours. Keep your promises. Tell the truth. This is all what was taught to me. The most radical revolution in philosophy is mere consistency. Now, this happens in the realm of physics and everything, right? So when it was believed that the world was the center of the universe and the stars were little pinpricks in the colander of the sky and so on, you know seemed to make sense and people say well you know you take an apple you let go of it it drops to the ground, and all that you know people like Copernicus and Trichobrach and Newton to some degree all they said was, okay like that apple dropping what if that's universal.
[4:33] What if everything falls and people's mind got blown, right? Okay, so if everything falls, then there's inertia, which keeps something going in a straight line. There's centrifugal forces, which cause something to, well, sorry, inertia, which keeps something in a straight line. There's gravity, which has it fall down or fall towards a larger mass. And so that's going to result in a stable orbit. Momentum plus gravity results in a stable orbit.
[5:10] The centrifugal force or inertia pushes it outwards. Gravity pulls it inwards. It ends up in a stable orbit. Okay, so we can see a bunch of stuff going around Jupiter. I think there's really nothing around Venus or Mercury. There are Demis and Phobos are the two moons around Mars. But you can see a bunch of moons floating around. around and so then people said okay well if we if we have a moon and we can see a bunch of moons all over the place i don't know what a 27 around jupiter or what i know some crazy number these days right uh it's going to hit the wall soon so they said okay so what if gravity is a constant what if everything we see in the sky is a ball what if we're a ball like what they're just extending consistency. That's all. What if everything falls? What if we're not the center of the universe? What if the sun is the center of the solar system? And what if we're a sphere just like everything else? And what if everything falls around everything else? It's just taking the apple falling down, making it consistent, right? That's the big trick.
[6:20] Universalizing the local is the job of philosophy and particularly in the realm of morality like why do people get so mad at me i mean we could do a whole show i shoot a whole series of shows about that but one of the reasons why people get so mad at me is i'm not telling them anything they don't already know right i'm not what what's my what's my radical philosophy non-aggression principle respect for property rights oh that's just crazy don't use file don't initiate the use Use of force and respect people's persons and property. Oh my, how insane, how radical, right? I'm not saying that sexually abusing hamsters is the way to moral perfection, right? I mean, that would be a little tough to defend. Well, impossible for the hamster, but tough logically. So what I'm doing is the same thing. What Einstein did in saying, okay, speed of light is constant. Well, speed of light is constant, right? right what if there's no such thing as the ether which we can't prove anyway speed of light is constant well making that the basis gives us an understanding of the universe as a whole, saying everything conforms to the same physics as the apple falling from your hand when you let go of it everything conforms to that it's just universalizing it now universalizing it is.
[7:44] Gets you nose up against the giant ass of the seat of power. That's a vivid analogy. You can almost smell that, right? Sticks of the nasal hairs. Power is in hypocrisy. Power is in inconsistency. Power is in rules for thee, but not for me.
[8:08] I can pass laws against you. You cannot pass laws against me. I can take money by force from you. You cannot take money from force by me. I can counterfeit. You can't counterfeit. I can run into debt based on others. You can't run into debt based on others. So power, you understand, is hypocrisy, foundational, which is why brutal hierarchies are always at war with good philosophers, because the hierarchy and the power is the hypocrisy, and philosophy erases hypocrisy or reveals hypocrisy for what it really is, which is power, right? Why have we developed the capacity for endless self-deluding hypocrisy? Because that allows us to use power against others and also allows us to survive the use of power against ourselves. But once we justify the use of power against ourselves, it tends to be very sticky, right? It tends not to move. So yeah, social acceptance, sure.
[9:11] But when I say all the things that were taught to you in kindergarten are true universally, people go kind of crazy, right? People go kind of crazy. I mean, there were religious institutions the world over that were built on the Earth being the center of the universe, right? And when the Earth was revealed as not the center, even of the solar system, let alone the universe, those power structures took a blow.
[9:46] Even darwin's theory of evolution is simply an extension of local principles to universal standards for i mean if you ever want to sort of blow your mind or the mind of your kids you go, online and you search for like what did corn look like originally i mean you go and see these weird dogs, like they're Shih Tzus and so on, face mushed and they can't breathe, right? What's this great meme, like an ancient cat, you know, 10,000 years ago, talking to a modern cat, and the ancient cat says, ah, yes, humans are still our slaves, you know, the guy comes home and the cat's meow, meow, meow, and the cat is basically saying.
[10:32] Open the cupboard, you effing can opener. So that's what the cat's saying. And the ancient wolf is saying to the modern dog, is trying to talk to the modern dog. The modern dog is like, the ancient wolf is like, what the eff is that? What is that? What is it? The wolf 10,000 years ago is like, okay, there's some humans over there with a campfire. They're offering me some food. Let's give it a shot. What could go wrong? And then there's some.
[10:58] 10,000 years later, there's some flat-faced dog wheezing his way in. Some old lady, kid substitute, fluffy costume, and it's like, oh God, what's happened? So animal husbandry, selective breeding for the sake of utility has been known since ancient times, right? People have spliced together crops to get better crops. They've selected the most flavorful and ripe crops. They've split apples into a wide variety of species of different kinds of apples. And so selectively breeding, right? I mean, wolves were selectively bred for tens of thousands of years so that they retained what's called neoteny. Neoteny is when you retain childlike characteristics into adulthood, right? So women in particular with high-pitched voices, shorter stature, they don't lose their hair and so on. So women retain physical characteristics of childhood into adulthood, and that's called neotony.
[12:00] And dogs are just wolves bred so that the puppies don't evolve into adult dogs. For the most part, right? Dogs are just wolf puppies that never grow up.
[12:14] So animal husbandry, selective breeding. There's a Russian breeder, which I thought was quite fascinating. Fascinating he separated foxes into two groups and one group he simply bred the most aggressive foxes with the most aggressive foxes and the other group he bred the least aggressive foxes with the least aggressive foxes and within a couple of generations and it was only a few generations he had crazy aggressive foxes and crazy passive and and friendly foxes and And it was pretty wild. So human beings have seen evolution consistently. And of course, the fact that civilization has evolved is a kind of IQ evolution and so on. And so...
[13:02] Saying that they're precious and creatures change over time, you simply take that principle and you extend it and expand it forever, right? But that runs up against a particular kind of power, right? The power that says, give me money because God created all of our lives and I have a special access to God and he'll give you heaven and hell. Well, evolution, as does the heliocentric model of the solar system, takes God out of the equation, which sometimes means fewer tithes flowing to the religious authorities around the world. So when philosophers take localized examples and universalize them, they unravel the hypocrisy. We unravel the hypocrisy that is the foundation of power.
[13:53] Because virtue is hypocrisy. Right in all pre-upb formulations virtue is hypocrisy because it's always rules for thee but not for me it's rules that are claimed to be universal that require the opposite of those rules to enforce right so they say ah well you see this is the sort of social contract theory right which i've talked about before so philosophers have said so you have a right to property right and and property is a good right to have. And so in order to enforce your right to property, what you need is a social agency that violates property rights in order to protect your property. So you have to submit yourself to an agency that can violate your property rights, pretty much at will, in order to protect your property.
[14:48] That is a little tough. Well, you see, society needs a third party to judge disputes between people because people can't agree on how to resolve all their disputes, and there are people who are corrupt, and there are people who will cheat you and lie to you and so on. And so you need someone to judge you or some group to judge you, and that's called the law and the judges and the legal system, the prosecutors and so on. Because people are corrupt and will lie and cheat. it's like okay so what happens if the legal system is corrupt and lies and cheats, see you you say there's a problem and then you create a group of angels immune to that problem still calling them human beings and then you say you've solved the problem.
[15:35] Which makes about as much sense to women as saying more men too for that matter saying well, you you you really have to make sure that you have a system that protects you from rape and And the way that you do that is you create a group of people in society who can rape you at will, and that's how you protect yourself from rape. Like, none of that would make any sense, right? In order to gain protection from the problem of murder, you need to create a group of people in society who can murder you at will, which is, you know, something like the draft in a way, right? So, that hypocrisy, right? And you're not allowed to notice this, right? Because if you notice it, then it's a problem, right? Because then you, I mean, you shall live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension. and that really is just, boing, eyes open time, right?
[16:31] So, moral frameworks are intrinsically social because they rely on social acceptance and enforcement. Okay, so, again, that's a total word salad, but I think the questions that it raises are interesting. And just in general, I know everybody wants to rush to their big question, but I was always taught as a kid, it's just another one of these things that's kind of important, I was always taught as a kid, well, two things. Respect property, don't use force, and all you do is take that and universalize it, right? And that runs you into the hypocrisy of power. And power has its say in all of that, as we know. But the other thing I was told is that haste makes waste. Don't rush. Haste makes waste. Like it's the old, there's a business idea where the old bull and the young bull are at the top of the hill and there's a bunch of cows at the bottom. And And the young bull says, let's run down and have sex with a cow. And the older bull says, no, no, no, let's walk down slowly and have sex with all the cows. I mean, it's one of these not very useful, apocryphal stories in the business world. And so haste makes waste. And so you need to build your case to have credibility. There's a reason why it's hundreds of pages for peaceful parenting, and it's hundreds of pages for UPB, and it's hundreds of pages for RTR. And hundreds of pages for essential philosophy, and my other books, and so on. You need to build your case, right?
[17:59] So, again, I don't know what you mean by moral. I don't know what you mean by frameworks. Intrinsically is really, really a tough word. I mean, you're talking about Aristotelian essence or based upon the concept definition. I don't know. I don't even know what you mean by social. Social enforcement. And also, you blend together acceptance and enforcement. They rely on social acceptance and enforcement. No, moral frameworks do not rely on enforcement in a truly free society because in a truly free society, the power is ostracism, right? I mean, you understand the irony that I've been advocating ostracism and being kicked out of economic frameworks as a way of enforcing social rules. I've been talking about that for decades and then I got deplatformed. Ooh. I, you know, I don't particularly mind being the proof of my own theory.
[18:56] De-platforming is a great argument for a truly free society. So, all right, so social acceptance and enforcement.
[19:05] If you mean by enforcement the initiation of the use of force, then that's immoral. If you mean by enforcement self-defense, that's another matter, still the use of violence, but justified. If you're talking about enforcement through ostracism, that has no violence involved. So again, I don't know what you're talking about. out. And if I don't know what you're talking about, as a rational guy, it's an important principle here. If I don't know what you're talking about, I assume that you, you, my friend, do not know what you're talking about. And you're trying to pull one over on me by rushing through a whole bunch of complex stuff as if it's completely self-evident. So you understand that's like, that's an appeal to insecurity, right? Right. That's an appeal to it. So if you rush forward with highly complex stuff that, I mean, I mean, look, this one sentence could be an entire book, right? This one sentence could be an entire book and needs to be. You know, mathematical proofs, I mean, look at Fermat's last theorem, right? Mathematical proofs can be enormously complex and lengthy. So when you rush forward as if things are self-evident.
[20:15] I assume you're trying to pull one over on me. And you are. And again, I'm not saying it's conscious, and I appreciate this as an example, and I'm not saying you have any negative or malevolent intent, of course. But I'm just saying, you know, how about a little foreplay before you screw me? You know, I'm not saying it's got to be a whole wall of flowers and a whole tray of chocolates, but, you know, maybe open a door or two before you tell me my shoes are untied and grab the Vaseline. So, then you go on to say, when a new moral framework is conceived, it has to overthrow an existing moral framework. So, again, when a new moral framework is conceived, I don't know what you mean by moral or framework. I mean, obviously, we could say UPB or a moral theory. What do you mean by conceived? Moral frameworks are not conceived.
[21:16] Unless you're using moral to be a descriptor of what people claim to be moral and not what is actually moral a lot of people will claim things to be moral that are not moral a lot of people will claim that it's moral to beat your children circumcise your children your sons a lot of people will claim that something is moral when it's not moral so i don't know if you mean a moral framework like just what people claim is moral or a moral framework that's actually moral in which case a true moral framework, a valid moral framework, is not conceived but proved. I didn't conceive of UPB. I proved UPB. So, again, I'm not sure what you mean. It has to overthrow an existing moral framework. Why? Why does it have to do that? Why does a new moral framework have to overthrow an existing moral framework? There have been tons of moral frameworks that have been conceived that have never gone anywhere.
[22:10] So we haven't really heard of them. Now, if you say, if you were going to say, when a new moral framework is conceived, it has to overthrow an existing moral framework in order to succeed, or whatever it is, right? And you go on to say, and if the adherents of the old framework aren't happy to be labeled as evil or lacking morality, they will fight the new framework tooth and nail. Does this mean that introducing a new moral framework requires a compromise on some issues in order for it to even have the chance of being widely adopted? Adopted. Well, of course, you absolutely need compromises in the promulgation of a new moral framework. And we're just going to assume that new moral framework refers to UPB here, right? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. UPB, of course, defines a lot of things as immoral. But UPB also says that until something is proven to people, they exist in a state of nature with regards to morality. So even though they may have an instinct for the kind of hypocrisy that is occurring in the existing moral corruption framework.
[23:17] They are in a relative state of nature regarding the new morality.
[23:22] So it's going to take a while for them to be proven and so on. Like if I were to say, I don't know, everything that's funded on debt is immoral which you know it is right everything funded on on government debt is immoral because it's exploiting the next generation for the greed of the present right, we understand that so if i were to say that everything that is funded on, intergenerational debt is immoral then Then would I then have to say everything that has arisen out of government spending that has not been paid for is immoral? Well, that's the internet, that's TCPIP, that's the whole framework, that's the World Wide Web, so I wouldn't be able to use it, right? So, yeah, of course you have to make some, I mean, the roads, you know, I did a presentation at a university many years ago about how the U.S..
[24:21] Interstate highway system came about under eisenhower it's still being paid off right it's still being paid off and in fact england only recently ended ended up finishing off paying for ending slavery because nothing says let's all be virtuous than an entire society and culture ending slavery worldwide and being blamed for slavery forever and ever amen uh people they don't know what they're doing. So, yeah, of course, there is a compromise. Right. There is, there is a compromise.
[24:55] So, yeah, I mean, but that's saying that, you know, saying that you need, like, let's say you have a new theory of physics that you want to teach students, you're going to have to find some way. I mean, prior to the Internet, right? Really, you'd have to find some way to to get access to the students. Let's say it's a university level. You'd have to find some way to get access to the students. You'd have to be invited in. Yeah, there would have to be some some compromises. So all right he goes on to say this is like a presidential candidate compromising some of his stance on particular issues in order to be more acceptable to the public or as you've once said are there any public philosophers who aren't fighting one evil while appeasing another one even with the abolition of slavery the racial discrimination continued through state power, i understand that philosophy is more for the future than the present i'm just curious how philosophical movement survives the test of time and it relies on people in order for it to get to the future.
[25:53] We only see the successful religions, for example, but we don't see all the religions that fail to gain traction. And a part of me wonders if there is more to morality than providing a rational proof, especially since the means of transmission is social. I understand you haven't stopped at a rational proof either and have applied it to many.
[26:16] Facets such as parenting, relationship, psychology, and history. I also struggle to consider what could be compromised on here without losing something essential about upb and nap which is that you know oh lord but at the same time i have doubts about the future success of these ideas when faced with the seeing the momentum of social norms and institutional forces, it is no compromise the answer or is my ambivalence warranted oh lord.
[26:48] I look i don't mean to be rude sorry but i mean honestly i'm i'm i'm pushing 60 right i'm 58 this year right i mean i don't mean to be rude but god man what a load of what a load of ooky cookie um, this is the big it's the big moral issue in your life is it it's the long-term effects of compromises of other people in a new moral framework that's, come on man that's the big thing that well i have solved every other issue nobody no children in my vicinity or neighborhood are being maltreated i've talked to everyone about upb and peaceful parenting and a free society and voluntarism and everybody like i've pushed all of this forward and blah blah blah and so the only thing that's left for me since i have done absolutely everything in my environment and under my control to push forward truth virtue reason and evidence and and And morality, the only thing that's left is to figure out what are the effects of various abstract compromises going to be on this philosophical system over the next few hundred years. Oh, my God. Man, I know a dodge when I hear it. I know a dodge when I hear it. Yeah.
[28:08] I mean, you literally referred to me having difficult conversations with people about philosophy over the last, well, really, it's been 40 years, but publicly close to 20 years. So you literally have this example. And what are you doing? Yes, but what percentage of compromise could possibly be necessary to fully advance the cause over the next half a millennia? Oh my God. You know we're in a fucking plague, right? You know we're in a plague. And people are dying.
[28:48] And people are abusing children and abusing each other. And being thrown into the bottomless pit of Dysfunction and neglect. They're getting addicted to drugs. They're turning like rabbit wolves on their fellow citizens. We saw that under COVID. So you know that we are currently in a plague.
[29:20] Now, you don't have to lift a finger to help in the time of this plague, though, sorry, by now, you and everyone who's listening to this, you have the cure. And the cure is to expose the moral hypocrisies and encourage those around us to be moral. At whatever level of personal effect we can have. Maybe not at work, because that's not what you're paid for at work, but certainly at a personal level. That's the cure. and that cure is available to all of us. You don't have to be eloquent, you don't have to be a public persona, you don't have to write books, although that wouldn't hurt, but you can talk to people about reason, virtue, truth, honesty, evidence, and morality.
[30:04] You can spread UPB, you can spread peaceful parenting, you can spread voluntarism, you can spread the non-aggression principle, you can spread the respect for property rights among the people you know, the people you meet. Friends, family, acquaintances, and so on. You can post about it online. You can reply to people. You can incrementally push forward the acceptance of true virtue. Well, if you want now, you don't have to do any of that, of course, right? I think it's wise to do it. Will it stop what's coming? Probably not. Does it lay a foundation for the future? Yes. Is it breadcrumbs to a free society? Yes. And even in the storm of the social world, those breadcrumbs will remain visible. But you do it not because you have certainty of victory.
[31:03] You do it because it's true. And if the only morals that were ever advanced would be those with a certainty of victory, we would have zero fucking moral progress, whatsoever in the world, throughout history, in perpetuity. Nothing would be done. Most businesses fail. Does that mean we should not try to create new arenas of productivity in the world?
[31:34] The reason we advance philosophy, reason, empiricism, and virtue is not because the victory is certain. It's not. It's unlikely. In the short run. In the long run, it's more likely. The world tends towards consistency in the same way that everyone thinks hodling in crypto is straight up. It's like, nope. We're currently going through a bit of a bump down in Bitcoin and so on. So it's only when you zoom out does it look smooth. It's a whole bunch of ups and downs and craters and peaks. But we advance truth, reason and morality sometimes even at the expense of our pretend relationships. You can only have relationships based on virtue. Everything else is mutual avoidance and exploitation. So why do we advance morality and virtue? We advance morality and virtue to gain better relationships ourselves, which is really our only chance of surviving social upheaval anyway, as I write about in my novel, The Future, the present, sorry. And also, and also the reason we do it is because if we don't do it, our conscience will turn our life into hell itself.
[32:51] Like, sorry, if you're interested in what I say, you have a conscience. Because you have a conscience, like an ancient angry god, you must bring it sacrifices.
[33:09] You must bring it sacrifices in the same way that they took stone daggers and ripped open goats to feed to the thunder gods in the past. You must bring your conscience a regular conveyor belt parade of bloody sacrifices. And the bloody sacrifices you feed to your conscience are all the lies in you and in me. All the falsehoods, all the hypocrisies, all the avoidances, all the cowardices, you must bring them and cut them from neck to groin open up their entrails and sacrifice all that is bullshit about you to the bottomless greed and more and furnace breath and volcano crater of your conscience your conscience demands you sacrifice your lies to feed its kindness Because if you do not sacrifice your lies to your conscience, you will sacrifice your truths to your conscience, in which case it will fuck you up like nobody's business. You have a God that demands food. It demands sacrifice. The God is not you or me or anything. The God is the conscience, which is our innate capacity for universalization.
[34:33] What makes us most deeply human is universal abstract concept formation in the realm of morality which we cannot escape that is called the conscience. Why do people get so mad at UPB? Because UPB allies with their conscience and makes them feel bad and because they are immature fools, not you, others, because they're immature fools, they think that because I talk about UPB which allies and provokes their conscience and makes them feel bad, I'm a bad person because I'm hurting their fifis. The God of your conscience demands sacrifice. You either feed it your lies or the truth. You either feed it that which is most corrupt about you or you feed it that which is most honorable about you, but feed it will.
[35:23] You either throw it the bodies of your enemies or you throw it your loved ones, but feed it will. Now, what is this? What is this? What is this? This is a lie. Is it an interesting question? Yeah, somewhat. And I have no problem, and maybe you have done all of this, but I doubt it. I have no problem with a hobby as long as you've done your fucking job. Right? I have no problem with you having a hobby as long as you've done your job. But if you come to your place of employment where you are supposed to be selling widgets and you set up your model train set, your boss is going to have a problem. Your boss, of course, is not me. It's your conscience.
[36:23] If you want to dabble in these kinds of questions, fine. But do your job first, which means spread virtue and talk about virtue with those around you. Talk about what is truth and real and moral and virtuous with those around you. Now, we can't do that 24-7. So once you've done that to some reasonable degree, I don't know what that is.
[36:49] Depends on people. If you've done that, if you've lived philosophy and talked philosophy and not bullshitted about philosophy, and I say this with great sympathy because I bullshitted about philosophy. For the first 15 years I studied it, it was abstract, interesting, fascinating, a bunch of wheels spinning in clouds that never had the temerity to touch the actual earth. I got no traction. I was wasting time. Now, I forgive myself for all of this because it wasn't like I was overburdened with examples of people who actually put philosophy into practice on any kind of regular or daily basis. So I had to invent those wheels by myself, for better or for worse, for better as a whole. And I'm not saying nobody ever done it. I'm just saying that I did not see it. And therefore, I had to invent it.
[37:43] I say this with sympathy, I really do, and I'm giving you the speech I sure wish some philosopher had given me at the age of 15 or 16. It would have saved me a lot of pain and waste.
[38:05] Philosophy is for talking like cookbooks are for eating. You can't eat the fucking cookbook and you can't philosophize by talking. It's actions. The actions being, and I know this is like, well, but you're talking to other people. It's like, but the actions being honesty in your relationships. That's the action of philosophy is honesty in your relationships and refusing to compromise on what you know to be right no matter what the situation. If you don't feed your conscience your lies, it will start with your loved ones and end with you, that you will be the last to go into the furnace. And unfortunately, and this is where hell comes from, hell is the conscience that has been fed the truth.
[39:10] Hell is the conscience that has been fed the truth, because you lose all leverage and credibility in the world, and you have betrayed that which you know to be true and good for the sake of that which is convenient and merely social. If you have done.
[39:36] The maximum that you can reasonably do in the time that you can reasonably allocate to the spreading of virtue, truth, reason, and evidence? Absolutely. Indulge in and enjoy these questions. If you've done your job, go play some pickleball. And if you've done your job, and you and I go to play pickleball, and you have some questions about pickleball, fantastic, fantastic. But if you need to work and you need to eat and you need to provide for your family and your children and you come to me all day talking about pickleball, I'll say, hey, don't you have a job? Don't you have a job you have to do? No, no, no, I want to talk about the pickleball. It's like, but your children are hungry and you can't feed them. with pickleball.
[40:38] Do I find the questions interesting? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Can we indulge ourselves in these recreations? Absolutely. I did 15 minutes of a Twitch video game to warm up for this show. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed the video game. But if all I'm doing is video games, I'm missing the point. And I say this knowing that I'm out on a very thin tree limb of assumptions. But I'm going to have to go with my instincts here, reason and instincts and emotions all work together when you get it right and you're in the flow.
[41:19] The lie that you're feeding your conscience is this is your most important question. This is the most important thing to answer to save the world. It's not. It's recreation. It's an enjoyable waste of time. It's time well wasted. And indulge away if you've done the work in your environment, within your personal relationships.
[41:45] But I don't think you have. and that's the con remember I said at the beginning there's a con here and I'm not saying it's conscious, I'm not accusing you of any malevolence but that's the con the con is Steph you want to focus on this I want to distract you with this now what are you distracting me away from what's the person bumping into me so you can take my wallet, what is the hand of the magician that is hiding the actual transfer, it is that by asking me this question. You are trying to get me to think, and my audience to follow that assumption, that this abstract nonsense, which can't be answered in any particular clear way, which we all have to navigate to some degree instinctually, and it changes for every single person, what I have fewer compromises to make than somebody who works for the government, I have fewer compromises to make than somebody who works in an office with an HR department.
[42:43] So it It changes for everyone. So rather than spread virtue among those you know, you want to pursue an impossible-to-define percentage of compromise as if that's the most important thing. Nice try, my friend, nice try. Go get some lies to feed to the volcano guard and speak more truth.
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