It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Welcome to Keith's night. Don't try it on anyone and the libertarian Institute today. We have dr. Michael humor. He is the author of knowledge, reality and value. A mostly Common Sense guide to philosophy. Doctor humor. Where is the best place to buy this? Excellent book? So, they say eversion and the paperback, or on Amazon. The hardcover is on Barnes & Noble because Amazon doesn't do
for her covers. Okay. Got it. What is philosophy? Oh, okay. Well, it's hard. It's the other thing, the book you can't actually Define it in but don't worry because you can't Define anything else either. But the way that you get that the way you get most Concepts is by seeing examples of them. Like when you explain what green is the way you do. That is by showing somebody some green things, not by giving them
a definition of green. So the way that people learn what philosophy is is by seeing some examples of philosophy, right? So I like to give examples like the ship of Theseus problem and then you can observe some things about that. I don't know. I don't know if the listeners on there with this problem is right, but briefly, there's a shift that. Okay, Theseus is sale. His ship around the Mediterranean Sea for like a decade or something.
And he periodically replacing individual pieces of the ship. And then you imagine that at the end of 10 years, the whole thing, every piece has been replaced, but not all at once. They were replaced individual pieces at different times, until eventually, all of them are place and then you have the question at the end of the 10 years, whether it's still the same ship. Still have the ship that he had
it begin. Okay, and I like this as an example of philosophy, because you can very clearly see that this is not a scientific question. Not a religious question either, you know, it's not any other kind of question besides the philosophical question, right? You can see some things about this. So like you can see that there could be arguments on either side of this. That is a sort of thing that if controversial is like, it's not obvious, what the answer is.
At the same time, you know, it's not a scientific question because you can see like there is no scientific investigation to do that would help like you. It's not like oh if we do some really careful measurements, we'll find out if it was the same shaft right? When there's no experiment that you can do, right? But, you know, they were sort of rational intuitive argument that you can give for why it is or isn't the same shit, right? And it's not just all your
opinion or whatever. And, you know, you don't just like Express your feelings. Alright, so like the argument that it's the same ship is. Well, if you just if you only replaced one piece, you would think it was still the same shit, right? All right, so you take the ship at the beginning and then the ship after your place one. Those are the thing, right? And then the ship after you replace. One piece is the same as the ship after you replace two pieces, right?
Okay. So if you if you buy that then you can just go all the way to the end and then by the transitivity of identity and get the the first ship with the same ship as the last one, right? The same time, you can see that there's an argument against it being the same because it's got like zero percent overlap the components of the first one. Okay. And so this is and you know, I don't I bring this up not because of ship of Theseus is intrinsically, such an important problem.
Right? It's let there's not that much discussion of it, right? But Because it's a good example of a philosophical issue, right? Also note that it's kind of, its kind of fundamental because like this sort of problem applies to every object that has a lot of carbs which is almost everything, right. So it's a, you know, it's a
fairly sweeping issue. If it's not the same ship than actually, you're probably not the same person to with your you know, 10 years ago because individual atoms go replaced in your body, right? Right, like all the objects are going to turn out the same anymore, right?
Okay. So anyway, that was all a long lead into your your question of what philosophy is like, okay, and I could give lots of other examples of, you know, bills, lot more questions, which would then give the audience a better stand to work philosophies about, but it would take a long time. Each one of these I have to do some discussion of. Yeah, that's what the excellent books are for and I'm curious why you think philosophy is important people, you know, there's the family.
Joke of Peter becomes a philosopher and all he does is say why like in response to every he never answers anything. People will often think of philosophy as something that just intellectuals do that has nothing to do with my everyday life kind of a trivial Endeavor wise philosophy important. Yeah. I was. So first philosophers, don't generally just sit around saying why they generally try to present Arguments for an answer to one of these? Puzzling questions, right?
And your why is it important? I mean a lot of the philosophical questions are really a central import to just your understanding of the world and your place in it. So you may have questions. Like how should we live? And, you know, it's like that seems kind of important don't even notice that, that's not a scientific question, and it is kind of answered by religions, but it's kind of answered
non-rational, he, right. Yeah. Yeah. Like questions about just the general nature of the world, is everything predetermined or do we have free? Will does the universe have a beginning or did it always exist? And it's sort of like, well, if you don't think those are important than whether it is like that. Those are sort of like the biggest questions there are, right, but yes. Yeah, I mean, but other like, some people just don't find it interesting when they just don't
like them. And if that's the case, I can't really do anything about that. Right? Yes, a man named Bryan Caplan. Wrote this book open borders, the science and ethics of immigration and on page 165. He summarized a lot of philosophical theories. So I want to list off a philosophical Theory, kaplan's brief summary and let me know what you think about. This Theory and general utilitarianism maximize, the sum of human happiness. Yes, are the only error in.
There is the word human hearing. Think you should maximize. Well, okay. Happiness could also be an error, but they think that you should maximize enjoyment and that applies to any being that can have enjoyment. Most utilitarians are you know, Animal, Welfare, Advocates like Peter Singer and is this something you think is a legitimate philosophy? Or are there major holes in it? I mean, I wouldn't say the illegitimate but I don't believe it true. Right?
So what's wrong with utilitarianism? I mean, there's just a series of intuitive counter-examples IE. You can describe situations in which the theory recommend something that strikes, both people have clearly wrong. Alright, so maybe you know the maybe the most famous example is you have this you have a healthy patient in the hospital. You have five, other patients, who need organ transplants. And somehow, the one healthy guy is compatible with the other
five. And so, here's something you could do. You could murder the healthy patient and then distribute his organs to the five other patients, right? And they all need different organs. So, you know, like a lung kidney heart or liver whatever. And so you can save five lives at the cost of one life. So on the utilitarian calculus, you know, you're upset. Thought you're up for life. So you have to do it, right? Not only permissible. But actually it's obligatory, would be wrong.
If you don't murder the healthy Visionary. And that strikes, most people as wrong and they're just the whole bunch of examples that are like that, right? Where it looks like you shouldn't do the thing that produces overall, greater enjoying it. Oh, yes. The second one is egalitarianism from the point of John Rawls. He says any qualities must benefit. First off you think that is a good philosophy. No, I mean there's a number things I think went wrong with the girls.
Right. But I mean one of the fundamental things is thinking that I guess thinking that there's somebody who's responsible for the overall distribution of stuff. Right? And there are light and land like somebody need to justify
the overall distribution. I think that somebody people are responsible for individual pieces of property and you can justify why a particular individual gets to have a particular piece of property because of what the person did to apartments, right, but then it turns out that there's some overall And where there is inequality like one person wound up having more than another person. And that could be because the person who has more, did more
productive activity, right? And it doesn't have to be that there are other reasons like one person with more could have just gotten lucky. Okay, but we're all his philosophy. Applies. Its supposed to apply across the board, right? So I'm not allowed to get more stuff by being more productive without defying it to the people who are worse off.
Like I have to pay off the poor people, to let me be more productive and right to let me keep a portion of the stuff that I produced, but I have to justify why I get to do that by saying. Well, I'm going to give to the people who didn't prove, right? And I'm see why that's true. Right? Sure. Kaplan summarizes libertarianism as from each as he chooses. To each as he has chosen, he is drawing to summarize them. In very, he gets five of them onto one page.
But what are your thoughts on libertarianism? And that definition of it? Yeah. I mean, that's very brief right? By the way. That phrase came from Robert nozik, right? And of course, like, in case any of the readers? Don't know. This is like a in contrast to Karl. Marx is dictum from each according to his ability, and to each, according to his need, right? And so, now they say, Idea was well, you know, Libertarians have a different principle for
distribution. It's that, you know, we like they're worth of the Marxist. Say you should just contribute, according to whatever, you're able to contribute to society and know they says, no, you know, you should contribute. What? You choose to contribute. You don't have to contribute, anything, you could sit on your ass all day. And then she reaches their chosen what he meant by. That was well, you get money when other people who have a give it to you, right?
So And they don't, like, not when you force them to give it to you, but when they choose to give it to you, right? And I bet, yeah, seems like a good idea, right? That's it. That is in general a good idea as readers. Know, I am myself. A Libertarian was going to say an extreme libertarian in the sense that I'm an anarchist. Although. I think I'm not as Extreme as many other Libertarians in there. The cost-benefit analysis, put forth by Richard, Posner says, maximize, the total value of
social resources. What are your thoughts on this? Yeah. I mean on the one hand that found utilitarian. So it might have a problem with ignoring people's rights. So, you know, like the example with harvesting the organs looks like it's like that would justify turning everybody's organs into asset. You know that other people can just take They need them more
than all that. Okay, so I don't like that, but I do think that you should go through a cost-benefit analysis before implementing a policy because I think it's a necessary condition on, you know, like the government passing restrictions, not sufficient, but it's necessary that whatever new laws or regulations are making. Are going to work like not produce more harm than good or you know, not be counterproductive to their aims and things like that.
So you should have at minimum, look at how much it's costing and how much benefit is producing. Kaplan summarizes Christianity, as do unto others, as you would have others, do unto you. Is that, is that something that you think is consistent? There are can be morally Justified. Well, so first, I don't think that's a fair summary of Christian, maybe because there is no mention of Jesus in that. So here, but for God, right. But anyway, is that a good moral principle odd, generally, yes,
but it's sort of imprecise. It's not going to get everything, right? So, you know, an example that I heard was what if there's like this? Snake worshiper, who wants to be thrown in a pit of snakes. And so, therefore he throws other people in a bit of Faith. Yeah. Okay. Don't always do what you want other people to do to you, but still like there's sort of there's an underlying Insight,
right? Which is sort of that when you're doing stuff you should sort of like try to see from other people's perspective, how the thing. You're doing looks right and you're not just always think in terms of what you want. And finally con thien ISM treat every person as an end in himself, never as a mere means. Yeah, there's you know, also there's a good Insight in this right, but it's also not entirely correct.
Right? So, you know, it's closely related to libertarianism which is which also appears in those explode in Anarchy State and Utopia. He suggests that people have rights because of this contine idea. The reason why you can't violate their rights is basically because respecting people's rights is treating them as ends in themselves, but to wrong with the content principle is just that I think there are Into it.
So, you know, if you had to kill one innocent person in order to save the entire rest of the human species, I think you should do it even though that's violating the principle Kant would say. No, you can't do it. Even to save everyone else. Okay, you know, you guys like maybe let's make it more extreme. So it's more obvious to people, right? So if you had to pluck a single hair off, an innocent persons head with out there. Their consent and I would save
the rest of humanity. I think you should do it. Okay, even though that would be treating that one person as a meme and ended up. Yes finding Acceptance in Anarchy State and Utopia. No, Zack has the experience machine where he says Suppose there were an experience machine. That would give you any experience. You desire. Super duper neuropsychologist could simulate your brain.
So that you would Think and feel you were writing a great novel or making a friend of reading an interesting book all the time. You would be floating in a tank with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into the machine for Life? Programming your life's experiences. Would you plug in know that?
Most people would not plug-in? Although I think that it depends on how good your life is, so if you have a shitty life, I think you should plug in, but if your life is going pretty good. I don't think she's fucking but You know, basically, yeah, I basically agree with those things discussion there, right? Like, well, we want to live in contact with reality. We want to make actual Achievements. Not merely have the experience of thinking it is.
So, like, if somebody wants to climb Mount Everest, they don't merely want to be deceived into thinking that they climbed Mount Everest, they want to actually do it because like, you know, planning a virtual reality simulation of climbing. The mountain is not a great achievement. Actually climbing. It is a great achievement. Right? And you're like, yeah, you can imagine the size. So what what is it that, you know, real people is really pushing people to not plug-in.
Is it because you in the real world, you actually have an effect on the lives of other real humans who have the ability to feel emotions or is it you actually achieving something on your own as opposed to it not being a Reality. Yeah, I mean it's both right. So, like a utilitarian or altruistic would say, oh no, I can't plug in because then I won't be helping other people, right?
Because, you know, then he will. The First new plug-in will be having great experiences, but he won't be causing other people that are hurting since, right. So, okay, but even if you could plug everyone in imagine, you can just make everyone be plugged into the experience machine forever. I still don't think you should do that, right? Okay, so, like, you know, it's a valid point that you won't. Like, if you have a family you'll be abandoning your
family, right? Hmm. Your kids will just grow up on their own if you have any kids, right? So that's kind of bad. But also like, even if you imagine that, you could plug all of them into the experience, which means to it, still wouldn't seem so great. And that's partly because, like, everything that you're doing, like, everything you experience
is a lie. All of your projects are just a lie, wait, like you think that you did something worthwhile and it's just a complete deception because you know, you didn't actually do it. Let's say I'm sorry. Did you have anything else on that? No, go ahead. Let's say we have two different people who have both stabbed and killed. Someone one person was in a kitchen, very stressed out slipped with a knife and killed someone. It was a terrible accident. The person is very upset in the
second scenario. A guy. I felt as though he was insulted and then intentionally stabbed the guy to kill him. So in both scenarios, Else we have people who have taken knives and ended the lives of innocent peaceful people. Do you think there should be a difference in their sentencing and how they are treated? It seems like an easy question. So if the answer is yes, what is the explanation for why these two people should be treated differently? Considering they did the same
thing. One of them started. One of them deserves worse treatment and the other one. That's like a short short version of the answer. Right? Why does he deserve worse treatment? Okay, because one of them intended to kill another person and the other one, didn't attend like, you know, the intention is part of responsibility, the one who did it by accident, could still have some - dessert because maybe they should have been more careful, you know, but I like intentionally killing someone.
Just deliberately trying to kill someone who's worse than merely being careless or whatever. So right do you think it's immoral to drive drunk? But to some degree, right? I mean, let's say it's it. It's morally wrong to drive very drunk without having a really good reason, right? Yeah, and why is that imposes? An unreasonable risk on others?
So yeah, so like you're allowed to impose some risk, but at a certain like it becomes excessive and you don't need to do it then at some point it becomes a moral. Yes, the book is knowledge, reality and value. In a lot of your ethical thinking, you use a common sense, morality approach. Why do you use that as opposed to say a strict deontological approach? Because I care about the truth. That's right.
Very right. So just in general, the way that human beings know things the way that human beings learn is starting from the concrete, and generalizing to the abstract and not the other way around. And so I observed at that, as a as a general matter in almost all areas. If you start from abstract generalizations on start to do things consequences from it, it It work.
It goes badly. So because what happens is like you start from an abstract generalization, that sounds good to you at the start but it's totally wrong and you're not going to notice that it's totally wrong until you look at that particular examples, but then if you're you know, dogmatic in the way that most philosophers historically have been, you just deduce the fault consequences and just embrace them because, you know, because of the order, in which these
thoughts occurred to you, because you started with the abstract. Asian and then only later saw the counter examples, so then you just insist the thing. These started with us to betray him. Like this is a thing that has happened repeatedly in the history of philosophy. No, but basically it's super hard to come up with a universal generalization that's always true without first going through a ton of examples.
You have to first go through all the concrete examples to see what you think about them before you can reasonably generalize, right? And so that's part of what I'm doing like. So my approach to ethics is I look at a concrete example where there's a pretty uncontroversial intuitive verdict about it. And then I draw an analogy between that and a case that is controversial, in order to try to resolve the controversy in the book.
You are mention the unappreciated idea that most people throughout all of history were generally accepted the concept of slavery and today they wide Lee say that it is something terrible. How do you think blatantly unjustified institutions are able to exist for so long without being questioned? Yeah, good question rights. I mean, part of the answer is status quo bias. Most people have a huge bias in favor of whatever way things are currently being done in their own society.
And, you know, part of the answer is most people are just not reflective. So they just don't think they just do not ask themselves. Whether this is okay. They just keep doing it because that's what other people are doing. And also part of the answer is like most people are naturally bad. Right, like people are extremely selfish and have a very small amount of moral motivation. Right?
And so, it's just kind of like to take a long time and take a long time for them to figure out what's right, you know, when most people are not trying to figure it out, right? So, why would you say that things like murder, rape and slavery are wrong? If it is there any way outside of the Common Sense morality approach? If you're talking to someone who lives in a society where murder rape and slavery are sort of just the norm.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any to fighting which murder and rape or okay, but I would add a qualification or many Societies in which it would be accepted to attack. A neighboring, try to attack another society and murder and rape. Those people that's been widely accepted, but murdering and raping within your tribe. Not, okay. But anyway, yeah, what would I say to the? All right, and then, you know, slavery widely practiced as we said.
So, And what would I say to the people in those societies? Like if they wanted to reason with me, you know, like start saying, okay. So so you think that it's okay to attack these neighboring crop tribes? Why. How were they different from you
then? Like they seem like a lot like you would be pulling hard drive, you know, they have their own concerns, their own lives that they're trying to lead and do the same sorts of concerns that you have and they love their family, just like you do. Like why do you think that they're different? So you can attack them? And I think they basically would have no answer to that. I think we would have just never thought of it.
Now. I don't think that I would actually succeed because I think that the people in the Primitive tribes would just refuse to entertain the moral questions because I think they would not care. Do you have a general method for determining morally Justified
behavior from immoral. So like, for example, if pretend you had never heard of jury duty for the first time and you find out in America, there is something where people are composed to serve serve on a jury, in order to determine the guilt or innocence of someone on trial. How would you go about determining right from wrong Behavior? Well, you mean whether it's okay to force them to serve or they could do when they're on a journey. I was just using that, that is
an example of when people. Most people who I speak with on this, haven't really sat down and thought about, whether it's Justified. They just say, of course it is, and then move on. And then treat me like a prick when I ask any follow-up questions. How would you determine whether this was justified or unjustified? Yeah. I mean, so, you know, the general thing is I would try to think of something else that most people agree with, that is
analogous. Right? So like I didn't, you know, what, if I have some work that needs to be done here in my condo. I like, you know, I got some stuff that needs to be fixed and what if I just like, pick a random person and force them to come up and do the work for me. That's not all right, is it, right? And then you just say, you know, it wasn't that kind of analogous to it. The government thing. Some work needs to be done.
We're just going to pick random people and force them to do it, right, you know, why is that different? And then you know and then you have to have a discussion when they try to say that it's different and you discuss whether really is different in the way that they say or whatever. And how do you find that
difference? So often I'll be in a discussion or just thinking about something myself and I'll know that something is different, but it's hard to determine whether it's arbitrarily different or it's different in principle. How can you Tell if something's different arbitrarily or different in principle. Well, I mean you just tried to think of trying to think of what the difference is. Our then you ask yourself if those are relevant and sometimes it just seems obvious that it's not right.
But if you think of something that seems like it's relevant, then you try to think of other examples, how you that it, you try to think of examples that we remove that different. Okay, so you go. Let's see there. Different that the jury duty. It's the government for us and you and not somebody else. Maybe that's a girl. Okay. So what if the government forces you to go dig ditches, the that? Okay.
Thank God. Okay, they want to build a new highway and they just like, grab people random people and just say, okay, you're now Highway worker. Right? And you're just sitting there, you know, with a cop's holding guns, porting that you have to make sure that you keep it like that. Doesn't seem okay, really? Anyway, so So, yeah, you just have to like sort of trying to think of what the differences might be and try to think of any of them are relevant.
Michael sandel wrote a book called, what money can't buy the moral limits of markets and he says, why worry? That we are moving toward a society in which everything is up for sale for two reasons, inequality, and Corruption consider an equality in a society where everything is up for sale. Life is harder. For those of modest means the more money can buy the more affluence or lack of it matters. Putting a price on the good things in life can also corrupt them.
That's because markets don't only allocate Goods. They also And promote certain attitudes towards the goods. Being exchanged. What do you think about that from the standpoint of someone who's a Libertarian? Yeah, which, which is always my standpoint, huh? I mean, that there are two arguments there. One is. So it makes life more difficult for people of modest means. I don't think that's true.
So like the possibility of buying something can make your life easier and if you can't afford it. It then it doesn't make your life easier, but having people prohibit you from buying, it doesn't help either because you still can't buy him. Right, right. Okay, so I think about things like kidney sales, like, all right. Should I be able shy to be able to get paid for donating a kidney to that? Some person who need they can survive? And then, you know, because that's illegal.
It's impossible for anyone to buy it. That doesn't mean that now poor people get kidneys. They still don't get kidneys because they still can't buy them back into. Now. It's just that nobody can buy them, that doesn't even poor. People are better off at, if you could sell them, at least the wealthy people could give him. At least their lives will be saved. The poor people will be just as dead. I do anyway, okay, but also, you know, if you're worried about the pork is the different
solution. This isn't my view, but this is a more rational view, just subsidize it. If you're worried that the poor people won't be able to. Ford the kidneys have the government, you know, just like subsidize the purchase of kidney so that they could buy it, right? Give them like a kidney voucher or something. And then the other the other argument that he had, there was something about expressing attitude, like, oh, you'll be expressing the wrong attitudes
towards kidneys or whatever. Like I think that's one of the main things that you thinking about, right? Somebody Park. And I just think, you know, I don't know if it's true, but I think it's just a completely trivial. Federation, I'd like, oh, you'll be expressing a bad attitude about kidneys. If you sell one or if you buy one. Okay, I think that's totally trivial in comparison with the avoidable death of the disease. Sufferers, right? Okay, and like here's an example that I have.
So compared to cases, right case, one Ted and murder stare on case to Jill says Jack is an ass. Whole and his interests and rights, don't matter. And then she puts that on a giant billboard, by the freeway where everyone sees, you know, Jack Jack's Mike doesn't matter and then she tweeted to her 10 million followers. Okay. So those are two different things that you could do murdering the person and putting out this message. Which one is worse. Okay, and how much works? Okay.
I think the first one I think the actual murdering is like about a billion times worse than putting. Billboard and putting up the offensive tweak. And what they showed is that sending negative messages is like a trivial harm that the trivial wrong in comparison with a death of a human being. All right, the problem with Ted murdering Sarah is not that he conveyed a bad message about Sarah. It's that Sarah is now dead,
right? And so, similarly, with the, you know, kidney sale issue, all of these people dying, just swamp. With the Badness of people sending negative messages or, you know, whatever. The message is supposed to be. Yes, Jason Brennan wrote about that in a great book. I think it's titled. Oh gosh, I can't believe it. Slipping my mind. What are the limits markets Without Limits? Yes.
Thank you. And he said there's about 100,000 people on the kidney waiting list and the vast majority are going to die because of, but because of this legislation that stops people from compensating others for giving them their that their kidney. Let's take a an example similar to the message one. Do you think it's immoral for me to say start a campaign that everyone should force Ted to give me money. I don't know who this guy is, but I know he lives near me.
People should force him to give me money or we should all collectively. Put him in a cage and then shoot him. If he resists, I think people would say that is unjustified. However, This is in principle. No different than advocating, Socialism or taxation is someone immoral for advocating socialism. And should that be illegal? I get that the moral. Yeah, I don't think it should be illegal.
But, you know, like I mean, it's like that thing, you know, saying that your neighbor should be put in a cage unless he agrees to give you money. I think that I think you shouldn't say that but I don't I wouldn't put you in jail if you say that, right? Why not?
And, you know, so one of the things that we have to consider about like when you're making laws, is we have to think about the overall effect, you know, Authority, if the government is able to make laws about what political positions you can Advocate, right? So even if it's totally immoral to Advocate this political position. If the government is, they're deciding what political positions are immoral and like prohibiting you from advocating
war that it thinks are immoral. You know, we're going to totalitarianism right. And he they're obviously just going to use that power to prevent anyone from criticizing them and then and you're like that's what happens in communist dictatorships and so on, right? So that's one problem. You know, the other thing is, I mean, just like from a philosophical standpoint. Mirror, words are not sufficient, provocation for violence the light, right? I mean let except in exceptional circumstances.
Let's say right? But most of the time, if you're just saying, hey, you know, somebody should do something wrong, but, you know, like just in general, you're just like, throwing it out there to the world that people should do some things, which in fact are wrong. Usually, that's not enough of a reason for other people to do violence against you. What is the thesis of your book? Ethical intuition is mmm.
Yeah, by the way, I'm glad that you pronounce that correctly because about half of about having people that we interview me and use that title mispronounce it, I bought the book and read it. So yes, some people call it intuitive ISM. Other people call it institutional advancement and house into which is about anyway. Yeah, I mean there's a few ideas in ethical intuition isn't right.
So one important idea is that there are Values either there are objective facts about something being right wrong. Good or bad. Like it's objectively wrong to torture. Babies for fun. Another thing is about how we know this and roughly, we know this because we have ethical intuitions, these ethical intuitions are cases where when you just sort of intellectually, reflect on some questions, something seems to you right or
wrong. Like, when I think about torturing babies for fund, it just seems wrong to me. And so that's something like to worship the way that I know that it's wrong. Is it seems wrong to me? And I have no reason for thinking otherwise no reason for doubting that intuition. And then and then there's another part about what reason do we have fraction, which is basically your reasons for Action in virtue of having these
ethical beliefs. Like, if and independent of you Dyer's, so even if you want to torture babies, you you have a reason for not doing it because We're gonna bleed out the intuition that it's wrong to do it. Hopefully what is the thesis of your book? Dialogues on vegetarianism? Yeah, Dialogue on ethical vegetarianism. It's wrong to buy products from factory farms, right? Which you know, mostly people are buying meat from factory farms.
And most of the time, people are eating meat that they got from factory farms. That's like 99% or something. Okay. So the short version is stopped eating meat and the more precise version is stop buying Products that come from factory farms. And this is because they engage in killing animals which involves the animal suffering,
right? Yeah. So, you know, factory farms are the source of something like 99% of the animal products in the world and we're killing something in the neighborhood of 74 billion animals per year, in order to, in order to get these products, you know, because we like, beasting on their flesh because it's fun. Okay, and that's like, you know, that's close to 10 times, the entire human population of the world.
And then, you know, if you'd like, you can go online and look at these videos and what the conditions are like in the factory farms, and it's basically like torture, like, if you are holding a person in those conditions, we would say you were torturing person. Alright, and so like a total amount of suffering that were causing every year is astronomical website, right? Did clearly greater than all the
human suffering that's going. On the back a few years of factory farming might produce more suffering that all the suffering and human history that they actually a fairly plausible estimate ring because there have only ever been 110 billion humans and we're killing 74 billion animals every year. So like two years, we kill more animals and all the humans have ever existed and we tortured both of them for months before
killing it, right. So it's plausible that we're inflicting more suffering than all the suffering and human history every few years. Wow. Yeah, that is definitely a you have a very good point.
Now one hurdle to that could be well is the problem the type of factory farm and the method of killing and the method of holding them before killing another words, if all those were sort of more or less solved, there was an open field and the killing was just a quick shot that they didn't even feel and you did it while they were asleep. Would that justify killing animals for the purpose of eating them? I'm not sure.
So I mean, you know, this has so like I mean first, I'm not sure this is practically relevant because I'm not sure that that's like a thing that might happen. But but there is, you know, there they sort of free-range and we'll products. And there are these Animal Welfare organizations that go and, you know, examine Farms to make sure that their Humane. And then sometimes you see this Humane certified label on products, which means one of these Animal, Welfare
organizations. Examine, you know, Their practices and decided was Humane enough. And so you could have a reasonable question about whether it's okay to buy those products. Now, I think it's questionable because you're still saying like, you know, it's like I can end the life of this other creature just because I get a little more pleasure like just just for fun, right? It's like a little bit more pleasure during meal times. Like, if that's the only reason
that does strike me as pretty. Noble if you have a stronger reason that I think it's okay. All right. So like if you have like a medical reason why you need the animal products, then I think it's okay, you know, to kill them painlessly without all the torture. In the happiness. Hypothesis. Jonathan haidt. Has a short, of course, fake story to what try to display, the difficulty of winning an argument. He says, Julie and Mike are Julie and Mark are sister and brother.
They are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night. They are staying alone in a cabin, near a beach. They decided would be interesting and fun if they tried making love at the very least, it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie is already taking birth control, but Mark uses. Condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love but side not to do it again. They keep that night, a special secret, which makes them feel
even closer to each other. Do you think this is acceptable for two? Consenting adults? Who happen to be siblings? Make love. How would you justify that judgment? Yeah. So wait, so you're asking me if it's okay. Well, no. The whole point is. Okay, your position. Let's say it's an obvious. No. Well, how would you? Justify that. No, I don't. I don't see anything wrong with it. I don't see what the problem is,
right? Okay, but but I know that because I, you know, well, I know partly because I'm a normal human being and also because I've read Jonathan Heights work that most people say it's not. Okay. And then they try to explain why. And then they give false reasons, they say, oh, well, you know, like there's a risk of birth defects from incest, right? And by the way, Really only showed up after you do multiple generations of incestuous
breeding. So and anyway, hype put into the scenario that they use two forms of birth control. So it's super improbable that there would be any child that also like you put all these things in this scenario, to try to eliminate the negative consequences.
There's with results, right? So then at that point, I really sure what the problem is. Like, I think there would be problems if they were if they like they're interbreeding for multiple Generations in producing Offspring or think there would be problems if they're going around telling everybody else that incest is great and they're doing it but you know in the scenario is described.
You don't really see a problem. Do you think it's immoral for people to actively promote political policies that they have done little to no research on? Yes. Yeah, I think I mean You know, I think it's I guess lightly immoral because the chances of your actually having an effect on public policy are very small, but it's immoral because you know, there's a chance that you bring to cause other people's rights to be violated and cause
just harm in general. Even if you don't believe in rights, there's still a pretty good chance that you're going to be causing harm, you know in the unlikely event that you have an inflow Hank. There's a pretty good chance of the things that you're advocating would be harmful overall. And, you know, you don't Have to do it. You can keep your mouth.
Shut, right? Because but I think most people don't realize How likely this is, I think basically if you have not researched something there's almost 100 percent chance that you're wrong about a bunch of stuff about it, like the just casual impression that you have is almost always wrong in multiple different respects. He goes on to talk about the
myth of Pure Evil height. Says when taking the purple, the perpetrators perspective, he found this researcher that people who do things, we see as evil from spousal abuse all the way to genocide. Really think they are doing anything wrong. They almost always see themselves as responding to attacks and provocations in some ways that are Justified. They often think they themselves are the victims. What do you think about what he calls them? It's a pure evil.
So I mean, I think this might be sort of giving too much credit to the bullshit that evil people say my like, right? So I don't know how this study was done. But here's how I'm imagining it happening, you go to somebody who did something horribly wrong. And you say, hey, why did you do that? And then they come up with some story about why it was a good thing to do. And then the researcher just takes that at face value, right? Take that bullshit story to
PayPal you, okay? And so, I think the fact that somebody comes up with a story, like they might just be lying for the benefit of other people because they're manipulators. And so and, you know, it might not be that they really sincerely think that they did the right thing or that they cared what the right thing was. It might be that, just they did what they wanted to serve their own interest.
And then after the fact they made up a bullshit rationalization to tell other people so that other people would be nicer to them or something like that. So the people who are doing terrible, things are actually psychopath and the second pass. Well often say something about why the thing they did was okay. And, you know, often they will say something completely ridiculous thing. Like it was okay to murder this person because he was in my way.
You shouldn't have been, in my way, whatever, it was his fault because he was in Highway, there's a time when a psychopath said, you know, He learned a hard lesson in reference to somebody that's like about that murdered and I think if you were giving them a valuable lesson by murdering them. Anyway, so part of what's going on is some of the people just do not give a shit and do not understand morality. Right? And so they're saying, like,
ridiculous rationalizations. They're not sincerely trying to figure out the trash. Okay, all that being fed. So I think there are some people who are evil. That being said there are not that many of you. If you're thinking to yourself, like, oh, Republicans are evil. No, Frank. It's not going to be like half the population is like I think maybe psychopaths are evil or I don't know. Maybe they're just a moral because they don't even understand what morality is.
Maybe there's a small number of people who are pure evil, like maybe Hitler and Stalin but it's not going to be like the Trump supporters. Who won their like 50 million. It's actually 50 million people are pure evil, be impossible to what to get anything done. What do you think about the idea that morality does not exist. It's just as made up as languages and the only reason we believe it is because we sort of just trick ourselves into justifying Customs.
There was nothing objectively wrong with me. Say killing someone cuz their life ends their life is going to end. Anyway, yes, it hurts them. But so does, you know someone breaking up with you that also hurts you but that's not something terribly evil. So therefore morality is non-existent. Well, okay. I mean the argument for the argument for why it's okay to kill people is really lame thing. That's pretty much like killing
so much. Anyway, yeah, when I think about the idea that we're out of you just made up of both being false. So yeah, why do I think that's false? Well, it seems to me like it's wrong to torture babies for fun. That seems to me about as obvious as anything is so someone was going to try to convince me that that's not actually wrong. They would have to have an amazing argument.
So they would have to have their have to have some information that is more obvious than the fact that it's wrong to torture. Babies are fun. And that information would have to somehow picked the wrong. Is it Fortune babies? Right? And I just don't see that happening right now. I feel like the argument that people give for this position. I find extremely weak like you nowhere near as obvious. Right?
So like one of the arguments is there's an argument that you find in the academic ethics literature. If they were objective values, then they would be intrinsically motivated. IE, they would motivate people to act independent of people's desires, but it's impossible for any fact to be intrinsically motivating. Therefore, there. Can't be any objective though. Okay, and like that's not like a complete non sequitur. I was like like it's not a completely worthless argument,
right. But neither of those premises and it is anywhere near as obvious as the premise that it's wrong to torture, babies 45, right? So like there's no way I'm going to give up my ethical believe because of these dubious claims, right? It's not obvious that objective moral facts, have to be intrinsically motivating, and it's not obvious. That nothing can be intrinsically motivating, either. You have a great book called Paradox, lost want to give you one that I heard the other day.
This is from Kim jeong-hoon. The father of the sitting on the sitting Tyrant of North Korea. He said that he was one of the wisest men in the land because he discovered that one plus one equals one. If you have one drop of water and you add another drop of water. You have one drop of water that. Was his logic. If you were to explain to the people of North Korea that this actually does not make sense. Even though on the surface level it does. What would you say to them?
We're driving. So I had to explain why 1 plus 1 is not equal to 1. Yes, because many of them believe that story to be look legitimate representation of his wisdom. Thus his justification enrolling
them. I see. Well, I mean things like we could give a counter example like I could take a rock and another rock and show how it's two rocks like the never heat the generalization now, okay, so on then you might say oh, so like there's no generalization, you know, once I wanted him to terminate, it was knowing entered. You might enhance, right? No, so, wait, was this Kim, Jang, Hoon. Or Kim Jong Hill? Who say what did I say? This was? Who did he write the Kim
Jong-il? This is who Michael malice wrote the biography about. So Kim. /. This is the son of Kim il-sung. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I think that he's misunderstood what addition is so I think that you know, one plus one. Well, actually, by the way that factual claim is not even true, right? It depends on the size of the drop it.
So you put them together, you might like if you put two small drops, may be a big one, big drop, but if you put three drops, maybe make something like bigger than a drop. So anyway, but that's not what addition means. It doesn't doesn't refer to a physical operation in which like you physically attached to things to each other and make them into the conduct. That's not what I mean. Right? One plus one me refers to A situation in which there's something, and there's another
thing, right? And one plus one equals, two means when there's a thing. And there's another thing, then there are two things. And that's all it means, right? And why do I think that's what it means. Because that explains how we use the phrase, right? Like, that's why we say 1 plus 1 is 2 2, like interpret the thing to me, what it obviously means to make sense of what people are
saying, right? If someone were just on an island by themself never going to see anyone again, do you think that person could still act and moral and immoral ways? I guess I would say no. According to how I think the word immoral is usually used. So I think the person could act in rational and irrational and he's like do things that they do or don't have good reason to do and like, whatever. I don't think I would call it the immoral when they did the
irrational things. I'm because I think the way the word moral is used in English. It has to refer to non non selfish reasons for action. What are some of your favorite thought experiments? Oh, I don't know. I like the Chinese room thought experiment. Uh-huh. I like that because, you know, kind of convince me that, you know, you couldn't just program a computer to think, you know that the grant. No. No, I don't ya.
Okay. So, you know, they're these people in the artificial intelligence Community who say here's the way that you determine if a computer can think, right? You have the computer communicating via No to a person. And so the person is communicating with a computer and a real person. And then the person has to figure out which thing that he's communicating with is human and
which is a computer. And if he can't figure it out that proves that the computer is conscious or the computers thinking or understanding whatever in the same sense that we're thinking. All right, so that's the claim by the artificial intelligence people at least some of them and then here's the thought experiment. So imagine that That computer programmers have come up with this program that simulates conversation in Chinese.
And this program is so good that when you interact with it, you can't tell the difference between if and the native Chinese speaker. And then imagine that you transcribe the rules of this program in a giant rule book and the rule book that says, you know when you see this and there's a picture of a sequence of Chinese symbols, you did this and like you do this calculations and Put and use put out these and then there's another picture of these
symbols, right? The robot doesn't say what any
of these symbols mean. It just tells you do calculations, when you see symbols with a certain shape and put out other symbols with a certain shape for okay, you put me in a room with this trying rule book and then people are putting things in a slot in the room, which have these collections of Chinese symbols, and I look up in the rulebook what I'm supposed to do and I passed the appropriate symbol that way from and Cause I'm implementing the same algorithm,
you know, I passed the test, but I think that that's the same test of the computer did. Okay, and but I don't understand a word of Chinese. Hmm. Yeah, there's no way that I would understand it just by following those rules, right? And so, if I don't understand any Chinese just by implementing the program for understanding Chinese, then there's no way that any other digital computer would understand Chinese because it doesn't have anything that I don't have. And any other favorite thought
experiments you have? You know, I mean there are various of these examples in in ethics like the organ harvesting right, which is the counter example, to utilitarianism. That's pretty good. I think the the violinist thought experiment about abortion is pretty good and I'm not saying that it proves that abortion is okay, but it's definitely good example to think about case anyone doesn't know. This is your imagine that there's this world-famous violinist who has to be attached to a person.
A nine-month like physically attached to another person because he's got some kind of kidney disease. And like he has to use somebody else's kidneys to filter out toxins in his blood. Right? And so some Society of music lovers has kidnapped, you without your knowledge and attached to you. You didn't agree to it, but they attached you to the violinist. And now your body is filtering out the toxins in his blood. And if they detach you then, or if you detach yourself in the
violence will die, right? And then, you know, you're supposed to think. Think it's okay to detach yourself. You don't have to stay attached to this other person for nine months. Even if they're going to die. If you detach yourself, we still don't have to stay there. If you agree with that, then you're supposed to conclude that it's okay to remove a fetus from your body, even though it's going to die. Even if the fetus is a person. Yeah.
What if I am, I choose to go to a place where I know there's a pretty good chance that I'll get stuck with a violinist. Next, to me for nine months and I keep Going back to this place again and again and then one time I wake up and the violinist is attached to me and I go oh poor. Woe is me now. I need the state to fund the violinist removal at violinist Parenthood. Then then do you think I would be justified in it? Even though I keep going to the place knowing what the risk is?
Yeah, I mean. You typically don't lose your right to have a remedy. If you go somewhere, where your risk of something bad happening to you, right? So, you know, what, if you're going to a dangerous neighborhood, and like somebody mugs you and takes your money. Okay, and then later you complain and you demand the mugger payback and he goes no because you came to the neighborhood and, you know, it was a dangerous neighborhood.
So now I get to keep the money. No, so they'll so you know that Like, even if you knew there was a risk, or doesn't mean that you agree to have it happen. Final question, who are some of your favorite philosophers? The like Descartes, you know, the so-called founder of modern philosophy because I like that whole I think therefore I am thing even though he was confused about some things. I like John Searle.
As you might have guessed from the Chinese room example, I like David stove who is a little-known philosopher of science from Australia, but he's like the most hilarious philosophical writer like ridiculing, the other philosophers of Science and so on. So, Ago, I like Jason Brennan, of course. Awesome. Well, the book is knowledge, reality and value. A mostly Common Sense guide to philosophy. Doctor humor. Where is the best place to find that there?
Of course, will be a link to the Amazon to purchase the Amazon book. What is a the best? Where's the best place to find your archive of work? Well, I have a website. I will 232 dotnet, o WL T 3 to.net, and then there's a link to my blog and there's like it will be a link to some of my papers and links to some of my books, you know, which the links would take you outside or take you to Amazon. Perfect. Those links will be in the description below.
Thank you to everyone for watching Keith and I don't try, don't anyone in the libertarian Institute. And thank you. Doctor humor, for being so generous with your time. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.