Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone in the
libertarian Institute today. I am joined by the gentleman who
run the brain in the vat YouTube Channel, please check it out in
the description below. We have Mark, Oppenheimer and
dr. Jason wiebel off.
Mark, what is philosophy and why is it important?
Well, I think philosophy is driven towards finding out.
What's true. I think it's a set of tools that
people use to uncover reality. Both Jason and I are trainers
analytic philosophers, which means that we care about Clarity
and we care about truth. I think it's different from the
rep that the public often have, you know, often people think
about philosophers. They think about someone like
Jacques Derrida or Jean-Paul Sartre.
They think about obfuscated language.
That's impenetrable. That's beyond them.
And the point of brain about really is to try and have
conversations with brilliant people in a way that's easy to
understand. So we try and burn as much
technical job. Then I'll show as possible and
we try and engage in issues that are already fundamental.
So, we've talked about the existence of God.
We've talked about difficult, moral problems.
We've talked about the pandemic and use the whole range of
different, you know, moral principles along the way which
are, you know, derived from great for softball think is and,
you know, some other areas to Jason.
Can you pronounce your last name?
For me? I knew the second I was saying
and I go, I've heard a lot. Lots of pronunciations but that
is new. It's were belief, horrible off.
I don't know what makes it rich any Russian surname, which now
all of a sudden is out of Vogue. Okay, but we're gonna have to
cancel this recording. I have no clue your Russian.
Send me your bank info. I'm very much South African
Market as well. Okay.
Well my rule is three generations.
And then I stopped the punishment after that.
I like North Korea's World. Jason what is philosophy and why
is it important? I think mocks definition is
right. It's truth-seeking.
So it's about trying to understand what is real in the
world. I think Aristotle had a nice
definition which is that it's about the pursuit of wisdom.
So it's not just about the pursuit of truth, but it's about
the kinds of truths that could be applied in life in a certain
way. Way.
Now, a lot of modern philosophy is not like that.
You get modern philosophers, who examined very, very kind of
abstract Fields, like, modal logic.
So, they'll talk about different systems of modal, logic and
modal logic is about questions around would, and should and,
and necessity and possibility. And and those, those kind of
questions can get very abstract and it does feel like those
areas kind of get divorced from Them and just pursue truth
without wisdom. But for the most part in, at
least the kind of philosophy we like to do on our show.
It's about the pursuit of wisdom.
So to The Pursuit Of Truth there can be applied in life.
You know, it, we were joking, of course about, you know, you
being Russian but isn't it a little discouraging like in in
the English world at least there's so much talk about the
importance of not being racist or sexist and this is wrong
because your negatively generalizing something someone
based on an arbitrary characteristic.
Meanwhile, Russia's evil, Putin is Hitler.
So killing them is not really anything killing the people in
Yemen, well, more or less, they need to overthrow their
government and have regime change.
Same. In Iraq, it's so difficult that
people can come so far, but not apply their own principles.
Consistently, Mark. Do you think philosophy has made
a great amount of progress, say, since the days of Aristotle?
I suppose, it depends how you want to count progress.
I mean, one of the things that you lean at is this notion of
consistency and I think that if you are analytic philosopher
consistencies, really fundamental, you know, what
you're trying to do is lead a life as Jason says that seeks
wisdom. It means that your set of
principles must be totally coherent the method that we use
to do. That is something that we price
on the show, which is every episode we start with the
thought experiment. So, you're telling a little
story. The idea of that story is to try
and understand your philosophical principles.
And then you want to see if those principles mesh with your
other principles. And so we create this Patchwork
quilt, along the way where we see can we have a moral system
for example, that strings together, all of our intuitions.
That means that we have to bite a few bullets as possible.
So Jason's these two Terrian. He thinks that the right thing
to do is that which maximizes the good and it's an intuitively
wonderful system, but it comes with a whole bunch of bull.
It's right. So one way to maximize, the good
might be the killer of your innocent people along the way.
You got to ask, can we tolerate killing some innocent people
along the way and you know, then we got a compared to the other
model systems and see what bullets, they make us B.
I think there's a sense in which we have made progress.
If you, if you read Aristotle, you know, you'll see that it was
assumed to be okay to own slaves and that slavery was an ordinary
part of Greek life and over time.
What we've done is we've expanded the Morel net.
And that we've started to say, well, it's not just me, who
matters or my family, or my tribe, it's Humanity at large
and for a long time. I think we moved in that
direction of saying that we need to expand the net and you know
place was like Peter singer of said it's not just Humanity that
matters. It's all beings have the
capacity to suffer. So the animal rights movement
comes out of singers work and out of moles work and bentham's
work, but we are starting to see see some regress.
We're starting to see racial camps as you point out, people
who are obsessed with with racism have also become obsessed
with racial identity. And there's a sense of saying
we're different from each other and we must have different rules
for different races. That strikes me as very
regressive, and very dangerous, Jason thoughts on philosophical
progress since say the days of Aristotle's, when people start
giving philosophy, a lot of attention, I really like this
idea that Mark is raised about regression.
In that, we focusing so much now and racial identities, and group
identities. So, I think what was interesting
about Aristotelian thought is that it was quite
individualistic. So it looked at an individual
and how that individual can live a happy life.
So Aristotle talked about something called eudaimonia.
So you Dominica is kind of the set of Virtues that allows you
to live a happy fulfilled life full of well-being.
And of course, That life did include relating to other
people, but it was centered around the person, the
individual. And now it seems like we
becoming such group-oriented creatures.
That, it's a big problem. If you wanted to find yourself
today, you will often reference your race.
So I'm, I am a proud black woman would be an identity.
That people will Proclaim, but my view and I imagine
Aristotle's as well. Is that a sentence like that?
I'm a proud black. Woman has no content.
In other words. It has nothing that actually
signifies a truth or falsity in the world.
It doesn't tell us anything about who you are.
It doesn't tell us anything of substance.
And I think this Focus around group identities is a big
problem. And let me just clarify when I
say, it has nothing of substance.
It's not because there's nothing of substance to black woman.
It's because there's nothing of substance to any group identity
in my view. So I I just don't buy into any
of these group categories, including country categories, by
the way, luck, National categories.
I watch the Ukraine, Russia Conflict at a distance.
And, and part of me gets very, very curious about what's really
happening there. Like, what are these group had a
chance to use? Is everyone who's a Russian, the
same is everyone who's a Ukrainian the same.
When we make criticisms about Russians always saying anything
true. You know, it just it just seems
to me like these group claims are a problem and perhaps we're
worse off than we were in the days of Aristotle.
I'm sorry. If this is a boring question,
feel free to just ignore it, but I never get to people from South
Africa on Mark. Do you think Nelson Mandela was
a net positive or a net negative with his actions and his
political activity in South Africa?
Yeah. I mean I think to kind of put
the question in perspective. You've got to have a sense of
what South Africa was like during apartheid, which is that
it was a very oppressive. Place Jason, and I both were
born in the sort of tail end of Apartheid, but, you know, our
parents had a sort of sense of what it was like.
So Africa was cut off from the rest of the world in a lot of
ways, heavily racially segregated.
So, you know, not just between black people and white people.
But also between different other kinds of groups, there was an
obsession with group identity, and South Africa, and Incredibly
restrictive. Place a lot of things were
banned, so there were lots of films.
Eames and music that was banned. And so, really, with the release
of Mandela in 1990 by FW de klerk.
You saw liberalization happen in South Africa.
You saw us Embrace free markets, be kind of welcome back into the
global community and start engaging International Sports
competitions. There was a real sense for a
time of seeing ourselves as one United, South Africa.
And the sort of term of the rainbow nation, which means that
you had Groups who were all part of this diverse place with
different ideas, different worshipping, different gods with
different different languages. That is 11 official languages in
Africa, but there was a sense of a nation building but also a
sense of a non-racial ISM. The idea that you shouldn't be
judged on the color of your skin, but on the content of your
character and this is something that was entrenched in the
agency's freedom Charter. Now, Mandela was President for a
period of five years for one term.
He could have done two terms, but decided to hand over power
early on to president Thabo mbeki and and Becky's rule.
You had quite a lot of economic growth, you know, South Africa,
counter. If you look at what our interest
rates look like and what our GDP look like, you know, the economy
really boomed during Becky's years, but in Becky had a rather
atrocious policy with regards to HIV and AIDS.
And so, there's a view that about 300,000 people needlessly
died of AIDS because of Is denialism his view that using
enter retroviral, drugs would be dangerous, that people should
use traditional remedies. So it depends on how you do.
We sort of see the cause, and their implications of Mandela's
rule. I mean, the successive rulers
and South Africa, have have been pretty atrocious and that the
ANC has become a very pernicious organization.
It's moved away from its liberal values.
We forgotten about non racialism.
It's become a very race-conscious place place that
At whether the ruling party has members of the Communist Party
in it, and I'm very proud to call themselves Communists.
So there's been a lot of second order effects, you know, from
Mandela's rule. There's a famous saying, you
know, was the French Revolution, a good idea or bad idea and the
viewers. It's too early to tell.
So, you know, there's some senses in, which if you want to
judge Mandela's conduct while he was President, you know, I think
it's fair to say that the The effects were overwhelmingly
positive, and really brought South Africa into the modern
world. The second order effects, more
complicated. Jason Mandela net positive or
negative. Well, this is where I start to
get a bit funny about these things because Mandela as the
world understands Mandela in South Africa understands Mandela
is very much a social phenomenon.
So he's not just an individual, a comes with a certain role.
He was the president comes with Certain expectations, certain
value systems. And I just become very skeptical
about all those associations. I think if we were to really sit
Mandela down, although he's no longer with us.
But if one day we sat my Dillard and we grilled him on his very
particular beliefs. They might be quite different
from the beliefs that people generally ascribed to him and
used him as a role model for. So, you know, what was Mandela's
actual effect is a very tough metaphysical question.
So I call it a metaphysical question.
It's a question about what's real.
So what were his actual effects versus what were the effects of
the aura or their lack of social expectations and Norms that
followed him around? It's, you know, good example is
when he was in his final years Mandela lost his his mind over
time and he died, many years after his mind died, but there
were organizations that continued in his name.
There's the Mandela foundation and there's various ins that
fought for what they believed his values were but a lot of
people argue that those values that they were fighting for had
nothing in common with the values that he initially fought
for when he was imprisoned on Robben Island.
So there's there's very difficult questions to be
answered around. What is the impact of a socially
significant person or figure in history and how much is due to
that? Figure versus all the
projections that the people around them, throw onto him.
So it's a very Unsatisfying answer to you because I don't
know the answer. I don't know what the effects of
Nelson Mandela was. I just know what the, what the
effect of which Market summarized very well of all the
social expectations around, who he was that.
What did he actually do? I don't know.
Now.
I imagine he was very frustrated at points because what he was
actually doing and what was results in could have been quite
different. Mark, who was your favorite
philosopher? And what is their greatest
contribution? I'm going to say John Stuart
Mill. I think most views on Free
Speech, you know, still live with us today.
I think they're still excellent justifications for why we should
protect the free exchange of ideas, even if those ideas
strike us as dangerous or offensive, animal has this
wonderful line that we should be free to swing our first, the
edge of each other's noses, but no further need to have mutually
compatible freedoms. And I think, you know, most work
is really In highly influential, for building, a liberal
democracies that we see around the world.
I think we are starting to forget some of those principles,
you know, there's a, there's a famous quote that you don't win
Freedom. That the price of freedom is
eternal vigilance. And I think there is we've got
the seeing what our complacency has resulted in.
I think a lot of the freedoms that we take for granted are
being eroded and I think more would object.
It's interesting analytic philosophers often.
Don't talk about particular philosophical role models.
We often talk about streams of thought.
So we think about systems of ideas.
You often find that Continental lists, have a guru worship.
So they will say, I follow have a Mysore.
In a, I'm a big fan of Foucault. And there's almost a sense of
saying, you know, science. I remember chatting to one of my
purposes who's doing work on deliberative democracy and I
said, oh, you know, you should read our muscles work on that
sin, and he said I couldn't possibly do that.
Yeah, I know. It's hard to read.
It's not the most Pleasant read, but, you know, and it's another,
that's not the reason he said, you know, one of my close
friends had a fight with hardness.
And so therefore, I can't finally get to this work and I
thought that's a weird reason. And so you do have this sort of
like Turf War stuff that that happens among certain academics.
And I think you know analytic philosophers.
We have this this line of all the ideas, any good and we
rarely I mean like one of the things with our guests and we've
had close to 100 guests. We almost never ask them,
anything personal, you know, we sort of go.
What's the idea. Is there?
Are there any good? Doesn't even matter if it's
their idea. We just want someone to put the
idea out there so that we can coldly analyze it and see what
repercussions would have. And we think that that's a good
way to find truth as opposed to having this personalization or
on certain figures. Jason favorite philosopher, and
their greatest contribution. So, I saw the smoke on marks
face when he said, Jon Stewart mole because John Stuart Mill,
of course, was the originator of utilitarianism and
utilitarianism is my pet Theory which Mark really dislikes.
So he's taking a Jon Stewart, small John, Stuart Mill's Free
Speech content without taking his utilitarianism.
So, and my, I think one of the most significant Purrs, I really
like John Stuart Mill as well, because of his is utilitarian
Roots. But but probably my favorite
philosopher would be Thomas Nagel.
So Nagel wrote a little, a little article which really
changed philosophy called. What is it like to be a bat?
And he asked the question. Could you in principle know what
the phenomenology of a bat is? Like, what would, what would it
be like to have? Upside down in a cave all day
and use echolocation to work out.
What is going on around. You?
Can we even imagine that? And then he said, well, we can't
and he extended that and he said, well, if you can't
understand what it's like to be a member of another species, do
you think you can even know what?
It's like to be a member of your own?
Do you think you can know what? It's like to be someone else and
have their feelings, their mental States?
Their thoughts. Do you know what?
It's like to To be them. And he said, no, he said, you
can't understand another person subject to the T.
And this change philosophy in radical ways.
It changed, especially philosophy of mind.
So how we understand what the mind is and it really placed an
importance on again, the individual because his view at
least the original view is that there's no such thing as the
phenomenology of a group. There's nothing it is like to be
black or white or Male or female?
There's only something. It is like to be you and
individual. And I think that's a very
powerful notion. Mark what is self-knowledge and
why self-knowledge important? Hmm.
I'm so glad marks getting these questions first.
You know what, I didn't even plan it.
I I'm gonna switch it up after. This is basically being the
story of our relationship, which is that I think that heavy blows
first and then Jason relies on my coattails.
I have two interesting since utility by hitting you as hard
as I can. Yeah, he loves watching me
suffer. We've kept the ankle for nearly
a decade. So knowledge.
That's interesting question. I suppose it strikes me as the
kind of thing that you can have some knowledge about yourself,
but I think there's probably some things that we don't know
about ourselves that, you know, we are rich mines.
And that I think through a process of introspection, we can
work out things that are hidden from us Jason's quite a bit.
Fan of psychoanalysis and thinks that this is a good method to
try and uncover your unconscious, find out what it
is. That, you know, we've debated
this quite a lot as to whether those things really are beneath
the surface and can be Unearthed or whether they are things being
implanted by an external person. But yeah, I think that as I say
this this method that we use called reflective equilibrium,
which is that the idea that you, you take a theoretical position
and then you go and test it against World facts and you move
between these two spaces, you know, and you try and like tweak
the one versus the other to try and know what you should do.
That's sort of similar to this introspective process where you
think about position in the world and what you believe and
you moderate. I think the people that struck
me is very dangerous, are those that have no ability to do this.
In other words. They have imbibed a certain kind
of tonic. They believe it to be true and
there is no evidence that could Never dislodge them, their
phonetics. There is no self knowledge.
There is just a fervor with them and this can come in all sorts
of shapes and sizes. You know, you couldn't, you
could compute an ideological position to many people and they
just, you know, act like an automaton and, you know, carry
out all the principles and that's, you know, a rather
dangerous thing and something to be resisted.
Jason. What is self-knowledge?
And why is it important? Well, riding on Fox cartels.
I I really like the idea of knowing yourself
psychologically. So I like the idea that it's
important for a human being to know, what their personality is,
what their desires are philosophers.
Don't really focus on that so much.
We usually focus on what our beliefs are.
So I guess the ideal for lhasa fur doesn't Discover what their
beliefs are, their beliefs are supposed to track the truth, but
I don't think philosophers generally function that way.
So I think we're humans and we have certain underlying it kind
of inclinations towards certain belief systems, Mark, mentioned
earlier that I'm a utilitarian. I think I'm drawn to
utilitarianism first and foremost because it's a very
rebellious view, you know, Them seems very intuitive this idea
that you should maximize happiness for society as a
whole. It sounds great.
But when you start to lose State, all the context, a that
it brings up there, pretty radical.
So one of them, for example, is that the thing that would
maximize utility or happiness, for society?
As a whole is, if let's say you taking a walk in the park and
there's a very fit Runner who walked who runs by, you should
grab him quickly, give them a painless potassium.
Injection, stopped his heart and then distribute his organs to
10, or 20, or 30, people, whose lives will be saved or vastly
improved by killing one person. So strictly speaking.
If you look at utilitarianism, it results in these very bizarre
count examples, which suggests highly immoral actions that
utilitarianism is supposed to be telling us what is moral so that
those kind of puzzles really intrigued me.
And so I lean towards utilitarianism.
And I probably have that leaning.
I had that living before even considering whether the theory
was true or false. So in that sense, I think it is
important for philosophers to understand, not just the
personality in the psychology and All Humans, not just
philosophers, but specifically, for philosophers to understand
the belief inclinations, where they lean towards and why There
was a book written by the school of life.
It's titled big ideas for curious minds on page. 112.
They discuss the meaning of life.
They say the meaning of life is about what makes your life feel
interesting and good. It's as simple as that.
And you achieve this, what mainly counts is fixing things.
When you fix something, you solve a problem that matters to
you. What makes life?
Bad is problems. So it makes a lot of sense that
fixing problems is the thing. We To make life good and give it
meaning Jason. Do you have any thoughts on what
the meaning of life is? Well, I think it's definitely
not that, that that sounds like nonsense to me.
So, I think they're just confusing.
What the meaning of life is worth utility there.
So meaning of life, it's a good question.
What it is, one of the Philosopher's on our show
Thaddeus Max. He thinks the meaning of life is
the combination of three things. It's the good, the beautiful,
and the true. Now I think, what's our yes and
marks busy holding up right now, the book that we wrote with that
on this. So so that's that theory of the
meaning of life is quite plausible.
And that is that hizmet is one of the most he's sort of the
expert on the meaning of life, but there's other theories about
what the meaning of life is to the theory that you've just
given. Seems to only encapsulate, the
good, it ignores the beautiful and the true.
That's that's the problem. I think I think it that's just
confusing utility or the good or happiness with meaning my
personal view. What is the meaning of life?
I don't think there is a meaning of life.
So I think that the concept the meaning of life is just not a
coherent concept and that we should do away with it and just
talk about the component parts, that that discusses Parts.
Like the good beautiful and true.
What are those now? I don't think together.
They make up anything special called the meaning of life,
Mark, thoughts on the meaning of life.
Yeah, so I have different objections to the one given in
the book. Although I quite liked the
project that those guys have engaged in and I think a lot of
the content they produce has really interesting.
I think my objection is that it's what we call a subjectivist
account of meaning. In other words.
It's about you determining what's important and pursuing
that that has this really interesting.
Thing list of things we says. Imagine.
Someone says the problem that I'm setting for myself, which
I'm going to fix is to keep a very precise number of hairs on
my head to ensure that I can't exactly eleven thousand.
Three hundred eighty four Blades of grass on my lawn every day
and make sure that I do it very accurately to stand in queues
for hours on end to re-watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, you know, and you can imagine making a Amount of it,
you know? So that you have to watch x
number of episodes a week or a day or a year, whatever it is
and then solve the problem through doing it.
None of that would be meaningful.
It might be very pleasurable for the person who desert, but it
would seem like a meaningless activity.
And so that's account. I suppose there's a sort of
naming question as to whether you want to say that stuff is
about. Meaning, I'm inclined to say it
is, but I think when you're pursuing things that are
objectively, good, you're doing something meaningful.
I think those those lists are good.
As the start, the true, the beautiful, and the good.
And I think you have to do with the right disposition as well.
So it's not just a matter of doing the good things.
So you can imagine the nurse who spends her days.
Caring for the sick in a commune their bedpans, mopping, their
brows, but you hate every minute of it.
She's undoubtedly tracking thing.
That is objectively. Good in the world.
It is a meaningful activity, but she doesn't drive any meaning
from it because of a disposition.
So I think you have to recognize that you're doing something
meaningful. In order for it to be meaningful
for you, but not anything that you think is Meaningful is
actually meaningful. So you need those things to kind
of track with each other, the book that Jason mentioned.
So one of the fun things we've done with the brand of a show,
is to pick our favorite episodes and turn them into books.
And so we've produced a set of 6 and the second person who writes
in this book, on meaning of life is David Banner top and David
Bennett are, I think very famous for his views on antinatalism,
the idea that it would be Better narrative been born and he also
thinks about this question about.
Well, what's, what is the meaning of life?
Not just in, what are the things that make your life meaningful?
He thinks that the stuff that that tracks, their those things
are meaningful, but he says, you got to zoom out that just gives
you the terrestrial perspective. He says you've got to look at it
from the cosmic perspective and he says when you zoom out and
you see this pale blue.in the middle of nowhere, you realize
that all of our efforts might as well be you know, my name.
What happened, you know, that from the perspective of the
universe, they're totally and utterly insignificant.
And so, he thinks that when we have this perspective, that
there is very, very little meaning in life.
And, and this is a further reason to drive Humanity into
Extinction. Not through killing it.
But through ensuring, that there are no new human beings.
Oh, voluntary genocide. That's that.
That's a nice one. Jason.
There's a thought experiment by Robert nozick called The
Experience machine in his attempt to refute Hedonism.
He says imagine a machine that could give us whatever desirable
desirable or pleasurable experiences.
We want in this thought. Experiment psychologists have
figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain to induce
pleasurable experiences that the subject.
Could not distinguish from those.
He would have a part from the machine.
He then asks, if given the choice, would we prefer the
machine to real life? Jason, would you plug in?
Yes or no? No, I wouldn't.
So, what's interesting about the thought experiment, which is a
really fantastic thought experiment, and it's right up
there with Thomas, nagle's, what is it?
Like to be a bat? Is that?
It's meant to be a can't example to Heaven, ISM, right?
So hypnotism is the view that what's good for you is, So the
idea is, well, you've got infinite pleasure in the
machine. So surely, if what's good for
you is pleasure than you should plug into the machine that most
people said they wouldn't plug into the machine and so pleasure
can't be what's good for you, but I don't think that the
argument is valid because it's not the case that just because
Pleasures, what's good for you? That it's the only value that
matters to us. So there's other values that
matter to and some of the values that nozick raises in his
article are things like, authenticity or transcending
yourself. So he says, those are very
important values and he says well that means that Hellenism
is false because the reason we don't apply again is we don't
want to just be in our own heads all the time.
We want to transcend ourselves and we want to be authentic, we
want to do things in the world that Real, not just simulated
and he thinks that those things compete with head anism, for
being theories of what is good for you.
And so we should we should conclude that because we choose
those overhead anism that had nizam is false.
I just I don't think the can't example works because you can
say that what is good for you, in the sense of makes you, happy
is heaven has mm, but at the same time, there's these other
values that don't Not make you happy, but they provide you with
other things, they provide you with authenticity.
They provide you with Transcendence.
Those are the values are important, alongside had an ism
and sometimes they'll Trump hypnotism as to what is the most
important value in your life, but it doesn't mean that they
make your life go. Well, what it means.
They don't give you well-being. What they do is they just
provide you with other values in addition to well-being.
So no, I wouldn't plug-in but not because heading ISM or
pleasure isn't what makes me happy.
Just because I want things in addition to happiness.
I want authenticity and I want to be able to transcend myself.
Mark thoughts on nose experience machine thought example, the
thought experiment. Yeah, so I think there's a
little trick that when this thing is taught is that the way
that the professor gives the experiment is exactly the way
that you've done it is, you ask people to raise their hands,
very people, raise their hands. Here's the way I said, which is,
hey guys. I've got some news for you.
None of you are in reality right now.
You've all been plugged into an experience machine.
All of the joys, the relationships that everything
that you have right now, it's fake, it's simulated.
But if you take this little pull, we can put you into
reality but just a little heads up, you're going to be eating a
lot of gruel and there's going to be a bunch of machines that
want to kill you. A lot of the Matrix, right?
And then the question is, do you want to be plugged out of the
machine? I think it becomes a hard
question. You might say, well the
intensity sounds very nice, but, you know, stake in the Six
tastes pretty good. So maybe maybe I'll Stick Around
in the simulation. You know, I think Jason's right
to say that when were talking about values.
There's a range of values and I think any theory that said,
pleasure means nothing would be a bad Theory and I think, you
know, we do care about authenticity authenticity.
I think it's an important value but there might be some point
where you say. Well, if on the other end of
this, you know, of this machine, there's going to be lots of
suffering, you know, and I can just have the In authentic
pleasure, and all these in authentic relationships.
I might pick that. Yeah, reference points matter,
right? So if your reference point is
the experience in the machine, you might have a different
answer from if your reference point is outside the machine
reference points matter, but I agree with Mark the other reason
why I think it's important to phrase that way is I think it's
quite hard for people to imagine what it would be like to be put
in an experience machine. You know, they imagine it's like
sticking on a VR set of something.
But if I say to you, it is as real as everything right now and
assume that we're in one right now.
And by the way, there's a view, Elon Musk has put on this called
the Bostrom hypothesis, which is that, in all likelihood.
We are in a simulation right now and the claim is that
statistical one, which is that, if there was the capacity to
build a simulator and you wouldn't just run one
simulation. You would run hundreds of
thousands of simulations and given that you've got a hundred
thousands of simulations. None of which are real.
And there's Only one reality, the odds are that you're in a
simulation as opposed to a real one right now.
Jason Brennan wrote a book called against democracy.
The reason that I think this is important as one of the main
justifications from a lot of American politicians to blindly,
take the side of Ukraine and zielinski, and put all power
force and support behind him is, they are more democratic the
Assumption being. Well.
Yeah, Russia's technically a democracy.
But if so many oligarchs poisoning, the well that Ukraine
is the real democracy. So he has a great book where he
questions. The legitimacy of democracy.
He says, imagine you have five juries and they're all painted.
The first jury is ignorant. They don't even know what murder
is. The second is a rational they,
they are not really able to analyze the evidence put in
front of them. The third is impaired.
They almost can't even speak. The fourth is a moral.
They actually like murderers and they're going to let murderers
go free. And the fifth is corrupt.
They just that they interrupt the trial and say, whichever
side pays us. More is the side we will side
with. He says, we have no obligation
to obey the verdict that any of these jurors put forth.
Now all of those, apply to the populations of virtually every
country. Therefore, you don't have a
moral obligation to obey laws that exist as a result of
democratic decision-making, or deliberative democracy, I think
is the term Jason, what are your thoughts on the moral legitimacy
of democracy? So I agree?
It's not that you have no obligation to buy the state.
Although my reasons for thinking.
So different. Basically that that argument
assumes that every government or every state is systematically
flawed in some way that sounds plausible, but it's going to be
difficult to prove, right? So it's going to be difficult in
any given case to prove that. There's a systematic bias or
flaw in this particular political party or this
particular State. And if you speak to people who
are members of their political party, they're going to push
very hard for saying no no, no. No, we're not systematically
floor, Drew strategic, you know, we make certain decisions that
may appear to be flawed or systematically biased, but we
doing it for good reason. And there's a strategy or a game
that needs to be played here at cetera.
So II. Don't I don't buy that.
At arguments going to convince anyone who's seriously in
support of any kind of political system or political party.
The reason why I think that we are not obligated to obey a
state is is more in line with Mike humors view.
So Mike humor says, well, we never really have volunteered to
to be part of ought to be subject to these systems.
They're kind of arrived on your door and they say, well, we want
protection money, right? Called tax.
So, you know, You don't pay us. We're going to break your
kneecaps and put you in prison. But if you pay us good for you,
you know, good for you. You're an upstanding member of
society at, but you never made this choice, right?
You never made the choice to, to be in a situation where this mob
boss arrives at your door and says, give give me protection
money. That's, you know, that just
seems fundamentally unjust and and you don't owe them anything.
Of course, I do. I do follow laws.
Mark is always very All of this that I'm, I'm one of the most
law-abiding anarchists, he knows the reason why I follow laws is
because I think that self-serving.
So, in other words, the mob boss Hugh arrives on your door, does
a really good job of making sure that you pay that protection
money and if you don't, you know, you get into trouble.
So I think it's self-serving. It's prudent to pay your taxes
and it's prudent to Bay a bay most laws, but you certainly not
obligated to do. So, the only reason you should
do so is to protect yourself. Mark thoughts on the legitimacy
of democracy and obeying the state.
Yeah. So democracy is the worst system
except for all others. So I think all those features
that brand and identifies are clearly present, right?
There are many citizens. Who are, that way?
I think the difficulty is that when you concentrate power in
the hands of the few things, wind up, much worse, so I'm a
classical liberal. I take the view that That
absolute power corrupts. Absolutely.
And that's, you know, people are not to be trusted that people
have very dark sides in the nature.
And one way to deal with that problem is to have lots of
checks and balances and to reduce concentrations of power.
So I think, for example, in South Africa, if we had a pure
majoritarian system, if you just randomly Thing by a referendum,
we would bring back the death penalty and we would ban gay
marriage. We wouldn't be particularly
freedom-loving. I think a lot of People's
instincts, you know, change quite dramatically over time as
well. They're sort of can be revved up
and there's high levels of xenophobia in South Africa.
I can you imagine if, if you took it to a popular vote,
should we expel all zimbabweans from South Africa?
Will be surprised if people said, yes.
And despite the suffering that it would, cause despite the
economic hardship would cause for other other South Africans
in a furnace tend to be quite good for your country.
So we're a constitutional democracy.
CC and the idea with constitutions is that you can
place some sort of check on the majority.
And now, Constitutions are necessarily good.
Depends, what you put in them. So, you know, I think ensuring
that, you know, your executive doesn't have too much power.
It's pretty important that you've got lots of procedural
barriers. In the way of people often
complain about like gridlock in Congress.
I think it's a great thing. I think when politicians do
stuff, you want to make it really, really hard for them
because often their instincts are negative.
They act, you know, for for, for bad reasons and but there's a
sort of I think there's a an amazing wisdom of crowds that
can happen, which is over time. You have enough competing
interests and you have the way that how much describes.
It is a reason to put forward your view in a manner, which
seeks to be an interest of everyone.
So instead of something for a partisan position.
You're trying to convince everybody.
So Have to cash out your arguments in the sense that this
would be good for everybody. And I think that's a useful way
to get people on site. And it often will take away.
The more pernicious aspects of law.
There's some interesting debates about, you know, whether we
should think of the state has any legitimacy, you know, the
kind of hobbesian argument is that if we didn't have a
leviathan, we'd have a life that was nasty, brutish and short.
And that the advantage of having a state with the Monopoly on
violence, is that You know, we're all better off.
I do think it's this is the difficulty with revolutionary
fervor is, you know, and you've seen a lot of it in America,
you've got lots of people, sort of saying, let's just burn the
system down man, like fuck the government.
Fuck the police, fuck the whole system and it's because all
those people have lived on The Spoils of, you know, a state
that provides them with protection a capitalist system
that provides people with an unbelievable Bounty of goods,
and services, you know, many of the Please describe themselves
as Communists. But if they spent a moment
sharing with someone, you know, who grown up in a Communist
Regime, they had realized the horrors that those systems bring
about and that those systems are about concentrating power, in
the hands of the few. You know, communism is one of
those systems that's led to the death of a hundred million
people. You know, you had the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia who had to them on some wonderful ideas,
about how to start a society from a fresh to have a year
zero, and they killed a third of the population.
The advantage of the democracy is that you can diffuse power,
you can get a variety of interest in and you have a check
on a very small number of politicians.
So I think it is the worst system except will others.
Jason, are you a lawyer as well? No, so my training is in
philosophy only. So I have a PhD in philosophy.
Mark provides the legal smarts. Okay, Mark, what would you say
is the purpose of a legal system?
I suppose. There's a there's a sense.
There's an ambiguity in that, right?
So you can create a legal system with all sorts of purposes, and
those purposes can be very pernicious.
So, for example, the purpose of some of the legal system during
apartheid was, you know, to separate the races to oppress,
you know, people on the grounds of their s.
It's not a good purpose. So, there's a sense in which you
might think what is, how did legal systems function and they
can function in all sorts of different.
That can maintain order, they can make it easier for
businesses to operate. They can provide certainty, you
know, but they can also function to exclude people, you know, to
make their lives worse off to add regulatory barriers.
So I think there's a different question, which is what is a
good purpose for a legal system. You know, what are the things
that we want our legal systems to do and I think to my mind we
want to regulate a little as possible.
You want to provide people with as much Freedom as possible and
you want to be able to circumscribe Behavior, which is
legitimately harmful. So as I said regarding Merle,
the idea that we're going to be free to swing our first edge of
each other's noses. I think our legal system should
be able to punish people incarcerate them, arrest them,
when they perform genuine wrongs.
So if you go out and you murder and you rape, you know, I think
there's a good reason for the state to get involved and arrest
you and incarcerate. You I think that's a legitimate
role of the state. I start to get worried when the
state sticks his nose in Private Industry when it says well, you
know, we think things could be more competitive if we started
to like add these rules and regulations and you know, and if
we told you who you're allowed to employ and how much you're
allowed to pay them, and those sorts of things, I'd much rather
see that, you know, regulated through competition in the
marketplace. You know, I think that's a much
better way to get efficient results.
And I think when the state starts the medal, it creates a
whole bunch of an equator. Consequences and then the state
tries to renew their through more and more meddling.
So yeah, I'd say protecting citizens from each other is a
good place to start, but on a limited basis.
Jason with your research in philosophy of you, come across
any really good philosophical approaches to how people can
find happiness. That's a good question.
So I think that there are good theories about what happiness
is. I think the best theory is one
that you raised earlier, which is hidden is mm.
I think the best way to achieve happiness is by seeking pleasure
in your life and finding pleasure.
I don't think all pleasures are equally good.
I think there are some Pleasures that are sort of categorically
better than others, but they might not be the ones that we
traditionally think. Categorically better.
So some people believe that, for example, listening to back or
Beethoven is categorically better than the pleasure you get
from sex, but I think they might have gotten that the wrong way
around. So, I think that certain types
of Pleasures, which have traditionally becomes been
considered base Pleasures, are actually very good for you.
But yeah, I think it's all about pleasure.
I, by the way, I am also very interested in eastern philosophy
and I I think it adds certain texture to the discussion.
That Western philosophy doesn't so Eastern philosophers.
They do have this notion of pleasure as being important, but
they think that it's sort of like a Honey Trap.
So yes, you can pursue pleasure but in so doing in the pursuit
of pleasure you set up suffering, because once you find
that pleasure, you don't want to let it go.
But it inevitably will flee from you.
You. And so the suffering in that, or
if you don't achieve the pleasure, then there's the
suffering in wanting something that you don't get.
So, they Eastern philosophy, specifically Buddhist
philosophy. It's very much interested in
this notion of seeking pleasure. But doing it in a very
particular way. And I think that when you mailed
that Eastern view of how to pursue pleasure with the Western
View that pleasure is what's important.
I think you achieve a better theory of well-being or
happiness. And Jason, what do you think?
Philosophy? Can teach us about the concept
of war and maybe help people see things a little more.
Clearly, with regards to being in a state of War.
Mentally. Yeah.
It's a very good question and it's a question.
I'm probably not equipped to answer.
There's enormously complex debates amongst philosophers
around the legitimacy of certain actions in war.
There's lots of debates. For example, around
proportionality. Are you allowed to act with?
Levels of Force, if your opponent's or the person you're
fighting against tax in certain ways against you first or
second. There's lots of debates around
when killing is legitimate or not legitimate in war.
These are fascinating questions their questions, which interest
me, but they're not questions. I have answers to part of the
reason I don't have answers to these questions is.
I worry that a lot of these debates are metaphysically bad.
So when we talk about war, we're talking about the conflict
between two countries or two Nations, but I'm skeptical again
about these group terms, like Nations or countries.
Now, if you get rid of those terms and you say, okay, they're
off the table. You can talk about Nations or
countries, then what would a war be, what would the content of
that, that term B and now go back into history?
And look at what you mean. When you talk about particular
Wars, I think what you mean is a series of events.
Where a whole lot. Individual shot at each other.
Now, you might say that's like a, it's a watering down of what
happened and it doesn't quite capture what went on, but I
think it captures, what went on much better than the social
explanation. Why?
Well, if you really look at what happens in war, a lot of
soldiers, they shoot above the enemy.
They don't even aim at the enemy.
Now, if your, if your explanation for what's going on
during D-Day is that you've got one side shooting at the other.
Side, well, that's actually wrong.
There were whole lot of individuals.
The majority of individuals who just didn't they didn't aim at
the other side and they didn't shoot it them.
They didn't, they didn't Target them.
I think you get a much more accurate explanation of what's
going on. When you look at the individual
histories of each of those persons on that beach and you
see how they acted to both towards each other and what
their thoughts and their emotions.
And their mental states were I think you get a much more
complete picture of what's going on than just saying, well, there
was a war between this nation. This nation Mark.
I just I just I just watched Stanley Kubrick's Paths of
Glory. It's an absolutely outstanding
from and I think it captures a lot of what Jason saying.
This idea that when we talk about it set in World War one.
It's about a particular battle between the French and the
Germans. But what it does is it looks at
a microcosm. It looks at a particular group
of people of soldiers and how they behave and what you have is
two different generals Who start off in the foam and the one
tries to persuade the other two to mount this impossible, attack
on What's called the anthill to capture it.
It's sort of a few hundred feet away from the particular trench
there in. And you know, the first general
says well, it's impossible. I would be sending my shoulders
and to death and they don't deserve that.
They've been brave and courageous and I would never do
that. To them.
And the other one says, well, I know that you would never do
that to them. But there is the possibility of
you coming up for a promotion and getting an extra star and
obviously, I, you know, wouldn't want you to think that these two
things were tied with each other and, and suddenly, you see the
other General change his mind and say, well, my men are very
brave and maybe they could storm the anthill.
And so then instructed to go and do this impossible thing and
what's interesting is, the way the different individual
soldiers, react. So some of them run over and And
you know, our immediately shot to death by the other soldiers,
some of them hunker down and they wait.
And they are then the, the general who had sort of
initially sort of said, I don't want to kill my soldiers seized
this group of people hunkering down and he instructs his own,
bombardier's to bomb them, to encourage them to get out of the
trenches, to run and there's a refusal.
So again, you have an individual who says, you know, I'm going to
use my own moral. Agency, and I'm not going to
abide by your orders. So when we Cloud this whole
thing, with the idea of the French version of the Germans
who miss out on those nuances, but having said that, it might
be the case that we can sort of look at individual behavior, and
we should look at individual accountability.
There's a trial that happens and three of the soldiers are held
up for cowardice, for refusing, to storm the storm until and
there's individual stories of play.
And then, the film really is absolutely remarkable.
Markable for something that was meant as ago.
But I do think we can sensibly talk about some group Behavior.
I think it might be that not all actions.
Can be explained by using blunt terms, but I think we might be
able to sort of know enough. There's I think it's an
Aristotle line about, you know, when we're trying to work out.
You know, how precise is a right angle in a the terms used by a
geometrician and a carpenter are different, you know, for the
Attrition, it must be exactly 90 degrees for the carpenter.
Well, 89-91. It's good enough, you know,
we're trying to build a table here.
And so I think we've got to accept some degree of
imperfection in our language. I think Jason Rebels against
that and I think it's important to be very precise in the
language and we should be as precise as needs be, but I'm
worried about chucking some of our useful metaphysics in a way
that actually might leave us feeling.
Like we can say nothing, you know, and it is the case that
the war. You're going on between Russia
and Ukraine is leading to an enormous amount of suffering.
A lot of death. And I think we can pin some
responsibility on particular individuals and maybe we can
have some group responsibilities as well.
So my final question is going to be asking each of you.
What is the most important logical fallacy, that people
need to know about? So they can think.
Clearly I want to give you a second to think about it though.
I want to read my favorite. This is from a book titled, the
use and abuse of logic by Madsen Prairie.
He titles this fallacy unobtainable Perfection when the
arguments for and against courses of action are assessed.
It is important to remember that the choice has to be made from
the available. No, Alternatives, all of them
might be criticized for their imperfections as might the
status quo. Unless one of the options is
perfect. The imperfections of the others
are insufficient grounds for rejection.
The fallacy of unobtainable perfection is committed when a
lack of perfection is urged. As a basis for rejection, even
though none of the Alternatives is perfect.
Either. Jason.
What is the most important logical fallacy?
People should know about? Well, the rebellious person in
me wants to say, it's the fallacy fallacy.
So it's the fact it's the fallacy that when you commit a
fallacy that you definitely performed or at a bad arguments,
by the way, a good portion of my professional life is spent
teaching lawyers how to argue and I always start by giving
them a list of fallacies. So I say well these are, these
are the ways you shouldn't argue and so it seems like Policies
are important to avoid and to point out in your opponent.
What's interesting though is, especially when you start doing
philosophy. You become quite obsessed with
fallacies and and pointing them out and avoiding them.
And then later you start to question the texture of those
fallacies. And, you know, when is that
fallacy operating a good example, is the ad hoc fallacy.
So well, what is an ad? Hoc statement?
It's a statement that you add to a theory.
After the theory has received count, examples, or counter
evidence and you add to the theory in order to accommodate
that evidence. But you weren't able to put that
into the theory before you receive the content evidence.
So that, the theory could predict that counter evidence to
begin with. So that sounds quite abstract,
but I'll give you an example. So for example, the original
creationist theory about how the world was created.
Is that it was created by God as the Bible to set the world.
Is created and was created a certain number of years ago, a
few thousand years ago, but then you scientists start digging in
the sand and and and they find fossils is a fossil record that
appears to be carbon dated back to millions and millions of
years ago. So what does that mean?
Well, the creationist says, okay.
Here's my ad. Hoc addition to the Creations
Theory, my ad hoc Edition. Is that God put those Those
bones those fossils in the ground, with the apparent carbon
dating of being millions of years old, as a test to your
faith. The world is not millions of
years old, but he puts them in the ground, so that you will
think your doubt God and will you come out the other side of
this Dart? So it's an ad-hoc addition to
creationism. The original creationist Theory,
did not predict that will that will find the fossil record.
Ground, so they added this off to the content evidence was
discovered. Now.
This is a good example because ad hoc ad hoc claims, although
their ad hoc. And that's a fallacy.
It's a phallus is fallacious to give at her claims.
They could nevertheless be true. It is possible that God did
this, right? It's unlikely but it's possible.
And so something that a lot of philosophers do as they progress
through their careers as they say, yes.
So this, this could be fallacious, but that doesn't
necessarily rule out that. It's that it's correct.
So I quite like the fallacy fallacy, the fallacy.
That just because something is fallacious, that it's
necessarily incorrect invalid. Wrong Mark, most important,
logical, fallacy. People should know about.
I'll give an obvious one, which is the ad hominem fallacy, that
idea that we should judge the quality of someone's argument
based on their identity. And I It's important because we
see it all the time. So there's a lot of talk.
That so-and-so shouldn't be allowed to speak because of
their sex, or their race or their gender identity and their
view should be discounted on that basis.
That strikes me as really pernicious and dangerous.
The one that I think is an interesting other one that
people might not be aware of is survivorship bias.
So there's this, if you going And gather a whole bunch of the
most successful CEOs of companies and you say to them,
you know, what's the one thing that you have in common?
Why did you prosper? And they'll say I took risks?
So see, taking risks, make successful is successful.
People took risks and look how rich they are.
But you only look at the people who survived.
If you look in the graveyard and you look at all those people who
took risks and are now bankrupt and you know, hearing from them
and they'll say what's the one reason why you fuck out?
I took a lot of risks, man. And those wrists in payoff.
So, I think when we're surveying evidence, you want to work out?
What am I not seeing? There's a famous, give you a war
example, during World War Two. There was a question about how
airplanes, or, to be redesigned. And so they had a whole bunch of
bullet holes on the airplanes and they put up heat maps and
they said, okay. Well, what we need to do is
these are the places where these airplanes are getting fire.
We should reinforce those parts of the airplane and the engineer
said, Ed we should do the exact opposite.
He says, you're only looking at the planes that came back.
Those are clearly the places that can survive the bull
attacks. What you want to look at is the
graveyard all the planes that sunk.
You know, they probably got shot in places that aren't on the
heat map. So we should reinforce those
spots and that kind of lateral thinking I think is a is a
clever way of getting to the truth.
Jason. Did you say you guys have six
books published? Yes, so we've published six
books Within Brandon of that Series.
So basically every week we interview, another philosopher
and we take our favorite episodes and we combined them
into books. So we have two episodes that are
transcribed and then worked on both by us and the philosopher.
So we transcribe it, we give it to an editor.
Then that philosopher works on it and we pair that episode with
another philosopher who talks about something similar, or the
very same topic from the opposite perspective.
And in some of our books, what's really nice is that At the two
philosophers within the book, what they'll do is they'll argue
back and forth at the end of the book, they'll give objections
and responses and and that's quite rare in philosophy.
You do see it in journal articles that people sometimes
submit to a journal and then they'll be a back-and-forth, but
it is rare. So to get that happening in the
book, really, really is quite quite a unique offering.
So we have six of these on all sorts of topics.
Mark mentioned, one of them, the meaning of Life Book, but we've
got others as well. We've got one in the philosophy
of science fiction. And we've got one with Raja
helwani on the philosophy of love and sex.
So we've got quite a quite a wide range of books and we
planning to do more and which one of those is your favorite.
It's the one that I'm the primary author of it's the
philosophy of science fiction and Mark, you guys have so many
videos, if someone wants to get an introduction into your work.
What is one introduction video that they should check out to
get a good idea of what you guys do.
I suppose it's like saying you run a grocery store with a whole
bunch of different foods. What's the food people should
eat it? Sort of depends a little bit on
their taste. I can tell you what our most
popular videos are one with David Bennett on meaning of life
is the most popular and David is an unbelievable thinker.
We've had them on the show a couple of times and I think
that's an excellent place to start.
I think those that are interested in libertarianism,
then I would I would really recommend our episodes with with
Humor. If you're interested in hard
moral problems, we have a pretty famous utilitarian philosopher
called Alice the Norcross on to talk about utilitarianism.
And that's a really excellent introduction to that kind of
moral theory. If you're looking for something
like a little bit contentious and there's two episodes that I
would highly recommend. The one is with Rebecca to Val
on trans rationalism. And the other one is with
Kathleen stock on on gender and And on and on transgender
issues. Thanks to everyone for watching.
Keith Knight, don't tread on anyone and the libertarian
Institute links to all of these things that we've discussed will
be in the description below. Gentlemen.
Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having us on the
show. Absolute pleasure.