Each individual should have the freest possible scope for the
development of his faculties and his personality.
In order to have this scope. He must have freedom from
violence against himself, violence can only repress and
Destroy human growth and Endeavor.
And neither can reason and creativity function under an
atmosphere of coercion. If each person has equal defense
against violence, this equality before the law will permit him
to maximize his Potentials, welcome to Keith's night.
Don't tread on anyone today. We have Sean layout to discuss a
book. He has written regarding
morality. I don't want to give away the
title just yet because it's terrific.
Sean. Thank you for coming on Keith
Knight. Don't try it on anyone.
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it. So when discussing morality, a
few things, come to mind that we can sort of all agree on without
there being, you know, a fight in the cafeteria at work about
anything and it's like, Okay, the things we know are wrong
slavery. Rape murder kidnapping, theft
genocide. What is it about?
These acts that you think is immoral.
Well, yeah, that's that's the big question.
And I actually was listening to your show with Mark passio and
Larkin Rose recently. And that question was, it was
floated and it's a challenging one.
So, I took a step back and I started thinking, okay.
So who has who? Who determines this, this
morality where, you know, where is its source?
And when looking at a particular act, I realized that we all know
that the person who takes an action, can't be the judge of
the morality of that action because then they, you know, the
classic example is, you know, mousey tongue or something can
judge his own actions to be moral external.
Observers can't judge. Either because they're not
affected by the action at all. So, by logical deduction, only
the receiver, the person who is who is being affected by that
action, is the one who's judging that action to be moral or
immoral and ultimately it comes down to consent.
If the person who is being acted against is consenting to the
action. Then, the action is perfectly
moral. If they are not consenting to
the action than the action, is Oral.
And thus was where I made the connection between consent and
morality. And so that's why I titled the
book consent is morality. Now, just so we're on the same
page. First of all, I love how at the
beginning of the book, you get definition.
So, we're on the right page. So many philosophy, books could
either just not have been written or if saved 300 Pages by
just making sure, we're talking about the same thing.
How would you define consent? Okay, so consent.
Is the affirmative decision or expression of accepting an
action? It's when we can get into into
the depths of the consent itself, but that that's really
the bottom line is if a person voluntarily, you know, without
without external coercion allows, another person to take
an action or doesn't action to themselves than by definition
that consent. To it, but it's really about the
voluntary acceptance of. And what's also very important
is the is the expression of it. It must be explicit and it must
be. It must be given so that the
other party that's taking the action actually has the consent.
Do you think there are times where there is implicit consent?
For example, if I let someone in my house, well, they can get
some water from the fridge. They can sit on the couch.
Maybe they can have, you know, they can use my pen and the ink
in there, but they can't take my car.
Do you think there is some implied, consent in the action
for the sake of? I mean, it would take so much
time and effort and energy to get consent for every single
thing. That's sometimes we do go on
implied. I think that there's there's
certainly cultural aspects to to that I argue in the book that
technically, if you want to get down to you know splitting
hairs. There's no there's no actual
implied consent. I think the the good example is
if you're if you fall unconscious and, you know,
medical people start to start to try to help you.
Or if you know, if a young teenager attempts suicide or
something, then people try to to save that person.
There's some people say that there's an implied consent.
In fact, I argued that the medical personnel in that
example. Violating the person's consent.
Now, maybe in our society. We essentially are looking the
other way to the violation of that consent, as you know, a lot
of folks in our space. A lot of people are looking the
other way about a lot of violations, comes of consent in
society. So that's not entirely unheard
of but technically you want to get down to brass tacks.
I would argue that those are violations of Sent and do you
think that they can be justified in some instances?
For example, is it okay for me to go and invade anyone's house
whenever I want to? Well, no, that's a blatant
violation of consent. Well, what if Jack and Jill get
married and they Jack takes out an insurance policy for two
million dollars, Jill goes, missing the next day.
We see Jack carrying a heavy Persian rug out of his house at
2:00 a.m. Well, and he refuses to come
down to the courthouse. Well, maybe then I can initiate
aggression and forcefully enter the house.
Or if someone's choking. Can I put my body up against
theirs and thrust? Really hard to stop them from
choking. Is it ever okay to violate the
consent of a person, right? Well, I'm obviously in the first
example, that that person took out the insurance is has already
committed the aggression, right? So it was a, you know, the
actions would be would be the would be an attempt to punish
those. Those, those aggressions in the
choking example, I think in those examples.
It's pretty clear that the person who is saved or the
person who has helped would turn around and say, thank you.
Yes, I I, you know, retroactively consented to your
action or by or even actually, even by the choking example.
A lot of people will sign to themselves and point to
themselves and and and somehow indicate that they need help.
Obviously if they're unconscious, they can't.
But I I think the, I didn't say early on, I didn't make it.
Clear early on in the book that the world is not perfect.
Human humans live in the meat space as they say, and it's very
squishy and and there are definitely exceptions and
situations where that would be a controversial or or may appear
to poke holes in the floor. Safiye.
But and I do address that I do address that early on to make
sure that the folks know that the ideology is consistent.
It just because if there are, there are little weird examples
that might fall outside of, it doesn't mean that the entire
philosophy is, is, is damaged, and that is so important to get
into. Because I mean, yes, literally
anything can be justified in extreme examples, like anyone.
It was openly against slavery. Well, was it okay to enslave
someone for three seconds to save the entire human race from
cancer? AIDS covid.
And another speech from Bernie Sanders.
Yes. Absolutely.
Those things are so terrible that if just some small
microscopic thing can be have such a different challenge,
different change to a human events.
Well, in some cases it would be okay.
All of that is a clear distraction or stalling tactic
use to get Away from the major examples.
So my question to you is what are some major reasons we should
value consent and aren't we already doing that?
Well, clearly, we're not, as I mentioned before, there's a
large number of Acts that are taken every single day that
violate consent. My my argument in the book and
the book is kind of laid out in three sections.
The first is kind of to describe.
The philosophy of from beginning to end.
The second is to give some of these examples that we've been
talking about a little bit more real world examples.
And then the third is to is to talk about what happens in a
world where sent is not being followed.
And one example, I talked about is it is with children.
If or if I can consent for someone else, what would happen
if if if you're not able All to withhold your consent.
What kinds of things that could happen in society?
I could, I could take all of your property.
I could enslave you. I can take your children.
I can, I mean if humans don't have the ability to withhold
consent, I argue that society would not last.
Actually. I don't think it would stay
cohesive and any sense for very long at all.
So at the very end of the book, I talk about why, what kind of
actions that are being that are that are violating consent and
how to recognize them. And what do we need to do to
build a more consensual Society? Sure as far as just getting any
philosophy, consistently applied, if you say no, screw
this. I don't care about consent or
who has the right to own what that can't even be consistently
applied because if I have the right to steal your headphones,
well that implies I have the right to own and possess them
and then someone should steal them from me because theft is
right, but they can't rightfully take it and own it and exclude
because theft is okay. And I can violate their consent,
the only consistent methodology to any philosophical discussion.
Here would be something that talks about both.
Consent and ownership. So I'm curious.
How do you determine who owns what?
And who was the aggressor in any given situation?
Sure. The AI from the very beginning.
I start very, very basically, I mean I even start at, I think
therefore I am I go right to the root of humanity and talk about
ownership and very clear about how a person because they own
themselves and I talked and I Make sure that I set that
Baseline about why people on themselves.
I discussed the fact that when you own yourself, you own your
time. So a lot of folks, I'm sure who
are, you know, a lot of your viewers, a lot of your listeners
or to know this but for those who are new to it you because
you own your life, you own your time.
That's something that because it's yours.
You may freely trade it for something else.
And that something else that property is now as much a part
of you as that time. Was that you traded for it?
Those two things are equivalent, which is why if anyone steals
something from you. If someone steals a car from
you, they are essentially enslaving you for the time that
you spent to produce that the the resources to make that car.
So it's when you do when you look at it from that angle, it's
very clear. We're about who owns what?
It's the, it's who voluntarily and peacefully traded, what they
own for something else in agreement to other people.
I think that's that's yeah. Go ahead yet.
Now, would you agree with me that voluntary consent?
Can Trump labor value or labor effort?
For example, if I go to a place and I work for Ten hours a day,
five days a week for a year and I build a bunch of houses.
I don't own the houses, and I'm don't even have the right to be
compensated. If I chose to sign up for a
charity to help build houses for people.
So, in that sense, could I do a ton of Labor and rightly not be
compensated? Because I voluntarily agreed.
And therefore, again, we're back at consent being the root of
morality instead of time and effort, equaling my right to
something. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
That's that makes perfect sense. If if a person I think with
situations like that, you have to think about it from a little
bit of higher level, right? So think about the person who
okay, so a worker volunteers his or her time to build houses, the
person. Now the organization that
they're being volunteered, their volunteering to gets all of the
labor builds the houses and either do It's them or sells
them to another person. And then that other person now,
is very grateful. They have the house.
But if the labor walks in and says, hey, this is mine.
I built it. It's, you know, they're they're
they're going against their, their original agreement.
Certainly, there's some ethical, certainly, there's ethical
problems there and which I do separate out in the book, the
difference between ethics and morality, but you know, they The
property exists that they gave their time freely voluntarily
just as you would give money or any other property and the the
other person whose have received it now, even though they
received a freely it's it is there as because that property
was and that time was given voluntarily at the time and it's
gone. That's once you once you give
something away and you agreed to give Away, and then I suppose
you could get a situation where somebody decides does that.
If someone does that someone gives away property.
It's now I want that back. They're not going to get a very
good reputation. So I think, even even in the
situation where, where you could where someone could argue that
they could, they could retrieve that property back.
It's not going to come without consequences.
They're going to they're going To be seen as somebody who does
that and the trust is going to be gone.
So there's a there's a lot to there's a lot to that possible.
Now one major thing is, you can always, you know, come up.
It's always interesting to come up with examples.
Is it okay to steal, you know, one penny to save the entire
planet from destruction. Yes.
Well in some of these cases, aha, I've got you and sort of a
bit of a conundrum there for the existence of a state is
legitimate. That is the biggest non
sequitur. You can imagine it's the
equivalent of saying, you know, there's a lot of ambiguity in
our dealings there for Amazon has the right to coercively.
Rule us make executive orders. We have to follow like no
because all of the shortcomings that we Face, apply tenfold to
this group of people called the state or any other group of
people saying that consent and morality applies to them
differently. You have a great question that
you posed to the reader. You say should the more reality
of a particular action if that action is right or wrong, be
judged using the same method for everyone.
Who does it regardless of their job or intent.
Why is that question important? It really does go right to the
question about government. I mean, I do it kind of
subversively because the, the, the target audience when I was
first coming up with the idea of this book, is that kind of young
person idealistic person, maybe who considers themselves?
The left who really, you know, maybe grew up in the in the me
to movement as it was getting big.
And really did fundamentally understand.
That consent is primary. And I think a lot of people do
not do believe, deep down. That consent is is key.
It's the thing that that's really the biggest thing to to,
to be cognizant of. So, starting from that.
I started putting those Those kinds of little less seeds in
the beginning of the book and that question in particular, was
to get to the point later on where.
Yes, just because somebody has, you know, a blue uniform and a
shiny badge. They're just a human being just
like the rest of us and they don't have any special powers.
They you can tie. You can go in this through this
in the book as you can't Grant powers that you don't first
possess. So I make sure Were I started a
very simply and so that it supports the argument that I
make later on? That's so important because
people can just apply that consistently in any case, if
people will often say well this is my job or even, you know, non
police officers, non members of the military will say, well
that's just their job. And that's just what they're
doing as if getting paid like doing the thing is bad, but if
Is paying you to do it now? It's okay.
It's I mean the example I use is yes, I go around assaulting
women, but I only do it when their ex-boyfriends hire me to
do it. And so I'm just doing my job and
now it's totally different and morality doesn't count.
Of course, not. The other thing you said about
the ability to transfer things. You don't have, this is vital
when it comes to consent. Because if you say, well, the
people consent to something like regulation or Station.
Well, if the citizens, look, if I just don't have the right to
go around issuing taxes to people or going around
regulating people or conscripting them.
How can I delegate that to a group of individuals who if I
don't have X, how can I transfer X to someone else?
And I can't take it back. Like, there's no method of me
saying. I hereby a, you know, take back
my right. And I'm going to just, I'm going
to enforce this on. On my own terms, you guys tried
swing and a miss. Thanks so much Congress.
You guys did not do great on that.
You talk on page 29 about group. You say groups do not act.
What is the importance of understanding that groups?
Do not act only individuals act. That's actually one of the
biggest misconceptions that I found for people that are
outside our space that are that, that aren't, you know, was a
collectivist mentality, is that He said, well, the people have
spoken or, you know, the voice of the people or something like
that is, is the, is the idea that a group of people have some
sort of separate. Cognition.
There's some sort of living entity or, or morality that
exist within that is separate and distinct from all the
individuals. And that's just, it's just when
we say that, A group Acts or the people of spoken.
It really is just a shortcut. It's the, it's a, the example
that I give. I don't know if they'll give
this in the book. I don't remember.
But a flock of birds, a flock of birds does not chirp each bird
chirps because you can't. So you might say, oh, that flock
of birds chirping but it isn't. It's the all the individual ones
and taking action of themselves that that's making the sound and
it's the same thing with any Group of humans that if it
actually this kind of dovetails into a little conversation, I
have later on in the book. If you grant these kinds of
anthropomorphic ideas to groups, if you give them it's like its
own identity and the group can take actions.
Then what it does is it absolves any individual within that group
who may have committed a crime? If you're standing next to
somebody in a big crowd. And someone else throws a book.
I mean, a brick through a window.
Well, you didn't do that. And so or maybe the other person
could say, well, it was just, we were just the, the other group
that did it. You can never identify the
individual. If the group is, is committing
an atrocity. That's very and important.
What do you think about how you would tell someone that this
really matters to them? And their life, the idea that
consent is morality. And might say, well, yes,
taxation is theft. The regular regulation is
violent domination. The draft is slavery.
And war is mass murder, but that's not going to change me
and how I act and how I operate. So, it's something far-fetched
and hard to really care about. Well, what would you say to that
mindset? Yeah, it's, I would approach it
by saying, think about ya. Think about your own life and
think about, you know, somebody doing something to you.
Think about someone just, you know, for a lady, taking your
prayers for man, taking your wallet.
Think about the situation where your consent is violated.
It's it's well, I mean at the very basic level, it's not.
It's, you know, it's, it's not a happy thought.
And so knowing that that, that that damage, that your that's
done to you. When your consent is violated,
is universal is the And which is, which is why I assert that
morality is subjective because it's based on consent, even
though each of us consent to different things.
We all either consent or withhold, our consent to Every
Act was taken against us. And so that that fact that
everyone can sense is universal, which means that it is objective
human. It's an objective piece of
humanity. So for the person who's putting
it off to the outside, I would just I just think about it, be
able to more empathetic right, think about it, how you would
feel and at that kind of that kind of thing is we and we
talked about it in foreign policy.
I think they think about what Americans would feel if someone
else is doing it to us, that kind of reversal, I think is
really instructive. Yeah, it's sad that you know,
like a thing that you should kind of learn in kindergarten to
explain. Well, you shouldn't hit this kid
because you wouldn't want to be hit, right?
It's amazing how we lose that obvious, that obvious empathetic
tool. I mean, I just had it the other
day. Now we're someone's like, well
regulation is there for us to flourish.
It's there to, you know, protect us and set parameters, so we can
flourish and I said, alright, so from here on on out before you
post anything on the internet, just send it to me.
I'll tell you whether or not I approve or disapprove.
It just to make sure that you can have a space to flourish and
he blocked me. Now.
The point is is not to change. This person's mind.
It's did you know show everyone else?
And it is it almost benefits you to see how people respond to
different ways of communicating something and just to plant
seeds in the minds of everyone else.
I am so glad That someone sort of, you know, ask me these
questions and made me think about these sort of ideas.
I think the main reason or the main way that looking into, you
know, consent morality self ownership has changed me, is if
you really understand people on themselves and people own their
own time, you realize that you're not automatically
entitled to other people's time or property.
So anytime you want to spend one second with someone or years
with someone, you have to say. All right.
They don't owe me. Any of their time.
I need to create something of value.
I want to be someone fun to be around and you know, what, if
they don't like me, maybe I'll change a little.
Maybe I'll change a lot depending on whatever reason I
have 2 or motivation that I have.
But when you recognize that other people don't own you and
you don't own them inversely. It totally changes.
The dynamic at least for me the dynamic of Ships and the and how
you, you know, create value for other people.
Do you see actual relationships changing once the people
embrace, the philosophy of self-ownership and volunteerism.
I think there's I think there's a lot to that thinking about,
even from a basic business standpoint.
I know that people are not required to buy the book, for
example, I am so grateful that people are voluntarily giving of
their of their self of the time and energy that They used to
make to make money to hand, it to me for four, essentially.
You're just ideas that I put down on paper.
I am so grateful and so appreciative and so knowing that
that that they are doing it voluntarily, it makes it makes
it all the difference. I mean, I had a conversation
with my daughter when she was very young.
We used to use the little stars to when they do good, you get a
star and when you earn enough Stars you get you get a reward
and we had a conversation. Because if your brother didn't
get enough Stars, would it be okay for you to give him your
Stewart? Your stars so that he could get
a reward and she's like, yeah, but what if I made you give him
your stars and and you could almost see that that look on her
face and she didn't really understand.
It was just you know, like a six-year-old.
But but if there's something viscerally wrong with that and
being able to, to give, you know, they know that whole that
nonsensical sharing. Is carrying ideology, you know,
that that leads into the that socialism kind of ideals.
If you don't have the ability to voluntarily give or to
voluntarily work together, then there's no, there's no value in
in doing something if you're forced to it.
So it absolutely makes all the difference when it comes to
interpersonal and comes to business.
Everything. And you can just look at how you
feel, how different you feel when you've either volunteer at
a charity or you've given to charity and then you have given
money to the IRS given Loosely. It's like, oh my God, more
genocide and Yemen versus. Oh gosh, seeing that woman,
smile was worth everything and then there's the secondary
effects of. If people automatically get
money, there's less of an incentive to use it efficiently,
so they have to create value. Maybe there will be corrupt.
Ian, that's why we need a free market in charity.
Be so we could opt out of funding the corrupt with the
state, you just fun corrupt and there's nothing you could do
besides protest and then them lie to you about the audit that
they did. So there's so many different
Dynamics where we going to say. No.
No, that's yeah.
Yeah, you can you can go down a lot.
There's lots of rabbit holes that you could go down for
short. Now, a major obstacle in this is
You can make a lot of great points.
But if someone's mind is open this much.
It's hard to get through. So how do you first open
people's minds to First? Accept the idea that consent is
the root of morality. Well, well, first, I do, I do
ask the person in the book. Do you believe, what do you
think about consent? And we consent is primary.
Are you the kind of person who, who does genuinely value
consent? Because I think most people do,
as a matter of fact, I did some speaking.
At a local public, high school, and the one.
And B. Even though I'm quite a very,
very upfront about a, my anarchism position, the people
who are there, there's a public school.
They asked me back multiple times because they know that my
philosophy is based on peace and and consent.
And that really resonates. I think with, especially like
high school kids and young adults, who Who understand the
absolute criticality of respecting consent choices?
And so, that's where I start. Okay, if you're with me, if you
already see the value and the requirement to respect consent
choices, let's follow that path down.
So that's what I've always felt as the is the key, as the kind
of the pry bar in. Yeah.
People will sort of sometimes scoff at At trying to get to the
front, the fundamental rights and philosophical aspects of
something. They're like, well, I care about
the consequences in the real world real-world outcomes of
certain policies, not this whole rights and all this, you know,
made up stuff in your head to, which I say, first of all, they
never even do that with themselves.
Historically there like slavery, objectively wrong.
Genocide objectively wrong. This person was bad.
This person was on the right side of history, but when it
comes to today, the way, Analyze policies is, well.
What will it do for the unions and how will this affect GDP?
First of all, you have no clue because you're lied to by
Keynesian economists all day. Second of all, why is that
relevant? I mean, like, if I made a great,
there's so many people whose GDP and productivity would increase,
if they were enslaved. What does that tell you about
the morality of slavery? It just tells you, you can
increase productivity without it being moral, and it's still
being unjustified. Well, there's people, we could,
you know, steal from and kidnap and that would, you know,
stimulate economic yada yada yada, long story short, they
apply morality historically, but to the present, they can't
analyze anything because of Rachel, Maddow feeding them
nonsense all day. Along with, uh, with Sean
Hannity you. It's like you will you get it
from both sides. So do you have any go to
questions to sort of plant seeds in them in their mind, so maybe
Go II. Can't let this guy know that
he's outsmarted me. But at the same time you want to
give him something to think about later.
Any ideas on that. Yeah, it's I really I think
we'll my Approach was just, you know, how much do you?
How much do you really believe that that's consent is primary
how you know, I'm asking the reader.
This is how, how much, if if I am.
If I explain this other problem, like, let's say stealing from a,
I think the exactly one of the examples is, you know, should we
steal from a billionaire to save the life of a homeless person?
And that's not a ridiculous question, right?
That's a daily question that people that people ask and if
your answer is, yes, you know, okay, but are you really do you
then to, how much do you really care about consent?
Yeah, and then I, you can go into the argument was well, did
the billionaire actually get their?
Legitimately and how would you develop, you know, distribute
that equitably? I do.
Go into that a little bit, but the bottom line is, how much do
you care about respecting consent, violations?
I really try to hit them in the fields as much as possible,
because that's, I think and, you know, we've a lot of folks in
our space talk about approach to talk about strategy and The
strategies that we've been taking just have not have not
been as successful. I think as a lot of us would
have wanted the fact of the matter is, people live on their
fields, they live on their emotion and so by tapping into
that a little bit and saying, okay.
Do you really are you okay with violating someone's consent to
achieve your own personal interest in the world.
Well if least if someone says yes, and I know they're being
honest, but they need to At least understand that, that is
what they're doing. Yeah.
One they have to understand that's what they're doing.
Because if they're going off Fields, well, maybe you want to
make them feel a little bad about what they're doing and
then second of all you go. Wow.
Okay, so it's okay for people to violate your consent and then
you just get back into the conundrum of earlier of no one
owns anything even themselves. If you have the right to steal
and enslave of virtually everyone.
You also have a pretty cool little map that is built within
the structure of the book. A way for people to actually get
cryptocurrency just by reading the book.
How can people get Bitcoin just by reading the book?
Okay. So this was kind of an idea to
because one of the things I oppose intellectual property, as
far as I'm concerned, that the ideas in the book, should be
should be free. However, I wanted to reason for
folks to actually buy the print copy of the book and so, I had
heard on another show, the idea of, with, with Bitcoin.
You could hide a Bitcoin key in a book and walk it across a
border and bring your Bitcoin with you.
And so, as it will 109 do that with this book.
So there's a pattern of words in the book itself and those
patterns that those particular words, when entered, I believe,
it's a bit addressed a torque. I've got all the instructions
online and I'll like it can explain how to get there if you,
if you put Certain pattern of words together in the right
order and enter that into a key generator on bit addressed out
org, it'll spit out a Kia, public, and private key
combination. And if you enter the right
words, you'll get the Bitcoin wallet that I've pre-loaded now
right now, it only has .01 Bitcoin.
But as we record this, that's what about 300 bucks.
I think $330 in that range, which isn't zero.
It's something and I'm Going to be adding for every print copy
that is sold on my website consensus morality.com., I'll
kick in another dollar, so it will grow until someone finds
it. So best place to buy.
The book is, where is consent is morality.com.
I know I was able to grab the, the URL for the name of the
book. So I thought that was pretty
good. Excellent.
Yes, and of course, you'll see that link in the description.
Sean any primary aspects to consent?
Or morality, the philosophy of peace that I missed, or you
would like to reiterate for the listeners.
There is a before I get too far off the Bitcoin thing.
I want to give out a little hint to the pattern because if you
didn't have a hints to the pattern, you'd never find her.
So as a thank you to you and to your listeners.
I'm going to give away one of the hands on all the hints have
four. I'm sorry three words and the
hint for your audience is Concatenated in order,
concatenated, in order. Now, that hint doesn't make any
sense to you guys. So what I owe you will need to
do is you'll need to go to consent as morality.com.
And there will be a link to get all of the rules and information
on how to grab that Bitcoin and links to where the other hints
are. But yeah, as far as the book is
concerned, it's a, it's a short book.
It's all about 125, huh? Three pages in that range.
I wrote it for the I wrote it for the non libertarian for the
non Anarchist. So I think it's something you
can hand to someone in your family who maybe is sympathetic
to the ideas to get some, some real basic groundwork and to
understand the importance of consent.
Sean Liao. Thank you for your time.
And thank you everyone for watching, Keith.
I don't try it on anyone. Thank you.