Political dissent and the basis of moral judgement.

get it make that sure the point of our
discussion about belief and the sensible like I guess the reason I kind of felt let's say unconvinced it's because a little bit too vague but the idea like like to base our moral judgments or moral compass on such made concepts as the sense of the observed and the sense of disgust or whatever other senses like it feels more like a as if you feel feels more of judgments not perceive them all right reason to them I don't know it kind of worries me on a basic level I don't know why exactly what I think it should be a lot more clearer if what i think i think that i think that morality is worrying i mean i think i think if you're being honest with yourself about morality and moral judgments i think you should be worried so we already said i was a teenager asking myself if i should murder someone because i knew for a fact this man was a pedophile and a rapist and I knew he'd gotten away with it I knew he'd continue to get away with it because he was a judge he was part of the system and the whole system for decadent and I had to I had to reason through cognitively what is the right thing for me to do or for me to not do and hashtag spoilers I decided not to do anything and I really had to think through we know what was the right decision here anyway and I felt more pressure on me I you know I could say more about that that's scary that's worrying and you get even if you read Shakespeare you know sorry I mean even in Romeo and Juliet Romeo Jewett's but a lot of teenagers with knives and swords getting into knife fights you know tibalt die isn't everything you know I mean for most of human history you have teenagers making decisions about war and death and so on and you're right it's it's worrying I think I think the more honest and accurate your moral philosophy is the more worrying it's going to be and the greater the dynamism of don't is gonna be that we live with doubt and uncertainty and passion and and feeling involved now you know are there philosophers who claim to have constructed a reassuring rational and for me a reassuring rational edifice of universal reliable answers to these questions yes for example utilitarianism and I think utilitarianism is a great example of why all of that approach is deeply flawed misleading dangerous and wrong and utilitarianism has I think no influence in legislation or world politics directed us this is this is one side of that but you know the you know one of the current schools of utilitarianism they come to the conclusion that the way you want to live your life is to become a high-powered executive banker or a stockbroker that you should try to earn as much money as possible and then donate as much money to as possible to charity they call it earn to give this is there a new model of the ideal this is absurd to me in many ways but they come to this through a cold clinical formulaic style of reasoning they think they're trading trading in moral moral certainties you know but all those systems of moral certainty are a joke to me right I mean okay so look if you just think about a society that's a little bit detached from you okay so Saudi Arabia despicable social system despicable government despicable culture and religion for being all the way honest and if I'm born wealthy in Saudi Arabia you're telling me the best thing I can do is get a high paying job maybe as an oil company executive maybe in finance or banking and and give to charity that fits perfectly into a Muslim society this is you know as a cat and salon culture it would be very well regarded you can move up the social system you can be a 100 percent conformist and not question anything your parents did or anything yours decided and the Saudi government can keep abducting people off the street and putting them into ghost houses and assassinating dissidents with snipers on rooftops and and you have no problem with it because you're a utilitarian who believes in earned the give you know is Saudi Arabia today I'm ok how about the United States when slavery still existed does he tell us no it makes no sense we live in a world with again sense of absurdity I mean what did I just do the subtext of what I'm doing is I'm appealing to your sense of absurdity isn't it absurd to think you're making the world a better place by being a conformist and a banker and an oil executive I mean sir the oral industry again is immoral and ecologically flawed and it's way too and think you're making the world a better place because you're gonna earn all this money live in luxury and give and give money to charity no I understand the appeal understand what some people want to believe that but again I'm pointing in challenging it here I'm actually not appealing dear faith I'm not appealing to you know your belief in some other ideal I'm actually only appealing to this limited use of reason that's gonna show a Fisher that's gonna appeal to your your your sense of absurdity and again it's Cory even worms if we use Nazi Germany or something so if you're alive in Nazi Germany or you're just gonna earn as much money conform with the social political system and give money to charity what are you gonna say when the Holocaust is over well I gave I gave 40 percent of my income to charity maybe I gave 60 percent of my goacci yeah so yeah and and and you know look a my set of ethical principles I know is not universal but I don't feel that it's only people born in Nazi Germany or born and Saudi Arabia who have the weight of history on their shoulders the weight of even sorry for me as it can aid the weight of genocide on their shoulders the moral guilt of being part of an immoral Society of if you conform being a conformist in an evil society I feel that way about Canada too it's true in Canada it may be more subtle than being in Nazi Germany or being an insider but yeah I do I do feel that way so uh yeah Universal ethical principles are reassuring and they're all the more dangerous for that reason I would rather live with that doubt and I even you know preach to others sure you know get upset you know find it yes all right you didn't say you fended upsetting I'm sorry you found that which word you used be worried yeah Maria right no but be worried be more I think that's quite appropriate yeah like I think you have to assume that human nature is like it's fundamentally good or there's some goodness there that that you are depending on yeah okay okay if you if you ever want to adopt this see so it's a great that's a great point I think the exact opposite is true I think that if you're Catholic or communists or utilitarian if you believe in an absolute ethical system you you you therefore need to believe that everyone is good or most people are good I can flip it around for you what percentage of people are cocaine addicts or heroin addicts in a city like Vancouver or in Toronto now as a percentage it's not that many what percentage of people are alcoholics in countries where alcohol is available everywhere even even let's extend video game addicts how many people are addicted to video games video games are available they live work some some whether it's 1% or 5% or 10% of people you know it's it's a percentage of people I don't believe that human nature is universally good I don't believe any of these things I don't I don't believe period my system is not based on belief however it should be empirically obvious to everyone that many people many at least 10% of people would yet and shun alcohol cocaine heroin video games right some some people are like that whether it's 5 percent or 10 percent or 30 percent some and for us I count myself in this category what are we going to do you know no it is not given to everyone to take up the work of government it is not given to everyone to take up the work of research it is not given to everyone and take up the work of charity I my father had nine children nine shall I eat brothers and sisters I don't think even one of them could can do what I do not even when they we have a lot of genetic material in common right I don't think I'm in the majority I don't think I you're politically represent the majority but this is like when I talk about genocide and Cree in a jib way but even if we talk about Chinese or Cambodia or something not everyone can care about political reality there are some people in California and all they will ever care about is getting high and skateboarding using drugs to get high and then skateboarding or riding a bicycle for fun that's their whole life I'm not trying to recruit them into politics research and charity you know I'm not equal and look who turns up a meal so right now I just happen to have met you baby it was Ari I mean a little bit of work but this is you know my channel is sitting there what kind of person gets interested in this you know failed the former scholar of Buddhism former you know you know kind of charity were her you know political science major so my channel is talking about some of these themes some people are gonna get interested in what I have to offer and the challenge I'm making to the unexamined life of getting stoned and riding your skateboard every day you look right up to Tamar he's only 21 he could he could decide to spend the rest of his life getting stoned or using drugs and riding a skateboard I don't think you I think if you did you would be miserable someone else would be happy there were tons of people who were happy it Adolf Hitler's dystopia they didn't mind they didn't care they did 9 a lot of them were alcoholics probably and they saw alcoholism was pretty high in Germany at that time you know they're closed they closed the window and drank more whiskey or drank more schnapps shut up get on with your lives right so no this is the thing when you're not I'm not making claims that are universal about human nature or even human potential I don't think might my own brothers I don't think they have the potential I them you know and so we there's a range of intelligence amongst my brothers and sisters but one of my brother's is so [ __ ] he's never said a word in any language he can't even speak English he can't speak any language he's that severely returned so you know I'd like to think I'm at the opposite extreme right now maybe I'm in the middle of the spectrum maybe we should be optimistic the spectrum goes a lot higher if so you people are not on YouTube the people on the other end of the spectrum come on put me to shame you make better YouTube videos about philosophy politics and veganism yeah but you know no I so there's there's nothing Universal about it but for those who have that that potential you know I've got to reach out to them and ask you know can't we do more and a lot of the time so especially when I talk to older people you know that's what so you let's say you're talking to a professor of political science someone who thinks they've devoted their life to doing something morally good you know through politics and you say to them why do you wear leather shoes why do you wear that chopped up pieces of a dick hip - then they've never thought about it you know you know will you talk about ecology or you talk about these nights so there are ways the people who already are in some sense committed to trying to make a positive difference in the world again whether that's through politics or research or charity or arts I mean very rarely in my life but maybe you talk to someone who's committed to the arts and making a politician I think that's you know you know it's these are people who can be mobilized yeah sure so summing up your like your view as I understood it you basically say that the people who bring forth more change in society are like a very small minority of elites kind of like Hannibal and elitism okay what you said is completely some kind of leaders men and those are the only people who matter and you formulate your kind of arguments and and philosophy based on how you can best address them this late in this class of people and convince them so it's a good challenge in my view but I do I do disagree with the characterization so when I when I say people are a minority that doesn't that doesn't make them elite it just means there aren't that many of them so you could have these characteristics and be born poor you can be black or white you can be of any ethnic group and you can and again even within your own family and believe me there's nothing genetic about it and so on I don't know do you have brothers you have one brother right okay so all right so you know you have enough diversity in your family and I'm sure they're gonna take very different paths in life from you I'm sorry I don't don't want to get into this but you know I just say within a given family so you know so for one thing no it's not an elite for another thing you're talking about a minority of people that choose themselves nobody else chooses them or appoints them and you're also talking about a minority that anyone can exit at any time at any time you can go back to you can choose to go use drugs and ride your skateboard you can go to the unexamined life you can get you can get rid of all your moral responsibilities we could go back to eating meat tomorrow and the reasons what we're not going to include discussed include the sense of the absurd include a sense of reason include you know these kind of negative indicators if again you notice I'm not using the word virtue it would mean but you know you can construe it you can turn it inside out and express this in terms of positive virtues which is also a valid way to describe it sure but sure but like the number one reason if I tried eat meat tomorrow I'd be disgusted as partly because of what the the meat means I would be disgusted also to be put in mercury into the ocean smashing mercury containers like sorry these many other examples you know um yeah I I in a sense I know what it means or at least I know what it means to me and the is a very powerful relationship there that has in almost instinctual forms of disgust and proportion that comes in so no sir but just answer question in saying that it's a minority of people I don't I don't mean that it's in the lead they could be over there could be primarily oppressed and poor people depending on the the country in the culture and you know the people who are born in Saudi Arabia and look around them and say this is observed this has to change they can be at any social class you know same with Iran and so on so you know this sense of challenging the values and assumptions you were raised with I think it can arise spontaneously kind of almost anywhere with almost any kind of person and if any I would say probably people who are born rich or probably at a disadvantage because they have they have so many rewards for conforming and not questioning you know and in the culture and millio that Iran they have so many earths I mean you know there are rich people who get involved in politics but they're involved in politics not to change anything just to keep things the same or just to make more money over to IBM you know sorry shut up the George W Bush but you know I mean so no I would guess if anything there's a bit of an inverse relationship to the the privilege of former seventeen I guess don't you think that it's exactly because of this realization like most people will not be part of this minority that like universal or absolutist values like the ones that religions offer other ideologies are like on a purely pragmatically yeah useful in society and do play an important role like can you like really just I am the sense for the majority of people in society to leave them like to the right decisions in their lives like that's right no no no I I believe right right right no I totally good question but you know I'm not a libertarian I don't believe in so I mean your phrasing was good there he asked do you believe you can leave people to make these these moral decisions and my answer is no so a great example circumcision or general mutilation people paying for a surgeon to use a knife and mutilate the penis of a boy or the the vagina of a girl this is very common in Muslim countries it's also common in Judaism and in some forms of Christianity this is a worldwide faith-based phenomenon um if you have the attitude you just leave people to make their own decisions to this no I don't believe that at all I think that some minority of people just the same with cigarette smoking if you just leave people that smoke cigarettes that's more than 10% of people are gonna keep smoke easier I don't know it's gonna vary from but maybe in some countries it's 50% someone dissent yeah but millions of people are gonna keep smoking so no how do you get rid of smoking public education but sure to some extent government enforcement regulation and posters and I think there are all kinds of ways you can guide a society to quit smoking I would prefer not to have the army o positive that prefer to do it in nonviolent ways but sure ultimately there is a kind of coercion involved and when I was a kid in Canada you know that there were actually questions about how how would the school treat students who smoked cigarettes because like could they actually be punished or was this in effect like a civil right where the students were were allowed to smoke cigarettes in insert didn't so there are there are difficult decision make but also with with circumcision I I would completely support you know in effect the minority of the population who are not an elite they're gonna be spread all over the place wherever they are who wake up and realize this is barbaric and this is harmful you're harming in offense you know you're doing damage to people biologically to wake up and get organized and hold preferably through a democratic process you know pass a law and end this you know in the country and of course it's better to do it through public education it's better to do it in a participatory way but ultimately no I do believe in coercion and you serve for me the perfect example some water pollution you know I don't believe you have the right to to dump anything in the water but not your poon on your sewage not your paint you're finished painting your house you pour the paint in the what no you know I totally believe in of course public education would help people may not realize throwing paint is in the water is a really serious form of pollution education and so on is definitely important but ultimately yeah enforcement sure yeah I think there's gonna be a minority people in government to make that decision or whenever people care about it and lobby on it the same way gay rights was a minority movement I think it benefits the majority but it's totally I might already movement yeah I think how do you reconcile this view with your rejection of using violence as a means of bringing forth the socialist or communist ideals and realize them in a society like like how do yes a government-sponsored violence or coercion and to objectives and other situations where you draw a line or is it just that automatic like does it just depend on the situation like you're you're with government for sure and coercion if it serves a perceived public good and how do you define it like this is yeah I know this is kind of a murky situation you Polly something if you if you stand if you don't have any problem with government coercion oh I don't know if you can call it violence but yeah it is under the strain of violence right if you can at least say right sure yeah you'll go to jail if you justified it in in this context like of your other views on communism and socialism generating political activism for example like why do you say the government can do it but like also individuals or maybe vegan activists or yeah right no but I think if they also believe that but they're doing something good like for the public good for right right right well no I mean you know my basic in this sense I'm a mainstream Democrat not not in the American sense but a mainstream person who believes in democracy I think it's fine for a government almost any kind of government to come together and have public consultations and debates and a vote and decide for example that you have to force children to brush their teeth with fluoride you know that this is something we can do collectively now I just put in a footnote how perfectly democratic is that how collective is it do you really just have a dictatorship that symbolically goes around and consults people or is it truly Democrats a very important question but we set that aside now but I finished example I believe in this this Democratic conceit and no I do not believe in grassroots violence or any non-government any public minority anyone special interest refused accusing models which would be in this case let's say a group of dentists get together and they decide they're gonna go around in a group and enforce their idea of dental hygiene that they're gonna show up and terrorize schools or you know that they're gonna use again it would be low-level violence but that they're gonna go around and in a agitprop rebellious terroristic manner go around trying to force people this start using a you know proper toothpaste with fluoride in it and so on no I don't so to me these two things are are totally different um but I think what you're really asking is do I believe that the state use of force that government use of force well you could put it two ways one is it always Democratic know of course sometimes Democrat and it's not and then two is it always right whereas the public use of force is always wrong so no and again so both these things I am a nihilist I mean empirically no I don't assume that there were going to be cases where the government is is horribly wrong and but why should it be Democratic if it only a minority of people yeah usually who have this reaction whoa wait no that's that's that's a very good that's a very good question but I think I think for me that the the answer is a part of the question the obligation on that enlightened minority is precisely to convince the majority in order to convince you know the plurality of whoever is involved in political process so I mean in Canada I mentioned this example recently but back in the 1980s so I was already alive the 1980s there really was a public discourse about whether or not it was acceptable for a homosexual man to be employed as a schoolteacher because at that time there was prejudice and apprehension and fear basically the fear was that any gay man who was a schoolteacher would be trying to have sex with students or would be engaged in something like pet pedophilia or pederasty you know something along those lines and that was a very very difficult debate to have where people had to stand up and say no being a homosexual is different from being a pederast or a pedophile it is different from you know not having the lack of professionalism to have sex at the office or whatever your job is you know that these issues they really had to be had to be talked through um so the the process of you know if you like Socratic dialogue of building your case of reasoning through and debating those policies that is massively important and you generally will not get that in a military dictatorship or a monarchist regime