SIO102: Moral Philosophy with Aaron Rabi

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 102. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. All right, philosophy lovers, I've got a great philosophy episode with Aaron Rabi coming right at you. Got a lot of people who responded positively to the idea of me talking again about antinatalism, and I wanted to bring Aaron along for the ride just to make sure I didn't get too far off base in my philosophizing. We used the the Sam Harris episode I mentioned as a jumping off point, but we certainly did jump off and we talked about a whole lot of stuff. So don't worry if you're not a Sam Harris fan, it's not as though you need to be a fan to enjoy the episode or anything. But I, Before we get to that, I need to do two things. First, congratulations and thank you to black Alabama voters for saving the rest of the country, potentially, for giving us one more vote in the Senate.

0:01:20 Thomas: You really came through. White Alabama voters, I don't know what you're doing, most of you, so get your act together. And secondly, I need to give you a Patreon update. So you may have seen by now, I talked about this the other show, but Patreon did indeed back down from their decision. And actually, that was why I urged, one of the reasons I urged people not to make any drastic moves, because it wasn't final. And I thought there was a good chance they were going to pull a Netflix quickster, if anyone remembers that. And in fact, they did. Thank you for everyone who stuck with me. But I will say, both shows of mine have taken quite a large hit. Of course, if anyone ever can't afford to pledge and needs to back down their pledge and all that, that's no big deal. But when something like this happens and everybody does it, it's pretty tough.

0:02:08 Thomas: So I took a hit. Thank you to everyone who stayed with me. Thank you everyone who has re-pledged since they backed out of their decision. But I'm going to go forward with my website subscription. I am almost done with being able to do a subscribe, a monthly monthly subscribe option on my website. It's going to be pretty good. Actually, many of you will know if you've listened to me for a long time that I actually did have a patron only RSS before it was cool, before Patreon did. So I've dusted that off. I'm going to be able to have a bonus premium RSS that's only available to subscribers on my site. And it'll be, I mean, it won't be as good as Patreon because I'm not a huge company devoted voted to trying to do things, but I can do most of what we need to have for a subscription service on my website.

0:03:00 Thomas: And I'm going to go forward with it because while Patreon backed down from this decision, still a lot of your pledge goes to them and I'm still kind of hostage to their whims. And it really was a reality check when this happened, how easily they can totally screw me over and with a newborn baby. And this is my source of income. It was jarring. So I'm going to go forward with that. But I do recognize that a lot of people like Patreon. They like the ability to only have like one charge, but support a lot OF shows. So, I won't shut down my Patreon or anything. I'll leave that up as an option, but I'm gonna be providing incentives to go over to my website instead. It's almost ready. It'll be ready before you know it, probably next week or sooner.

0:03:47 Thomas: One other reason I'm still doing it is while they back down, they did say in their apology, we still are going to work to find something to fix this quote unquote problem they think they have. My money is, if I were to bet, I'm going to bet that they will increase their fee substantially. So that's going to be my bet for how that will turn out. If not, I mean, they're going to do some other stupid thing, you know, a month from now. Who knows? If I can do my best to not be completely dependent on a company that has shown some volatility in their decision making, I'm going to do that. So stay tuned. I really, really hope that that if you're a supporter of the show, maybe you'll check out the website membership that I'm going to do. And like I said, I've got some bonus recordings that will be only on that website, but I will carry on with the Patreon stuff as is, but I'm gonna have a conversation with Eli.

0:04:40 Thomas: I actually have a bonus that someone invited me onto their podcast and they didn't tell me, you know, they kind of kept it vanilla. They didn't really tell me anything. And, you know, I say I say yes to pretty much whatever. And it turned out to be a kind of a Sargon apologetics hour. And, uh, it was a waste of 30 minutes for me, except that I recorded it. So I'm going to be posting my side of that. I'm not going to say who it is.

I don't want to direct any attention to the show, but it was, it is, if it's, it's worth a laugh to see the gymnastics that, that happened in this recording that I did. So that recording with Eli and some other bonus stuff will be the incentive I'm going to try to provide to get people over to the website. And if you don't want to, you know, that's cool. If you want to stick with Patreon, no hard feelings either way. The only other thing I was going to note is that I am, for anyone who's worried about security or anything like that, I'm actually just using Stripe, so I'm literally using the service that Patreon does to process these payments, so it'll be just as secure as Patreon. It's not as though it's me processing cards or anything. I'm I'm just going to go ahead and use the same gateway they use, but it'll be a little cheaper, obviously without Patreon taking a cut.

So anyway, that's it for those announcements for now. Stay tuned. It will be up. I will be posting on Patreon about it and on Facebook, facebook.com slash Thomas podcast if you aren't friends with me already. That being said, enjoy some philosophizing. Aaron and I had a ton of fun recording this episode. I love talking to Aaron and, uh, I hope we're going to do many more to come.

0:06:16 Thomas: I am joined by everyone's favorite philosopher, Aaron Rabi. How you doing?

0:06:22 Aaron: Ah, that's a horrifying thought. I'm doing great. How you doing?

0:06:24 Thomas: You're the only one we all know. As soon as we find any other philosopher.

0:06:26 Aaron: It's right. I have everyone's favorite by default. I don't like that asshole Peter Singer.

0:06:34 Thomas: Yeah. Well, so my thinking was, I actually got a lot of really positive responses when I mentioned kind of critiquing or going over Sam Harris's episode on antinatalism. And I don't want to do exactly that. This isn't going to be the Talking Dead of the Sam Harris show or anything like that. That. But it will be, I think we can use it as a jumping off point. And I thought, you know, I could do it by myself. But, you Know, why not have, you now, Obama had like the, what was it? The Black Anger Translator kind of thing. Yeah, I thought you could do that for me, but with philosophy, they just I'll just say a bunch of stuff and then you can be like, "That wasn't philosophy," or, or maybe you'll be like, "Okay, that you just philosophied, you did one unit of philosophy there," um,

0:07:08 Aaron: The Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Key and Peele? I can do that. I can, um, yeah.

0:07:23 Aaron: That was a decent

0:07:24 Thomas: Uh, hold. So Sam Harris recently spoke to David Benitar. I'm just curious, is that anyone you're familiar with before this or?

0:07:24 Aaron: Philosophy, I guess. Yes.

0:07:34 Aaron: Yeah, I'm familiar with him because of this discussion, and, and like his, his stance on antinatalism, he's sort of listed as one of the people who's sort of a modern conti and antinatalist, sure.

0:07:44 Thomas: Oh, well, why don't you define that since you seem to be somewhat familiar? Maybe that'll be a good place to start.

0:07:49 Aaron: Um, So from what I understand, and I also listened to the episode as well just to make sure that I was uh current with his position on this, his view is that harm of giving someone a life, and given that a life in our world is largely speaking a life of negative experiences more than positive experiences and is like, is not a great life, is what he thinks, and because of that, that it's wrong to inflict that on someone without their consent, and there's no way for a child to give consent, and therefore you shouldn't thrust that upon them.

0:08:22 Thomas: Now he tells me. No, I was familiar

0:08:24 Aaron: Yeah, and you're already screwed. And you don't even care. You're like, yeah.

0:08:28 Thomas: With this. I did this topic before we had our kid and I'm I'm well aware that I I'm open to not only, you know, I'm I'm open to wherever the evidence leads, but I'm also open to being a hypocrite on on this. I'm like, yeah, no, I don't know. I'm not open to actively being a hypocrit, like acknowledging that the answer may be, you know, the opposite of what I've done, but I'm happy to.

0:08:42 Aaron: I think what you're open to is whatever the dopamine in your brain is telling you right now.

0:08:54 Aaron: Uh-huh. I don't think it's the opposite of what you've done yet, but we could always discuss going forward how your behavior could be modified.

0:09:00 Thomas: Right. So I think what was interesting about this for me anyway, was I felt like I disagreed and disagreed with both of them, so I'm going to go all center lord on you.

0:09:12 Aaron: Great.

0:09:12 Thomas: But no, I thought that there was a place where he never really made a case, at least in this recording. I haven't read his book or anything, but because I think the natural progression of questions from there was Sam Harris wanted to know, okay, well, could we tweak the facts about the world or the universe such that it would be worth it. Like if it was, you know, if life was all sunshine and rainbows and all that, like it was just the greatest experience. Every single life was great. And then you go to sleep one night and you're gone. Nobody even worries about dying. Like all, like whatever, tweak it as far as you want to, hypothetically, would it then be be worth it. And it seems like Benatar's position was still no.

0:09:57 Thomas: And I think if I were to try to summarize it, though, it seemed like this is where they fundamentally weren't communicating. But it seemed the downsides count no matter what, and the upsides don't really count. And he acknowledged this. No matter how good it is, it still has to end. So, you know, the dying was fundamentally bad. And then I guess that would beg a question that I don't think Sam Harris asked, but then, you Know, what if we unlock the secret or did he maybe ask this? What if we unlocked the secret to immortality, you know, and then it's just fundamentally great living forever, you know, is it then morally good or necessary or however you want to put it, you know, to have children?

0:10:37 Aaron: Yeah. Definitely, and I think it's interesting because in this, Harris is playing against his own position in a little bit, because he's an outspoken Buddhist, and the Buddhist view is very close to what the antenatalists are saying, and like people will often cite the Buddest view as a precursor to the modern antenatalist view, so It sure

0:10:43 Thomas: Hmm.

0:10:55 Thomas: In what way could you explain? First, I would say I I want to say that I wouldn't characterize him as like a Buddhist, but he does bring in, you know, elements of it. But I think he describes his moral system more in his book, The Moral Landscape, rather than by saying like, oh, it's Buddhism, you know, like I think that would be a better way to evaluate his position, wouldn't it?

0:10:57 Aaron: I Mean, I think in, in The Moral Landscape, what he comes to is vaguely a version of utilitarianism, and Buddhism is basically utilitarian, so I Think They All they all run together.

0:11:24 Thomas: Okay, so explain how that, interesting, I didn't necessarily know that.

0:11:27 Aaron: Um, Yeah, So let me put it all together for you, right? So the antinatalist view is that giving birth to someone is wrong because you're inflicting a bunch of suffering on them, okay? The first fundamental truth in Buddism is life is suffering, so the Buddhist will say existed to exist is to suffer, it's worse than non-existence. And that's why they believe that ultimate enlightenment is connected in some way to a disattachment from the way of living that we currently experience, which is fundamentally based in attachment and therefore is fundamentallybased in suffering.

And so, as a utilitarian, our goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, so the Buddhists tend to all be utilitarians where they see the goal being achieved by getting everyone to become enlightened. By becoming enlightened, everyone escaped the cycle of rebirth. There's no more suffering for everyone. So they're all basically utilitarians. So, they all kind of run together in that kind of way. And this really ends up being an in-house debate about which version of utilitarianism is the right version of utlitarianism. Do we try to produce the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum number of people in certain kinds of ways or other kinds of way?

0:12:12 Thomas: Huh. Yeah, but I don't know. Does that.

0:12:41 Thomas: Yeah. But I think that it's a little weird to say, you know, Buddhists are all utilitarians because they want to maximize happiness and their version of happiness is enlightenment. Because that's kind of a I feel like you're kind of switching something in there that's like, whoa, whoa. Whoa, hold on. If I described myself as a utilitarian, I don't think in any if someone's made a statement, you you want to do you think the way to happiness is increasing everyone's enlightenment? I'd be like, I know what you're talking about. I just I think that there's... there's the disconnect. There is like, how do you go from that to saying well-being equals enlightenment? I mean, how do you even define enlightenment?

0:13:18 Aaron: Sure, because actually, and this is why Harris is so on the page of the Buddhists in a lot of ways, is because for Buddha, the enlightenment is a medical model diagnosis. The diagnosis is suffering occurs as a result of attachment, and the solution is to achieve non-attachment, which is achieved by enlightenment, and it's not like some mystical, magical kind of idea. It's a very specific kind of empirical attempt at separating oneself via mindful practice from the attachments that make one suffer throughout the course of one's life.

0:13:58 Thomas: OK, so that makes sense as a description. But do you think given that Harris has expressed, you know, like he's not trying to detach from everything? And I think he says many times that that's not something he's trying to do. So I don't know that that would describe his like moral system that he's struggling.

0:14:00 Aaron: Sure.

0:14:10 Aaron: Well, I mean, I think what he does is he's, and this is, you know, he struggles with the same thing that we all struggle with, which is the value of recognizing non-attachment, but also the value of being attached to things. And we have these competing values in tension, and we have to live a life, you know, as beings who are trapped in this illusion and try to find the balance between those things.

It's not about doing the right amounts of meditation in order to get out of the cycle for me, ultimately. Like, I don't, I view a lot of this as a metaphorical model for just talking about how to care about your newborn child and love them very deeply while also coping with the realities of their mortality and your mortality, stuff like that, you know. So it's not about magic non-attachment. It's about the real lived experience of non-attachment. And it's very utilitarian. When you read the Buddha, what he's talking about is we dedicate ourselves to the endless struggle of helping all sentient beings try to suffer a little less. Can make a whole religion out of it, but I don't think you need to. I think it's just about how do we turn down the knob on suffering a little bit for everyone consistently over time, well,

0:15:00 Thomas: Interesting.

0:15:28 Thomas: But who who would disagree with that then? Like, if you put that as a premise, like, okay, here's

0:15:32 Aaron: The antenatal I mean, like, I guess this is where, you know, like different different strands of this, right? So, like, the less extreme version is how to live in this world while not being as attached, and the more extreme version ist, don't have any more children, let the species die off. So that's where the conflict arises. I mean,

0:15:32 Thomas: My belief system. Well, I don't even think would, well, but I think that you could still, you could both be an antinatalist and say, well I, for the people who are here, like we should try to reduce suffering if we can, you know, like is that inconsistent to you?

0:16:03 Aaron: It's not necessarily necessarily inconsistent. I think what you could say is for the people who, especially if you're a Kantian, like, if you believe it, like, if autonomy is what really matters to you more than consequences, you can say for the human beings who are here, who have autonomy, as I as I view it, then they can make the choice for themselves. Do they want to choose non-existence, or do they wants to live out their current life? But you shouldn't ever bring someone new into the world, would be their view. You

0:16:31 Thomas: Think what I found interesting about this is that a lot of... I've talked a decent amount about Sam's book, The Moral Landscape, over the years on this show. I guess, gosh, it's going on six or seven years of that book, which is surprising. But anyway, talked a bit about it. I, I think there are plenty of flaws that, you know, we could talk about or people could talk about. But I don't know that... I think There was also a lot lot of overzealous criticism of it in ways that I don't agree with. And I think it is a useful way of trying to think about things. And we've had conversations about this in the past, but what see if I get anything wrong here, but I think what Sam Harris might've gotten wrong in that podcast is if his moral system, like if his entire, would I say a moral epistemology, is that right? Or is that the wrong term?

0:16:39 Aaron: Yeah, his foundational

0:17:23 Thomas: Moral

0:17:24 Aaron: Moral values, I think, is the best way that I would put what you're trying to get out there, yeah.

0:17:26 Thomas: Values. Yeah, I guess. But if I'm trying to figure out, well, okay, if his foundational moral values are all based on the experience of conscious creatures, I think makes sense and it's something that I'm partial to, but I think you've tried to poke holes in certain areas of it. But anyway, if it's completely based based on the well-being of conscious creatures, I actually think he can't answer the question of whether or not we should all exist. And it's weird because I heard him say things in that recording of like, well, isn't there some good, like if we all, why don't we all just, you know, take a pill and then we all Just disappear in the middle of the night or something.

Or he said like, how would it be bad at all if we All just stopped existing in uh, the middle of the night. And I, the weird thing to me is that I feel like he asked it with a tone of like, well, obviously that's bad, you know, but I don't, I think under his system, it's not bad. Uh, and I'm trying to, I thought of it like a mathematical equivalent. I think it's kind of like dividing by zero. Like, I Think it's just undetermined

0:17:32 Aaron: Yep. I'm on board with it too, yeah.

0:18:34 Aaron: Yeah.

0:18:35 Thomas: Is there's just no, you can't answer. It's not, it's Not zero. It'S not, you Know, good. It's not bad is just, well, I can't evaluate that because if it's dependent on conscious experience and then you get rid of all conscious experience, you don't have any sort of basis to judge it, right?

0:18:35 Aaron: Um, I guess what you could say is if you view, like, the spectrum of possible worlds ranging from a world in which a bunch of conscious beings exist and have a good life, and then, like, the possible worlds in which a bunch of cautious beings exist have miserable lives, like, dead center in the middle of that spectrum are the universes in which no conscious beings exists.

0:19:08 Thomas: Right. Ah, see, I disagree. I think that's so interesting. I Think dead center in the middle would be just a totally neutral experience, but no conscious beings is not, that's dividing by zero in my mind. That's like, it's like the graph of one divided by X or whatever, where it's It's like on one on the negative side, it's negative infinity on the positive side. It's positive infinity or whatever, or vice versa. And like you can't there's no place where it meets in the middle. Like, I think you just can't evaluate it.

0:19:14 Aaron: Okay. Okay. But yeah, I mean, what I would say, that maybe is similar to what you're saying, from my meta ethics background, ground is a universe that doesn't contain conscious entities, you can't make any moral or evaluative claims about that universe that are true. It's a, it's an all set for those particular, like, you could say that those claims are true in other universes and would be true in that universe if conscious entities existed, but when they don't, that those claim don't really apply. Yeah.

0:19:53 Thomas: Right, right.

0:20:06 Thomas: So it sounds like maybe you kind of agree with what I'm saying there. And I found that interesting because I think it contradicts. I think that is a view. And I'd be curious to see what he would think of it, because there are a lot of people who think there's some innate value to. You, and I hear this actually from when I've debated Christians back when I used to care about doing that before Trump took over.

0:20:09 Aaron: I think so, Yeah.

0:20:26 Thomas: I used to care about that question. But somebody, one of the Christians I debated, saying something like, yeah, just these things are inherently good. You know, like creatures have, like God is inherently good, for example, and he would create states of being that involve people doing different things because it just is a good. And I related I think it's only good relative to the system in which you're evaluating it. You know, like if you're like I was thinking of like a video game analogy, you know, let's let's Say based on Harris's view, you've got a video Game where you can go up or down. And that's kind of the conscious creature thing. That's kind Of the well-being thing. You know you can get positive points or you can Get negative points.

0:21:06 Aaron: Right.

0:21:07 Thomas: And it's, and there's a certain sense in which you could look at the question of, well, should I play this game, you know, and it's like, well, or should I invite someone to play the game, or however you want to play it out. And it's like, well, if they' re going to get negative points, then no. If they're going to give positive points, then yes. And that would be like the equivalent of, you know, do they have a life worth living? And then you could argue there might be some neutral life that's just kind of you're at zero. But then I was thinking, like, you need a system to evaluate that. So it's like, it's like if you had a game within a game where it's like you're trying to decide, should I play this game or should I not even bother? And I don't think you can make that decision based on the game. You know, like if I'm trying to decided to play Mario or some new Mario or something, and I'm try to decide, well, based on that game, should I bother playing?

0:21:55 Thomas: It's, like, no, you can't. But based on some other game in which you're try to play games, then it's, yes, you CAN decide based on THAT game. Does that make sense? Like it's, it's like, there's a difference between trying to do something and then being the only game in town. You can't really evaluate like, what is the alternative to not existing? It's not bad or sorry, the alternative two existing. It's Not, it'S not like it's bad to not exist. It's just nothing.

0:22:14 Aaron: Yeah. And I think Harris is on board with that particular intuition. And I think, um, his, uh, interlocutor on this one was, um, I think misses the common, misses, I think, the correct, what feels to me to be the correct intuition, the one that I identify with, which is that, uh, he assigns a positive value, uh, to non-existing in relation to existing. And, like, like, it creates a weird asymmetry where, like, preventing the harm of existing is a good thing, even though there's no entity there to experience that prevention of harm. And I think that he sort of goes astray on that one.

And I think you're right about, like, if it's the only game in town, that changes the calculus fundamentally for whether people should be allowed to try to play that game. Game, I think you're also pointing out that, like, there's a this foundational value kind of stuff that we're talking about. There are these competing irreducible values, and one of them is like the pleasure and pain that one experiences in playing the game. The other one could be other parts of just, like, the act of getting to play that game, and that could have value in it separate from, like, you know, someone could value playing the gain even if they lose a little bit or something like that. And

0:22:42 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Right.

0:23:31 Aaron: Like, there's nothing inherently irrational about that. And so, um, we have to be respectful of that sort of complicated moral landscape, having to do with those competing, um, you know, like we can't just assume that, like, someone like this, for example, is a problem, um, to tie it to a real concrete example. Peter Singer, who's another utilitarian, uh, took the position of of pro, pro-infanticide and gotten a lot of trouble for it, because he believed that, like, these individuals would have a very low quality of life, and from a utilitarian perspective, um, ending that life early on was

0:23:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:06 Thomas: Didn't he say like parents should have the right to end a child's life within like a year or two or something?

0:24:07 Aaron: Yeah, yeah, and he was considered, that like, the devil within um, disabled movements for a while, and there's these beautiful stories of him actually going and having debates with disabled individuals where he talks about this view but also listens to their perspective. And, like, if you you listen to their perspective, their honest response is, I, I want to live this life. And I think that that's a substantial pushback on this argument of, like, well, if we turn the dial up hard enough, like, people won't want to life this life. Like, I think there's people

0:24:13 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. A couple of things. I also thought of another analogy, which is like taking the SAT where it's like, okay, if you get, you know, should you guess on the question or not? You know, if your going to get negative points, then you shouldn't guess if you can't eliminate an answer. But it's, like, the difference between that. Whereas, if the rules are, I'm trying to do well on this test. If I know it, I get positive. If I don't know it I guess and I get negative. Therefore, I don't want to do it because I want a higher score on the test versus like there is no test. There's only the question, you know, so there's nothing to evaluate in the background of that, you know? So, anyway, yeah, right.

0:24:42 Aaron: Yeah, to be a romantic, Uh, it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, right?

0:25:19 Thomas: But that's interesting about what you said. I didn't know that he went and had these debates. And the other thing they brought into the mix that I think is totally valid, though, is and actually is in the back of my mind when we're talking about all these things, which is the difference between our perceptions of how we think we're feeling versus how we actually are, you know, like no matter how, cause I'm sure you could find countless examples throughout history of people who objectively, like if we all looked at it on paper, you know, had really bad lives, but in the end, you know, they, they were trying and they were in that struggle and they were living. And there is, like you said earlier, like, is there a value to that? I guess it's hard. How do you how do you assign the value to that? Like, how good is it? You know, how worthwhile is it I don't know.

0:25:37 Aaron: Uh-huh. It's hard. And, like, there's a plurality of answers, I think, because we have these reducible, irreducible values. I think one person can say, this is the life that I want to live, and as liberals, it's sort of our role to say, that's, that's reasonable for them to choose to accept that life, or to want to be that life for something. So, sure.

0:26:25 Thomas: Yeah, but there's also, there's also chemicals. And I think that so often, like, the chemicals got ignored in this conversation of, like, no matter what, human, you know, evolution has really programmed in us that we want to survive and we want to carry on, even, even when factually, like, we have just 100% factually we're like, this is crap. We're, this is a waste of time. There's not, you know, if you, you could paint, you know, really grim hypotheticals of like, there's no point in being here. But I still think in our intuitions, we're always going to be battling against that, which is like, well, I don't want to envision not being alive anymore. You know, like there's always, there's going to be a very motivated, biologically motivated intuition that I think it's hard to you escape there.

0:26:30 Aaron: Uh-huh. Yeah And I think we have two options there, right? One option is the corrective of saying, look, that's your biology and your physiology at work, but your frontal lobe can apply a little bit of force in these situations and maybe counteract that a little bit, and I think that's a useful corrective from the antinatalist perspective. I think, you know, I was joking about how the antinalists are all just angry that people keep saying you should have children and they're pissed off, and so they write philosophy about how we should all just die and that'd be better for everybody, but like, aside from that joking, I do think that there's a valuable corrective to be applied to the the assumption that procreation is a necessary good and anyone who doesn't see it as that is morally problematic, that I see like I experience that a lot, I get a lot of that, so so like that's a good corrective

0:27:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. You know what's so funny? I think I'm in the opposite place of that. I think procreating is probably morally

0:27:58 Aaron: Yeah uh-huh I want to do this but none of you should, you're

0:28:06 Thomas: Bad, most likely, but it's also so after having a baby, I mean, I'm still in the honeymoon phase of the baby, but But I'm sure it'll change. But yeah, I'm like, I love it. And I think probably people. So I have more respect for you. You know what I mean? Like, I would be the person with kids saying, no, you probably shouldn't have kids. Like, it's morally wrong. Don't be a hypocrite like me. That's what I would sound like the inverse of that.

0:28:18 Aaron: Like the worst anti-continent I've ever heard uh-oh well so yeah but like, so separate from that, like, extremist position, um, and the corrective, like the valuable corrective that I think it's lost when people start being like, oh, you should never have any children, or you should only have, uh, you know, one child who should always adopt or something. I do think there are valuable practical discussions to be had with someone like you in the applied ethics world, where we can say, you know, you have one kid, you're maybe interested in having a second kid, and should you adopt or consider adoption versus not, is that a a supererogatory action, which we mean, uh, you know, it's it's ethical but not demanded of you, or is it demanded of me? That's a good question. I think, sure.

0:29:18 Thomas: Right. It's almost like no one wants to live in the world where all these things are demanded of us. Like either we're scared to all live in that world where like we have to either not have kids or we have to have kids that we have adopt. It's like, we do, we also have that value of, I want to be able to decide, but yeah, I, I think that at, at the very least, I it's far, uh, far more morally superior to adopt a kid than to have a kid. I think that there, there mean, and that's based on the facts of the ground, which on the ground which could hypothetically change. If we're trying to evaluate impacts the antinatalist thing, you could get to a world in which there weren't really kids that needed to be adopted that much, in which case that would change that question. But that's, again, approaching it as though it's the facts on the ground that matter.

0:30:05 Thomas: You're in a background state and you're evaluating the difference between existence and non-existence. And I just think we're never really in that state. You know, it's kind of weird. We never get to evaluate that. It's just a question that's different than all other questions in a way. But yeah, like we never get too, because you can't ask these questions of yourself without existing. So we never, you and I, I mean, we can kind of do it for hypothetical children we might have, like bring into existence, but we can never fully know what we would say if we didn't exist? Like what would be the answer to the question? Because it's, because it makes no sense. It's totally, there's no thing that doesn't exist to make that decision. There's no facts about that brain that would inform that, you know?

0:30:19 Aaron: Right it's just sort of implied that that we should, we should value this thing, you mean? Mm-hmm.

0:30:57 Aaron: Yeah

0:30:57 Thomas: So it's like, you never can be in that position. And it's just really interesting. But I was thinking of another hypothetical just what if, uh, this is another one of those crazy hypotheticals. What if our existence is just one of those old timey ships where y'all had to like row? What are those? You know, everybody, everybody had to row.

0:30:58 Aaron: It's yeah

0:31:16 Thomas: It's just, yeah, yeah. And it just sucked. Like it was just rowing sucked and nobody wanted to row those ships, I'm sure. And like, so let's say that's our whole universe. And I was thinking like, what if, hypothetically, you have the option to bring another being into that universe, which is just a ship that we're all stuck rowing for some reason. And if you did, it would make rowing easier for everybody. Because you about it. You got more person power there.

So then I was thinking, how would you make that decision? Because you're by definition, like let's say, let's, let'S twist the knobs here and say like, currently the rowing sucks quite a bit for everybody. Like we're, we're just about to the point where like, ah, God, I kind of want to just kill myself because this rowing, it just, we're rowing all day. It's not that great.

But if we had one more person helping, it would be like so much easier or a certain amount easier so that it's like, okay, this is kind of, you know, it's a workout, but yeah, I'm having a good time, but it still isn't that pleasant.

0:31:13 Aaron: Yeah a long boat

0:32:12 Thomas: So then I was, so I was thinking like, by definition, you're bringing a being into a world that's like kind of sucky, like they're going to, but it would improve the lives of everyone there. And I was trying to think like, how, how would you make that decision? I could see it either way. I could see if you value, you know, if you, if your value only looking at the potential person that you're bringing into the world, you would just mathematically say, okay, I'm bringing them into a crappy world because they have to row all the time. But if you try to look at the system as a whole, like the whole universe will be better for everybody. You know, like I, so, so I thought that was an interesting thought experiment.

0:32:47 Aaron: Yeah in in that hypothetical, if enough people are born onto this ship, does it just stop sucking after a while? Just one child and it gets a little bit better for everybody, so no

0:32:55 Thomas: No, yeah. You only get one. I was trying to isolate everything. You only gets one decision. Like there's, you have one chance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I'm not saying it's analogous to the real world in any way. I just thought it would be. Yeah.

0:33:07 Aaron: No, no I think it's a good question right, because what you're saying, you're like, you're trying to turn the utilitarian argument back on them, and you're say, if your limited options for creating more utility are creating another individual who suffers a little more for the sake of everyone getting a little bit better off here here's my solution, that I think where we, we balance the intuitions burn it all down just burn it to the ground fuck

0:33:21 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Burn the ship down. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Say, why are we rowing this stupid ship, everyone? We don't have to row.

0:33:34 Aaron: Wait, you're like yes I think we can placate the Kantians by saying, um, uh, give birth to the person, bring them onto the ship, but give them them the option to opt out at any point. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, right, you get onto the ship and then when they come of age, you say, look, here's the situation. Everybody's rowing. Do you want to help us row or do you want a jump overboard? And we're not going to judge you if you jump overboard.

0:33:49 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:34:06 Aaron: Right? It's a compromise position.

0:34:04 Thomas: You're banking on those evolutionary chemicals. Because if you didn't have that, they would be a robot and they would say, well, this sucks. And they just jump overboard.

0:34:14 Aaron: Not necessarily. I think if you genuinely respect their autonomy, if you asked me that question, I would say, all right, I'll pick let's go.

0:34:21 Thomas: Yeah. But you have those brain chemicals that make you want to keep living. Like I but

0:34:26 Aaron: But I, okay, I mean, like, I do have the brain chemicals, but like,

0:34:28 Thomas: I but again I guess that is part of the world, like, we do all have those chemicals, so but that was part of decision making process when we made that life, you and I, when we had made, created this child, uh, we won't talk about the details of it, but when we created this child we we are, that's part of, like, the criminal offense of making this child is that you're giving them these things that make them think and do things, you know, that without their consent, like, that's a part of it, you know what I mean? You're giving them part of creating them, you're not making a blank thinking robot. You're making something that's already kind of hostage in a way to chemicals, and there's no other way to make it.

0:34:53 Aaron: I mean I don't, I don't experience, I, I I don, in my opinion, like and I don I don believe in free will, I'm very much on the no free will perspective, but at the same time I think, you know, like whether it's the chemicals speaking or not, I- I don think, so here, okay here's how how I'll go about this, right? I can't be wrong if I'm in pain. If I say I'm in pain, right, we'll start with something that's unimpeachable, right.

0:35:22 Thomas: Hmm. Okay. Sure.

0:35:29 Aaron: If I say, I'm in pain I'm right about that. There's no way to be wrong about that

0:35:33 Thomas: I'll take your word for it.

0:35:36 Aaron: Conversely, ultimately I think it's true, you know, I could lie to you about something. I could mask it and say I am not really in pain when I am or something, and conversely I could say I mean pleasure when I'm not really in pleasure. But if I genuinely am experiencing pleasure, as I think I genuinely do on a daily basis, then I can say I value that pleasure, and yes, it's based in chemicals, but my enjoyment of it is still valuable to me as this entity trapped within this system, and I can, I can feel okay about valuing it, and and that's objective enough, I think, is this is the way that I come out as this weird kind of crypto realist.

0:36:06 Thomas: Interesting. Though. New mathematical though.

0:36:16 Aaron: Uh-huh, uh-uh.

0:36:16 Thomas: Because I think this is, or an adjustment to it, because I think that's a good idea. I think it's a great idea. This actually is kind of analogous to what we do when we create humans, sort of, is what if, what if someone is in a slightly, again, going back to this mathematical thing, when you look at the numbers, if we're on a scale of, you know, 100 to negative 100 in terms of like pleasure to misery in their lives, and they're at like a negative one.

So hypothetically, if they were just going based on numbers, they'd be like, "I should kill myself, I'm at a negative 1, it's slightly worse than 0." Zero. If we put a device on them that makes them think a negative one is like a positive one, what is the ethics of doing that? Because I think that's kind of what we do when we give people this will to go on, and there's nothing we can do about it. This is kind of biology, I think, in my opinion. I'd be curious if people disagree. But when we gives people this will to carry on, it's this weird, illogical drive in some cases.

0:36:58 Aaron: Sure. Yeah.

0:37:14 Thomas: We are sort of doing now. We're taking a negative one and saying, no, that's a one. And if you did that, I think people would say that's unethical to try to make that person like this miserable experience and keep going with it.

0:37:28 Aaron: I It's ironic that we've gone this far talking about these horrible worlds without talking about embracing the void, but like, I I get where that is coming from and I sort of regular, on a regularly sort of wrestle with questions about like, are we just creating what, what Nietzsche described Christianity as, a Neoplatonic slave cult. You know, like, are you just brainwashing people to be okay with this horrible situation, to make a heaven of hell? Or is mindfulness really a way to get more happiness and pleasure out of what is a mixed bag of reality?

0:37:35 Thomas: Sure. Plug for embrace the boy.

0:37:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:06 Thomas: Well, I Think You Jumped in a Place I'm Not Totally Sure. Where did the mindfulness part come in relation to this? Like, should we not be paying attention to these questions at all. Is that what you're saying?

0:38:09 Aaron: Yeah. So, like... No, I think we should be paying attention to these questions, and at the same time sort of working on, um, balancing caring about these things while also having a bit of non-attachment, is where I was, where I made that jump a little bit, um, I guess the reason I got there is because like this, people will say the same thing about like the Buddhist meditation non-attachment stuff, is it, like, is it really just making people okay with a painful, horrible situation so they'll carry on for the the purpose of, you know, for the length of their lives, and I, like, I think it's a really, you know, I do think that it's it's a challenging question, I do think that, like, we have to be concerned that we aren't creating a cult of life where we force people to live a life of suffering because that life is necessarily better, but I do think there's a value in giving people the choice, even if I don't necessarily believe that like they have the choice in a radical kind of way, I think that Um, I think there's value in the flourishing of conscious entities.

I'm not saying that it's such a value that we should preserve it at all costs, or that a universe that has conscious entities is necessarily better than one that doesn't. But within a universe that has unconscious entities, there is an irreducible value to those entities, getting better and more happy. And

0:38:43 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:39:32 Aaron: That's, yeah.

0:39:32 Thomas: I certainly agree with that. I totally agree with That. I just think, again, like if I were to take the full fundamentalist Sam Harris view, if I Were to take the full on like moral landscape view of morality, the point before was that I don't think you can make a decision between, between, you know, a world with conscious creatures and a world with nothing. Like, I don't think you have, you're equipped to do that, but let's, I, you Know, I'm curious. I think we've talked about this before, but now, now I'm wondering if I combined, like when we talked about free will or something, but do you mind giving us a few minutes on utilitarianism and where, why, if that's, because I think you're a pluralist, right?

0:39:54 Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:14 Thomas: You've said you, you see value in different ethical systems. Could you give us a brief rundown on that? Because I want to talk about those different systems and how we decide between them.

0:40:24 Aaron: Well, so I'm a, I guess what they would call a value pluralist. And then I think that like, utilitarianism and deontology and virtue theory and care ethics, these different views capture certain irreducible, this goes out of like, people like Thomas Nagel talking about irreduceable, essential foundational values. Hate also has these kind of, or height, I I guess, also has these kinds of views where it's like sanctity or purity versus fairness. These are things that are all valuable in an objective kind of way, and they're not reducible to each other. And so given those two factors, what arises is a mishmash of different kinds of balancing of those objective values that create different lifestyles within a spectrum, all of which which I think are roughly morally acceptable because they keep within certain parameters. Does that make some sense?

0:41:25 Thomas: But yeah, it does. I think the key... Because, you know, I was going back in preparation for this. You know, you had sent me an article where... Because we both read Sam Harris's book and, you know, some years ago, but...

0:41:36 Aaron: And I want to point out that I like roughly 90% of that book. I would disagree with him about a little bit of the meta-ethics and a little but of snarkiness, but mostly I'm on board with his view.

0:41:38 Thomas: Right. Right. And you sent me a book about Sam Harris. You sent me and article that he did in response to some criticism, which I know I'm certain I read at the time, but I reread it for this. And, you know, in reading, I was reminded that I think what he was really trying to kind of lash out against at the time or to try to push back against, I guess, to use softer language there, was a feeling of moral relativism that he was experiencing in like the academy or something. You know, like I think that's where a lot of this came from. And he was trying to say, no, like it's not like that can't be right. You know there's there is some some scientific grounding for some of this. And I'm curious where, how you would answer that question in your sort of value pluralistic system.

0:42:10 Aaron: Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Great, that's a great question. And I wanna first clarify, and I think, he probably, most of the pushback he got as a relativist was coming from non-philosophers who didn't understand what he was arguing for and thought that he was argument for a weird cultural relativism and so yeah

0:42:40 Thomas: Right. Let me clarify. What I mean to say is I think he wrote the book in response to, because he talks about like, oh, I heard someone at a dinner or something mentioned that you can't, you can'T judge people who have horrific cultural practice. So I don't mean that he got pushed back after writing the book. I mean, I think that led him to do it, but go ahead.

0:42:47 Aaron: Right uh-huh I see okay yeah So yeah, so the difference between pluralism and relativism is really important, and the main difference is one of them is compatible with objectivism and the other one isn't, which is to say I can be a pluralist and I can believe that, like, X, Y, and Z lifestyles are all okay. Like, Like, Christian lifestyle is okay, atheist lifestyle is okay, Muslim lifestyle is okay. What isn't okay on the pluralist view is the ISIS lifestyle, where you murder a bunch of people. Okay? Like, there is a range of acceptable lifestyles, and then outside of that range are some objectively unacceptable lifestyles. Cultural relativism, which arose out of the anthropology movements back in, like, the 70s, is a more radical, subjectivist position that says, um, every culture is right about what is good for that culture, basically. So each each culture shouldn't be judged by the external ethical values of their culture and where they're coming from, which was reasonable. Was you had white western, um, industrialist cultures negatively judging the morality of less developed cultures in inappropriate kinds of ways, and

0:43:40 Thomas: Right. Right. So

0:44:21 Aaron: It was like so they wanted to push back on that

0:44:21 Thomas: It's Like, like, an imperialistic kind of, okay, well, these people don't have good lives, so we can kind of just dictate what they should do, kind of thing. Right?

0:44:22 Aaron: Right This tribe is believes in open sex between couples and, like, doesn't, you know, like, doesn't have puritanical views, and so they're bad, that kind of pushback kind of issue.

0:44:36 Thomas: Right. But How do you, I guess then the, the question is, and I know it's not going to be an exact science, but, but, how do you reign in, like, where, where do you find your range of acceptable behaviors? And also as a follow-up, how is that different to, like, the moral landscape, where you say, oh, there's different peaks that you could be at that could be equivalent, kind of thing.

0:44:40 Aaron: Sure. So The importance of the moral landscape, and why it's not a relativist position, is that there are peaks and valleys, and the valleys are unacceptable, and a valley is a place for, like, you behead people who disagree with you, and it's unacceptable because of the work that we do in philosophy. So this is where Harris gets a little mistaken in thinking that it can all be done in science. Like, science can tell us, um, what's better for children, spanking them or not spanking them, right, but the ethical questions of should we value the the well-being of the child has to be done in the work of philosophy and in the works of ethical people trying to balance out the needs, because you could, you could understand why the Spartans might think that beating the shit out of your child for the sake of making them a strong person is the right way to, um, to build a good person and like

0:45:05 Thomas: Right. Right. So if you have a different background set of goals, then that answer could change is what you're saying.

0:45:52 Aaron: And like within a range that's okay. Like, I think we could say you, some parts of Southern American culture that push their children to be a little bit more physical in certain kinds of ways, a little more athletic, that's, that's fine. It's only an issue where it, like, starts to seriously harm the individuals involved. So we develop metrics like that, and within those, um, you know, edge, edge parameters, we say, you know, this, these various kinds of lifestyles are okay, but when you start to, like, really hurt people for the sake of maintaining your lifestyle, that's not acceptable. Yeah.

0:46:11 Thomas: Right.

0:46:26 Thomas: Right. Or like when science changes your picture of what's happening, like we find out, oh, Oh, making your kids run into each other, causing a bunch of head injuries. This is, by the way, a teaser for hopefully a future episode, an interview I'm doing. But I just want to throw that out there. That new scientific information could tell you, okay, even though my, like the philosophy has totally stayed the same, it's just the facts on the ground are different. So therefore my conclusion would change.

0:46:52 Aaron: Uh, I know you're probably talking about, like, football ball and, see, you know, like, um, concussions, but literally what I was thinking of is Homer Simpson running into, okay, good, I'm glad you're like this is

0:47:03 Thomas: You're just making kids run it. No, just, it's not, not for a game, just making your kids run into each other. That's why I got to have another one. So I can, that's, you know, that is how you make them better.

0:47:04 Aaron: Okay Oh. I see, by running them into each other, it's like a hadron collider of sorts, I guess. Yeah.

0:47:17 Thomas: Yeah, define new kid elements that I did not know existed previously. So it is within a of acceptable behavior. But I guess I am still curious what makes that value pluralism. Maybe it's not different from the moral landscape then. I mean, is that compatible with with what Sam Harris says or?

0:47:20 Aaron: I Oh.

0:47:37 Aaron: No. I think yeah, I think his moral landscape is a form of value pluralism, and I'm, okay, I'm on board with that normative level of thinking, where it's like, here's a peak that's okay if you really value loyalty, and here's the peak that okay if he really value authority, and here is a valley that's really not okay, where you value authority in loyalty too much and you become a Nazi.

0:47:38 Thomas: Hmm. OK. Hmm. Right.

0:47:58 Aaron: Right, that's, that's the pluralism, and I'm, all, I'm totally on board with that as a moral realist, and I am not on board of relativism. I think the attacks on him as a relativist, they're totally off base.

0:48:01 Thomas: OK, right. But I think I'm still trying to get at a difference between a pluralism of outcomes and a pluralist. Of like systems that are getting you there. So is there a way for there to be a, know, deontological peak and then also a utilitarian peak or whatever? I don't know if I use the right words, but like peaks that are different moral systems. I don't know that that is accounted for necessarily. I feel like his is all on the assumption that you' re doing some sort of advanced calculus to get landscape a, of well-being related to that very utilitarian idea of well being. Right.

0:48:14 Aaron: Yeah. I Mean,

0:48:48 Thomas: Or.

0:48:49 Aaron: Yeah, and I think, like, the peaks thing is probably not even the best metaphor. It's more like a plateau, right? So you've got this giant plateau. At the edges of that plateau are a bunch of different extreme positions, like extreme utilitarianism, extreme deontology. And, like, in between those are these spectrums of acceptable behaviors that attempt to balance those competing needs. And outside of them are the drop-off of behaviors that completely violate a basic need, like deontology or utilitarianism. So like, you know, a position, for example, that says we're going to maximize utility by making everyone an absolute slave violates one of these other essential needs, and so seems outside of the bounds of that plateau for us.

0:49:22 Thomas: Hmm.

0:49:36 Thomas: Interesting. So, I'm trying, I'm trying to think, because so much of the criticism I thought that he got at the time was like, basically, the same criticism people throw at utilitarianism. But if, if the, if the landscape can kind of encompass all of that and keep that in mind, then I don't even think that's really a good criticism.

0:49:50 Aaron: No. I think I think the attacks on him as a naive utilitarian or just as bad as the attacks on him is a naive relativist. I think what you wanted to talk about before, about is-ought, is an actual more, more interesting attack on him. Maybe we should talk about that some.

0:49:58 Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's talk about is-ought because I find that to be a totally useless attack. Like I found it odd that maybe, maybe you can tell me if I have something wrong, but the classic is-aught problem is, you know, you can't derive an ought from an is no amount of information about the world will tell you how something ought to be. Is that more or less right? You could probably put it better than I can.

0:50:06 Aaron: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. Right, this comes out of David Hume, and it's the idea that, like, facts about the nature of reality are morally or evaluatively neutral. They're just, they're just facts about reality, and then we, as entities that have wants and desires, have evaluative judgments about those morally neutral realities and and make actions and morality and everything based on those things, is sort of the idea.

0:50:39 Thomas: Yeah, right.

0:50:56 Thomas: Yeah. I think it's a really profound philosophical idea. And I think it's 100% right, but is also totally useless in trying to answer questions that are important to us. And again, it's so funny. This is in some ways is turning into a bit of a love letter to Sam Harris. I, we, we both very much disagree with him on a lot of stuff, but I also think there are so many people who go so overboard in their criticisms of him. And the idea that one of the criticisms is you can't get any odd from an is you idiot is like, okay. But once you get past the first step of the worst outcome for everybody is bad, then you've, if you agree on that, you aren't like my mathematically deriving it. You're just saying, okay, if you don't agree with that, then we aren't having a conversation. Then you go from there. It seems like a perfectly acceptable solution to the Izzat problem, or not a solution, but like a jumping off point,

0:50:57 Aaron: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

0:51:52 Aaron: You're think that he's missing a couple of key steps in the process. And I think that, like, you don't see those steps as being essential, but there are consequences for skipping them.

0:52:03 Thomas: Okay. We'll talk about them. What are they?

0:52:05 Aaron: Yeah, so, like, he wants to bridge the is-ought divide. He wants to say that he can solve the ought problems by enough work on the is side of things for science, roughly speaking, like once you've set the very baseline. So, like, he concedes that at the very foundational level level of ethics, you have to just accept that a life of happiness is better than a life of not happiness, or life of well-being is better than not, and then he seems to think, from what I, from what I've read of him, like, going from there, science can take over and figure out what's the best life for everyone or something like that, or what are the, what are the range of acceptable lives based on science or something like that. Does that sort of seem fair?

0:52:40 Thomas: Sort of. Yeah. Well, yeah.

0:52:45 Aaron: Fair,

0:52:45 Thomas: Because I don't think he would say that science solves everything from there, but I do think that that that, that is the fundamental problem. Once you agree on, you know, it's like saying we can't agree on the rules of a game or, or it's, like, saying there's no, like mathematical or, or, no like necessary set of rules for chess or something. Like there's, no there's. No, like if you, if you.

0:53:07 Aaron: Right, the rules of chess are arbitrary and contingent.

0:53:10 Thomas: Yeah, there are arbitrary But once you agree on them, everything from there out, you know, you can get the computer to essentially within some wiggle room there, tell you the right move. And I think that's what he's accomplishing by setting that baseline. And I, and I think it's a baseline no one would meaningfully argue with. And I Think he's right to say that no one's going to argue with the worst possible misery for everyone is bad. Him.

0:53:13 Aaron: Yeah.

0:53:36 Aaron: Yeah, this is Caligula who would argue with this. In metaethics, we call this the problem of the coherent Caligulla, the issue of, like, someone who really just doesn't value morality, and, like, doesn't have any ends in, you know, like anything that they want to achieve is not achieved via morality can we say that they're, um, maybe even not, they might, they might, you know, they might be like Joker from from Dark Knight, right, where like they enjoy pain as much as pleasure because they're so far out there compared to our current perspective or something like that right, well like, hold on, hold on it is it isn't it, isn't a meaning problem, right? Like, what you mean is it's from the persuasion end of things, it's not a meaningful problem because there's nothing to be done for that individual, right?

0:53:54 Thomas: Does that person value, hold on, does that person, uh, value not being in pain though?

0:54:11 Thomas: Yeah, see, this is just not a meaningful problem. It's not, okay, go ahead. Well, It sort of, I also mean that, okay, if, if we're in a room full of, let's say, if we're in a gymnasium full of 20,000 chess players, and then one guy is like, "I want to play checkers," we can just say, okay, well, whatever, but we're gonna play chess, so let's talk about how the best ways to, you know what I mean, like, yes, that can exist, a person who wants to play chequers instead of chess, that can can exist, but we can still have the conversation. It doesn't ruin the chess conversation to say, like, there could be a hypothetical, and, you know, those numbers are not even, yeah, there could be an hypothetical person who like values pain and like, yeah sure, but it doesn't, that closes it off from being like math, but I don't think it is math. I think it's something where after you make some philosophical assumptions, you can then use science to help you after that.

0:55:01 Aaron: Yeah.

0:55:20 Aaron: No, I think that's totally the reasonable compromise position here, and I think that, like, I agreed with Harris when he sounded like he was saying what you were saying, and the parts where he gets a little snarky about how metaethics isn't important on top of what he's doing is where I tend to disagree Yeah, so so what I just mean is, like, normative ethics is like, you know, don't murder, um, protect people, like, claims about what one ought to do versus what one ought not to do, and then meta ethics is like, what is the nature of morality, is, is morality objective or is it subjective, so, like, when we were talking about relativism versus pluralism, that's a meta ethical debate more so than a normative debate, right? You could, you could be a pluralist and have very different views about which kind of views, which kind of ethical views are acceptable on a normitive level.

So, and I think that that Harris is a realist, like me, I think he believes that there are objective moral truths, he thinks, he thinks that it's just wrong to be, in his case, he thinks it's just wrong to be a ISIS fanatic, right? He doesn't think that's a peak. It's not an acceptable moral position. And, like,

0:55:34 Thomas: Yeah. Can you define metaethics just to make sure I know it? Hmm.

0:56:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:56:25 Aaron: So he and I agree on the metaethics. We disagree just ever so slightly, and I think it's an important disagreement about how we answer the questions of what the right values are versus not. He thinks that science can do a little bit more than I think it can. I think that we map out what our list of various kinds of values is, and then we turn to science and say, what are the various cost-benefit analyses that we can get given these competing values? And then science spits back to us, here's your options. And then we have to decide on the options.

0:57:00 Aaron: So it's on That other end is where he also gets a little bit, he shortchanges philosophy a little bit. So, it's not just at the meta-ethical level, but on the applied level, when we get the the answers back from science that say if you implement this policy x number of people will be happy and y number will be unhappy, and then like this other policy gets you different results, what we decide at that point is a philosophical moral question, not a scientific question.

0:57:00 Thomas: Yeah, I agree with that.

0:57:28 Thomas: Yeah, true. And I also think there's a major weakness of numbers, which is I don't I mean, I'VE HEARD AND MAYBE I'M JUST FORGETTING AND YOU CAN LET ME KNOW IF THERE'S SOME ANSWER I DON'T KNOW ABOUT BUT I DONT THINK I'VE HEARD A GOOD ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF of where is a thousand super happy people versus 1200 just about as happy people. Like I don't, and I think that the land to go back to the math metaphors, you know like because it is kind of a math analogy, you're kind of looking at like a three-dimensional graph of a topography or whatever. I think the, that the quantity is a, is a different dimension. Like, I don't think we can capture every, all of these dimensions in one graph. We can't say, well, there's also a fourth dimension of quantity. And then like, is this peak over here, you know, with, with this many people better than this peak. Over here with fewer people. I don't, I think that's another question you can't really, uh, evaluate given that system.

But but then my other thought was like, well, maybe the when you talk about the landscape it's it's more valuable not when you're cranking out wild hypotheticals, but when you're actually just plotting real actions, you know, like, so if we, if we wanted to do the hypothetical of, do we want twice as many people who are half as happy, we could try to evaluate like, okay, what would that involve?

0:57:47 Aaron: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

0:58:46 Thomas: That would involve everybody having more kids with fewer resources and that would be bad. You know, like you could, you could evaluate it more along the lines of what are the decisions we're going going to have to make for that to happen and what are the outcomes there versus choosing these disconnected hypothetical worlds. Yeah.

0:59:03 Aaron: No, I think that's all really great, I think, um, we like Simon Blackburn, and and his criticism, which I think was one of the better criticisms of the book, points out that, like, very similar to what I'm trying to say here. Like, he says, if Bentham's hedonist is in one brain state and Aristotle's active subject is in another, as no doubt they would be, it is a moral, not empirical problem to say which would be preferred. Which is a sort of philosophical way of saying, you know, it's not a scientific question which is a better world, like you were saying, 12,000 people at X number of utils versus 10,000 people at Y number of utils.

0:59:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:59:47 Aaron: Even if we're trying to figure out that question, we're not going to figure it out with a machine, we are going to do it by deciding for ourselves which, by taking into account the real world pragmatic questions of what does it mean to achieve one world versus the other, like does one mean the one child Chinese policy that like has huge negative repercussions, or like does the other one mean, you know, people should tend towards adoption if that's an option, but we should discuss the the for a second, uh, the ways are reducing, um, unwanted pregnancies and things like that.

0:59:54 Thomas: Yeah.

1:00:22 Thomas: No.

1:00:22 Aaron: That make sense, that makes some sense.

1:00:23 Thomas: It does, and I also was going to say earlier you mentioned like that, you know, the Joker scenario. Or the Caligula or whatever, it's interesting to me that you're still looking in terms of, oh, he derives pleasure out of pain, it's like, well then he's still seeking to maximize his own, what, you know, like he's, there's still a sense. And when it's not as though he is seeking a worse outcome for him, you know what I mean? So in a way, it still is well-being in a sense.

But I think it is true that let's say the world was 50% people who value, you know, being happy and all these good virtues and, you know, reciprocity, just good virtues. And then it's 50% percent people who value the exact opposite things and are actually they're in pain if we're feeling good. And that, you know, like if we had that weird, bizarre, awful world, I do think it would be true that neither side is right. Like you wouldn't be able to say, oh, well, they're wrong for being in pain when we're feeling like it's like, well no, but they're suffering. So they're not, it's not their fault. You know what I mean? So like, I don't

1:00:27 Aaron: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:29 Thomas: Think you would be able to evaluate. No science would be able to tell you which side was right. Right. Like it would just be whoever wins, you know, like whoever takes more control would have the world in which the, and that's only in a weird hypothetical where it's diametrically opposed. Like it's a, it's zero sum game.

1:01:44 Aaron: I come at it from a slightly different perspective, but yeah.

1:01:47 Thomas: Oh, go ahead.

1:01:47 Aaron: No, I take away from the like Caligula problem is not, um, you know, we should be concerned that we can't convince these particular people of how to be moral, versus, or why they should be moral, like to me, there it's consistently, it can, can, it can be true both that morality is objectively right, like there are certain objective moral truths, and there are going to be certain individuals that will never be compelled by those objective moral truth, and there's no way to convince them of the nature of those objective moral trues and that's totally okay and we don't need to feel like, because we don't have an argument for those people, that moral realism isn't true.

1:02:15 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Yeah. I was actually going to bring that up. Um, yeah. Cause, cause my answer to that, because that people do bring that up sometimes as a criticism of Harrison. It's like, well, that's a criticism Of any moral system, right? I mean, And no matter what you decide, if you decide that well-being is totally wrong and it's all about, I don't know, like rights or something, I Don't Know, just some weird, like you have some other system, you're still going to have the question of, well, what if someone doesn't want to do that? You know, it's like, that's a problem no matter where it's going to happen. But, you know, I'm realizing we're, we're we're actually quite a bit over time.

1:02:24 Aaron: Okay. Yeah. Right.

1:02:54 Aaron: A little bit.

1:02:55 Thomas: And I think, what do you think about doing another one? What do you Think about a sequel?

1:02:55 Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah.

1:03:00 Thomas: All right. Well, that was really interesting. That was, man, I didn't even know that I got to all the stuff I wanted to talk about, but But we're going to have another conversation. We're going to bring it to you real soon. Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. Oh, give out your plugs. Embrace the void. You already kind of did.

1:03:13 Aaron: Yeah, go check out Embrace the Void podcast. And also, I'm going to plug this on your show and it's going to make you so angry. I am the author and editor of a book, Hamilton and Philosophy. So if you're looking for something for Christmas present, it's that time of year, and you wanted to pick something up, we're at Barnes and Noble and Amazon and all those sorts of places. And it's a fun little book. Don't get it for Thomas because he doesn't like it. But for everyone else on your wish list, they would really enjoy it, I bet a

1:03:18 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, yeah. No, that's fine.

1:03:36 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, true. I mean, it's, you know, I have no problem with people who enjoy Hamilton and enjoy you. Those are all great people and they, yeah, they're just a... I'm just not not on that landscape, but that's okay. I recognize that you enjoy it and people enjoy it. And that's cool. So no problem at all on that plug. Thanks so much for coming on. I really enjoyed it.

1:03:45 Aaron: Different moral peak yeah man

1:04:16 Thomas: Thank you again so much for listening. Thanks to Aaron. That was a lot of fun. I look forward to maybe doing more with Aaron, maybe getting some questions related to what we talked about here. I know we tried to cover a lot and we get easily sidetracked. But in my opinion, it's always very interesting ground. I've got a really good interview for you on Monday. I'm looking forward to it. I interviewed someone who is really critical in the movement We Said Enough, which is trying to make some headway with the sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. Conduct problems in right here in my hometown, Sacramento, in the state capital. It's ugly, but it is a really inspiring interview. Can't wait to bring it to you on Monday. And with that said, I hope to see you then. So have a great weekend.