The Good Delusion | What's The Closest We Can Get To Objective Ethics?

okay our speaker today is Alex O'Connor and Alex is a first-year student at the University of Oxford reading theology and philosophy sorry they were say reading that way on the University campus rather than studying for anyway so one of those old-fashioned terms alex is an ex-catholic he's an atheist for science enthusiast and an advocate for secularism his YouTube channel which it goes by the name of cosmic skeptic has got a quarter of a million subscribers so you may be one of them so I'm absolutely delighted that he's agreed to speak to us today with a brand new talk which will go to video and no doubt that will be uploaded to his channel which will give us some publicity as well as long as he stands in front of the doors a humorous side then so will you please give a very hello everybody thank you for being here let me just swallow these notes yeah thanks for coming out it's nice and reassuring to see so many you here so she talked about something that seems to be such a civic issue as ethics I want to present some thoughtful ideas that I haven't really spoken about before I hope that I'm essentially hoping that we can get towards or move towards something that resembles objectivity in ethics and determining what we should be doing how we should be behaving and how we can make sense of terminology like that if there's no objective basis for these kind of things like in some kind of God or religious tradition so I've spoken quite a bit about morality before on my youtube channel which as david says some of you may be to subscribe to and hopefully all of you will be eventually at the end of this evening I spoke about morality before and I've been very critical of the idea that you can grounded in any kind of objectivity the idea that you can have that you can say as a matter of fact that certain things are good or bad or that you should or shouldn't do them and I've had conversations with my friend Steven were to open another which account and we publicly discussed it and it's in something that people have just not wanted to stop talking to me other and Steven recently came to Oxford because these conversations that we had God got far more attention than I ever would have thought talking about morality this evening came from Oxford and we spoke privately about our ideas and we've essentially come together at this point and we now roughly agree and so I'm hoping to kind of explain where where I'm at at the moment a place of view that Steven won't be able to eventually endorse but it's changed essentially from what I've spoken about in the past so this is a good opportunity and I'm glad you're filming it because I can put it on my channel and finally people I woke up dating so there are a few steps to this what I'm gonna have to do to convince you hopefully or at least open use the idea that there can be such a thing as objectivity or something that resembles it there are some stages and the arguments and these might seem totally unrelated but they're actually really important then they welcome together at the end the first thing you're going to have to do and I'm very sorry for this but I'm gonna have to try and convince you that free will does not exist and I have to try and convince you that you're nodding at all of your actions now I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of you already maybe think that way or are familiar with the philosophy at least but it's an important part of that it I think people will understand intuitively why I asked the case but once I've done that I need to point out that since if you are not in control of your actions as as the three philosophy that I'm espousing States then we have to tell me what is and what I think is actually determining your actions are your desires and sort of their psychological determinism that's going on in a sense so we have to talk about the nature of desire and the second thing that I want to convince you of is the idea that desire itself is centered around pleasure and the avoidance of name and not only in the pleasure is something that's desired but the pleasure in itself is the only thing that can be desired in itself this is a very utilitarian case but I'm going to try not to cross the line into saying that it's necessary necessarily desirable and you should desire it just that it's the only thing you desire and again this might seem a weird thing to be ours in to be arguing they welcome together at the end so what I'm essentially hoping to argue is that you don't have free will and you are determined by your desires and you desire a certain specific thing then whenever you behave because your behavior is determined by your will which isn't free and as determined by something else and we know what that thing is when you behave that can be indicative of beliefs that you hold about the natural world which can either be right or wrong now this may be slightly confusing you're odd but the pieces will come together essentially the reason why I pulled this talk the delusion is because traditional notions of ethics I see them don't make any sense when we remove free will from the picture for fairly intuitive reasons but I think that what we can get to is a system where we don't say the certain actions good or bad as an objective matter of fact but that certain actions demonstrate that you as a person have certain beliefs that are either right or wrong as a matter of fact and it's practically indistinguishable so to avoid try and try to avoid confusing anybody any further than I perhaps already have I think we should just get into things so I wouldn't try and leave a bit of room for Q&A and because the pieces of the puzzle fit quite trivially together once you agree that three wall doesn't exist once you agree with the second part with pleasure they go together very easily to come to the conclusion so it's kind of in the concepts themselves that they're controversies in our life so I want to make sure that I'm to or to ask questions about that the concepts themself but we need to go through them so the first thing is to mention why there is a problem with ethics in the first place when it comes to ethics and morality the big problem is that no one seems to agree so fairly that's not an amazing observation but I don't just mean that people don't agree with moral conclusions people can have agreements about what is right and wrong they have completely different justifications for those things so there can be two people who both completely agree that murder is wrong but one person has a completely different justification to the other somebody might think that it's wrong because God says somebody might think that it's wrong because there are an ethic oh we'll be ghosts and they think that they should act in ways that are good for themselves and because we live in a social contract the best thing we can do is be nice to others so that the behavior is reciprocated either way that is a massive disagreements very important philosophical disagreements but the conclusion is precisely the same so the important part of this philosophy are not the moral conclusions that the meta ethical underlined the justification for the moral conclusions of accounting so we need to understand what we actually mean when we talk about good and bad and sure you should not and the problem is that this is not an easy thing to do one of the main problems with this is that should exist in an entirely separate category of thought from otherwise familiar natural paths famously David Hume observed that you can't have premises which talk about the way the things are and get to the way that things ought to be or should be as a matter of logical conclusion it can't be done you can say that this is the case this is the case this is the case but you'll never get to it should if I say to you it is the case that raining outside there for you to take an umbrella it's intuitive but that's not logically valid there's there's a hidden underlying premise there that you should try to avoid getting wet in cubes pointed that you cannot cross this divide an important point to note is that this isn't just true isn't Ward it's another thing that they became is very famous force but there's the problem of induction induction is the process by which we reason from things that we have observed to conclusions about things we have not including the future so how do we know that the Sun is going to rise tomorrow well maybe kiemce says that we can't we don't know that the sun's gonna rise tomorrow what we do is we reason from the way the things are and the way that they have been - how they're going to be in the future but that's again not logically about we don't know that the sun's gonna rise tomorrow because you can't get a will be from an is just as much as you can't get and Ward Herrmann is so it's it's a it's a it's a gap that's very difficult across they can't be crossed as a matter of logic and that this is a big problem for ethics because I can tell you all the facts you want about the natural world I think I can tell you all about the nature of pleasure and the nature of well-being but it will do nothing for our understanding of how we should behave so what I'm going to try and do is come to a conclusion where we can use meaningful language involving sure this pressure where I'm going to be able to say that you should do this you should not do that and yet not cross is all divided stay entirely within the realm natural facts and scientific observable empirical natural about now the first step of this like I say is free will so it's actually it might be good idea if perhaps a raise of hands how many people here in in the traditional sense of the libertarian free world the idea that you are the author of your actions you are in control of what you do how people here say that would say that they believe that they have pretty well this is good this is this is this is good I always terrifies and none of you would raise your hand and I'd be massively wasting my time but it's good to see that a lot of you don't as well and there's a bit of there's gonna be a bit of controversy right I suppose so actually if I those people who raise their hands if you just put your hands up again now just keep your hand up if you don't mind me just asking you a question you you say you have three well I know I kind of defined it when I asked the question but what do you what do you understand by frequent like what do you think that means when you say you have very well what do you mean by that well okay so you can choose what you can do you can't choose what you want to do okay so you can want to do something but then choose not to do it regardless so you can't control what your desires are but if you desire to do something you can still choose not to do it that's that's a general that's a person know fairly II is that agreeable to people to anybody have an anything okay so this is really important that's a fantastic distinction to make because free will comes down to the nature of designers and whether or not we can actually act in accordance with out of importance with other designers now as you rightly pointed out you can't control what your desires are themselves now the first step in the freewill argument is to recognize that everything that you will ever do as an conscious actions I'm not talking about unconscious actions like rolling out in bed but when you're when you're asleep because nobody would consider that in the round 3:1 anyway I'm talking about the actions that people would generally consider to be free so whatever conscious action you make you'll only ever do it because you desired it this is the argument that I'm gonna have to make now we have a point here that you can desire things that you then in fact do not do and this is one of the one of the most important objections that you get to to the free well argument because essentially if you if you admit that you cannot control what you desire and you then admit that everything you do is because you desire it then you're essentially logically led to the conclusion that you don't control what you do I mean I I hope people would generally agree with that if I can if I can demonstrate to you why it is that you actually have to act in accordance with your desires and also it's the case that you can't control your desires then the house some people will be more sympathetic to the idea that in fact you can control their actions so it seems that the sticking point is going to be there's this nature of this this nature of desire now what does it mean to desire to do something and that's it that's a difficult question but when we're talking about an instance where you desire to do something and yet you don't have to be give me an example of something that you an example of desiring to do something in yet so I'm not doing it okay sweeping in which you depend where CC wake up in the morning and you sleep in it and you know that you should be going to work and you can even want to go to whatever you still decide to sleep okay so examples like that in examples like the opposite is true as well so you you want to do something but you don't but it's also the case that you don't want to do something and you do like if you don't want to go to the gym means still you still do you force yourself to good these are examples where it seems that you are acting out of the ones with your desires but we have to think about what we actually mean here because for instance they take the gin example you don't want to go to the gym so why do you do it why do you actually force yourself to go to the gym well it's like okay I don't want to go to the gym but I do want to be healthy okay well why does your desire to be healthy our way your desire to not go to the gym and be lazy any junk food are you in control of them are you able to decide which desire is stronger air in mind the only reason that you actually force yourself to go to the gym it's because you desire your help if you didn't desire your health then you wouldn't you just go to the gym you don't desire to go to the gym but even though you don't desire to go to the gym because there's this other conflicting desire and you do want to be healthy you do and it's only because that desire exists and because it's stronger than your desire to stay at home and be lazy that you go to the gym so why is that desire stronger than the other do you have any control over that you simply don't if you're lying in bed in the morning and you wake up and you think I want to be I want to be and I want to go to work on time but you also think but I also quite like to sleep in if you will two conflicting desires there and the only possible reason that you could decide to stay in bed is because the desire to stay in bed is stronger than the desire to go to work now that could be irrational that could be a silly thing to do it could be totally it's just just not thought through but the fact of the matter is that even if it's unjustifiably sir your desire to stay in bed is stronger than your desire to go to work because if it was stronger to go to work then you would do that so why is one desire stronger than another again you don't get to decide this what would it take if you're lying in bed to make you get up and go to work that desire to go to work would have to overcome the desire to stay in bed but again you don't get to do this you can't decide to desire something as we've already agreed upon you don't get to - to say I want to warn this so it's the case that one desire is stronger than another you will follow that desire every instance in every single instance where it seems as though you don't want to do something you do it anyway it's always because of another desire there is some desire to do that thing if anybody has any objections to this again going to be doing a Q&A examples are one of the best way to get this principle understood and comprehended try to think of some examples of wanting to do something and yet not doing it and where there isn't a conflicting desire that's stronger because as I say my argument is that you will act upon your desires now there are going to be conflicting desires there are going to be instances where you don't act in the point of the desire but that's only because there's a stronger desire so you're still acting in accordance with your desires if you see what I'm saying and I will always be the case and that's one of the things that you want to find an objection to if you want to if you want to come back on that so if you think you can think of an example then let me know so there's another way to think about this entire free world item because it's a philosophical case that you do everything consciously because you want to or because you desire to let's say well because it's the strongest desire you have step two is that you don't control your desires conclusion you don't control anything you do but there's another way to look at this which is to say which is to to identify a logical dichotomy in in physics or at least the philosophy of physics as to say either the universe is deterministic or it is not these are the two options as a as a matter of logic it's a logical law that is either the case that that P or not it's either that this is the case or it's not the case determinism is the idea that the universe is following a set pause this is this makes sense if we understand the universe and to ative just process the causation everything that happens in the universe and that includes the the activity going on inside of our brains in psychology is caused by something else and it could be caused by something else inside of you inside of your brain it could be caused by something external you can take something like a car go above the car going by was caused by the fact that someone put their foot on the pedal on the fact that they put their foot on the pedal was caused by the fact that they had a place to go and the fact that they had a place to go is caused by the fact that they have a job and and this this chain of causation goes all the way back to the very beginning of the universe when when a leaf falls off the tree that happened because the the connection of the leaf to the tree broke down and that happened because of the aging process in the tree and the tree aged because of the fact it looks planted and it's part of this reality and it goes back and back and back and back back forever this is the deterministic case that everything that happens is following the set box if we are if we all want to chain of causation then because that's necessarily follow their cause then what we're doing now is the result of of courses and everything that will happen in the future is a result of what's happening now and it will follow us that force now the only way out of that the only way to say that actually it's not determined in that sense it's following a course but but it doesn't mean that everything is on it is on a necessary chain and carnac on another way is to say that there are some instances where there's a cause and yet more than one thing could happen as to say randomness that's the only other Rock either I went when something happens decided determined in the sense that it was always going to happen by our chain of causation the only other option is that it's in determined and if it's in determined in its random now the universe is determined you don't have control because you couldn't have acted differently and free well if it means anything at all means the ability to have acted differently if you were put in the same situation there was a genuine option open to you and you could have done this we could have done this and they were both equally possible so if you were put back in that situation you could have gone the other way that's what free will means the meaningful sense the ability to have acted differently if the universe is determined which intuitively would seem to be the case outside of our own experience of people we would wager that it makes sense to say that if the universe is a process of cause and effect then the whole thing is determined okay in that situation you clearly don't have people because of the fact that any conscious actually make is the result of neurons firing in your brain which is itself the result of your processes which itself will be the result of some external factor or something when you when you slam your foot on the brake it's because of the external influences of seeing a car coming towards you or something like that that changes path forever but the other alternative is in determinism which I've said is randomness and randomness by definition you don't have control over either so think about this dichotomy it has to be the case and I press it as a matter of logical law it has to be the case to find that the universe is determined or it is not and if it is determined and we're following a set course in which case you couldn't have acted differently and it's not and you could have acted differently but you wouldn't have been the one deciding that because it would have had to be random so either way you look at it you are not in control of those actions now this is the strong case of free world you can get there more intuitively by by or against free world but this is you can get them more intuitively by if you take an argument like if somebody if there are two people on both commit a crime that's committed a great immorality and then you learn that one of them grew up in an impoverished and had a poor education etc etcetera the other one a functioning family unit had a great education great job and everything you might be inclined to see the first person has less moral possible but their action if you think well they're probably predisposed to being violent or to being evil let's say because of because of the suppers that maybe because the hardships that they've endured well that's the case for all action it is the point that I'm trying to make because if you discovered that your friend who is a perfectly agreeable person in every situation perhaps your best friend or a parent or someone that you know which commits a crime that's just just unspeakably bad they go and murder of Alan that's a you are just forward by us you think I don't understand how this person could have committed this crime and when they go to hospital this is this is an example that the conscience at Harris think when they go to hospital when they go to prison excuse me they start complaining of headaches and so they take him to the hospital and it's discovered that they've got a brain tumor pressing against the part of their brain that deals with rational thought how does your moral evaluation change in that person it is discovered that when they committed this crime it was because they had a tumor pressing against the part of their brain that deals with rational thought you probably think that makes so much more sense and you probably be relieved to find that your friend doesn't need to be held morally culpable in the same way that they would have been before because the only reason they committed this crime was due to some kind of activity that happened in their brain over which they ultimately have no control well that's the case with all conscious action it's all the result of some activity happening in your brain over which you have no control you don't decide which way on their own to power you if I were to rewind the clock to yesterday and put you exactly where you were and but every single atom in the universe in exactly the same place including the atoms that make up your brain and the neuron the fire and they're moving in the same direction at the same speed do you really think that you could have acted differently it doesn't make any sense yet the only way that you could rewind the clock and really enact it differently is it for some reason your brain in just did something different but all of these abdomens of causation are moving in that general direction and they're on that horse and you wouldn't been able to have to act differently and if it is the case that all of this conscious action it comes from something over which you have no control and how on earth can we hold anybody morally culpable for their actions powerfully linking people when they do something wrong how can we praise people when they do something good it makes a mockery of the criminal justice system when somebody is put up for a crime and they plead insanity or they plead some kind of circumstance that force them it in into doing an action we let them off we give them we give them at a lesser charge when we hold them that's morally culpable why because they didn't get to choose and they didn't fit in control it we don't control any of your actions in that meaningful sense okay because if I hold a gun to someone's head and say go and rob that back they're gonna go and rob that back they'll probably say that they were forced to do so and yeah I mean it's true but not really I mean they could have chosen to let me shoot them in the head they could have chosen not to rob the bank you would say but no rational person would be able just to refuse to do something at gunpoint no rational person could do that and I completely agree with you no rational person could it's impossible because your desire to just commit this crime and get it over and done with will be stronger than your desire to be shot in the head I can assure you of that you don't get to choose that you try it like put yourself in that situation and say AHA I'm gonna try and desire to be shot in the head instead now there may be circumstances if you like if you're an intelligent office there are something like that in an email in train into that I I mean in a general sense you isn't individual in that situation you don't get to decide which is better now the fact of the matter is you could have let me shoot you in the head so should we hold you morally culpable the crime that you commit and I hold the gun to your head probably not and I don't mean your criminal justice and would another thing that we would hope that doesn't morally culpable why not okay they're only doing it that is because I'm forcing them but what does it mean when I'm forcing it when you said I'm not forcing them they could choose to be shot in the head okay so you don't mean that their name forced what you mean is that they have a desire to do this which they they couldn't help having that desire because the only other option was to be shot in the head it's the case that they still desire to go and come in this crime over being shot in the head but they couldn't help desiring that well you can't help your desires no matter what I hope you see what I'm saying this is this is this is a this is a really important realization and that's why we need to be careful about the language we use when we talk about coercion and force because the only reason that we consider coercion to be force it's because of the fact that by car were seeing someone what you're essentially doing is is forcing upon them the desire to do something that's what it is because you're giving them you're making it such that the only alternative is something which they cannot possibly desire such as their murder but they could choose it it's within the laws of physics for them to choose to be murdered but they're just not going to do it it's not possible in a psychological level that's the case with all actions not all to the same extent when you have to choose between two flavors of ice cream it's not it's not the same severity choosing between life and death but it's the same principle in the same way that you can't decide to want to be shot more than you want to commit the crime you can't decide to one chocolate more than you want vanilla can't be done and I hope you see now why I so it does make sense to think in terms of everything that you consciously do being do to your desires because yes there are cases where you seem to act out a point with your desires but as only such as in the situation when you go and rob the bank your desire to rob the bank you desire not to be shot so you are still acting in accordance with your desires now there is one tiny perhaps yet out clause that people have tried to come up with there's all compatibilism and it is how shall I say this nonsense it is it has a strong tradition in in philosophy it comes one of the earliest thinkers to profound it was Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes for instance defined free will or he said that a person's freedom consists in no stop in doing what he has the will desire or inclination to do stopping my encyclopedia of philosophy defines combative in the following way says that freedom of the sword is pertinent to moral evaluation is nothing more than an agent's ability to do what she wishes in the absence of impediments that would otherwise stand in her way compatibilism is the view that yes you can't just you can't lose your desires but as long as you're able to act in accordance with your desires you still free this is the intuitive way to think about free will because a lot of people would define free well it's just the ability to do whatever you want well of course you can do whatever you want and it compatible to say that that's all that matters what matters is that whatever it is that you're doing it's determined internally and make me determined you may have no control over that determine deterministic process but as long as the cause is internal to you as long as the course is psychological and comes from you the agent doesn't matter but you are still the author of that action and that's what makes sense well okay so there are a number of problems with this the first is to say that even if you say that you are the origin of the causation of the action that you committed if you're saying that it's determined like who cares where it came from but yeah it may have come from inside you but it could have come from my liver like it doesn't it doesn't actually make a relevant difference the fact that it came from inside of your brain if you didn't choose to make it come from inside of your brain it may as well come from my Victor but secondly there's an important point to be made about the idea of chimera and the reason it's called compatibilism it's because it's the view that determinism the deterministic universe is compatible with freewill so compatibilism assumes determinism it says that it doesn't matter because as long as the forces internal who cares well causation is a chain doesn't have a start and stopping point okay if something is caused internally by your psychology that itself that pause will have been caused by something else that you go back far enough and take you outside of the human mind peter van inwagen hazard has a good a good point on this he brings up the the idea of untouchable facts as he calls them he says that let's say for argument's sake that there is a there is a relevant distinction to be made between between facts that originate from inside of your brain about the universe that are outside of you and he says that untouchable facts are the facts that exist outside the fact that for instance 10 million years ago the atoms in the universe were arranged in X formation that is an untouchable fad and nobody even the people who agree the Free Will exists even the compatibilist nobody would argue that we have any control over that everybody can agree that that's completely out of the picture now what van inwagen says is well if I'm going to show you that there is an untouchable fact here and that there's something else here that happens as a necessary result of the untouchable fact then that result is itself untouchable this is important because it determine is amiss true then it means that your psychological state in a really long winded way goes all the way back to the beginning of the universe so the only reason the things in your brain and things in your psychology and things in your environment are the way they are now it's because of this deterministic process that stretches back to ten million years ago in the atoms were moving in the right direction to create the earth to live longer than that but the earth is created that to create you and to ensure that you would be here thinking the things you're thinking now so trivially then if it's an untouchable fact that the universe was so and so ten million years ago and it's a necessary result of that state of affairs that you are now in the psychological state that you're in doing the things that you're doing and it's an untouchable fact that you're doing these things it's a necessary result compatibilism completely breaks down the only way that the compatibilist can salvage free will is but by redefining free well in a sense that makes it lose all of its meaning by just saying that frequent nothing more than the ability it has hop says to do well I've lost it but into it to be free is to find no stop in doing what he has the will desire or inclination to do so you desire to do something and you have no restriction on doing that well like what are we talking about here if I desire to go and do something and something gets in my way that we call that a restriction it would equally cool it we'd see it as equally unfree if I'm walking down the street and someone pushes me into the road did I choose to go into the road you know I didn't because I was pushed because I was coerced by an external factor what I'm saying is if I choose to step into the street that's due to these psychological conditions that stripped back to the beginning of the universe that I'm typically not in control of so I'm not in control of when my brain decides to force me to step into the street just as I'm not in control as when someone pushes me into this tree and all the compatibilist can do is draw a completely arbitrary distinction between forces that happen outside of the brain it causes that happen inside of the brain that's what they're doing and it doesn't make any sense that's what Daniel Dennett does for instance he's probably the most prolific famous current compatibilist philosopher I reached out to him to come on my podcast and I said would you like to discuss freewill and got back to me instead that what's your video I don't like your definition of free will so no thanks so while that's exactly what I want to discuss because I think definition loses the meaning that the three winner tile so we've got a problem all right if should the moral responsibility in the traditional sentence requires the ability to have done differently if I'd say that you should have done like like a counter principle of alt implies can if I say that you ought to do this then necessarily you have to be able to do it I can't say that you should have done this if it was impossible for you to have done it I can't say that that it's immoral of you I can say that it was wrong in you to be born or it was it was wrong in you to allow some dictator in some faraway country to commit some to not like you you had no control over that obviously the big problem is that if moral responsibility entails the ability to genuinely choose between different options well that choice doesn't exist that's why I think that good in the traditional sense is a delusion because good and bad and should and should not are around it in the ability to choose between actions and that simply doesn't exist so what can we do this is why I think it's important to create a system of ethics they can exist within this framework and can be practically indistinguishable from the traditional sense of morality but can actually be philosophically justified and doesn't require free will it's like I say morality traditionally has completely required free will it's unthinkable that you can say you can talk about morals and shouldn't shouldn't if everybody is just following a course that they not control like how can you possibly hold anyone morally accountable in any meaningful sense well let's try so I want to leave that hanging in the air and I hope that many of you are at the very least now sympathetic to the idea that free will doesn't exist even if even if you're not convinced but again that can come through through QA and subsequent thought but it's one of the things that I'm most convinced of in philosophy is that free will and the traditional libertarian sense simply doesn't exist is that hanging in the air and we'll move to point to and hopefully what's gonna happen is I'm going to bring point two up to the same point when I going to conjoin and the road is straight from there and we'll be able to get to it to it to a fairly intuitive conclusion ahead so point two is about the nature of design because my argument is of course that everything that you do is based on your desires whatever is your chief desire whatever is your strongest desire but you don't get to control that's what you're lacks in accordance with okay so what do we desire obviously we desire many many things or at least it seems that we do I'm going to argue that we've done I know that there's only one thing that in itself is desired and that's a pleasure a pleasure is a difficult thing to define I like to define it along the vein of the Derek Parfit who says essentially pleasure is what is by definition wanted when being experienced just as pain is by definition not wanted when being experienced that's all the pleasure means now when I say that I desire to have a meal or something it's not strictly true than our desire to have a meal I desire the pleasure that I'm going to derive from getting that meal now you might say no no you desire the nutrient well I don't desire the nutrients I desire the pleasure that will come from being well nourished and we have to think about I'm not talking about pleasure in in a trivial fancier pleasure the word itself is is used quite promiscuously I mean pleasure in a very enriched sense of just being what is wanted now or not what does want I could probably just defining I'd say that you desire you desire which is just a tautology but pleasure itself so let's say let's take another example for instance like um if you desire to go for a run it could be a multitude of reasons for this like you could desire the the pleasure that you get from the actual activity of running you could desire the pleasure that you'll get from living a healthy lifestyle whatever it is you don't desire the run itself the only thing that you actually desire is pleasure and everything else that you desire is just a means to get Pleasant - to achieve pleasure now again they run into the bottom where it's like there seem to be we seem to desire things that are like a vegetable now this is the biggest objectives at this point it seems like trivial to suggest that everything you do is just because you want to because but because it brings you pleasure that's just a trivial point today and the trivial objection is well obviously we desire things that aren't pleasurable and there are two to kind of versions of this the first is when we desire something that we know is not pleasurable and we think it will bring us some other benefit so we do it for virtues sake let's say and we know that it's not going to be pleasurable but we desire it anyway the second version of this objection is that we get it wrong we desire something thinking that it's pleasurable but it's actually not well we can we can take both of these both of these in turn the first point in the most difficult point is the the apparent fact that we can desire things that are pleasurable for instance going to the gym we desire to do that even though it's not measurable or virtuous behavior as another example of this when you pick yourself in the line of fire or something like that it seems that you know full well that that's not going to bring you pleasure but you're gonna do it anyway okay well look virtue itself is based in pleasure people derive pleasure from living a virtuous lifestyle and pleasure itself as well is the antithesis of pain pleasure can be thought of in terms of the avoidance pain so if you are one of the most difficult problems for the idea that the pleasure is emitting that desired and this by the way is the view of John Stuart Mill Neil thinks it a step further we'll get to that in a second but he has to make this case to make his utilitarian case because utilitarianism is is based on pleasure just as this effortful framework and he has to make this case and one of the one of the biggest problems that comes to people who who espouse this this utilitarian view is the example such as the soldier jumping on a grenade they're in a room and the grenade comes in through the soldiers throws himself on the grenade to say this his fellow man let's move way that that can maximize his pleasure he's not doing that because it's because of the pleasure that it brings him well yes he is there are a few ways around this the first way around it is to say that it could be acting out of like reflex as a matter of his training if you if you are trained to habitually put yourself in the line of fire then you're doing something out of a matter of habit if I eventually you know fiddle my fingers or lick my nose or something then it is again because of the free world component we can read choose to do that it's not something that we it just kind of happens it's like reflex but that's perhaps too easy okay so let's say that this this solver actually makes the conscious decision he looks the brain thinks I'm gonna throw myself on that grenade well why does he do it because if the because of the verge of doing such it's like knowing that it won't be pleasurable well there are two ways again to to understand the situation of the soldier throwing himself on the grenade and still still having it in terms of pleasure the first is to take Aristotelian view that this soldier is choosing a momentary intense pleasure of a lifetime of dull of a dollar pleasure of living but I think the more sensible way to look at this is it like I say since pleasure can be defined in terms of the outs of pain that soldier as a virtuous human being and that's on a compliment that's a matter of this technology that he doesn't get to choose like he is just a virtue of the person who derives pleasure from being virtuous if you didn't throw himself on that grenade and he lived the rest of his life and guilt that's a pain again pain defined strictly in terms of pleasure and pain in the utilitarian so it's not like a physical pain or of hang or something but the pain of discomfort and the pain of guilt so the question for the soldier when he decides to throw himself is a simple ass I would rather die now than have to live with that pain the guilt of knowing that that's what I should have done no all right he could be totally wrong it could be completely irrational and it probably is from a from a psychological point of view it's probably completely irrational certainly from an evolutionary point of view to throw yourself on that grenade it's absolutely irrational but even if he's irrational about it it's still a matter of fact that in that moment he thinks that if he doesn't do this he'll regret it he derives the pleasure from the virtue and he derives the pleasure back handedly from the avoidance of pain if he decided not to jump on that grenade that he would live the rest of his life in in guilt now it's a it's a complicated issue and I can see why people would have problems with with with the idea that everything you do is ultimately based in pleasure but again it's got it's got a long tradition within philosophy and a lot of people have agreed with this and it's because we're defining pleasure and pain fairly strictly and we are finding ways we're finding examples and examples that seem to contradict the idea that we do things for pleasures sake and we're going through them one by one and just finding out how they can actually be an are actually to the based in pleasure and that's probably the best way to do it so again the best way to try and object to this and discuss this is to just try and come up with counter examples and eventually it just kind of flicks and you see how everything ultimately does come down to pleasure another interesting hypothetical might be for instance if I offered a parent two choices first choice your children are going to be super successful in life but you're going to think that they're not you're living in another country you don't get to contact them and you're going to live your life thinking that they're having an awful life or option B they have a terrible life but you believe that they're having a great life and you can be you can be comforted by the fact that your children having a great life now what what does the parent do in that situation okay this is difficult talking back because I think a lot of parents most parents I would probably I would say I hope but but I suppose it's up to you a lot of parents I think and many that I've asked would say what I would do is I would choose for my children to have a good life and for me to live the rest of my life in pain thinking that they were having a terrible life because I'd rather them actually have a good life this seems to completely contradict the idea that we're only doing things for pleasures sake but again it's not strictly true because with the width the position of omniscience that you grant the parent before this this this situation begins they know what's actually going to happen the reason that they want their children to have a good life is because they do I measure from the knowledge but then children they're going to have a good life and even when you offer them the opportunity to take that better off what your from them and say you're not going to actually experience that pleasure the pleasure in making the right decision in being a virtuous person in that instance when they have to make that decision outweighs the pleasure that they think that we'll see from living a life just thinking that their job they're doing well now again they're probably wrong about this like rationally speaking the best thing you can probably do is let your children have a terrible life and lifteth nuttin happenin like rationally speaking that's what you probably should do but the fact of the matter is that even if they're wrong and even if it's actually not going to maximize their pleasure to make the decision we made they're making it because they think that it will they're making it because in that moment their pleasure will be maximized in that second in that instance by making the virtuous choice so that's kind of part two the second version of the objection that we desired things that we mistakenly think complexion well this is this is fairly trivial in itself like yeah okay so we desire things that we think of measurable but they turned out to be pleasurable this is actually a good way to demonstrate the fact that we don't decide things in themselves but we desire pleasure let's say that you desire a meal but you don't know that that meal is actually poisoned somebody's up to poison you okay so you have that meal and you'll curl up in pain you'll realize that you didn't desire that meal you desired the pleasure that you thought you were going to get from having a nice meal all right and demonstrate it by the fact that you had the meal but now you're poisoned like no desire of yours has actually been fulfilled you didn't you didn't just desire the mirror in the milk selfie desire the pleasure that would drive from it and so when you don't get that pleasure it's like no design have actually been fulfilled so when you when you desire something that you think is pleasurable that is implanted a role you actually don't desire that thing you desire the pleasure that will derive from it sees you still a desiring pleasure even if you desire something that's not variable as a mistake you're still desiring pleasure ultimately and that's why we need to be careful to distinguish distinguish means means from ends now where it is interesting is when we start with these things together but it seems like a really really strange thing to say I know like you can make this whole freewill argument which is like way in the past now and now I'm making this argument about some psychological tendency of human being but what on earth does any of this let's do it morality you can see kind of why the very well thing without it would have a bad implication for morality what's this pleasure thing got to do with it question is can we objectify this notion of desire and pleasure this is what John's doing all tried to do as I said we'd come back to you essentially mill makes the point in chapter 3 of utilitarianism of it but the only we makes like a kind of epistemological point like like how can we trust fact about the natural world how do I know that this microphone stand is visible how do I know that that is actually visible he says the only possible evidence we have and that microphone stand is visible is that we see it that's it that's the only evidence we have and he likewise concludes the only evidence we have that something is desirable that it should be desired is that we do desire it in the same way that the only evidence that we have that something is actually audible as they prepare it the only evidence that something is desirable is that we desire it no this is quite an interesting interesting point I mean like why do we justify the fact that we're going to we're going to say that this microphone sound exists because we can see it and it's visible because we can see it so we're not willing to cross the years all divided in in the same sense when it comes to desirability and being desired and again you've got the point of induction which I brought up earlier we are willing to reason but because this is the case I'm going to reason that this will be the case because it is the case that gravity has consistently worked for all of human history I'm going to trust that it worked in five minutes five it's totally illogical there's no logical validity to that you can't prove that it will work in the future but we have no problem reasoning that so why don't we do the same thing with with with pleasure and desirability why don't we just say that we all desire pleasure by definition so why don't we just say that it's desirable that it should be desired it's the same thing like sure we will subjectively just agree that pleasure is I there's no objectivity to it we just subjectively feel as a matter of opinion that pleasure is good like we think layer is good well we all think that our senses work they all will think that the sun's gonna rise tomorrow nobody knows it but because we all agree and everybody agrees that induction is accurate everybody just subjectively agrees and that they can trust their senses they just feel that i recomment sit and so we say that it is better gravity will work in five minutes and the Sun will rise tomorrow wanted me to do the same thing whips with pleasure desirability we all agree the pleasure is good in the sense that we've defined it so let me just say that it is no but you can do this if you want and I don't think it's unreasonable to do so and this is one of the points where this is one of the sticking points for the Steven with me it was like Alex why are you allowing yourself to base empiricism and your senses and science and all of this on just the subjective notion that you're fit your senses are giving you correct information you're just not William six anything from your husband's and yes it's a good point it is an inconsistency and so it's it's not going up sympathetic to to just objectify the ethics in that sense but that would be key to me he said to have you all here until you say well we may as well objectified yet it's no I I want to offer another alternative which is a way to objectify ethics without crossing the ezreal divide without passing from is to will be without crossing from today to tomorrow without crossing thing is to walk we're going to stay in the realm of is and we're gonna get something that's practically in the same with you indistinguishable from ethics so how does this work well let's go through the steps so so okay what are we trying to determine here you do action X whatever it may be and we want to determine is that action right or wrong as ethics right and wrong behavior right and wrong action you do X are you right or wrong so why have you done X well we know from the arguments that we just before word that you're doing X because you think it will maximize your pleasure as a matter of fact like I know the reason you are doing this is because you think it will maximize your pleasure like necessarily because the free well argument states you only do what you or you are determined by your desires the pleasure argument says that your that you ultimately can only desire pleasure in itself so I know that anytime you do anything you think even if you don't realize it that that's going to maximize your pleasure pleasure is a state of consciousness it's measurable you are either right or wrong as a matter of objective fact as to whether that will maximize your pleasure or not this is the point that Sam Harris makes that its objective we we can know whether or not something maximizes pleasure or whether it's actually going to bring you more pain you just take that extra step to say that and we should desire pleasure that's that that's the jump that people have trouble with this like again nobody has a problem they're saying that there are there are facts to be known about state of the brain there are there are facts to be known about pleasure and pain what we're saying is why should we chase pleasure why should we avoid pain that's the job that I'm trying to avoid it so if it's the case that you are doing something though that that you doing something necessarily indicates that you believe something about the natural world which it does because you're doing an action in asesor Tate's that you believe that that action will maximize your pleasure then that action indicates a belief that you hold that is objectively either correct or incorrect and more than this you believe that in such a way that if you're wrong if you do an action necessarily that means that you think or maximize your pleasure if you're wrong about that then it won't maximize your pleasure the only way that you can correct your belief is in such a way that would make you act differently because if you corrected your belief about the map of the world and you realize actually this isn't going to maximize my pleasure this is going to maximize my pleasure there necessarily because you're determined by the desire desire pleasure you will do this you must do option two so every time you commit an action you are necessarily indicating a belief that you hold that is either right or wrong in such a way that can only be rectified by acting differently this is practically indistinguishable from ethics but what we have here is not a situation where I'm saying certain actions are right or wrong so you can do something I can't say that that thing itself was wrong what I can say is you doing this indicates a belief that you hold that is wrong that can only be rectified to be objectively true in such a way that would require you to change your action because if I did rectify that and I showed you what was true that this is going to maximize your pleasure then you would have to do that so this is indistinguishable from ethics it's a lot winded way of doing it it's kind of like an agent-based ethical theory I'm not talking about the actions are talking about the person a native a second theories have again a long philosophical tradition but not quite in in this sense because you'll notice that we we are staying in the is category what I'm saying is that it is the case that you doing this action means that you think it will maximize your pleasure and it is the case that you are wrong about that and it is the case that if I corrected you and you believed and then you believed me and you became correct yourself you would have to differently you're wrong in such a way that can only be rectified by you acting different that is indistinguishable to me from saying what you're doing is wrong change it but you don't have to involve any kind of odd you don't have to involve any kind of it stays in the realm of objectivity and scientific in empiricism take an example rape is wrong okay so something rapes they do it because they think it will maximise their pleasure necessarily as a belief that they hold and it's again it's necessarily indicated by the and that's that why I had to press the free ballpoint that's why I had to press the pleasure point because we can now know if somebody does this crime we know as a matter of fact but because they are determined by their desires or because they can only desire pleasure they must think that that's going to maximize their pleasure no I think that that person who commits the rape is wrong objectively wrong in the sense that as their social species your pleasure will actually be maximized if you don't break like I believe that to be the case and if I and and I think that's an objective fact now I could be right or wrong about that like like in in practice but in principle there is a right answer to that question that we can scientifically objectively determine in principle if not in practice whether or not a certain action is actually going to maximize for bad but so if you commit a rape and I say I think you're wrong because I know that that means that you think is going to maximize your pleasure but actually that won't maximize your pleasurable or maximize your pleasure essence for a social species is not raping then in order for them to correct that belief it would necessitate them changing their action again this there's no should involve it so again it's important to note that that we could be wrong about this like I'm not I'm not making a point to say that because of the arguments I've construed we can know whenever you commit an action if you're doing if you are right or wrong because we might not actually be able to work out what's actually going to maximize pleasure like it might be it's difficult to measure that the point of the brain that the fact of the matter is that there is a correct answer the unit we can't yet get to it because up with sort of technologically limited whenever that answer does exist and it when it is a matter of objectivity so whiteness lies not in the act it's not the action you're doing is right or wrong is that the action indicates a belief you hold that right or wrong in such a way that if you're wrong you can only become right in a way that will make you act differently so what about language how can I say like without crossing the ears or divide I still want to be able to use ethical language like should it's useful right so how can we do this how can we make it truly indistinguishable well what do we mean by should I don't you mean by should but when I say that you should do something I tend to mean is something along the lines of no if you could see things the way that I saw them you would I say you yeah you should do and help that person across the street it's like man if you could see things the way I'm seeing them right now you go and help that person off the street now if I say to this rapist you shouldn't do that what I mean it's like you could see things the way I saw them you wouldn't do that that's a fact because if that person saw as I see that this action will not maximize their pleasure and by definition they wouldn't do it so I say you should do this I mean if you saw how I store it you would do this that's a fact and we haven't crossed any is walk divide in the traditional sense we are still within the realm of is when I say if you press that button the car should stop what I mean is according to my understanding of the natural facts of the universe and the laws of physics have the state of affairs who saves us right now when you press that button the car will stop I say the word should to indicate the fact that I could be mistaken when I say that you should do this action and I say you should give to charity I mean that according to my understanding of the natural facts of the world and how things are in the state of affairs including the psychological state of your brain you would like according it like if you saw it the way that I support you would I say you should do this in the same way that when I say if you press the button the car should stop I mean I think that it will stop when I say you should do this I mean I think that would do this if you talk the way that I select which you would and that's a matter of fact however there are some objections like what if this leads us to uncomfortable pollutions what if it is conclusions what if it is just the fact that genuinely we do derive like there is a person who would genuinely derive pleasure from committing an evil act they not committing me black what does that we just find that is actually the case well unfortunately like that would be an unfortunate conclusion but the fact is if it is true that this unfortunate conclusion would actually maximize their pleasure then because of the free will argument they have no choice but to do it anyway so it doesn't there's nothing that we could we could rectify in any sense we wouldn't be able to do anything about it so it's not worth worrying about in the sense that if the problem ever arose if it arose and such it arise in such a way that we couldn't do anything about now some people would just accuse me of just rehashing the case of forehead in ism like that the utilitarian guess that pleasure is the basis of morality like wow big shocker right but never because again I'm not crossing this is all divided I'm not saying that because we desire pleasure is therefore desirable I'm saying we desire pleasure and I know that all of your action indicates belief that you hold about what will maximize pleasure and you can be right or wrong about that there's no should involved the only other point you can make against this is another kind of meta ethical case which is to say let's say that you're someone who does believe that there is such thing as objective good and bad I can divine right or something divine code what happens if our desires are inaccurate what if we desire what is bad what if pleasure is bad according to whatever objective definition of good and bad you come up well once again fact of the matter is even if we desire things that are bad the fact that we desire that means that we have to do them as a matter of different at the free will argument so I'm afraid there's just that there is just no way around that but if we all desire pleasure which we do then that has to be the basis and motivation for our actual and we can talk about right or wrong in terms of pleasure in terms of the facts about pleasure but if we're wrong about that and so kind of meta reticles sense like there's nothing we can do about that it's impossible because we have to be determined by the desires but also it doesn't matter it really doesn't matter because we all subjectively agree that there is good so if we act in accordance with that no one's gonna be bothered so finally it's worth pointing out that this actually applies to not just immoral things like helping person across the street book every family but any action if you take a sip of water because you think that in that instance it's going to maximize your pleasure you're either right or wrong about that like you can talk about this right or wrong isn't in terms of any action you do you open a car door when you start with your right foot first and cellular first whatever it is because this is conscious action driven by your desires and your desires are always linked to pleasure you can say of any action that is indicated rightness or wrongness this might seem like it's not abnormal look it's not at this this talk is the closest we can get to others because yeah it applies to all instances of action but it includes the moral ones and who can smell like if you open a door like your pears have it maximizes your pleasure like your cares of that indicates of relief you're right or wrong about like that no one cares I even look now if you want to but no big deal but if you commit a moral act as political leader needs to make the decision you need to make a moral decision if you need to choose how to bring up your children something something about sort and we do care and that's when we make the calculations and that's when we try to work out what will actually maximize our pleasure and we can objectively say that that makes you right wrong you could be right or wrong about anything for the own sense that we're gonna care is when that applies who will be traditionally thought of as moral good don't you've got this traditional perception of good and bad which is a delusional because it requires the ability to do that to do otherwise which isn't that simply not there that doctor tradition of GU and should is a complete illusion but we can use the same language and mean something that is practically indistinguishable and yet have it grounded in an objective basis that not only doesn't require freewill but requires the freewill does not exist so when people have an existential pantsed when when you bring up the freewill thing and then they suddenly realize like my god morality has collapsed well no it hasn't you can keep doing things exactly the way you were doing before use the same language you using before they condemn the same things you were condemning before say that the same things you thought were good and bad are still good and bad but you just justified differently I said when I said at the beginning of this talk one of the big problems of ethics is that people will have the same conclusions but that's not the interesting part the interesting part and whether disagreements lies in the justifications or here's your justification that solves that problem doesn't matter why someone else believes it if you both agree the murder is wrong they believe that because God tells them and you believe it because of this ethical framework what doesn't matter practically it's fine but you can kind of rest assured knowing that you can justify that opinion you can justify that decision it has an objective fact without having to cross deal or is divided and without having to have some delusory concept a free one so I think giving them beginning to run out time I'd like to open it up should there be any questions okay as usual we get to have a mic now so Dean has got a mic and yeah take me I think this is so we can come to charity I just helped a microphone in front of your mouth you in position I just want to go back to a point you made about the line that compatible lists draw between things that are determined outside of an individual and things that are determined internally I would dispute that the line drawn there is arbitrary because even though I agree with you that a libertarian aspect of free world doesn't exist I think that when things are determined psychologically it does create the illusion of pretty well and in regards to ethics like the that illusion existing is probably more useful because you I'm not sure I'm going to be able to phrase this very well so if you I hope you pick up at what I'm saying but 7 you mentioned when you were talking about the use of language such as should it was sort of shorthand for if you sort things my way you should do this typically I would argue it's probably easier to influence people's views to see things similar to help you do if they do have the illusion of free will who's going back to the example of forcing something to rob rob bank at gunpoint even though obviously they would have the desire to rob and to avoid being shot eat perhaps wouldn't be as strong as their desire to find a way out of this situation where they can incapacitate the government not have to deal either getting shot sorry so I think you make a point about whether it's it's more useful to allow people to have this illusion of free will because all to have the solution of free will yourself because of the fact that that can that can be easier to make people make moral decisions is that I think so I do think that people would be more willing to make particular choices they believe or have some notion of them being in control right okay so so so would you mind that would be useful what I understand what you're saying is that the line that's drawn isn't arbitrary but because of the fact that when things aren't internally determined although they are determined and philosophically we can recognize that we don't have control those the action that we feel like we have control it and that's an illusion and if people have that illusion then it becomes easier to think of themselves as moral agents well there are two points to make there the first is that like that may be true it may also be true for instance that belief in God benefits Society I don't believe this but if that were true I wouldn't change the fact that I that I'm not convinced that God exists it's kind of it's two separate questions so my job here and what I'm trying to do is is to express to you what I believe to be true now you might come back and say well that's not a useful thing to believe and you might be right but that doesn't affect the the truth value of what I'm saying so in the same way that if I gave it talk trying to convince people to philosophically speaking I'm convinced that there's no good reason to believe that there's a God and someone turns around and says well isn't it more useful to have the solution I've got not just for other people but for yourself as well like maybe I mean that's not what I'm talking about I'm just we all want to think it's true it's up to you to decide what you think is most useful what I am saying is that if you do think it's more useful to have the illusion of free will you can't have that illusion if you're convinced the free will doesn't exist if you're convinced that again if ironically and because of the back of free will doesn't exist if something convinces you that free will doesn't exist you can't just choose to keep the illusion like you will just be convinced that free will does not exist the point of this is to say that if you think it's more useful to believe in free world part of the reason for that is probably because if there is no free will you think there's no real way to talk about ethics I'm saying that I'm trying to give away to to get rid of them to make it such that it's not impact it doesn't need to be more you to have the illusion of free will because I'm I can construct a case where free world doesn't exist in yet we talk about ethical responsibility so even if it is the case even if it's been previously the case that it's more useful to have the illusion of free will for moral agency I'm trying to make the case that actually that's that's not from because you can you can have an ethical case that doesn't require very well but equally I think the main response to that is to say that you may be completely right it may be more useful to help evolution but that doesn't that doesn't change whether it's whether it's true or not and also the distinction if the distinction is not arbitrary between internal and external causation is only non arbitrary in the sense of it being an experience delusion it's still arbitrary in the sense of moral responsibility but if an internal causation does give you an illusion where an external causation doesn't then yeah there is it there is a meaningful difference there but it's not meaningful in an ethical sense because if there were there were two external causes one of which caused someone to believe that they were choosing to commit a crime and one of which poor someone to just commit the crime we'd say in both cases like they're not morally responsible because it was determined by something external just take one of those and put it into the whole ethically the situation doesn't change the only thing that changes is whether or not a person believes they're doing it their own accord a lot but they're still not and so they still can't be filosophy held responsible so it only makes a relevant difference in terms of experience and all in terms of actual moral responsibility okay I've got a few hands go yeah let's go to Estelle Torn you had your hand up as well but my stop first thank you I just felt originally that reason played the back seats all the time this desire and desire desire and if one has a little bit more reason maybe that will give the idea that you some thinking before you just jump to do something what happens of course and then the other thing was huge about you people have challenged and said that all implies can yes so two points to make that firstly do you desire to be reasonable no I just do what I have to do at the time you do do what you have to do you do what you have to do yes and you do that because you desire to do it no not necessary I'm probably forcing myself to do it okay so what do you mean by forcing yourself sorry what do you mean by forcing yourself well there's some things you've just got to get done you can't live your life just trying to be happy and pleasure and all that sort of thing you have it's gonna come along somewhere but Duty say it's there as well and if I have a duty to do then I will do that okay why because it will make me feel I've done what I wanted to do but not mister for pleasure it's not necessary for pleasure there so pleasure is simply defined as in an intuitive sense if you're doing something because you want to do it like like it's it's bringing you pleasure you you derive pleasure from the knowledge that you're doing your duty you derive pleasure from the fact that you're that you're doing on spirits well maybe pleasure is the word that's making these things all difficult yes I could get comfort from doing something else you have done a while back but I can't do it yeah I'm not happy do this I might still be quite person myself good evening of so long but conference it's a better word than nature perhaps and you use whatever terminology is unit I would I would simply say that the pleasure that you still derive pleasure from the comfort the comfort is not the end in itself comfort comfort is not the only reason that we strive for comfort is because comfort is enjoyable because comfort brings us that pleasure of enjoyment but you may be right like it may be again more useful to use different terminology but as long as we both understand what we mean by pleasure which I think we more or less do at least now like you may be right terminology may be not particularly useful but again the point still remains the same and if the term was good enough for me then it's good enough for me and of course this proved very interesting in the court cases and the legal stuff so they recognized they had to have some sort of punishment for people there were things and then all this became not as important but it's a pretty good method of discussion and a sector and just on the human people have disputed Humes his or distinction that the distinct that the controversy is not so you seem to suggest that the Walton flies can which is a principle that comes from Immanuel Kant joy Larry it's somebody sit yes sir so these are actually two separate issues so all implies pan is not a response to this or distinction it would be more something like what implies is that would be a that would be a response it would be a nonsense nonsense corresponds but if you had some conception that all implies is and yeah that would that would contradict the idea that then there's gonna be no cross between us at all but you can't say oh people or to fire if they can't write yes so water implies can is tree and set that's not incompatible with the is all problem so the whole point is that because aught implies can if there is no free will and in the libertarian sense then because you had to do whatever option you chose that's what we mean by there being no free will you have to do option and you couldn't have done option B we can't say you ought to have done option B because aught implies can and you couldn't do B then we can't say you want to do it so it's perfectly compatible and all employed can exist in a different conversation to the easel still I'm just wondering if we can let other people have a chance okay okay thanks yeah John did you did you have your hand up no okay let's come to Peter for the person sitting next to Peter I just wanted to know if you believe that there is no such thing as a selfless act mmm because in the in the instance about the soldier you're throwing himself so in is there no such thing as bravery over so because he doesn't have time to the fact that you said that he doesn't have time to think could be to do with his training but it could also be that he doesn't have time to have a negative thought so he he's driven to a positive action possibly because he's just wants to do that I think yeah so I don't think there's such a thing as a selfless act in in strict terms that is to say I don't think that it's possible to do something consciously that doesn't benefit you in some way and we can explore that but so you say like the soldier could be doing it out of bravery well again why me brave there there is a certain enjoyment that it's derived from the knowledge that you are acting virtuously in the quarter to the bravery so there is no such thing as a selfless act I don't think so and I can demonstrate it perhaps with the following thought experiment and smile work hasn't worked for everybody but it is worth reflecting on I wish I could tell you where it came from for me working from some conversation and in a puff with a physics and philosophy student before studying at university we were just talking and out of nowhere comes the question would you rather kill an innocent person and then immediately forget about it or not kill an innocent person but live the rest of your life thinking that you had just think about that person what do you think you would rather do now the immediate response is obviously I'd rather I'd rather let the person live or I'll take the hit like no nobody in their right mind is really taking that they're taking about no okay you might do I would argue that it would be irrational to do so and I think that if you are honest with yourself again not able to agree with this if you're honest with yourself I think or an issue you can at least sympathise with the people who would say that actually like I'd have to live the rest of my life not thinking at guilt sinister person I couldn't live with that guilt and if you do agree with that I think that demonstrates the fact that there really is no such thing as I stopped listening because that would be an example of a selfless out the selfish act would be choosing to allow that innocent person to live but live the rest of your life of thinking that you've murdered them assuming that you're a moral person who would get some guilt from from thinking that you killed them so if you think so that would be an example of a self without but I would even wager that even if you chose to do that even if you really said no and you start with as I said mind doing that I still say that that's because when you're making this decision you have the knowledge of whole situation and you're going to take pleasure from the fact that you're acting virtuously by making that decision if if you see what I'm saying what about the rights of what about you you don't have a horizon to take another person yes so so milk mill does this very well in utilitarianism that is a final chapter because justice and the issue of Rights is is such an important seemingly like difficult to contradict notion to the idea of utilitarianism that than other pleasure base moral theories that he devotes an entire chapter to justice and Watson and he essentially includes and I'm sympathetic to this argument the rights themselves are based in pleasure now it may be the case that this is the common common arguments against utilitarianism and they can apply to this epical framework as well it's all of our pleasure are things like there might be an instance where it is genuinely more pleasurable for someone to commit a bad act like there's the example of the of the the organ transplant Bush themself you'll be familiar with where as this there are five people who all need an organ transplant desperately and they're all on the brink of death and in walks someone to the hospital to get a chapter for a cold just as it happens he has a perfect match for the organs should we just own that man give the organ transplants let the five people if it increases the overall pleasure like people would say no the only way that you can say that you can't kill that person for the organs is because that person has a right to life it seems to contradict the pleasure notion well not entirely because we have to see it in the context of a situation whereby if people knew that when they walked into a hospital there was a possibility that they might get pulled down and cut open for their for their guards they're not living a very pleasurable life so Segal pleasure is actually maximized by allowing a system of rights which may in individual instances not maximize your pleasure but overall will maximize your pleasure so you're still doing what you think will maximize your pleasure that is setting up a system of rights that will ensure that you can live comfortably and know that your rights will be protected even if there are certain instances where it means you have to staying from from British restriction someone else's rights in a way that would bring you more pleasure because overall the system of Rights brings more pleasure to every bit let's try and get some more questions in if we can I think I'm going to extend this a little more maybe another ten minutes if your does a number of people want to still get so yeah let's get to Dan next that will go to Aaron Ben Simon if you could have a procedure where the set of things the bringing pleasure were changed in some way do you think that you would still be the same person if all of the memories were the same interesting if you see me like I would derive pleasure from different taste in music or different types of fuses it could be different if the music perhaps things that lead you to make different moral decisions oh that's interesting I think I think people are more or less defined by their actions I think people are are defined by what they do and I think that that who a person is it is practically synonymous with with their history of behavior so I think it would it would change that the person that you are personal identity it's a big it's a confusing topic and whatever it is that makes you you I think you can choose whatever criteria you want it to decide what makes a person a person but you can just frame the questioners like if a friend of yours was was hit in the head by a rock and it caused some weird psychological activity and they woke up the next day and all their desires had like changed but their design unchanged is suicide pleasure but they think they'll get the pleasure from other things or they will do some food changes and we're behaving changes are they still the same person like maybe maybe not I probably still consider them the same person I think I think I would consider than the same person I think that there's more than into a more than that gives in to a person or more makes a better person what brings them pleasure but but an interesting thing to know is that nothing could change what it is that they actually desire the only thing that could change is the means that they use to bring about the pleasure the fact that they desire pleasure itself would never change without think about I want to think but I think I might come down on the side of saying that yeah that the same person but like it depends how differently they're acting like if somebody if if my brother had a change of heart or a stroke or something just started acting completely differently I might use terminology like it's just not the same person anymore and you can you can take that to mean to me what you will like you still the same person physically but it makes sense to see the mr. different identity yeah let's let's move on if we can let's go to end next thank you I think it's quite nice today that my desire and retention are taken from not eating vegetables it's a good thing after all the question is if winner might quote life beyond 200 people we got 110 people in there and we're going along and there's 50 people in water the virtual thing the virtuous thing what we turn to rescue them all but which seeks the boat what do we do it's a virtuous thing in that innocence wouldn't then be to to save the finding like imagine you're in a boat on your own and there are hundred and fifty people this is 149 in the water and 100 people what's the virtuous thing to do it's to pick up 99 people the virtuous thing to do isn't to pick up everyone without seeing the boat and everyone would die the virtuous thing to do is to pick up the 99 people and show that you have maximized the saving lives and you've maximized the pleasure there so in an instance where you're going past and there are a hundred and fifty people and their people in water like morally speaking that is kind of arbitrary which people are in the boat which are outside of the boat like they all presumably if we presume innocent that there's none of the like murderers or rapists or anything like that then yeah it becomes arbitrary in which case the virtuous thing to do is probably to just sail by because of the fact that the thing that nudges it slightly in favor that the people who are already in the boat is again this culture of right we were if so we get to stay here but that's only that's only a very slight thing that because it's completely arbitrary which comes with which people observing it the life that enough to notion in that direction but it's it's virtually it's perfect was just just cell like it's just about the maximization if there's a let's just come to Simon and then I think I'm just gonna take two more yes your hand and then Peter and I think we all have to do things to a close a couple of questions file from Stockton with lady miss Dell they look like in the blue sweater can you allow that any action can not be pleasurable given that how you designed pleasure I mean people would have various examples you to know there is a pleasure really there even say these and miss regardless of pleasure often even jumpy on the grenade is regardless pleasure because you found some ingenious way to say that that that's massive you would allow where pleasure an action would not be maximizing your pleasure not if you consciously do it that's the point of the freewill iseman is that whatever you do necessarily indicate that it won't that you think you will maximize your pleasure now the important point to note is that you could be wrong about it so when the soldier jumps on the grenade is like yeah okay so I've made an ointment of that space and pleasure I'm not saying that the soldier will derive no pleasure from jumping on the grenade I'm saying that the soldier thinks he'll derive more pleasure even if just subconsciously so so there are behaviors that you can make that work so for instance if you if you choose to take a shortcut when you're driving you do so because you think it's going to maximize your pleasure in terms of get into the place on time whatever turns out you're taking a wrong turn you've got it wrong absolutely minimize your pleasure you've just done something that has a maximize your pleasure by there's regard but you can't do something thinking that it will minimize your pleasure unless you think it will minimize your pleasure at the expense of another virtue like virtue itself or bravery or whatever it may be which itself isn't just kind of a backhanded version version of pleasure sir well that's my difficulty the deep [Music] du appears to be pleasure or virtually disregard minimizing the use of language so you can't say well that was selfless that was selfless no it was just selfish because it was maximizing his pleasure many many other instances where basic your taking away the language which people find extremely helpful to use and saying well everything you do is is selfish yeah your theory all its regular you Eve unless you're going to in part two you're going to show us what is the cheats already done is is reduced language to what you've impoverished on language so what we've done is there is a there is a redefinition a second place I think with words like should be presence I'm trying to get people to understand the word shouldn't in it in a different line but the aim of the end of the talk me in with the theory isn't to isn't to do with isn't a big language mean language incredibly philosophy but you can adapt language however you like and I think that words like should and was like selfless can be understood in this framework if we just give them a caveat and understand that when I say that that was a selfless act but what I mean by that is an act and act that appears selfless and the traditional libertarian sense would be what would appear to be to be selfless you think silly that I worked with the point of the talk you say that one all that's achieved is is that is an impoverishment of the language well what I'm trying to achieve here is a meta ethical objective basis for justifying conceptions of morality in a world with no very well the point is that there are many people who are increasingly becoming convinced that free will doesn't exist sorry about that again by the way and it leaves you with a big problem for morality and all I'm doing here is saying actually if you do believe that there's no free will you can construct an ethical framework that works objectively despite that fact and if you disagree if you think the free will does exists if you think that there are things that you desire that are pleasurable if you think you can do things that you don't actually desire to do and all this kind of stuff then then you can you can think that and you can keep using that language you can keep talking in those terms what I'm gonna say is that philosophically it just has no grounding continue to note if you wish to try and keep as brief as possible Johan and then Peter and then we will have a refreshment break you'll be pleased to know yeah I'm just wondering what are the implications on the criminal justice systems if a criminal pleads insanity and and it's accepted it will be one punishment and if they're done it in full conscience with conscience then they will have more severe punishment yes so criminal justice system might not need to change practically because I I don't know what what in practice will actually minimize suffering and pain and obviously that's kind of the the aim now as the sonics expanded I think that that is the aim that is the goal this is to do with with pleasure and pain so I don't know practically needs change but it certainly needs to change his outlook which is criminal justice I don't think as if we say there's no a free world and it simply can't be seen in an in a retributive centers we can't see someone being thrown in jail as yeah we've done that because they deserve it you know I remember I think it was when when Larry Nassau was was sentenced and there was this judge and she when she was delivering the sentence she did it in I think she she took his appeal or something and physically threw it like like away and it went viral it means looking everyone was like yes yes and I was just appalled and up this is normal criminal justice should be Vil not here to say that you deserve to rot in prison throw away or appeal go and go and go rot away it's it's a prat and spawning criminal justice system should exist to deter people from committing crimes and to prevent dangerous criminals from committing crimes now we have to change the way that we think about it in the sense that if somebody were to murder my mother philosophically it seems odd to say I really don't a sparker I'll never discussing with this firm the best I could build with that person is sorrowful I have to feel sorry for that person I'm just a victim of their circumstance and in choose to be in a psychological state and have been brought up in such an environment and half of genetics that predispose them into committing this crime didn't choose any of that it's not their fault and now they have to go to jail because we have to prevent them from from learning other people and they have to make sure that other people will be deterred from from committing those crimes but it's a tragedy that that person has to it has to go through the suffering of prison because they did something that they have no control over but we do have to do it but I think we need to see it in the light of you've committed this awful act it's not because you deserve it's not good you deserve that with rain you gel you deserve it in a sense of in a sense of its what must be done it's your view but it doesn't need to change his outlook now like I say it could practically stay the same like in terms of the sentencing lengths and what Prime's a sentence and what their sentence or and how much of a kind of insanity I kept looking up coming to it whatever like that that may be able to say all the same but what needs to change is that the justification we're getting again like with the ethical theory the conclusions are just the same that's the whole point of this is that yes we can come to you don't murder don't steal you'll be in thrown in jail and you do this but you can say exactly the same thing anything that I'm trying to provide is the justification that the criminal justice system can stay the same the justification the putting people in jail needs to needs to change okay thank you really engaging talk I'm so glad I came thanks very much and there's half a dozen points on which I'd like to interrogate you further I'll just throw a couple up and towards the end you gave the example of a rape situation where you could say if you saw the world as I do then you would not do that and that's a kind of objective sort of state yet I was imagining you saying that two genders come and I could imagine him coming back with exactly the same retort and if he had some sort of ability to see the future he would know that millions of people in Asia now carry his genes so if his aim was to be genetically successful then he would clearly say that factually your perspective was misguided but that's just an aside I think I wanted to kind of share with you it was I could a sense that you would don't play the value and role of habit in moral behavior I know we know that one line of Aristotle's thinking was that you develop character if you want people to behave in a moral way then it's a process of character development and that also connects them with training and with habit so many reactions that we do are performed out and habit now you might say well I'm only talking about conscious actions nevertheless we can consciously decide to cultivate the habit and I think that's what Aristotle was talking about yeah so is and have been true that has been consciously prepared forward through training does that fall within your notion of a conscious action or is it uncle just because you've seen this and said that there's an important distinction that needs to be made there you say that like habitual actions can be said to be account of our control because they're visual that's one that's what it means my definition but you can you can choose to cultivate the habit well those are two separate things there's there's the choice to cultivate the habit and there's the enactment upon the habit itself so Eric Aristotle's point is that like by practicing virtuous behavior you become virtuous so the choice that you make is to start cultivating the virtues once those virtues become habitual for you you aren't just a virtuous person you don't need to cultivate that you will just do it I have it so when you cultivate the habit that's a choice that you make in the tradition upsets if you know what I mean and once it becomes a habit then the enactment of on specific instances of the habit can be defined enough in terms of habit so that the conscious action part of that is instilling the habit but their habit itself and the individual instances of the habit curve are not conscious and not conscious in a meaningful sense event we could discuss it human subsystems and so on well thank you very much but also just on the phone again bees currently one of us is right one of us is wrong like it as a matter of fact partial grasp of their tools or worse is like it want one either either him doing that but we're not doing that was going to maximize it blended like is there as a fact and one of us is right or wrong happen points the one that I'm trying to make is that we don't have to actually know which of us is right or wrong to know that there is a right answer that's what I'm trying to do when you get to grounding fully captured with dichotomies which it may not what you may not be able to think in the case of pleasures of thinkin it probably is yeah that's one last quick question familiar is this an original serie so it's I see it as an amalgamation of psychological utilitarianism and freewill philosophy these were two things that I was that I was thinking about separately in an incomplete set of spheres I spend a lot of time thinking about freewill monster obviously not my own there's a long tradition of talking about free world with Hobson human and Bertrand Russell and Erica's people talked about and just engage with that without literature and became history wasn't the best and that gave me a kind of moral accidental panic but separately from that I was studying utilitarianism and specifically Mills vegetarianism and I became fairly convinced of his arguments surrounding pleasure and then hellenism in the psychological aspect I didn't agree with him jumping leas all to buy that I agreed with the psychological head on ISM the idea that you only do but that you only desire pleasure I just didn't put them together that's all that's all I'm really doing is it's not an original theory in the sense that the components are then endlessly discussed but I think that the teachers think you just need to be put together and then to allow for a redefinition of terms like should in light of that I think that that's simple coming together is enough to completely change the way that think about it it's what happened to me I was brushing my teeth one day and I just I don't know what it was suddenly I realized that these fit together yeah and I just step out the buter started writing and I've been writing for months and months and months since that original like hold on you only desire what's pleasurable you only do what you desire and you only desire pleasure it just suddenly just clipped and it was just playing together it's not its original in innocence okay well I'm going to call this new serie of this conjunctive Sarah Connor ISM this was a unique event youth here first of all endorse of humanists so will you please [Applause]

Channel: CosmicSkeptic

Views: 66,880

Keywords: Alex O'Connor, cosmic, skeptic, cosmicskeptic, atheism, ethics, morality, the good delusion, dorset, humanists, talk, objective, subjective, objectivity, subjectivity, objectivism, subjectivism, audience, qna

Id: htdDaHAhR-s

Length: 102min 22sec (6142 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2019