welcome to the rational egoist I’m your host Michael libowitz and here today to debate me on the nature of Rights is a
Libertarian theorist writer and patent attorney Stephan canel welcome back to
the show hey thanks glad to be here so if we’re g to debate rights I think we
have to settle on a definition and I know you’re a stickler for using words meticulously and I that’s something I
really respect about you so how would you go about defining
rights what’s a in a definition that we can agree on it’s really it’s really
difficult to be honest um there’s different ways of of getting
to this issue so people like one common way is to say um a right is a
claim okay they’ll say that but the problem is you have that’s just another definition by another term right um the
way I think about rights and this is a little bit legalistic and there’s lots of legal theorists who have various
technical like Wesley held and Kelson these guys they have different ways of
breaking down types of Rights and all these things um I think of a right so
first of all right is a normative thing it’s not a factual thing so I do think
that we can make a distinction a conceptual distinction between normative claims and factual claims and by by that
I mean and and maybe some Rand would oppose this dualism or whatever but I
think that when I think Hume was right when he made the criticism of many
natural law or M natural rights arguments that you you make a you make
an assertion about the world the fact a factual assertion and then you just all of a sudden jump to a should statement
or an ought statement which is normative right um without recognizing that you
need to do some work to justify going from Facts to Norms because there’s there’s a gulf there there’s a
difference um so I think of a right as a a type of normative
claim and by normative I mean like a moral or an ethical claim something about shoulds and what we should do and
so I think of it a subset of of a broader class of normative claims um and
if you just think about morality in general like a code of morals or
ethics we talk about what you should do what you shouldn’t do right what you ought to do what you ought not do um and
either that’s implicitly hypothetical because it’s based upon a presupposed
goal like if you want to live a good life then you should do this or it’s
categorical in the conent sense of you ought to do this because of your nature
something like that right so that’s how people think about these terms but the point is it’s it’s a normative thing it’s a prescript it’s a prescription not
a description so if I tell you about the law of gravity or the way you build a road or the way you you know um cook a
recipe it’s all in the realm of causality and causal laws you’re
describing the way the world is in a factual sense but if I tell you how you should behave as a human being in a
social context um you I’m telling you what you should do you shouldn’t be a bad friend
you shouldn’t be dishonest um so these Norms have to do
with prescription and and the other thing to notice is um when when you when you say that
you should do this you shouldn’t do this or we’re talking about moral or ethical or normative
laws when we say when we say law we mean a rule that says here’s how you should
act in a certain in a certain situation um that’s distinct from causal laws because
causal laws are not like choice-based like we’re not saying that gravity has a choice to be other than what it is right
we’re saying that it just is and we’ve noticed this and we can we can we can base our behavior on that but when you
give someone advice about how you should act you’re telling them they should choose A over B right so that’s why the
normative law so when we talk about a moral law we mean it’s a recommendation
as to what you can do do but there’s an implicit recog there’s implicit recognition that that you don’t have to do it like
there’s nothing forcing you to do it like like so I can’t choose to violate the law of gravity it is a law it is
true it’s a cause of Law and if I disregard it I will just Plum it to my death if I walk off of a building and
don’t recognize it that it’s real right um so it’s it’s my agreement with
whether the law of gravity is real or not that’s causal law is irrelevant because it’s going
to apply no matter what but normative laws have this this teleological or this
uh this Choice aspect or this decision aspect so it’s possible for me to violate a law of morality I can choose
to be immoral I can choose to do something wrong I can’t choose to violate the law
of gravity so so that is one distinction between the way we as human beings and
in comprehending the world we live in which is a blend of the factual and the
normative it’s a way we understand our complex social situation right so given
that background of how I look at it I think a right is a certain special type
of Norm so so there are regular Norms like uh common advice or common wisdom
you should be honest you should be Thrifty you should be a decent person what
whatever but there’s a sort of a subset of this which has to do with interpersonal relations in fact um a lot
of morals are not interpersonal at all right like if cruso is alone on a desert
island uh I would say that morality applies to what he does like he should be Thrifty he should be prudent he
shouldn’t be lazy he should prepare for the future even though he’s the only guy
that exists right none of those are interpersonal Norms but if another person was there there would be
interpersonal Norms you should be polite to your other neighbor you should you
should be respectful of their of I don’t know of of their existence you should communicate with them you should try to
trade with them whatever now so there’s a subset of norms that have to do with
interpersonal relationships and a subset of those have to do with rights violations okay so I would say that you
know you can come up with lots of normative U uh
conclusions that have to do with how you should re treat other people and these
are not axiomatic these are not deductible deducible from philosophy but
they’re things we learn from experience and from living Our Lives as human beings in in our in our framework um so
you shouldn’t be disrespectful to your neighbors and you shouldn’t be cruel to unnecessarily
cruel to your grandmother you know like these types of things these are all moral things you can talk about and
people can have pra practical wisdom and have elaborations and all that but they’re not really
about what rights are so the rights is even a subset of that and that is the subset of of interpersonal relations
that have to do with conflict among people and the conflict arises because we do live in a world of scarcity and in
this world of scarcity um that means that there are means of action the the things Austrian Economist
especially like mises talks about scarce means of action including our bodies and
scarce physical means in the world which we always have to use we we all use to
to accomplish things in the world and and these things lead to the possibility of conflict among
men okay and because of the possibility of conflict those of us that have certain values where where we prefer
peace or we for cooperation and prosperity and the general um um uh the
general prosperity of our fellow men in in addition to ourselves because we tend to have these
empathetic and uh feelings empathy and we that which means to my
mind we value each other to a certain degree even though it’s not as much as ourselves we still value each other um
rationally that’s why I believe believe that we tend to prefer a peaceful solution and a
conflict free solution to a conflict ridden solution which is why I believe
property rights emerge as as the norm so property rights to me is a subset of the
Norms about how you deal with other people it’s an interpersonal norm
and now you ask what what is a right what is a right so again some people
would say a right is a claim but to my mind that’s just a a switching
words it’s like okay well it’s just a claim okay but then what’s a claim well it’s a right you know you could you
could have a circular definition my view is this um if we keep in mind that we’re talking
about the field of of of teleology and of norms right which means we we keep in
mind that there’s a there’s a difference between moral laws and causal laws and again I as I
mentioned earlier a causal law cannot be violated but a a normative law can be
because it’s just a prescription it’s not descriptive of the way reality works so that’s why we have to separate these
things um that’s why it’s possible to do something wrong that violates people’s
rights um so I think of um The more I’ve read about this from
Rand and even some Rand Ian Neo randians like um Douglas rasm and Douglas Denial
in their book like Norms of Liberty and some others like David Kelly and even
some non objectivists my view is that the way to
look at rights as their their metanorms okay a metan norm so a a norm
is um something like Ram would talk talk about in a code of morality or guide to
conduct is what you would consult when you decide what I should do on a day-to-day basis in my in my life okay
so that’s what morals are about morality is a a code of conduct to guide your behavior again it’s it’s you can choose
it you can choose to disregarded but it’s still a normative guide to to your
behavior uh if I want to live a good life I should act this way whatever but I believe I think of rights
as so most Libertarians would think of the non-aggression principle for example as the way as a succinct way of
expressing the core libertarian political idea um they would think of
that as like a a moral a moral stricture like you shouldn’t commit aggression now
I happen to believe that you should not commit aggression but it’s not
because I I think that but that’s just because it’s one of the one of the rules you should should follow it’s like being honest you shouldn’t be you should be
honest you should be hardworking you should be a good person you should have integrity and you shouldn’t commit
aggression I agree with that um but that’s a personal code of conduct when we talk about rights they’re they claims
about what you’re entitled to do in response to someone physically acting to
invade your your space basically right and so what I think when people say that I
have a right to x what they’re really saying
is if I were to use Force to defend my claim to this space okay I can’t be
coherently criticized in other words my proposed use of force to defend this
Justified which is why it ties into what laws are Justified because a law is just
a social recognition of of your Society your local your your neighbors the legal
system that they recognize your claim and they’re willing to endorse or
support your your use of force to defend yourself right um so ultimately when
when we say there’s a right what we’re saying is that if the legal system uses Force to defend your your
claimed right that use of force itself is Justified so ultim so in in this is a
complicated way of saying what Libertarians often say something like um
um you know it’s it’s either ballots or bullets like it always comes like it always comes down to physical force in
the end right um and so when you have a law what you’re saying is that the uh
the the legal principle that we’re we’re that
were that were proposing like defending my my house or my my body from rape or
murder or whatever we’re saying that um if you were to use Force to defend
yourself or if the legal system would do so in your name that would not be unjustified and I think that’s
ultimately the claim so what you’re saying is um the reason I call it a
morality and um the Injustice of the legal system so for example um and I I I
think maybe ran might agree with me on this I’m not sure
um a simplistic view of morality which most Libertarians might
have and I don’t mean to be critical by saying simplistic because it’s not it’s it’s it’s it’s an attempt to
it’s an attempt to distinguish between so so most people would say that um you
shouldn’t do drugs and therefore they’re not opposed to a law outlawing drugs because to to
their simplistic linear mind if it’s if it’s immoral it should be made illegal
right but if you have a kind of a more nuanced view of things you understand that well just because something is
immoral doesn’t mean it should be illegal right that’s the libertarian view is like okay doing drugs being a
drug addict might be immoral it might be harmful to your life but you’re not violating someone’s rights so the
government is not justified in and outlawing it right so that’s like a second a second level and so when you
explain that to your Normy person then you might say well that’s
because morality or that’s because rights violations are a subset of
morality okay so that’s kind of a first approximation about how you explain to people why everything that’s not that’s
immoral should not be illegal it’s because a rice violation should be
illegal but that’s only a subset of of immorality but when you put it that way
the assumption is that every rights violation is immoral although not everything that’s
immoral is a rights violation right and I actually my personal view that I I’ve I’ve come to adopt over the years is
that that’s actually slightly incorrect in other words it it’s incorrect to say
that everything that’s a rights violation is necessarily immoral and the
reason is because I again I view rights as a metanor a
metanorms that wants to have a moral view of matters and the way human Human Society should operate what law would I
favor as a Justified law so I would say that we should have a
law that says you can’t steal from people okay but that doesn’t what that means is
that it’s Justified if the legal system uses Force to excuse me to stop crime or to or to
to stop theft it’s Justified which which means that if if if someone is caught
being a thief or a rapist or a murderer and they’re punished or dealt
with in a certain way that response by the legal system or by
the or by the victim using the legal system as its proxy you can’t criticize
that itself an immoral action like it’s Justified so to my mind the ultimate
purpose of Law and to think about this is to think about what’s Justified but it doesn’t
mean it doesn’t mean that every rights violation is
necessarily immoral and and again but it’s because when you
classify the legal system’s response to a crime as
Justified what you’re saying is it doesn’t violate the victim sorry it
doesn’t violate the the aggressor rights if force is used against him but it doesn’t necessarily imply that what he
did was immoral so this is why I I I my view is
that we have to view um rights violations not as a proper
subset of immorality but as its own set which is
mostly in overlapping with with immorality so no I would say that 99% of
All rights violations are actually immoral right just like I would say that
it’s immoral to be a dishonest person in general but I don’t think that it’s
logically necessarily true and the reason is because the purpose of morality is to
guide man’s conduct in his everyday Affairs but the purpose of of of
political ethics is to tell us which legal system is Justified so that Norm
is aimed at determining which laws are just it’s not aimed at telling us how we
should act on a day-to-day basis so given a legal system which I think is a just legal system let’s say we have a a
legal system where which Outlaws murder and theft and
extortion and rape and robbery and all this kind of stuff that doesn’t necessarily mean that
I am always immoral if I choose to violate someone’s
rights in that system it probably is in most cases but I’m not sure if not if logically the same thing so for example
you know you take the typical example someone out in the woods and they have a
baby with them and their baby starving and there’s a winter storm and they see a cabin and they break into
the cabin to steal some food to save their baby’s
life is it necessarily IM even if we can see that they’re committing an act of
trespass because they’re they’re committing Act of theft and trespass is it necessarily immoral I
don’t know I don’t I don’t think so I think in some cases you could say that my personal decision ought to be to
favor my own life and my my kids’s life even at the cost of someone else’s
rights and be willing to take the consequences so that’s how I sort of
view the interplay between norms and metanorms and
causality description versus prescription and rights so given all this I guess I would
say that a right is a claim
as to which laws are justifiable um regarding the use of
force in such a way that the use of the force cannot be cannot be coherently
criticized and again this gets to the justification issue the reason they can’t be criticized is
because this why I’m a proponent of Hans Herman hoa’s argumentation ethics and my
own sort of spin on it um it’s the idea
that if you if you favor it’s it’s the idea that uh you be
incoherent in proposing a norm that in inconsistent with the other
Norms that you necessarily favor that’s the AR I’m getting a little bit too far F down let let me stop now and see where
you where where you want to interject so going back to
1755 which is in in the era where the notion of natural rights was
popular there there was lock was writing at the time there was stuff stirring up in
America here and Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defines a right as a just
claim which is right with what you’ve said or that which justly belongs to me
is another definition he gives and as I went through various dictionaries the
dictionary of 1806 Webster says something to which one one has a just claim something one that may properly
claim is due uh some dictionaries Define it as a moral claim and so I’m I that’s
the definition I would go go by I think that in ethics as an objectivist I
already accept the fact that the initiation of force is
immoral right so why the added concept of right if all we need to know is that
it’s immoral for people to
red to the situations in which it would be appropriate to use Force so if I have a
right to do something it’s saying if somebody tries to stop me from doing this I have the right to use force it
will be moral for me to use force in response yes so we agree on all that the
problem I I have with your the formulation or the sort of uh description you gave is if you accept
hum’s is a gap or if you accept the fact value distinction then there is no
objective morality there morality is not something to be discovered in that case and Ne a rights there’s something to be
created in which case there’s no objective basis for them they’re just an artifice created by the state which I
don’t hold and I don’t that you do either now I personally and I think
it’s rational is that if if we accept as I do I accept IR Ran’s theory of Rights
or theory of morality that morality is a code of values that
that guides people’s decisions it guides your your normal behavior it’s and it’s
true it’s if you decide to live if you’re not just going to throw yourself off a cliff then you need some way to to
guide your behavior because human beings are not born with knowledge of how to behave we have to use our rational Minds
to discover those things and then choose by free will to pursue them and the
guidance that we get in order to do that successfully is called ethics now it’s
simply a a fact that certain things are causally bad for me and certain things
are causally good for me and those things that are causely good for me I would say those are moral and the things
that are bad I would say are moral now given that you know we go through a long chain
and I think you’re going to agree so I’m not going to go through the whole thing that initiating force is evil for me to
do I’m I I can’t do that and I have to say okay well when in
what situations is force appropriate what do I have a moral claim to and I
would say I have the moral claim to freedom of thought freedom of action so
long as I don’t violate initiate Force to prevent somebody else from doing the same thing and I need to
have that freedom of action because to the degree that I’m not free my choices
aren’t in the realm of morality they’re it’s if you pick me up and Carry Me from point8 to pointb and I’m completely
deprived of choice there’s no Moral Moral implications to what I do so to
the degree there’s Force morality doesn’t apply so I must therefore have a
moral claim to that which makes morality possible they my rational fac faculty
freedom of thought and action which can be boiled down to the concept of human
life I must have the right to life now I know you’ve argued previously that to
say I have a right to life might create a presumption that somebody else has to
provide me with the Necessities to to keep my life going but that only happens
if we sever what a a right actually is it’s a moral claim so to if it’s a moral
claim it has to be based on a sound view of morality and that would by necessity
rule out somebody else having to provide me with the things that are going to
keep me alive that that that’s fine and I I think I was with you until
um I I think if you already accept the social context and the the
nature of rights that have developed that we we basically agree on although
people like you and I are more uh consistent about how we I mean I think
your average person roughly agrees even with that right they roughly agree you
have the right not to be raped and murdered and killed which they just wouldn’t agree with the implications
right they they don’t understand taxation is therefore wrong because it’s aggression
but but they agree in principle that you have a property right in your body they just are not fully consistent
about it right so but they basically agree you and I are just way more consistent about it
um but to then start describing this
right which I would say is a right to the bodily Integrity like to your bodily
integrity like it’s a property right in the control literally of the physical Integrity of your body which is what’s
implied by an ran when she talks about in G speech when when when G says do you
hear me no one may no one may start or initiate the use of force like this
concept of force is integral to her her concept here and it’s because she’s
recognizing as she said men are not ghosts we’re physical material beings
and the way you violate rights is by using physical force and the reason our
rights are bound up with this is because our rights are inherently material in
the sense of I mean you can’t violate this is why we don’t agree with hate speech laws right you can’t violate my
rights by insulting me only by hitting me that’s what Jefferson said right um
someone who takes takes my taper or what I mean you you can’t you can say what
you want someone but you can’t physically invade their borders and so I think that’s why rights have this have
this Contour so if you then start describing that right instead of as a
right to my bodily integrity and you and you say well I just mean that you have a right to
life well and then you can be careful as you want and say well of course I don’t
mean that you have a right to have someone pay for your life because
there’s no positive obligations well then what’s the point of describing it as a right to life in the first place
instead of just saying everyone has the right to the physical Integrity of their
own body what does it add to say a right to life well here’s the problem you said
correctly that irran says that men are not ghosts but she also what what the the exact not the exact quote but the
formulation she says is that a a mind without a body is a ghost and a body
without a mind is a corpse so so you have both human life is consists both
consist yeah mind and matter so to say that I have a right to life it means
that I have the right to take the actions necessary in order to keep my
life going the reason it’s in my view necessary is because life is the
standard human life rather is the standard of morality right so because human life is the standard of morality I
have to have a moral claim or a just claim to that which makes morality
possible it isn’t just a physical body that makes morality possible it’s it’s
mind and body in the specific nature of the human rational faculty that makes it
possible I hear you but what does it mean to have a moral claim to that in practice in practice
what it means is that if somebody tries to interfere with my use of that by
using force that I have the right to retaliation now the problem I have with
the self- ownership concept I’m I’m GNA and it’s not that I have a problem with self- ownership per se I have a problem
with it being the fundamental starting point because unless ownership is a human convention it has to belong to
some antecedent concept it has to be it’s a moral claim you’re making like
for instance rothbart and haa both say that you have this that I think they
said there’s three three choices correct me if I’m wrong I can only think of two but you could probably think of the others they said either a person owns
him him or herself everybody owns everybody or everybody else owns this
person but what they but what they leave out those aren’t the only possibilities the possibility is there’s no such thing
as ownership ownership is not a thing to be discovered you have to prove that you
can’t just do it in a rationalistic way assert ownership is a thing and then say somebody owns something you have to
prove ownership you have to prove property rights but in order to prove property rights you have to prove that
rights are actually a thing to be discovered not created because if they are a thing to be just created then we
have no beef with people who are are articulating positive positive rights the positiv positivists win the day I I
hear you but I I think what what happens is um
I think that the objectivist view um wants to integrate everything so much
that they they so a big part of I think were you were you not talking about
Chris gabber the other day uh yeah we we did on Twitter we talked about him so he
he talks about like a big part of ir Ran’s philosophy is um exploding is it
exploding dichotomies or something like that it’s like trying to show there’s false dichotomy like uh you know the the
is all dichotomy the Mind Body dichotomy and that’s really useful in a sense but
there’s almost this obsession with uh with objectivism with with avoiding um
like the misesian way that the maian way of a dualistic way of looking at like
listen when we’re talking about economics we’re talking about explaining um human behavior which she
calls theology right which is like in the context of Human Action which is
purpose oriented where every human being has means at his disposal free choice
things he can use and he he tries to employ these means to achieve an end in the future for for some for some psychic
profit and either he’s successful or he’s not like so the whole structure of Human Action from mises is about uh
action with a purpose uh Guided by
choice contrasted with the the causal Realm of the Sciences which studies uh
causality and they like there’s a strict separation there
um and I think that’s actually makes sense because when I talk about the
walls of physics I’m talking in the causal realm when I talk about human behavior
motivation psychology Norms prescriptions not descriptions we’re
talking about purpose human purpose and human choice and like there’s something
about that dichotomy that bothers the objectivist because they want everything to be integrated into a grand unified
theory which is they want to like they want to blend it which is why I think for example that they in the rights
theory of Rand which part of her rights Theory I agree with like the the the intuition that there’s got to be a
um um a reciprocity in rights or or or or or or a symmetry in rights where she
recognizes that the only real way to violate rights is by physical
Force but you see that’s sort of a causal thing that’s sort of a materialistic thing I mean you can talk
about a right to life and man’s spirit and his mind and that’s all fine as a conceptual matter but in the end you can
only physically affect someone’s life by using physical Force against
their physical body like if I put you in prison in a concentration camp I’m
imprisoning your body and your mind H is trapped inside there but unless I have the ability to use physical Force
against you I can’t I can’t imprison your mind I can’t make I wouldn’t
disagree with that but Nei neither would I Rand but the distin but the
distinction you’re talking about that misus makes is between inanimate matter and living beings that act with purpose
I agree and ran says that that’s the very basis for values is is that there
is a distinction between living entities in in in in animate matter that life
faces the constant alternative of existence and non-existence so she doesn’t obliterate that that dichotomy
she what she says is that there’s no mind body dichotomy neither can exist without the other as a as a as a human
now obviously a body of corpse can’t exist but it can’t exist as a human being she says that if if a theory
doesn’t work in practice it’s not a good theory yes and she says that there that there is no is a distinction the problem
here is f well first of all I agree with her but I think that’s an argument to be made ethically but if there is a
distinction between is and a if morality is a fiction as Hume thought then you
cannot ever arrive at the concept of rights as something to be discovered you of course can legislate it but you can’t
it’s not real it’s just something created it’s I agree you I agree with
you up to a certain point I mean um um there’s no dichotomy but I don’t agree with her
that um so it doesn’t mean there’s no distinction between is and all just like
I think she would agree or at least I would agree well it’s a gap it’s not a distinction it’s a gap because the two
are the two are different but that’s the point say that but so so when she distinguishes between the human
personality or the mind and the Brain she’s correct the the brain and the mind
the corpse the body and the corpse are different than the than the human person right a dead body has no mind and has no
personality um and it’s impossible to conceive of a living um human being
without a body so like they are distinct Concepts it’s like the brain and the
mind are different concepts it and and likewise I think that um uh Human Action
and human behavior are different concepts human behavior is a causal explanation of what we witness in the
world going on according to the four laws of physics which is why by the way I I I I
actually I I I personally um um I disagree with free will in the in the in
the in the in the standard sense there is no such thing as free will because it does violate causality in my view
however there that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as choice because choice is just the way
that we describe the Human Action from the teleological standpoint but the only way to get to
this point is to have a dualistic uh a different way of describing what people are doing are you
talking about what they’re doing in the causal realm or are you talking about their motivations and their purposes and
their actions right and so I do believe that it’s meaningful to talk about
normative claims and rights and I do and even earlier you
sort of I I don’t want to put words in your mouth and you can you can you can interject but you know you sort of said
that you understand what I think I I meant when I said that
Ran’s ethics is hypothetical in the sense of it’s based upon the choice to
live and I would say conditional I we’re we’re saying the same thing just using I
just don’t think hypothetical is the proper word it’s conditional it’s if you want to live then you have that’s fine
and and Roger long is sort of a Roger long is a Neo artian philosopher he he
call that what he calls it an assertoric hypothetical which is interesting it’s um it’s it’s by assertoric I think he
means that it’s not an if then it’s a sense then it’s like since you evidently
agree that you want to live your life then you should do the following and by
the way I don’t think this is a problem for Ran’s philosophy at all I think the problem is
when earlier you intimated that you’re you’re afraid that if you go to down this rabbit hole that it means that
there’s no um objective morality or or no objective um I’m not afraid of it
reality is reality I’m not afraid of it I just think it’s wrong I don’t mean to say that but but I mean but I I your
criticism is that there’s no objective basis for law or morality and that kind
of stuff and I don’t think that’s actually correct I think that I think that if you accept the fact
that morality is necessarily okay you don’t like the word
hypothetical I don’t know you could call it conditional if you want to call it but it’s based upon the choice to live
let’s just say that okay and then if you if if you have the choice to live and you’re a rational human being it’s not
too hard to figure out the kind of rudimentary basics of U of of the nature of human existence
which means you know we’re social creatures we have empathy we have a short lifespan we have a we live in a
world of scarcity it’s better to cooperate than to fight you know that kind of stuff basics of Economics you
know Supply once you understand that it’s not too hard to figure out that if you take all those things together and
if you value life over death and by life I do mean the randian oristian view of
living life as a man not just living life to survive I mean living life
proper to your nature as a man I agree with all that and I do think that all that implies
that there are certain basic principles we ought to apply in our personal moral
code but also in our political code our laws right um the proper way for humans
to get along and the laws we ought to have but it doesn’t mean that this object this morality that you get from
this is is is U is problematic because it’s not absolute in some sense nothing
is absolute I mean not intrinsic right that that’s that’s what you’re talking about it’s not no what I mean no that’s
a whole different what I mean is this idea that people say that
um it’s like they’re worry it’s almost like the Christian it’s almost like the Christian concern that if you don’t have
God then everything is up for grabs right it’s almost like the objectivist
have a similar fear because they’re worried that if you
don’t have objective morality then everything is up for grabs but to my mind objective morality simply means
that we can we can come together and figure out the best way that humans ought to live in their own lives and
live together but you have to make some assumptions like you have to assume that we’re not fellow we’re not fellow
sociopaths and we’re not missing but Stephan even when you say
best right that’s a normative concept I totally so if you say humans don’t have
free will if you don’t have free will there can be morality is completely dependent on freedom of the will if
you’re necessitated to make the decisions you make then there’s no moral
implication at all any more than there is for you know my computer screen it it
works the way it works and that’s it I mean I I I don’t know if we that’s a
whole I don’t agree with what you just said because I think that um
like I I I I I said something a little bit too cute maybe and too quick but I I said that I I believe in choice but not
free will and but that’s you talking about the libertarian Free Will where there’s no causal factors involved you
don’t believe in that because I don’t either I I mean I suppose it’s important to to no no it’s more of a Phil more of
a Phil it’s more of a you know the the Free Will debate is is the way it’s normally framed is is something like
this um do we have fre will or do we not have free will um and then the arguments
get embroiled in this uh oh what about if you have bad parents like they they
talk about macro phenomena to my mind Free Will has nothing to do with macro phenomena it has to do with microscopic
phenomena on the level of quirks and neutrons and you know that level of
stuff and it but when you’re thinking like this you’re thinking in the realm of causality and as far as we know there
are four laws of of physics and we already know what they are there are four laws of physics uh and that’s what governs the
interaction of the particles that make us up but when we think of ourselves as
human actors this is why I said M misesian dualism matters because it distinguishes between behavior and
action behavior is a causal phenomena action is teleological in the sense of
when you describe what the what the macroscopic object is doing meaning your body or my body you’re you’re
characterizing it in terms of purposes and the use of scarce means and when you
do that you’re thinking of these people as being similar to you which is how you conceive of yourself right as having
choices before you right and priorities and preferences and this is a little bit
far field but um I think that there is actually a solution to the Free Will dilemma and I think
everyone I’ve ever read everyone I mean literally everyone I’m dissatisfied with
everyone’s approach because they always get it wrong the physicists get it wrong the psychologists get it wrong the
randians get it wrong because the randan argument is this stupid proof by contradiction which is we can prove
there’s free will because if you didn’t have free will then you wouldn’t have the choice to reject the argument for a
con and so there but but that’s not no but that that’s not a proof of Free Will
that’s that’s not offered as a proof of Free Will well but it okay what is it offered for it what what it’s it’s a
distinction that they make between valid validation and proof what it’s saying is that free will is axiomatic that in
order to that nothing to say prove you have free will you can’t prove something
unless you have free will the very concept of proof is dependent on antecedent factors right right but the
but but the so first of all the Randy use the word acatic in an
ocratic way but let’s let that pass I mean why why wait why what do you mean
idiosyncratic self self-evident from observation I don’t how is that I mean
in in math for example the word Axiom is used to to refer to an arbitrary
assumption that you build on it’s not a it’s not something you prove by what
well the basic axioms that ran talks about okay well here here’s an example a
lot of randians in the early days because Rand was the first libertarian I believe they talk about the
non-aggression Axiom it’s not no Libertarians some do and they’re
mistaken it’s not but now we tend to call it a principle because I think we’ve learned that it’s it’s slightly
erroneous to refer to the non-aggression Principle as an a it’s not an a no it’s
very erroneous to to assert it’s an axiom I agree not aggression and there
are some there are some basic truths of philosophy that the randians rely on which I agree with all of them by the
way the law of identity the law of non-contradiction they’re axiomatic in the sense that to
deny their to deny their self-evidence and their and their
being essential to reasoning would lead you to self-contradiction I agree with that okay well this let me just read to
you the why I Googled Define Axiom philosophically it says to be
immediately evident propositions foundational and common to many fields of investigation and self-evidently true
without any further argument or proof I don’t know how you’re saying she uses axioms in a in
atic way I could be wrong about that uh I could be wrong with that to but to
that extent I I agree with I agree with her axm whether or not the word is
properly I don’t know but I agree with her basic axioms okay the problem is
this is exactly how mises reasons too with with say with with with uh with h
with praxiology with humans humans act and things like this but the problem I
have is and and then she she fights it because is is different though it’s
different it’s not the same it’s not the same but it’s the same method of of
showing something that is indis indisputably true like he calls it app predictably true but the reason is I
think she’s so hostile to oh it’s contan that’s conent like to my mind I don’t care what terminology or framework you
want to use if if it’s a reasonable thing you can AR arrive at and we can be certain about this belief that’s good
enough to move forward and we can haggle about the the way we talk about it but
but but to get back to the Free Will thing the problem to my mind is a subtle
one of the Free Will argument and the argument is that it’s not of the same character so I
think you could argue that any human being excuse me who lives and exists who
who says that um there’s no such thing as existence
right they’re they’re they’re contradicting or or if you say there’s no such thing as knowledge even if you
do that you’re making a knowledge claim you’re contradicting yourself because you have to be engaged right so these
are the type of things you can say that are and and by the way this what Hopper relies upon in his argumentation I think
is called performative contradictions there’s lots of things like that which you can use in a clever way to show that
look this is obviously a true coning because if you attempt to to fight it you’re
you’re assuming you’re assuming what what you’re saying is not true right and
I think that that’s the attempt that’s made by Nathaniel Brandon and Rand and some and rothbart I believe and some
Libertarians when they argue for free will what they say is that well we have to have free will because uh when we
have a debate about this people come up with arguments and either you have the free will or the choice to to to
evaluate that claim or you don’t and but but they’re not really pointing to a
contradiction in the idea that there’s not free will like if I say that Stephan canella exists but there’s no
Universe well I’m contradicting myself because I have to exist and also I’m aware of something outside of myself
like so I can’t deny there’s Consciousness it’s it’s a contradictory assertion but if I say it’s possible
that we live in a world where we are totally C determined there’s no contradiction
there because it’s possible that we evolved according to
the laws of natural selection and we end up arguing like this on Facebook and
thinking we believe these things and we prove something but there’s no logical contradiction in the fact that we’re just wrong right I mean it’s possible
that we are me mechanistic beings but that’s the but that’s the whole point Stefan is that if you try to argue for
knowledge which is dependent on freedom of the will but you’re arguing against
freedom of the will that’s the contradiction now now now it’s true on a meta level on a sort of macro level that
all of that hypothetically could be determined right we’re made to to do
this exactly right but that still renders the statements of the the determinist nonsensical I well I don’t
disagree but but but notice what you so here’s here to my mind I’m not that’s not a proof of Free Will that’s not a
proof a philosopher by the way I could be wrong about this okay but the problem is I’m not I haven’t been satisfied with
anyone I’ve ever read on this and I’ve read a lot um I I think the problem is what you
just argued is you’re trying to come up with an argument for why you can’t say something you’re not trying to come with
an argument for why it’s not true so no why it’s incoherent not you because you can say it I’m saying it’s an incoherent
statement it doesn’t you’re right it doesn’t mean in the broad scheme of things it does mean that the person
that’s uttering it is not making a coherent statement but the the randian idea of Free Will isn’t completely
dependent on that she talks about that it’s self-evident from introspection
from observation you can no that’s that’s that’s another but that’s another
issue let me give you another one thought one thought experiment just see what you think about this okay imagine
and I hate these thought experiments because I don’t believe in uh I don’t think we’re living in a simulation or
that’s even possible but sometimes we have to like play with our fancy um
imagine that there’s some Demi God that is running our universe as his little
play thing right wait let let’s imagine we are simulation so like day cart’s
demon yeah okay so decart’s demon is running our universe and maybe he’s got
a God above him I don’t know but anyway the point is he he’s doing this for his own amusement or whatever he’s letting
the experiment go wild maybe he’s a deist I don’t know um in that Universe there’s four laws of
physics you know the four laws of physics physics that we know and that in a causal level completely determines
everything that we do or maybe what we do is has a a degree of Randomness maybe there’s Quantum indeterminacy but the
point is what these little Quirk clouds do that constitute our bodies is not
um is either determined or it’s just random one way or the other you could
still have these natural selection processes have ultimately rational
beings emerg that think and argue and even have the experiential experience
that they’re experiencing this stuff and they they could just simply be wrong right they could simply be wrong it’s my
point is that that world is conceivable however it’s not conceivable to have a world of this
Damon where which has people which are wrong in in thinking that they exist
they cannot be wrong about that but they could be wrong about being part of a
fake Universe like one is possible one is not and that’s why I think that the
proof by contradictions are not the same but again I’m not a a philosopher so I can’t that’s about the edge of that’s
about the edge of my theory but my point is so I think
the misesian approach is the right way out of this because mises talks about a causal realm of phenomena the
causal world and the realm of teleology or human action or purpose and when ran
talks about so you you said something like um ran can prove we have volition
because of no I didn’t say no if I said proof I I used the wrong word no I’m not
trying I’m not but but what no but she would she would say I believe and I I
really I don’t to be honest I I like to argue for myself and
not but I’m okay but I mean but it’s all right it’s the my view of Free Will is
this is first of all any claims of determinism are incoherent you’re right
that doesn’t prove that determinism is false but it does send up a skepticism
on my part of the person making the claim because he’s assuming that he’s free to choose an act while he’s denying
it to everybody else he’s he’s free to weigh the evidence to look at the various proofs to to study unless the
conclusion is forced on him in which case I wouldn’t accept it anyway so I do think that that has its place but I also
think that when I look at myself and I and I look inside my own mind I can tell the difference between things I’m
compelled to do and things that I choose to do like if somebody pushes me down
I’m being forced to the ground or if somebody carries me or for instance when I I finally fall asleep when I’m utterly
exhausted I have no choice in that I do have a choice though to walk from here to there so I can make that distinction
so what I would say is that if somebody is going to postulate or argue for determinism the onus is on them because
all of my experience indicates to me that I’m making choices yeah I hear you
and that and that I’m ultimately free to make these choices but key relevance to the
discussion that that we’re having about rights it it’s like even you say like
okay you’re own aole theory of Rights where you say that the the a criminal
for instance is is stopped from making the argument that it’s unjust to punish
him because he’s already used aggression right but why is it wrong to contradict
himself Ora’s argumentation ethics okay he has a performative contradiction so
what why is that wrong you would necessarily have to tie that to a broader theory of Ethics in order to say
that contradictions are wrong not that they’re wrong in the sense that two contradictions can’t both be true
because two contradictions can both be false what you have to show is that
contradicting oneself in that way is ethically wrong and that requires a broader Theory and to when we talk about
rights in the sense that you and I are using the term of natural rights necessarily contingent on ethics they
it’s a moral claim you need to have a theory of morality and if Hume is right
that there is no morality that you can’t arrive at an ought from an is there can
be no rights and then you end up where misus is at or where Jeremy benam was at
or John Stewart Mill and you end up a utilitarian in essence or a neist yeah
but again see this is this objectivist attempt to unify everything and so when
you say there can be no morality or there no no rights it’s like you you
want to Invision rights is existing in some sense yes other yeah it’s not that I
want to I would argue they do my argument is that if if they don’t if
there’s no morality then to say that you have a right to this doesn’t mean
anything outside than somebody says you have a right to it well to be precise I mean I’m not saying there’s there’s not
any morality I’m saying but it’s almost a almost a mystical
thing when you say there is a morality like there’s this kind of subdomain or
or overlayer of space where the morals kind
of in in interject themselves into reality in some kind of known way I mean
to my mind earlier we talked about what it means to say there’s a right or even
a moral claim and to my mind it’s just a Justified
claim okay I never said they exist I was care Justified but a but the claim in
order for it to be a moral claim you’re saying the moral claim the right exists no I’m
not I’m averse to using the word exist in this so rights so rights in your view do not exist it’s like saying do numbers
exist I mean I hate to be Bill Clinton but you have to tell me you mean by exist what
what I mean is this is that there that rights are something to be discovered not created and they’re to be discovered
Bas I agree with that I agree with that and how and I cannot discover something that doesn’t exist that’s a that’s an
incoherent statement I want to just address something real quickly that you said about because I do not believe that
morality is something that that’s out there I think that morality is strictly
grounded in human nature that human nature as we have a rational
faculty and we have to discover what what is best for us and we have to choose to do so because we Face the
constant alternative of life and death there’s things in the environment that can harm me there’s things that are good
for me that’s all I mean by morality there’s nothing mystical about it and I agree by the way I agree with all that I
agree yeah and and but because of that but I wouldn’t say morality exists and like I wouldn’t say that these ethical
pars exist what to me that’s a loaded pH phrase to say they exist what does that
mean to say what it means all it means is that these things are true if I if I
say for instance that human behavior ultimately my long-term survival it’s
dependent on principles I have to think I have to discover what is going to be best for me tomorrow the next day 100
years from now I can’t say well because heroin feels real good let me go out and do it and that’s in my interest because
that’s going to undercut my long-term interest I need to discover the principles of survival longterm when I
say those principles exist I don’t it’s just saying that certain actions exist
that are more likely a certain type of action exists that are more likely to bring about a certain result IE and I
agree that’s all it means to say they exist and not but it’s not because it’s the word exist is it’s sort of like
saying um it’s one of these words that’s that’s Frau with equivocation I mean look I
have a friend who believes in objective evil and Jesus and all this stuff and he
thinks that you cannot have epistemology and ethics without without Jesus right
or without God or whatever but part of his argument is that if you don’t accept
this then everything is is subjective and arbitrary and there’s no absolute
evil so the example he always gives me is Stefan we both agree that it’s wrong
to have I don’t know child murder right or child rape have some guy kidnap a
5-year-old girl and rape and kill her and we both agree on that but then
he says but is that objectively evil like he wants to nail it down with the word objectively evil which I think he
means intrinsically evil or something I think that what he means is that the
people like that in my experience anyways what they mean by morality is
morality is it necessitates there being some Force out there that is judging our
I agree I totally agree yeah and that’s that there true there are ethical theories that rely on that but that
doesn’t preempt the field no no it doesn’t but this is this is my concern
with this so the concern is and I think that the here’s the
concern and you you hit the nail on the head in a sense because something I’ve written about a little bit is there’s something that really bothers me and
it’s I call it um um uh it’s it’s it’s it’s a it’s a form of legal positivism
like legal positivism is this mentality
that okay in the legal field it’s this mentality that there is no objective law
the only way we can know what the law is and what the law ought to be is from the will of the excuse me of the Sovereign
which is the legislature according to them right of course they’re totally hypocritical and inconsistent
because the average person that believes like this because they’re kind of moral relativists they won’t they
won’t admit to any external standard of of of objectivity however they will also then
say um the con stitution does provide for a right to abortion and if you vote
this way you’re wrong so but what they really mean is
it’s inconsistent with their values you know so like it always comes down to what your true underlying values are
right and so to my mind if I say and if you say and if my friend
says um that guy deserves to hang for raping this little girl
and he says it’s objectively evil and if you don’t call it objectively evil
there’s something deficient in your theory to my mind the problem with his
view is that he needs an external Authority now he’s not he’s not a a
legal positivist in the sense of relying on the state but he moves it up a level to God so now it’s God so God is the one
who says it’s wrong but to my mind that’s nothing more than another command from another The Sovereign right yes you
and I atheists we would say no it’s got to be reason or something like that and
what I think is Rand is Right living as a human is a practical Affair in the world we we have
a certain nature and there are better and worse ways to live as a man to me
that’s an important qualifier to live as a man which is why her standard of if you choose to live as a man choosing to
live as opposed to dying those two choices have implications if
you choose to live as a man then you should follow the dictates of our nature
to live a good life within those confines but and within those confines
you and I can share values because we’re both people that want to live and live
as men and we share values and we can we can we can push to the side the
sociopaths not part of our community and I don’t care if they don’t agree that it’s wrong
to rape a three-year-old girl no it doesn’t matter it is wrong because you you can’t deal with them of the region
any anyway we don’t have anything in common with them you have to treat them as as a threat and deal with them the
way the legal system permits right you know I think it was Don
Watkins if I’m wrong uh my apologies to Don Watkins but his book ethical ego Don
Watkins Don right so I think it’s in his book ethical egoism I’m pretty sure and what
he talks about is that the biggest mistake that objectivists make and I made this myself early on is to have a
view of ethics where there’s some outside force that’s kind of judging you and it’s ethical because when being
ethical all it’s saying is this is either good or bad for my long-term life
yeah totally agree and and and and that’s it but
I I understand I guess what I’m trying to say is your concerns because a lot of people do think of Ethics or morality in
the sense of there has to be this mystical uh idea behind it and so when
they say objective what they actually mean is subjective because it’s a mystical lawgiver or just somebody
else’s mind it’s like what Plato said about where he he talked about the the horns of I’m going to butcher the name
but you’re a fthrow or whatever it is where he asked the question are action
does God love good actions because they’re good or are they good because God loves them and in the one case you
don’t need God because they’re already good and in the other case they’re completely arbitrary all right Stefan
I’ve kept you one one one more thing on before you start on your point your final Point
um this assumption that we should do things that are in our
own self-interest right the the the additional ass from Rand which I think is correct is that
the assumption that also there’s no necessarily internal uh conflict of
interest between men like in other words we can live rational men we we can all
live together with following our own rational self-interest um and there’s no in
necessary inherent conflict between our rational self-interest I think that’s an
extremely important point because if that wasn’t true then you would just be some weird hedonist or not hedonist
but you some guy that’s like totally only cares about yourself yeah a sociopath or a narcissist sociopath yeah
you be total sociopath but the point is if you recognize that there is a a
compatibility among men there’s then you have an extra reason to factor their
interests and their well-being and their rights into your value your feel I mean
and I think this is all great this is a good thing about human life is that that is I think that’s the way
we that this is possible it is possible for us to live together in peace among each other in harmony yeah yeah all
right sorry go I want no I was just gonna say you told me you wanted an hour and a half we’re about there it’s been a
great discussion I I really appreciate uh you being here to have it with me can you tell people where they can find you
oh Stephan gel.com and uh a lot of the stuff we T well actually we talked about
other stuff today but uh my book here they can find it online and it’s free on free online it is free because i’ I’ve
been reading it in preparation for for this discussion yeah we’ll do another episode
later but but take absolutely thank you so much for now
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