Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Ethics

[annewilken]

I haven't read it. I have gotten great summaries through Stefan Molyneuxes own summaries. I've been listening over 4mos now. Financialy tight, but the topic, author, gifts I've gotten....etc., I must buy the book. Ik, ik only (less) $25. My christmas gift (s) to me & those I love! Sorry rant, guilt, lol.

Sustaining force & needed logic in my life!

[11889music]

I plan to read the book, but I'd just like to commend your effort to even accomplish such a lofty task. This is a service that will benefit all of humanity if the message is at least transmitted. Success or failure will be greatly valued by myself and many others. Thank you!

[TreachMarkets]

Stef, reading UPB now, hoping for the best. To quote a great American philosopher: Git 'er Done!

[Dre4dwolf]

The beast sounds like my bank.

[danielnz1]

Moralities strength is derived from the common sense of Human-kind and the on-going needs of mutual existence. Do as you would be done by. No dogma, cults or fades necessary, just realistic awareness, love of self and others. And maybe, acknowledging the abundances we already have and collectively should cease to squander!

[danielnz1]

Carl Sagan wrote: Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world really works. Seems to me and a rising percentage of Humanity! This may only come about positively, if were basically secular, rational, liberal and civilized and too, for Humanity to credibly survive on well through this, our volatile technological adolescence. Cheers! .com/watch?v=qLkDEKEl2YI

[e3217]

Got on with it... I get get it. I should read the book.

[WhereAreYouArienette]

Hey. I have recently been embarking upon philosophical thought. I am unemployed (shitty economy) and literally cannot rub two dimes together. However, I would really, really enjoy reading your book. I was just going to try to take you up on your proposition to send this book to whoever cannot afford it. If possible, just respond to this comment or email me. I can message you with my address, and will do whatever I can to help promote your channel, and i promise to donate money in the future

[DeeperBlueX16]

theres a pdf and audiobook online, too.

[tropicalmist999]

so you are saying we will maybe never know? Or for the more religious we will know on judgement day?

[tropicalmist999]

Stefbot I have a quick question: you said in this video:

.." [It's] not up to you, it's not up to me.... the reasoning holds if the beast is down"....

how exactly will it be determined if that beast is down?

thanks

[stefbot]

I think it has been doing quite well, I have not seen an effective disproof over the last year, so the beast is certainly staggering! :)

[threebobs]

The book is free now!

No excuse not to check it out.

[Fletch6]

Just out of curiosity, have you looked at Alonzo Fyfe's moral philosophy of 'Desire Utilitarianism"? You can Google it for more info. You might find it interesting.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

Concerning your last statements: I was not aware that you have to be approved by a faulty educational system to be right. The fact that one studied the history of philosophy to a great detail and hold (for example) a PHD doesn't make him (or her) a philosopher but a scientist of philosophy or more precisely an authority on philosophical thought (to what others before him/her have thought). That very misconception is what makes modern philosophy look insignificant in my (and many people's) eyes.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

It's (modern philosophy) a type of lesser science which is not being able to apply the scientific method fully to its less tangible objects of study. I think scientists (and most of the general public) justifiably sees philosophy as superficial. The subconscious instincts of the people rarely fail, if sth smells fishy, most of the times, it is so. Philosophy comes from the greek Φιλοσοφία which means friend/lover of wisdom which is NOT a form of "sagery".

[Stevehtegreatgr]

In fact a philosopher CAN'T be a sage he will be always looking for better and most suitable truths. It's sad to see that most modern philosophers pretend to be wise through beautiful words who in their essence are hollow and in principle we could call them sophists, or others choose the Platonic example of sitting in their all high and mighty positions preaching how the world works w/t any evidence WHATSOEVER to base their assumption apart from their intuition and/or personal feeling.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

It's true that modern philosophy have not made great steps forwards from the Greco-Roman (mostly "Greco") tradition. In fact I don't think that modern philosophers have produced much original work (that cannot be traced to the ancients) apart from "realizations" which in fact derive (again) by the study of ancients or those who studied them.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

It seems to me that since philosophy is the search for wisdom and since through our tradition we believe that it can only be tapped rationally (then) we don't have to know anything more than rational inquiry which in its turn would give us -naturally- the best version of reality that our minds can grasp.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

It also seems to me that the study of "philosophers" does more harm than good since it subconsciously necessitates you to conform to those who thought before you but that's exactly the point, YOU DONT HAVE TO, in fact you better NOT TO because those people have made little progress by thinking in the same channels of thought for two fucking thousand years.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

If you account yourself as philosopher you better think out of the box and fast before you become wholly irrelevant by the most concrete and "tangible" pursuit of learning nature's mechanics (science). I don't think that philosophy can or should be compromised by science, yet here we are with science offering all the new and better truths and philosophy being imprisoned to a 2000 years old schools of thought.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

We need a new breed of philosophers, those who like Socrates refuse the trickery of sophists and reject the all-knowing stance of mystics like Plato or Plotinus. We need bare rationality which acknowledges both the objective reality (by adhering to the latest scientific data) but also the subjective by frivolously applying critical thinking to everyone and everything. Great job there Molyneux just try not to be relegated to the Platonic superfluousness.

[ultimategoobah]

Socrates is a hypocrite. Most philosophers are hypocrites, in fact, you are also a hypocrite. Philosophy is the search for wisdom, I'll give you that, but how wisdom is achieved is up to the philosopher. Time will surely tell.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

Everyone's hypocrite, but you won't find wisdom by asking questions that make no sense to be asked. I'm greatly disappointed by modern western philosophy, it just dreads to do religion's work, to give people's lives meaning on real grounds (not fictional stories like religions seem to do). The Hellenistic schools did that, there's not one modern example of such equivalence, religions are dinosaurs that swallow every new doctrine of living well.

[Stevehtegreatgr]

That's exactly what disappoint me in modern philosophy, it has no social role yet it could be so much more. I'm not discounting the geniuses of many post renaissance philosophers, I only fail to see their utility in the societal level, the bishops' words are still more revered even if they're coming from the bastard child of Stoicism and Platonism of 2000 years ago. Plato is not a god, not even the greatest of thinkers, yet his cosmology still lives, THAT's what I would like to see changing.

[ultimategoobah]

I gotcha'. but your problem, at least to me, seems to be more with those who aren't philosophers rather than those that are.

[stefbot]

Great posts, you really must drop by the board or chat room and say hi! :)

[GetterRoboG]

watch and shoot,

watch and shoot.

[jacobins3000]

I didn't hear any logical proof of the existence of an objective ethics? All I heard is a bunch of bitching about Continental philosophy.

[stefbot]

It's a book bro.

[kinversoni]

@stefbot

I can't stand it when people haven't read the book ask questions purposefully unanswered.

[brwwtp]

Thank you very much for your valuable lectures. I have just discovered these lectures on youtube ,I am intending to watch them all. Your defense of objective morality is so much related to a dissertation that I have just submitted for a PhD degree, and which tries to reconstruct such an objective rational and universal theory...Maybe to your surprise from the writings of a 11th century Arabo-Islamic philosophy.

[billyjoeallen]

Murray Rothbard's THE ETHICS OF LIBERTY claimed to accomplish the same goal of your book. Why was that earlier work not adequate?

[DaveDoggOwns]

Well, for one thing I've never heard of that book.

[liviawillow]

Wee! I loved watching you read to me!

All of this is so exciting!

I am so proud to be a small part of the discussion.

Thank you, Stef.

~l

[PaulMcKeever]

Stef: I haven't read the book yet, so I have nothing to say about it per se. However, I think you are, in this video, engaging in pretence. Specifically, your video tells the reader that nobody has discovered a rational, secular, objective ethical philosophy, and you say that such a discovery has eluded even Rand. (cont'd)

[PaulMcKeever]

...Clearly, you might think her analysis flawed, and argue it to be such, but it is pretence to suggest that you are the first to claim to have found a rational, secular code of ethics. That claim, clearly, is rightly Rand's, and it was done decades ago (cont'd)

[PaulMcKeever]

Moreover, I don't think I am being mean spirited to observe that virtually every line in your video concerning the *problems* associated with mystics and subjectivists, faith and force, priests and politicians etc. and their respective philosophies would qualify as ideas and observations cut and paste from Ayn Rand's works. (cont'd)

[PaulMcKeever]

...Perhaps, later in your book, you credit her with making - and writing extensively - about those observations? Barring that, your video comes across as passing off Rand's insights (and some of Nietzsche's) as being novel observations on your own part. (cont'd).

[lukeev]

Chill out, man.

[tbgox]

keep up the goood work!! looking forward to reading your book. funny that the issues you mention are ones i've been wondering about for quite some time now. perhaps your work will help me in mine. thanks!

[stefbot]

I hope so - thanks for your kind words! :)

[KrystalTricks]

Congrats on the new book, Stef! I ordered it yesterday, and I look forward to reading it.

[sexdrugsRnR]

democracy sucks

[PatBuchanan2008]

great video dude

[stefbot]

Thanks! :)

[PatBuchanan2008]

I was actually debating a fellow conservative and I felt like an anarchist because I was arguing that government is not needed for private contracts, marriage, private property, etc. to exist and back in the 1700's and 1800's government did not perform these functions. Private Dispute Resolution Organizations did.

[HighDesertDl]

I'm intrigued. I've been listening to Marc Steven's shows for awhile now and you've made a few excellent guest appearances that have added much to the content. I haven't realized that you had vids here on YouTube until just recently.

So is that book available in mp3 format?

[stefbot]

You bet! :)

[schulwitz]

Didn't Ayn Rand already do this?

[stefbot]

Sadly, no! :( Though I am a great fan of the Rand...

[Elhan2005]

She attempted it, and made took a rather good shot at it at that. But her system needs a lot of revision before it is workable. I am waiting for David Kelley's The Logical Structure of Objectivism (it's available in draft form online) to see if he achieves patching the holes.

[lukeev]

Aaah but there are always fresh holes to patch! Questioning everything inevitably creates further questions. Answers often seem ephemeral to me. That book sounds interesting though.

[grantsinmypants]

...cont.

A rational code of ethics, like all teleological concepts, is a prerequisite for living as a human being.

If one does not, eventually, either through things like exposure to the elements or exposure to rational, just men, he will cease to be a man.

[grantsinmypants]

About the Humain is-ought gap: the preference/instinct/duty to live is not the basis of a type of ethics, it is the basis of ethics itself.

The preference/instinct/duty not to live is simply to be unethical (read: without ethics).

cont...

[visioninverse]

There goes another 2.4 hours of my labor to your pocket. It was nice doing business. :)

[Damedor]

This really piques my curiosity, I need to get that book.

[MAldoseri]

Stef, would you mind sharing your secret of getting a book done!?

I love your work.

[Censeo]

Nice introduction. You have set the barrier high indeed. That in itself always makes it more interesting than a philosophical work of mere scepticism =D I'll buy this book definitely!

[Naijagalca]

I still think that if there was no government, and someone really pissed me off.....I would smack them really hard.

but thats just me :)

love your vids

[BrightAnarchist]

I just placed my order today. If I really like it then I'll have to get a copy for my Dad. We're both former objectivists turned market anarchists, so I'm assuming this book will be key to argument of our position. Keep up the great and important work you're doing!

[Elhan2005]

Hah, two of you in the family? Very fortunate. My parents are both centre-right conservatives.

[PatBuchanan2008]

what type?

[Elhan2005]

Free market Christians.

[PatBuchanan2008]

thats cool...better than those Neoconservatives who believe in Socialism, Globalism, and War...

[PatBuchanan2008]

I love your quote on your page. Is Scott Ferrie a famous philospher or just a genius?

[bobbincygna]

I'm really exited about this book.

I'll buy it when my bank account is ready.

[stefbot]

Just email me from the web site, and I'll send it to you now, just pay me whenever... :)

[bobbincygna]

Thanks, but I've been enjoying your stuff for too long without paying, and saying to myself that I'll pay when I can. I'd like this time to give you some money first.

Plus it shouldn't take long.

Do the lulu guys have international shipping?, I live in Chile.

[bobbincygna]

You don't have to answer that, I checked and they do...I should have done that first.

[papackar]

Which would be worse? : not having an objective ethics, or believing we have one, when we haven't?

Scientific propositions are judged according to whether they predict accurately. Prescription and proscription (ethics) do not predict.

[stefbot]

Have a look at (or listen to) the book - if you don't like it, just let me know and I'll refund your money...

[Elhan2005]

Have you perhaps lived in South Africa at all? Your accent is identical to that in the south coast of the country.

[stefbot]

I sure did, for a little while, when I was 6 and 16 - great catch! :)

[Elhan2005]

I lived there a few years too, so the accent is familiar. :)

[cardellacole1]

THERE CAN BE NO TRUTH HIGHER THAN THIS

[DoctorFist]

Cardella: Are you aware of the multiple planes of existance? How far have you delved? How much do you know? Many consider you insane, but they don't understand and shut themselves in the box of science. I might understand.

[cardellacole1]

thanks for that doctorfist/i sent you a responce but your lock is on ,ill look out for you

[DoctorFist]

Oops, sorry. I now turned off the lock that only allows "my contacts" to message me, so I can be sent messages by whoever now!

[cardellacole1]

before the beguining there was nothing but thoughtbut that thought was of nothing ,but then the thought began to dream thje dream was of love the love was the light the light was the truth and the truth is i am

[sheepwshotguns]

that's an awful lot of assumptions you make there.

[cardellacole1]

what is your opinion

[cardellacole1]

the dream is over the heart is awake and states , the thought that thought of dreaming and the dream that dreampt of thinking is the oneness of conciousness which is pure energy which is the truth of the self and the light of unity in its self above and below is the light of thought

[Luke12000]

me thinks your thought box broke...

[undefinedego]

yeah i agree... someone must have eaten a little too much of the magic mushrooms.