 Sam Harris's foundation of objective morality is based on well-being. Do you find any relationship between your view and Sam's? Yes and no So I actually am very inspired or very spies of the wrong world Very happy to see Sam Doing what he is doing Right because what Sam is basically trying to establish, which I think he's right. Unfortunately He won't read Ayn Rand or if he reads Ayn Rand, he doesn't get it because she's already done this What he's trying to do is show the world that there is no difference that that you can't get an art from an is So he's trying to bridge the is odd gap. So the idea is this there's facts out there in the world But how do those facts out there in the world tell us what we should do? Or in other words, how do you get more from reality is there a science of morality? And if there's a sense of morality, how do we practice it? What do we look for? What is objective knowledge in morality? What is morality? What's the purpose of morality? Sam, I mean I admire this same as one of the few intellectuals in the world I think and one of the few thinkers even Suddenly in the recent past who believes the one can generate an art from an is And who believes that morality is a science and he even kind of Gets what the science is about which is well-being. It's who's well-being which she is confused about and In which creates problems for exclusions creates problems for his vision of morality But the problem is the way he addresses the is odd is superficial and It gets him in trouble So fine, and the is odd the way you bridge the is odd is you ask yourself In a sense, what is the purpose of morality? Well, the purpose of morality is to discover the values The values that one should pursue in life the values that are crucial It's it's about choosing what is right and what is wrong in the most important decisions in your life that shape your life But what are values? What should you pursue right what are values values of things one acts to gain or keep but What is the what's implicit in the term value? That one is acting for something What is the It means that you have options you have choices. So Sam has a bit of a problem without free will How do you have choices? So we're gonna leave that alone because I don't think you have choices if you don't have free will But I think Sam is confused about free will. I don't think he actually believes there's no free will He just doesn't understand what free will is But So you're confronted with choices and then the question is what are those choices? What is the fundamental choice? What is the choice that makes all of the choices possible and who confronts those choices and this is really important And this is I think to a large extent that something Sam skips You confront those choices as an individual Morality is about you as an individual and how you Live and the fundamental choice you as an individual face is existence or non-existence life or death Morality depends on your choice to live Once you choose to live then the issue of values becomes relevant if you choose not to live Then it doesn't matter what you do You don't live So there's no there's no thing to strive towards there's no purpose. There's nothing. There's zero. There's blank Once you choose to live the question then is what value should you pursue in order to live? We are not programmed automatically in order to do that In order to live as a human being In order to flourish and be happy as an individual human being now Sam Hicks about this right because on the one hand he acknowledges that the purpose of morality is to guide us towards flourishing but He also doesn't want to give up altruism. So he views Lourishing thing in some collectivistic utilitarian perspective and if use morality not as something you as an individual do You as an individual choose that helps guide your life as an individual, but it's much more of a society How should society act? What is moral for society? How do we achieve flourishing for the most people or most people or all people or something like that? and And he can't give up on that kind of Implicit collectivism that implicit altruism that he's grown up with that Absorbed from Christianity of all places him the big critic of religion can't give up on religious morality But that's exactly he's holding on to that while at the same time talking about flourishing which is good, but talking about flourishing in the context of human beings as a group rather than human beings as individuals so It's um, it's very It's it's very unfortunate because Sam is super smart super thoughtful a Real value of reason and of science and of truth and of reality and He and he's trying to do the right thing. He's trying to bridge from izzes to arts a bridge that I ran crossed Solved a problem in philosophy. I meant sold and He just can't do it and it's he you have the same problem with him with with free will and he also thinks that Too much of what it means to flourish what it means to be successful What it means to be happy. I think has to do with chemistry purely with chemistry Right and that you can if you could manipulate the chemistry that would be them all that that's morality You know, it's just not true. It's our actions out there in reality. It's the chemistry It is is part of it one can't ignore the chemistry And our actions cause the chemistry But just stimulating the chemistry independent of our actions and our thoughts would not generate the same idea Would not generate the same thing So It's sad because and again, he can't give up completely on the altruism on the collectivism and and it's really really really is sad because Sam Harris is exactly the kind of person objectivism needs uh articulate Somebody who talks in a language that people understand Somebody who has a mass of following a successful writer a good speaker a calm reasonable collect And yet, you know ruthless with his enemies, which which I think is is good So I admire Sam Harris and and I think if we had Sam Harris on our side We'd be Way ahead of the of the curve in terms of our success. Unfortunately, we don't and and none of us None of us are a successful Sam and building an audience None of us objective is a successful Sam building an audience and and holding that audience and and engaging with that audience and Therefore we're way behind. We're way behind So, uh Yeah, I mean somebody's asking about Jordan Peterson and his life is suffering. I mean I've talked about that in the past I've done whole shows about About Jordan Peterson. By the way, it's not fair if you if you want to ask a question on youtube You should contribute five bucks like Uh, like Stefan did to get you a question answered because I you know, I shouldn't be discriminating here on facebook Unfortunately, there's no feature that allows you to make a contribution And ask a question, but on youtube there is to use it. It's it's a great tool for the Iran book show money to support our existence because It's tough It's tough So I'm a huge admirer of Sam Harris and And uh You know more so than I admired Jordan Peterson Because I think Sam epistemologically is better He's more on the side of reason and science than Peterson is Peterson is too much on the side of mysticism of Primacy of consciousness Than than I would like And But I I you know, I I encourage you all to listen to both And you know the idea of life is suffering Uh, the Jordan Peterson does is just it's just wrong. I mean, it's just a false way in which to look at the world It's a false way to build up an ethic or to build up A philosophy of life or a psychology of life. It's it's It's completely inappropriate He's wrong And uh, you know, it's it's like Uh, you've got this fundamental choice between life and death And you're saying the death is the more fundamental of the two the more basic of the two now death is inevitable But if you choose life so is life so, um Death doesn't require much effort life does so death is the default in a sense. It's the It's the lazy man solution the lazy person solution But that is no excuse to make life as suffering as your starting point in psychology or in ethics or in morality Which is what jordan peterson does unfortunately But you know one day One day, hopefully we'll have a conversation with jordan and talk to him about it Not that I think I can convince him I can't But I I think the conversation will be interesting for you guys