 Welcome back to the Agora cafe for more coffee and philosophy. I'm pleased to have a friend near a bad war Who is professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Oklahoma Affiliate faculty in philosophy at George Mason University a senior fellow in the FA Hayek Advanced Studies program In philosophy politics and economics at the Mercatus Center. She's the author of well-being Happiness and the worthwhile life from Oxford University Press. That's her most recent book She also wrote is virtue only a means to happiness and analysis of virtue and happiness and I ran's writings from the at the Society while back and she also edited Friendship of philosophical reader with Cornell University Press Hi Nira It seems like I've known you for ages, but I don't really know that much about your Background and so I think that I and perhaps my reader my viewers would be curious to hear some of your story Thanks, Roger. Thanks for having me So you want me to start with the buffalo? Sure Okay So my first memory is of this huge house in Ambala, which is in North India, North of Delhi I Thought the ceilings were the highest ceilings that I've ever seen and it just seemed huge to me But I'm sure that if I went back to it now, it wasn't seen that Sorry, you haven't been to I a Sophia probably. Oh, I have yes, but much later Yeah So it was a bit Victorian bungalow that the British must have built for themselves and then my dad had joined the army when the war So he got it. He was a lieutenant colonel or lieutenant colonel as Americans would say So he got this lovely house Till we moved out of Ambala Whereupon he got another lovely house So anyway in the backyard, there was a water buffalo that used to give I Don't know if I seem to remember my mother saying 16 gallons, but I don't think that can be right. Anyway, it was a lot of and every Buffalo was milked twice a day and in the evening my mother would Take out the cream from the milk and turn it into butter She had an English cream separator and I remember staring there with a spoon and Eating spoonfuls of pure cream When my grandmother lived with us, she would churn at the old-fashioned way into butter I Also have a vivid memory of a monkey snatching my dress When I stepped out one day That was terrifying. I don't know People have to come and rescue me or if it just ran away by itself and We had little chicks or eggs. I don't remember ever seeing hands killed from the meat, but they probably were. I'm glad I don't remember that part And every now and then a peacock would appear and spread its plumage when it rained That inspired me to write a short story for my son when he was little So that's my background we left I Changed six different schools because my dad was always getting transferred out and even after he left the army He changed jobs a few times And that was quite traumatic for me leaving my friends behind But I think I survived the trauma Yeah, I I changed a lot during childhood too. I lived all over the country Different schools Why were you changing schools so often? Each move had its own reason. There wasn't a non-reductive Reason for all of them, but I lived in California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho. Oh, okay But The thing about that is that it helps I mean apart from just you know the experience of it is it's easier for me to remember, you know What you know what year or what you'd range of years something happened because when I live with all you know We live for a long time in the same place and I can't remember I knew it was sometime in that period So Auburn's the law the longest I've ever lived anywhere. So it's harder for me to remember What the heck happened when here whereas if I only lived like You know like You know four years in New Hampshire then if something happens that I remember New Hampshire that I know it happened during that period So it's it's useful Well, yes in New Hampshire when you were a kid. Yeah, that was for high school Okay But that's a beautiful state to be in So we're all the others Yeah, that's true So how did you end up coming to North America? How did you get interested in? Philosophy and and or Libertarianism and or Rand and the various The Aristotelian Ethics thing or for various interests. Well, I discovered we the living in my second year in college I was 17 and A friend of mine Who was sitting next to me was reading it in class. That's what we did These two friends and I would just chat or read Novels in our political science class We just had no interest in what was going on and what was being taught So I read we the living and it was as though I finally found my alter ego except That here I was a much better person than I and I told myself, okay, so you've got one year She's 18 in the book and I'm 17. So I have one year to catch up And then after that I read the fun head and I thought oh, I can't live here any longer I can't live in this country. I have to go to America somehow and Then I read Atlas shrugged And by that time I was married I got married when I was 18 So I didn't really know how my dream was going to be realized. Oh Oh It would have been okay had Rand not said at the At the end of Atlas shrugged she says No one can tell me that The kind of people I've written about don't exist the fact that this book has been written and published Shows that they do. I think she was just wrong I Haven't been for that. I wouldn't have you know cast everything aside and flow on across to America To find people like that You thought that America was a country full of Dagby Taggart's well Not full of but there would be some and I have to say that Over the years I've come to question What God's is the virtue of some of her heroes. I don't think I Don't think all the things they do are right And certainly not all the attitudes are right for example Well in Atlas shrugged there at least two places in Hank read and says to Dagny in effect Why would I do anything for you? I'm doing it because it's good for me and Dagny agrees and that's totally ridiculous. Why can't you do something for her? That's all that Because it is good for her is good for him Yeah, well given her connection to Aristotelianism. She ought to have been able to recognize the idea that That the rest can be part of yours Yeah, we can be part of promoting yours. Yeah, but also I think What is primary in a case like that is the other person's good. It's not as though You're looking for Some way to benefit yourself and oh I could do this. Yeah, it's not Strategy, it's like how can I best advance my interests? Oh, here's person interaction with whom will will promote my Psychological health or something like that Yeah, that's not yeah But also I think it's primary The other person's needs are sometimes primary, but if we love them then in meeting them, we also benefit ourselves After all if Dagny didn't need his help that he wouldn't have done it, right? So it all turns on what Dagny needs at that time And it's sad, but a lot of objectivists think that that is the truth in her view That for every act you have to be able to say that it was good for you and that's why you did it They need more Aristotle Yes, and common sense was common sense. We know Anyway, so, you know there you are in India you're Thinking about America What happens? So what happens is that thanks to Carter the airlines are deregulated and the price the fairies go down Drastically and I realized that I have five thousand rupees in my bank My parents gave me five thousand rupees when I got married in addition to lots of other things like gold jewelry and kitchen stuff and And that was the cost of a ticket So I said I'm going and After a lot of resistance my ex-husband said, okay And my son went to live with my mother. He was very very close to her And I said I was going for four months because that was my return ticket was for four months But at the at the airport the immigration Person asked me how long I wanted to stay in America And I didn't know that that was that I could choose a longer period So I think I said six months or one year But then I just continued and I was away for one year and nine months altogether which was not great for my son and I do Wish I had not stayed away for that long But here we are This is what objective is of dust So when I went back some object of us said to me, oh But why are you going back if you can stay here? You should stay. This is what you want to do I said no, I have a son back home Well, why is his happiness more important than your own? I say There it is again, yeah, yeah, I mean, don't you even recognize obligations even if it wasn't even if it didn't make me happy to go back I couldn't have been happy if I stayed on abandoning my child But even if that was not the case, I have an obligation to go back Oh and then well, so that ran got me interested in philosophy of course, but at the same time In one of her essays she made fun of contemporary philosophy and made it sound as though it was, you know There's no point in studying it So I didn't think of studying it for a long time But till I went to till I started auditing Harry Benz Wanger's horse on philosophy of Mind, I think he called it from the softball psychology at Hunter College And on the very first day everything fell into place and I knew What I really wanted to study and why I hadn't wholehearted about my But political science. I got an MA in political science while I was in New York and why I hadn't been wholehearted about my BA in English literature back in India so as soon as I went back I enrolled in the MA program in philosophy at Buna University and So then how did you end up here eventually I? got admission to the University of Toronto to do a page to do a PhD and A friend of mine in New York very generously deposited $5,000 in my bank account in Toronto because Canadian immigration said I couldn't go with a child Without some kind of financial support And the department said that they would give me a teaching assistantship on the basis of those things. I managed to Get out. I Have to I took my son without Without telling his dad because earlier he had agreed to my taking him and then he had changed his mind So I didn't think I owed him that Bit of information So that was it and then I got the job at the University of Oklahoma And then in 2009 after I got married to Larry And he got a job here in Fairfax. I took a year's leave and came with him and Realized I could not I either had to go live in Norman or give up my job Since I wasn't willing to go Give up my job May want to tell my Who very white is a little bit about? Oh He's my husband. He's an economist. He teaches at George Mason University And he does a lot of work on Money and gold and Bitcoin free banking Now he's writing a book on Bitcoin and the gold standard. Yeah, cool. So what have your interactions been like with the You know, they brought a Randian community. I Don't really have any Questions of them. I don't haven't met any in Fairfax And I don't go to DC much well when I do goes to see my family Yeah, I sometimes look at the Little videos draw my life The latest is draw my life Bernie Sanders. Have you seen any of them? I don't think so. Oh Yeah, uh, so I think the text is provided by the CEO Um My god, I'm blanking on her name. I do know her name and I I have met her. She's wonderful um Yeah, one of them was on iRand I draw my life iRand Well, this does sound vaguely familiar. I think uh Maybe I saw some of those A while ago I'm just going to get her name one minute. I think that'll take me out of zoom, but I'm not sure out here You can you can look at other other pages and still be As long as you don't close zoom you just yeah, okay, so you can start You'll you'll still be like I can still see you even if you're looking at your Oh, I see I've I've been having to learn more and more about zoom Uh, given the the current unpleasantness, although uh It's had some you know It's been useful, you know, because I for example, I'm part of a science fiction reading group that used to just meet here in Auburn and it was Science fiction philosophy reading group and although it was nice to meet in person and we'd go out to dinner afterward Uh, and now we meet on zoom and we can't do that, but on the other hand we can we invite people Yeah, those who are not here and so that you know, that's a a plus so it comes with pluses and minuses Yeah, how often do you meet? You once a month the once every two months depending on how much we get our act together Yeah Oh, okay, Jennifer Grossman Okay, Jennifer Grossman. Yeah All right, I'll put I'll put a link to that in the description now Usually anything I talk about I put a link to in the description. So I'll have a link. I'll have a link to uh to your books in The Jennifer Grossman writing my life Yeah She's not uh, I mean, of course she respects ran, but she's not Like reverential in her attitude Um, oh no You Well, David Kelly isn't either. So that's not all that surprising. Yeah, I think I think his his book, um Well, it was uh, it's It was it's been title. It had various titles. It's kind of gone through a few different Editions but his book on On the contestants you can see a vine ran or tooth and toleration or whatever the latest edition is Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, I still think that's a very nice book Uh, yeah, I have a blurb on the back saying Some edition or other Yeah Okay, help I'll stick that me in Whatever So, what are you working on these days? Well, I just finished this article on virtue ethics and libertarianism for matt solinsky and ben furgusson's anthology And we were supposed to Write about Write about the work done in this area by other people instead of trying to advance a novel thesis Um, I thought at first it would be a bit Tarsome, but it wasn't actually because it there were only four philosophers Who had defended libertarianism on virtue ethical foundations So there was plenty of time to Reflect on what they had said and come up with my own views um So the four people you know all the four people that I'm Talking about and I think you know one of them quite intimately You might be able to guess who that is Well, there's the these there's a script the uh inscription at delphi know thyself Yes Yeah, um So one of the presumptions that that's something difficult to do so uh What knowing yourself. Yes So perhaps you shouldn't assume that I am so successful in that particular endeavor Anyway, one thing I realized that I hadn't realized before Maybe this is something that everyone knows and I'm the only one who didn't know it, but I don't think so So one thing I realized in trying to write this paper Is that if you try to defend individual rights in terms of a highly moralized conception of human life Such as the fact that human beings pursue virtue or you die mania So human beings need freedom in order to pursue virtue Or you die mania and you die mania um You end up excluding a lot of people on the status of rights bearers Because many many people do not pursue Virtue across the board they might do they might I think they do pursue it in some areas of their lives Like with people they love or like but not across the board um So then instead of trying to justify rights in terms of people's pursuit of virtue Some philosophers try to justify them in terms of people's moral capacity But even this leaves out a lot of people um For example anti social personalities Who repeatedly inflict emotional harm on others but don't violate other people's rights And psychopaths who do the same out of a lack of empathy remorse and guilt So anti social personalities might have some moral capacity, but they don't really exercise it often Where psychopaths lack the capacity altogether At the same time though at least in one case um The psychopath has done some really worthwhile work He's a neuroscientist who's won awards for his work Um, so I guess he has at least an intellectual virtue Namely the pursuit of truth But the more general lesson that I draw I think my grandmother might have been either a sociopath or a psychopath. I don't know You know the perspective Did she do anything worthwhile in her life on her? Yeah, no, she was she was a brilliant charming person who Very innovative You know she had many virtues, but Deeply manipulative deep lack of empathy What kind of virtues did she have if she was deeply manipulative and without empathy? Well, I'm using virtues and sort of the In the broad sense of like well the virtue of my theory is you know, so she had you know, she had She had positive features and the positive features were that she you know things like You know intelligence ingenuity creativity Stuff like that so not exactly moral virtues. Yeah more like intellectual or craft virtues. Yeah So like what did she do? In which these Qualities were displayed well, um Uh, she you know as soon as she married my grandfather. She you know, she uh You know quit working. She'd been working as a As a secretary, but she um She had at one point she was uh, uh She did some Speaking on the radio People found and and and they invited her to To become a regular speaker on the radio because She was very engaging and and so forth on the radio But she couldn't He turned down because she couldn't stick to a You know, she said oh, I couldn't possibly stand a regular schedule of having to come in periodically and talk. Um She came up with You know various things and we have sort of household design she came up with some way of of um of mixing die into the tiles of the patio that was innovative and uh That kind of thing she did some uh You know some painting um She was very athletic. Um, you know as a as a young girl she would uh you know, she would uh You know outrace all the boys and bicycles And uh later as an adult she would you know, she was really good at sort of you know hiking and climbing around mountains and All which my mother was not um And she was a very expert driver as long as there were no other drivers around But if there were other drivers around she would complain to a rage at them and take both hands off the wheel and shake her Fists at them and so What off the wheel Yes, uh She would take both hands off the wheel and shake her fists at the other drivers and yell at them. Uh, and so her husband wouldn't let her Drive, he was the opposite. He was a very slow Careful driver careful except that he would never Look back. He would never even look in the Rear view mirror. He would just drive very slowly Uh, I'm of use to compare them to the Irresistible force and the immovable object Um, but they were both kind of held to live with in different ways. Um So it looks like you spent a lot of time with her Uh, and a lot of my I mean I I knew her but a lot of my stories about her from my mother But yeah, she lived with us for a while and so I got to experience Uh, she lived with you and your mother Yeah It was uh, yeah toward the end Yeah, um And she was let's say she was difficult To live with she went around This was in in new hampshire. She went around the town telling people That my mother was starving her to death Which was not strictly accurate Did she look starved She was very thin, uh, but but strong and wiry Even you know, even in her latest her feeblest, uh Old age she had a kind of wiry strength that you You wouldn't expect She when she died She died she was Around the same age that my mother was when she died is 91 92 something like that Okay How did she treat her husband? Uh Very badly. Um Uh She sort of you know, she She tormented both him and my mother and made their lives miserable And then on his deathbed she forged a signature on the will to make all the money go to her and not to Uh his kids Um But if they discovered the forgery, why didn't they disregard um They didn't discover the forgery. Uh You know, you know, my mother was there in the room, but At the time she was sort of too cowed by my mother to To do anything about it. Um Uh So my mother so my grandmother basically controlled my mother for the rest of her life by doling out little bits and bits of Of the money that she should have inherited Yeah Uh, which is this is why she was still living at home Yeah with her mom. Yeah Yeah, my mother didn't actually leave home until uh Until she was 30 Because her her mother kept guilting her about oh, you can't leave. I can't get on without you Although she was perfectly She was perfectly competent, but she'd say things like well, I can't change my typewriter ribbon you're the only one who can change it and And My mother would my mother would actually fall for that but eventually she you know, they were living in san francisco at the time my mother finally left in a burst of you know combination of guilt and Liberatory elation and drove down to LA where her mother told her we will never be able to get a job in LA You're the her parents both used to call her non-compass metis. They said she was Incapable of surviving on her own even though she'd gotten you know, excellent grades in school that didn't matter to her Her grandfather your grandfather also abused your mother. Yes You know again both me emotionally not physically Her brother was the physically abusive one that's a whole other story Um, but anyway, they told her you'll never be able to survive on your own But she did she got down to LA. She uh, you know got a job Just fine Uh, but later on you know periodically you know by Uh, you know after my mother was widowed we we would occasionally live with with with my grandmother on and off one time Oh my grandmother also my mother used to write letters uh To my grandmother about me about me growing up and my grandmother who was sort of fond of me Would say I'll always keep these letters cherished them But one time she was mad at my mother and she just tore all the letters up In front of me no copies. This is also around the time when um When my grandmother's claimed that she had Injured her leg and so my mother had to drive her everywhere because she couldn't walk anywhere because But one day my mother happened to see her striding freely down the street because she didn't know my mother was watching So anyway, she was a handful This is more about me than about you now The interviewer has become the interviewee Yeah, I just but uh, anyway going back getting back to your point, which I let off into this digression about sociopaths and psychopaths and whether they This kind of issue is part of the reason why Uh, I prefer to think of Uh, the covet to liberty not so much as a need on the part of the recipient Need on the part of the the rights respecter that Uh, it's just inherently You know more human more humane more civilized to deal with people by a reason and corporation rather than by force And so that's something on you as an agent Uh Even if the people you're dealing with are, you know, not You know, not responding to it as uh appropriately as As they should Yeah, but the question then arises is why is it more humane more civilized? or whatever What is it about the other person that makes it? What something I ought to do Well, I mean they are They are rational agents and they are as long as they're human beings Even if they're behaving in a very defective manner It's still true that the rationality is sort of the deepest and most explanatory Okay, so it's capacity for reason. Yeah That Yeah, even you know That grounds rights and shows why rights are important Okay Yeah, so that's fine, but um, are these people rational? psychopaths Sometimes I mean the term rational can mean both having the capacity for it And exercising it and of course Everyone, you know, everyone has that capacity exercises to some degree You know, everyone uses rationality To some degree. Uh, there are obviously various different degrees of it. Um And probably no one uses it You know uses it as fully as in principle. They good Yeah, so Yeah, well, I think in the case of some people like Real serious psychopaths Um without any redeeming intellectual features I think the only reason We have to respect their rights is because the alternative is Some people deciding which people don't have the capacity um And that can that's risky because you might be mistaken And if you're talking about the state Deciding well and the state and that's giving the state too much power um And why bother locking them up anyway if they're not violating anyone's rights Well, you might say but they're making people's lives a misery um, and then Standard libertarian answer would be well, but they can move away, you know, they can get rid of them You know, that's not always easy All right, so they are doing damage, but they're not doing the kind of damage that deprives them of rights Uh, I think one can only give practical reasons But not depriving them of their rights Well, I think in terms of you know evils that involve force should be combated with or can be combated Not necessarily should but can be combated with force evils that don't involve force shouldn't be combated with force Should be combated with other means that doesn't mean as people sometimes think That evils that don't involve force are always less serious No, no, I agree. I think that you know what my grandmother did to my mother was more serious than you know, uh You know Someone giving you a quick punch and then running off with your wallet uh Uh But you know, so it's not the degree of harm. It's the kind uh, it's the kind of interaction Yeah, and I and I completely agree and I probably said that somewhere too, but the thing is It's I mean we say okay, you can always go away, but you can't always go away, especially if you're a child No, and of course, um Well, yeah, and the issue of children's rights is complicated because you know, it's one thing to be doing the you know to be Inflicting this kind of mystery on an adult, which of course at the end my my grandmother was it's my as I said My mother was 30 by the time she left so but if you talk about You know, it's a difficult question Uh about you know, what kind of intervention is permissible in the case of of you know Emotional not physical but emotional abuse of children where she's like whatever Whatever policy you come up with is probably going to have either you know Either too many interventions or too few Uh, you know, so that's that's gonna be a question Well, not just for libertarians. I think it's a difficult question for you for anyone on any Yeah On any view Well, but maybe it's more difficult for libertarians Other people are quite open to Excuse me Having the state intervene however They don't seem to realize the dangers of doing that. So maybe it's just as difficult for them Of course parents have had a a broad range of views on this topic because one end you've got like You know Murray Rothbard saying the children are their parents property Although since he also says that parents shouldn't be allowed to kill them. He doesn't quite mean property If he's been sloppy there, but anyway, this is that that That you know That children are completely subject to the parents authority Until they rebel and then suddenly they require rights. It's a sort of odd view Regardless of the age. Yeah, so it seems like it's it's You know, it swings from too much in one direction to too much the other um But you know, it's a uh, you know, but it is a difficult question. Um I think you know despite people sometimes saying you know including People in the randian movements and they're saying well, all that matters is is force. I mean if you look at the um Uh, if you look at the example, uh, the falton head uh Most of the people who get victimized in the falton head Uh are not victimized by the literal force. They're victimized by various kinds of social pressure Uh, Individuals and the way that else was to he sort of manipulates his niece Catherine. Yeah, uh and you know Twists her her soul into a pretzel um, and then also sort of broader social forces for the way that people like Uh Rourke's mentor Henry Cameron or the sculptor Steve Mallory and obviously people are uh, you know are so you know deeply uh You know deeply oppressed not by the actual use of force but by a a social milieu Um Which work is able to overcome but uh, uh, but you know work is You know is is a kind of Unique growth upon the earth, um You know what unique what unique growth upon the earth. I mean in this in his complete psychological Uh independence And we did we learned very much we've learned very little about his childhood So there's some of the characters we learned a lot about their childhoods, but ruck we don't it's like he you know He grew up out of the yeah rounder frank from Jesus brow um Uh Uh, you know with Yeah, Gail winen we learned his whole the whole details of his child Does that so well, I mean as As the creator of the character. She actually has sympathy for him and she's And I find the description of tui's childhood. I find interesting too. Uh, tui is her most interesting villain um And the only villain that I'd want to have coffee with Uh Yeah in her books. Can you imagine having you having coffee with james taggart? I can't imagine what you talk about Um, but it would be interesting. I mean, you know, it wouldn't be my top choice to have coffee with but you know If I pick one of the iron ran villains to have coffee with he'd be the one um At least his conversation would be interesting. Uh, but um Uh, but yeah, anyway, so my point was that these um uh, you know That the fountain had very much illustrates the way in which In which forces of of oppression whether personal or social That don't involve the initiation of force Uh, you know can still wreck people and mess people up and you could say well, they could all be Like hard work and just you know, so it was kind of psychological independence when we never see how Work developed that kind of independent Uh, we don't know anything about his his background or his childhood um And you know developing that kind of independence isn't Yeah, isn't easy Yeah, so the other thing I've done Recently is uh, well, I guess it's not the other thing um It's so I've been doing a little bit of political philosophy and business ethics in the last few years um A couple of years ago. I wrote a paper on self ownership And the course of writing it I realized that unlike most libertarians I think that sometimes violating a person's rights is justified Or at least more justified than not violating them For example, if my son or brother or a close friend was threatening To commit suicide because they'd been abandoned by their lover I would stop them From killing themselves because I know they would get over it Oddly, I know that once they had recovered They would have a happy life Um So first of all, do you agree that most libertarians would disagree with that? Yeah, I think that most would disagree although I remember the john hospice took the same Position you're taking oh, okay Um, does he have an article on rights or what? Um, I can't remember where he says it But he does you know, he does say it I think I think he draws distinction between that kind of you know, what contemporary paternalism versus a paternalistic regime that sort of prevents someone from committing suicide ever Um, I can't remember if he draws that distinction or whether I'm just imagining that he should have Yeah So I better not hang out with you because if I wanted to commit suicide, you wouldn't stop me, right? Well, uh You know, I don't know if my views are completely settled on this. I think that um, uh You know, I can certainly feel the pull of thinking that a uh, you know A temporary intervention to make sure the person's really in there in there, uh, you know Fully in their right senses and and this is a You know a genuine long-term commitment. I think that could be Yeah, I see I feel the pull of thinking that could be justified On the other hand the idea that when someone has a long-term settled decision to commit suicide I just find it horrific that they should be prevented from doing it Have you seen the movie million dollar baby? No so in that movie, um It's sort of spoiler alert, but in the uh in that movie the um The main character gets uh Paralyzed from the neck down Yeah, one of the two main characters gets paralyzed from neck down and wants to die and cannot commit suicide and um and no one wants to uh Wants to help her but she wants to die and it's not just a temporary feeling it's a permanent one and the idea that you couldn't You know the idea that your life and your body could become a you know a cage you could not escape uh Yeah, terrifying Yeah, the stoics are The idea of suicide as a as an escape that someone has a uh Has a right right to me I would never stop someone in that position. Um, there's a wonderful movie based on a true story of a man in somewhere in europe Forgetting the title who is paralyzed and is being looked after by his brother and sister-in-law mostly sister-in-law And he hates being dependent on her so he Plot plans for many years to commit suicide and finally With his friend's help. He's able to like each friend does something that is legal um But The overall result is that they help him to commit suicide, which is illegal but the state can't Prosecute any of them because no one did more than a fraction of the action that was necessary for him to die Yes, interesting. Let me know they could be good Have a good interesting legal case. Well, you said it's a true story. So I guess maybe it did make an interest I think the task C in the title and that's all I can remember now. Oh, I saw a movie once that had C in the title Uh, yeah And then I've done some work uh in business ethics And I'm surprised to see How easily they talk about virtue um Most of them, I think just mean doing the right thing They're not thinking of the reasons why a person does the right thing Yeah, versus talk has become popular Yes, the revival bears to an ethics, but often it's very superficial Yeah, but there are two economists I'll you You've Gino Bruny or you've Gino Bruny and Robert Sugden They have an article called reclaiming virtue ethics for economics and they say that that They have in mind Aristotelian virtues Although their list of virtues is not the same as Aristotle's but they can be They can be Understood in terms of Aristotle's. Well, I mean Aristotle's list could certainly be improved Um Yeah, so they think these are the specifically in business counterparts of the standard Aristotelian virtues So enterprise and alertness Trust and trustworthiness respect for partners preferences self-help acceptance of competition non-rivalry universality and stoicism about reward However, when they come to acceptance of competition, they have to acknowledge that most business people don't like competition and do their best to kill it according to Matt Mitchell Um, about so he's done Surveys about 60% of the business people he interviewed said, oh, yeah, we believe in competition, but I think in America, there's too much competition Much competition Choices it's terrible what People have too many choices. It's terrible. Yeah, and uh, yeah, they all Acknowledged that they had taken help from the government. Um, so The author is Bruni and Sugden Acknowledged that most business people don't like competition And they do their best to kill it But if that's true, then it follows that most of them don't have most of the other virtues either For example, non-rivalry is a virtue regarding others as potential sources of mutual benefit Rather than drivers one must knock down in order to benefit oneself But these people are not acknowledging that their competitors are a source of mutual benefit um Oh In fact, they go on to say non-drive release the virtue of understanding that free exchange is a positive sum not zero sum of taking pleasure in other people's success and acting accordingly um People who use political means to kill competition do not have this virtue At least these are either competitors They also don't have the virtue of universality because that virtue is opposed to political favoritism patronage protectionism and nepotism um, so I think the only way to Judge the character of a business person Oh for that matter you know anyone in the in the public eye is Is on the basis of biographies, but even biographies can be misleading for example, Bert Folsom In the myth of the robber barons makes a Rockefeller out to be this paragon of virtue But Ron Chernow who's written a more detailed biography of Rockefeller Based on his letters and other papers um Talks about his many virtues, but also talks about the way he tried to kill competition In particular, there was a small company That was building a pipeline um And Rockefeller went out of his way to destroy it first that they started buying land That was in the path of the projected pipeline and still this little company managed to chug along Um, they tried to get the government to stop it and didn't succeed there and in the end This little company managed to build a pipeline up a steep mountain and no one else had done that before them And so people were full of praise for this company, but Rockefeller No, he was angry so that's not He wasn't he was pretty bad in some ways, but at the same time he's a wonderful employer Um, he was a great entrepreneur. He reduced the price of gasoline from 58 cents a gallon to eight cents In the process saving whales um so He did have a lot of virtues, but not when Folsom and Rand both seem to have this idea that either someone is a You know is an economic entrepreneur and they're you know, they're um You know, they're just Earning their way through providing, you know better services at lower cost Or they're a political entrepreneur and they're just turning their way through political favoritism As though there weren't lots and lots of intermediate cases Yeah, um including lots of people who You know initially won their wealth mostly through economic means But then once they were in a position to buy political favors, then they went all in Yeah, I'm going to do to squash the competition you know the idea that you know that Uh and Rand it quickly seems to think that anyone who is virtuous and rational enough to You know to make a fortune on their own would be too virtuous and rational to try and increase it by political means, but that Does not seem to hold up historically Yeah, um Well gail winand manages to build a thriving empire By his own efforts, but it's not really an empire where it's heavy It's um Yeah, I think most people are mixed But now Vanderbilt really was In his life as a business person. He really was Completely decent He did try to get government help But he failed But the only reason he tried is because the government was helping his competitors. So I think that's a different case from Trying to get help when you have no when no one else is trying to get it Uh, but anyway, he was pretty amazing. I think he was he did everything right in his business life And JJ him Yeah, I'm as inspected on closer inspection that you know, I at least would find problems um But then I you know, you know, I have these worries about sort of background conditions Created by government to sort of favor uh Favor large firms and so forth, but But that's another story. Um Yeah, I don't think these guys became big And survived because of any favors that were done to them Well, luckily but I you know, I I don't kind of think that that uh, you know, some of the things like you know, the um Uh You know the kind of government interventions that made it harder for workers to organize and so forth Made it harder for independent workers co-ops and so forth to do things. Um uh the You know the kind of giveaways to the railroads, uh Which you know, some may have benefited from more than others, but I think it helped to skew the whole economy uh Toward these now toward these large firms. I don't think these guys were competing on a you know on a completely uh Flat competition field But JJ hill Didn't get any help I mean he was He was trying to make a success of his business on the face of Other businesses that were getting help right So also, I don't know about his case to know Whether I would have some criticism although I bet I would If I look closer, um I we talked about this before and you said something about the land Is not having to pay The full cost of the land because of some program that the government had I don't but I don't remember what that was. I don't remember either My memory is not what it was Uh, but in any case, I don't think everyone is responsible for everything that's gone before I mean look we're teaching in all I used to teach in a state institution. We are teaching in a state institution, right? so How I'm just talking to you on a On a laptop that was bought for me by a state institution Uh, and my license for zoom was Uh for the professional version of zoom Uh was paid for by a state institution Um, okay, there you are That building that building there was built by a state institution. Namely, uh, they made mainly ancient Athens And it's And it's still owned by a state institution, right? So not slave labor so much these days. Uh, no Let's no that some That's some improvement. Uh Yes, there's less there's less slavery in Athens now than there was During its heyday There's no slavery there now is there There's there's there's probably something going on somewhere. Um, you know people who are Trapped in some kind of human traffic or something somewhere in any Large city like that. There's there's probably some kind of crap going on but you know, it's not Uh, you know Not like not like the old days I don't think the old days when Pericles built the Parthenon as they put it Uh Did you say something just now? I said when Pericles built the Parthenon all by himself Yeah Backpacking a little bit. I'm curious about What your reactions were to You know to america or for canada uh, north america generally Oh The first thing I lived in was new york Okay, and I felt as though had stepped I had leapfrogged over the 20th century And landed in the future because I'd never seen Those kinds of buildings except in movies, of course, but it's not the same thing a difference, so Yeah, it's different from landing in You know, I don't know gleanland or somewhere. Yeah, or norman Yeah, or norman. Yeah, I was always looking up at the buildings. I was always getting lost But people were wonderful. I would stop and ask Inland manhattan the grid structure is helpful for fighting your way And what's the grid structure the streets and the avenues the way they're laid out as opposed to some cities where it's all That's true Except in southern, uh, manhattan there it gets topsy-turvy Um So anyway, I was always lost but I would just ask for directions because I'm not a man I People were very nice Like even in the subway, you know, they're rushing to catch that train and I'm saying I'm going to such such place. Which train should I take and they would show me? um So, yeah, that was uh an amazing experience And oh, I actually know I landed in washington dc And stayed with a distant relative And on my very first full day there in the evening I asked this distant cousin of mine to take me to Uh somewhere in maryland where a group of objectivists was running off lectures on objectivism or something Yeah, I heard some news back in the day My primary aim was to You know be with a group of objectivists and hear more about objectivism So he dropped me there and At the end of the session I turned around and asked if anyone could take me back to wherever it was we were staying close to dc And this couple said yeah, we'll take you Um, but then said would you like to come to our house first and then we'll take you back I said, yeah, sure And and I just made friends with this couple um And then then I said look, I really want to go to manhattan And but I don't know anyone there. Oh, we have a single friend Uh, but he lives in a studio apartment But we can ask him if you like I said yes, please so they asked him And I stayed with him for about a week and then he said his daughter was coming to visit him The daughter lived Somewhere else with her mother He said you can either share my bed with me or you can find another place for yourself I said I said I'll find another place And by that time I started working in an Indian boutique So I told one of the women there that I needed a place. She said oh you can come and stay with me for a week. I said, okay And then before that week was up I met someone else and she said oh you can come and stay with me as long as you like She was an objectivist, so I spent about a month with her Then I found by that time I'd enrolled in The new school for social research to get a degree in political science and And then I found an apartment to share with two other students Also, this is Oh apart from the guy he wanted in his bed. This is this is you uh, you know a more A more friendly version of both objectivists and end of Manhattanites than people might expect Well, even the guy who said that you know, he said look I have no place. I said, yeah, I know, so I'm gonna look for a place Yeah, um Any thoughts on what's going on nowadays in India Oh terrible. It's terrible. What's going on People have just flipped under the influence of this evil man, Modi all of a sudden the Hindu majority Seems to think that they have been oppressed all these years by Muslims And so it's only just that Muslims should get revenge I mean that Hindu should get revenge on Muslims And if you say but look these are not the same Muslims. I asked one of my relatives. I said Oh, she asked me why Americans so and so Against jews. I said very few Americans are against jews. But the real question is why so many Hindus against Muslims And she says oh because they conquered us. I said that was a long time ago. It was different people It's not the people who are alive now. I know but It doesn't matter even when they see the Ridiculousness of that position. They don't care And some people simply deny that anything is going on No, that's just the media Or they've started using the term false news fake news See America's influence reaches far and wide Yeah, well, this used to be a kind of resurgence of nationalism around Kara's Yeah, Hungary, Poland The US, India But at least civil societies here is really strong There's so many groups fighting against kind of nonsense that Trump is That Trump has let loose on us Yeah, well, you know, you know, if it weren't for the um, you know The kind of structures of and people will say you shouldn't be so anti-government You should be grateful to government for providing you the freedom, but the you know, the freedom is freedom that has been won against the government by the efforts of of you know of people You know Over the decades, you know wrenching every bit of freedom they could get from the government. So that is the government is here You know, the government has just a voluntarily chosen to limit and restrain itself was not That accurate. Um, so, you know, we're lucky that there's been even though our government is not as restrained as it should be particularly from my point of view or to be restrained to but uh, it's um you know, it's it is free enough that um They had someone like trump can't do as much damage as they could if they were you know, you were just sort of the you know, yeah, the empowered rights counselor or something but You know still it's bad enough Yeah, um And I you know, I follow things sort of like in turkey too because I feel sort of a personal connection Uh to turkey just because I had a Turkish girlfriend in the 90s And my connection to turkey lasted longer than that relationship did And so it's sort of depressing to see what's going on Yeah, it's really sad. Although it's hardening to see that the the younger generation you know the poles of younger generation are sort of You know more and more disaffected by arduan. Yeah And what about agent? in russia and then you know Even britain has its Has its sort of nationalist stuff going on You mean right now Not in the same, you know, not to the same, you know, yeah Well, I mean britain also has a very strong, you know You know legal and civil society Yeah, I'm sure that It resists some of that and like You know unlike russia Although the turkey for a long time was moving in the you know, in the right direction in fact Direction under the akp party Um this p-stand for party. You know, is this like atm machine? But anyway, um Uh, it was uh you know For a long time it was moving in the direction of greater civil liberties and civil society and economic freedom and all that stuff um But not so much now Yeah Yeah, it's very sad I think I think this country will change under a most sensible person um Because people do I mean people's public opinion changes quite rapidly um Both for good and for bad But I don't know what's going to happen in india or turkey or egypt after all this the latest round of Dictatorship in egypt as a result of young people clamoring for freedom I mean it's in reaction to that and then hong kong Yeah The most tragic case And a lot of people at the time when you know it came under chinese rule a lot of people saying well look china has guaranteed it uh, then it'll it'll treat it differently and give freedom and Yeah, well, you know guarantees from You know from a very powerful government are not always that reliable Yeah, when I first heard of this of britain handing back hong kong to china and the so-called guarantee of two systems One nation I was really skeptical I don't know what the alternative was but I didn't believe that a communist government would Allow hong kong to stay free for this long Yeah, I was going to be under british control either um And of course long kong has never been you know exactly a perfect free market I mean they don't even have private property and land for the most part um Yeah, but they're more free market than almost any They were More free market than you know, then uh, the people's republic of china Even though you know china's more free market than it was Under mile, but that's a pretty low bar Yeah But don't you think that hong kong was more free market than any other country? It's hard to say it was it was more free market than most I'll certainly say that it's it's hard to tell Once you get to the very top, it's hard to tell because things are you know more in one respect and less in another You know like these debates of whether the united states or canada is more free market and people say well Uh, you know canada has a bigger welfare state and higher taxes But they also have fewer economic regulations In many ways in like with denmark denmark has a bigger welfare state than the us All taxes but also Has fewer regulations. So which one's more free market? I don't know um Well under the british it had complete freedom of speech hong kong Yeah, the only thing it didn't have was the vote which might as might actually have been better for the people Well, although, you know, obviously you know As an anarchist i'm not a big fan of the the vote is sort of the you know an ideal means of solving things but it does function as a kind of self-defense No, certainly. I think if hong kong had a vote now against china that would you know If you know it could if people hong kong could vote now and what china's doing to them. I think they'd be better off Uh, actually they do have the vote I mean if they had if it were effective they could vote to vote of china to stop doing something and it would stop Yeah, of course It can be effective against the communist government Yeah, I think the paternism has a chance I think we're going to get nationalized health care um Because that's what people want Most people well, I mean the system that we have now the people call market system um I'm not sure it's really any more free market than a nationalized health care system I think it's just sort of a different flavor um so uh, you know It's the question of you know whether whether it's more direct supervision by the government or whether it's more handed over to you know to um You know the medical establishment and private insurance companies and so forth, but You know in neither case really a free market. That's not really on the No, it's not The table so yeah, again, you've come and you've compared the american system with the canadian system Well, you know one has higher prices the other one has longer waiting times It doesn't like there's a sharp dividing line. I want this is you know, this is more free and this one isn't um But it is the case that 40 000 canadiens come to the states every year to seek medical care 40 to 50 000 So it looks like the long lines are worse than the high prices Oh, maybe it's the insurance that's paying for them. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. I also I don't know you know How how and I don't know if if canada offers you know offers the um uh, the low cost uh medical care to non Citizens if it did then there might be people flowing in the other direction too Young people Sorry, sir I said I I think could there would be people you know, there'd be people from the u.s Going to canada if if canada offered uh You know if canada offered lower prices um Oh non non-canadian citizens Uh, I say no because they don't have the capacity People wouldn't go there regardless because I remember the when Back when george w bush was uh was president um There was this controversy about importing um Canadian Frogs because they were cheap because they were state subsidized. They were cheaper Then from here to canada and then people wanted to import them back yeah, and anyway, and Bush was trying to squash this as unfair competition But you know, sort of it's it's unfair competition in both directions because on the one hand the You know Canada's low prices were made possible by government intervention, but you know, you could say that the American pharmaceutical Uh industries high prices are also made possible by government intervention Um Now it's complicated Is it true one often hears that most of the innovation Most medical innovation takes place here in the states But I think you have to delete all the All the the little tweaks that they make To a drug in order to extend the patent In order to get a new patent So I think one we shouldn't count those as innovations at all Yeah, well, they're You know, there are innovations in gaming the system, but they're not you know, they're not Be needed In a free market. I mean, there's a lot of This is a freer market than many places in the world and there's a lot of innovation here But when I read about About medical research around the world I read all stuff happening in When you read about medical what medical innovations Yeah, you know the stuff happening here. We also stuff happening in England and Israel and china and various places various places that are quite different from each other in their legal regimes, but um There is stuff happening Yeah all over But don't you think a communist regime makes it impossible for the independent mind to function Hey, how was ian rand able to function? She left when she was 20 21. Yeah, but she wrote she wrote several things before she left. Yeah, I know You know, I'm just you know, I'm a lot of you know, there were a lot of writers and artists You know, sometimes they ended up in Siberia, but Uh before they did they were you know, they were uh doing You know their minds are currently functioning. Uh, they're functioning under a You know under a threat, but the what was wrong with the threat wasn't that it made you know That it literally froze up their minds and made them incapable of thinking um So what is um Why have you started this youtube channel because you like to You like to give lectures Um write them down Uh, and I'm you know, I'm pre-recording lectures from my you know from my fault classes Uh, you know, so Okay, but it's just it importantly, it's just that but now I've now got the You know, I've I've now got the technological ability and skills to make youtube videos For a long time. Either I didn't have the software or I didn't you know how to do it And now that you're doing these you know these things I can Um, I can do it. It's just uh, kind of fun um In some ways it's it's you know a lot of love for the ones that aren't interviews the ones that are just We talking about stuff, uh You know, it's it was less work to just talk about something that actually write it up And uh You know, some people prefer to read something than to than to uh watch a video Other people prefer to watch a video rather than read something and you know, I can Get her to both but also then this chance to do interviews with people. I think it's Uh, it's just going to be fun. This certainly has been Well on that note, I I don't know if I have any other question Any any final thoughts? No, thank you very much. Um Good luck on your new venture All right, thanks. Okay, Roderick. Bye. Bye. Bye