Well, dear listener, this is an episode that I've been threatening to do for

a few weeks now, and it's book review.

I'll be going through a book called Justice, what's the Right

Thing to Do by Michael j Sandel?

And, uh, I really like the book.

It's got lots of moral quandaries and it provides a good framework in terms of

analyzing moral quandaries, identifying approaches to solving them, and coming

up with an alternative sort of theory of morality, if you like, at the end,

which is a pretty, uh, uh, vague theory.

I'll give it that.

And it's got a lot of vibe to it.

But in any event, uh, I think it's a worthwhile exercise.

But before I do, uh, and before I get onto the book, this really is a good

follow on to an episode that we did about a year and a half ago, episode 238,

where I sat down with Peter and, uh, the 12th Man and Hugh Harris, and we had a

discussion on the origins of our morals.

And what I'm gonna do, dear listener, is rather than get you to scroll through

the, uh, old episodes and find it, I'm actually gonna, um, insert now.

Uh.

An hour and 27 minutes of episode 238.

Now, if you've heard it recently or you don't wanna hear it again, then

all you need to do is look at your podcast app and look at the time note.

And fast forward now an hour and 27 minutes and 14 seconds, and

you'll end up back to me giving you new commentary on this book.

But I'm gonna insert now that, um, uh, that episode has a good

background to the origin of our morals.

And then we'll continue with, um, this book.

Anyway, dear listener, we're gonna take you through morality and, uh, one of

the reasons why we're doing that is I often hear through podcasts and through

the media where people talk about the Judeo-Christian ethic and how it's lucky

we've got it because it's basically what's created the civilization that

we have and that we'd be essentially, there'd be raping and pillaging going

on and uncontrolled slaughter, um, of the masses if it wasn't there.

So aren't we lucky for the Judeo-Christian ethic?

And so I, um, and this is the idea that when we talk about

Judeo-Christian ethic, what do you understand that to be 12th Man,

I wasn't expecting this.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, the judo, judo Christian ethic.

Oh, what do I understand To be the essence of the Judo Christian ethic.

Mm-hmm.

Um, love thy neighbor.

You know, don't offend God.

Yeah.

Go to church every week

sort of

stuff.

You get from the Bible, really Bible stuff you get from the Bible, the

Old Testament, the New Testament.

Yeah.

The Old Testament being the Judeo component and the Christian

being the New Testament.

Yeah.

Um, so it's this idea that through the Bible Old and New Testament,

we've picked up moral guidance that's enabled us to have the flourishing

civilization that we have today.

Yeah.

But the actual term Judeo-Christian is really only a recent invention.

It's only something that cropped up in America, sort of post-war,

post-Second World War seriously.

And really only appeared in Australia in sort of late

seventies, something like that.

So it's a term that's post-Second World War.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So, um, Brian Morrison in his book, sacred to Secular, found a little bit in there

and basically the parliamentary library, um, had no reference to it until 1974.

So, so here's the theory that basically when they talked in America about

the Judeo-Christian ethic, they're really wanting to say Christian.

Yep.

Mm. But they added Judeo as a bit of an ant, as a bit of sort of an

antisemitism, um, to avoid as an apology for the antisemitism that

gave rise to post-Second World War.

Yep.

Sort of.

Inclusive of Jewish people.

Mm. Uh, was the reason for putting the Judeo in.

But in more recent times, Judeo-Christian is perhaps a little

more exclusive because it really means not that Islamic kind of Yeah.

Not all the Abrahamic religion.

That's right.

So, so originally Judeo-Christian, well, let's include the Jews

and now more or less means, but let's not include the Muslims.

I is, you know, one way of looking at it.

Well, I think that's true because the sort of people who are normally raving

about the Judeo-Christian ethic are certainly not, uh, brown people of color.

It's gonna be white Christians who are talking about it.

So, okay.

So, um, oh, and one other reason I wanna talk about it is somebody like,

um, Jordan Peterson talks about it.

So for all the Jordan, do we have any Jordan Peterson fans

in the room at the moment?

Hugh,

I wouldn't say fan, but I think Myra, that he has some

interesting comments on things.

I find his views interesting and challenging, but I don't find.

Uh, uh, probably the more famous views that he has particularly.

Right.

Interesting.

Do you find his, the way he explains his views, persuasive?

I, I just find him really hard to listen to.

I have to say, I, I

think he sounds a little bit like he's got a chip on his shoulder with a lot of

the times when he is explaining something.

Um, uh, I've seen some of his YouTube lectures on certain

topics and he's very interesting.

I think he's very interesting about some of his, um, the books that he's

written particularly about the, uh, the hero as a, the archetype of the hero as

such a foundational part of our culture.

Mm-hmm.

Um,

he's big on stories and myths, becoming stories and part of our

culture and driving our ethics.

Yeah.

So he would say to atheists, alright, you may not think you are a Christian,

but actually you are because you've absorbed the myths and stories,

uh, of Christianity and you are leading a lifestyle because of that.

So you're actually, you've absorbed it subconsciously or not.

So that's, that's part of his argument.

A little

bit of truth in that too.

Yeah.

I think there's, I think there is some truth in that, but there's

also the return point, some truth in the fact that most Christians

don't believe in the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

And modern Christians don't believe in the same things that Christians

believed in 2000 years ago.

Yeah.

And for instance, I had a recent debate with a very prominent Christian where we

clarified that their idea of hell is not.

Anywhere near the traditional idea of hell.

In fact, their idea of hell has no visual representation.

They dunno what it is.

Mm-hmm.

They just know that they don't wanna say it's fire and brimstone and hell fire,

because clearly that's immoral in, um, in the way we understand morality these days.

Mm. So I don't think, I think there's a bit of truth to both ways.

So the Judeo-Christian ethic has in fact changed and adapted

to, you know, modern standards.

I think it has must say, I, I'd always take the turn to be a reference to Western

civilization as opposed to, and, and then I get confused as to where the Orthodox

Christians fit in is that they're sort of, they get a bit ignored there, but,

um, but I, I take Judea Christian to be this reference to Western civilization.

Mm-hmm.

I agree.

Yeah.

As opposed to, and yes.

And, but I dunno if it started off in that meaning that,

but that's

how I sort of take it now.

Mm.

Yeah, of course.

The other thing is if, uh, the Judeo-Christian ethic has plagiarized,

um, ideas from before then.

It's wrong to say that we are really following a Judeo-Christian ethic.

We're really following whatever it is that it's plagiarized from.

So yes, that's such as the golden rule.

Exactly.

For that'd be the classic one, for example.

Yeah.

So, um, the, the Golden Rule do unto others as, as you

would have them do unto you.

Yeah.

Did you dig out the origin of the Golden Rule, Trevor?

Um, basically that it's appeared in a number of places independently.

So, because I, confusion,

I didn't notice, uh, that in the, you know, the Greek, um, philosophy

that we were reading in that book,

there is that this idea that, uh, the concept of reciprocity has

appeared in every society, every human society, every society.

There you go.

Yeah.

Wow.

Although, maybe not expressed in the same words.

Yep.

Um, uh, evangelical Christians would argue that Confucius's version of the,

uh, golden Rule is actually called, is the Silver Rule because he, he expressed it

in a slightly different way in, in a kind of negative way instead of a positive way.

Like, don't let people do something that would, that you wouldn't

like them to have done to you.

Oh, that's interesting.

Whereas basically it's just the concept of re reciprocity.

Uh, Ken and Malick in his book said that, so be Quo, a few from a few books.

So, uh, the Quest for a Moral Compass by Ken Malik, and he said in his book

that The Golden Rule has a long history.

An idea hinted at in Babylonian and Egyptian religious codes.

Before fully flowering in Greek and Judaic writing, and independently

in Buddhism and Confucianism too.

So it's an idea that's, um, been around a long time and, and I'm gonna argue a bit

later on that it's part of our evolution, so it goes back to the very beginning.

So we'll get to that.

Oh my goodness.

We might

actually, we might actually agree on something tonight.

Oh, okay.

Good.

So that's change.

Uh, so I guess, uh, did the Jews or the Christians invent a new moral code or

did they plagiarize existing moral codes?

Um, so let's look at what moral codes were around before Christianity

and at the time of Judaism.

So in Ken Malik's book, he starts with Greek mythology and really

in, um, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

We've got Gods, but they're quite, uh, what he calls capricious gods.

And they're very human, these gods, they are jealous and angry and

conniving and very human in their, in their dealings with people.

But, um, people also in that time, there's sort of a combination where

they're fated to their circumstances, which are beyond their control.

Even to some extent, their emotions that they have are fated to them.

That, uh, they were locked into circumstances determined

by their social roles.

Yes, indeed.

A lot of the time, the responses that these characters made

in certain situations were responses that they had to make.

They kind of were locked in through, you're right, this social position meant

well in this position, I must do this.

Or I'm an angry man.

I'm always angry and I'm fated to be angry, and therefore I'm,

or I'm jealous and I will be respond in this sort of manner.

So, um, uh, so personal choice and responsibility is limited.

Um, but, um, that sort of, would

you say the gods were reflections of aspects of human, what would you say?

Existence, human life.

And again, they were just like a group of humans sitting around in the clouds.

So Warrior God would act like a warrior.

Yes.

And, and a king God would act like a king and et cetera.

And they sit around and quarreled and loved amongst each other as

much as a, a group of humans would.

So that was the sort of, uh, the gods that, uh, Greek mythology

was, was pulling up then.

Uh, so that's around the sort of eighth century b, CE and around

the sixth century, uh, we start to get philosophy emerging and, um.

What constituted a virtuous act or a good life was not, uh, intuitively

grasped through myth, but was explicitly established through rational arguments.

So at about this time, people, people figured out we can work shit out like

Pythagoras with these right angle triangle and hypo news in the square equal.

And people thought, bloody, you know, we can actually start working things out.

Maybe we can work out this virtue and living sort of stuff sort of evolved

at that time with the, with the Greeks.

So, um, Paul, any favorites amongst Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle?

Ooh, that's a, that's a big ask.

Mm-hmm.

No, I, I don't have any particular favorites, but, uh, I I was

just, can we start with Socrates?

Yeah.

Socrates.

Right.

So Socrates idea was, um, that it was about, you know, it was about

the examined life, wasn't it?

And determining, uh, what made you happy in life, wasn't it?

Y

uh, yes.

He, he said, you should examine life.

Um, uh, isn't that what he said?

When he was, um, convicted, um, to be, um, killed because of his, um, uh,

supposed heresy and, uh, disrupting, um, society, that he said that he won't

recant recant on his beliefs because the un unexamined life is not worth living.

Yes.

Uh, and.

Uh, he was about how people could, um, care for their souls by acquiring virtues.

But the thing I like about Socrates, and, uh, Peter, I think you'll appreciate this

about Socrates, was the Socratic method.

Yes, yes.

So, which we, we suffered at law school.

Yes.

But, you know, excellent training.

Yes.

So, and it, dear listen, no, if you're a regular on this podcast,

I, I like to think that at different times I've subjected you, Paul, to

the Socratic method because you'll, we'll come out with more than once.

Yeah.

We'll come out with, um, with, uh, a statement about whether a

shopkeeper should sell cakes to, um, gay couples or something like that.

Mm-hmm.

And, and what I try and do in that case is say, well, let's look at

some similar situations and whether you agree to the same thing.

So in a slightly different circumstance, what do you say?

And if you change your mind, uh, really because the facts change, but

the underlying principles haven't.

And it's about exposing inconsistencies and thinking and trying to get to the

actual general principle that's at play.

So, um, so it's a really useful thing to be able to do, is to sort of, uh, raise up

a whole bunch of alternatives and say, do you still think the same way about this?

Now if we change the facts slightly, do you still think the same way about this?

So, um.

You know, and you can use it in all sorts of things.

Like I'm, as you would know, Hugh forever railing about Americans intervention

in other countries around the world.

Yes.

And I quite often say, well, how would the Americans feel if some other country

was doing the exact same thing to them?

They wouldn't be happy, would they like, no.

And if your only answer is the reason it's okay because it's us and not

them, then that's not a good reason.

You have to have a general underlying principle that can apply universally.

And when you've got that, you've got something worthwhile.

But if it's, if it's less than that, it's, it's worth nothing.

So that's the sort of, uh, Socratic, um, method.

And uh, so that was one of the great things he did.

Socrates, Socrates and the Youth Thi Row dilemma.

Anyone familiar with the Youth Thi Row dilemma?

So

that is, that, um, is um, what is good because God says it

is good, which is arbitrary.

Um, or is what is good.

Good.

Because it is good.

Yeah.

And so, um, you know, how can you, how can you say what is the good?

Yeah.

So Socrates was being charged with impiety and he was running around

sort of questioning people about, well, what is Godly and what's good?

And uh, youth Iro was this character who was a prosecutor who.

Had prosecuted his own father for killing a slave.

I think he'd beaten the slave, left him in a gutter, and the

slave had died or something.

And this prosecutor was prosecuting his own father for killing the slave.

Anyway, so Socrates thought, well, this youth, youth Dro is a good guy to talk

to and, um, find out about godliness.

And yeah, so he said to him, well, what, what's good?

And he said, well, it's good if God says it's good.

But, uh, Socrates says, well, if he just says it's good, surely he can't

make something good if it's already bad.

Like if it's murder, for example, just by God saying it's good, can't make it good.

No.

And thi phrase said, well, um, it, it's good.

And, and if God identifies it as good, and then, uh, Socrates

says, so that means that good must exist independently of the gods.

So it must be sitting there as good and the gods then identify it as

being good and it's independent and can exist and crop up.

Uh, separate to the God.

So what's the point of the gods in that case?

So, so do you agree that it's arbitrary that if just because

God says something, it's good?

Mm. That's that it's good.

So if God said, um, you must murder your firstborn son, or you must

torture, uh, civilians, God says that, that that is the good thing

to do that can be good or is good.

Something that has to be measured by more objective manner than that.

Well, Socrates were saying because of that example, it's clearly ridiculous to say

that whatever a God says is good, is good.

You can't rely on that.

And because at those days, gods were known to be crazy, capricious

guys sitting around making all sorts of funny decisions.

So they weren't incredible of it.

They would be arbitrary.

Yeah.

They were.

So, they weren't regular.

So he, um, so he established that, um, moral morale itself, um, was independent

and perhaps there was an objective way of, of reaching what was good and deciding

what was good.

Um, and that's the main, uh, that's a big objection to

divine d divine command theory.

Mm-hmm.

That God dictates what is good.

Mm. And God dictates what's subjective, moral values.

I think that's a killer argument against that.

Mm-hmm.

Plato, I find it hard to get a grip on Plato.

He just, he seems to be amongst some people like the king of these.

Mm. Early philosophers, but it's hard to find something

really concrete about Plato.

Well,

I think they often draw a line, you know, there's post platonic and pre platonic

and this sort of, that Plato is this line.

People draw through the history and,

but I dunno why.

Yeah, but don't you think, I think it's interesting that Plato basically wrote

down everything Socrates supposedly said.

Yes.

And Plato wrote all of his philosophy in plays and in dialogues between people.

So you don't know for a start that, is that what Socrates said?

Or is that what he elaborated on and made a good story out of?

Indeed.

It's a bit like our Bible, um, thing we were talking about how much of this was

actually the word of this person and how much was made up by a subsequent scribe.

So, yeah, that's right.

Probably a lot.

Yeah.

And, and sort of Plato does, um, paint a very attractive picture of Socrates.

So you might guild a lily a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

So do you see Plato as a direct sort of disciple of Socrates in it?

Because his were a little bit divergent.

He wasn't, he was taught among

by, and a couple of others were taught by Socrates.

So, and then Plato, because Socrates apparently didn't

write anything down, did he?

He didn't write anything and he was more like, uh, uh, he was married, but he

didn't have any particular occupation.

And he used to stand in the, the public square and debate people and

basically be a bit of a nuisance.

Yes.

Yeah.

The.

We'll get to it where we get to the Christianity point.

But isn't Plato the point where we get this idea of this spark

of virtue in everybody and

surrounded by the material world?

Certainly there was a character called Thrashy Matches who

advocated naked self-interest.

'cause he said the ruling class are just screwing everybody.

Uh, when they tell you to behave yourself, go out there and do whatever you like.

And Plato said, no, no, no.

Naked self-interest is bad for you and is unhealthy for you, so

you shouldn't conduct yourself with just naked self-interest.

So, um, he didn't really explain why much more beyond then.

It's unhealthy to do that.

He didn't really come up with great moral reasoning for it.

But, uh, that was part of his, he he said

it was a, a form of, um, mental disease in a sense, didn't he?

Yes.

Yeah.

And unhealthiness and unhealthy minds.

You won't

be happy if you do that.

No.

Yeah.

It was kind of his reasoning, but at least it was one of these things

of um, don't be so self-interested.

Well,

makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

And even today he gave as many

reasons as Jesus did.

Yeah.

But even today, I mean, you

could have, um, you know, when matters go to court and things

like that, you can talk about.

Judges will recognize legitimate self-interest, but not just self-interest.

I mean, self-interest might be.

Uh, I get to charge twice for everything I deliver.

And I, I, I'm not gonna pay for anything else I acquire.

That's my self-interest.

But No, no, no, no, no.

Legitimate self-interest is, well, you know, I, I, you,

you've acquired something, you should pay for it and mm-hmm.

And you shouldn't pay anything more than what you bargained

for and things like that.

Mm-hmm.

So, so you are entitled to pursue your self-interest, but

it's still gotta be legitimate.

Yes.

Judges, judges would say that today, and I

think that's consistent.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, the other thing he was famous for, just with finishing off with

Plato, was the, uh, hierarchy of preferred governments.

So his idea of the, uh, best form of government was an aristocracy.

Oh, second was a military dictatorship.

Yes.

Okay.

Third was an oligarchy.

Oh, great.

And then there was a democracy, which Amy ranked above tyranny.

Oh, is this

in the republic?

Is this in the republic?

I think so.

Okay.

Wow.

So

that's fantastic because you had this view that, um, common

people are driven by base desires.

Um, soldiers have a yearning for honor, and rulers have, uh, uh,

their purpose is to look for reason.

So he had a very sort of a class segregation about was he

heavily interested?

He was heavily influenced by Sparta.

I think I recall something like that.

The, the Spartan culture or the, the, their success they had had

their, and that was a military style

Yeah.

Uh, society.

Yeah.

Sparta was, um, what Nazi Germany aspired to be is what

is what some people describe it.

Describe it as, so it was a very author authoritarian, but, uh, okay.

So.

The, the Greek, the Athenians, were into this, were developing this idea

of, look, all of these philosophers, uh, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were

definitely about what you have to do is to be, for the benefit of the Polish,

which is the city state sort of thing.

Your, your actions must be favorable for our city.

Um, but they were certainly freer than the, uh, Spartans because

the Spartans were very rigid in your commitment to Sparta.

And your roles were extremely rigid and they're rich, uh, rigid.

And there wasn't, uh, scope for any personal liberties in the Spartan world.

So in, and that sort of comes to the nub of part of our philosophy

discussion is how much are you committed to the group and the community,

and how much free will to do your own individual libertarian thing?

And does free will actually exist?

Not this

episode here.

No, but it is a relevant question though.

Yes.

At the base of it all.

Indeed it is.

That comes a

bit later actually, doesn't it?

In the, um, Judeo Christian tradition is this idea of free will, isn't it?

Um, more

than the Greek one.

I think it's essential to it.

Without it, there is, there's really no punishment or reward

if there's no real free will.

Yeah.

Well, we digress.

I mean, if God knows everything you're gonna do anyway, why

bother running this experiment?

Like, because well it is, yeah.

Yeah.

So you really had no free will 'cause he knew you were gonna do that anyway.

Or maybe he knew you were gonna exercise your free will in such a way,

but, um, why conduct the experiment if he knows the results already?

That's true.

Because he's a sadist.

Yeah.

But we've digressed and we'll just finish off with, uh, Aristotle.

And, um, his, uh, idea was a state of human flourishing,

um, that's worth seeking.

And basically if you have a, if you conduct yourself

virtuously, then happiness will come as a byproduct of that.

And that's something I've read about in recent times when people

talk about how can you be happy?

And the answer is, you shouldn't be pursuing happiness as such.

If you are conducting life in a meaningful way, then happiness is a

byproduct of that and will come about.

So, um, so that was kind of Aristotle's view.

And he also had this sort of acorn theory that, uh, an acorn's purpose

is to grow up and become an oak.

So things have a purpose and they have a meaningful existence if

they achieve their obvious purpose.

So, uh.

That was, uh, Aristotle.

So just briefly, uh, before we get onto the Christians, um, after those three

main Greeks, we had one little period there of stoics, stoicism, stoicism.

Mm-hmm.

Marcus

Aurelius.

Uh, yeah.

And, um, this was the idea of sort of accepting your fate.

Yes.

And this is important for Christianity.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Uh, so it's an idea that, okay, you've got a, uh, terrible terminal

illness that, um, medicine can't fix.

Well, don't whine about it.

There's no point.

Um, accept that and deal with it as you can, but kind of accepting

whatever, uh, fate throws at you that you can't deal with.

Just accept it and, and move on within that.

Um, I like this line from Ken and Malik's book.

Um, so this guy's, Zeno was a stoic and, uh, he was once flogging a

slave as you do, and, uh, who had stolen some goods and the slave said.

But I was fated to steal and, uh, and Xeno said yes and to be beaten as well.

Very stoic response.

Uh, so fate

can be a bitch.

Yeah.

But that, that sort of stoic acceptance of the situation you are in, uh, was

important for Christianity down the track.

Um, oh, very much so.

Adopted that.

Yep.

And also, um, they kind of opened things up to the Christian idea because

they really stopped talking about what's your role in terms of promoting

the community and the pos in more a case of how do you feel about life

and think about yourself inwardly.

And that then opened up Christianity with people having a relationship with

God and forgetting about the community as such, or not having to think

about promoting the, the city state.

So, um, so yeah, so that's the sort of lead up to, uh, to the Bible period.

We get to, and when we get to, uh.

How do you pronounce it?

The AK by the g ak.

Ak.

Yeah.

So what we got Hebrew.

Oh, very weak.

Yep.

So, uh, what we've got there is a group of people who've, um, uh,

basically come up with this idea of a God who commands what you, what

is right and what you need to do.

And don't you dare think about it because I've written it down on these

here, 10 tablets, and your job is just to do it and not to think about it.

And, um, that was the sort of movement in Christianity and Judaism, which

strikes me as not as a sort of a backward step from where we were.

It's sort of comical, isn't it?

Mm. And that, that Moses also went up on top of the clouds or the

mountain and, and negotiated this with God for 40 days and 40 nights.

Did he negotiate?

I don't think he negotiated.

Did he?

Well, he was up there.

What was he discussing for 40?

He was like humanity's union rep up there discussing it with God.

And then he came down and smashed all the tablets and um,

and then executed 3000 people.

Was that deliberate or an accident?

Didn't smash the tablet.

What do you mean?

He smashed the tablets?

First time he smashed them.

Oh, did he?

Yeah, he had to go back

up

again.

There's two,

there's two stories, sir. The first one he smashes, he smashed, he got upset because

they were misbehaving when he came back.

He took so long.

Ah, what were they, what were they

worshiping?

What were they worshiping?

The, uh, golden.

Golden.

I'm not sure if

that was the event involved in the golden calf, but yeah, no, he, the

original tablets he had to smash 'cause he got so pissed off with them.

Is that right?

Yeah, he thought he had to go back up

again and do it again.

'cause they were, uh, practicing idolatry by, by worshiping, making idols.

Okay.

I

hope he had a good story for God the second time he ran out.

Okay.

But I

dunno if he was negotiating, but it certainly took a long time.

It was, but but it's a, it's a covenant again.

The for for the Jews important.

They, they were making, Yahweh was making covenants with his people.

It's a kind of contract.

So it's an agreement, isn't it?

So, so I suppose negotiation.

Yeah.

But, but these are all always covenants between Yahweh

and his people.

Yes.

I doubt many religious people would accept my union rep. Uh, example

Hamed

negotiated did, I've told you that story many times.

So he negotiated, yeah.

Five prayers that, that Muslims say every day.

Initially God said it's 50, he got him down to five and, and Mohammed Haggled

50 would be a bit, it's true, wouldn't it?

He came

down from the low, higher level to the lower level.

And I think it was Abraham who said to him.

You know, how many prayers did God tell you to get your people to say?

And he said, 50.

And he said, oh, prayers a weighty matter.

Go back up and get it reduced.

Went back up, had it reduced to 45, came back down.

Same thing.

He said, no, go back up again.

And this repeated itself until it got down to five.

And then, sorry, Abraham told Yeah.

I think it was Abraham.

Yes.

One of the, but Abraham was long dead.

Yeah.

But he's in heaven.

I know.

He's stages of heaven.

He's in the stages of heaven.

Yeah.

The stages of heaven.

Yeah.

So

Muhammad actually went up to heaven to do this.

Yes.

Yes.

On the night journey, when he was on the half Neil, half donkey

on the, and climbed, climbed the golden ladder with Gabrielle and

passed through the levels of heaven.

And when he came back with five, I still, Abraham said, look, that's too many.

And, and Mohammad said, well, I feel too embarrassed to go back again.

So that's, that's why, that's why it's down to five.

So he haggled.

That is a good story.

Yeah.

So that's all there in the, in the life of, imagine how

much praying that, that they would've been doing if it stuck with 50.

Right.

Yeah.

It'd be just praying all day.

Yeah.

You never get anything done.

Yeah.

So, uh, apparently they, they seldom get much done anyway, even with the five.

Yeah.

So the tablets then found their way into a chest called the Ark of the Covenant.

Yeah.

The ark.

Yes.

Which found its way into the temple.

Mm-hmm.

That they built.

Yep.

And the temple was sacked the

first temple.

Yes.

Solomon's

temple was

destroyed by the, um, by the, um, Assyrians or by the, uh, Babylonians.

Right.

Babylonians.

Babylonians.

Thats Syrian

was the first conquest, wasn't it?

I think the Babylonians was the second con.

Oh, okay.

Uh,

no, no.

The Babylonians was the first time, uh, that solos temple was set.

So Solo's temple was over then 5 87 BCE.

And I guess at that point the tablets were lost?

Yes, I think so.

Right.

Okay.

But I think they might've been found again,

that's probably religion.

Yeah.

Steven spill.

But they found them.

They might have found them again.

So the

Jews who lived there at that time, then basically a lot of

'em were exiled to Babylonia.

Uh, yeah.

Whether, whether there was all of them, but some, some, some there seems to

be, uh, accepted that there was, uh, Jewish Jews in in Babylon at the time.

Yep.

Went from that area.

Yep.

And um, and then eventually Babylon, Babylon fell and the Jews the

Per the Persians over

around.

Yes.

So the Jews then returned Yes.

And met up with the Jews who had stayed there.

Correct.

And the Jews who had been away and came back were far more rigid

and, uh, and tough on religion.

Rule bound.

Rule bound, yes.

Yeah.

Had their rules.

And the guys who had stayed there, so the guys who had stayed were doing

things like mixed marriages where Jews were marrying non-Jews and things.

And the Jews who had been in Babylonia came back and said,

what the hell are you doing?

You can't do this.

Uh, and know the marriages and.

Um, it's often the case that people who are in a sort of a diaspora

become more, um, conservative than the people actually in the original

communities to preserve their culture.

They, they're stricter with rules.

Puritan.

Yeah.

So they found that with sort of Islamic groups in America and whatever mm-hmm.

Indeed get into a little closed community and can be, uh, a lot more

sort of, uh, rigid in their thinking than the communities back home.

So that appears to be what's happened there.

Sense.

Imagine what we'd like, makes sense.

We'd be like,

if, if we went to live in another country for few, few generations, yes.

We'd be all very strict about wearing songs and studies and

maybe we would be, um, so,

uh, what does Ken and Mallick have to say about all that?

Uh, that's kind of quoting what Ken and Mallick was saying really about,

about that sort of idea that they, when the ones who went away were much more

conservative than the ones who stayed

behind.

Mm. So do you guys think it's a knockdown argument then against this sort of, um,

Judeo-Christian thing that we need to have these, um, prescriptions for our morality,

that what happened to the, the Jews and all the civilizations and cultures before

God delivered those 10 Commandments and all the other commandments, the

350 or so that are in the Bible?

If there was any need for him to do so.

Must We have had no morality prior to that.

Well, that's the point, isn't it?

Like there were some really marvelous civilizations that were occurring.

Mm. People were able to cooperate and build amazing civilizations prior to,

uh, the Bible being started by the Jews.

And we've got, uh, you know, the whole of Asia who never hears of

Yeah, that's right.

The whole Christ story.

That's a fair question.

'cause I, I think I was thinking about asking initially when you started off

on the history, were you suggesting that there's a point where there isn't

a discussion of morality in writings?

Or that it, that it emerges at a particular point in time in

our, in, in Western history?

Is there a point?

What I'm saying is

that, is that, uh, the original, um, writings of the Jews are really an

assembly of the stories that they had gathered from various tribes who coalesced

and became that tribe in that area.

And the, these are just historical stories that are gathered together

in the same way that the Odyssey and the Iliad were historical stories

that were then gathered together.

Um, in that way, when people start to get organized and can write things,

they, they start to bring all those things that, that was something

I took from the book, Trevor, where, um.

Ken and Malik says, the ID and the Odyssey gave ancient Greeks a sense of

their history and a foundation stone of their culture, and it established

a moral framework for their lives.

And the Jews sort of did the same thing with their old myth stories, gave

them a sense of nationhood in a sense.

And one book that I've read, which is called The Bible Unearthed,

do you guys know that one?

No.

Heard.

I should read it.

Very interesting.

Heard It's a meta-analysis of the archeological work done in the

so-called Holy Lands over, you know, the last couple of hundred years.

And what they decided was that the, you know, the Jewish Bible, I dunno

what you want to call it, but the collection of Jewish Holy Books mm-hmm.

Was actually assembled by one particular king, uh, Josiah, I think his name

was in the seventh century bc. Mm-hmm.

And, and they claimed that he actually, you know, assembled all the various

stories and myths and books as a particular political project mm-hmm.

To give the, you know, disparate tribes that he was trying to pull together

as a nation to give them a sense of their own history and their own.

Identity and nationhood.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

A according to Canon Malick, he says, the children of Israel who

first arrived in Canaan were probably marginalized and dispossessed, no nomads

who had roamed the fertile crescent.

Over time, their patchwork of tales became stitched together into a single narrative

of common history and shared gods.

Um, and the original settlers had arrived in Canaan sometime in the first

half of the second millennium, b, CE.

And the various kingdom, or the various tribes were united

into a single kingdom by Saul.

His successes with David and Solomon who extended the borders, um, Solomon built

the temple that was eventually destroyed.

So, yeah.

In the same way that the Odyssey and the Iliad was a collection of

stories around about the same time, the AK was a collection of stories,

like group of tribes melded together.

That's all it is.

Yeah.

Um, and

they were basically, as you say, just a disparate group of tribes.

They weren't a single self-identified, uh, group of Jewish people at that time.

Mm-hmm.

You know, that was, that was a political creation.

Yeah.

So the other thing about Judaism was that, um, basically other gods, uh, basically

had to be ferociously suppressed.

Like really prior to that there was a lot of polytheism around where.

Live and let live.

Okay.

You've got your God, I've got my God who, you know, who really cares.

But it sort of brought about an era where you are dead set wrong if

you've got another God, and I'm not happy that you've got this other God.

Mm-hmm.

So that was part of the whole monotheism thing that came about

with Judaism, unfortunately.

Mm-hmm.

Was the sort of start of it.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, rather than thinking about morals and virtues and trying to work it

out, we sort of regressed a step into, well, here are the stories laid down and

you've got to follow what God tells you if you're going to make your way to heaven.

And originally heaven wasn't really a concept for the Jews.

No.

It was more you were going to get your reward on this earth.

But once they started to get really badly persecuted, uh.

Uh, they started to see that people were suffering and weren't

getting their just rewards.

So they then started developing a concept of heaven as an afterlife

because clearly some really good people were going through a terrible time and

we're not getting the so-called rewards that they were supposed to be getting.

Which kind of undermines the whole

basis of the, um, yes.

I don't think

the Old Testament doesn't mention hell, but the New Testament is, uh,

is the, the kingdom is to be on earth.

Yeah.

It's is that what you, my understanding Peter

Jewish, it, the thought evolved over time definitely evolved over time,

but yes, no, there's no, there's no, uh, hell, uh, there's no, um,

there's no devil in the Old Testament.

There's certainly Satan, Satan's a slightly different character, but,

uh, but it certainly evolved and I think by, by, by the time of Jesus,

then there was this light and dark, good and evil sort of thing evolving.

But, but Jovi, could I just go back to that point about the, the, the Jewish

law, though it comes back to this idea of a covenant though, that, that I, I don't

think it's God imposing your to-do this.

He didn't say, I'm taking control.

This was a, I think it's always understood.

This is a bargain.

These are covenants.

Moses on behalf of his people said, I've agreed with Yahweh, and, and, and

if you, if you abide by these laws.

Then God will protect you and God is on your side.

So it's, it's not so much of imposition as a, as

a covenant or, or in other words, an enterprise bargaining

agreement, if you'd like.

Yes.

Well, the Jews were the chosen people of God.

It sort of, well,

you certainly chose them, but, but, but there's always covenants being

made and he said, I will be your God.

Yes.

You'll have no other God other than me.

Yes.

But, but this is the deal.

This is a deal being done here.

Yes.

It's not a I've chosen you and you have no say in it.

This is the exchange.

Yes.

There's constantly throughout the Old Testament covenants being made.

So, so.

But is it a choice?

If, if you believe, if you believe what God says, then

is there really a choice then?

Oh, oh, thanks God, for the offer.

But yeah, I think I might just reject that and just, uh, hard say,

but I'll suffer the consequences.

I mean, really hard to say, but

you know, the reality is you're brought up in a religion and

that's just your religion.

So if you follow those rules, but, but it, but it's not so much in position.

The theory is that it's a, it's still a covenant made between

Moses on behalf of his people.

With, with Yahweh.

How do you define

covenant isn't a sort of contract agreement.

Yeah, it means agreement.

Yeah, basically.

Um, for example, Jesus is.

His, his, his new covenant was upon his death.

This is my body, this is my blood that the, i i upon my death,

I'll make the new covenant.

And you have a new path to heaven that, that was coming

outta the New Testament then.

So it's all the, it's

all sort of quid pro quo that wasn't, it is all.

Well, very much so, and this is idea of haggling and, and it's, it's, it's

a cultural thing as well, but Yeah.

But, but the point Peter, I'm saying is that it's not about virtue morality.

It's about you will do this.

Yeah.

So that you can achieve Yes.

So and so reward.

That's that's right.

And if you don't do this, uh, hell awais you.

It's about obedience, isn't it?

It's not about examining your life and deciding whether you're a good person.

It's about obedience.

Oh, it's not

about moral reasoning at all.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's not reasoning as to what's, what's true.

It's about obeying what the law is.

No, I agree.

Yes, I agree.

Yes.

Yeah.

There's no real sense of genuine altruism in these religions because it's always

a case of if you do these things, you will be rewarded in some sense.

I don't have to try.

Thou shalt not kill, you know, you can't just say, that's just a rule.

Let's not think about, I mean, that's a, do you really need to think

about that as requiring we needed

the, we needed it on the, we needed it on the commandments.

You sort, or else we were Do you really need to think hard about that as being

a moral sort of, can't you just sort of No, but that's not really, I'm

getting at, I'm sort of getting at the point that, um.

That the sort of guidelines or moral virtues of doing these things,

loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, et cetera, are all put

forward in Christianity at least that by doing so, you'll enter heaven.

So it's not really a al true altruism is doing something

where there's an expectation you may not get anything in return.

No, no, I agree.

As, as and all and the whole concept of Christianity is there's a return here.

If you do the right, if you do these things, you'll that's, that's the case.

That's exactly

right.

And that's the irony though, isn't Yes.

What's what is so appealing about Jesus's message is the selflessness of it.

The sacrifice of it.

Yes.

And the, um, you know, the, um, the charitable act, the charity

and the doing things right.

Turning the other cheek and loving your, loving your enemies, but

you're only doing it just so you can get a reward in the end.

So was Mother Teresa only doing all that work so she could get to heaven?

Don't start, don't start us on Mother Teresa.

You realize how bad Mother Theresa was.

Okay.

She, she was a terrible woman.

Oh, okay.

Well, I won't start you on that.

No.

Mother Theresa was into suffering.

She was, she really wanted other people to suffer.

She was a suffering fetish.

She was a terrible, terrible Mother.

Theresa was No Mother Theresa.

Oh, okay.

Let me tell you.

There you go's another story there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Her name was Agnes and she got, she got her treatment at, uh, the, one of the

finest medical institutions in America.

That's right.

Yeah.

While at the same time, instead of buying drugs for the people in her care, she

sent the money to the Vatican Bank.

Yes.

As, as part of all this part of my research, I was reading some Bertrand

Russell, and, uh, he was explaining that, um, it was turbulent times, uh, around the

period where, uh, when Jesus died and, um, uh, what was going on at that, that time.

And people were looking for comfort in a religion.

And one of the problems with Judaism was, uh, circumcision.

Mm-hmm.

Ouch.

And, uh, a restricted diet in what you, things you could eat.

Yes.

And according to Burton Russell, uh, that made it really

difficult to promote Judaism.

But Christianity was this sort of, um, um, sect, if you like, originally

sort of the Jesus sect of, of Judaism.

And guess what?

You didn't need to be circumcised.

Well, there's a bonus and you could eat whatever you like.

Because I originally said, when we were talking, I thought you had to be

circumcised in Christianity.

I know.

I think that came later.

No, there was why are, is what all Protestants were though for centuries.

Is that right?

Or am I it back?

Always assumed

it may have come back into favor.

Yeah, it's come back into favor.

But fashion,

Paul was very strong on that.

That was the distinction, was the circumcised and the uncircumcised.

Yeah.

See, I said two weeks ago when we were talking what a great salesman Paul was

like, he could sell ice to Eskimos, but I hadn't taken into account he

had the greatest argument in the world, the circumcision argument.

He could say, he can have all of this religion stuff.

And we went have to chop a piece of foreskin off.

Like that's a compelling selling proposition.

That was a unique selling point that he had there.

So he didn't require it.

So No, no, no.

He,

he came back to bite him later because as you know from his

letters, he, he was continuing to having to write to his churches,

reminding them that it wasn't just.

Love God and please yourself.

There were still rules that he thought you should obey.

And he kept writing letters saying, well, you still have to do these things.

But, but, uh, he stripped away a lot of the, um, strict

observance that the Jews required.

Mm-hmm.

That, that is, you didn't have to become a Jew first to become a Christian.

You could be, uh, Jesus was a path to heaven in, in, in, in

its own way for the gentil.

Yeah.

Yep.

So, uh, so 0.1 is that a lot of what was in the Bible was basically a, a rehashing

of stories and myths that had developed by generations of people prior to that.

And a lot of it was ideas that people had been, um, thinking of and using.

And, you know, humans were co cooperating and getting along for

tens of thousands of years, creating all sorts of civilizations, uh, very

happily without Christianity, and continued to do so in areas where the

Bible was completely unknown, so to say.

Uh, the other point in this is that when you're looking at the Bible

is there's so many contradictions in terms of the moral concepts

and what to do and what not to do.

That it's not like you can pick up the Bible and just follow it.

You still have to pick and choose and decide.

I have to.

You know, there'll be, the Bible will be completely contradictory

and you have to say, well, I'm gonna choose one or the other.

So people are still making their own moral choice when they're

following a so-called Bible addict, because there's another alternative

in there somewhere in the Bible.

That's one of the problems of such an inconsistent document.

So, um, so, uh, so yeah, so that's all that part.

Um, and what I wanted to get on to was how are we going for time-wise here?

We're here.

Okay.

We're probably about 40 minutes, something like that.

So, uh, lemme grab another book.

The Goodness Paradox, the Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence

and Human Evolution by Richard Rang him.

So this is a good book.

I recommend it to you.

I haven't read that.

Yeah.

So, um, what this book says is, uh, he's looked at the evolution of mankind and

basically he said that, uh, human beings, when you compare us to other animals,

our closest neighbors, chimpanzees and things like that we're extremely

low on, on hot reactive aggression.

So if you look at a group of chimpanzees, they'll whack each

other at the slightest provocation or even without it, like they're

continually bickering and fighting.

And niggling each other's.

There's sort of hot aggression happening all the time in those communities

where human beings, you know, you can put 300 of us in a little sardine and

flies across the country and we'll, 99 times out of a hundred behave and just

get on with each other unless we're

a rockstar or a tennis player.

Yeah, indeed.

So this is a sort of a unique capacity of human beings is that when it

comes to that sort of hot aggression reacting, we're extremely low on that.

We have a capacity for planned aggression so we can coldly, calculate to, um,

invade another country and send bombs and do things of that like, of that nature.

But that sort of hot reactive aggression we're, we're extremely low on.

That's one of our unique features.

And he makes an argument that, um, human beings have become

domesticated somehow, and that if you would compare us with our ancient

ancestors, it would be like comparing, uh, a household dog with a wolf.

And, uh, he explains this domestication process where, uh, there's these

characteristics of domestication that occur and basically, uh, bodies become

smaller, males become less male and more feminized skulls get smaller.

Jaws and teeth get smaller.

Um.

Uh, you'll see on sort of wolves and, and primitive dogs, they've got a long snout.

But in a, in a domesticated species, the snout gets more.

Same with humans.

So there's a lot of the features of the domestication of a wolf into a dog

that have appeared in human beings.

And, um, there's a range of other sort of biological factors you can get into.

Um, one of the things is, um, uh, what are these, uh, these

cells that he talks about?

Um, I might skip over that, but it gives a really good argument as to the fact that

somehow human beings became domesticated.

And, um, uh, he asks, how did that come about?

And his answer is that at some point when humans could communicate, you had

to overcome the, um, the, the idea that an aggressive alpha male gets whatever

he wants is really hard to sort of stop.

Like you see it all the time in the animal kingdom.

Mm-hmm.

That these bullying alpha males just wreak havoc in a community and keep, um, uh.

Uh, the alpha males subdued and, and there's very little cooperation

because of the alpha male dominating.

And essentially when human beings reach the point that they could communicate,

we had the idea of whispering beta males, so beta males could get together

and say, that guy's a real asshole.

Let's all just jump on him and kill him.

Cooperation.

Yeah.

And so he says that you've got sort of, uh, you're trying to work out two

reasons why people became cooperative.

One is, you know, this idea of a cooperative group in warfare

will beat an uncooperative group.

So a, a group full of altruistic cooperating individuals in a warfare

scenario will out outbeat the sort of squabbling masses of uncooperative ones.

And so then they'll outbreath them because they'll win the battles

and they'll, they'll sort of that in, um, encourages altruism.

The alternative theory is that within groups you have the whispering beta

males or, um, gathering together and knocking off disruptive, um,

super aggressive alpha males.

And he gives compelling reasons as to why.

That second one is probably the most likely scenario,

particularly when you look at, um,

primitive hunter-gatherer situations, uh, when they're going

to sort of war against each other.

Two tribes, there's no incentive for somebody to be particularly altruistic

and, and at the head of the firing line, if you like, like generally the

ex skirmishes where people try not to get hit, and if they do, they run it,

you know, once one person's killed and they sort of, it's all over and

they sort of retreat or whatever.

Mm-hmm.

There, there isn't actually a reward for being altruistic in that sort of scenario.

There isn't anything compelling, so, um, it gives other reasons as well.

So, but the idea of the whispering beta males, that does

happen in primitive societies.

It can go through Africa and, um, places like that where there are still

hunter gatherer societies, by the way.

He makes the point that, uh, studying them for years as he did it, they're

just like these people back in England as far as he was concerned.

They, they, they had lovers, they had power conflicts, they had fun and games.

They just conducted themselves the way most human beings do.

But they just happened to do it in a dirt hut and in a, in a different environment.

But basically hunter gatherer societies without the benefit of the Judea Christian

ethic basically conducted themselves.

As the way you would expect us to do if we were thrown into the same situation.

Mm-hmm.

But getting back to this idea of, um, uh, this execution hypothesis that

the groups managed to domesticate by bumping off the super aggressive, um,

or troublesome characters who were causing problems for the community.

Um,

and so that, and that, um, then, um, the evolutionary, uh, selection bias would've

got rid of more of those alpha males.

Yes.

Triggering us more towards a, uh, they couldn't more domesticated

version of the beta male.

That's, that's right.

The aggressive alpha males weren't breeding them 'cause they were bumped off.

They were dead, pushed off the ice.

Yeah.

And the more cooperative prosocial beta males were the ones he managed to breed.

And would you believe that Charles Darwin talked about this?

There you go.

Uhhuh.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

So, um, uh, Charles Darwin was anxious to provide an evolutionary

explanation for positive moral behavior.

'cause he recognized that we had it and it didn't really seem to make sense that we,

we did have this positive moral behavior.

People at the time were trying to say it was a blessing from God.

And Darwin was saying, well, I can't rely on that because the whole thesis is,

there's no intervention by God in this whole process that I'm talking about.

So he was looking at what were the reasons, and he said that,

um, uh, let me just find it here.

Um, Spotify

has an added support for that with,

I'll turn that off.

Spotify.

Um, bear with me one second.

Um,

so he had to explain it without the influence of religious beings, and he

observed that in contemporary societies, um, he called them mal factors.

So people who were a pain in the ass who were stealing, killing, raping,

you know, mal factors in our societies, they're either executed or imprisoned.

So he could see that in our modern societies we can deal with those

people and get 'em outta the system.

But he recognized that they didn't have that capacity of

imprisonment in primitive societies.

And, um, so he recognized that prehistoric human societies might

have found some ways to harshly deal with violent and quarrelsome men.

And if exceptionally aggressive men were always routinely punished in ways

that reduce their reproductive success, there would've been eons of prehistory

in which the culling of violent men could lead to evolutionary change.

And Darwin's conclusion was forthright.

The morality problem could be solved by an ancient system of execution

leading to the eradication of selfishly immoral individuals, which would

lead to selection against selfish tendencies in favor of social tolerance.

Uh, through this kind of natural selection, he wrote, quote, the

fundamental social instincts were originally thus gained.

So he actually put this up as a theory.

He also put the other theory about that.

I mentioned this before, and that was the one that sort of got the

attention, but Richard Rman says he really likes the first theory

of this, uh, execution style thing.

So, um, and really that comes down to then not only would, uh, you had to, then there

was the power of the group could control you, uh, if you didn't tow the line.

So as a member of a group, remember, if you were ostracized outta

the group in those days, that was a death sentence and mm-hmm.

So part of our moral, um, system that's hardwired into us is to do

and act in ways that won't see us booted out of the group, or won't

see us executed for being assholes.

Yeah.

Uh, so the, the, would

you, sorry, you, would, you necessarily die if you booted out the group?

I suppose if you're an Eskimo or a. Back in those living in a

at some point, yes.

But

if you were living in a, in a warmer region and you were a

good hunter, you'd still survive.

But you wouldn't reproduce because you wouldn't have a mate.

Perhaps

you'd still need, um, you'd still need, there'd be times where you couldn't Hunt.

You'd need, you know, gatherers, predators, injury.

Mm-hmm.

You know,

you, you, you break a leg, you'll, you'll die.

Yeah.

Well, you would anyway.

Probably, but, but, you know, you might be cared for, but injuries, you know,

there must be a point where you Yes.

You, your prospects are very low.

They'd be certainly low work.

Yeah.

Yep.

So what we get down to is that a lot of our reaction to sort of moral questions

can actually be explained by having been bred into us over our evolution mm-hmm.

As a means of staying in with the group, not being executed.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

For quarrelsome.

Yeah.

Um, and, um, so, um, looking at things like, uh, good Samaritan, why, why would

we help somebody who's not in need of our help and we could just walk past

them and they're not really our son or daughter or any, or whatever like

that, but when they've done things like they've observed small children,

um, and put them in scenarios of like a good Samaritan type situation, small

children will naturally try to help out even against the instructions of.

Of adults, like it's inbred in us, hardwired to some extent that we behave in

certain ways without any training at all.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, cultural or from our parents.

So, um, and some of this in breeding can help explain our reaction to

some, um, ethical dilemmas, Hugh.

Okay, here we go.

So, the classic trolley problem.

Oh yes.

Is trolley heading down the, the track?

Uh, it's going to crash into five people.

You stand there and there's a lever that you could switch the

trolley onto a different track where it will kill one person.

Do you allow the trolley to continue on its way, or do you, you know,

switch it and only kill one person?

So, uh, according to studies, most people, uh, let me see.

90% pull the lever to save five and kill one.

Anyone disagree with that as being probably likely?

I mean, you may even be in the 10% queue.

No,

no, no, no.

But then, then makes sense.

I think most of us would say, you gotta pull a lever and, and then you, then

you'll go to the bridge and the fat man.

Yep.

No, uh, no.

The organ donation.

Have you heard this one?

Oh,

okay.

Go on.

So, uh, you've got somebody, uh, you've got five patients who are all gonna die.

Mm-hmm.

They need organ transplants and you've got one healthy person

who has all the necessary organs.

Right?

Should you, should you

cut up the healthy person and distribute the organs amongst

the other five to save them?

And the answer is that 95% would not agree to such an operation.

Oh, well

5% would.

Yeah, indeed.

Do, do you indeed, do you know that the, uh, person with the, with the

five organs taken out, were they Yeah.

Were they an alpha male perhaps?

Cam

actually, uh, cam Riley has a theory about, um, the nuclear codes for the,

you know, countries with nuclear weapons.

He said that, that the, um, that the nuclear codes should be, um, inserted

into the chest of the vice president.

And if the president wants to use 'em, he's gotta, he's gotta grab a knife and

cut open, physically cut open the chest of the vice president to get to them.

Because if he's not willing to do that, but he shouldn't be willing to drop a

bomb that's gonna kill millions of people.

Like it was just interesting concept.

Yeah.

So, but um, so the trolley problem on the face of it, on the bare

facts is kind of the same situation.

Kill one to save five.

And on one avenue we take a utilitarian approach.

I think,

yes.

On the pool, maximize the general good.

Mm-hmm.

And on the second one, we take the deontological principle, which is

right and wrong, are absolutes.

Mm-hmm.

And we've really intuitively pick those without a good, clear moral reasoning

as to why, when you say deontological, you mean because the

principle, the killing is wrong.

Correct.

That you must apply that principle.

Correct.

Yeah.

But you ditch it with the trolley 'cause you go switch to the

other one, which seems fairer

because you, with the trolley one, you're not directly killing somebody.

Indeed.

You're just redirecting fate in a sense, whereas mm-hmm.

And with the, it's a different transplant one, it's a different,

different, different ethical dilemma.

Mm-hmm.

Because your action is completely different.

Yes.

It's, for instance, it's a different ethical thing.

You're getting your hands dirty.

Yeah.

I'm getting my hands dirty now.

You, you're, you are also, um, it's a similar different thing to administer

euthanasia by a lethal injection by or by the one press person pressing the button

than it is to kill someone with a knife.

Mm-hmm.

It's a different moral thing because you using a different method.

Mm-hmm.

One is more horrifying, more painful.

Well, this guy has a theory that a lot of our actions are based on.

What will the group think of us in this situation?

There you go.

We need to be, we need to have some plausible deniability if the

group attacks us for our action.

Yep.

So, um, so we have some inherent biases in us.

He calls an inaction bias, which is to do nothing and incur less blowing

a side effect bias, whereas it's not so bad if the result is something of

a side effect and a non-contact bias, meaning most people prefer an action

which allows 'em to avoid touching someone who is about to be harmed.

Who says that

This guy rang me in this book.

Okay.

And so what he's saying is that, um, we hardwired into us, um, if we're gonna

do something borderline, need to have a plausible excuse for our community

that they won't boot us out or kill us.

Does he say that in relation to the trolley problem in its various paradoxes?

Uh, well, he gave the example of the trolley problem, the organ donation and.

On the one hand, if you're standing there covered in blood over the body of a

person who's had their organs ripped out.

Yeah.

It's harder to explain to your group, I thought I was doing the right thing.

Um, you, you are.

Yeah.

But I don't buy that because I think all of us would have an implicit reaction that

we know, we know that we're comfortable with the lever action, but we know

that we're definitely uncomfortable with ripping someone's organs out.

But he's saying that's, but

it's not just because of And and why do you know pressure?

Why do you know It's a gut instinct.

And he's saying these, these gut instincts come about because

of this, of this evolution.

It's the same way that when you get, when you do or commit a social faux pa and you

feel embarrassed and you just have this terrible feeling in your gut and your face

goes red and it's like, oh, did I, did I really go against the social norm here?

And I feel really bad about it.

Like that's an uncontrollable gut instinct.

That is a preservation sort of, uh, thing that has been hardwired into us.

Yeah.

Through, um, and he's saying the reason why you chose the trolley but didn't

choose the operation is part of that.

Hard wiring that a lot of our moral or some of our moral decision

making that we can't really explain that's really on instinct is

that's the point.

I was, I was gonna make instinctive, there's gotta be reasons.

Mm-hmm.

And it, it's that reasoning that you have to say, why, why is

it, how can I rationalize this?

How do I get from A to B?

Because, um, it comes up in legal theory as well, this idea that, um, like there's

things like, uh, uh, some laws say you are not to drive in excess of the speed limit.

That's just straightforward.

The question is, did you, were you driving the car?

Were you in excess of the speed limit?

But there's other things like don't drive dangerously.

Mm-hmm.

And they're to do with this, well, how ought you drive?

And it's not your personal opinion, it's, it's this idea that there

is a community value there.

There's a kind of, kind of driving that.

But how do you rationalize that?

The police just have to say, that's dangerous driving.

You can't drive like that.

And what they're doing is they're saying, I reckon that if I

arrest you for dangerous driving, other people will agree with me.

Yes.

That's dangerous.

The, the judge just doesn't say, well officer, what did you think?

Oh, I thought it was dangerous.

Oh, that's the end of it.

Yes.

The judge goes, oh, we, we've gotta judge this.

So what's

the community standard?

It's,

it's, yeah.

There's a community standard there that it's what ought to happen.

Mm-hmm.

And we have that right now today in, in, in courts right now.

This idea that, well, it's gotta be objective and you've

gotta have a reason for it.

And the reason is just that, well, the community would say,

what would most people think?

What would most people reasonable man think?

Yeah.

What would most people think they'd say, you shouldn't be doing that.

There's a law against that.

And if you don't have a law against that, people get really, really upset.

And

is that

why when the officer stops you and the first thing he says to you

is, do you have a lawful reason for exceeding the speed limit?

Because that's what they say to you?

Well,

because the community would then say, well, if you are racing to get your

pregnant wife to your, that's right.

And

if, if, if you refuse to pay the fine and you take it to court, the

officer has to be able to explain.

That's gave you the opportunity to give.

We've all got choices

to make.

But, but if you have to give reasons, they often based on a community

value, which is, I reckon other people would agree with me, that

that's, you shouldn't be doing that.

So that's, that happens today.

Yeah.

Hmm.

So there we go.

Um, so just looking at our current society, um, and I've mentioned this

on a previous podcast called Whispering Beta Male something or other, is we've

got some alpha males in the world right now who own half the joint.

Like in the, you know, in the, in our pre-history, we would've said,

you're getting too big for your boots.

And in primitive societies, uh, particularly our indigenous brothers

and sisters here in Australia, if you killed a large animal or something, it

was not the done thing to boast about it.

Like you had to keep your head down.

You didn't wanna pop your head above the parapet and be seen to be too big

for your boots because the whispering beta Marles would say, hang on mate.

Mm, tone it down a bit.

You want, it's getting a bit above your station, isn't it?

Indeed.

Um, so, um, in our modern world, um, we've lost the ability to chop down the,

the alpha males and, um, we need to start doing it via wealth tax, not a physical,

just actually chopping 'em down, but, you know, that's for another topic anyway.

Um, and so just in sort of in, uh, tying it all up then, is really when we're

looking at the sort of moral code that went into Greek philosophy and into

the Bibles, uh, which really came about largely through myths and legends, sort

of rights and wrongs were being developed in an evolutionary sense by human

history all the way leading up to that.

And these are things that people have, um, intuitively decided

as what's right or wrong?

Well, before it was written in a book and they were told that's the case.

Mm-hmm.

Or, or needed somebody to actually give a rational explanation

because in their gut they knew.

Hardwired.

I shouldn't be cutting up this person for an operation, but I can

flick the, the trolley leave switch.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Um, so Jonathan Heights, uh, has wrote about that pretty extensively, uh,

book with the righteous mind about the foundations of morality, right.

Suggesting that, uh, our morality is instinctive and, and has,

uh, say five dimensions to it.

Right?

Uh, and I think that's a very, very persuasive argument.

So the psychologists, uh, and his, his viewpoint has been very popular,

very, uh, embraced by a lot of people.

So, um, I've, I've got down the five things here.

So the, the five foundations are say, care and harm, fairness, cheating,

uh, loyalty, betrayal, authority subversion and sanctity degradation.

And then he added a six one, which was liberty versus oppression.

Hmm.

That fairness and cheating one.

Uh, one of the, uh, one of the studies they do is the, um, that ultimatum

game where you've got a person who's got $10 and they can decide how

they're gonna split it with another person, and the other person can

either reject or accept their offer.

If they reject, then nobody gets anything.

If they accept, then the offer's accepted, so the person's got $10

and says, well, I'll split it.

50 50 person A says I've got $10, uh, I agree to split it 50 50.

Person B will invariably say, well that's fair.

I accept the deal and we're done.

And they do these experiments with people where they can't even see each other.

And uh, I think, you know, you can get down to 70 30 or something like

that where person A says, I'm keeping 70, I'm only gonna give you 30.

But below that level, uh, people who are only offered 20% say stuff

it, I'm not even gonna take the 20.

I'm gonna make us both lose, there's a sort of sense of fairness.

And they can do that test with, um, Kalahari Bushman and with Gold Sachs

bankers and everything in between.

And we tend to come up with the same result as a hardwired sense of fairness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sounds like a divorce settlement, right?

Yeah.

You know, where one party says, uh, I'm taking 90%, you can have 10.

You've, you've got your car off your go, you know?

Yeah.

No, sorry.

We're going to court over this.

Yeah.

Except in the.

In this scenario, when the person B says no, it means neither of 'em gets anything.

Do you bring the whole house?

Yeah.

Right.

And people are prepared to accept I'll get nothing, but

I'm really pissed with that guy.

Oh, that's the,

it all goes on cost.

Yeah.

That

Well, that's true.

Yeah.

Well, that's true.

I mean, if you had a situation where there was an offer and a family

court settlement of, oh, I'm gonna give you five or 10%, for example.

Yeah.

Somebody would say, well, bugger it.

I'll, I'll piss up with the wall in legal costs.

That's right.

That's right.

And that's sometimes

actually happens, doesn't it?

That's true.

So there is that innate sense of fairness.

Yeah.

So given all that, and it seems like we are all sort of seeming to agree that,

uh, morality might be instinctive and that it, it perhaps derives from our

evolution in living in communities.

Yes.

And um, there's also the idea, which has been very well established by

studies on children, that children, as you were saying before, tend

to have a sense of fairness.

They'll be the good Samaritan.

They also, they have a sense of what is right or wrong without being told.

And while often argue with an adult correctly as to what the right or

wrong thing is, then how does that then, in your opinion, um, marry with

the idea of moral reasoning then?

And why is all of this philosophy about what's right or wrong and

what objective moral values are?

'cause I know, Trevor, you and I have argued, uh mm-hmm.

Extensively that whether objective moral values actually exist.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, like moral truths.

Do they exist?

Many people say that they do.

So how does that, how does that even marry with, uh, reasoning about morals?

If our morality is basically derived from what's instinctive and then our

societies and our individuals and our cultures just manipulate a few,

say in Jonathan Heights, uh, example five different modes of morality.

Our, our reasoning is based only on extincted things.

How do, how do, I would say

that instinct though, is usually geared towards promoting the community.

Like generally

yes.

But instinct is only based on survival value and, and

what has and selection bias.

Yeah.

But those sorts of things that are hardwired into us are kind of things

that, uh, promote the community at large.

Um, so that one person doesn't get everything or gets, doesn't

get an unfair advantage.

It's, it's a communal type.

Enforcement, it appears to me, and, and humans are unique in that we actually

enforce these things because when they look at, um, chimpanzees and one chimp

might be cheating on another chimp in terms of, um, like, uh, stealing

food or even beating up other chimps.

There's no enforcement by the other chimpanzees of,

of any morals amongst them.

Humans are unique that we are watching and observing, and we are

saying, uh, you are transgressing a, a community, uh, ethos here.

Um, we're pulling you up.

So I think a lot of these inbuilt, instinctive things that we have are

designed to keep community harmony and community flourishing and not

let one person dominate or take.

More than a fair share.

Sure.

Okay.

So I accept all that and forgive me for the Socratic questioning.

Yeah, but you started that at the start.

I bring it back.

But if it's just based on our community, how can we have objective moral values?

Because, um, also I'd probably disagree that chimpanzees have their own

moral codes in their own societies.

For instance, they will, they will, uh, punish transgressors and they will

also patrol their territory and other chimpanzees from other rival tribes,

if they're found wandering chimpanzees will Hunt them down and kill 'em.

Yeah, that's a, that's a tribal, um, tribal sort of thing.

Um, protection of area.

But the first part you mentioned about pulling up transgressors within

the community, not really, so that's not correct in my understanding.

But what was the question before that you're saying?

So if, if,

if, if our moral values then are entirely derived from our sense of

community, how can they be objective?

How can they be objective universal moral truths?

So then if they're only subject to our, so they only apply to humans and

they don't, for instance, apply to any other animal forms, even if there

was another group of very human-like beings somewhere in the universe.

Yeah.

Uh, I

think that,

that,

I think that begs the philosophical question about, uh, um, um, are these

things made by humans or are they natural?

I mean, I, that's what objective moral truths are though.

Yeah.

That, that, that they must be true, but.

I, but doesn't that beg the question is it is got some natural

source, like it's comes from God or, or these other sort of things.

These are made by people.

Uh, people have morals, uh, and animals will have something else.

I think a different species will have something else.

It's, it's, it's created by people.

Uh, it doesn't come from some I thought that was the whole point of the,

that's discussion was that it was, I

would, I would absolutely agree with what you're saying.

It's not

coming from some external natural source.

It, it's made by people make these things.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

But then you get people who are also, um, secularists and atheists such

as Sam Harris, who would say that there are objective moral values and

you can measure them scientifically.

You can say what is the, the best situation for all sentient creatures.

Yeah.

That's what Sam Harris argues.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So how does Sam Harris argue the, uh, the organ donation one?

I'm not sure if

he's addressed that specific question Right.

Because I'm sure he flicked the lever.

Yeah.

But I just, well, he's a consequentialist and you know, his moral landscape

argument that, uh, you should be able to measure scientifically the good Yes.

The overall good, and there might be several different

equal parts of what the good is.

So he would probably agree to the operation by the sounds of it.

Because he's got that full on Unitarian sort of thing, isn't it?

Not sure about, I,

I don't, I'm not sure because I, I he would, he would say that the intentions

and the actual act of whatever you do are part of the moral consequences of

his is basically a consequentialist, uh, philosophy, which is part utilitarian.

Yeah.

The short answer is, I don't know.

But when I've worked out the meaning of life, you'll be the first to know,

well, please

lemme know.

I was kind of hoping we would get to it, uh, in this episode.

The meaning of life and, you know, solve it all.

But, you know, perhaps another time.

So, yeah.

So, so yeah.

So that's my sort of knowledge and theories on evolution.

And, uh, so what you're saying, Trevor, is our, our Western

civilization would've been just as good, maybe a little bit different in some

ways, but would've still existed without the so-called Judeo Christian ethic.

We, we are hardwired pro social creatures.

We would've, we would've produced laws and customs course with some variations.

Of course we would.

But generally pro-social.

There was the Indian civilization, the Chinese civilization.

Mm-hmm.

They didn't have Judeo Christian.

Yeah.

Traditions.

The interesting thing is

where the world's getting to at the moment is because previously you needed

to be part of the community, otherwise you would die, you know, left out on the

Savannah, on your own, you're a goner.

Mm-hmm.

These days we've created a world where you could be quite a dysfunctional

human being and you can still, you could become a, become president

of the United States performer.

You indeed you can, or you can, you can conduct a job.

You know, you could be a computer programmer living in your

mum's basement and having no contact with the world at all.

Like, it's possible for people to be quite dysfunctional and the

village doesn't get to, um, regulate people anymore like it used to.

Mm. Uh, the community doesn't, and

is it, isn't it better to be in a more plurals society when there

are many views than the dominant sort of punishing sort of, uh,

norm.

Mm-hmm.

And, and good point, Malik makes that point is that in certain communities

are too rigid, like the Spartans didn't allow for any variation.

Then other communities are so disparate and unconnected that

they are then overtaken by other countries that are less, um, uh,

civilized, but more cohesive.

Yes.

Um, so you need an amount of cohesiveness to hold you together.

Exactly.

Or basically a band of cohesive barbarians take you over sort of

thing, is what happened in history.

To some extent, people were, had no sense of community.

Right.

So that's the Ozzy aie, Aussie, some people would argue

that's currently happening in Europe.

Well, all over the world.

You could argue that.

Um, we've, we've reached an interesting time in our evolution where the village

and the community can't really regulate people anymore like it used to.

No, I think it's a question though, overall of morality though.

Mm-hmm.

When we, when we say that it is community driven and driven by our civilization

and how it's evolved, that we could probably all accept that our, the way

we've evolved specifically and what we've currently agreed to be, the things that

we consider moral and immoral, they're quite different than what they were 2000

years ago, and they're quite different than what they were 6,000 years ago.

It's quite conceivable that we could have evolved into very, very similar

beings with quite a different moral code.

And so then if you consider that our morality is based on how we've evolved

as a community, I get back to the point that I was saying before then how does

reason play a part in that morality?

And isn't the the part of reason in that morality only really what's

driven by evolution and survival?

And then doesn't that sort of create a bit of a tension in your own

mind about what morality is then?

Yeah.

I sort of disagreed right at the beginning of your premise where you

sort of said, we are very different to people of 2000 years ago.

And our moral, our moral principles, and I'm not saying we are different, we are

exactly the same as people, but we, our moral principles are totally different.

So like for, well, for example, like, um,

I think read the history, slavery, the history of fire insurance, once I got

into, and the idea is that where it all started from is that, you know, villagers

because it was called fire insurance because today's home and contents.

But then the idea was that you wanted to protect from things burning down because

you had fires and homes were burned down.

So the village would all get together and.

Contribute to a fund because every year somebody's house

would burn down in the village.

Right.

So you'd always have a fund to sort of rebuild the particular

house, et cetera, et cetera.

Yes.

But today we don't have that.

We're sort of, it's up to you.

You insure your own home, et cetera, et cetera, and there's, there's not there,

there isn't really that sort of community.

Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?

Yeah.

That's a

very specific moral precept that's evolved because of that actual physical situation.

The world could be a different place.

We could have evolved as slightly different beings.

For instance, Neanderthals were very, very similar to, uh, homo sapiens,

in fact considered part of the same human, um, species by some, would their

morality have been different than ours?

And therefore, morality isn't really based on our reasoning.

It's only based on what is, what, what works for us to survive.

Well, according to this book, Neanderthals never went through

a domestication process.

So you can look at the fossil records and that Neanderthal

shaped head is, is the wolf head.

And our head is, is the puppy.

Like they didn't go through a domestication process

that homo sapiens did.

That's the difference.

That's what the arc is.

We learn, yes.

Through that domestication process, we.

We are then able to cooperate.

They didn't have the same levels anywhere near the same levels of cooperation,

not the same level they had done.

They had smaller groups.

Mm-hmm.

But they were, they were quite in, just as intelligent and so with small groups.

Yeah.

But

they, they didn't have the, uh, the social cooperation skills that we had.

And that was So they, they

they did, but they may have had them in lesser quantities.

Correct.

And they had smaller, smaller groups of people than what we had.

But that was their downfall, that they didn't have the social cooperation

skills that we ended up having.

Maybe

we, I don't think we really know.

We don't know why they, why they, uh, were wiped out, whatever.

Well, on the point of reasoning though, Hugh,

are you, maybe reasoning is, as Trevor was saying, I think at the outset,

so that you can say, I'm pretty confident choice A is morally right,

you know, like with the, the lever.

Mm-hmm.

I'm, I'm worried about now choice B maybe reason rationality and

reasoning is just that thing you use to say, well, if I've, if I'm over

that view here, what would I think?

Here it's, it's not like the, our morals don't come from the ra.

It's our rationalization is just to enable us to be able to be

consistent and logical and that at some point in our history, we thought.

If we think hard about this, we can work out other problems.

And maybe that's all,

I think

that's rationality is about.

Yeah, I think that's what I, I, I, I think I, I'm tending to come to that

conclusion as to what you said that we kind of, when we hear a moral paradox

or a, we are asked a moral question, we kind of know which way we want to answer.

Can we justify, don't we, and then we justify it by using racism.

And we also sort of, you said we

like to find out what other people would say.

Like we go the Oh, good thing.

I don't want to disagree with him quite so openly.

I agree with that too, but Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's part of justifying So we don't create C Yes.

And maybe enabling us to then solve the next complicated problem

when we're not really too sure.

Um, because you've got those reasons.

But, but the reasons, those reasons weren't the reason why

you made the first choice, because you just said, that's wrong.

I'm not doing that.

Yes.

And studies in neuroscience in terms of decision making have been tending

to show that people make the decision before they're even consciously

aware of making the decision.

Yeah.

Certainly that's the case with politics where people Yeah.

Uh, choose a side and then justify it later.

Yeah.

Mm. And I think it's the same thing for the police officer when pulling

somebody out for dangerous driving.

They go, that's dangerous.

Driving.

And then why?

Uh, okay.

And they've gotta go through and list it.

But, you know, it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.

You go, yeah, I, I can make a judgment.

Yeah.

Dear listener, well, it's back to the book and I'll be curious to know how

many of you actually listened to the whole of the episode 238 that I repeated,

or whether you just fast forwarded.

But, uh, in any event, let's talk about it now.

Who is Michael J Sandel?

Um, he's actually a, um, uh, he's a professor of government at

Harvard University and he has a legendary justice course, which is

one of the most popular at Harvard.

A thousand students enrolling every year, and Harvard has actually

made it available on their website.

If you go to justice harvard.org, you'll see his lectures and you'll see a lot

of the stuff that he's doing on there.

So check that out.

Um, okay, so in terms of the book Justice, what is the right thing to do?

So faced with moral quandaries, what is the right thing to do?

And he basically gives, uh, or identifies three different approaches

that we can have to moral dilemmas.

And, uh, the first one is the greatest happiness principle.

Um, make the decision, which will, uh, produce the maximum amount of

happiness and human flourishing and the least amount of suffering.

And that, of course is utilitarianism.

Second way of approaching decision making is to, whatever you do,

respect, individual freedom.

So that would be, uh, an extreme and a libertarian type of view.

And the third way that he sort of advocates, and it's an Aristotle

on view, so derived from Aristotle.

And look, it's not a neat concept.

It's, but it's basically what do people morally deserve and why?

Which involves truly identifying the purpose of a practice and

examining what are the good virtues that we would want to promote.

So, um, utilitarianism, libertarianism, and Aristotle

approaches to questions about morals.

So let's kick off with, um, a discussion about, well, his first example is

about price gouging in communities after a disaster, whether it's a

cyclone, hurricane, tornado, whatever.

You'll often find, um,

gas stations, fuel stations, whatever may be charging exorbitant prices for

fuel and for ice, things that were a dollar a liter or 50 cents a bag suddenly

become $5 a liter and, and $3 a bag.

So, um, uh, what he says there is, um, if you take the utilitarian approach to it,

what's the greatest happiness principle?

A utilitarian might argue, well, look, free markets.

Uh, is what's driving our, our, our best performing economies.

The last thing we want is, uh, command economy like the Soviets had.

So in terms of actually maximizing, um, the most benefit and welfare for

our communities, um, free markets, uh, have proven to be the best.

And while there might be some downsides, uh, overall human flourishing demands

that we maintain free markets.

And so that's a utilitarian approach to arguing whether

that's a good practice or not.

So the, um, libertarian approach to that would be, well, sellers

and buyers have a choice.

Nobody's, uh, forcing them to buy stuff.

It's up to a vendor what price they wanna put on it, and it's up to a buyer, um,

whether they wanna buy something or not.

And so, as a matter of a libertarian free choice approach to the practice,

um, you know, that should be allowed.

So the counterarguments to that, um, at the utilitarian level would be well,

is really the overall welfare of the community served by this price gouging.

And if a community can't trust and rely on stable prices following a disaster, um.

Is that a problem for its overall flourishing and welfare?

And if, if a handful of people managed to, um, extract wealth from

a vast majority of the others, surely that's not a utilitarian result.

So that would be the sort of counter argument at a utilitarian level.

And the counter argument to the libertarian argument, still using

libertarian principles would be, well, are the buyers under duress?

Are they truly free when they're making that decision?

If you've got to get your family out of the area and drive to

safety, you don't have a choice.

You need to fill up the car with petrol.

If your food is spoiling in the fridge and you need to feed the

family, you need to buy ice.

So is there really, um, freedom to make a choice in that situation?

So, so still using utilitarian and libertarian arguments, people

might argue that in fact that sort of practice should not be

allowed, that sort of price gouging.

There should be some regulation.

So that's, um, when you're hearing people arguing, just a way of categorizing it.

He says that there's a third way of looking at this, which is that a society