Alex O’Connor TRAPS Craig Biddle Into Admitting Ethics Exists Without Death

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]And I said, "Well, can you imagine a situation in which you didn't have your shirt on?" And you say, "Yes, even though that world doesn't exist, it helps us to make a point in the real world that your shirt is not identical with your body."

[00:00:09]>> Hey everyone, welcome back to the channel and grab a seat because this one is going to test your brain in the best way possible. Today we're watching Alex O' Conor sit across from an objectivist philosopher and gently methodically take apart one of the biggest claims in Ein Ran's ethical framework. The idea that morality only exists because we can die.

[00:00:33]What starts as a polite philosophical exchange turns into a fascinating chess match where every move matters and one casual concession completely rewrites the board. Stick with me all the way to the end because the moment everything quietly collapses is genuinely something you have to see unfold in real time, not just here summarized.

[00:01:00]Trust me, you'll want the full picture for this one. Also, I'm always curious about who's tuning in. So, drop a quick hello in the comments and let me know what part of the world you're watching from today. It honestly makes my day reading where you all come from. All right, enough setup. Let's get into it.

[00:01:18]>> I suppose evidence of that is actually a separate thing. I'm I'm just granting for a moment that that's the case. that ethics does rely on life and the the prospect of courses of action that will lead to your death and saying take Einran's immortal robot but turn it into an immortal person who still has free will even though you're right I don't believe in it but again I'll just grant it for the sake of this >> can still suffer >> still cares still has emotions you know if if we were suddenly immortal and I were causing somebody that you cared about to suffer in front of me >> and you told me to stop I'd say well your your moral import is gone because none of us can die anymore So the suffering that they're experiencing can't be called immoral.

[00:01:55]>> Yeah.

[00:01:56]>> It might emotively matter to you, >> but then of course if you wanted to start using that as any kind of moral prescription, you'd be jumping over to my side of the fence. So, you know, where does this ethical force that I think most people in this room probably intuitively would still feel in that immortal situation come from?

[00:02:10]>> Yeah, good question. Um I I anytime there is a constructed um experiment like this that is outside the realm of possibility as we know it right um so the ring of gaises sometimes people bring it what if you had the ring of gaises wouldn't wouldn't you go around and rape and kill people then and I always say well look what what's the purpose of this mind experiment when we're trying to figure out ethics for where we are here in this world living the way that we are. So the first thing I would say to this this request is that not a lot hangs on it if anything hangs on it because no matter how I answer it, we still are not immortal and we we have to figure out how to live as human beings. Ethics is a practical subject.

[00:03:01]It's something that we need because we have to make life and death decisions and decisions that are going to help us or harm us in life. uh how to set up relationships, businesses, societies, you know, and all of that. So when we go to um a wonderland of sorts and say, "Well, suppose that's not the case, but this other thing is the case." What would you do then? We're now really not dealing with ethics anymore. We're simply dealing with a different situation.

[00:03:28]Now, that said, I I I'll answer the question this way.

[00:03:33]If human beings could both be immortal, there's no way they could die and yet they still have feelings and desires and can ex experience pain and joy. Um, I think that ethics would still exist. It would just exist in a very different way than it does now. The right and wrong would not be about keeping you alive. It would be about making life simply the very best it could be. Which by the way, ethics is about now too because living the point of of uh of according to the objectivist ethics the point of ethics is not just to keep you alive. It's to keep you alive and enable you to flourish to to live to the fullest extent that you can given your potentials to really enjoy this one and only life that you have. All right, this entire exchange is a master class in how to dismantle a foundational claim. And I want you to pay close attention because Alex is doing something surgical here.

[00:04:29]The objectivist position is that ethics exists only because we can die. That is the entire foundation. Pull that thread and the whole structure unravels.

[00:04:41]So what does Alex do? He doesn't argue against it directly. He constructs a scenario that tests whether the claim actually holds up under pressure. And here is the part that blows my mind.

[00:04:54]Alex sets up a hypothetical where everyone is immortal, but they still feel pain. They still have emotions.

[00:05:04]They still care about each other. And then he says, "Picture this. You are watching me cuz someone you love to suffer right in front of you." On the objectivist view, Alex points out, "Your moral import is gone because none of us can die anymore. So the suffering that they're experiencing can't be called immoral.

[00:05:29]Think about how devastating that is as a question because most people in that room, most people watching this would intuitively feel that yes, it would still be wrong. Then Alex delivers the trap. He says it might emotively matter to you, but then of course if you wanted to start using that as any kind of moral prescription, you'd be jumping over to my side of the fence. That is the pin.

[00:05:56]Because now the objectivist has two options. Option one, admit that immortal suffering still matters morally, which destroys the claim that ethics requires death. Option two, deny that it matters, which makes the position sound monstrous to every human being with a functioning conscience. And what does she do? She tries to escape the question entirely, she calls it a wonderland scenario. She says, when we go to a wonderland of sorts and say, well, suppose that's not the case, but this other thing is the case. What would you do then? We're now really not dealing with ethics anymore.

[00:06:35]You have to understand what just happened here. She didn't answer the challenge. She declared the challenge invalid. That is not a counterargument.

[00:06:45]That is a retreat dressed up as methodology. And then almost immediately she contradicts her own retreat. She says ethics would still exist. It would just exist in a very different way than it does now. The right and wrong would not be about keeping you alive. Wait, hold on. You just said the hypothetical doesn't deal with ethics and then you turn around and tell us what ethics would look like inside that same hypothetical.

[00:07:11]>> What what would be that standard of of >> if you were to take away the >> if you take away the death >> if you take away the death element >> then I guess you would just you'd just be able to enjoy things forever and just never have that stop.

[00:07:22]>> So it would become like a hedonistic theory of ethics. It would become about maximizing >> it would become about maximizing flourishing. Okay. Um, so you would instead of living just, you know, in a mundane way, you would want to live in the richest way possible. But I wouldn't call it hedonism because I don't think that mere pleasure is what makes human life interest. what whatever we want to call it. It seems to me therefore that if you can have a concept of flourishing and value and indeed ethics, even if it's ethics of a different kind without life and death, then I suppose I would look with suspicion upon your earlier supposition that >> life would no longer be life couldn't be the if you can't die, life can't be the standard of life. That's why I opposed that's why I oppose the >> suppose for example and I mean a lot of people have this reticence to engage in thought experiments and I understand it because they seem sort of wishy-washy and a bit out there but they're sort of they're tools in the way that like um you know you might have a a really really long convoluted mathematical syllogism uh which seems to be super impractical and and totally weird but somehow whatever it juts out at the end gives you some kind of practical So, but if you prefer if if you want a more >> um imaginable conceivable example, then suppose instead of living forever, um everybody is immortal up to a point and everybody knows their death date. Like everybody on their 25th birthday gets killed and they they know there's no way to avoid it for whatever reason. They know the time, the place, the date that they're going to die 100% and they know they can't die before >> and they know they're not going to live any longer. this doesn't require this sort of strange vision of immortality and sort of universal conquest and avoiding the heat death. Um it seems to me that as long as it is even possible to say that there is such a thing as value and ethics in either of those situations, we cannot say that in principle ethics is about life.

[00:09:18]>> So this is where I absolutely disagree because you are taking fanciful um you know thought experiments that do not happen and as far as we know cannot happen.

[00:09:30]So you're you're treating a metaphysical impossibility as the environment within which we need to investigate ethics.

[00:09:37]>> Well, suppose you >> and I think let me just finish this thought though because I I really think that's the wrong way to go about it. So I want to give you a hypothetical.

[00:09:44]>> Sure.

[00:09:44]>> Here is where the whole thing collapses.

[00:09:46]The objectivist concedes in her own words that ethics would become about maximizing flourishing in an immortal scenario. She literally said it would become about maximizing flourishing. And the second those words leave her mouth, the entire foundation of her ethical framework is finished. Because if ethics can exist without death, if value can exist without mortality, then life cannot be the standard of value in principle. It might be one possible standard. It might be a useful standard for beings like us who happen to die, but it cannot be the necessary foundation.

[00:10:29]Alex catches it instantly. He says, "If you can't die, life can't be the standard of." That sentence is the entire debate in 11 words. And what really fascinates me about this exchange is how Alex anticipates her next move.

[00:10:45]He knows she is going to dismiss the immortality scenario as too far-fetched.

[00:10:51]So he offers a softer version. He says, "Imagine everybody is immortal up to a point and everybody knows their death date like everybody on their 25th birthday gets killed. No avoiding the heat death of the universe. No sci-fi escape. Just a world where death is a fixed appointment instead of a looming threat." And his point is brilliant. As long as it is even possible to talk about ethics in any of these scenarios, you cannot claim that ethics in principle requires the the standard threat of death. Her response, she doubles down on the dismissal. She says, "You're treating a metaphysical impossibility as the environment within which we need to investigate ethics."

[00:11:38]And here is what people don't realize about why this response fails so badly.

[00:11:43]Philosophers have been using thought experiments for over 2,000 years. The trolley problem, the veil of ignorance, Plato's ring of gaiges.

[00:11:54]These are not idle hairy potter fantasies. They are precision instruments for testing the structure of moral claims.

[00:12:04]When Einstein wanted to test his ideas about relativity, he imagined riding alongside a beam of light. That ride was metaphysically impossible, too. It was still one of the most productive thought experiments in the history of physics.

[00:12:19]Refusing to engage with hypotheticals because they are not literally real is like refusing to test a bridge design in a simulation because the bridge has not been built yet. That is not rigor. That is intellectual avoidance.

[00:12:34]>> Suppose we lived in this world.

[00:12:36]>> Mhm.

[00:12:37]>> And suppose human beings were mortal.

[00:12:40]and suppose that they could either live beautiful, happy lives if they acted in certain ways or miserable lives if they acted in other ways or simply die if they didn't succeed in achieving their values. Um, and there was a moral code that said the right way to live is in a way that enables you to live a beautiful flourishing life in harmony with other people, leaving each other free to do their own thing so we can trade with each other and all of that. So you were given that alternative or any other alternative in this same world.

[00:13:11]>> You were given another alternative of well people should be forced to do things against their will or people should suffer as much as possible or anything like that. Which of those alternatives would you choose?

[00:13:21]>> The first.

[00:13:22]>> Yeah. See, if we're here in this world thinking about the real facts that are before us, >> and when we're, you know, there are a bunch of young people here from all over the world, and what they need to know is how am I supposed to act in this life?

[00:13:37]They're not they're not jonesing for how am I supposed to act in those madeup worlds.

[00:13:43]>> Yeah. I mean, >> the madeup stuff is fun. Harry Potter is fun, but it's not the thing we need to focus on. Those madeup worlds are of course supposed to be used as a tool to investigate the definition of terms.

[00:13:53]>> Yeah. Yeah. But >> it's sort of like imagining if if you were to say that your your your shirt was part of your body, an intrinsic part of your body. And I said, well, can you imagine a situation in which you didn't have your shirt on and you say yes, even though that world doesn't exist, it helps us to make a point in the real world that your shirt is not identical with your body. And similarly, fair enough. If you say that ethics is identical to well I shouldn't say identical but is is intrinsically reliant upon the concept of death then we construct another imaginary world where we separate them out and we say that well here's a world in which ethics exists but death does not. I think that shows that in principle it it can't be about life and death but but also I mean you ask me which of those worlds I'd prefer but that's just it. It's a preference. I mean, if I could live my life in fear every day for the rest of my life or live my life in pleasure for the rest of my life, I'd pick the latter. Not because I think there's some objective rule of the universe that somehow gives me a prescription to do so, but just because I prefer it, because it's an emotionally preferable state for me. And that's that's how I approach that kind of dichotomy as well.

[00:14:55]That's why I would prefer to live in that world.

[00:14:57]>> And then comes the part that genuinely surprised me. The objectivist tries to flip the script with her own hypothetical.

[00:15:05]She paints a picture of a world where people can flourish or suffer based on their choices and asks Alex which moral system he would prefer. And here's the thing. She just used the exact same tool she was condemning 30 seconds earlier.

[00:15:23]She constructed a hypothetical scenario, asked Alex to evaluate it, and expected the answer to tell us something about ethics in our world. That is exactly what a thought experiment does. The very thing she dismissed as Harry Potter nonsense is now her go-to move. When she said, "They're not jonesing for how am I supposed to act in those madeup worlds?"

[00:15:47]Yeah, I mean, madeup stuff is fun. Harry Potter is fun. and then immediately constructs her own madeup world to make her point. The inconsistency is glaring.

[00:15:59]This is exactly where Alex closes the door with the cleanest analogy in the entire conversation. He says, "Imagine you claim your shirt as part of your body. He proposes a scenario where you imagine yourself without the shirt."

[00:16:12]That imagined scenario even though it is not the current state of the world helps us to make a point in the real world that your shirt is not identical with your body.

[00:16:23]That is what thought experiments do.

[00:16:27]They isolate variables. They separate concepts that have been welded together by habit and applied to ethics. The immortality scenario simply asks, can we separate ethics from death and still have ethics left over? Her own answer that ethics would still exist as flourishing is a yes. The case is closed. What I love about how Alex finishes is that he refuses to pretend his preference is some cosmic rule. He says, "I'd pick the latter not because I think there's some objective rule of the universe that somehow give me a prescription to do so, but just because I prefer it." That is intellectual honesty. He is not claiming his subjective preference is binding on anyone. He is just refusing to disguise a preference as an objective law of the universe, which is exactly what he just spent the whole exchange showing the objectivist accidentally doing. And here is the educational point I want to leave you with. The history of philosophy is full of oh frameworks that sounded airtight until somebody constructed the right hypothetical. Utilitarianism met the experience machine. Contian ethics met the murderer at the door. Divine command theory met the you uifro dilemma. Every major ethical system gets tested by scenarios that are not literally real and the strong systems survive those tests. The weak ones do not. That is how this discipline has worked for thousands of years. Refusing to play that game is not a mark of seriousness. It is a sign that the framework cannot survive the test. So, what do you guys think of this? Leave your thoughts down in the comments.

[00:18:20]Please like and subscribe and I will see you in the next video.