Jordan Peterson Loses a Debate About Ethics

[00:00:00]I would like to welcome everybody to the show. I want to welcome the returning young Kanye's of legal age who are subscribed to this channel. I would also like to welcome the gentleman of culture joining us as well today. Uh if you're new to the channel um my name is Ivan. I have been an influencer on this platform for many years. Uh many people consider myself to be the next Chomsky. I'm not going to get into that, you know, it's just if you talk to people that's what they say.

[00:00:28]I don't you know, I don't have time to explain it um I don't have time to explain it now, but that's what the folks are saying, you know, that I'm the next Chomsky.

[00:00:38]And uh today we're going to delve into Jordan Peterson. Now, the Canadian parapsychologist, this I think happened about like two or three years ago now. He was not yet in his style of dressing like the Riddler. So, this was before that came about. And this is this one this one was when the professor was in good health and very feisty as you will see, very feisty and full of life.

[00:01:03]And that's how we like to see Jordan Peterson. I sincerely hope that he you know, he feels better soon so that there's more output from him because this channel is in many ways built built around a measured and constructive criticism of Dr. Peterson.

[00:01:21]And so, my friends, let's get into it.

[00:01:23]This is a debate about can you have ethics without religion without Christianity more specifically? And professor seems to think that if you have ethics then you are a secret latent Christian. You will be introduced to Professor Peterson's archetypal osmosis Christianity. If you if you see an old lady and you don't push her in front of traffic, it's because you implicitly believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Otherwise, it just wouldn't work. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to Professor Peterson. It just wouldn't make sense. So, my friends, let's let's sleep into this.

[00:02:02]>> I'm telling you I don't believe there's a god, and your your response to that is, I really do because I have a moral sense, but my moral sense is utterly without any appeal to a god.

[00:02:16]>> Explicitly.

[00:02:17]>> Or implicitly.

[00:02:19]>> Uh maybe.

[00:02:19]>> The >> That's not so obvious.

[00:02:21]>> I think you can have a perfectly acceptable foundation for secular morality, even if it fundamentally centers around selfishness.

[00:02:30]>> Mhm.

[00:02:31]>> I'd rather not be thrown off the stage.

[00:02:33]It's in my best interest to encourage that sort of understanding in others, and therefore I will not throw him off the stage. I would rather not have my stuff stolen, and it's in my best interest to encourage others not to do that, so I will not steal stuff, and I will work with others to ensure that the people who steal stuff are punished. It is in in in a virtually pragmatic uh moral sense.

[00:02:54]>> do you think it's not in your best interest to have stuff stolen from you, or to be thrown off the stage?

[00:03:01]>> Why is it not in my best interest?

[00:03:02]>> Yeah. No, no, you know, you don't you don't get to think oh that's self-evident. It's like nothing's self-evident to the skeptic. Let's keep that in mind.

[00:03:11]>> Oh.

[00:03:13]Well.

[00:03:14]>> All right, my friends, gather the children, gather the women, gather the town folk. Here he is, it's stingy Peterson. Peterson is very stingy when it comes to presuppositions.

[00:03:25]He'll give you nothing but buckaroo-ney.

[00:03:27]Bucko, you and your little secular morality, Peterson wants metaphysical receipts for that stuff, all right?

[00:03:34]Stingy Peterson, man, he's not going to stop. You You can't deter him. He's giving you nothing. Peterson is giving you nothing when it comes to presuppositions without without the receipts.

[00:03:47]Buckaroo-ney, what do you mean ethics? You know, where's the where's the metaphysics, dude? Where's the metaphysics, macaroni?

[00:03:56]Well, anyway, that's pretty much here.

[00:03:58]It's Stinky Peterson, you know.

[00:04:00]>> So, uh Cuz if we're going to get skeptical here, we might as well go all the way to the bottom.

[00:04:07]>> for for Sam and I, the foundations, and we're not the only ones, but I I tend to reference Sam just because if I say this, then somebody will say, "Well, that's exactly what Sam Harris says."

[00:04:15]Except that, you know, I was given this lecture before he wrote his book. But, uh but his book is better than my lecture, so read his book.

[00:04:24]When I talk about this, I'm talking about well-being is the language that Sam uses. I don't I don't >> I don't care whether or not somebody else considers that morality.

[00:04:36]It I would think at a minimum, would you and I agree that >> That whole well-being thing, man, as a basis for a metaphysics, that's just a nonsense >> metaphysics on it. Sam is.

[00:04:46]>> No, he's not.

[00:04:47]>> Yes, he is, cuz he's out to maximize well-being.

[00:04:49]>> it up with Sam.

[00:04:50]>> Well, okay, sorry. Do you think you think I'm wrong about that claim? I That's what I understood to >> think Sam's saying anything metaphysical about it. I think >> Peterson is presenting religious ethics as something very metaphysically complicated, with archetypes and with the collective unconsciousness and all that stuff. But, that's not the mechanism that's at work for normal religious people. Normal religious people believe that they are a part of the hierarchy, that God heads that hierarchy, and they obey God.

[00:05:22]You know, so for those people who don't eat lobster or pork, you know, there isn't some sort of a elaborate, complicated metaphysical system as to why they're doing it.

[00:05:33]They're just doing it because they believe God ordered that them to do it.

[00:05:38]And so, in this way, this this ethic, the way it works, it's it's kind of like a light switch. There is no in between.

[00:05:46]It's either you do believe that there's an all-powerful entity who's going to punish you for your bad behavior and reward you for your good behavior or you don't. You can't sort of halfway be a a latent Christian. There is no such thing as like osmosis Christian, you know?

[00:06:05]There could be people who are like secular, who are inspired by religion, sure. But when you talk about the actual kind of atheists and agnostics who are not who don't claim to be cultural Christians or whatever, their ethics cannot uh originate from archetypes or unconsciousness and all that stuff.

[00:06:25]That's not how most religious people work. That's not how um religious ethics actually work in practice. You know, you can't halfway believe in God unless you're Jordan Peterson.

[00:06:37]You know, but in in the real world, it's a very simple hierarchy.

[00:06:42]Uh the metaphysics there it's it's not the not complicated, it's not elaborate, it's not about archetypes or any of that stuff. It's about submission to the higher authority.

[00:06:53]You know, it's about synchronizing yourself within within a hierarchy with God.

[00:06:59]>> So, here's the thing.

[00:07:00]We are physical beings >> claim. So, it's sort of at the basis of his ethic. And so, he says, "Well, we should work to maximize people's well-being or at least to Well, he does a bit more than that.

[00:07:10]>> It's not so he He's not maximize minimize in this sense of sense simple consequentialism. Let me do this.

[00:07:17]>> Okay.

[00:07:19]>> We're physical beings in a physical universe and the laws that dictate how things work in the universe, they are the ultimate arbiters of what is or isn't in our best interest, whether we know it or not. So, for example, so far as I can tell, >> Then why do you need free will?

[00:07:35]>> I don't I don't >> Why do you believe in it then? Why do you Why do you attribute agency to things if the laws of the universe can >> get to that one point >> Well, you but there was a contradiction that was confusing me.

[00:07:46]>> As if this exchange wasn't incoherent enough for you, let's toss in a high school debate about free will. Why not?

[00:07:53]>> Free will isn't relevant to this.

[00:07:56]>> It is if the laws of the universe are what are dictating what's good for us.

[00:08:00]>> No, because if you chop off my head, that is clearly not good for me.

[00:08:07]And it doesn't matter whether it was an act of free will or >> It's clearly not my lawnmower. It's clearly not good for you because you think you're valuable and worth preserving.

[00:08:14]>> Yes.

[00:08:15]>> Okay. That's the issue. Why do you think you're valuable and worth preserving?

[00:08:20]>> Because I am the descendant of people who thought they were valuable and worth worth preserving and the ones who didn't think that have killed themselves. But this is not a statement about This is not a statement about intrinsic value.

[00:08:34]>> I I don't know. Yes, yes, I think it is.

[00:08:37]Okay. Okay, but I think it is.

[00:08:39]>> Okay.

[00:08:41]It The reason that we talk about this in terms of well-being is because irrespective of whether or not I care about well-being, there are facts about well-being.

[00:08:52]>> Sure, let's hear a man. Line those suckers up.

[00:08:55]>> If you chop off my head, it's in contradiction to my well-being. I mean that but the the point >> No, I wasn't willing to grant that actually.

[00:09:02]>> Okay.

[00:09:02]>> I'm saying that's a metaphysical presupposition.

[00:09:04]>> What did I tell you guys? Stingy Peterson, he strikes again. Debating with Peterson, it's kind of like a passionate tango dance. You know, they move this way, they move that way.

[00:09:17]It's unpredictable. You never know what's going to happen next. What what Peterson is going to question next. You come to Professor Peterson and you say, "I have a radical idea. I think that being punched in the balls is not in my interest." Whoa, dude.

[00:09:34]Who gave the intrinsic value, the metaphysical value to your balls.

[00:09:39]Surely, you would not derive you would not make the statement if it weren't for centuries of Judeo-Christian osmosis archetypal thing going on. Only only because of that do you invest value in your balls, and only because of this will you make the radical claim, Buckaroo, that it's not in your interest to get be punched in them.

[00:10:03]All right, man?

[00:10:05]So, yeah, I mean, this is dan- danger zone, danger zone, stinginess, very stingy, Peterson. He's He's not giving you anything. He's not giving giving you anything unless you come in, Buckaroo, with your metaphysical receipts for your scandalous claims.

[00:10:23]>> You're just saying I have to accept that.

[00:10:24]>> No, I'm not I'm not telling you at all what to accept.

[00:10:27]I'm trying to I'm trying to explain what my position is.

[00:10:31]>> Okay, but but you said that that wouldn't be in accordance with your well-being. Okay, that's a metaphysical statement or philosophical statement.

[00:10:38]It's not an obvious fact.

[00:10:41]>> That chopping off somebody's head is contrary to their well-being.

[00:10:44]>> It depends on how you define well-being.

[00:10:46]>> That's true.

[00:10:47]>> Yeah, but it matters.

[00:10:48]>> you define well-being as this glass of water, we're no longer talking about the same thing.

[00:10:52]>> Well, you can define well-being. That's fine. That's what I'm waiting for.

[00:10:55]>> This is So, this is what I'm >> You can't do it. You can't define well-being. It's very >> Well, then why should I try? Certainly can't do it if you keep telling me I can't do it.

[00:11:02]>> Okay, sorry. Okay, I'll back off. I'll back off. There's a uh Go ahead. I'm I'm I'm all ears.

[00:11:09]>> So, the primary objection to my man's position that keeps coming back is why should anybody care about well-being?

[00:11:17]And we both will acknowledge that this is an in fact a subjective preference.

[00:11:21]There are people who are going to care about well-being. There are people who aren't.

[00:11:24]The second objection is that well-being is not clearly defined. Both of us have acknowledged this. It's not as if we're saying we have all the answers to uh how to go about living a better life.

[00:11:35]We're just saying that however we're going to define well-being, which is I I say you can start with a couple of foundations. You can start with death is preferable to life, but you don't get very far that way.

[00:11:48]And so >> Stop suffering.

[00:11:50]>> Well, no, I'm saying you could start with death is preferable to life, but you don't get very far that way because a lot of people >> do. You stop suffering. You just die.

[00:11:58]>> Yes.

[00:11:59]>> Mhm.

[00:12:00]Right, so you can start with the presupposition >> Except that when you're dead, you are not being, so there's no well-being.

[00:12:08]>> No. Well, that's >> [applause] >> Would Jordan Peterson concede that having visible signs of herpes on your lips is not in your interest? Well, bucko, no. He will He will not concede that. Somebody might look at that herpes sore and say, "Hey, this person has been around. Maybe they know what they're doing."

[00:12:31]You know, things like that. We just have to We just have to come up with these receipts.

[00:12:37]With the metaphysical receipts for the claims we're making.

[00:12:40]>> If it's >> That's not That's not necessarily >> If we're looking for the best things about our life, you can't say death is better.

[00:12:48]>> Yeah, you can.

[00:12:48]>> Well, you I know that you can say it.

[00:12:50]>> all the time. Look, look, I'm not being disingenuous.

[00:12:52]>> They can express their preference, but their preference can be wrong. How can it possibly be better for your life if you're dead?

[00:13:02]>> What if you like are a terminal burn victim with cancer?

[00:13:07]>> I am So, this is the point that I was getting to.

[00:13:10]I am perfectly fine with the idea that for certain instances, there may be occasions that death is preferable to an individual over life.

[00:13:18]But when we're speaking in broader terms, if we're talking about let's create the best society we can, let's create the best quality of life we can for people, death is not that across the board. It That doesn't mean that there aren't individual exceptions.

[00:13:30]>> Some radical nihilists and neo-Marxists will make the claim that if you stab yourself with a screwdriver in one of your eyes and gouge it out, that it's not in your interest. That's not in your best interest, you know? Do they have the metaphysical receipts to prove to prove this claim? They don't. And in fact, what happens with people who lose an eye, if they have an eye patch, especially, is that people pay attention to their one uh remaining eye much more than they did before. Nobody forgets a one-eyed stare.

[00:14:03]Nobody forgets a pick-up line at a bar presented by a guy with a pirate patch.

[00:14:09]So so there's a lot of things going on.

[00:14:11]We just We're We're just not going to make make these uh presuppositions valid, okay, my friends? This is the Our civilization depends on it because if we validate these kinds of things without metaphysics, then our society is going to be a huge dump dumpster fire, and we don't want that.

[00:14:28]>> So the foundations that I that I started with, you could start with death is better than life, but blah blah blah. If you start with life is generally preferable to death, health is generally preferable to sickness, happiness is generally preferable to sadness, none of these are absolute locked-in-stone rules. From those things >> if you start with them >> Yes, if you >> So you're not skeptical about those claims.

[00:14:48]>> Wow.

[00:14:49]>> Well, let me ask you a question.

[00:14:50]>> I came out and said that I wasn't going to be trying to straw man you left and right. And now every time I say something, you're like, "Oh, so you're not skeptical about that."

[00:14:59]>> Well, I'm trying to >> I haven't I haven't gotten to >> sorry. I'm not trying to attack you. I'm trying to understand where your argument begins.

[00:15:05]>> Well, it seems odd that you would come out with, "So you're not skeptical about that."

[00:15:09]>> Well, that's a question.

[00:15:10]>> my skepticism tour, while I'm in mid-sentence to describe that these are the general foundations that you start with.

[00:15:16]>> Okay, that's what I was asking. Those are Okay, so but what you're saying, if you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong.

[00:15:22]I'm I'm not trying to be difficult.

[00:15:24]You're saying that those are your starting positions. Those are the things that you accept >> I'm saying they can be.

[00:15:30]>> faith.

[00:15:30]>> No.

[00:15:31]>> Oh, you have a rationale for them.

[00:15:33]>> Yes.

[00:15:34]>> Let's hear it.

[00:15:34]>> Uh you already have.

[00:15:37]Life is generally preferable to death because we're talking about our life, and death is generally not in the interest of the living.

[00:15:44]It can be an exception. This is the point that I was getting to. So, you could start with those funny you could start with any three that you found.

[00:15:51]You could pick three arbitrary foundations. And the one aspect that makes a secular moral system distinct from religious pronouncements and divine command theory and those sorts of things is that the the secular moral system has as its goal the object of getting better at getting better, which means if you find out that one of your foundations is wrong or in conflict with something else, you can now change that. You could start with death as preferable to life, and then when you find out that it's not working that well, you change that foundation. I think that these foundations, based on the evidence of how people tend to live their lives and what they care about, are a good set of three.

[00:16:29]There could be better ones that somebody come up with. I'm open to revision on any of these at any time, but to say that I'm not skeptical about them is exactly the opposite of what I am.

[00:16:39]Because skepticism is about I'm not going to accept something as true without good reason, and it's about being willing to being open to revision should there be evidence.

[00:16:49]>> A lot of my viewers are very fancy pants. A lot of you guys have degrees. A lot of you are gentlemen of culture.

[00:16:55]Many of you are ladies of culture. So, it's not news to you that Buddhists don't believe in a creator God, that Buddhist ethics have a different metaphysics behind it. You know, Buddhists believe that you accumulate positive and negative karma, so you have to do good deeds, you have to purify your negative deeds. So, it's a difference it's a different structure.

[00:17:17]There isn't There isn't the same kind of a hierarchical celestial hierarchy with an all-powerful being at the top.

[00:17:25]And so, when we look at the results of this, uh we see that in Buddhist countries, Buddhist average um about murders, it's um 1.5 to three murders per 100,000. This is the average for Buddhist countries. Now, when it comes to Christian countries, we have um 10 to 15 per 100,000 murders.

[00:17:54]And so, if a Buddhist would come to Peterson and say, "Hey, um I'm actually interested in converting to to Christianity." Peterson would say, "No, listen, dude. You of all people, you don't need um uh you don't need the Bible stories, you don't need the the archetypes. You have some sweet archetypes of your own. In fact, they do pretty well at uh reducing violent behavior." You know, now, would Peterson say that? According to his rationale that religious beliefs evolved over millennia and we don't want to divorce ourselves from these archetypes and so on, you know, because then we'll enter the horror of totalitarianism.

[00:18:37]You know, presumably, you know, Peterson would say, "Hey, um uh you have some you you've evolved some sweet archetypes. You have um grown some good stuff there, you Buddhists." You know, somehow I doubt I doubt that that would happen. This is the reason I I bring this up. I just you know, I just doubt that Peterson would say that, you know.

[00:19:00]But, the other thing I'd like to say is that um I am not making uh the claim that Buddhist makes people more ethical. I don't know what the reason for this is.

[00:19:11]You know, I don't look at everything from the lens of religion. You know, so there could be factors here behind these statistics that that that are missing um when you just focus on the religious differences between these these countries. You know, I just kind of bring it up because that's how Peterson looks at it. And um if he's truly interested in evolution, then you could say and if you look at every or or all at all moral behavior through a religious lens, you know, then you would say, "Hey, maybe we should all adopt belief in reincarnation and and karma because it seems to reduce uh the murder rate, you know."

[00:19:52]Anyway, so this is just a thought I had, all right, my dudes. I'm not here making any claims about Buddhism being better than Christianity. I'm just kind of trying to poke some do some measured and constructive criticism of of Professor Peterson. That's all I'm doing. So, don't write in the comments, "You Buddhist chauvinist." I don't know why why the murder rate is less, all right, my dude. I'm I'm all good. I'm all good with Christianity. I don't want I don't want enemies.

[00:20:19]>> I guess this question's mostly for Jordan Peterson. Uh just to hopefully enlighten a bit more what you mean by God. Do you think that if all humanity were to cease to exist, does God still exist?

[00:20:43]>> I I don't think I know how to answer that.

[00:20:45]I There it's just the situation is too hypothetical. I mean, I can take a crack at some of it, but So, human beings are characterized by consciousness and by self-consciousness.

[00:21:03]And and the latter in particular seems to be something relatively unique. There's some vague evidence for self-consciousness of of lower sorts in animals, but it's not very compelling. Some of them can recognize themselves in a mirror, but our self-consciousness is accompanied by elaborated imagistic and linguistic models of ourselves and that have been elaborated over large spans of time.

[00:21:28]There are lots of elements of being that would disappear if we disappeared.

[00:21:33]Now, and and I I it isn't even obvious to what extent that's true, right? Because I don't really understand to what degree being itself is dependent on consciousness.

[00:21:45]Like the classic materialist enlightenment view, which I would say is basically a 19th century view, something like that, is that if all consciousness was extinguished, the material substrate of the universe would continue unchanged.

[00:21:59]But I don't really buy that as an argument because I think that the material substrate I think that reality is some weird I think that reality is an interaction between what we perceive of as the material substrate and consciousness itself.

[00:22:16]And so then when you destroy consciousness, you destroy reality. And what that leaves, I don't really understand because it doesn't have any temporality in any obvious sense. It doesn't have any size in any obvious sense without the introduction of an invisible observer. So lots vanishes without human consciousness and self-consciousness.

[00:22:36]I don't know how to answer the question, does God vanish? Because that brings us back into the same problem that I was talking about earlier is that it's not exactly easy to understand what people are talking about when they say God, you know, cuz when you ask the question, would God disappear?

[00:22:51]There's an assumption there that whatever God is is understandable and boxable like a simple concept like a chair and that we both share the same conception.

[00:23:00]And you know, there's endless warnings in in deep religious literature against understanding against assuming that you understand what that term means or sometimes even for using the term. So that's the best I'm going to be be able to do with that question. Thank you.

[00:23:18]>> No video about Peterson and Christianity could be complete without his signature incoherent babble as to whether or not he believes God to be an intrinsic entity. You know for centuries and millennia when the West was defined by Christianity, it was defined by certainty that God exists. Not not vagueness, not archetypes, not biblical stories, biblical stories that were in Latin for centuries inaccessible for the vast majority of the population. No, it was a it was a hierarchy and for hierarchy to function you have to believe in the celestial power in in the total power of God over your life.

[00:24:04]So my friends, um this is the end of the video. I want to thank you for watching and um I want to wish you all the best best things in life. So um thank you so much for um for uh entertaining this uh tiny insignificant channel. Thank you.