A brief trip around the word with Stephen Molyneux

[Lykourgos]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brief-trip-around-world-stefan-molyneux-adam-delderfield

 

I've enjoyed a fair number of Molyneux's youtube videos, but I was sorely disappointed with the UPB. I read the whole pdf, and there was barely a page I agreed with.

 

So, I gave it a second chance recently. I tried to follow his initial advice about applying the UPB without nitpicking each line and proof. I skipped to the rape test section, and read. Yet, philosophy isn't a physical journey, and the whole thing seemed a disaster. It doesn't start with first principles, and I disagree with almost every line.

 

Does anyone support the UPB these days, and believe it to be an objective, true account of morality? I feel like it really is a spectacular disaster in every sense.

 

I won't pretend my article is good; I think it's one of my worst. To really deal with the UPB, I think someone must ignore that advice about sailing around the world and instead respond to the whole text. Yet, if nobody wholly endorses the UPB these days I don't see the point in expending so many hours. At least I got to try making an audio file for the first time.

[Mister Mister]

"I was sorely disappointed with the UPB"
"there was barely a page I agreed with"
"the whole thing seemed a disaster."

"I feel like it really is a spectacular disaster in every sense."

  Do you consider these to be arguments?  The closest you get to an actual argument is "It doesn't start with first principles", but just saying that isn't enough.  You'd have to show it.

In your article, I still didn't get any sense of any real argument.  However, this statement did pop out at me: "it seems obvious that two people can commit sexual violence against each other at the same time".  I know some feminists make this claim with regards to two college kids getting drunk and fucking, but to me it sounds like nonsense.  Can you elaborate or give an example?

  A helpful way to look at UPB, is that it is a way to examine moral theories, more than anything else.  It is not as important to prove that you shouldn't rape or kill or assault or steal, because the people who are open to the concept of morality, generally have empathy and conscience and won't do these things anyway.  Where UPB is really useful, essential even, is in debunking false concepts of morality, whereby someone attempts to impose obligations and restrictions on your behavior, i.e. "Taxes are the price you pay for civilization", "You have to obey the Law", "Your family loves them no matter what they do, and you should love them back", "You just have to believe in Christ and you will be saved", "White people owe endless benefits to non-whites for centuries of enslavement and colonialism and imperialism., etc...

  For me the abstract proof is always confusing, but the method in practice makes sense.  When someone uses a should or ought statement, you extract the principle and run it through the UPB Universalization Engine, and see if it holds up in the end.  Hope that makes some sense.

[Koroviev]

I went through and read your article really hoping to find some good arguments against UPB only to be sadly disappointed by your obvious, dare I say intentional, misunderstanding of anything you were critiquing. I originally wanted to go through your critique point by point trying to counter your arguments but the post had gotten too long as there are issues with pretty much every sentence. As MMD said above your lack of attention to detail makes this fall into the "not-even-wrong" category, where it is so utterly incorrect you cannot even gain any insight from it's wrong-ness. 

[Will Torbald]

"Even more troubling, Molyneux makes numerous statements that the mind instantly rejects. One immediately feels compelled to say that “not-rape” is not the opposite of rape, just like being motionless is not the opposite of walking east. There are problems even with his discussion of physical possibilities; it seems obvious that two people can commit sexual violence against each other at the same time."

 

This is the only attempt at an argument that I could find. First, I'll challenge that the direction a person is walking towards to is irrelevant to the act of walking in the same way that the kind of person someone is raping is irrelevant to the morality of the crime. Therefore, arguing that the opposite of walking east is walking west is like arguing that the opposite of raping men (immoral) should be raping women (moral). This doesn't work for obvious reasons.

 

On the second attempt at an argument, I'll just say that while two people can be sexually violent with each other at the same time, the implicit agreement in this situation is that violence has been given consent. Rape requires aggression against consent to be a rape, therefore two people being violent with each other is kink, bdsm, rough play, or any other variation, but no violation of property rights of self ownership has been made in that case.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I think all this narrative, whining, poisoning the well is really just filler to hide the fact that you have no rebuttal. If you have an argument just provide it. "mind automatically rejects" in not an argument. "it seems obvious" is not an argument. Calling something a disaster or disorganized is not credible when you have no argument, it is petty.

[Lykourgos]

With this level of attention to detail, I think I'll skip your critique.

That's fair, I myself indicated that the article is not a complete argument against the UPB. It's more a demonstration/discussion of why Molyneux's advice to take a trip around the world is not a good way of using the text. For something even approaching that, you'd need to rewrite the tests so they start from first principles and progress along the journey.

 

As for what is and isn't an argument, I'm happy to put effort into discussing the UPB as a whole and show why it's flawed. Calling in would be great, too; I do enjoy your show at times and think you should be lauded for spending time producing philosophic and political content.

 

Right now I have a post limit and post review delay, so it is a little difficult. I also won't have a computer to type on until early/mid january, as I'm on holiday. Definitely up for it, though.

[Lykourgos]

...or better yet, email me and call into the call in show.

What email address would you like me to use? I tried messaging you over the forum but that doesn't work.

 

 

Edit: ah, and it seems I can post without a time delay/review!

[Lykourgos]

Huh, my posts seem delayed again, and sometimes they disappear, but at any rate I e-mailed a few days ago.