Untitled episode

foreign I do believe that value is real and I think value is there as part of the way that we live together and work together I think it's part of the fabric of things and I think things that often look very much like not values for example the notion of a fact actually these are deeply I think deeply normative Notions to say that something is a

fact is to Market as something that we can trust and so in in a sense I mean if I'm if I'm in a knock about mood and why shouldn't I be it's it's almost cocktail time um I'm inclined to say who cares about objectivity um it's not that we're looking for some kind of cosmic super existing super world objective truth with a capital T you know

which if if Terry Gilliam was doing the the um the graphics that'd be the words truth inscribed in stone rotating in empty star star-studded space what that's not what we need even it's there and I'm an objectivist so in a sense I do believe it's there but that's not what we need what we need is something that we can trust I don't think there is such

don't I can't make sense of it I don't know where those those truths would would come and how we would find out about those truths however the the interesting part I think for me is that just because there is no objective truth out there in terms of Ethics it doesn't mean that ethics is arbitrated it doesn't mean that um that anything goes there is also a

lot of things that don't work a lot of things that that undermine uh human flourishing and therefore those things are in my book unethical or Immortal Massimo because um can't famously said two things firmly with wander and all the more I reflect on them one is the story happens above and the other is the moral law within and when can says that he's drawing out a

stoic theme and the stoic theme is the contrast of order in the universe the macrocosm with order in the soul the microcosm and so in stoicism these two things go hand in hand you have the objectivity out there the Transcendent objectivity and you also have the objectivity that comes from within the imminent objectivity so I was very struck that Massimo apparently doesn't have time for the

Transcendent objectivity that if we're going to discuss objectivity then we don't need to worry actually with respect to Simon I don't think we need to worry about the universal because we don't have to deal with every moral conflict there's ever been right now we have to deal just with this moral conflict and that's a matter of conversation and negotiation and I think that when we negotiate

with others um I'm thinking the kind of approach that Jurgen harpermask takes to ethics it starts with dialogue it starts with conversation and with any luck we will be able to negotiate terms out that we can agree to get to live together by and I think that some of those terms that we will negotiate our way to will inevitably take the form of rules and I

think one thing that trust really needs and this brings us back to objectivity and Truth one thing trust really needs is the rule do not tell lies well but but in fact we do tell lies all the time for good reasons I mean that was that's one of the standard objections about akantian uh you know Universal rule against lying uh the the obvious example is well

the Nazi officer knocks in my door do I lie about him about hiding the Jew in the basement right so again that's another situation where the general framework is okay generally speaking you don't want to lie but you need to use your judgment in a specific case so whenever you've got um refugees in your basement Massimo and whenever the Nazis are at the door you do

tell a lie then right but then I brought the percentage of cases what percentage of your cases is that but that's the case there are many other cases where I can do the same in a more you know sort of less dramatic situation so then then we have to start agreeing on when is it acceptable when it's not and and I think it gets complicated as

I said as a general rule that's okay it's a general sort of 10 10 tending to behave that way that's okay but I want to go back to your issue about Transcendence and sort of universal objectivity I think that was a little too fast um you can't say oh well let's set that aside we don't want to talk about that we want the the to talk

about what we need to do right now well yeah but what we need to do right now is informed by whatever transcendental view you may or may not have so I think we do need to talk about it and I reject the transcend any transcendental view because I think the morality is a human invention