Within Reason - #62 750,000 Subscriber QnA

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

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750,000 subscribers. Thank you all so much, especially over the past year. The channel has been growing and really show me that there's a lot more room to maneuver in this space than perhaps I would have thought a few years ago. The past year has really shown me that I launched this podcast about a year ago, just over a year ago now, and I've just had some amazing conversations and met some incredible people and hopefully successfully shared some of those ideas with you. So hopefully we can keep it going and eventually get to the big one million. I thought it would be a good time to do a Q&A since it's been a while since I've done one of those. And this is actually going to be a part one of two.

The second is going to be a private Patreon Q&A. So if you like what you see here and want to see more, then you can go to patreon.com forward slash Alex O.C. You'll also be supporting the channel and get access to episodes early as well as ad-free. Anyway, to the questions. Only fans when? Okay, funnily enough, only fans have actually reached out to me twice to try to get me to make. an account, but you may remember that, I don't know, maybe like two years ago or something, they tried to ban porn.

When OnlyFans started, it was supposed to be a kind of crowdfunding, Patreon type thing where people could share behind the scenes and do private Q&As and this kind of stuff. But we all know where the site sort of ended up. But they did try to ban porn at one point and bring it back to its roots. And that's when I got this email saying, hey, have you considered making an account? You could connect with your fans and this kind of thing. And then I think it went disastrously for them because, of course, that's just what Onlyfant has become. So they allowed pornography again.

And funnily enough, that's when they stopped emailing me and stopped trying to get me to make an account. So I'm trying not to take that personally, but they clearly don't want me on their site. Has anything about your stance towards veganism changed since you last spoke about it? There have been a lot of questions about this, of course, understandably. I did recently speak on the trigonometry podcast about this briefly. But one thing to say is that the main reason that I stopped being a vegan was a practical one. I found that I practically couldn't keep it up. And so, of course, I've thought about this philosophically and I have ideas that I can share,

but it would be wrong of me to imply that these are the main reasons why that happened. It was a practical consideration. I felt like it would be wrong of me to be publicly advocating for a position that I myself couldn't practically keep up. in terms of philosophy, nothing that I've said about factory farming has changed. Factory farming is still a moral abomination. However, the thing that has changed is, I suppose, my approach to solving the problem. This is what I spoke about on trigonometry, where my approach has shifted from a sort of individual boycott approach to a top-down legislation and industry reform type approach. And if you want to hear more about that in a discussion with the trigonometry boys, then I'll put a link to that in the description. So there's that. But Farming is still a moral abomination. One thing that I suppose I did think about a lot was the concept of veganism outside of factory farming. So the wrongness of killing animals and causing suffering to animals unnecessarily, even outside a factory farm conditions. Because a lot of

vegans will say, okay, sure, you can sort of raise a cow in relatively humane conditions. That is humane relative to a factory farm, but you're still killing them. And as long as you're causing any amount of unnecessary suffering and certainly death to an animal, that's something that's wrong. I started to realize that I don't think you can concretely hold to this principle, that unnecessary infliction of suffering on animals is always wrong. I'll tell you why. It started when I was thinking about the concept of vegan junk food. So that is food that you don't need to eat to be healthy and might actually be bad for your health, you know, vegan chocolate, vegan cakes, whatever. And the sort of vegan approach,

to eating these products. I mean, I don't see a lot of vegans condemning the concept of eating vegan junk food, but it's worth reflecting on. The concept of crop deaths comes up a lot in this vegan discussion, and it's kind of memed upon by the vegan community, because of course it's ridiculous to suggest, as many people do, that you shouldn't be a vegan because don't you know that animals are killed in crop production? It's a silly thing to say, because we kill far more animals in the production of crops that we then feed to livestock than we do in the production of crops that are eaten directly. So that crop death argument just doesn't work at all. And like I say, it's sort of a joke. However, there is a crop death's related consideration that we should

reflect on. And it's to do with this concept of unnecessary vegan food. And like I say, it started with the junk food consideration, but a better example, a more concrete example, and one that I spoke to Peter Singer in my second podcast with him about is the concept of a vegan bodybuilder. So a bodybuilder, at least when they're when they're bulking, when they're trying to grow, is somebody who will intentionally eat an extra maybe two, 300 calories every single day, maybe even more. And they're doing so for reasons that, strictly speaking, are completely unnecessary to their health. It's health related in that they're trying to sort of, you know, reach peak performance or peak size or whatever it is. But you don't need to grow,

to remain healthy. You can eat your maintenance calories for the rest of your life and be perfectly fine and thrive indeed. So if you're bodybuilding, if you're trying to build muscle, you are eating food that you do not need to eat to be healthy. Here's the thing, so long as animals are killed in crop production, then as long as you're eating food that is unnecessary to your health, you are causing unnecessary suffering in death to animals. That means that if you are a vegan bodybuilder, if you're eating a few hundred extra calories every day on purpose of vegan food, you are causing unnecessary suffering and death to animals. Now, of course, it doesn't follow from this that, therefore, eating animals is fine.

That's not what I'm trying to do here. I suppose I'm trying to answer the question. I mean, the question is not, you know, justify eating meat or something. The question is, has anything about your approach changed? And this is something that I was reflecting on a lot, this idea that I would often say, I'd say it all the time, you know, unnecessary death and suffering to animals is wrong, is always wrong. But if I held to that principle consistently, I would have to condemn, for example, vegan bodybuilders. Of course, eating the food, eating the vegan food that a vegan bodybuilder will eat is nowhere near on the level of eating factory farmed meat, for example. I mean, the life of an animal that gets killed by a combine harvester is going to be infinitely better than the life of a pig on a factory farm.

Again, don't misunderstand me here. What I'm trying to say is that the principle that causing unnecessary harm and suffering to animals, is always morally wrong, entails the condemnation of vegan bulking bodybuilders. And yet, it seems just intuitively the case to me, and I would imagine most vegans feel the same way, that vegan bodybuilding isn't unethical. In fact, a lot of vegans point to vegan bodybuilders as examples of what veganism can do, but what they're pointing to there is an example of someone who's unnecessarily eating food, that they don't need to eat to be healthy, that results in the unnecessary suffering and death

of animals. And that's the very thing that outside of the context of bodybuilding, vegans are usually the first people to condemn. Now, of course, look, I can see people reacting to this and stopping me and going, yeah, but how does that justify, you know, forcing pigs into gas chambers? It doesn't. That's still a moral abomination. That's still absolutely horrendous.

All I'm saying is that in terms of my approach to the discussion of animal ethics, one thing that's changed is I've realized that if we are going to condemn something like factory farming or farming in general, I don't think it can be on the principle that unnecessary suffering is always immoral because that would involve condemning a number of things which intuitively to me just aren't that condemnable. I mean, I can't remember the last time that I saw someone condemn a vegan bodybuilder on the grounds that they were causing unnecessary suffering to animals. And so, look, if you're not willing to do that, then you have to admit at least that the position you're holding is

not one that causing unnecessary suffering is always wrong. And you may want to say the difference is that in one case you're intentionally killing an animal for food, whereas in another case, you're sort of accidentally killing them as a byproduct. There are a few things to say there. The first is to say that I don't think it makes much difference to the animal, what your intention is. The second thing to say is that, like, look, if somebody goes into a supermarket and buys an animal product specifically because it's going to cause suffering to animals, because it's going to kill an animal, I think that would be morally wrong. In other words, when somebody's eating a meal, I don't think their intention is strictly.

strictly speaking, to cause harm and suffering to an animal. Their intention is to eat food. They just know that it's a foreseen but not intended consequence of this that animals are going to be killed, or at least they're contributing to that industry. And that's something like what's going on with crop deaths. You know that an animal is inevitably going to be killed in the process of producing this food, but it's not like that's your intention. You're not intending to kill those animals. I think the same can actually be said of at least most people who eat animal products. They're not intending to kill an animal. They're intending to eat food and see the death of an animal as a foreseen consequence of that. That's just like what happens at the moment,

at least, with crop production. You may also say that it's because crop deaths are a contingent problem. You can imagine a world in which crop deaths don't cause any animal suffering, whereas you can't imagine a world in which animal products don't involve any kind of animal suffering or at least death. And I would say, OK, but when that world materializes, we can have this conversation again. Right now, if you're an animal, it's not going to matter to you if the reason you're being ground up in a combine harvester is because of some kind of contingent problem that is foreseen but not intended. It doesn't matter. The suffering is still there. And by eating extra calories that you don't need to be healthy, you are inflicting this unnecessarily.

Of course, this also doesn't mean that therefore inflicting any amount of unnecessary suffering just becomes okay. All it shows us is that the conversation can't be one of a strict principle that unnecessary suffering is always wrong inflicted upon animals for unnecessary food. It has to be a case of how much unnecessary suffering and in what context we allow in order to produce our food. And I think that factory farming is well in the condemnable space. Like there's no way that that unnecessary suffering can be justified to produce the food that we eat. However, this consideration of vegan bodybuilders made me realize I'm unable to say as a principle that unnecessary infliction of suffering is always wrong. Unless, of course, you want to

condemn vegan bodybuilders. I have also heard people make the argument that when it comes to crop deaths, we're essentially protecting our property. That is, we have our crops. We need them to survive, to eat, to be healthy. And when animals come onto the crop fields, we're essentially killing them in defense of our property. A bit like if someone breaks into my house, I can justifiably attack them or kill them because I need to do so to protect my property. I have heard this argument being made. The big problem with this that I see immediately is the question, like, who's breaking onto the land here? We have this vision that we've got this farm and rodents are coming onto the farm and we have to kill them to protect our property. But did we not invade

their space by laying down the crop fields in the first place. In other words, I don't think you can say, well, I have the right to kill animals and the production of my property when we're the ones who invaded their space. Don't they have the right to protect their land against us? Why should we get to make that imposition? So I don't think that argument works either. But again, look, I know that people are going to respond to this and react to this and they're going to be pausing it and saying, well, how does this justify this? Or how does this justify that? That's not what I'm doing here. The questioner asked, is there anything that's changed about your approach to veganism, and that's one consideration that I've been thinking about. Am I right to be

surprised to hear you speak on your use of psychedelics? And what was it like? I don't know about surprised. Psychedelics are one of the most unique experiences that you can have, full stop. And I knew that even before I'd taken them just from the way that people would speak about them. And so I think it was inevitable that I'd want to know what that felt like. I think there are certain types of knowledge that can only be known through experience. Famously, things like psychedelic experiences, as well as religious experiences, are ineffable. In fact, the ineffability of religious experiences is one of William James's famous

characterizations of what makes a religious experience a religious experience, is this inability to quite put into words what that's like. And even if you were able to, it would still teach you something to experience it for yourself, a bit like Mary's Room, you know, that thought experiment where Mary is in a room that has no color in it. It's like a black and white room for all of her life, but she's raised with all of the literature available on the color blue. She learns about the wavelengths.

She learns about the science of the eye. Not just all the information we have now, but all of the information that we could ever have and write down on a bit of paper about the color blue. And she spends her whole life studying it. And the question is, when she steps outside of that room and sees something blue for the first time ever

after years of studying it, does she learn anything? and intuitively the answer is yes. There is something about that experience of seeing blue that just can't be conveyed in language. I think that the psychedelic experience is a bit like that. I mean, there are certain facets that really interestingly, you begin to see, oh, I see why people describe it like that, the sort of kaleidoscopic vision, that kind of stuff. You're like, okay, I can see that.

But what I suppose I wasn't prepared for was the extent to which I was able to look upon things with with fresh eyes. In terms of sort of intellectual insights, I suppose the main thing it gifted me that I think it gifts most people who experience a psychedelic trip is just a change in perspective. One of the things that I realized, in those times when I started to notice more beauty in the world, you know, I mean, you can stare at a brick wall and it's like you're watching the most interesting film you've ever seen in your life. But, you know, you look at like a river or you look at a tree or something and you think to yourself, gosh, this is this is so unfathomably beautiful. But the conviction that I had at the time was not so much, gosh, suddenly

this tree has just become more beautiful. It was like it's always been this beautiful. I'm only now somehow realizing it or it's sort of unlocked something in my brain when now I can finally understand that it's beautiful. But it's not any more beautiful than it was before. That has helped to see beauty in the world in a different way because, you know, when I, when I look at a tree or look at a river or something, I can remember my conviction that the most beautiful I'd ever seen a tree or a river, at the same time as experiencing that, I was fully aware that it looked really no different to how it usually looks. It was like I was just realizing that it's beautiful. But I don't think I actually have anything really interesting to tell you about any kind of insights that I will have received on psychedelics. Firstly, they were extremely personal, but secondly, as I say, they are essentially defined by their ineffability. I don't think I could properly put into words what that was like.

So I'm not exactly dodging the question. I think it's just something that I can't really put into words or explain. Psychedelics are famous for giving you experiences that you just can't explain to other people. So I think that taking psychedelics has been one of the most significant experiences of my entire life, but I'm afraid that when it comes to talking about it, I just don't think I have that much of interest to say. Has any book ever made you question your atheism, agnosticism? If so, which ones? Well, I like to say that I'm always questioning my atheism and agnosticism whenever I read any book about religion. But one of the things that I think can put people off reading arguments from the other side, as it were, is they feel like they're not being properly heard or understood. So if you read a bit of Christian literature, it kind of feels like you're dealing with someone who just doesn't know what it is to be an atheist. I mean, they're writing to you as if they're can teach you something when they've never been in your shoes, you know, that they're so convicted of this worldview that they can try their best, but they just don't know what it's like

to be convicted that there is no God. One exception to this, I mean, there are many exceptions, but a standout exception is C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis, of course, was an atheist. And when he writes in his Christian apologia about atheism, you get the impression that here's someone who actually knows what it's like to be an atheist. If you read a grief observed, parts of it read as if he's the most atheist atheist that ever walked to the planet. I was going to say that the book that comes to mind here is the screw tape letters in that book, C.S. Lewis's depiction of atheism and what it is to be an atheist and the kind of thoughts that might occur to someone that starts to maybe consider some religious ideas, but then something

snaps them out of it and brings them back to atheism. I think he basically nails it. I mean, it's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking that at the time. I was really impressed by how he captured in many parts and maybe not just in the screw tape ladders but across his works captures really what it is to be an atheist. For a Christian that can be very difficult to do and I think that the only reason he was able to do it

is because he was an atheist for a fair amount of time and was able to really get back in the headspace it seems of what that was like for him and so it's not like I read that book and thought oh gosh maybe I'm a theist but it did make me think that I was being my worldview was actually being understood, my worldview was actually being seriously challenged

by somebody who knew what it was to be an atheist. What advice would you give to your younger audience, ages 13 to 17, in terms of reading philosophy? That is, those who are vaguely interested in what you were at the time. Well, one thing to say is that a lot of philosophy can be quite difficult to read. It can be quite dense. You know, if you try to read Immanuel Kant, it's going to be very difficult, especially if you're not already steeped in some kind of philosophical tradition. But even reading someone like David Hume, the language is different. The English is a different kind of English. And yes, if you take your time, you can understand it, but it's going to be very difficult. So what I would recommend is beginning by reading companions to philosophers.

You know, don't read Hume himself straight away. Read a commentary on Hume. And one place to go for this is simply the introduction to a lot of these texts. When you buy a philosophical text, they'll almost always now come with some form of editor's introduction. Don't skip this bit. That's probably my main advice. I used to just skip introductions all the time and go straight to chapter one. They're there for a reason. And part of the reason is because a lot of these philosophers are defining terms differently to how we define them today or writing in a particular context that needs to be understood. It's very difficult to understand Thomas Hobbs without knowing that he was living through the English Civil War, for example. But yes, you should definitely be aiming

to read the philosophers themselves at some point. There's really no substitute for reading their own words, but if you're finding it difficult, then don't feel bad about not diving straight in. I mean, if you try to read a philosopher and just find that you can't do it and you can only read what other people have written about them, don't let that discourage you. That's perfectly normal, especially when you're young. You might be able to come back to it in three years, five years, ten years, and it'll be an easier time for you. But if you read one or maybe two books about Nietzsche, you're going to know more about Nietzsche than almost anyone that you come across, even if you haven't read the man himself. How do you prepare

for interviews. A few people were asking about this, like what preparation goes into having these conversations. And of course, if they've got a book, I read the book. I also try to watch as many of their previous podcasts as possible. I think there are basically two rules for a good interview. One is don't ask them anything that can be Googled. And second is try not to ask them something that they've been asked in every other podcast that they've done. Sometimes that's unavoidable, especially if you're bringing someone who's a bit unexpected to your audience and you're trying to give them a new audience, then it makes sense to ask some questions. They've been asked elsewhere. But if you're asking them, you know, something that somebody could find in a

Google search, I just don't think that's very interesting. So I try to avoid that. So I'll listen to as many podcast interviews that they've already done as I can to try to make sure that we're covering unique ground. But the main thing that I do is write out a list of questions. So I'll try to come up with all of the areas of interest, all of our points of crossover, and I'll write them down and get ready to ask them. I'll ask the first one, and then hopefully, if all goes to plan, I never look at that sheet of paper again. It's kind of a backup. So I've got enough questions to get me all the way through a podcast episode if I need to, but a lot of the time it's only the first one that gets asked, and the rest is just what comes naturally.

Should we prioritize democracy and freedom over well-being? This is an interesting question. I mean, I can see circumstances where our democratic impulse might lead us to believe in things that we think aren't very good for well-being. I think ultimately it doesn't make sense to, in principle, prioritize democracy and freedom over well-being because the reason why we would value those things in the first place is because we think that they're good for our well-being. And if you don't agree with that, just imagine a world in which, for some reason, I click my fingers and suddenly democracy and freedom are invariably always bad for our well-being, just like no matter what, like democracy and freedom, whatever those concepts really mean, are always bad

for well-being. I think it would just become trivially ridiculous to be advocating for their upkeep if we just knew that it was always bad for well-being. And so that means that the main priority here is always going to be well-being. It's always going to sort of veto any attachment that we have to the principles that we have essentially developed, in my view, because those principles are holding to those principles, is good for our well-being. If you were to go back to university and study something completely different, what would you pick? I'm really happy that I studied philosophy and theology. I learned a lot, and a lot of it was applicable to the work that I do now.

So I'm not sure that I would do something different, but if I had to, it would probably be either history, which I do like learning about history. I feel like it's a bit of a blind spot for me in terms of my knowledge, but also something like art history would be really interesting. It's not strictly speaking related to what I talk about now, although hopefully I'll be talking a little bit about art history soon. I just think it's something that interests me on a recreational level, so maybe that.

Pre-requisite reading of logic before doing serious philosophy books? You can't go wrong learning about the basics of logic before trying to do philosophy. I think certainly if you're doing analytic philosophy, it's going to be incredibly helpful to have at least some understanding of how logic works. If you're just interested in continental philosophy, you probably won't need to, It won't come up, maybe a tool, and certainly not as much. But, look, as I say, it's always a good idea to have some basic understanding of logic and how it works. And look, I don't have, like, a ton of recommendations or anything to give you here.

What I can tell you is that when I was at university, we use the logic manual by Volker Holbeck. And it's quite short, relatively easy to understand, and I found it really useful in coming to terms with logic. Which A levels did you take? the first time round I did AS levels, and for our American listeners, this is the last two years of high school before you go to university. So the first time I did AS levels, I took physics, maths, and further maths, and I failed all of them. I got three U's, which means unmarked, in part because one of the exams I overslept. It was at 1pm, and I overslept it. but then I went back and retook my AS levels and at the time it was basically because they'd recently changed the law and you had to be in education until you were 18 no matter what and I must have been 17 I guess and so I went to a different institution and retook my AS levels and did politics, philosophy and religion and sociology, which I found much easier, much more attuned to my way of thinking and managed to pass that time.

Advice to get out of a funk and fix your life. Everyone gets into a funk at some point, and I'm sorry to hear that that might be the situation you're in right now. I would say that people who are interested in philosophy tend to believe that they can think their way out of a thinking problem. If the world is not as you want it to be, if you can just do enough philosophy or try to sort of get to terms of stoicism enough or something like that, that you'll overcome it. I don't think that's true. We are physical creatures. It's been said by many people before me that you can't fix the mind with the mind. I think that if you're struggling perpetually, you need to make some physical changes to fixing your sleep schedule, making sure you're eating breakfast, getting sunlight on your face, all of that kind of podcast, bro-science stuff.

It's popular for a reason because it's true. You can't fix the mind with the mind. You need to fix the mind with the body. If you don't, if you try to just think your way out of problems, then what you'll start doing is developing. philosophies that are more influenced than you realize by your physical situation. If you're spending every day indoors, no sunlight, not eating properly, then you might find yourself becoming a nihilist. And the worst part about this is that you will become convinced that you are depressed because of your nihilism rather than that you're a nihilist because you're depressed. That's not to say that

you can't get sunlight on your face, eat properly, exercise and not still be a nihilist. That's perfectly true, but unless you've tried that, unless you've sort of tried to fix the physical conditions of your life, I would be more suspicious than average of the philosophies that you start developing. So don't try to think your way out of a problem, at least not entirely, and at least not until you've tried to fix your physical situation first. I mean, look, I'll mention again something that I've been talking about a lot recently in my podcast with Robert Zupolski about free will. He introduced me to this, his study, of judges where they were trying to find out what is the biggest predictive factor. They looked

at some parole board judges and we're trying to work out what's the biggest predictive factor as to whether they would send someone back to jail or grant them parole. And they found that the biggest factor when controlling for things like, you know, their political leaning and stuff like that, the biggest determining factor was how long it had been since the judge had last eaten a meal. It's called the hungry judge phenomenon. People were being sent to jail or granted parole based on how long it had been since the judge had eaten a meal. What this means is that when we are not in a physically ideal circumstance, we should be highly suspicious of our ability to use reason.

That's not to say that the judge can't eat a meal and still send someone back to prison. That can definitely happen. But so long as they haven't eaten that meal, their decision to send someone back to jail, I think should be looked upon with more suspicion than average. So similarly, if your life situation, kind of sucks at the moment, if you're not getting any exercise, if your sleep schedule is arbitrary or all over the place, then I would fix that first. It's not to say that this will

definitely change your convictions about the way that the world is, but they're definitely not going to change if you don't change that physical stuff first. Favorite word? I have lots of favorite words, but like when someone asks for your favorite film or piece of music, they all just fly immediately from your brain. But one that does come to mind is the word atonement. And the reason I like that word so much is because of its etymology. You might think that the word atonement, quite a grand and impressive word. It sounds like it has quite a grand and impressive linguistic history. The word atonement is 100% English.

And I think it comes from a religious context where the sacrifice of Jesus makes us like at one with God or something like that. In other words, at onement, atonement. I've always found that fascinating. And by the way, just as a tangent, another thing that comes to mind here is, have you ever thought about the fact that the word genius and ingenious sound like they should be opposites of each other, but actually mean the same thing? The reason for that is because genius and ingenious actually have completely separate etymologies, completely separate word origins. They don't come from the same place. I've always found that pretty fascinating, too. Thoughts on Dawkins saying he's a cultural Christian.

Yeah, Dawkins was on LBC recently and he was talking about Easter celebrations and Ramadan celebrations in London and he said that he's a cultural Christian and it just sort of blew up. I've seen it all over Twitter. People making a big song and dance about it. Look, this is something that Dawkins has been saying for a really long time. You can find examples of him like 2009 or whatever saying that he's a cultural Christian because, like, of course he has. He was brought up in a Christian culture and a Christian country. And so when he also said that if he was given the choice between living in an Islamic world and a Christian world or Islamic country and Christian country, and he said that he'd pick a Christian country hands down, and people were acting as if this was somehow offensive, I mean, maybe you find it offensive, I don't know, but like, of course he's going to pick that. That's what he's used to. That's the culture that he's been steeped in. So why is it any surprise that he would prefer to live in a Christian country than a Muslim one? I mean, people have tried to swing that as him. being Islamophobic or whatever, but I can't really see why that's the case. In other words, basically everything about what he said, I can't see why people are making such a big song and dance about it. But in all honesty, I would need to watch it again and listen more closely to make sure that that's the case. But from what I can remember, he basically seemed to be saying nothing new. And so I couldn't quite understand why there was such a ruckus around it.

You've frequently gone on record declaring that humans do not have free will. However, do you think that it is theoretically possible for anything to have free will? or is life inherently enslaved to the laws of the universe. Yeah, I don't just think that we don't have free will. I think that we can't have free will, at least depending on how you define free will. That's always the sticking point. I mean, the argument that I've given before is that the law of the excluded middle in logic says that a proposition, P, has to be true or it has to be false. There's no in between.

It can't be both. It can't be neither. And so if you ask of any brain activity, is it determined? by something? The answer is either yes or no. If it's determined by something, then you have to ask what that determining factor is determined by and so on, and you get some sort of chain reaction. If the answer is no, if it's not determined literally by anything, that's the definition of randomness. And you're not in control of randomness. So of any brain activity, it's either going to lead to a chain of determined causation that either itself terminates in something random or something

outside of the brain, both of which are out of your control, or it just terminates in something random a lot earlier, in which case you're not in control of it either. So whichever way you swing it, you're not in control of whatever it is that brought about that brain event, because it's either determined by something, and that line of determinism will keep going until it's outside of your head or something that isn't determined, which means random, or it's going to be random, in which case you're not in control of it at all. Having said this, there may be concepts of freedom that do make sense, depending on how you define it, of course. Famously, Isaiah Berlin, although in a political context, put forward his two concepts of liberty, positive and negative

liberty. A lot of the time it's thought that to be free is just to be free from external constraint, essentially, like doing whatever you want to do without anything getting in your way. So if I'm driving a car and there's a big boulder in my way and I can't get around it, that's impinging upon my freedom. I'm not free to drive through the car. But there's another sense in which my freedom might be constrained, but not by anything external. That is to say, internal constraints. One way of bringing this out is to think of somebody who's late for a flight. This example comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on the two concepts of liberty. Imagine somebody's driving to try and catch a flight, and they're late for the flight, so they're only just about

going to make it, but they decide that they're going to turn the opposite direction to the airport because they want to go and pick up some cigarettes because they're addicted to smoking, and then they miss their flight. So they turn right instead of turning left when they come to the T-junction. And the question is, did they turn right freely? Now, of course, they did this in accordance with something internal to them. They had the compulsion to turn right, and there was nothing external stopping them from doing so. But there seems to be a sense in which they would have been more free had they not done that and gone to get the flight, because they were constrained by addiction. So a paradoxical conclusion of this is that somebody might be made more free if they have.

their behavior is restricted. So if you stop somebody from going to the tobacconist because you know that they're only going for their addiction and you sort of force them to go to the airport instead, which is what their true self really wants, unconstrained by addiction, you've made them more free. Isaiah Berlin's criticism of this is that it's the first step in the road to tyranny. Tyrants throughout history have said, I know you think you want to do this, but we know what's best for you. So we're going to physically restrain you from doing this and force you to do what we know is really best for you, and this is tyranny. However, absent these political concerns as a notion of what it means to be free

philosophically, we could make sense of the idea that freedom is essentially doing whatever the unconstrained true self would do. So as long as you're not constrained by things like addiction, by things like having the wrong information that cause you to sort of act in the wrong way, true freedom is basically the pursual of the good in this conception. So you sometimes hear philosophers talk seemingly quite confusingly about the idea that to be free is just to do the good. And that good is, you know, whatever the sort of actual end of mankind is, whatever mankind's telos is. Maybe it's the achievement of pleasure, maybe it's approximation to the platonic form of good, whatever it is, that all freedom is is doing that unrestricted by internal constraints.

If this is what we mean by freedom, then I think freedom can exist, but it still doesn't give you authorship over your actions. And I think that's what people care about. So I don't think you can get authorship over your actions no matter what. But maybe you can think of a different kind of freedom and it still sort of makes sense to you. I mean, like this stuff about removal of internal constraint. There's something that makes sense when we attach that to our concept of freedom and liberty. But I think that what people really care about when we're talking about philosophical free will, like I say, is authorship over your actions. And that's something that I don't think we can have even in principle.

But anyway, I think that will do it. Thanks for all the submitted questions. And of course, thank you for getting the channel to 750,000 subscribers. Here's to the next milestone. And remember that we're about to do a part two over on patreon.com forward slash Alex O.C. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. And I'll see you in the next one.