1 00:00:01,260 --> 00:00:04,590 [Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] So like I said. 2 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,030 Well, thank you very much. It's a great honour to be here. 3 00:00:20,630 --> 00:00:24,470 Um, I am not a professional philosopher or social scientist, 4 00:00:25,130 --> 00:00:31,400 but I have thought about these issues for a long time, and I hope to say something useful about them. 5 00:00:32,060 --> 00:00:37,010 So I'm going to talk about the importance of values, the origin of values, moral realism, 6 00:00:37,010 --> 00:00:42,499 the nature of values one, the nature values two, values and life key issues. 7 00:00:42,500 --> 00:00:50,450 And I may run out of time. Um, if so, um, the PDF for the could can be made available. 8 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:57,230 So the importance of values and the importance of values is that they are central to individual and social life, 9 00:00:57,620 --> 00:01:02,150 and they underlie the functioning of a well-functioning society. 10 00:01:02,780 --> 00:01:08,230 It's crucial if values are going to play their role, that they are internalised rather than imposed. 11 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:14,210 In fact, in a sense, trying to impose values doesn't work because then they're not actually your values. 12 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:20,389 Um, they related to meaning in a way, which I will try to make clear as we go through this, 13 00:01:20,390 --> 00:01:24,260 or tell us as a word which I like to use in regard to this. 14 00:01:24,890 --> 00:01:27,480 And they shape all actions by setting their context. 15 00:01:27,500 --> 00:01:36,560 Once you've got a set of values, everything you do is shaped by those values because they decide what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. 16 00:01:36,950 --> 00:01:47,479 Now they are soiling, letting, and lacking in public discourse at the present time, internationally and in my own country, in my own country, the uh, 17 00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:54,200 government is embroiled in a huge amount of corruption and stealing from the very poor, 18 00:01:55,130 --> 00:01:59,660 um, the values which are supposed to underlie South African society. 19 00:02:00,170 --> 00:02:05,059 When Nelson Mandela was running it with Desmond Tutu, wonderful leaders, 20 00:02:05,060 --> 00:02:10,460 those values have disappeared from public discourse in our government at the present time. 21 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:18,970 And I'm going to talk, um, incidentally, I will make clearer later on that my distinction between ethics and morality. 22 00:02:18,980 --> 00:02:25,640 For the moment, I will use them. Indistinguishable ethics is the top of the hierarchy of emergence. 23 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:32,540 We all emerge out of physics, from which emerge chemistry from which emerges biochemistry from which, and really just physiology. 24 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:36,070 From what you mentioned, psychology and sociology. 25 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:40,100 This is the hierarchy of complexity and emergence. For humans. 26 00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:45,049 Ethics is the top level because ethics and governance in society, 27 00:02:45,050 --> 00:02:52,340 what is permissible that governs what is permissible in psychology, and that change is down to the physical level, 28 00:02:52,340 --> 00:02:56,180 because ethical actions are actions have consequences in the world, 29 00:02:56,720 --> 00:03:02,750 and it's top down to put constraints on permissible behaviour and encourage desirable behaviour. 30 00:03:03,470 --> 00:03:10,190 This is an example of the physical consequences. If your value system allows you to have nuclear weapons, 31 00:03:10,430 --> 00:03:18,379 then they are liable to be used and that results in consequences not just for human life, but down to the level of atoms. 32 00:03:18,380 --> 00:03:25,220 Billions and billions of atoms could rearrange as a result of your value, which says that a nuclear weapon is acceptable. 33 00:03:25,220 --> 00:03:29,720 And so values really have major consequences in the real world. 34 00:03:31,310 --> 00:03:39,560 What's the origin of ethical values? Are they derived from evolution or developed socially or based on neuroscience, or based in a moral reality? 35 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:47,120 These are the basic four kinds of themes which people have been developing over well over 2000 years actually. 36 00:03:48,380 --> 00:03:55,520 And telling. Deciding what the values are is basically about the nature of being human. 37 00:03:56,060 --> 00:03:57,530 What's our essential nature? 38 00:03:57,980 --> 00:04:05,870 And the reason I, as a scientist am interested in this is that a lot of stuff has been written recently of the light of modern biology, 39 00:04:05,870 --> 00:04:10,670 in particular molecular biology in neuroscience, about where values come from. 40 00:04:10,910 --> 00:04:14,120 And science has been trying to tell us where values come from. 41 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:24,890 It's I want to make clear a bit later on, and this is trying to say from the scientific side, what the quality of humanity is, what is needed, 42 00:04:25,010 --> 00:04:31,879 in contrast to quite a lot of what is written, is the need for an adequately humane view of humanity that also takes prison science, 43 00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:34,190 those sciences I've just mentioned into account. 44 00:04:36,740 --> 00:04:45,770 So the origin of values, the drive towards the scientific derivation of values has had three kinds of threads. 45 00:04:45,860 --> 00:04:56,150 One was the social or culture view, which is perhaps the oldest one, uh, based in sociology, anthropology, and their discussions of values in society. 46 00:04:56,750 --> 00:04:59,239 The second is the evolutionary or genetic one, 47 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:04,940 basically saying that our values have derived from our evolutionary history and then got embodied in genes, 48 00:05:04,940 --> 00:05:09,050 which then are in some sense controlling how we behave in an ethical way. 49 00:05:09,530 --> 00:05:17,839 And then the one which is very recent, perhaps, is neuroscience because of the incredible advantages of neuroscience, recently brain imaging, 50 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:27,500 um, detailed studies of, of synapsis individual synapses and so on, or some combination of these might be put forward. 51 00:05:28,310 --> 00:05:34,070 Now, it's crucial to recognise responsibility and avoid moral relativism. 52 00:05:34,070 --> 00:05:40,219 And part of the dangers in a lot of these approaches is the problem of moral relativism, 53 00:05:40,220 --> 00:05:43,850 which I will say quite a lot about in the next couple of slides. 54 00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:54,959 But the crucial underlying point about all of this is the approaches from the science are often trying to blur the is or distinction. 55 00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:06,230 Now from the it's a very old philosophical stance that what if, what happens, what is or is not the same as what as ought, what ought to happen? 56 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:16,070 And I it is my contention that a lot of these attempts to, um, derive morality out of various of these sciences are blurring the is or distinction. 57 00:06:16,370 --> 00:06:20,120 Sometimes this is made explicit, sometimes it is not made explicit. 58 00:06:20,420 --> 00:06:23,899 And I think that it is crucial that one maintains that distinction. 59 00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:26,120 As I will be saying, as we go through this, 60 00:06:26,690 --> 00:06:35,570 what what normally happens in the attempts to derive um values from evolutionary or genetic arguments or for neuroscience arguments, 61 00:06:35,990 --> 00:06:44,510 is that some naive view of the nature of the good life is brought in through the back door when you're not told that this is what is happening. 62 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:52,010 But in fact, as I said, it's normally quite a naive, a vision of the good life, and that is then used to shape what is going on. 63 00:06:52,010 --> 00:06:58,850 But it's not made explicit that that is what is happening. I maintain science cannot provide values. 64 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:06,739 Science can help us to see what is there. Now what science does depend on its basic scientific virtues. 65 00:07:06,740 --> 00:07:12,350 When you conduct science, it is crucial to science that other people believe what you've done. 66 00:07:12,350 --> 00:07:15,500 They believe that the data you're providing hasn't been cooked. 67 00:07:15,770 --> 00:07:22,520 And incidentally, it has been turning out and recent times that there is actually been quite a lot of cooking take place in science, 68 00:07:22,820 --> 00:07:27,320 that quite a lot of scientists have not been holding to the ethical values which underlie science. 69 00:07:27,650 --> 00:07:32,840 But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about more general science in society in general. 70 00:07:34,130 --> 00:07:37,850 I maintain that science cannot adjudicate on moral issues. 71 00:07:37,850 --> 00:07:43,550 There is no scientific way of saying whether morality should be based in the means or the ends, 72 00:07:43,850 --> 00:07:50,540 in the intentions or the results, that there is no, um, despite what, um, economics may claim, 73 00:07:50,870 --> 00:07:57,050 there's no real way of deciding between competing interests, because otherwise, isn't it some, uh, 74 00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:04,940 unjustified assumption of how you should do that is brought in, and it's usually brought in without making clear that that is what is happening. 75 00:08:05,570 --> 00:08:12,920 And particularly science cannot tell you whether values should focus on the right of the individual or the rights of the group, 76 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:19,819 which is one of the major distinctions. Science cannot provide ethics and cannot answer what is good or bad, 77 00:08:19,820 --> 00:08:26,030 because there is no scientific experiment which will tell you that an action is good or an action is bad. 78 00:08:26,030 --> 00:08:33,439 And to make this point, I like to say, let us suppose that you provide the scientist with data that some particular thing took place, 79 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,729 let's say, in Iraq or Iran, and then tell me how good or bad was that? 80 00:08:37,730 --> 00:08:42,260 Please, will you tell me, using units of Hitlers, how good or how bad it was? 81 00:08:42,260 --> 00:08:45,500 And there isn't any scientific experiment that can do that. 82 00:08:46,010 --> 00:08:53,510 And if a scientist does say that science can provide, um, values of good and bad, you can ask them and handle ethics. 83 00:08:53,510 --> 00:09:00,169 You can ask, what is the scientific prescription for handling what is currently happening in Iraq or Israel? 84 00:09:00,170 --> 00:09:08,690 And there is no scientific prescription that is a moral or ethical issue, which is based in moral philosophy or um, 85 00:09:08,900 --> 00:09:15,440 uh, uh, other attitudes which, which are moral, not, um, to do with science. 86 00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:22,190 The limits of science are that science is very powerful in its own domain, but that domain is strictly limited. 87 00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:28,160 Natural and biological science is limited by very nature to its proper domain of application, 88 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:35,920 the measurable behaviour of physical objects in a repeatable context, and so it cannot handle features of a quite different nature such. 89 00:09:36,010 --> 00:09:41,110 As the appreciation of beauty, the greatness of literature, the joy of cooking, 90 00:09:41,530 --> 00:09:47,919 the lessons of history, the nature of evil, the quality of meditation, the experience of love. 91 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:54,220 All of these require value judgements or experiences which cannot be quantified in a rig, 92 00:09:54,790 --> 00:10:00,010 in a scientific way, a repeatable way based on scientific measurements. 93 00:10:01,210 --> 00:10:06,100 Therefore, science cannot deal with ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics and meaning. 94 00:10:07,660 --> 00:10:11,440 The attempt to deal with these issues on a scientific basis is not only misleading, 95 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:17,980 it is positively dangerous because it can lead to the Social Darwinism movement and its consequences, such as eugenics. 96 00:10:18,280 --> 00:10:24,009 And it has indeed done so in the past. It is crucial that these topics ethics, aesthetics, 97 00:10:24,010 --> 00:10:30,040 metaphysics and meaning be recognised in their own right with scientific factors in their development. 98 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:33,639 So if you if you are going to discuss ethics, science can tell you. 99 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:40,450 For instance, let's take a specific example. What is happening at the moment in the global terms of global warming may lead. 100 00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:48,730 Let us say to the extinction of polar bears. Science has nothing to say whether the extinction of polar bears is good or bad. 101 00:10:48,760 --> 00:10:54,280 That's not the kind of thing it can say. Science can tell you. If we continue on this path, then maybe polar bears. 102 00:10:54,610 --> 00:10:59,860 Polar bears were going extinct. But science is not in a position to say that is either good or bad. 103 00:11:00,940 --> 00:11:08,080 It is crucial that these, yeah, be recognised in their own right with scientific factors in their development, which is the point I was making. 104 00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:11,740 But their own logic and nature justified in their own terms. 105 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:18,819 Um, so as I've already been saying, there is there is a distinction. 106 00:11:18,820 --> 00:11:24,970 There's a tendency by some to believe science can handle such issues by evolutionary psychology, the imperative of survival being. 107 00:11:25,410 --> 00:11:33,280 What is it called? Therewere by sociology, the force of culture, by neuroscience, but then by the very nature beyond the scope of science. 108 00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:39,460 Indeed, the proponents of the views often do not even agree. So if you haven't even heard this psychologist or sociology, 109 00:11:39,610 --> 00:11:45,370 they will often come with with different views of what is the good, the nature of a good life. 110 00:11:46,230 --> 00:11:51,520 And but the key point is, the fact that people tend to behave some way does not make it ethically right. 111 00:11:51,850 --> 00:11:57,909 And each of these will tend to take how people actually behave and then say, that's the basis for morality. 112 00:11:57,910 --> 00:12:02,890 But the fact that people behave that way doesn't mean this is the way that they ought to behave. 113 00:12:03,280 --> 00:12:13,090 So the occurrence behaviour by itself makes no normative statement, nor does any claimed evolutionary origin of behaviour norms are behind. 114 00:12:13,510 --> 00:12:18,129 Beyond the nature of science, you can't get or from is or from tends to happen. 115 00:12:18,130 --> 00:12:24,610 It's a category mistake. And I'll give you some examples. Now what we have to avoid is relativism. 116 00:12:24,610 --> 00:12:32,169 In my view, I think this is actually crucially important. There's a tendency by some social scientists to promote ethical relativism, 117 00:12:32,170 --> 00:12:37,360 based on the view that we cannot have grounds to prefer the views of one society over another. 118 00:12:37,900 --> 00:12:41,140 And if you take the view that all societies are equally good, 119 00:12:42,070 --> 00:12:46,610 all viewpoints are equally good, then this is in a sense, the natural outcome of that view. 120 00:12:46,630 --> 00:12:51,820 You find yourself unable to say that what one society does is evil, 121 00:12:52,090 --> 00:12:57,700 because that is the way that society is construed, and their viewpoint is as good as that of any other viewpoint. 122 00:12:57,820 --> 00:13:03,200 I deny that position strongly. They are not all equal. 123 00:13:03,220 --> 00:13:10,030 The the Holocaust was evil, period. There is nothing to say about it that could possibly make the Holocaust good. 124 00:13:11,830 --> 00:13:17,170 Some societies believe in honour killings, or suicide bombings, or female genital mutilation, 125 00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:22,780 or burning people to death for having the wrong religion, as happened here in Oxford. 126 00:13:22,780 --> 00:13:28,780 And I walk down the street here past marches, the Martyrs Memorial, 127 00:13:29,290 --> 00:13:34,299 and I think of the evil that was committed in the name of religion by religious leaders. 128 00:13:34,300 --> 00:13:41,350 And it I and my view is that one must state as a fact that what happened there was evil in an absolute sense. 129 00:13:41,740 --> 00:13:49,420 There wasn't anything relativist about it that we are in a position to say that some things are evil. 130 00:13:50,740 --> 00:13:56,680 And so we I think we can and must reject these kinds of things as unacceptable because they're evil acts. 131 00:13:57,250 --> 00:14:02,290 And in fact, we have made moral progress over the past hundred years, as Steven Pinker has written about, 132 00:14:02,650 --> 00:14:06,760 there is no longer torture, at least publicly, in the streets of London. 133 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:09,880 People are no longer hung, drawn and quartered as they used to be. 134 00:14:10,330 --> 00:14:16,720 Slavery has been abolished in most parts of the world. Women's rights have made incredible gains in the past 100 years. 135 00:14:17,230 --> 00:14:21,219 The growth of democracy has been incredible. Now, I'm not saying this is everywhere. 136 00:14:21,220 --> 00:14:24,700 This. I'm not saying all societies are great democracies. 137 00:14:24,700 --> 00:14:28,000 In fact, democracy is a very fallible institution, as we all know. 138 00:14:28,010 --> 00:14:35,650 Nevertheless, if you look back to the way things were, things have made a huge amount of progress over the past hundred. 139 00:14:36,130 --> 00:14:42,460 Past a thousand years. Darwinian logic suggests ethics is based in survival. 140 00:14:42,670 --> 00:14:45,610 I've been told that by a co-author I was writing a book with. 141 00:14:46,420 --> 00:14:52,270 But the Darwinian logic expressed it relates to what people do, not to what they ought to do. 142 00:14:52,270 --> 00:14:59,080 It's it's it's based on the fact that they act in such a way that they survive and pass their seed on to create, 143 00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:03,010 uh, a new children who will then pass their genes on. 144 00:15:03,700 --> 00:15:07,870 If this is taken seriously, it can lead to the evils of social Darwinism. 145 00:15:08,380 --> 00:15:12,070 It's an all priori claim that survival is the ultimate ethical value. 146 00:15:12,070 --> 00:15:16,270 But I've heard that made by some, um, lecture neuroscientists. 147 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:22,840 If the origin of ethics is solely to do with kin or group survival, there's a lot written about group survival, 148 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:29,260 kin survival, if that is the foundation of its meaning, as claimed by some evolutionary psychologists. 149 00:15:29,260 --> 00:15:36,310 And the clear logic is that it's fine to massacre the enemy. War is justified because they're not your kin and they are not your own group. 150 00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:44,640 There's a more moderate view from a student of mine about evolutionary psychology, about the evolutionary nature. 151 00:15:44,740 --> 00:15:50,799 Relation to values is as follows. Ethical principles go towards the survival and more and more cooperative, 152 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:55,740 hierarchically complex systems which use free energy more and more efficiently. 153 00:15:55,750 --> 00:15:58,750 This is trying to make it a more scientific basis. 154 00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:04,810 But again, this is an example of bringing in assumed unjustified values. 155 00:16:04,810 --> 00:16:11,320 Without making this clear, why should, um, more and more complex systems be good? 156 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:17,350 Why should using free energy more complex, uh, more and more efficiently be good? 157 00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:24,670 I'm not saying that it isn't good, but I'm saying it's just being assumed without any justification that this is what is good. 158 00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:30,840 The origin of values neuropsychology. I think this is the hot spot in the subject today. 159 00:16:30,850 --> 00:16:36,280 There's a tendency to mistakenly believe that science can handle such issues by neuropsychological studies. 160 00:16:37,090 --> 00:16:42,340 It is said by some neuroscientists, and effective moralities to do with happiness. 161 00:16:42,850 --> 00:16:50,319 There are neurotransmitters that make us happy. Hence, we can underpin morality by neuroscientific investigation of molecules related to happiness. 162 00:16:50,320 --> 00:16:55,600 So there's this book called The Moral Molecule. And the moral molecule is oxytocin. 163 00:16:56,620 --> 00:17:01,000 The problem here is that feeling good is not the same as being good. 164 00:17:01,810 --> 00:17:05,340 They don't have a clue about 2000 years of moral philosophy. 165 00:17:05,350 --> 00:17:08,860 The debate about morality, the nature of good and evil, and what is the good life. 166 00:17:08,860 --> 00:17:11,800 When you say that there can be a moral molecule? 167 00:17:13,120 --> 00:17:21,549 The latest of these, which is important one is by Sam Harris called The Moral Landscape, and the book blurb says the following. 168 00:17:21,550 --> 00:17:26,950 Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our culture wars. 169 00:17:27,220 --> 00:17:33,100 Harris delivers a game changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation. 170 00:17:33,430 --> 00:17:37,090 What is happening there is he's assuming that human cooperation is good. 171 00:17:37,360 --> 00:17:39,069 Now, I'm not saying that it's not good, 172 00:17:39,070 --> 00:17:44,880 but I'm saying that he's throwing in an assumption about what is good by saying that human cooperation is good. 173 00:17:44,890 --> 00:17:46,810 That's where he's inserting his values. 174 00:17:47,650 --> 00:17:54,550 Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape in this explosive book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, 175 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:00,070 arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. 176 00:18:00,580 --> 00:18:04,720 Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, 177 00:18:05,140 --> 00:18:09,610 viewing the experiences of conscience creatures of peaks and valleys on a moral landscape. 178 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:13,840 Because there are definite facts to be known about where we fall on this landscape. 179 00:18:13,870 --> 00:18:18,610 Harris foresees a time when science from no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do. 180 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:26,410 The name of morality in principle. Science should be able to tell us what we ought to be able to do to live the best lives possible. 181 00:18:26,410 --> 00:18:30,960 Now, I think that's a really dangerous kind of statement. I'm. 182 00:18:32,330 --> 00:18:35,629 Bringing a fresh perspective to angel Christians. 183 00:18:35,630 --> 00:18:37,550 Rotten. Good and evil. Harris. 184 00:18:37,550 --> 00:18:42,650 Demonstrate we already know enough about the human brain and its relationship with the Winstons to say there are right and wrong 185 00:18:42,650 --> 00:18:48,530 answers to the most pressing questions of human life in the neuroscience that are going to tell us what's right and wrong, 186 00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:54,799 because such moral relativism is simply false and comes at an increasing cost to humanity, 187 00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:59,270 and the intrusion of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled. 188 00:18:59,270 --> 00:19:05,470 For just as there is no such thing as Christian physical muscle algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. 189 00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:09,920 Now, the one thing I agree in this is that moral relativism is simply false, 190 00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:16,100 as I've already made clear next time of Pagliacci, who is a very good philosopher, writes as follows. 191 00:19:16,100 --> 00:19:19,459 There's much about Harrison about which Harrison. 192 00:19:19,460 --> 00:19:25,220 I agree we're both moral realists, i.e. we believe that moral questions do have non arbitrary answers. 193 00:19:25,670 --> 00:19:28,520 As an obvious corollary of our moral realism, both. 194 00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:35,600 Harrison, I think of moral relativism is a silly notion and is in fact downright pernicious, and it effects on individuals and society. 195 00:19:36,170 --> 00:19:42,020 Here's where the two of us disagree. I do not think that science amounts to the sum total of rational inquiry, 196 00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:46,700 a position often referred to as scientism, which he seems to implicitly assume. 197 00:19:47,270 --> 00:19:54,979 I do think that science should inform the species the specifics of our ethical discussions, and hence is an important sense pertinent to ethics. 198 00:19:54,980 --> 00:19:59,719 But I maintain that ethical questions are inherently philosophical in nature, not scientific. 199 00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:04,710 And this is, of course, my own position. I'm going to. 200 00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:09,959 There are some laboratory experiments which tend to relate to morality, 201 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:16,620 and that people are given in laboratory kind of, um, experiments to say, would you do this? 202 00:20:16,620 --> 00:20:23,339 Would you do that? How good would you feel, this kind of thing? There's a very interesting response to this in a journal called The Hitchcock Review. 203 00:20:23,340 --> 00:20:26,580 The science turns out to be far less revolutionary than advertised. 204 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,510 The conceptions of morality and moral judgements are highly truncated, 205 00:20:30,510 --> 00:20:36,360 typically limiting moral judgement to how somebody to respond to highly contrived laboratory experiments. 206 00:20:36,930 --> 00:20:43,320 The findings neither explain morality nor undermine the role of reason and agency, meaning and experience. 207 00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:46,980 And again, they relate to what people do and not what they ought to do. 208 00:20:47,730 --> 00:20:53,190 Now, the book, which I think is actually really good about this from this viewpoint, 209 00:20:53,190 --> 00:20:59,219 is this book by Jonathan Hyatt called The Righteous Mind Why Good People are divided by politics and Religion. 210 00:20:59,220 --> 00:21:05,730 And he is another psychologist, and he talks in a much broader way than these other writers do. 211 00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:09,870 He talks about a different kind of ethics that actually exist in various societies. 212 00:21:09,870 --> 00:21:19,320 Following a sociologist called Schrader. He talks about the ethic of autonomy, which tends to be the ethic of the West, the ethic of community, 213 00:21:19,350 --> 00:21:26,459 which tends to be the ethic of the East, and the ethic of divinity or sanctity, which is a traditional view about morality. 214 00:21:26,460 --> 00:21:32,160 And he says all of these do exist as a matter of fact, in various societies around the world. 215 00:21:33,060 --> 00:21:39,270 And then he goes on to talk about dimensions of morality. There is more to morality than harm and fairness. 216 00:21:39,810 --> 00:21:48,060 Morality has universal moral foundations, he says, based in modules related to emotions, which he calls the taste buds of the righteous mind. 217 00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:57,780 But he's a psychologist, and this is still a study of what people do and the foundations for behaviour on the basis of. 218 00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:03,030 It's a study of how people behave. It's not about what they ought to do. 219 00:22:03,030 --> 00:22:08,339 And that is runs through all of this. When the psychologists do this, they're telling you moral. 220 00:22:08,340 --> 00:22:17,190 This is how morality is in people's lives. It's not about how they ought to behave, which is the philosophical issue rather than the scientific issue. 221 00:22:18,540 --> 00:22:21,599 But he's done. He does bring in the higher cognitive aspects. 222 00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:24,990 It's not just our mammalian emotional brain leading the way. 223 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:30,360 Emotions are important in deciding what is moral and what isn't, but they aren't all. 224 00:22:30,690 --> 00:22:35,729 It also involves deep thought and analysis. And I love this picture of the man and the dog. 225 00:22:35,730 --> 00:22:38,880 The man is saying who, what, where, when? High wire which. 226 00:22:38,970 --> 00:22:44,250 So the dog is thinking of his time. We. 227 00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:53,069 The higher, the highest thoughts and rational choices we make are important and but they are regarded by the emotion, 228 00:22:53,070 --> 00:22:57,300 and both are needed in order to get a real deep morality. 229 00:22:58,650 --> 00:23:00,900 So I'm going to flunk for moral realism. 230 00:23:00,900 --> 00:23:07,620 I've already said that to you several times, and the idea is there is a moral reality underlying our existence, 231 00:23:07,620 --> 00:23:13,080 just as there are physical and mathematical possibilities, spaces that are the deep structure of cosmology. 232 00:23:13,740 --> 00:23:16,290 The idea is that if there is moral realism, 233 00:23:16,290 --> 00:23:23,820 the deep structure of morality will be agreed on by all spiritually advanced intelligent beings wherever they are in the universe. 234 00:23:24,630 --> 00:23:29,130 In this case, it is not derived in the end from evolution or culture or the human mind. 235 00:23:29,130 --> 00:23:39,330 It exists in its own right. Evolution, culture and the human mind will be reactions to this moral reality, but they won't be the origin of morality. 236 00:23:40,740 --> 00:23:50,100 The existence of moral reality actually is, interestingly, is implied by Richard Dawkins and Victor Stengel's characterisation of religion as evil. 237 00:23:50,190 --> 00:23:55,620 I could say a lot about that characterisation, but I don't want to talk about why they say religion is evil. 238 00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,790 Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger say religion is evil. 239 00:23:59,940 --> 00:24:06,240 When they do so, they are assuming that there are standards by which you can judge that religion is evil. 240 00:24:06,450 --> 00:24:08,220 In fact, without realising it, 241 00:24:08,490 --> 00:24:15,480 they are moral realists because they are assuming the existence of those standards with which you can judge religious behaviour. 242 00:24:16,710 --> 00:24:23,590 And moral realism is also implied by my statement that the Holocaust was evil in some absolute sense. 243 00:24:23,610 --> 00:24:30,870 I've just been reading a novel about what went on in the Holocaust, that horrific kind of stuff that went on. 244 00:24:32,410 --> 00:24:36,270 And I think it's crucial that we can say that it was evil. 245 00:24:37,270 --> 00:24:41,650 Now, as a warm up to developing this, I want to talk about mathematics and photonic spaces. 246 00:24:42,100 --> 00:24:46,230 In my view. Major part of mathematics are discovered rather than invented. 247 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:54,310 For instance, the existence of irrational numbers. Mathematics is discovered has an abstract rather than embodied character. 248 00:24:54,370 --> 00:25:01,360 The same abstract quantity can be represented in many symbolic and physical ways, so you can write mathematics down in many ways, 249 00:25:02,230 --> 00:25:07,150 but the mathematics itself is independent of the existence and culture of human beings. 250 00:25:07,180 --> 00:25:12,900 They are a platonic world of mathematical abstraction, comprehended by the human mind, 251 00:25:13,390 --> 00:25:20,230 realised in details of neuronal connections, and then bringing into the world where they are causally effective. 252 00:25:21,010 --> 00:25:27,940 And one book about this is Jean Pierre Shandra and Alan Kuhn's conversation on mind matter and mathematic mathematics. 253 00:25:28,210 --> 00:25:31,870 Another is Roger Penrose, whose book The Large is smaller than the human mind, 254 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:39,760 and another person who takes this view is Andrew Wiles, the famous solver of Fermat's Last Theorem who lives in Oxford. 255 00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:44,739 And I had a discussion with him about this at lunch and Morton College. 256 00:25:44,740 --> 00:25:51,280 And he said to me in the real mathematician knows they are discovering the way mathematics is. 257 00:25:51,280 --> 00:26:02,350 They are not inventing it. So the basic geometrical features like Pythagoras theorem and the number pi, those are the same everywhere in the universe. 258 00:26:02,740 --> 00:26:07,210 A competent mathematician everywhere in the universe will discover those features. 259 00:26:08,500 --> 00:26:12,390 The same results will be discovered near Alpha Centauri, the Andromeda Galaxy. 260 00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:18,040 These results have been true since the beginning of the universe, and will remain true till the end of the universe. 261 00:26:19,620 --> 00:26:28,019 The Mandelbrot set was sitting there waiting to be discovered for 14 billion years until we had computers which could discover the set. 262 00:26:28,020 --> 00:26:37,320 But people didn't invent the set. They discovered that was there, waiting, uh, as it were, the platonic space for us to develop those computers. 263 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,010 Now, this is the crucial thing you need to think about this. 264 00:26:41,940 --> 00:26:46,560 The mathematical platonic space is timeless, unchanging, and eternal. 265 00:26:47,100 --> 00:26:52,170 What we know about mathematics, the social construction of mathematics does change with time. 266 00:26:52,260 --> 00:26:56,250 For instance, over 3000 years ago, we didn't know about Pythagoras theorem. 267 00:26:56,260 --> 00:26:59,909 We did. So mathematics as it is, is an abstract reality. 268 00:26:59,910 --> 00:27:04,950 There's a projection which is time dependent to mathematics as we know it, which is a social construct. 269 00:27:05,340 --> 00:27:12,020 And the reason various people don't like this idea of an abstract platonic mathematics is they confuse the two. 270 00:27:12,030 --> 00:27:18,510 But if you keep in mind the separation of our understanding of it from the abstract thing, then there's no problem whatever. 271 00:27:19,050 --> 00:27:24,540 So socially understand mathematics is an imperfect reflection of the real thing. 272 00:27:26,260 --> 00:27:27,610 How can we comprehend that? 273 00:27:27,610 --> 00:27:33,910 One of the things which philosophers said about why you couldn't have this kind of platonic space is because the mind couldn't interact with them. 274 00:27:34,390 --> 00:27:37,810 But in fact, the brain can. And this is a wonderful book about this, 275 00:27:37,810 --> 00:27:45,250 Plato's Camera how the Physical Brain Captures a Landscape of abstract universals by Paul Churchland in Plato's Camera, 276 00:27:45,430 --> 00:27:46,989 eminent philosopher Paul Church, 277 00:27:46,990 --> 00:27:52,809 and offers a novel account of how the brain construct a representation or takes a picture of the universe as timeless, 278 00:27:52,810 --> 00:27:58,600 categorical and dynamical structures. They are then represented in details of the neuronal connections in the brain. 279 00:27:58,930 --> 00:28:01,990 And he's a philosopher who's got heavily involved in neuroscience, 280 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:10,089 and he looks in detail at how neural networks represent knowledge and how they are able to interact with these platonic realities. 281 00:28:10,090 --> 00:28:15,840 So there isn't the problem, which used to be claimed that if there were these platonic realities, they can't affect the mind. 282 00:28:15,850 --> 00:28:21,040 Once they're in the mind, then they get embodied in engineering, mathematics, and all sorts of other things. 283 00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:27,080 So now it's obvious what I'm going to say. Morality. I'm going to distinguish what I call ethics and morality. 284 00:28:27,100 --> 00:28:33,100 Morality is the timeless, unchanging, unchanging nature of what is right and what is wrong. 285 00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:39,909 Ethics is what a particular society makes out of the same morality as it is an abstract, eternal, unchanging morality. 286 00:28:39,910 --> 00:28:42,790 It always has been the same, always will be the same. 287 00:28:42,790 --> 00:28:48,610 There's a projection there into what a particular society knows about, and that is extremely variable. 288 00:28:48,850 --> 00:28:53,079 It depends on the nature of the society, what the history is, and so on. 289 00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:57,129 So socially understood. Ethics is an imperfect reflection of true morality. 290 00:28:57,130 --> 00:29:02,830 And you'll see the exact analogy between what I'm saying for morality and for mathematics. 291 00:29:04,270 --> 00:29:07,929 What I've then got to do is tell you what I think about the nature of morality. 292 00:29:07,930 --> 00:29:13,030 And I'm going to do this in two parts. Is that moral reality rule based? 293 00:29:13,030 --> 00:29:22,480 Is it based on intentions? Is it based on outcomes, or is it a holistic situational thing which is based on intentions and outcomes? 294 00:29:22,870 --> 00:29:25,839 I certainly don't think real morality is rule based. 295 00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:35,110 Every attempt to write down moralism and a set of rules will always fail, because it will just cover some things and it won't come. 296 00:29:35,110 --> 00:29:40,990 Other ones cover other ones, and the attempt to write down the true nature of reality is not a good idea. 297 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:49,570 Morality is related to meaning and purpose to tell us both intentions and outcomes matter, which cannot be captured in rules. 298 00:29:49,900 --> 00:29:55,060 It's based on what you think is important in life, and I will continue with that in a minute. 299 00:29:55,540 --> 00:29:58,630 All human life is situational and context dependent, 300 00:29:59,260 --> 00:30:06,160 and it is really important that morality is not the same as emotions, as some of the psychologists believe. 301 00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:12,790 It's informed by the emotions, but it includes also deeply rational reflection. 302 00:30:13,750 --> 00:30:18,610 Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet writes about this your soul is oftentimes a battlefield upon 303 00:30:18,610 --> 00:30:23,320 which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite. 304 00:30:23,740 --> 00:30:28,180 Your reason and your passion are the rudders and the sails of your seafaring soul. 305 00:30:28,570 --> 00:30:35,920 If either the sails or the rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at standstill and sealed seals for reason. 306 00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:43,090 Ruling alone is a force confining and passion unattended is a flame that burns to its destruction. 307 00:30:43,630 --> 00:30:47,890 Therefore, let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing, 308 00:30:48,250 --> 00:30:54,159 and let it direct your passion with reason that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection. 309 00:30:54,160 --> 00:31:02,640 And like the phoenix, rise above its own ashes. And I think it's a beautiful expression of reason and an emotion in forming each other. 310 00:31:02,650 --> 00:31:07,810 The emotion is crucial in order to have a moral life, because that's what drives you to do things. 311 00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:12,069 And the reason guides you in what to do. Okay. 312 00:31:12,070 --> 00:31:18,880 The nature of values. There are basically four different views of what morality could be, in my opinion. 313 00:31:19,570 --> 00:31:26,770 One is the coercive view of morality. We will force you into what you into doing, what we think you should do by brutality. 314 00:31:26,770 --> 00:31:31,089 And this is a traditional one going back thousands of years. 315 00:31:31,090 --> 00:31:35,680 And it was very rife in the church when they burnt these people up the road there. 316 00:31:35,950 --> 00:31:43,440 It was because they thought that they should force people into into what was the right life, coercive morality. 317 00:31:43,450 --> 00:31:50,560 The second is the reward or consumer morality. What is good is having a lot of stuff. 318 00:31:51,010 --> 00:31:55,959 It's the, um, if everything you want. Morality is about how you live your life. 319 00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:01,840 It's about what values are important. And so the consumer morality go out and grab as much for yourself as you can. 320 00:32:02,050 --> 00:32:10,390 And that is the nature of the good life. Intellectual uncertainty is an old one going in the intellectual world. 321 00:32:10,390 --> 00:32:15,700 The idea that we're going to argue about what is the good life, and we're going to give you such a great description of morality, 322 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:23,290 it'll compel you to follow us, because it's going to be such clear, logical reasoning, you won't be able to avoid it. 323 00:32:23,830 --> 00:32:26,680 Well. Isn't the way that intellect and emotion works. 324 00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:32,500 The one which I believe in, and which I'm going to say more about, is what I call economic morality. 325 00:32:33,340 --> 00:32:39,940 This is a kenosis is giving up your own welfare on behalf of other people. 326 00:32:39,940 --> 00:32:43,419 Economic morality is one of love and self-sacrifice, 327 00:32:43,420 --> 00:32:49,720 and the difference of this from the other ones is this has a transforming nature, as I will talk about. 328 00:32:49,750 --> 00:32:51,879 Now, we can't prove any of these correct, 329 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:59,260 but we can respond to their persuasive nature and choose between them on the basis of our life experience and our philosophy. 330 00:33:00,010 --> 00:33:09,040 And I claim that the first three are not the nature of the true morality, which is basically what is in that moral space. 331 00:33:09,670 --> 00:33:16,180 There's a spectrum from coercion to consciousness. On the left, I'll kill you and torture you in order to gain control. 332 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,110 Slightly over. I'll work for my good, and you work for yours. 333 00:33:20,110 --> 00:33:23,139 But I won't be killing you in the middle. Getting to. 334 00:33:23,140 --> 00:33:33,480 Yes, we can work together for common good. That further is the golden rule I would do to you what you would like to do to me over here. 335 00:33:33,490 --> 00:33:36,510 I will forgive you for your hurt you have caused me. 336 00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:41,230 And over at the far end, I'm prepared to freely suffer on your behalf. 337 00:33:41,650 --> 00:33:51,760 Even if you are my enemy. This is the. The spectrum from coercion to kenosis, and you can put moral behaviour. 338 00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:56,560 The way we live our lives on that spectrum. It's an issue. 339 00:33:57,830 --> 00:34:05,959 And so what I am proposing is that this is the deep nature of morality, and it shifts down through to here. 340 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:11,960 That's a slightly weaker form. That's a slightly weaker form, that's a slightly weaker form, that's an even weaker form. 341 00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:19,130 And that is definitely wrong. It's an issue of attitude that gets you worked out in specific situations. 342 00:34:19,130 --> 00:34:24,800 Contextually, as I said, you can't write down rules for this, but you can try to convey an attitude. 343 00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:31,100 The canonical morality is a deep morality that is based in some form of loving attitude. 344 00:34:31,100 --> 00:34:34,550 You can only do this if you have a loving attitude. 345 00:34:34,790 --> 00:34:40,780 But again, you can't specify what you will do in particular cases because that would be a rule based morality. 346 00:34:40,790 --> 00:34:43,950 I'll just give you an idea about this. 347 00:34:43,970 --> 00:34:51,440 It's a self-emptying joyous attitude that values love and justice, is generous and creative in pursuing these aims, 348 00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:57,140 if needed, is willing to give up personal needs and to voluntary sacrifice on behalf of others. 349 00:34:57,470 --> 00:35:03,380 And the word voluntary is crucial that if you are made to sacrifice, it's not kenosis. 350 00:35:03,390 --> 00:35:07,610 If you do so voluntarily and of your own free will. 351 00:35:08,300 --> 00:35:16,880 This attitude of letting go has a transforming nature, with the possibility of changing the quality and meaning of the situation facing us. 352 00:35:17,780 --> 00:35:24,739 And it is probably the only approach that has the capacity to change an enemy into a friend. 353 00:35:24,740 --> 00:35:33,860 And this is what underlay the political action of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, and to some extent also of Desmond Tutu. 354 00:35:33,860 --> 00:35:41,540 In fact, if we go back to this, Desmond Tutu lives here, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi lie over there. 355 00:35:43,980 --> 00:35:47,040 Its use is not absolute. It's situational. 356 00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,309 You have to try to have that attitude if you're following this route, 357 00:35:50,310 --> 00:35:55,230 but you have to work out what is the way to do it in a creative way, in a particular context. 358 00:35:55,230 --> 00:35:59,040 I'm going to give you some comments on it as a theme of life. 359 00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:04,109 The mother and child the mother protects, the child is willing to give up its life for the child, and so on. 360 00:36:04,110 --> 00:36:08,220 But then the difficult part and the mother child relation, where most of us really comes in, 361 00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:14,430 is letting go of the child when it's growing up and stopping, trying to control the child as it grows up. 362 00:36:15,180 --> 00:36:22,620 It's the foundation of community. A community depends on giving up your welfare on behalf of the community and other people in the community. 363 00:36:23,310 --> 00:36:24,959 It's a foundation of learning, 364 00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:37,050 but giving up because if you as a scientist or have an idea which you think is right and you stick to it and are not willing to look at other ideas, 365 00:36:37,470 --> 00:36:42,810 you will not be able to make scientific progress because your first idea will almost certainly be wrong. 366 00:36:43,050 --> 00:36:47,490 And in order to make process, you've got to be willing to let go of it and to get on with it. 367 00:36:47,970 --> 00:36:51,480 And kenosis is the foundation of true artistic endeavour. 368 00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:58,680 When someone, an artist is writing a novel, doing sculpture, uh, whatever it is a painting, 369 00:36:59,070 --> 00:37:04,379 you start off with a vision of what you're going to do and you're trying to make the thing fit into that vision. 370 00:37:04,380 --> 00:37:10,110 But after a certain time, the thing you're working with, the sculpture, the painting, the music, 371 00:37:10,110 --> 00:37:21,659 whatever develops its own integral integrity and you're then your function as an artist is to follow that integrity and help that integrity come out. 372 00:37:21,660 --> 00:37:30,600 In other words, to hand over to the thing that you are creating its own integrity and to help that come into being. 373 00:37:30,810 --> 00:37:34,200 And so that's the difference of art, which is based. Look at me. 374 00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:39,929 I'm the artist. Oh, look out there. There is beauty out there, which I am just facilitating. 375 00:37:39,930 --> 00:37:45,360 But it's not about me. It's about what is out there. It's not my cleverness which matters. 376 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:54,180 It's the thing out there which I want you to look at. And it's the basis of deep social action, as exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, 377 00:37:54,510 --> 00:37:59,249 Desmond Tutu, Ruby Bridges you may have heard of in South Africa, the Amy Beale family. 378 00:37:59,250 --> 00:38:07,590 I can tell you about those if you want to. It involves giving up hate, seeing and responding to the humanity of the opponents of if they. 379 00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:13,060 Have a chance to stop being an enemy and to become your friend. 380 00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,080 And it occurs in all the major religious faiths. 381 00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:22,209 I can say that with complete confidence. It should be the basis of Christianity. 382 00:38:22,210 --> 00:38:32,140 It's what Christ's life was about. I have spoken about this in a talk in California when after the took, a muslim came rushing up to me and said, 383 00:38:32,140 --> 00:38:41,800 you spoke like a true Muslim and the Jewish faith, it is what is called Simsim and the Hindu religion where Mahatma Gandhi got attacked. 384 00:38:42,190 --> 00:38:51,729 It occurs in all the major religious faith. So I believe that if we were able to meet intelligent people out there on other planets, 385 00:38:51,730 --> 00:38:57,190 they would have also discovered the transforming nature of kenosis, 386 00:38:57,190 --> 00:39:06,970 in which you have got an enemy and you come and you give up on their behalf and thereby turn them from being your enemy into being your friend. 387 00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:14,979 I'm just going to give you two quotes about this. Martin Luther King and individual has not started living until he or she can rise above the 388 00:39:14,980 --> 00:39:20,680 narrow confines of his or her individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. 389 00:39:21,310 --> 00:39:28,300 Every person must decide whether he or she will walk in the light of creative altruism, or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. 390 00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,010 Life's most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others? 391 00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:40,960 That's Martin Luther King, and I'm going to give you just one example from a difficult situation, a military situation. 392 00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:49,120 In 1967, I was a young officer in a Scottish battalion engaged in peacekeeping studies in Aden town in what is now Yemen. 393 00:39:49,660 --> 00:39:53,139 The situation was similar to Iraq, with people being killed every day. 394 00:39:53,140 --> 00:39:56,380 As always, those who suffered the most were the innocent local people. 395 00:39:56,770 --> 00:40:02,200 Not only were we tough, but we had the firepower to pretty well destroy the whole town had we wished. 396 00:40:02,740 --> 00:40:05,950 But we had a commanding officer who understood how to make peace. 397 00:40:06,190 --> 00:40:10,660 And he led us to do something very unusual not to react when we were attacked. 398 00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:16,870 Only if we were 100% certain that a particular person had thrown a grenade or fired a shot at us. 399 00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:23,350 Were we allowed to fire? During our tour of duty, we had 102 grenades thrown at us, and in response, 400 00:40:23,350 --> 00:40:28,960 the entire battalion fired the grand total of two shots, killing one grenade thrower. 401 00:40:29,620 --> 00:40:35,830 The cost to us was over 100 of our own men wounded, and surely, by the grace of God, only one killed. 402 00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:43,689 When they threw rocks at us, we stood fast. When they threw grenades, we hit the deck and after the explosion we got to our feet and stood fast. 403 00:40:43,690 --> 00:40:49,719 We did not react in anger or indiscriminately. This was not the anticipated reaction. 404 00:40:49,720 --> 00:40:57,460 Slowly, very slowly, the local people began to trust us and made it clear to the local terrorists that they were not welcome in their area. 405 00:40:57,910 --> 00:41:01,420 At one stage, neighbouring battalions were having a torrid time with attacks. 406 00:41:01,420 --> 00:41:07,750 We were playing soccer with the locals. We had in fact brought peace to our area at the cost of our own blood. 407 00:41:08,740 --> 00:41:16,450 How had this been achieved? Principally because we were led by a man whom every soldier in the battalion knew would die for him if required. 408 00:41:16,930 --> 00:41:22,090 Each soldier in turn came to be prepared to sacrifice himself for such a man. 409 00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:26,839 Many people may sneer that we were merely obeying orders, but this was not the case. 410 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:31,570 The Scottish soldier has scant respect for rank, but great respect for leaders. 411 00:41:32,170 --> 00:41:38,320 Our commanding officer was more highly regarded by his soldiers than the general, one might almost say loved. 412 00:41:38,950 --> 00:41:45,700 So gradually the heart of the peacemaker began to grow in each man, and a determination to succeed, whatever the cost. 413 00:41:46,240 --> 00:41:52,240 Probably most of the soldiers, like myself, only realised years afterwards what had been achieved. 414 00:41:54,070 --> 00:41:59,770 There's an underlying spectrum of values of how we relate to each other on the left, corresponding to what I had as hatred. 415 00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,940 Next is indifference. Next is acceptance. 416 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,180 Next is regard. Next is conditional love. 417 00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:15,070 And next is unconditional love. And that is the range of values which correspond to those different moral attitudes. 418 00:42:15,850 --> 00:42:19,610 The classical virtues are corollaries to the high level values. 419 00:42:19,630 --> 00:42:24,040 If you have economic value in life, then all the classical virtues follow. 420 00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:28,060 Of necessity they will be By-Products of that attitude. 421 00:42:28,720 --> 00:42:35,379 Evolutionary psychology and game theory cannot derive these high level values that cannot drive this kind of thing. 422 00:42:35,380 --> 00:42:38,770 And actually, Jonathan Height's book is very, very clear about that. 423 00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:47,530 He talks about, um, how evolutionary psychology and particularly the view of man homo economicus, 424 00:42:47,530 --> 00:42:53,559 the economic view of man is simply assumes that people can only be selfish. 425 00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,590 But it is not true that people can only be selfish. 426 00:42:56,590 --> 00:43:03,700 The vast majority of people are kind and careful, look after their neighbours and are not selfish. 427 00:43:04,750 --> 00:43:08,650 If your values are based in love, you don't kill or torture, right? 428 00:43:08,690 --> 00:43:12,220 You look after the poor and hungry as well as your own family. 429 00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:23,410 The key insight if you respond to methods of hate with methods of hate, then you become the same as that which you find hateful. 430 00:43:24,790 --> 00:43:33,640 You damage yourself as much as your enemy. The message of tragedy throughout the ages, a lot of, um, Shakespeare and so on. 431 00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,920 So. Someone hates you. 432 00:43:38,350 --> 00:43:42,100 He uses methods of hate against, and you use methods of hate against him. 433 00:43:42,100 --> 00:43:45,339 You become the same as that which you find hateful is. 434 00:43:45,340 --> 00:43:54,220 After a while, no difference. And I belong to have been belong to a group called More to Life that does training what they call life training, 435 00:43:54,580 --> 00:44:00,430 and they have a resentment process in which it centres on the fact that when you resent other people, 436 00:44:01,060 --> 00:44:06,460 most of the damage is done to yourself, not to the person that you are resenting. 437 00:44:06,970 --> 00:44:18,129 The the book The Hunger Games. That series is exactly about this how someone who is fighting a hateful group 438 00:44:18,130 --> 00:44:23,800 of people develops into exactly the same kind of hateful person in the world. 439 00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:28,000 The Hunger Games is actually a wonderful book about this kind of moral issue. 440 00:44:28,930 --> 00:44:32,770 So morality is about character building, as Alister MacIntyre says. 441 00:44:32,770 --> 00:44:36,280 What kind of person are you turning yourself into? 442 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:45,700 And from what I'm saying, the intention should be, however fitfully and faithfully, to turn yourself into a person who says, I cannot be personal. 443 00:44:45,700 --> 00:44:48,730 I am not saying that is easy. It is not in the slightest bit easy. 444 00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:53,620 I'm not saying that I succeed in that, but I'm saying that that is the kinetic view, 445 00:44:53,620 --> 00:45:01,420 and it is a transforming kind of view of how things can work if you go the way of hatred. 446 00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:08,920 This destruction of Dresden, when the Allied bombers did this. 447 00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:18,850 In what way? Where they superior to the hateful acts that the German carried out when they killed 75,000 people in the firebombing of Dresden. 448 00:45:18,850 --> 00:45:22,960 In what way? At that point where they superior to the people they were fighting. 449 00:45:25,240 --> 00:45:30,550 The foundations of kenosis. It's based in a form of huts, ethic of divinity. 450 00:45:30,720 --> 00:45:37,350 I said hut had three forms um, the east, the the west, and one of personal rights, 451 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,920 the eastern, one of community rights, and then the ancient, one of the ethic of divinity. 452 00:45:42,730 --> 00:45:50,770 And that means it doesn't mean necessarily that you believe it's based on religion, but you believe it's the right thing to do because of its nature. 453 00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:55,239 It is the nature of economic acts which make it the right thing to do. 454 00:45:55,240 --> 00:45:57,640 Not necessary that it will have a good outcome. 455 00:45:57,940 --> 00:46:05,500 Nevertheless, if done right, it can lead to both individual welfare, the ethic of autonomy and group welfare, the ethics of community. 456 00:46:05,890 --> 00:46:09,250 These may often follow, but it isn't guaranteed that these will follow. 457 00:46:11,630 --> 00:46:14,060 These positive outcomes are not guaranteed. 458 00:46:14,060 --> 00:46:23,780 However, they may well come about because of the transformational, paradoxical nature and economic ethic is paradoxical because it takes a situation. 459 00:46:25,970 --> 00:46:36,710 Which is full of this tension, this hatred, and it tries to get around it by not doing what is expected, not fighting back in that way, 460 00:46:36,980 --> 00:46:46,040 fighting, responding in their way, which recognises the humanity of the people who is against you, which is Bishop Tutu's big theme. 461 00:46:46,460 --> 00:46:49,680 And that. Catches your enemy off guard. 462 00:46:49,700 --> 00:46:53,990 It's not what they were expecting. It's not what the game theory is about. 463 00:46:55,100 --> 00:46:58,970 And so it transcends the calculus of home economics. 464 00:47:00,350 --> 00:47:03,570 Finally, how does this work out in real life? 465 00:47:03,590 --> 00:47:13,610 And it's very difficult. And particular issues I would point to is poverty and inequality, peace and war, environment and the future. 466 00:47:13,610 --> 00:47:18,259 And so one has to try to work out how does it work out in, for instance, environment in the future? 467 00:47:18,260 --> 00:47:23,419 What awareness training is our present day welfare against the welfare of future generations? 468 00:47:23,420 --> 00:47:32,420 That could not take thing is to not grab as much for yourself in the present generation, in order that future generations may live a better life. 469 00:47:33,740 --> 00:47:38,450 Truth and falsehood are a great part of this. If you're based, it's. 470 00:47:38,750 --> 00:47:43,610 You can't act in a proper economic way unless you are distinguishing truth and falsehood. 471 00:47:43,610 --> 00:47:47,900 And of course, we are seeing a great deal of confusion about this at the present time. 472 00:47:48,350 --> 00:47:55,100 What you have to do is establish the facts, work out what the consequences are, and then take a stance based on the facts. 473 00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,790 Keeping an open mind because you may have got the facts wrong. 474 00:47:58,790 --> 00:48:08,180 You may have been misled by propaganda. So then you have to act on one's understanding and values, given what you understand about the situation. 475 00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,980 So you have to understand the present, seeing things as they are. 476 00:48:13,070 --> 00:48:16,250 You have to have a transforming vision, what they might be. 477 00:48:16,850 --> 00:48:21,620 Then you have to have transforming action, which is the way the power of love and kenosis comes in. 478 00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:28,999 And then you have to have determination and courage to make it happens all the time. 479 00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:36,260 You should be asking who benefits? And that from Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank in India. 480 00:48:36,260 --> 00:48:39,860 He was asking himself, who benefits from the economic order? 481 00:48:40,220 --> 00:48:46,040 And he then introduced the Grameen Bank in order to help the disempowered to. 482 00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:54,260 To benefit. So who benefits? And it's the poor and the helpless that one wants to benefit. 483 00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:58,960 Out of all of this, the rich able to look after themselves. 484 00:49:00,260 --> 00:49:03,310 The core from a religious viewpoint is as follows. 485 00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,620 You are confused about what has gone wrong and how to set it right. 486 00:49:06,650 --> 00:49:09,830 Then listen. This is what Yahweh asked of you, and only this. 487 00:49:10,250 --> 00:49:17,780 To act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God, comes from a book of spiritual liberation. 488 00:49:17,780 --> 00:49:21,770 Now this is based, as I said, in the view of um. 489 00:49:23,660 --> 00:49:27,320 Of the deep nature of their being based in the sanctity. 490 00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:38,390 This does not mean you have to be a religious person in order to live the good of life, to understand what is good and to follow it. 491 00:49:40,650 --> 00:49:49,049 I think if you're really over on the far economic side, I think it is easier to follow that kind of life if you are a religious person, 492 00:49:49,050 --> 00:49:54,840 like the deep religion of Martin Luther King and of Mahatma Gandhi, but I'm not saying it's absolutely necessary. 493 00:49:55,690 --> 00:49:59,170 Uh. So. 494 00:50:00,530 --> 00:50:05,030 You base it in this kind of worldview. This is the right way to go. 495 00:50:05,060 --> 00:50:11,150 And then the other kind of things that will sit individual and group price will follow if you manage to get it right. 496 00:50:12,500 --> 00:50:18,320 How it works. Art is contextual, and there are many dangers of helping in an injudicious way. 497 00:50:19,130 --> 00:50:24,940 There's a lot of damage caused by doing good. And again, this is where you have to step back and be commodity. 498 00:50:25,010 --> 00:50:29,250 Here are these people. I'm going to go out and do good. 499 00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:33,509 You are in danger immediately of not actually helping, 500 00:50:33,510 --> 00:50:39,870 because you are actually putting your feelings of doing good in front of actually doing what they really need. 501 00:50:39,900 --> 00:50:46,950 That's where the difficulties lie. You have to avoid the arrogance of the developmental agencies. 502 00:50:46,950 --> 00:50:50,210 And I've seen this many people in this audience will have seen this. 503 00:50:50,220 --> 00:50:59,070 I'm developing you guys, and you've got to follow what we tell you in a kinetic view, 504 00:50:59,070 --> 00:51:06,510 respects the integrity of all concerned at action, a developmental way, developing both opportunities and capacities. 505 00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:11,880 And the Amartya Sen lecture in this series is exactly the kind of lecture that developed this. 506 00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,910 I don't have time to develop it here. So it's not easy. 507 00:51:14,910 --> 00:51:21,330 But if you've got those values and try to work out how they will go, then very deep things can result. 508 00:51:22,460 --> 00:51:28,190 So my summary of morality, the grounding of values cannot be given by science. 509 00:51:28,940 --> 00:51:36,590 The sociobiology option explains it away. The cultural and psychological options relative gives it away if you're not very, very careful. 510 00:51:37,430 --> 00:51:40,610 I am saying I believe strongly in the moral reality option, 511 00:51:40,610 --> 00:51:49,519 a real existence of the desirable way of behaviour in a platonic sense, in the way that I've tried to make clear based. 512 00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:53,780 And I cannot take a view of existence, that existence, the deep nature of existence, 513 00:51:54,110 --> 00:52:00,610 comes in giving up on behalf of others, and that has a transformational power. 514 00:52:00,620 --> 00:52:09,230 It comes back into your own life in a way which you cannot achieve if you try to feel good on something. 515 00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,500 C.S. Lewis wrote about this in his book surprised by Joy. 516 00:52:12,500 --> 00:52:17,480 If your life is aimed at trying to feel good, to have joy, you won't get there. 517 00:52:17,990 --> 00:52:27,920 But if you have this kind of attitude, you will on many occasions, get that back as an unexpected reward for what you have done. 518 00:52:27,930 --> 00:52:31,370 But if that's your aim, then this whole thing is wrong. 519 00:52:31,580 --> 00:52:39,710 It mustn't be your aim in what you're doing. And finally, it has a paradoxical logic that transcends the calculus of economics, as was saying. 520 00:52:39,780 --> 00:52:46,970 And this is because it's paradoxical. It is precisely not what is encompassed in standard economic theories. 521 00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:49,610 And a lot of what is written about this, 522 00:52:49,940 --> 00:52:59,479 trying to say that you can derive the good life from science or from neuroscience, and a return, not to the end. 523 00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:06,530 This is a picture of an angel rising, a fallen soldier, and the First World War cemetery in Aquileia, Italy. 524 00:53:06,530 --> 00:53:11,300 Naturalist. And in a sense, this is a tragic kind of thing. 525 00:53:13,150 --> 00:53:20,170 That soldier there, all of those graves that this represents the bravery and the courage those people put into that. 526 00:53:21,250 --> 00:53:24,969 But what did the World First World War achieve? Nothing achieved. 527 00:53:24,970 --> 00:53:28,840 Absolutely nothing. It was for no good purpose. 528 00:53:29,290 --> 00:53:29,650 Thank you.