Universally Preferable Behaviour

If I were a nutritionist, I would tell you all about the science, biology and chemistry of food and digestion – with the express goal, at the end, of convincing you to change your dietary habits in order to improve your well-being.

If I were a personal trainer, I would tell you all about the science and biology and chemistry of stretching and exercise – with the express goal, at the end, of convincing you to change your exercise habits.

The purpose of medical research is to provide knowledge that leads to the prevention or cure of disease. There is no purpose in engaging in medical research if no one ends up changing any behaviours based upon the results of that research.

The entire purpose of a smoking cessation program is to have you not pick up a cigarette, light it, and suck on it. Going over the medical, biological and genetic background as to the dangers of smoking is all very important, but it is important only insofar as it helps reinforce your willpower to refrain from smoking that cigarette.

Everything in philosophy comes down to you changing your moral habits – and changing your moral habits requires a deep understanding of the value of good moral habits, and the disasters of bad moral habits.

This may seem like a controversial position, but only because philosophy has been largely hijacked by people who wish to use it for personal gain – such as academics and sophists (often the same category). Therefore, modern philosophy delivers abstractions that are clever, confusing, often annoying, and ultimately worse than useless. Academic philosophy is like an overindulged amateur magician – intrusive, irritating, incompetent, but rarely called out.

The four major branches of philosophy – metaphysics (the study of reality); epistemology (the study of knowledge); politics (the study of state power); and ethics (the study of virtue) – are like the plumbing that delivers water to your sink. Aqueducts, sewers, piping – these all only have value insofar as they enable you to turn on a tap in your house and actually get some clean water. Metaphysics, epistemology, politics and ethics – these have value insofar as they enable you to make and enforce better moral decisions in the world.

Think of the immense amount of research, science, engineering and physics that goes into the design and creation of a car – the purpose of which is to get you from A to B. Few people would buy a car without an engine (unless it was to cannibalize parts for another car with an engine) because a car is not a piece of art, a paperweight, or a hat, but a piece of machinery designed to provide mobility. If you give a paralyzed man a wheelchair with only one wheel, your “gift” is cruelty, not charity. The purpose of a wheelchair is to give someone without the use of his legs mobility, and such purpose is not served with only one wheel.

Think of the engineering complexity and technological genius that is required to serve up a web page to your eyeballs. The whole point is to facilitate your viewing. Without that viewing, everything else is worse than useless. If your monitor won’t turn on, the entire infrastructure becomes useless.

The purpose of philosophy – the entire substructure and detailed background arguments – is to give you the information and resolution you need to make better moral decisions in the moment. The purpose of the military – the entire procurement, training, physics, engineering and resource consumption as a whole – is to provide individuals with the skill and resolution to kill others and destroy objects. We cannot imagine an entire military-industrial complex with the sole goal of placing soldiers on the battlefield with complex weaponry, but zero ammunition.

If you take away the final goal, there is no rational way to organize all the prior activities.

This is not to say that all life must be specifically goal-oriented. We do things for fun, as a hobby, to distract ourselves or to pass time – but so what? If we need to quit smoking, not every single moment of our life needs to be dedicated to that task, but we must still have that goal in our mind as a whole. If we need to lose weight, diet and exercise only consume a small portion of our day, but the overall goal remains important.

Hopefully, you will not spend every waking moment of your day making crucial moral decisions, but you will need wisdom and certainty when those moments come.

So, let us now examine and understand the theory of “universally preferable behaviour” (UPB), or the rational proof of secular ethics.

Ethics: An Introduction

All philosophy argues for a preferred state – the very essence of philosophy is to differentiate between various states, to point out the most preferred, and the best way to achieve it.

This may sound confusing, but this is exactly the same process pursued by dietitians, doctors, scientists, engineers and so on – a dietitian differentiates between various food choices, points out the preferred outcome, and the best diet to achieve it.

A doctor differentiates between various states of illness and health, and guides his patients towards the best practices and medicines to regain and maintain health.

A scientist differentiates between various states of ignorance and knowledge, and guides himself and others through the scientific method to discard illusion and achieve accuracy.

If there is no such thing as a preferred state, there is no such thing as philosophy – or free will, or morality, or debate, or truth, or falsehood, or science, or medicine – I can keep piling these on until you accept that there is such a thing as a preferred state.

If there is a preferred state, the question naturally arises – compared to what?

If I prefer to eat toast rather than gravel, my evaluation is based on what my body can digest. Digestible and nutritious food is preferable to indigestible rocks. This is not a subjective preference, but rather is decided by my body’s capacity for turning matter into energy.

Some preferences are objective, some are subjective. Objectively, I cannot gain nutritional energy from gravel. A madman may choose to eat gravel rather than toast, but this is one way we know that he is insane. Subjectively, I may prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream. The science of nutrition deals with objective requirements, rather than subjective tastes.

The fact that some people reject objectively preferable states does not make those states any less objective or any less preferable. To lose weight, you must eat fewer calories and/or exercise more – this is an objective process necessary to achieve an objective state. The fact that most overweight people either never lose weight, or lose weight and then gain more back, in no way makes the objective process and goal of weight loss any less objective.

In philosophy, the preferred state is truth – in other words, statements that accurately describe the objective facts, properties and processes of empirical material reality. Empirical material reality is objective, rational and universal – a stone is a stone and possesses the properties of a stone everywhere in the universe.

Philosophy is the rational hypothesis of empirical action. A proposed preferred state must be rational before it can be acted upon, since actions take place in reality, which is rational.

In engineering, a blueprint must conform to the nature and properties of things in reality before it can be even considered as a plan for creating something. If you try to build a bridge in Manhattan while assuming the moon’s gravity, your bridge will collapse because your gravitational factor is off by a factor of six. If a doctor makes important medical decisions based on the belief that blood is inert in the body, he will be far less likely to heal people.

Philosophy requires rational consistency because “truth” is a mental category that is measured relative to objective reality. If I say there are three coconuts when there are only two, my statement is false, compared to the simple facts of objective reality.

Arguing Against Preferred States

Humanity appears to be mentally constituted to attempt to find at least one exception to every proposed rule – and naturally, you are probably trying with all your might to find an exception to the concept of preferred states. However, it is logically impossible to argue against preferred states, because the act of arguing itself requires a preferred state.

The act of arguing with someone rests on the implied premise that you are correct and that your opponent is incorrect. If I point at Africa on a map and refer to it as the Arctic, and you correct me, it might not be much of a debate, but clearly you are correcting me with reference to the true name of that continent, which is Africa. You are not saying you have a made-up name for the continent, personal to you, and that you would like me to indulge you by referring to the continent by that name – you are in essence saying two things:

1.     The correct name for the continent is “Africa.”

2.      Using the correct name is infinitely preferable to using the incorrect name.

I use the phrase “infinitely preferable” because some preferences are relative, and some preferences are absolute. I prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, but I prefer ice cream as a whole to Brussels sprouts. These are relative preferences, in that I would prefer Brussels sprouts to starvation. In general, people prefer ice cream to arsenic, but there are situations in which arsenic may be preferred, such as when facing certain torture, or a certain slow lingering death in some remote place, or unending exposure to the comedy stylings of Amy Schumer.

However, would you ever say that referring to the continent of Africa by its correct name is a relative preference? In other words, would there be an occasion where you would be fine with it being called by some other name? If I want chocolate ice cream, but the restaurant only has vanilla, I might shrug, accept my second choice and still be relatively content – would the same be true for misnaming Africa?

If you are sailing from the Bahamas to New York, the accuracy of your navigation is not a binary option – there is no such thing as perfect navigation. Every wave and gust of wind will put you “off course” a tiny degree. (Please note, this does not mean that there are no degrees of accuracy. There is of course such a thing as more accurate and less accurate – and a certain level of inaccuracy will have you miss your destination completely – but it is a difference of degree, not of kind.)

However, the proposition that the earth is flat is binary – it is either flat or it is not. It cannot be halfway between spherical and flat.

The proposition that the earth is a sphere is infinitely preferable to the proposition that the earth is flat. It is not occasionally flat, it’s not flat every second Wednesday – and thinking it’s flat is not “almost as good.” It’s not an okay second choice. The earth is a sphere, it is not flat, and that is that.

Truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood. If you try to argue against this, you automatically prove that your proposition is false and should be rejected, because in the very act of arguing, you’re preferring truth over falsehood.

Most people struggle mightily against this basic reality, and at some point the irrational, angry will collapses, and peace and reason reign in the mind.

Given that we cannot argue against preferred states, we must continue with our exploration of what preferred states are.

Preferred Goals, Preferred States and Preferred Processes

The preferred goal of medicine is health; the preferred goal of training is expertise; the preferred goal of nutrition is healthy eating, and so on.

Some of these preferred goals are universal, some are local, and some are subjective. Human beings cannot get nutrition from sand; certain diets are good for some people, but bad for others, and the taste of food can be highly subjective.

In science, the goal is accuracy about the universe, because accuracy is a preferred state – and the preferred process is the scientific method.

In philosophy, the goal is truth, because truth is a preferred state – and the preferred process is reason and evidence.

Preferred processes are defined relative to a goal. If you have no goal, you can have no preferred processes. If I have a goal called “arrive in New York,” my preferred process is accurate navigation.

The essential question to ask is: What makes philosophy unique?

Philosophy aims for truth, to be sure, but so do countless other mental disciplines – it’s not like mathematicians strive for irrationality, or scientists aim for falsehood.

Philosophy is the largest circle of mental disciplines – science, engineering, medicine and mathematics show up as smaller circles within the larger circle of philosophy.

Prior to the scientific revolution, there was a philosophical revolution that focused on scepticism, materialism, empiricism and rationality, while strenuously rejecting immaterial or superstitious forms of “knowledge.”

Philosophy cannot be the same as science, otherwise there would be no need for the word “philosophy.”

Philosophy cannot be unrelated to science, since science relies upon philosophical concepts such as rationality and empiricism.

Science cannot be larger than philosophy, because philosophy examines ideas outside the realm of the physical sciences.

Since philosophy is larger than science, we must ask ourselves: What is it that philosophy examines that science does not?

The answer, simply, is: ethics.

Science tracks material objects and their properties – it describes what is and what is to be, according to rules that operate independent of consciousness.

Psychology attempts to understand human behaviour and how memory, emotions and reason interact, and how best to achieve optimal functioning, but psychology is not in essence a moral discipline. In psychology, generally, something is dysfunctional if it interferes with productive and happy functioning within a particular social context. The morality of that social context is not often directly examined by psychology, which tends to use the words “dysfunction” and “illness” rather than “evil.”

The study of ethics is unique to philosophy – although some scientists have attempted to use the scientific method to establish the basis of ethics. In my view they have been unsuccessful, since they tend to approach moral questions from a consequentialist standpoint, aiming at a more efficient distribution of resources, or an improvement in human health as a whole, rather than defining good and evil from first principles. “Trying a bunch of stuff and seeing what works best,” is not science, and it certainly is not moral philosophy.

Morality and Preference

If you want to say something true about the natural universe, you need to use the scientific method. If you want to lose weight, you should eat less and exercise more. If you want your bridge to stand, you should follow the principles of engineering.

However, if you are not using the scientific method, this does not mean that you are not a scientist – a scientist does not necessarily use the scientific method while eating or sleeping; this does not mean he is not a scientist, or that he is anti-scientific. Even the person most dedicated to losing weight cannot diet and exercise all day, every day. When he is not dieting or exercising,

Of course not.

However, things are different in the realm of ethics. If I fail to respect someone’s property rights by stealing, I am now a thief. If you murder someone, you are now a murderer. A momentary deviation from dieting does not invalidate the diet, but a momentary deviation from “not raping” creates a rapist.

We do not expect a scientist to practise science every waking moment, but we do expect a moral person to refrain from raping, murdering, assaulting and stealing every waking moment. Sir Isaac Newton was a scientist, although he deeply believed in the superstition of alchemy. His science is judged on its own merits, and his superstitions are discarded accordingly. A man who mixes science and superstition may still be considered a scientist, but a man who mixes pacifism and murder is not still considered a moral person.

Most human disciplines require positive or proactive actions. To become a scientist, a pianist, an engineer or doctor requires training and practice – and success, one would hope.

However, most moral commandments involve refraining from specific action and they do not require years of training and expertise. We would never expect a three-year-old toddler to be a concert pianist, or a scientist, but we do expect a toddler to refrain from punching his playmates. We do not call upon five-year-olds to construct complex bridges, but we do expect them not to snatch toys from their siblings.

“Preferred” Versus “Preferable”

We do not expect everyone to be a scientist, but we expect scientists to use the scientific method. We do not demand that everyone become an engineer, but we do expect engineers to build things that stay up (or down, perhaps, if they are designing a submarine).

The scientific method is universally preferable for scientists, but it is not universally preferable that everyone become a scientist, or that scientists use the scientific method every waking moment. Rational calculations are universally preferable for mathematicians, but we should not force everyone to become a mathematician.

Just because something is preferred does not mean that everyone will in fact choose to do it. Cutting calories is the preferred way of losing weight. This does not mean everyone will cut calories and lose weight.

The difference between what should be done and what actually is done, is the difference between “preferable” and “preferred.”

“Preferred” refers to the past, to what is objectively measurable: “Sally preferred to paint her room red.” “Joe preferred to go left rather than right.”

“Preferred” refers to the past; “Prefers” refers to the present; “preferable” refers to the future. Thus, “preferable” is the only word wherein ethics can exist.

Philosophy is like exercise – it exists to help you avoid problems in the long run, not survive a health crisis in the moment. If you call up a fitness trainer and say, “I have a family history of heart disease. What should I do?” the trainer can give you advice on healthy exercise habits, with the goal of avoiding a heart attack in the future. If you call up the trainer and say, “Aargh, I am having a heart attack right now, what exercise advice do you have for me?” – well, the trainer will doubtless tell you to hang up and call for an ambulance instead. The trainer can help prevent a heart attack in the future; he cannot save you from a heart attack in progress.

The goal of moral philosophy is primarily prevention, not cure – and where there is no cure, prevention is all the more important. If you ask a moral philosopher what should be done in a society where the government has racked up untold hundreds of trillions of dollars of debt and unfunded liabilities, then the philosopher will probably not have a lot of helpful advice – the “heart attack” is already imminent. If, decades before, you had asked a philosopher whether the government should embark on such a course, then the philosopher would have said that was a grievous violation of property rights and a pillaging of the unborn, and deeply and woefully immoral.

Philosophy has no power in the past. None of us do. It is frozen in time, inaccessible to will or alteration – or even facts, sometimes, since memory can be so malleable.

Philosophy has no real power in the present, because the deep steps and learning required for true moral understanding cannot be compressed into the time slice of the here and now. If you are on vacation and get cornered in a dark alley by some giant man screaming at you in Russian, and you don’t speak Russian, it’s not exactly a great time to start learning the language. If you spent years studying Russian beforehand, you have a chance to negotiate, or at least understand what he wants.

Philosophy only has power in the future – and it only examines the past in order to avoid mistakes in the future. You study your family medical history mostly with the goal of avoiding repeating any mistakes that were made.

Morality and Non-Compliance

Moral principles are not voided by non-compliance. This is an essential point to understand and seems hard to grasp for many people, perhaps because they are constantly looking for ways to avoid and evade moral principles in the present.

Some people don’t take medical advice – this doesn’t mean that medicine is pointless or irrelevant. Some people drop out of school – this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t bother educating anyone. Some people drive drunk – we don’t plow up all the roads and ban cars.

People don’t always follow moral rules – that is the whole point. If moral rules were automatic and involuntary, they would be physical rules, and the purview of physicists, not moralists. We have choices, we have ideals, and our behaviour often falls short of perfection.

A rule does not have to be followed in order to be objective. Mystics do not follow the scientific method; this does not mean that the scientific method is as irrational as mysticism.

This holds particularly true for the discipline of ethics. The reason we need a discipline of ethics is because people often fail to follow moral rules. The idea that immorality erases morality is like saying there is no need for encouragement, because sometimes people get discouraged.

People act badly; that is why we need ethics. It is a simple as that.

Ethics and Individuals

An ethical theory cannot be judged by individual actions, any more than a scientific theory can be judged by the integrity of any individual scientist. If we propose a moral rule such as “don’t steal,” is it invalidated if someone steals? Of course not – in fact, the more people deviate from a moral rule, the more it needs to be explained and reinforced.

The fact that gases expand when heated is not invalidated by any particular scientist who fudges his data to “prove” the opposite. In fact, the reason we know the scientist is cheating is because of the scientific method.

One cannot rationally invalidate the virtues and values of the free market by pointing out a single business failure, or a man who loses his job. Removing resources from unneeded occupations is one of the primary pruning mechanisms of the free market, and a central reason why it facilitates the growth of wealth so efficiently.

Ethics and Theories

The primary dangers to human life and happiness – to virtue itself – are irrational ethical theories, not individual evildoers. A serial killer may kill a dozen or more people, but communism has murdered close to one hundred million. A thief may make off with your car or your jewelry, but governments extract trillions of dollars from their citizens every single year and create hundreds of trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities for future generations to inherit – almost infinitely more than any mere thief could achieve.

You can arm and protect yourself against an individual thief, but Genghis Khan, with a great army, slaughtered 10 percent of the world’s population in his day.

Governments across the world throughout the twentieth century murdered two hundred fifty million of their own citizens – and such governments were reinforced and justified by particular ethical theories, ranging from fascism to communism to socialism to various other forms of collectivism.

Society in general has little to fear from individual criminals. The law acts against them, good people shun them, and steps can be taken to protect oneself from their predations – installing alarm systems, moving to a better neighbourhood, buying a gun, and so on.

No, it is centralized, collectivist and oligarchical institutions that reason and evidence compel us to fear the most – those institutions that can take our property virtually at will, often imprison us on a whim, conscript us into wars, burden us with debt, enter us into intergenerational liabilities without our approval, and indoctrinate us virtually from birth in the narratives that reinforce their dominance.

This examination of ethics focuses squarely upon ethical theories, not on individual actors. Many of us have been programmed to respond to an examination of universal ethical theories by citing individual immorality – that is one way those who rule us ensure we cannot speak rationally about virtue, or examine the narratives that enslave us. The fact that people do evil does not invalidate a moral theory. Evil actions are the fundamental reason why we need moral theories in the first place!

Arguing Against Universality

Ethics are universally preferable behaviours – actions that people should or should not take – independent of time and location.

If you argue against this proposition, then you are affirming it. You are telling me I should not engage in the act of communicating universally preferable behaviours. In other words, you are saying it is universally preferable behaviour that nobody should advocate for universally preferable behaviour.

Ethical actions cannot be universally positive in nature – i.e., thou shalt – because it is impossible to achieve positive actions universally. If I say that it is ethical to scratch your head, you cannot keep scratching your head forever. If I say that it is ethical to give to the poor, you cannot give to the poor forever, or while you sleep, or after you have run out of money – at which point, you are poor yourself and have nothing left to give.

Negative actions – prohibitions, or “thou shalt nots” – can be achieved universally.

It is possible to go through your entire life without murdering anyone, raping anyone, assaulting anyone, or stealing from anyone. Indeed, it is possible for everyone in the world to achieve such perfect virtue.

Think of it this way – if I say everyone in the world has to go live in a cave underneath the Washington Monument, this cannot be achieved because so many people simply wouldn’t fit, among many other impossibilities. On the other hand, if I say no one in the world is allowed to live in a cave underneath the Washington Monument, well, everyone can achieve that in perpetuity.

Thus, ethics must be bans on positive actions, rather than commandments to achieve those actions.

Ethics and Universality

Why should ethics be universal?

Ethics are generally statements or preferred actions that are binding upon others. If I say I prefer sushi, this creates no binding requirements upon you. You do not have to love or hate sushi, I am just informing you of my personal preference. You and I can simultaneously have different opinions about sushi. Since we are not imposing our opinions on each other through force, the possession of personal opinions can peacefully coexist.

However, if I say it is universally preferable behaviour to respect property rights, the universality of my statement creates a binding requirement upon you to respect property rights.

There are three categories of actions:

1.       Morally neutral behaviour, such as running for the bus.

2.      Aesthetically preferable behaviour, such as being on time.

3.      Universally preferable behaviour, such as respecting property rights and not initiating force.

Aesthetically preferable behaviours, such as being on time, are preferable, but not universal. If you are sitting at home and you do not have an appointment, you have no requirement to be on time.

Also, if you are late for an appointment, you are not enforcing your will on others. You are not initiating the use of force against them, and neither are you violating their property rights. This is the difference between rudeness and immorality.

A friend who is perpetually late can be avoided or planned around – a random mugger or murderer cannot be.

Respecting property rights can be universalized, while violations of that respect – such as theft and fraud – cannot be avoided in the same way that a tardy friend can be avoided.

In other words, you need to take proactive actions to continue to be subject to violations of aesthetically preferable behaviour. You need to stay in a relationship with a rude friend, continue to arrange meetings with a tardy companion, or choose to remain in a voluntary relationship with a lover who betrays you.

The initiation of force, however, is the voluntary imposition of a violent will on an unwilling person. This principle cannot be universalized, since if the moral principle proposed says that “Everyone should impose their violent will on everyone else,” then such violent will cancels itself out. Person A should impose his violent will on person B – but person B should also impose her violent will on person A.

Since it is considered preferable to impose a violent will, then such violent impositions cannot be morally opposed – and in fact must be approved of as moral.

However, if physical aggression must be morally approved, then it is no longer violence. If I want you to impose your violent will upon me, you are no longer using violence. The difference between rape and lovemaking is that rape is unwanted sexual activity. The moment that sexual activity is desired, it is no longer immoral. A surgeon cuts you with your explicit consent – a mugger who stabs you does not.

Since the initiation of force cannot be universalized, it cannot be moral.

The Moral Framework

In science, there is the scientific method, and the practice of science. There is the framework – which is that empirical observation trumps mental hypotheses – and the requirement that experiments need to be reproducible, and so on.

Within this framework – the scientific method – the practice of science takes place. Various scientific hypotheses are proposed, compared with rationality and the empirical evidence of the senses, and sorted with regards to accuracy.

In philosophy, there is reason, and then there are specific arguments. Rationality is the framework or the methodology. The practice of philosophy is the creation of arguments.

The moral framework requires that ethics be universal and that moral arguments be rational. In addition, moral arguments that predict and explain the practice of various moral theories – such as democracy, fascism, socialism, communism, capitalism, and so on – gain additional weight.

The explanatory powers of moral theories will never be as perfect as physical scientific theories, since human beings possess free will, while individual atoms and physical laws do not. However, human beings respond to incentives, which goes a long way to explain the successes and failures of various ethical systems.

Those who propose ethical theories that are neither rational nor universal are not proposing ethical theories at all – any more than a man who proposes an entirely subjective and untestable “scientific theory” is practicing science.

Various mystical theories use pseudoscientific terms to justify subjective wish fulfilment that is supposedly inflicted on the universe. Others use actual scientific terms – quantum flux! – but without any scientific understanding or application.

Ethical theories do not directly block violent actions. For that, the virtue of physical self-defense is required.

Correct ethical theories are used to oppose incorrect ethical theories, such as those that justify the initiation of the use of force or fraud. These incorrect ethical theories, particularly when combined with the overwhelming power of government force, are the greatest dangers facing humanity.

Ethics and Nihilism

You will come across those who say, “All ethics are subjective.”

The first response to this would be to ask such a person if it is objectively true that all ethics are subjective. The key word in the statement is “are” – this is a statement of objective equivalence. The moment that a universal statement is made, universal subjectivism self-detonates.

“There is no such thing as truth” – this is a statement of truth.

The moment someone tries to correct you by using a truth argument, they cannot say that objectivity does not exist. If you say, “Ethics are universal,” and the nihilist says, “Ethics are subjective,” then he is attempting to correct your “wrongthink” by referencing objective truths. In other words, he is saying that it is objectively true – and universally preferable – to say that there are no such things as objective truth and universal preferences.

Ethics and the Coma Test

It is generally understood that a man cannot be evil if he is in a coma or sleeping deeply. While in a coma, he is not violating anyone else’s rights to life, liberty or property, and therefore he is not being immoral. This is known as the “coma test,” and is another way of reinforcing the argument that ethics must be a series of bans on positive actions.

Any moral commandment that cannot be achieved universally, even by a man in a coma, fails the test of universality, and therefore is invalid.

What moral commandments can be achieved universally?

Since reality is consistent, any self-contradictory universal commandment is automatically invalid. Think of a court case. If a man has an ironclad alibi, he should never be put on trial, for the simple reason that a man cannot be in two places at the same time. If the prosecution’s case requires that he be at the scene of a murder and a thousand miles away at the same time, this is an insurmountable contradiction that cannot possibly be true.

If a scientific hypothesis requires that physical matter both attract and repel other matter simultaneously, then the hypothesis proposes a contradiction, and is therefore automatically invalidated.

Any moral theory that proposes a contradiction is automatically invalidated.

If you argue against the proposition that human beings are responsible for the effects of their actions, and you directly reply to the man making that argument, you accept that he is responsible for the argument he has created. You cannot deny that people are responsible for the effects of their actions while requiring that people be responsible for the effects of their actions in order to respond to your argument – Logic 101 fail.

Morality and Property

The concept of property arises from the reality that human beings are responsible for the effects of their actions. Another way of putting this is that human beings “own” the effects of their actions.

Imagine you are child playing with your brother and he knocks over a precious lamp. Your mother storms into the room and demands to know who knocked over the lamp – why?

The simple reason is that she wants to determine who is responsible for the lamp being broken – who “owns” the breaking of the lamp.

You can certainly claim that people are not responsible for the effects of their actions, but you contradict yourself the moment you open your mouth. First of all, you create an argument that you are responsible for. If I create such an argument, and you start to rebut me, and I then tell you that I have no idea what you are talking about – I never made such an argument and it has nothing to do with me – this would be a sign of mental illness, or psychopathic levels of manipulation.

An argument is just as much a product of your body as a house, a song – or a murder, for that matter.

If you say to someone you are debating with, “You are wrong!” you are saying they have created an argument that is false – that they own the argument, and they own the “wrongness” as well.

If you say to someone, “You are a fool,” then you are saying they have done something that earns them the label of foolishness.

Arguing against property rights requires accepting property rights; it is a fool’s position.

If you clear an acre of land in an unowned wilderness, you own the cleared land, since you are responsible for it coming into being. If you cut down trees and use the wood to build a house, you own the house because you are responsible for it coming into being. Property is fundamentally about creation, not expropriation.

After high school, I spent a year or so working in the wilds of northern Ontario, gold panning, prospecting and staking claims. To establish temporary ownership over the mineral rights of a piece of land, I had to march in a square kilometer and nail metal plates to trees on all four corners. It was not an enormous amount of fun to march through bug-infested or icy landscapes in order to establish these rights – and these rights had no value in and of themselves. However, if gold was discovered and a mine was built, this process was required to establish exclusive ownership.

Without this process, no gold would be extracted from the ground. Without the capacity to establish mineral rights, no mines would be dug. It is only through the process of establishing property rights that gold is moved from an inaccessible location deep underground to the surface, to a smelter, and then eventually to a jewelry shop.

The goal is jewelry – the method is property rights.

Think of fishing – a fish deep in the ocean is not available for use. The fisherman does not create the fish, but he does transform it into a usable product. By pulling it out from the bottom of the ocean, he converts it from non-property to property. To understand this more viscerally, imagine setting up a stall in a fish market and selling not fish, but rather the right to eat a fish somewhere out there on the bottom of the ocean. How many takers would you have? The fisherman is really creating a meal, which requires that the fish be pulled from the bottom of the ocean.

Morality and Theft

Let’s say you have three people in a circle – Bob, Doug and Sally. Bob argues that the world is flat. Doug is outraged, turns to Sally and says that she is completely wrong – what would Sally do?

Surely, she would splutter and reply that she didn’t say anything about the world being flat! If Doug persists in replying to Bob’s argument by debating Sally, this would pretty much be the actions of a crazy person.

This is an irrational transfer of ownership – Doug is pretending Sally was responsible for the argument that Bob created.

Imagine you come across a murder victim in an alley. Just then, a policeman walks up and arrests you for the murder. “But I’m innocent!” you cry. You are protesting the unjust transfer of ownership of the crime. The policeman incorrectly assumes that you are responsible for – that you have caused, and therefore own – the murder.

If you cheat on a test, this is an irrational transfer of ownership. You are saying that you own your answers, which have been generated from your own studying – when in fact the answers have been generated from someone else – from cheating.

Property is control. If you take someone else’s property without his permission, you are asserting control over that property – asserting property rights – as if you were responsible for the creation of that property.

If I buy an iPad, I am to some degree responsible for the creation of that iPad, because if no one buys iPads, none get made. Trade is secondhand creation, but creation nonetheless. (Also, I must justly own the money I used to buy the iPad – money I probably received by selling something I created or owned, such as an object or my service.)

The fact that we own ourselves and are responsible for the effects of our actions is a basic biological and moral fact – it cannot be denied without being affirmed, and thus must universally stand.

Theft and Universally Preferable Behaviour

Is it possible for stealing to be universally preferable behaviour? No.

If stealing is universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to steal – and be stolen from – simultaneously.

This is logically impossible. If I want you to steal from me – if I want you to take my property – then you cannot steal from me, because the definition of stealing is that it involves taking my property against my will.

Think of it this way: you and I are throwing a ball to each other – can I throw the ball to you and receive it at the same time?

Of course not – that would require the ball be going in two opposing directions at the same time.

If I want you to take my property, you cannot steal it. If I put five dollars into the hand of a beggar, I cannot claim that he stole from me, because I am voluntarily giving him my property – I want him to take the five dollars.

Stealing occurs when the desire for property is oppositional – when the thief wants the object, and the owner wants to retain it. Their opposing desires cannot both be satisfied simultaneously.

This is how we know stealing cannot be universalized – and remember, that which cannot be universalized cannot be moral.

This is how we know that stealing cannot be universally preferable behaviour. In other words, this is how we know that respecting property rights is universally preferable behaviour.

Furthermore, stealing is a positive action – meaning you have to do something to make it happen – while respecting property rights is a negative or passive action. A man is respecting property rights while he sleeps, in that he is not stealing. Stealing requires means, motive and opportunity, and the positive action of theft.

Rape and Universally Preferable Behaviour

The same holds true for rape – defined as sexual behaviour against the will of the victim. We can never say that rape is universally preferable behaviour, for the same reasons that we can never say the same of theft. If rape is universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to rape and be raped. But if everyone wants to be raped, then “rape” vanishes as a moral category, in the same way that if everyone wants to be stolen from, then “stealing” vanishes as a moral category.

Assault and Universally Preferable Behaviour

There are situations where you can be beaten up, but you cannot press charges. If you entered a boxing ring with your gloves on, it doesn’t make much sense to claim that you were assaulted. Playing rough sports – hockey, in particular – always carries the risk of injury, and rarely results in criminal charges. Think of the movie Fight Club – would it make any sense for the voluntary participants in the fights to press charges against their opponents?

If I voluntarily consent to being hit – such as in boxing – no immoral action has been committed. Assault only occurs when I am being hit against my will, or under circumstances where I have not reasonably assumed that risk.

To take another example, if you enter a sadomasochistic dungeon and sign a consent form agreeing to mild forms of sexual torture, you cannot then reasonably charge your dominatrix with assault.

This is how we know assault cannot be universally preferable behaviour. Not only is it a positive action, and therefore cannot be universalized, but it comes with the same logical contradictions as proposing that rape and theft can be universally preferable behaviour.

If everyone wants to assault and be assaulted, then “assault” vanishes as a moral category.

“Not assaulting,” however, can be universalized, since it is a negative action – or a ban on a positive action, if you like – and therefore can be achieved by all people, at all times. Refraining from assault also passes the coma test.

Murder and Universally Preferable Behaviour

Murder follows the same pattern as rape, theft and assault. Murder is the killing of a person against his or her will. If “murder” is proposed as universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to murder – and prefer to be murdered – at the same time.

This positive obligation violates the coma test and also cannot be universalized, since murder is the act of killing someone against his will – but if murder is universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to be killed, which would put the killing in the category of “euthanasia” rather than “murder.”

If we assume that murder is not morally identical to euthanasia, then we can accept that the irrational proposition that “murder is universally preferable behaviour” trips over the same logical contradictions as the prior three examples. If everyone wants to murder and be murdered, then “murder” as a moral category ceases to exist.