Friday, December 28, 2007

The Molyneux Project

[Part of The Molyneux Project; read the main critique here]

So I made this bet with Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio. See, he put out this book, Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, in which he attempts to...well...rationally prove his ethical views. Of course, I don't think he could possibly have done that. I inquired as to exactly what a Universally Preferable Behavio(u)r is, and being the saint that he is, Stefan offered to send me the book for free, saying that I could pay him for it if I liked it.

Being the jerk that I am, I proposed a bet with Stefan, that I would pay him $50 if I couldn't demonstrate why his argument was flawed, and that I would get to keep the book for free if I could. So I've started reading through his book, and I figure that I'll keep a running log of my thoughts on this site. This project has very important implications, in that Stefan's views often conflict with mine, and if he were able to prove himself right, he would simultaneously prove me wrong. Hopefully that's good enough by ways of introduction to The Molyneux Project, or TMP as I'll call it. Now to actually start the critique...

7 comments:

Stefan Molyneux said...

Excellent! I look forward to hearing your comments... :)

David Bockman said...

My hat is off to you, it takes a person dedicated to Truth to do what you're doing. I look forward to the putting forward of potential truth statements which can be compared to objective reality.

Joey said...

This sounds pretty awesome man! I will have to add your blog to my feedreader and have a look. Good luck with your analysis as I think we will all learn something from this.

Anonymous said...

cool, i look forward to this :)

Anonymous said...

Have you posted what the parameters for the conversation will be - i.e. what proves you wrong or right and what criteria you and Stefan will accept?

Danny Shahar said...

I'm not sure that there are any official parameters for the conversation. If Stefan's argument makes no sense to me, and no one is able to clarify it, perhaps I'll ask him to agree to call it a draw? If Stefan's argument is unsound, then I win, and if it's sound then he wins. I'm familiar enough with the rules of logic to be able to tell the difference. The question is whether I'll be able to comprehend all of the premises...I'm not sure!

successwithusana said...

This can't really have effect, I think like this.

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