Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics

There's nothing fundamental in this book that you won't have read already if you're familiar with Ayn Rand, John Hospers and other libertarian philosophers. But the author has a fresh spin that is clever and a lot of fun. He spends a good deal of time arguing for the idea that moral principles worth their salt must apply universally to all persons (a point Hospers makes with more rigor, but less entertainingly). Once you've gotten a list of such principles (ranging from "it's good to be on time" to "it's bad to murder") you decide which you have a right to enforce against other people by whether or not you can avoid consequences of other people's derelictions without absurd effort.The last half of the book feels rushed and losed the detailed argumentation and digressions of the first half. He ends up advocating anarchy because there's no difference between you holding a gun on a cop and a cop holding a gun on you except that the cop is "in costume." I am, of course, simplifying the argument, not really doing it justice.I really don't understand what anarchists are thinking: any time people organize to enforce certain rules by force, and claim a sphere of ongoing jurisdiction, you have a de facto government. You can call it a street gang or a voluntary protective association or What Mom Says Goes, but it still quacks like a government.Human beings vary widely in their competence in defending themselves. Therefore, because of the principle of division of laber, governments will always arise--there is a market for defense services. Yes, governments will arise because people want to beat the crap out of others and take their stuff too, or governments formed for common defense will tend to degenerate. None of that changes the fundamental nature of what distinguishes a government from other kinds of organizations.Molyneaux does talk about collective organization in self-defense, so I expect what I just said wouldn't be news to him, and perhaps he wouldn't even disagree strenuously. Perhaps Molyneaux meant to imply, or if he stated it outright, I missed it, that there is one more characteristic required before you have a government: that people consider their obedience to it to be a fundamental moral duty. I'd reject that this requirement is fundamental to the definition of government, but it would be another interesting point of discussion.I've known a lot of guys in the libertarian movement who remind me of Molyneaux--smart, engaging, original thinkers, steeped in 19th century American rhetorical traditions (Ingersoll, Nock, etc), but who leap too quickly from idea to flashy idea, who get bored too easily, to be serious philosophers. I don't think that's a horrible criticism. It certainly applies to Ayn Rand too. And it doesn't mean you can't enjoy and learn a lot from engaging with such people.After reading Molyneaux, I'd suggest reading some Nozick and Hayek, as a balance.

Stefan Molyneux will go down in history as the first man to solve a universal ethics framework based on a rational proof. He may be cancelled in today’s culture but he will be required reading in the future.I disagree with his claims about God because us members of the Church of Latter-day Saints worship a non-contradictory god unlike the one in the Nicene creed, but everything else I agree with.

I decided to buy this book after first seeing a really great lecture by the author called "The Power of The Parasite Class". Having heard that lecture, I expected to like his book. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed by it. In the beginning of the book, Molyneux seems to be promising to give us a new argument for morality that is completely different from the Objectivist one (that life is the root of all value) for he seems to be criticizing the Objectivist view when he states:"Ethics cannot be objectively defined as 'that which is good for man's survival'. Certain individuals can survive very well by preying on others, so this definition of ethics does not overcome the problem of subjectivism."To come up with something different would be quite an accomplishment if he could pull it off, so I was waiting in anticipation to see what this new argument was going to be. I eventually came to it and here it was:"all matter is subject to physical rules - and everything that lives is in addition subject to certain requirements, and thus, if it is alive, must have followed universally preferable behaviours. Life, for instance, requires fuel and oxygen...thus it is impossible that anyone can logically argue against universally preferable behaviour, since if he is alive to argue, he must have followed universally preferable behaviours such as breathing, eating and drinking"My question is: What's the difference between this argument and the one he criticized at the beginning of the book? Can't a person eat and drink by stealing food and water from others? If so, doesn't Molyneux's argument fall prey to the same problems?If not, if predation does not actually promote one's survival as well as production and trade does, and thus production and trade are universally preferable to predation, then isn't Molyneux's argument, although valid, simply a rehashing of what Objectivists have been saying for the past fifty years?To be fair, maybe I am simply expecting too much from the book. If UPB is meant to simply be an entertaining and thought provoking essay about ethical theory written for beginners, then it succeeds in that respect. However, the foreword implies to the reader that much more is going to be offered and yet it never delivers.For a truly thorough defense of secular ethics, I would suggest Tara Smith's  Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality  instead.Tom Blackstone, Author of  Philosophy: What It Is and Why We Need It .

This review is less about the content of the E-book (which is decent, albeit flawed), and more about how the E-book works with the Android Kindle app.Simply put, the E-book is bugged. I was going through the book page-by-page on the Kindle app, and at a fairly early point in the book, I came across a completely blank page. I turned the page to the next one, and it was a completely blank page. I turned that one, and it was blank as well. After going through this about 20 times, I figured out that the page counter was not changing. It was literally the same blank page over and over and over again. I had to manually go to a specific page in order to bypass the bugged content and continue my read.The bug happens in the Android Kindle app, which includes the app used in the Kindle Fire tablet (or at least the version used in the 2015 Kindle Fire -- the $49 tablet). It doesn't show up in the Cloud reader, and it doesn't show up in the desktop app. I don't know if it affects the iOS app, though.In the end, I got frustrated with it and went to Stefan's site to download the PDF version. I have been reading the book using Adobe's Android reader, instead. I would prefer to use the Kindle app, but that's not an option until this bug is fixed.

This book is your first step in turning your life around.

Apesar dos problemas desta versão Kindle a leitura é recomendada.O código moral só existe quando baseado em Deus ou no estado?Existe uma outra solução?Como podemos ter um código universal?Leia e descubra. Abra sua mente para as possibilidades.

Muestra una vision de la filosofia moderna, los argumentos vistos ponen en duda muchas de las cosas que en la actualidad damos por social o humanamente correctas, cuando los vemos bajo la lupa de Molyneux se abren nuevas realidades y nuevos enfoques.

If you have ever wondered why there is so much evil in the world, UPB is worth examining as a moral framework. Due to the author's atheistic world view, the theory stands independent from Judaic law while being compatible with it in most respects. This theory is an important achievement that hopefully wont be overlooked as the basis for a better world.

For what it is worth, I'm a Christian reviewing this book by an atheist, and I did like it. It is good to see Atheists try to grapple properly with moral questions rather than just run face first into nihilism whilst in all irony affirming that it is the morally superior thing to do.Stephan does indeed make the case, he demonstrates the reality of objective morality or ethics, and by using the kind of logic employed to demonstrate why the law of non contradiction is to be followed, he resolutely proves ethics.The only problem however, is that is the easy part.Imagine if you will that morality/ethics is a box. Proving it is actually trivially easy and religious people have known this all along.The real fight comes in when you wish to affirm the contents of that box, which, unless atheism wishes to make and aught from an is which even Stephan affirms one should not do, it is impossible for atheism to fill this box and actually write the proper prescriptions.He also establishes, whether knowingly or not, that morality and ethics are intrinsically tied into Telos, that is to say, what is the purpose of something. It is wrong to cut someone, unless by doing so you are a qualified person doing so for the purposes of life saving surgery. You do not violate people because there is the inbuilt assumption that that is not what they were meant for, and indeed, we all believe in some way that we are meant for something.All morality implies a purpose to things and peoples, and again, atheism denies telos from the outset. Nature neither knows nor cares. Telos therefore, is completely subjective and no more than the imposition of an individual or society upon any given thing, which then runs completely against the fact that UPB is meant to be completely objective and universal, and is therefore a contradiction.So whilst Stephan does well, he achieves the easy part, and I'm afraid that until he affirms something much more, he will never flesh out or properly justify the actual contents of UPB.