Saturday, March 21, 2009

Debating With Molyneux

I've essentially been cordially invited to have a discussion and debate via video (probably using the program oovoo, which is has a pretty nice video conferance platform that allows paying users to record video conferances of up to 6 people at once) with Stefan Molyneux, particularly about libertarian ethics and his "universally preferable behavior" approach to libertarianism. All the details of when have not been worked out yet. Knowing Molyneux, he will probably record the discussion and post it as a video on youtube and at his website.

Quite a few months ago, Molyneux already debated one person who technically posts at this very blog (although he hasn't made a post here for a while) - XOmniverse, who I also know from youtube. They debated about a similar topic, and XOmniverse has some problems with "UPB" that are somewhat similar to mine (although he is a former Objectivist and I am not, which probably makes our temperments notably distinct).

The area in the realm of ethics in which both me and XOmniverse both tend to differ with Molyneux is in our general use of consequentialism and egoism, and the tendency to critisize a vague maxim-based or axiomatic approach to libertarianism. Nonetheless, there are also other angles that I am critical of UPB from that may not be completely shared by XOmniverse (for example, my use of the is-ought dichotomy and some of my own objections to Rand's ethics), so this should not necessarily turn out to be a rinse and repeat of the same discussion by any stretch of the imagination.

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