It's Hard to Gross Out a Libertarian: Jonathan Haidt on Sex, Politics, and Disgust 

I'm politically libertarian but privately conservative. Many things disgust me, but I believe that social pressure and persuasion is a better way to achieve moral behaviour than coercion and force.

Johnathan Haidt is always very interesting to listen.

btw Simon Baron Cohen, a researcher referenced in this video by Haidt is actually Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin. FUN FACT.

"I have a whole collection of sex manuals..." - I'm impressed at the lack of murmuring from the audience, because I laughed out loud 😆

I'm not sure Mr Hardt quite understands libertarians may have the whole wide range of values on personal and social issues, but they clearly make a distinction between what values they hold personally vs the values the government should enforce. Minimizing force and thereby encouraging personal responsibility that comes with free choices - those are far more directly in focus for libertarians than for the political left and right - who are always talking and fighting what policies (I.e. Governmental interventions) should be added to manipulate or force society or the economy to go one way or the other. Libertarians on the other hand would rather leave all but a precious few things up to a free society to sort out. Libertarians are the direct opposite of Authoritarians.

I keep expecting him to tell a punch line, this feels like a stand-up act for some reason.

As a Libertarian, I can't be phased by anything except for someone dying slowly.

30:53 "But no libertarians have ever held individuals to be isolated atoms; on the contrary, all libertarians have recognized the necessity and the enormous advantages of living in society, and of participating in the social division of labor. The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State." - Murray Rothbard

I'm of the opinion that being rational is being compassionate. Hysterical people talk all about how much they "care" while sucking the very life and sanity out of anything.

31:00 - I agree that most people who are on the other side of the spectrum would feel unconstrained and disoriented in a libertarian society, but what Ayn Rand said was that people would adjust. They would learn that just because something is legal doesn't mean they should do it, that legality is not license, in terms of our well-being. The whole point of libertarianism is to get away from the notion that the state is taking care of you, preventing you from doing things that will harm you, because we assume you can figure that out for yourselves, assuming you're adults. The reason we say that is those constraints prevent people from trying things that are risky, but may ultimately lead to a benefit for themselves and society. They won't necessarily do what most people would do with those risks. They may come up with a cure for a horrible disease instead, or whatnot. The thing that bugs me about Haidt's proposition, and I'm not blaming him for bringing it up, is that more than 100 years ago, Americans more or less lived in a libertarian society, at least at the federal level (the state level was a lot more varied on that score), and people managed to do okay with that. In fact, we did more than okay, in terms of the technological, financial, and social progress we made. So, the fact that people would feel uncomfortable makes sense, and it helps me understand why we (Americans) don't want to go in the direction of libertarianism, but it seems like what's going on is that Americans will feel uncomfortable when restraints are put on us, but we feel more comfortable with that than taking the restraints off. So we put up with it, and we get used to it. What I say is that if we took the restraints off, yes, there would be discomfort, but people would get used to that as well. I reflect on the fact that we had less regulation 20-30 years ago than we have now. Were people freaking out and feeling disoriented, because there weren't enough restraints then? I guess, but look at what people are freaking out about today. I don't see how putting more restraints on has the effect of making people feel more comfortable. In fact, in Haidt's own analysis of how SJWs behave, about how they freak out at the slightest thing, it would seem that restraints have made them more fragile, and more unable to deal with the world. So, it would seem if we look at them as the "canaries in the coal mine," we still don't have enough restraints, by Haidt's proposition. I see this going to a very dark place. What I think is going on is people use the restraints as crutches. They come to rely on them, and they feel very uncertain about what they're going to have to do without them, and so they resist getting rid of them. He said that people are healthier if they are rooted more in their communities, and he equates that to legal constraints. I think that's a false equation. What being rooted in your community means is that you feel at home in whatever group of people you're with, and the social attachments you've made. No conceivable regulation would give people that.

I could listen to this stuff all day

Great point about how we use the notion of disgust -- seemingly just a bodily thing -- also in our moral appraisal of things.

"Was it fair trade Styrofoam?" - Ha ha ha ha ha! Welcome to Portlandia!

this makes sense after listening to Jordan Peterson

I'm rarely disgusted by actions and more by the people who do them expecting a different outcome and expecting others to pick up after them.

I read "The Happiness Hypothesis" a few years ago and it changed the way I have been thinking forever! I guess I should read this book as well.

I'm a libertarian that finds just about everything revolting

Fascinating- have ordered his book

Awesome discussion!!!

18:10 The problem is this: try to extend this logic to something analogous. Is it fine for someone to be brutally murdered, as long as they are anesthetized first and never experience any conscious fear or suffering (assuming they have no family or dependents or someone else harmed by this)? Clearly there is something beyond just conscious suffering (especially beyond just pain) that ought to be the metric. Conservatives always lose the culture war, unless something happens to scare people and create cultural unity (i.e. 9/11)

I was mentally drafting a comment about the limits of libertarian thought as applied to the general population - i.e., the need by many people for boundaries such as disgust. But then at 30:40 to 31:30 Haidt addressed the issue very nicely.

we are not low on compassion. we just have compassion for the people footing the bill for the people you have compassion for that you don't want to be supported from out of your own pocket.

"How do they treat the workers?" BA-DUM-TSSSS ---- The most telling thing about the 'libertarian' mindset came right at the end there.

I will only eat my breakfast out of fair-trade styrofoam.

How about this. What if a wealthy surgeon were to pay a mother to temporarily remove a young fetus and perform a sex act with it before returning it to the womb to continue development until natural brith. What would the crime be? If it is not murder to terminate the fetus, how can a sex act on that same fetus at that stage be a crime? I used to discuss a similar idea with a fellow coworker of mine. Is it wrong to eat an aborted fetus? The underlying point being this, if it is legal to kill a fetus, how can anything else we do to that fetus not also be legal.

Is there more video to this talk? It feels like it kinda gets cut off at the end, and if there's more I'd like to see it.

This explains so much. Particularly why SWJ's consider their own disgust as being a virtue. And why their disgust is so "enhanced." And personally, why I think their moral structures are so insignificant and solipsistic.

Really interesting talk. I'm constantly questioning what I believe and my own limits and this gives me an "average" base to measure against.

Would've have been nice to a hear that last point developed further.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it. - G.K. Chesterton

I'm pretty sure that Sam Harris quote had "well-being" not "happiness" in it

Why is the rest of @2:56 being cut ? I wanna hear the complete response to his hypothetical case lol

Where is the uncut version of this?

Jonathan Haidt is a a true genius!

Peace, good sir. May your aim never waver.

I would love to have my personality checked because I wonder if I fit this. I feel very high in compassion and that is a big part of why I am pro free markets - they are what is best for everyone by far. I used to be on the left, but learning more about economics and political science showed me that my compassion alone was useless if it wasn't based on the facts - true compassion would actually care about results! And I get disgusted pretty easily too. I find rights violations disgusting, for instance, and I think it is because I am so compassionate! The idea of forcing people to do things against their will seems decidedly lacking in compassion and quite the evil thing to do.

I feel like he is conflating libertarian ideology with Benthiam (dont know how to spell it), but arguably abortion is a violation no the NAP. Whether pain is perceived is irrelevant, the act of aggression is what matters, so if you conside and embryo a human being, abortion is a violation of the NAP. There are many other holes in this Benthiam ideology. Such as: Is murdering a person morally OK so long as you make sure they feel no pain? Because that is certainly an act of aggression, pain or not.

Morality isn't just about "happiness" its about truth. Excessive indulgence in our senses causes us to dissociate from our rational nature and identify with our animal nature. From rationality follows truth and it is what makes us human. Stealing, lying and killing put us in animalistic survival mode. The view that morality is about "happiness" reveals a very shallow understanding of what makes us human.

20:55 "well, how can it be wrong if it feels so right?" HAHAHa goddamn

WE are not less compassionate...we are dispassionate about everything except responsibility and freedom and you cannot have one without the other. That doesn't mean that some libertarians are not nuts. At the core is the principle of non-aggression.

That was a great discussion. But I have to take issue with one thing he said. I don't see why pro(or anti) gay arguments should change based on the number of people that are gay. If only a handful of people were gay and 5% wanted to have sex with sheep I don't think that should affect the legal status of either one.

This explains me a lot 😅

This is so interesting because I personally am super libertarian - always have been - but I am sensitive to disgust to the point where it debilitates me in some areas of life

IN the end, we all draw irrational lines, it just differs where we draw them.

I am a retired physician and have made it an area of interest to research the human health effects of the microbiome. This has brought me to an understanding of the role of organic food, pesticides, and diet in general on human health. This was not taught to me in medical school And judging by the way pesticide concerns and organic foods are dropped casually as far left fetishes in this talk I am realizing now that these issues which are primary health issues that can literally liberate people from illness have become politicized to become jokes and oh and as an aside there are those organic obsessed and pesticide obsessed people. Our bodies are organic. The microbiome, the bacteria within us, don’t function in moral gray areas, ideology, and left or right wing affiliation. The bacteria are either poisoned by pesticides if you don’t eat organic, or they are thriving if you pay attention to them and to your own body. It’s a wonderfully pure system. I look forward to the day when more people understand this truth. The more we respect our bodies, the more likely we are to respect the environment, the trees, the waters, the ecosystem, and one another.

11:10 on disgust and ideas

Greg: He makes his living researching, writing, and teaching about these topics. If you want the support, pick up one of his books. He has scads of evidence to prove these ideas.

Libertarians are awesome.

This was a nice video.

Surely an ultimate utilitarian would try to calculate the chance at happiness of the child vs the suffering of the parent. Its happiness x time - suffering x time = ethical points.

I'm very much a libertarian when it comes to politics but lean more conservative privately due to high disgust sensitivity. I think where hardcore libertarians fall flat is exactly where Haidt implied in one of the answers to a question - empathy. Within libertarian circles there seems to be an almost aggressive attitude torwards conservatives in particular and that just doesn't help anyone (something like *we need total freedom, fuck anyone who thinks otherwise*). People need to learn to negociate better and respect each other (this probably applies to everyone though, not just libertarians).

he made a good point about most ppl not being libertarians and wanting constraints.

Society would be better if disgust were great again. Not to the point of genocide, but yeah. I used to be more exploratory than most, and now I can't avoid people and things well enough. People low in disgust have little in the way of conscious. Degrading sex, death, no big deal to them so they cause harm everywhere they go. Infect the minds and bodies of others. We all suffer as a result.

Consent is an arbitrary standard for determining whether a behavior is acceptable. I realize that its YOUR standard so you take it for granted. But that's no different than someone taking their religion for granted because they were born into it.

I know the prevailing thought is that our rational ideas should trump things like our emotions or our instinctual feelings like disgust but I don't think it's entirely self evident that rationality is innately superior to these other dimensions of experience. It's true modern society is built on rationality in many ways and it has provided great utility. Without emotions and instincts it's unlikely we would have survived long enough to create the sciences. What if by promoting a more rational society we shut down mechanisms that are inbuilt to provide for a greater evolution of the species as one possible outcome. We could in our hubris because of the utility of our rational, destroy ourselves by devaluing something possibly superior.

With this topic I think is important to remember, that even though we libertarians, and liberals in some extent, don't see "divinity", it still is a part of our reality. Even if it is just a figment of some republican's imagination, through him it actually becomes reality, a force with real life implications. So we should definitely take that into account in our policies. Just playing like the whole divinity thing doesn't exist in the world will still create suffering like doing anything that's silly or bad.

There is a feeling of disgust whenever,I hear the compassion in political context.A political action or sanction taken by government to protect the common good may be good but when taken for compassion's sake will turn evil.

i'm definitely on the Leon Kass camp

@ 28:00 & 30:00 Q&A ... the founding fathers wanted to keep religion as separate from politics, but as a practicality, that's been a rather difficult barrier to manage ... also, if your goal is to push the morality behind your laws so that you don't harm any large fractions of the populace, yet you consider allowing abortion rights to be handled on the state level, the result will be multiple conservative states outlawing abortion and many many women will be harmed by such a policy ...

I don't get his maths in the beginning. 95% of the crowd went for A and "half" for B? What am I missing?

That shot from stage left showing Woody Harrelson's forehead :P

"Are you free or not is a yes or no question - not a question of degree. I am either free or I am not." Yes, the PRESENCE of a tax is yes or no, but the SEVERITY of a tax is critical as to determining how free a society is, among other factors. If there is only free and not free, with no other distinguishing feature, then North Korea, Mao's China and Stalinist USSR are equal to New Zealand or the Canada.

How do you know that?

So that's what they use the dungeon for on off-days.

I understand what you meant to share; however, I disagree with your statement that "being rational is being compassionate,' because rationality involves thinking while compassion involves feeling---big difference.

It's not illegal to pick your nose in public, but the fact that it is not illegal has not made it 'acceptable'. It is not the case that everything you personally find disgusting necessarily has to be forced upon absolutely everyone else at the point of a gun. Societal norms, peer pressure and the fear of ostracism is what keeps things morally acceptable or not, not the legality.

I never said animals, children and adults had the same understanding. I said consent was an arbitrary standard.And that it was inconsistent to prohibit bestiality due to lack of consent while slaughtering animals for food. When do animals consent to be eaten?

I really really like this. It's really interesting. But, I wonder, Is there no distinction between morality (people being driven by disgust) and people who are driven by emotions. -In a social context like the guy in the audience suggests by saying many libertarians are driven by compassion in the sense that they are concerned for the injustice the government does to them. That's where I feel like I am at, I'm very socially liberal because of that sensitivity, though otherwise desensitized.

The amount doesn't matter? How can you say that? A paper cut is not the same as having limbs ripped off, even though, technically, they are both damage to a body. A person forced to work for a day is not the same as a person forced to work for a lifetime. OF COURSE the amount matters. Correct that there are certain dietary restrictions in New York City, but these restrictions are of conditional DEGREE and not absolutes, unjust though they may be.

There really isn't a large libertarian opposition to 'redefining marriage' libertarians generally don't care how the government defines marriage and argue that the government shouldn't control marriage anyway. 'As marriage culture declined in Scandinavian countries, government spending increased' As a rule you can pick any country and the chances are that their spending has increased it's just how the world is at the moment. It's a bit of a leap to say that is effected by that obscure variable.

To my American friends on the other side of the Atlantic: as a European I always consider libertarianism as giving more power (freedom, choice) to citizens rather than for a State. I never heard the idea that libertarians have common sense of such matters as social constrains. For example my friend would always argue for mandatory wearing a seatbelts, but also he is against gay marriage. I have different colleague who identifies himself as a libertarian but he is pro game marriages. In both those cases they don't like that government decides what is good for them individually or society. It's nothing about left/right view on social behaviors. Is American Libertarianism more about social issues?

There are many moral positions that i support but i'm agaisnt enforcing it by violent coercion. People's autonomy has to be respected if they are to be moral agents. Just the the ability of nuance between "this thing is good" vs "this things is so good that it has to be made mandatory by force" is enough to tell with high probability whether that person is a libertarian or not.

"Fair trade styrofoam" made me LOL.

I couldn't understand why he didn't put any focus on the puritanism of the left and only discussed fair trade and veganism, etc. Then I realised it was from 5 years ago before it all began. Very interesting conversation

Damn, this turned _a decade_ old _today?_

I agree more or less with all quotes i need more context plz

In a world with few rules is it possible to create a more constraining societies that give their members order?

Most people would prefer to preserve their culture. It's not just "white racists". I've dated plenty of foreigners and brown people. Families called me "the white girl" or "crazy American" (you can't marry).

31:00 made me laugh at the world inside my dark brain making others cry

11:40 DISGUST TERMS FROM INFECTION TO SOCIAL INFECTION, I FORGOT I HAD CAPS LOCK ON !!

I am radically Libertarian when it comes to economics and authority, but on social issues I do find myself to have a somewhat high disgust level, which I find peculiar.

Robbery isn't compassion. ☮

While interesting I have to disagree with some of the conclusions he is making. He is claiming how most conservative ideas come from disgust while most left-winged ideas come from empathy. Yet, a lot of left-wing ideas are combined with disgust as well - for example "mean mean racists/homophobes/sexists". This is not only about empathy - but about disgust.

"kissing, handshakes, shared utensils, unboiled food and close proximity to others" are low risk as long as you don't do them with people who engage in high risk.

Great discussion but he mischaracterized Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas. Scalia didn't say that gay sex should not be legalized. His argument was that the Supreme Court should not intervene to strike down sodomy laws under the equal protection clause because polygamy, incest, and bestiality laws would then also have to be struck down. His opinion actually turned me in favor of legalizing polygamy and incest, but not bestiality(animals cannot consent to sex).

If you look into it the disgust impulse is very closely tied to OCD

Looks like five axis morality got compressed into three, where ( purity, respect for authority, and in-group loyalty ) got crunched down into one category ~ divinity. Makes sense, though I wouldn't call it divinity but something else, as there are plenty of religious liberals and libertarians and they might call that an insult that they rank low on the scale ...

Any court issuing a binding sentence effectively becomes the government. Besides, if I, the loud music lover, wish to use Court A. and my sleep loving neighbor wishes to us Court B, who decides which one is used? And what if I do not recognize the power of either court, yet I owned my home before either court was established? This is the problem with Anarchy/Voluntarist solutions; they assume all people consent to participating within the new framework.

Hmmm. I just plain generally disagreed with B, but A kept getting specific enough to make me extremely uncomfortable agreeing with them.

24:25 questioner makes a good point. Libertarians don't have to have any lower sense of compassion/empathy than Liberals, they usually just have a much better grasp of the Law of Unintended Consequences.. 'compassionately' forcing someone to do something will likely backfire

No surprise. I have asperger syndrome

If you cannot see the difference between rape and murder on the one hand, or stealing gum or blasphemy on the other, then it should come as no surprise that you cannot tell the difference between 1% tax and 99% tax.

I guess I am on the scale of libertarian... I never really had strong political interests or affiliations. I really believe in personal freedom and personal choice/responsibility -- as long as they are not hurting anybody and it is not violating the freedoms or limiting the choices/responsibilities of others. I do have a dislike for big government, high taxes, and over-regulation... but more libertarian vs. republican. I think a strong military/national defense is essential -- especially for technological advancement. I just have personal views that are best/natural for me -- I think I am mostly libertarian --when presented this way.

Mind you, if both parties agree to some sort of 3rd party arbitration, that is fine and if you want to call that a court, great. But when it comes to criminal cases or cases when at least one party will not consent to a court or police force's power, or if the competing courts have different standards of evidence, then what can you do? Try every case twice and flip a coin to resolve any verdict conflicts?

We actually kept the formal pronouns and ditched the informal ones. That's why we say "you" (like usted in Spanish) instead of "thou" (tú)

18:00 there could be no suffering involved with 6m pregnancy abortion, but the problem of taking away possibility to live (while allowing to proceed this path for 6 month) is taken away. I think one can make an argument, at what point is it ok to kill somebody even if given body does not suffer. Hypothetical situation of gene mutation or euthanasia while under painkillers.

I did not say completely arbitrary. I said arbitrary in the context of somewhere between 12 and 20. And depending on the state it is 14, 16, 17 or 18. This shows a relative arbitrary selection of age. That same is true for simply and aggravated assault. We can all agree a slap that does not leave a mark is simply assault and beaten black and blue with a bat is aggravated assault, but the line is somewhat arbitrary between these points.

I did not use the term law, did I? Even so, in cases of murder and many other crimes, the law does not serve as a preventative measure, but as a codified way of dispassionately and objectively punishing the act if it is committed. Even posted speed limits don't actually limit anything, they only inform, or warn, the driver. Prohibitive laws are things like bans on certain products or zoning laws; things that can actually be physically, preemptively blocked or prevented.

12:12 “They are for scholarly purposes.” Yeah. Yeh, sure they are lol. Just playing. Liked the video lecture.

There is a reasonable point that people saying "gay sex is find, but polygamists are evil" is wrong and have no real logical stance, other then some laws about marriage would likely need to change to make polygamy legal. And yes, aphyd does seem to be "that kind of asshole". "As for me, I oppose sexual deviance. But I don't make excuses for it. I don't like it and that's all the "excuse" I need." -aphyd. That statement seem to make it clear, but it could have been meant some other way.