**UPDATE: Check out BB’s broadside against me, and my response!
In today’s episode of Walt Right Perspectives I speak once more with Bentham’s Bulldog.
We mostly reflect on our exchange from last week on the Nietzschean concept of “slave morality”. We then pivot into the question of whether Walt Bismarck should donate all his money to buy Malaria nets for Nigerian children.
We also talk about whether I am too focused on vibes vs. policy, and engage in the usual autistic philosophybro banter about fundamental questions of epistemology.
I’m paywalling the second hour because we get into some spicy topics.
Topics include:
The Nietzschean idea of Slave Morality, BB’s objection to the notion, and Walt’s right-wing vitalist defense of the idea
Will adopting utilitarianism propel us towards a Wall-E world?
Is the complexity of a workable utilitarianism a mark against it?
By what methodological standard are we supposed to determine which among our moral or epistemic intuitions are correct?
Are “special obligations” to family, countrymen, etc. tenable under utilitarianism?
Is using resources to seize power and coercively reallocate domestic resources more impactful than effective charity?
Should we care assign equal moral worth to foreign populations that brutalize and murder American missionaries?
BB’s argument against special obligations
Walt’s argument from Dunbar’s Number that you need special obligations to practically activate any individual’s altruism
Objectivist vs. Subjectivist vs. Intersubjectivist view of morality
Walt and BB get in the weeds about epistemology and philosophy of language
What is our goal when we’re talking about morality? Discovering what is true about the world? Building an “effective” and intuitive incentive structure? Establishing consensus for a coalition? Nakedly pursuing raw power?
How effective was Walt Bismarck as a propagandist back in 2015-2017?
Should the life of one American child be worth exactly the same in Walt’s moral calculus as the life of one Haitian child?
What is the “natural” level of ingroup preference that most people have?
Paywall
Is the IQ difference between blacks and whites environmental or genetic?
The moral status of black vs. white ingroup preference
Is physical proximity morally salient?
Would Walt save a drowning Nigerian child on the U.S.-Mexico border?
Can institutions practically incentivize utilitarianism?
Does Walt think you can’t criticize someone’s values?
Are racists unintelligent?
Substack monetization strategies
Is Walt Bismarck using ad hominem fallacies when he mentions someone’s identity factors as salient factors in defining the scope of debate?
Is Walt not adequately opposed to white nationalism?
Is the more formalist direction of white identity politics a meaningful change compared to the past dogwhistling
Is Walt too interested in vibes vs. policy? Which of the two is more impactful in defining political coalitions?
