The Uncommon Nonsense of "Common Sense" Morality

Despite the cover image (which I love that ChatGPT was actually willing to generate, finally), this post is not about Peterson. At least, not directly.

It’s about his archetype.

You see, a little while back I started following a new pseudonymous account on Twitter (yes, yes, my first mistake). In my defense, they made some good posts and comments, seemed like someone who liked to think things through, and had a philosophical bent. My truth-seeker-dar perked up and went, “FREN???”

But as I followed along and engaged off and on, I began seeing the hallmarks of a performative intellectual. Absurd positions. Philosophical contortions. Blatant contradictions.

All of which sort of came to a head when they released their first long-form essay, A Common Sense Morality Manifesto.

[Insert enormous fucking sigh here]

The title alone is a huge red “here be sloppy thinking” flag, but damn it all I decided to read it anyway, hoping it wasn’t as bad as the title made it sound.

(Narrator: “It was.”)

5,000 fucking words of pseudo-profound psychobabble and far too many Tweets later, here we are.

🤦‍♂️

After reading, I went back and forth with the author on Twitter, and tried repeatedly to help them see the absurdity of their moral realist POV, but alas, it was futile. (My second mistake, damn it all, *must not wrestle in mud with pigs*.)

As I feared, they’re a Jordan Peterson archetype, and as I am so often rudely reminded you can’t reason someone out of a position they *clearly* didn’t reason themselves into. If emotion got you into it, only emotion will get you out.

I mean, JFC, look at this shit:

The sort of passive-aggressive reductio ad absurdum bullshit fries my pickle.

Normally I’d just unfollow and either mute or block, but in this case, I think more is warranted. Despite the glaring issues with the writing and frankly the absurdity of their stance, which I would sincerely hope most readers would see, their twaddle has gotten some traction.

So as a public service announcement I’m just going to have to tear that garbage manifesto to fucking shreds.

And yes, I am probably just screaming into the void. If I had a patron saint it would be St. Jude, because hot damn I’m a sucker for lost causes.

C’est la vie.

—

Right from the start we’re blasted with a warm gooey faceful of verbal peacocking.

Max Verstappen analogies, references to "Judeo-Christian norms," evolutionary psychology, and a promise to avoid "philosophical p-hacking." The author throws around terms like "reflective equilibrium" and "agent-relativity" while claiming to represent the common man against those dastardly ivory tower elites.

Pure intellectual cosplay.

The reader is treated to weak, performative rhetoric desperately signaling sophistication, while their actual argument boils down to: "I believe contradictory things and that's authentic, unlike those try-hard philosophers actually aiming for truth."

This is what I call the Jordan Peterson Special, the “food photography” of the writing world. It looks good at first glance, but tastes like ass:

Pseudo-intellectuals mistake word count for wisdom, think admitting contradictions is the same as resolving them, and use academic jargon to legitimize what are fundamentally emotional positions. They also tend to say so much so fast it’s hard to even pick out which contradiction to tear apart first.

Case in point, the manifesto author spends paragraphs setting up the evolutionary psychology problem, that our moral intuitions evolved for survival, not truth (which IS true up to a point) only to take from that...not a damn thing. They just keep all their evolved biases anyway, snuggling into them like a warm, comforting bullshit blanket.

Why bring up the problem if you're just going to ignore it?

Or how about he part when they dismiss reflective equilibrium as "sorting puzzle pieces with no guarantee they're even from the same set." Then they announce their plan to…wait for it…sort through their moral intuitions to see which ones fit together. 🤣

They're rejecting the label while doing the thing! Why? Maybe because admitting they're doing real philosophy would ruin their "authentic common man" brand. Or maybe because doing actual philosophy would tear their idiotic intuitions to shreds.

And here's possibly the most amusing line in the whole screed: "bestiality and incest are wrong because I think they're gross."

They KNOW this contradicts their stated principles. They KNOW it's intellectually indefensible. They even acknowledge its “hard to square with everything else I’ve said” (understatement of the year). But instead of reconsidering the position, recognizing, like every other moral stance, that it’s subjective, they make a joke: "mamma didn't raise no bitch."

Yes, those things are gross…to most humans, for whom those things carry a variety of risks, and who are indoctrinated accordingly…but that grossness is not some universal moral truth. It can not possibly apply to all things, at all times, in all places.

That manifesto was clearly written by someone who cares more about sounding clever than being right, and that I just can’t fucking stand.

A real truth-seeker would either defend the position with cold hard logic and data, or abandon it as farcical and update their model of reality.

Only a fucking poseur keeps it for the aesthetic while winking at the audience.

The psychobabble manifesto is nothing but emotion LARPing as logic. The core logical fallacy underpinning the article is the a priori assumption that moral realism is true. The author offers no valid support for said position, and even states that thinkers should first define their own moral "axioms" and then work to develop a framework that accounts for them, which is classic "Rider vs. Elephant" thinking.

The author feels certain things strongly (death penalty good, bugs don't matter, bestiality and incest bad) and instead of examining why, they've constructed an elaborate intellectual framework to justify keeping all their contradictory feelings intact.

Mmmmm, the sweet sweet taste of confirmation bias.

The endless subclauses, the philosophical name-dropping, the promise of future reconciliation, it's all smoke and mirrors to avoid the simple truth…

They don't want to change their mind about anything, but they want credit for being thoughtful and to be seen as smart.

Strip away the verbiage and you're left with someone saying "I think what I think and maybe I'll figure out why later but hot damn if you’re not a little bitch you should agree with me."

Maybe that's fine for a personal journal, but dressing it up as a philosophical manifesto and sneering at actual philosophers for doing the work you're too lazy to do is just fucking embarrassing.

The world has real puzzles to solve that need clear thinking, and the ability to set aside comforting beliefs and to point your truth-seeking compass towards base reality is key.

The kind of performative intellectualism at play, all pose, no substance, is worse than useless. It makes people think they're engaging with ideas when they're really just admiring their own reflection in an ass licking magic mirror.

It’s masturbation with a thesaurus.

—

At the end of the day, this isn’t a new problem. Not remotely.

For as long as pseudo-intellectuals have been producing their fools gold, the ever-hungry and infinitely gullible masses have been lapping it up and begging for more.

And this particular conflict, Moral Realism vs. Moral Relativism, is positively ancient. It’s at least as old as religion, and every bit as persistent for the same reasons.

Like it or not, morals are “game rules,” NOT universal rules.

But rules are only useful to the degree they are applied, enforced, and most importantly believed in, which is why religion requires…say it with me…FAITH.

Blind obedience, and very often willful ignorance, are the tools of the trade.

Because morals are rooted in language, and all language is symbolic (map, not territory), and VERY clearly context dependent (as we can see, abundantly, with changes to human morals across time and location), and very clearly evolved (as we can see variance across species), they absolutely can’t meet the standard of universal law.

Moral realism CAN’T be correct. Morals are RELATIVE, not absolute.

What morals ARE, however, is “useful, not true.”

And that’s fine! They don’t need to be true to be useful.

And they ARE useful…as game boundaries, and in service of certain goals.

They are a reflection of both individual and group incentives.

And hell, I lump plenty of things into right / wrong and good / bad buckets, because doing so is useful, practical, applicable to the games I am playing and my goals and incentives and the groups in which I wish to participate.

But I do not mistake those context sensitive game rules for universally applicable truths or laws, and for fucks sake neither should you.

</rant>

Congrats, you made it to the end!

Now know that moral realism is epistemic horseshit 😎

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If you’d prefer, I also recorded a video with some highlights: