Exposing the Trick Jordan Peterson Uses to Justify Altruism

I explain the fallacy Jordan Peterson uses to justify his ethics of altruism.

***

[datacourier]

It seems like the short-term self intereset argument comes from people that seem to loath themselves.
JP is a great guy but he seems broken, like he did something he can never forgive himself for doing.

[ThreeFingerG]

This appears to be an example of one of the logical fallacies Ayn Rand coined: the "Stolen Concept fallacy"

[louislemar]

That was 32mins I spent giggling as I watched Charles reacting with hilarity to JP's Jungian mysticism. Hilarious. The Peterson fans are certainly not going to appreciate this video. I can't wait to see the hate flow in this comment feed.

[Drumsgoon]

Nice. Pretty clear Peterson has not read or not understood Ayn Rand's non-fiction. Even the fiction makes this pretty clear.

[splinte]

the problem is that a person can never be truly selfless. A person who helps people because he likes helping people is a little selfish because he is doing it not only to help the person but also to furfill a need which makes him happy. The only way to be truly selfless is to truly hate helping and seeing other people happy but still helps someone without feeling any sort of satisfaction from it and gaining no pleasure or monetary gain.

[spectralisation]

Some thoughts:
1st point: your consciousness/identity/self is not stable across time; it shuts off when you sleep and then reappears; it seems stable due to your retained memories and the fact that you find yourself in the same body every morning; however, memory distortion and loss can and does happen - there are people who lose their identity completely due to amnesia, dementia, split personality and other disorders. You can have a split personality with completely opposite interests on both sides.
2nd point: there is no singular "self interest"; every individual has a multitude of conflicting interests. It's not so simple as 5 dollars now versus 100 dollars later, more like: should I fulfill my need of familial relationship, or my political ambitions, or embrace chaotic bohemian lifestyle, or seclude myself peacefully in a monastery - all different directions of self-interest, contradicting each other, and impossible to pre-determine which one is "the best for me" (so by acting in self-interest, you also act against another self-interest). If you've pulled your life together to such an extent, that there's no longer any contradiction or cognitive dissonance - congratulations, you're a 100% integrated individual!
3rd point: self-interest is not a fact, it's a faith-based judgement. It's impossible to know in advance what would be best for you. Even living a long and healthy life may turn out to be against your "whole life long" self-interest, when in your 70's you'll, say, get to experience World War III, get thrown into concentration camp and spend the rest of your days in constant terror and torture. Only in hind-sight you can judge whether your choices were, in fact, beneficial to you or not. So any act in your own self-interest is just a bet that you hope will pay off in the near or long-term future.
4th point: while defining self-interest, you ignore interpersonal feedback mechanisms. Altruism works in your own self-interest not in the immediate sense, but in a longer time-frame as it builds good faith and trust among your social sphere; hopefully, these things will come back to you eventually (also a faith-based judgement).

[aleksanderilcewicz-koodzie]

You don't understand what JBP talks about
Your whole criticism of his video is based on misunderstanding his words
It's based on taking his definitions (that he is basing on the context of his whole videos)and changing the ones that you are using

[bobski]

He never said there is no such thing as short term self interest. He said it was stupid. He said there is no such thing as self interest. Then he broke it down. Obviously you are not always self interested. You care for others and you stand up to your responsibilities. So there is no such thing as self interest when you take it to the whole. You make mistakes. And carrying on making those mistakes is a stupid way to live. Most people are not self interested for their whole life

[RW-bpto]

Great breakdown. Thank you for sharing your commentary. It really clicked with your spacial self-interest example.

[gafreeman]

Your best analysis of Jordan is exposing him as mumbo-jumbo.

[Drumsgoon]

'If you are 'stuck' with them.' rather negative there, Mr P.

[rewentcollinder]

What you say at 3:37 is obviously incorrect; spatial self-interest and temporal self-interest are not the same thing.

A simple example. Tonight, I'd love to have lots of junk food for dinner. That would satisfy my short-term interest of enjoying salty and fatty food. However, by depriving myself of this today (and most days) I satisfy my long-term interest in achieving a higher level of physical fitness.

These are both self-interest, but they differ in what kind of interest they are; long-term and short-term.

In the "spatial self interest"-example, the experience is one and the same - in time. However, me enjoying the food vs me having physical fitness, are two different states I have, separated in time.

[hanslazaro]

This is beautiful. I enjoy listening to Charles more each time.

[hemagicmp]

i dont think you understand the point peterson is trying to make...

[TheLineCutter]

In the way you formulate and your almost obvious reasoning is the most refreshing one i've listened to in a while.

[HorkSupreme]

Somehow, according to Peterson, there is no difference between myself and others, 'not in any fundamental sense.'
A is non-A? A IS FUCKING NOT NON-A! Yeah, no wonder he's a fucking wreck with those axiom violations.
edit: "Stop thinking that the world is different than you are."
Just wow. The world/environment does have an effect on us of course. So either this is lazy wording, I doubt it, or just completely insane shit.

[bergweg]

Isn't JP confusing the so called self-interest concept with gratification? (I.e. some people do have problems with delayed gratification.)

And if he says "this moment you, tomorrow morning you. next year you...", would it not mean that the "self" is not a continuous thing and therefore self interest is not possible?

---

A lot of times I read comments (by people with a religious relationship with market algorithms) that go something like this :
"If you help an old person you're acting in your self interest"
"If you're donating anonymously you're still acting in your self interest"
"If you help a kitten get off a tree branch it's still self interest"
these people seem to not make a difference between when someone defrauds another in order to get money, that type of self interest according to them would be the same as the one where one helps someone cross the street.

[joshnic]

Would Homer rather be the guy who is eating mayonnaise and loving it or his future self that will be puking his guts out? It’s not a hard question. The answer is, the guy that’s eating the mayonnaise and loving it. The joke is funny because Homer is separating himself from his future self that will be paying the price.
You’re gonna have to try harder to make Jordan sound stupid. To be honest....it looks like your plan backfired and all it took was common sense.

[johnandaway]

While I agree “short-term self-interest” isn’t very meaningful, the time span argument is not irrelevant. What about those interests of yours that span further than your own lifetime? Humans are naturally interested in the future of their offspring, and most people are interested in the future of humanity regardless of their offspring.

While *maybe* possible to explain as an ultimate consequence of genetic self-interest, I would argue that it’s much more accurately conceptualized as something like altruism.

[didles]

1) Short term self interest does exists. Short space self interest also exists. We don't talk about the latter because the trade-offs almost never come about naturally, but it exists none the less. Your example of hand massage and razor blades sounds absurd because firstly the trade-off is contrived and secondly choices are so disparate. The absurdity of the trade-off doesn't disprove the existence of short space self interest. Ironically it prove the existence. I also don't understand why you acknowledge hands, as if they exist, when they're a just the slice of the body.

2) Self interests of people do conflict. It is not in your interest to lose even when you are less worthy. In such cases, the principle of letting the best man win goes against your self interest. Ideally the principle would apply to every competition you're not in, and when you're in a competition you always win. This isn't practical because the principal has to be held up universally for enough people to respect it. Now in some cases upholding that principle is more beneficial than violating it to get an extra win, but this isn't universal. If your survival depends on winning a competition, then that victory is going to be more important than upholding a principle.

3) Jordan Peterson is making an analogy saying that just as your self interest isn't limited to your immediate experience (short term self interest), it is also not limited to your person. Yes, there is a distinction that your consciousness will visit your future self and not someone else's person, but that is beside the point. He's not talking about consciousness. The point is spending $500 today on someone else who will spend $500 on you later is the same as not spending $500 today so you can spend $500 on yourself later. That's why he mentions people reciprocating kindness (though in reality people often do no reciprocate).