Episode Details

If you kill someone, they call you a murderer. If you kill a few people, they call you a mass-murderer. If you kill millions, they call you a great statesman. But how are we constantly tricked into supporting mass-murder AND applaud the sick monsters that lead us to do it? Well, turns out, there are some tricks.Jay Shapiro, filmmaker, writer, and host of The Dilemma Podcast, discusses his book Insufficient Rewards and its critique of consequentialist morality. The conversation explores cognitive dissonance, moral integrity, political systems, propaganda, objective reality, justice, peace, and how people rationalize participation in violence and injustice.Links:What Jay Thinks: https://whatjaythinks.comInsufficient Rewards: https://www.simonandschuster.net/book...Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.comMerch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shopDonation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donateTimestamps:00:00:00 Introducing Jay Shapiro and the book00:01:02 Why Jay wrote Insufficient Rewards00:04:32 History, morality, and consequentialism00:08:06 The flexibility of consequentialist thinking00:09:15 The actor’s moral dilemma00:12:06 Moral integrity and unjust systems00:16:30 Ukraine, sanctions, and moral certainty00:18:12 Cognitive dissonance and insufficient rewards00:27:07 Moral integrity, self-deception, and complicity00:32:11 First-order and second-order desires00:43:06 Objective reality and moral truth