Michael Livermore 0:10
Welcome to the free range podcast. I’m your host, Mike Livermore. This episode is sponsored by the program on law communities and the environment at the University of Virginia. With me today is Nick Agar, a moral philosopher whose work focuses on examining the implications of technological change. His most recent book is how to be human in the digital economy published by MIT Press. Nick, thanks so much for joining me today.
Nick Agar 0:37
It’s great to be here.
Michael Livermore 0:39
So I’m looking forward to chatting about your recent work, but I was hoping you’d indulge in some discussion of your earlier contributions in environmental ethics. And in particular, your book, life’s intrinsic value, which I teach in my environmental law class, and which is now in its third decade. That book remains one of the leading biocentric accounts of environmental ethics. And, and I’d be curious to hear how you know what, hear you reflect a little bit on how those ideas have aged, whether you have updated your views, or are just kind of moved on, and so on. So the way maybe just I would quickly for our audience summarize the argument in the book and you know, 10 seconds or less would be something along the lines of an environmental ethics that’s grounded in the preferences, in the book, you call them bio preferences of individual organisms. And we read those preferences off of behavior structure and evolutionary history. And we kind of use them for an account of the intrinsic value of nonhumans. So maybe the first question is, since I teach this to students, is that a relatively okay, summary of the argument?
Nick Agar 1:51
I liked that summary.
Michael Livermore 1:54
Good. Well, I’m happy to hear that. So so. So looking back, you know, the books is just entering its third decade, is this, is this an account you still find persuasive? Or are some counter arguments that you’ve heard that, that you’ve kind of taken on board over the years?
Nick Agar 2:10
Yeah, no, no, I, one of the things I love about the philosophical debates I’ve contributed to is how you can do engage in a debate at a particular time and contribute something then. But it’s fascinating to watch those ideas age and mature. And so I always think whenever you present views, you know, they’re a very in analytic philosophy, there are sometimes very careful people who don’t really want to say anything, because they’ll, yeah, what could be wrong, or they’ll change their minds. I’m very much a believer of saying something. You put a marker in the sand. And certainly, there’s much I’ve heard, that has led me to modify the views and to look back, so especially some of the later chapters in that book, I sort of said, yeah, when I give, it’s like, the thing that I’m most attached attached to about it about was this idea that, well, when we look at sort of philosophers, to sort of the bias towards sentience and personhood. And if you pose the question in that way, then the merely loving, non sentient non rational beings just count for nothing. And I always think, well, isn’t it a role of philosophy just sort of say, well, what happens if you challenge that? Because yeah, there are philosophers getting into habits and patterns, and they’re difficult to break out of. So that’s the thing I definitely am attached to that when you say that well, because that that sort of non sentient that I don’t know that that plant is non sentient, I mean, a Peter Singer’s famous line about you know, if a tree’s roots get flooded, and it dies, there’s nothing to take account of the only the only beings that you would ask would be the people who would say I liked that tree. And that seemed to me to be far too narrow. So in a way, the difficult task is to work out how you couldn’t–how could I get that value? And you sort of AI it’s a conjecture. I love philosophy that’s full of conjectures.
Michael Livermore 4:18
It’s kind of what what the implications would be or can we state it in a way that that makes sense and fits with with at least some of our intuition.
Nick Agar 4:26
Yeah. So whenever, like, sometimes there’s a like Mill’s Harm principle, that sort of that I believe that that’s a pernicious principle on ethics, because it’s sort of this basically says, Well, look, there aren’t harms that a utilitarian would recognize then there’s nothing. So I always think it’s great to sort of say, well, yes, that’s obviously a powerful idea what happens if we challenge it?
Michael Livermore 4:53
And what would you say then, just in this spirit of discourse are some of the unforeseen implications or counter arguments that you’ve that you’ve come across in that work? It’s obviously a it’s very provocative in the sense of as you note the history of, you know, analytic kind of Western moral philosophy, very human centered and even, you know, a lot of environmental ethics has a has a human centered orientation. And is it kind of a struggle to come up with anything else? Are there challenges to the to the biocentric account, or at least the one that that you offer that you’ve that you find particularly difficult or troubling or interesting?
Nick Agar 5:33
Well, I guess the things, if I was to sort of take back parts of that book, it would be the lighter chapters where I kind of almost because I was doing the hard work, what I perceived as the hard philosophical work of showing the merely alive, count for something. And then of course, you know, I mean, in a way, when someone says to you, well, you’ve got to say something about, yeah, I don’t know, which DC should we say those big issues, the headline issues? And I suppose that’s the kind of thing where I’d say, Oh, well, I wanted to come up with something I wanted to prove my relevance. And those are areas where every time I come across a debate, I say, well, well, that’s yeah, I’m still thinking about that. And I do think I mean, I think the merely alive do count. And that the one of the worst things that we can do is count them for nothing or only count them in an anthropocentric way. My preferences of for humans are for the beautiful charismatic species and the ugly ones, trash them, that those that’s not a very good way to view to think about the value of of life.
Michael Livermore 6:43
You know, as someone who who’s participated in this debate in a in a broad way over the last several, several decades, are there are there trends in environmental ethics, and especially at the at this question of, of intrinsic value value for life, non anthropocentric views that you think are particularly promising and have have made have made headway on some of the difficult questions like, you know, how you, for example, a difficult question would be assuming that there is value outside of the human domain, and even outside the domain of sentient sentient life? How do we make trade offs across cross domains? And those kinds of questions?
Nick Agar 7:29
Well, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because that trade off question. I mean, in a way, that’s part of being rational, that’s to say, I mean, once you say that every living being is has some value. Well, suddenly the world I mean, the good thing about a utilitarian sort of ethic that centers on sentience is, you know, where the valuable things are. I mean, there are some issues, because you can certainly look at insects and say, well, is that could that be sentient? So there are some, there’s a big line drawing problem. So you create a lot of value. And that creates a lot of headaches. But I often think it’s you Well, I mean, because you’ve got to make trade offs, you can’t suddenly say, Well, yes, I’m every I mean, in the perfect world, no living being would ever die. And it would be wonderful to inhabit that world. But we’re not in it right now. And we’re unlikely to be in it. So how do you make trade offs? And I sometimes think it’s sort of like, the difficult task of making those trade offs is part of the prompt to sort of say, well, look, I don’t yeah, let’s just not count these things at all. I do. It is. I don’t know. I mean, it doesn’t analogous. Actually, maybe this is an overly provocative, analogous analogy, which suggests that, well, I don’t know, the lives of people in the poor world. I mean, we didn’t used to have to care about them, now we do. And annoying, because suddenly, we’ve got to think about we’ve got to make trade offs and worry, we didn’t use to have to worry about them at all. But I often think that sort of in a way the it would be such a hassle objection is not a good one. And so the the main task, I think, for a moral philosopher in this area is to sort of identify the things that count, because the worst thing, the worst thing that can happen to you is for some moral judge to say, Oh, by the way, you don’t count at all. Nothing that happens to you matters. Well, I mean, maybe it matters to you if I find you beautiful, because I count. Right. And that’s, I think that’s a bit of a moral disaster. So I guess my challenge is just to get them on. And then it’s sort of like, well, how do you get the value I’ve created? I’ve made the world messy and complicated. Yes, I don’t know. I mean, obviously, living beings are dying all the time. And that there’s got to be but taking them into account is progress.
Michael Livermore 9:58
Yeah, no, it’s in the The Hassle objection is, is an interesting, it’s an interesting line. Because, you know, of course, it’s true we we part of living in the contemporary world and modernity part of the maybe part of what troubles people about modernity is, is the vast interconnection of our lives and the kind of overwhelming responsibility at some level that that we have just given our technological circumstances or for folks in the West, given our our resources and our ability to do good in the world, if we choose to do that. It’s an awful, awful lot of responsibility to be saddled with just within the human domain–
Nick Agar 10:43
I mean, that something–oh no, sorry, I just got it’s gonna interject there. I think that’s part of the nostalgia for the past, actually, sort of, in a way what why do people, I mean, when people are nostalgic for what they imagine the 50s were like, they’re imagining at a time when no one had to bother with that. I mean, the world seemed so much more simple. You didn’t have to worry about the sort of the distal effects of your actions and your choices. And now there’s all these people telling you, you have to care. And I’d rather not.
Michael Livermore 11:16
You know, this, it’s actually kind of an interesting, you know, this is a thread here with respect to kind of technology in an autonomy like we as human beings, over the, you know, over the centuries, in the millennia, we have developed technologies that enhance our ability to affect change in the in the world and improve our material circumstances. And our scope of action. And at the same time, we are kind of burdened with the responsibility that that comes along with that. And it’s it’s just kind of a but But nevertheless, we don’t stop seeking out that technological change.
Nick Agar 11:56
We do then lock up the populace who say, yeah, all these people who are telling you to care about that, forget about it. I excuse you.
Michael Livermore 12:08
It’s an interesting thought that those that that part, yeah, I wonder if that’s historically we could, we could think about that, if that’s part of the appeal of at least some forms of populist discourse is to certainly othering others. And in group out group, that kind of thing. That’s, that’s a big part of it. But it is part of the the appeal, arise out of a sense of responsibility or responsibilities that people don’t feel because you know, another, I mean, kind of go going around in circles little bit, but that part of the trick as well is if people are going to feel responsible for their actions in the world, it is helpful for them to have a moral framework that they can understand and feel comfortable with in order to fit that into. And I think part of the trick, tricky thing these days, is that people might feel a little at sea, in the sense of having a felt responsibility for much that goes on in the world without necessarily a one, a confident sense that they know how to navigate that or can make reference to a framework that they feel comfortable with.
Nick Agar 13:21
Yeah, no, I think that’s exactly right. So in a way, that’s I think that I don’t know we we’ve connected with populism, but I mean, maybe that’s, that’s, that’s a slightly speculative connection. But I think that’s largely that’s much of the appeal of anthropocentric ethics and the environment as well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s sort of suddenly if you look and say that, well, there is a moral difference between a non-living slob slab of concrete and a living moss. That way, as soon as you say that there’s a moral difference. You know I’d much rather, I’d much rather, you told me there was no difference. Thank you. Because that way, I can treat them identically. But well, actually, I can, I mean, if you look at I’m an anthropocentrist, are you, I mean, do you love that bit of concrete? I’ll care about it too. No, maybe you’re more likely to love the non sentient living thing. But I have simplified the world for you by saying, well, look, none of that stuff counts. It counts if you like it, that counts in the way that your iPhone counts. If you like your iPhone, yeah, then I’m not going to destroy it or I’ll feel bad about destroying it.
Michael Livermore 14:33
Right. Or your grandmother’s, you know, you know, wardrobe or something that she left.
Nick Agar 14:39
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s the That’s a nice simplifying move, and that has a lot of appeal. But sometimes I think the world is complex and it’s morally complex.
Michael Livermore 14:51
Yeah, and then in for in terms of the tools of course, science, or the scientific worldview or secular worldview that rides along with that, you know, maybe also makes it difficult at the same time if we have a more kind of morally thick universe or a morally full universe of interest that we’re to account for, and we have greater scope of action in that universe due to technology and interconnectedness, and so on. And at the same time, you know, there may have been, there may have been a point in human history where the moss would have a kind of a spirit, then you would just associate with it, or the tree would have a spirit that would be associated with it. And so that’s a, and that would be a, you know, that cosmology, which you would inherit and you would be comfortable with and grew up in, and would be a part of a long articulated tradition. Yeah, of a kind of moral universe that you could exist in and feel comfortable with. And we’ve kind of done away with that as well.
Nick Agar 15:56
That’s interesting. As I like, by the way, I do, like morally that universe. So I think that’s, that’s what we need to come back to. But it’s interesting, isn’t it? When you look at those, the spiritual views that you’re talking about, I mean, it’s easy to mock them and derive them. And you can sort of say, well, why did they come about? Well, I guess one part is that people just wanted to understand the world. And they lacked the scientific tools and evidence, that understanding of evidence that we have, but I guess another thing is that, yes, they did look at the moss and say, Yes, that is not that, that moss is different, morally, from that stone. So they’re responding to that. So you can sort of say, well, I don’t know, maybe I’m in spirits, as a theory of how the physical world operates. But maybe also, when I’m doing it, I’m I’m responding to the sense that these things matter. I mean, certain things matter. I have to tell a story about it. And of course, the stories fall out of fashion. We don’t tell those two either in the West, the secular West, I mean, you’d get mocked if you tried to tell that story and tell people to take it seriously. But I think if you look at the roots of it, you can say, Well, yes. Maybe the details of that story are wrong, but but the roots of it, I think, very ethically viable.
Michael Livermore 17:26
Yeah, they just to kind of push that further along. You know, I wonder if the Peter Singer’s position that the tree, you know, it’s just, we can’t speak in a in a sensible way about its interests. And whether it lives or dies is no different than, you know, whether a rock is eroded or not, is that a bigger mistake than the person who attributes a kind of a spiritual value or a spirit just a kind of a non physical spirit to the tree and accordingly assigns it some value? From a scientific perspective, you know, Singer’s might have more correct beliefs about that, you know, predicting the trees behavior, but from a moral perspective, which, which is a larger mistake.
Nick Agar 18:12
I’m 100% behind that. Yes, yes. I mean, in a way, whenever it’s great when sort of moral philosophers take a constructive approach to value. So the part of the Peter Singer who says, Well, look, these sentient animals can suffer. And right now we’re treating them terribly, please care. But when he uses that same tool, as he does with the tree as a way to exclude things, I think that’s often a mistake. And I suppose the provocative nature of some of the Peter Singer statements about newborns and infanticide. So I’ve written a piece on I hope this is okay, for your podcast. I mean, I think sometimes philosophers engage in what I call moral shitster, moral shits, I should say to you, if I just I don’t I don’t mean it seriously. I just want I don’t know, maybe the I don’t know you’ve got a mole on your forehead or whatever. And I want to mock you, and I offer you some fake advice. Hey, have you seen a doctor about getting that mole removed? Now I know you’re aware of that mole, but it’s sort of in a way I know it will make you uneasy. I think some of the statements that utilitarians, the exclusionary sort of sense, the one that sort of says Who cares about that tree, it’s nothing. And also the one that says, Oh, this is a sentient newborn and just if you do kill it, that’s fine. Just do it painlessly. Yeah, lethal injection will do. That’s the exclusionary, it’s not the constructive view. And I think that’s a terrible mistake. And it’s a real disservice to people who, I don’t know the kinds of people who do look and say, Well, look, I do view that tree that that tree represents my ancestors. And of course, our first reactions say well that’s nonsense your ancestors alone did so how can the only way you can say that but I’m basically going to ignore everything but there’s something they’re latching on to that tree has moral importance. And, and often that’s the case, isn’t it that I think in in ethics, if we can’t see, you know, in a way, it’s almost like we, we get too lazy. So someone says something confusing to us, like, you know that that river has always passed through that area. And it’s been it’s of great value to my people. And so like, Well, okay, I’m not going to try very hard on this, but I know you’re speaking I know, I’ll believe you about how long the the river has been there. But, but the rest of it is nonsense. Yeah, I think that sometimes that indicates kind of philosophical laziness. You’re all you sometimes all you have to do is ask a few questions. What I mean, when I say that rock is my ancestor, what, what, I know that, yeah, I know, my ancestors did really.
Michael Livermore 21:00
Right that there’s a there’s a sense in which we can talk and the conversation keeps going basically. Yeah, right. There’s, you know, it’s, it’s easy to mistake understand a misunderstanding for an error, essentially, right. The misunderstanding on your part for an error on the other person’s part. Yeah. And, and it’s lazy to do that.
Nick Agar 21:22
Yeah. Let’s have more conversation.
Michael Livermore 21:26
Yeah. Just to I don’t know if this is a defense of Singer statements, but I wonder if, to some extent, he, he makes those kinds of those particular kinds of exclusionary provocative statements as a way of kind of saying, Look, you know, yes, I think animals are valuable, but I don’t think everything’s valuable, Gosh, darn it, you know, there are some, there are limits, and I can be a badass too. It’s just that I think that we’re drawing the wrong lines. And it’s, he kind of does it in an extreme way to, and it’s, I can, I have no idea. But I could imagine a strategy along the line, a rhetorical strategy along the lines of, you know, so that I don’t, so that my position is not perceived as just, you know, too soft and without and without limits. So I’m going to draw these kind of very provocative lines as a way of showing that, you know, my view doesn’t just lead to kind of everything has, yeah, everything has value and too much softness.
Nick Agar 22:25
I mean, you can see that that’s kind of a useful accounting exercise for him. But often, I will not the things that I find persuasive about Singer are the constructive bits, where he says, Well, look, here’s what’s it like to be a factory farmed animal. Let me tell you, now, I noticed that I find I respond to that enormously. And that’s sort of Yeah, I mean, that’s that, I get that. But then when I look at the bet that says, where he’s saying, Well, I’m not I’m not crazy. I’m telling you to care about a lot of stuff you would rather not care about because you like eating meat. But I find the look, I’m not crazy. I’m gonna ban some things. But that was done much more hastily. And that’s sort of foreclosure. So one of the things I tried to do in Life’s Intrinsic Value was to say, well, I don’t know I don’t want to be crazy, either. But if we count, we if we count these things as valuable, and when we go beyond saying that the tree with the flooded roots, that’s nothing we go beyond so we say, well, it was something that’s dead now. So yes, it’s not alive. That we can actually you can it’s it’s difficult but I mean, as possibly supposed to be all easy.
Michael Livermore 23:45
So that they get philosophers get paid the big bucks.
Nick Agar 23:48
Yeah, yeah, well, we get paid the little bucks.
Michael Livermore 23:52
Some bucks, some bucks. And I’m curious what you’re as we’re, as we’re kind of talking about, you know, this intersection of folk different ways of folk theorizing about relationship to nature. One of the big movements and I’ve written a little bit about this in the last couple of years, big movements in global environmental law is around the notion of environmental rights. And specifically nature’s right, so establishing legal legal rights for nature in general or for rivers or landscapes or mountains. I have expressed some skepticism about about this particular view. But I wonder what your take is of these ideas. You know, obviously what you’ve written in the past is organism focused and then ecosystems and species alike can have value. What I take to be your argument is kind of due to the relationship of those higher level collectives to individual organisms and their life cycles and so on? So what, what then do we make of the nature’s…which are what I’m curious what your thoughts have been if you’ve followed that at all or…
Nick Agar 25:14
Here’s Mike, can I just basically present one of my not very well considered biases? I mean, I come from the part of the world philosophically, where rights talk is kind of we’ve we view that as a sort of a, well, not exclusively, but I mean, it’s, it’s not an Australasian thing as much. I mean, you know, there some philosophers that do talk about rights. So I guess, in a way, my view is, I mean, if you want loving, if you want nature to count, then the great thing about rights talk is that it does connect it with I mean, it’s easy to integrate with legal protections. Because you can say, Well, I mean, here, either a philosopher is complaining about what rights are, whether they’re just constructs, human constructs. But the good thing about too, if I really want to have laws that count, if I can formulate this in terms of rights, then that’s something I can immediately go to a legal scholar, someone like you and say, Yes, can you what would be a policy? I mean, you know, how do we respect these rights? And I like that. So in a way, so when I think about getting things in the moral accounting doc, getting them to count at all, I suppose I come from a tradition which started with the utilitarian tradition that started with, I don’t know, cannot feel if it feels it’s definitely counts. So yes, that’s just a statement about, I don’t know where I came from where I originated, philosophically. But, but yes, so I mean, in a way, the great thing about rights talk, even if some people were claimed not to understand it at all, as it connects with legal protection.
Michael Livermore 27:02
So has that prac–there’s a practical pragmatic value to rights talk, even if we don’t necessarily, even if a legal regime of nature’s rights doesn’t map on to, in a clean way morally important interests? Yeah. In as much as they are a practical way of protecting those interests or forwarding those interests? Then you know, then it’s a good thing.
Nick Agar 27:25
Yeah, well, I think it’s, it can be useful thing. I mean, it’s about like, I’m gonna guess the early, early chat about the tree spirit. I mean, in a way that I don’t really know what that I don’t know what that is. I mean, I guess I’d have to ask someone who believes that there’s a spirit in the tree, and I probably find out something there. But I bet I would still remain quite perplexed. But then, as a pragmatic thing I look at, I don’t know, you look at what sort of Maori in New Zealand do they had similar such beliefs, they tended to try to protect, they certainly protect protected trees from the disruptive sort of impulses of the market. They did those things. So it’s sort of like, Yes, I’m confused. But yeah, that’s a good thing, too. Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s sort of a pragmatic level.
Michael Livermore 28:19
Yes, it’s, uh, you know, we can think of the consequences of beliefs in addition to their, the kind of their truth content, right?
Nick Agar 28:27
Yeah, yeah. It’s sort of almost like, I don’t know, I have a sense, there are many people I disagree with. And when I bought something, like, I’m not a Christian, but when I look at many Christians, and some, certainly some of the things that they recommend, makes sense to me. And I recognize that my atheistic tradition struggles to make sense of that. And I sort of saw on you know not everything that Christians say, obviously, I view in this way, but many things. So when I say, well, that matters. And I say, Well, I don’t really understand that. I’m gonna because that’s not I don’t your holy book is not my holy book. But so this is what you’re going to do as a consequence of that. I like that.
Michael Livermore 29:10
And, of course, in a pluralistic society, you know, we make do with agreeing about ends and, and agreeing about, you know, choices that we make collectively, even if we don’t agree about the reasons for those choices, and that’s to be expected and perfectly fine. And, and maybe to be celebrated. So–
Nick Agar 29:29
Well, that’s moral debate and moral discussion, I guess, then sort of, in a way, there’s philosophers sometime had this idea that basically, if you can formulate a powerful enough oral argument, you’ll convince everyone. So I don’t believe in that. But I do think Well, well, oh, gosh, that’s your conclusion. Well, I don’t know. It’s a philosophy paper. There’s a whole lot of stuff in there that I don’t have time to read. But that that’s your conclusion. Count me in.
Michael Livermore 29:59
Yeah. It goes a long way, certainly in practical politics. Maybe just shifting gears a little bit, not not not very much, it’s just a slight shade on the on the conversation is part of what I think is fun in Life’s Intrinsic Value and a lot of your work is that there’s a interdisciplinary element to it. And in particular, a kind of ongoing conversation between the humanities and specifically your discipline of philosophy, and in particular, you know, hard sciences, physical sciences, life sciences, technological development. I assume that, you know, in your recent work, you’re very interested in information technology, digital technology, and that’s, you know, that’s a whole technical discipline as well. One, just thought that comes to mind is what what initially drew you to that intersection of, you know, what is often a difficult and fraught terrain with the intersection of humanities and, and the sciences, and what have you found productive or challenging at that at that intersection as a as a humanist and philosopher, moral philosopher?
Nick Agar 31:10
One of the things that I really love, by the way, as the conversation, so right, you’re a legal scholar, I’m having a conversation with you, and I’m enjoying it. Now, in a way, one of the things how do these conversations work, and there are ways for them not to work. So if I was to take a, I don’t know, philosophy, very sort of, you know, the kind of a philosophy paper published in an analytic philosophy journal. And that would not be a productive way to have a conversation. So I think the way the my view is that the way the academy is currently set up, is it’s hard, it’s too hard to have these conversations. So there’s kind of like, we say that we want to be interdisciplinary. But the design of the academy is tragically sort of made sort of, in a way these, this conversation is quite a rare thing. And it’s too rare. But one thing, only if you were to suddenly sort of go into some of the legal detail of your work, well, I’d be out. So I’d say, Michael, I’m not enjoying this conversation, because I just don’t know much about that. So anyway, I’ll just let it get very boring, very fair. Well, they don’t know why it would be interesting. It’s interesting insight, academic insiders. But see these comments in this conversation, there are many arguments and said that these companies, we’re having an interdisciplinary conversation right now. And from my perspective, it’s going very well. And from my perspective, I’ve learned some stuff from what you’ve said. Now. I think the I mean, I guess, if I was to remake universities, which I don’t expect to happen. And you know, things like climate change wouldn’t be something that is dealt with, in the way it is currently. So you can certainly get a philosopher to talk about climate change. And there are some, there are some great philosophers talking about climate change the you can get economists to talk about climate change. But often, sort of, in a way, given the journals, yeah, economists tend to publish in economics journals that are read mainly by economists, not exclusively, but mainly that’s the main market, philosophers published in philosophy journals, and they tend to be read by philosophers. But so there’s almost like, and the one problem is, I don’t know, if we were to say, let’s publish this conversation, the insights that we’ve gained from it and send it to a journal. Well, it’s quite a broad ranging conversation. It’s a very interdisciplinary conversation. And from the perspective of your discipline, law, it looks shallow, and from the perspective of philosophy, my discipline, it looks shallow, but for interdisciplinary conversations to happen and be successful, we have to sacrifice some depth. I mean, philosophers are famous for in depth going in depth and hearing this question this question this question but each time they add another question, it’s almost like you already saying, Oh, I think I’ve had enough of this. Yeah. In a way, this is you want to be entered summary conversations require grit, and maybe a sacrifice of depth without being complacent. I mean, this is not I don’t think this is a shallow conversation. But we’re not going to be looking at many different formulations of philosophers theories about how sentience counts morally.
Michael Livermore 34:48
Yeah, it’s this this is I think, just like the question of, of interdisciplinary work in general in some senses is the is the breath depth tradeoff and, and it’s so so at a law school, or at least a US law school, one of the interesting things is what draws scholars together as an object of study rather than a methodology generally speaking? Yeah. And so, you know, we have a faculty at UVA, we have economists and philosophers and historians, those are, you know, three disciplines that are very prevalent in law schools, and then you also have political scientists and anthropologists and, and so on some people science backgrounds, occasionally. And, and so it’s a fun interdisciplinary environment for that reason, because there is a, you know, there’s a sense where, you know, the philosophers are going to talk to the economist and economists are going to talk to the historians, and that’s just expected. But there, there’s always the tension between, you know, with respect to the to the economists, you know, what, what is the value to the economist of getting feedback from the historian it’s, there’s almost it’s like, a tension that is always constantly being negotiated here. Because there’s, there’s often something there, but there’s, but there’s sometimes there isn’t anything there. And there’s certainly domains, where the economist, visa vie the historian or, you know, or, you know, philosopher, “dietalogically” oriented philosopher talking to a more consequentialist welfarist economist, you know, you could just recapitulate debates between, you know, the pros and cons of utilitarianism, but that’s not necessarily all that productive either.
Nick Agar 36:36
No, but I think often, I just think it’s built into us as questioning reasoning beings that you I mean, I, one of the issues that I’ve been, I mean, I’ve been trying, as a philosopher to engage with some economists on the future of work. And it’s, it’s interesting, because they certainly have, I mean, ever since John Maynard Keynes, I mean, you know, why their view about the future of work or our view? So the tendency, for example, for me, as a philosopher talking about economists, as if I’m just talking to other philosophers, I get to oversimplify. So I get to say, basically, look at what John Maynard Keynes said about technological unemployment and just say, well, all economists, what do they think they just think that technological unemployment is temporary, it’s painful, you lose your job, you’re no longer you know, you’re the power low incomes, and you’re not your handler, you can’t be that, but don’t worry, your kids will be fine. So it’s always temporary. And so that’s, I guess that from a distance, that would be the view from economics. But when you talk to an economist, of course, they say, Well, no, they’re actually quite a few views within economics. And it’s sort of, that’s the bread thing too, because, you know, if I’m just if I’m just being a deep or aspiring for philosophical dip, philosopher, well, I think we’ll do philosophers will be reading me, they won’t care if I oversimplify the economics. The economists, when they talk about philosophy, they won’t care. You know, the other economists won’t care if you oversimplified the philosophers. So I think these conversations when people say that they’re impossible, there, I would cite this exchange as proof positive that they can happen, and they do happen, and they’re productive.
Michael Livermore 38:29
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think that, you know, the, there’s, there’s some cost or there’s some effort that goes into interdisciplinary work and interdisciplinary conversations, but I think there is actually something structurally about them, that at least an expectation to use an economics kind of idea leads to bigger returns. Yeah. Where, you know, you know, if you’re deep in a discipline, it’s very hard to make a lot of progress, you know, that you’re at, you’re in a you’re in a research program, and you can chip chip away at problems. That’s the idea of deep research programs, I think. But when you break out of that, and you you’re, you kind of explore an entirely new space, which which is not, which doesn’t have a research program, and a lot of progress hasn’t been made. Sometimes there’s nothing there and sometimes there are big things there.
Nick Agar 39:24
Yeah, but and often just this synergies and bringing two ideas together and saying what happens if I put this idea that I got from anthropology, weird idea that I’m going to try it out with this. Now, that’s I think that’s the kind of the interdisciplinary urge there.
Michael Livermore 39:46
I think it can have a kind of an epic big payoff so that we’ve we do see that speaking of the of the work that you’ve been doing on you know, on the on the future economy, you’re you’re most recent book, how to be human in the digital economy touches on a lot of those a lot of these themes very much, you know, thinking about what the future of work looks like in particular. And, and the role of human work. In a sense, I think a major move that I find in the book is, is reconceiving of work, or conceiving of work in a way that certainly traditionally economists have not conceived of work. Whereas if you were to say, the textbook, economic understanding of work is that it’s a disutility. It’s something that we trade, we trade our labor, we would prefer not to. But at the same time, we’re willing to do it because we get paid. And that’s just, that’s just the way it works. And I take the part of the project of the book is to think of work as as something other than just purely a disutility that we would we would happily turn over to the machines if we could and, and, and what is the place for human labor in a world where, in theory, we could turn lots over to machines, but maybe we don’t want to?
Nick Agar 41:08
Yeah, well, I think work should be fun. And I think that’s one of the gripes, sort of when you talk about wealth inequality. I mean, it’s pleasurable work and equality, isn’t it? Because we certainly have people who love their work. And they, you know, the certainly the best paid, that’s an overgeneralization tend to have the most enjoyable work. But the worst paid tend to have horrible work. So in a way, if you were to quiz I don’t want to overgeneralize here, but many Uber drivers, they might say, Oh, no, yes, this is the conditions under which I like driving people round, but the conditions of my work are not great. I would give it up if I didn’t have to. And whereas, I don’t know, if you asked Matt Damon, you know, do do you do enjoy your work? I bet he says I love it.
Michael Livermore 42:05
He doesn’t have him, he could quit, right. He absolutely could feed his family with that.
Nick Agar 42:09
Yeah, yeah. And so it’s in a way, how do we end up but it’s not only Yeah, I mean very few people can be Matt Damon. But a lot of people can get enjoyable work does involve connections with other human beings, people become depressed when they’re not with other human beings. We’re an obligatorily gregarious species. And so you know, if you’re looking at ways to torture people, well, you can waterboard them. And that will work. But you can also just lock them up. Yeah, keep them fit horrible. Yeah. And then just see, yeah, it’s very hard for an obligatorily gregarious species, a member of a regulatory obligatorily gregarious species to survive solitary and, and confinement, because that’s, you know, we thrive under those conditions. So anyway, if we were to, I don’t know, look at the cap the jobs, I mean, because I think machines do have an advantage in certain categories of work. And, yes, I mean, I guess, you know, when you have your, your ultrasound, or whatever, I mean, you should probably celebrate the fact that in the future, any anomalies will be detected by a machine, it will be better than the human. So that those jobs we should set up. Yeah. And the future. I don’t know if I really want to be driven around by a human pilot. That doesn’t seem humans get distracted. Humans know, their auto pilots, and they get lazy. So those jobs go better if we could actually compensate by saying that there are. I mean, I don’t want to make it too simplistic, but people love helping other people. And they quite like connecting with strangers. And that’s, those are the work, that’s the work that people love. If I say to you, Michael, can you help me I need some help. I bet that probably creates in you, I bet it creates an urge to help. And I think if you could help me, you might enjoy doing it. So those kinds of jobs, I think we can create a lot of those because they require us and we require them to avoid being I don’t know, depressed, isolated, sort of locked in people watching Netflix all day.
Michael Livermore 44:29
You know, it’s interesting that we talk about this in terms in terms of work. And I, you know, I think that that is it’s absolutely the case that, you know, there are certain sectors of the economy, where people enjoy their work and it’s often higher paid sectors. And one of the things that’s so my brother is a is also an academic, we didn’t come from an academic family. We just kind of ended up doing this, this kind of work and we sometimes joke we say, you know, the stuff we do 200 years ago, it just wouldn’t even be considered work. It would just be called leisure. Like, this is what you did with your free time if you had enough money is that you you know, if you were in the RISD club credit class you wrote, you thought, you know, you, you read the writings of other people. That’s what leisure actually meant. What we’re doing is not necessarily being a scientific researcher, you know, that that kind of stuff. He’s, that’s his work is, is kind of is more pure science. These are leisure activities.
Nick Agar 45:35
Yeah, no, that’s interesting, isn’t it, we make a distinction between leisure and work. But it’s sort of when you describe work that involves connecting with other people, relationships between different minds and things like that. So I mean, that is a work that I mean, I hope those category, I hope they’re expanded. And so part of what I do in the book has to say, well, I don’t know. I mean, how can we create new work? Because I think lots of work predictably, has a limited shelf. I mean, if the exponent of digital tech, I mean, I don’t know, will there be human pilots all in the future? And I don’t know, in 40 years time, or will where there’ll be signs across the door, the park would say no humans allowed. Because I mean, the machines, the machines aren’t perfect. You know, the machines will occasionally crash, they’ll malfunction. I mean, yeah, there were lots of examples. But they’ll crash less often than the human driven plane, the human flown planes, because they are improving, whereas human pilots can get a bit better. So I hope that we think creatively about how we can fill the space how we can, I don’t know stop becoming isolated. I mean, there’s there’s John Cachapo wrote a great book on loneliness. And it just talked about the tendency in our society to isolate ourselves from each other. Now, one of the things that forces people out, is having to turn up to work every day. Now, you might say, well, I don’t know. So we’re, so I hope that we create lots of jobs that are both well enough paid, so that people can say, well, look, you know, when I help strangers, these are not my friends or my family. And it’s not something I do for that reason. It’s something I do, I enjoy it, but I contribute to society.
Michael Livermore 47:42
Ethics, so so just to be the to be the skeptical economist, economically oriented perspective. And so I think there’s, there’s two kinds of thoughts that, you know, one might one might offer. So one is, well, let’s imagine this this future where the machines are doing the doing the work, you know, the work work, the the economic work, the disutility work and stuff that people really don’t want to do. You know, isn’t it enough to have a world of kind of volunteerism, where people? Yeah, you know, if there’s something that they want to do, though, they can have a community center, or they can have an art, an art gallery, everyone, you know, in this world will have enough money if we live in an egalitarian society with high productivity. And, you know, what, what do we need work for in that kind of world? And I think part of the argument might be, it’s a way of when someone’s paid for their job, it’s a way of signaling that it has social value, but maybe, you know, maybe we don’t need that maybe just the pure experience of doing it. And the fact that, you know, someone asks you to do it, and you’re expected to show up to your volunteer position, the same way you’re expected to show up to your yoga class, that gets you off your butt, that that’s kind of sufficient do we do we need to have the the exchange economy as part of this world in order to generate the types of social relationships that you’re interested in preserving?
Nick Agar 49:11
So that’s a great question. And I don’t want to sort of answer that in a way that suggests No, yes, do we definitely masked? I’m the philosopher, I’ve decided, but here’s something that I think a risk that emerges from that voluntaryist approach. Yes. Because we won’t just I mean, because it’s sad, isn’t it that when people make predictions about how much TV they’ll watch, they, they tended to say, they want people watch what much watch much more TV than they predict they will, which is not a great thing. So they do just turn on the TV because it’s easy. But one of the things that I mean, if I’m going to, I mean, it’s hard to sort of, in a way we have this, this is something sort of in a way that we I mean, I don’t know how to put it sort of more plainly, and I think it’s become apparent we we fear people who are different from us. And so in a way, I guess when you turn up to your big, sort of racially culturally mixed college and you say, Well, I’ve met lots of different kinds of people here. And there’s a sad pattern where the I don’t know the black kids find the black kids, the white kids find the white kids, the Asian kids find what the Asian kids, so they seek out people who resemble them in ways. And one of the great things about work. I mean, if I’m working at a Starbucks, yeah, I mean, maybe there’ll be people who look like me and speak with my accent will come and I’ll feel more relaxed with them. But they won’t be the only ones who I have to help. And there’s sort of data evidence that suggests that the more work is great, because it places you in a consequence, where you’re dealing with people who don’t look like you often, you might Oh, well, I don’t know about that person. I mean, I don’t they worship a strange god. So for but a bit shy about that. But when you have when you assign people a task, that they tend to, they tend to get over it. I mean, if I have to work with the person whose skin color’s different from my own, and I’ve made me feel a bit distrustful, that when we have to actually work together to do something, because it’s part of our job, that barrier evaporates. So I think that’s one of the advantages in a way, I worry about the volunteerism, the volunteers sort of replacement for work where it sort of says, Well, okay, we don’t feel who do I feel most comfortable with? Well, I don’t know, Australasian who sound like me. They’re my kind, I will help them. And but that’s okay. Because the other people who don’t look like me, well, they’ll be helped by other people. Yeah, I mean, I think in a way that sort of when we talk about the disintegration, of the sort of modern sort of technologically advanced societies work, I view as a sort of a countervailing force for that, because it forces us to work with each other, and it forces me to connect with people I might feel quite shy about.
Michael Livermore 52:19
And so just to drill down on that a little bit to it’s very interesting, because it’s very it’s kind of pro market pro pro, you know, commerce. Yeah, well, in a way, you know, sort of that’s what we have a very different. Right. Okay, that’s true. We could have another kind of institution with that organized work.
Nick Agar 52:39
Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, so in a way, it’s almost like sort of a matter of sort of, in a way working with what you’ve got. So I would love, you know, in a way. Yeah. I mean, if you look at my political moral ideas, yes, I would love a society in which everyone, you know, give to everyone according to their needs, and take them into that. That would be that’s not the fantasy world, but it’s anyway, if you’re wanting to make progress, then I don’t know. I mean, it sounds funny, isn’t it? I mean, paying people to work with people and perform, to collaborate with people who are different from them, is a mechanism that we currently have. That works.
Michael Livermore 53:23
Right, it’s just kind of pragmatic. And then the, and just to be clear that the benefit out of this, it sounds like it’s twofold. There’s the benefit of kind of social cohesion, that if we were to allow ourselves to be further bubble, as you know, we’re so in our bubbles already, well, if we didn’t have to go to work, and collaborate with others who might be different than us, then we really be in trouble that maybe society would fall apart. But also, there’s the maybe even a kind of trying to think exactly how to characterize it either maybe paternalistic, it’s good, it will be good for me and society could say it is good for for me to work or for a person to work because their own, you know, Natural Instincts might be bad for them, and they would be better off, if we could kind of shape and incentivize their behavior for their own benefit. Or maybe it’s a virtue kind of story, where we’re kind of structuring society, to inculcate a certain kind of way of being in the world. That’s, that’s, that’s better, which is to say, you know, more open minded and, and, and pluralistic.
Nick Agar 54:36
Well, I would hope I mean, I guess my fantasy for the future social digital economy where we sort of in a way the work we do is increasingly social. And that’s good for us because it involves being with other people. And I guess we’ve got this market economy with good which are not we may fantasize about getting rid of it, but it will does require me to work with people who are different from me and to collaborate with them. And that’s good, because in my experiences of having, yeah, I mean, it’s been a universal experience, when I have a conversation with someone who speaks with a different accent, or looks different or clearly worships a God that I don’t worship. Those conversations, if I’m curious and open, they tend to go very well, I come out thinking, wow, okay. Yeah. Just even if it’s just simply having a conversation with your Uber driver. Right, you pay your fear, you don’t pay for the conversation. But you come out thinking, wow, I mean, that, that that person was from Nepal, I have never been to Nepal. And I’ve learned something about what it’s like to be a Nepalese person living in Australia. And, and I don’t, it sounds naive and simplistic, but I enjoyed that. I wouldn’t have had that conversation if I didn’t get into the Uber. Excuse me, you look Nepalese, can I have a chat with you? I mean, not that that’s not the way it works. But here, I’m sitting in an Uber, and we’ve got to talk about something otherwise, I just silence it silently, as he gives me an Uber rating of two. But why don’t have a conversation? They tend to go well.
Michael Livermore 56:18
Yeah, it is interesting about this, too. It’s just that it’s this tension between people. You know that that’s right, that that’s how we enrich our lives by socially interacting with with with folks that are similar to us that are not as similar to us. And that’s a big part of what makes a good life. But yet, there’s something about human nature that, that we don’t automatically do that. No, we need social circumstances that we will sit at home watching Netflix or playing video games, rather than engage. And that I think it’s just it’s a fascinating again, the for an economist, there was just like, This is bizarre, right? Like, what if people, if it’s good for people, why don’t they just do it? Why do you have to create structures. But it’s such an interesting psychological reality of humans that we will tend to isolate, even though we are, you know, kind of, as you say, socially obligates or gregarious obligates.
Nick Agar 57:17
Yeah. Well, we sort of in a way, it’s a bit like, I don’t know, probably many of us would be healthier if we did more exercise, and we know that who does all the exercise that they should? No, so that’s a that if you could, someone says to you get out and have a walk? It’s typically good advice. And yet, if the TV’s on, I mean, that’s something that we know about ourselves. We don’t often make quick choices. And we need some some nudges, I guess, to use that overused term, in order to do what’s good for us. And I think, yeah, being with other people, people who are different for us. There’s also something that we need to be prompted to do.
Michael Livermore 58:05
Yeah, so so the other part of this, then is we should probably be paid to exercise? Well, that would probably be a good thing, actually.
Nick Agar 58:14
I don’t know, sort of, in a way, when I think about incentives. I mean, I guess one of the problems with paying people to exercise is, I guess it would kept me at that study of kids and reading. So they noticed that certain kids weren’t reading and then they Yeah, if you pay them. Yeah. And but when they the money stops, the reading stops, too. Yeah. So how do you? I mean, I don’t, yeah, I mean, obviously, I don’t have an answer to that. But I know that in general, we’d be better off if we, I don’t know, socialized with people who are different for us. And maybe if we went for more walks.
Michael Livermore 58:52
I suspect if we worked with other people, you know, that there actually is an interesting feature of the work, the relationship between work and socializing is just exactly what you said, when the money stops, the behavior stops. I mean, this is this is retirement. I mean, many people when they retire, and they aren’t required to go into a work environment anymore, their degree of social isolation just skyrockets. And this is and and this is a this is a serious issue in in many societies, especially where you know people’s kids move away and you know, that they just find themselves utterly alone in part because that structure of work is gone.
Nick Agar 59:39
That’s a great example. And there was a great a French program that I wrote a bit about. I’m going to say, I’m going to speak French here and it will be a disaster. “The sewer may poor pal”, so if anyone is French is listening, I apologize. But look, I’m looking into my appearance. And it was basically just was creating work. So it was Have a use of French postal workers. And it was really creative. So yeah, I mean, I guess people don’t send many letters anymore. And it means that French postal workers don’t have to do you know, daily rounds delivering the very few letters that are there. That’s there’s less work. And so someone had the brilliant idea of saying, well, we’ve got these postal workers, they can still deliver the mail. But what happens if we pay them to look in on ISIS, and isolated older people? And it’s everything you read about that was a thing of the New Yorker was a great pace, it just looked magical. Because people, these, these sort of French postal workers, I hope it’s still going on who were probably like, yeah, they were in their 50s, or whatever. It’s probably like, well, it’s yeah, they were about to be laid off, probably. And it was, well, there is a problem. And all I want you to do is to go around to these addresses, and have a conversation with these people who are very isolated. That’s yeah, I’m not like that’s those that there are the follow. There are so many creative solutions to this problem. That if you look, I mean, I found this piece. I thought, well, that’s That’s genius. And it’s, I think, if we think in those terms, then there’s lots of it’s almost like killing, yeah, one stone two birds kind of thing. That’s maybe maybe I don’t know, environmental ethics sort of podcast. That’s not the best analogy.
Michael Livermore 1:01:39
We need a new analogy, yeah.
Nick Agar 1:01:41
Yeah, but I mean, it’s like, the postal worker keeps their job. And the shut in older person has someone to talk to. And that’s great.
Michael Livermore 1:01:58
It’s such a different solution than what you often or one category of, you know, addressing this issue that that you do see is, you know, the kind of caring robots, that that’s the kind of the go to way of addressing social isolation, especially for older folks is, you know, we’re going to put a chicken in every pot and a robot in every living room. Yeah. And that seems less attractive.
Nick Agar 1:02:23
It’s kind of thing isn’t the sort of like, if you want to play to the strengths of machine learners and things like that, well help them fly airplanes. Now, I guess there’s so many there’s a trope in sci fi movies about I don’t know, sex bots, and befriending robots, I mean that, but it’s humans are quite good at having sex with each other. Humans are quite good at befriending each other. We’re kind of built to do that. I mean, there are horror stories. But that’s not the sort of in a way, they tend not to be the norm. So if you were to form a relationship, yes. So it’s sort of like an option of desperation, isn’t it? And it’s the sad thing is with us, the technological imperative, sex bots and social robots are cool. But that would be I mean, if we could actually, I don’t know, resist that urge to realize that world and instead say well, that’s put human beings in each other’s life. There are there are things that, gosh, surprisingly, go exactly with with our social instincts, and that we’re good at. We may not be good at detecting precancerous growths on ultrasounds. We’re not built for that. But we are, we are built for dropping in and having a conversation about what the weather’s like with a socially isolated person.
Michael Livermore 1:03:50
Yes, we’ve been that that is definitely you know, something that has been happening in our evolutionary environment for a very long time.
Nick Agar 1:03:52
We can do it.
Michael Livermore 1:03:53
Well, well, Nick, I suspect we could we could keep talking for some time, but I appreciate your generosity of taking the time to chat with me already. It’s been a it’s been a fascinating conversation.
Nick Agar 1:04:12
Thank you.
Free Range Podcast 