Are Universal Human Values Rational?

By Leo Gura - September 3, 2024

This is a great example of the challenges of defending the position of universal human values as something “rational” and objective.

It’s ironic that in this video Carl Benjamin (the conservative) is using Post-Modernism against Boghossian, in a move very similar to Dugin. The lesson here is that the conservative mind will not hesitate to weaponize PM against its enemies in cynical fashion. So be ready for this kind of trick. Jordan Peterson does it too. He will use PM when it suits him, then denounce it in the next sentence.

Contemplate: Are universal human values really rational and objective? What does rationality even mean in this case? Is it truly rational to believe that homosexuals should be allowed to walk the streets in Afghanistan? Is that an objective good? Or is rationality here being used to smuggle in hidden subjective Euro-centric values?

Notice that any definition of universal values is going to be very difficult to defend if you’re doing serious philosophy. You can’t just assume that everyone will see the world as you do, or agree with you what the ideal world is. This is what Post-Modernism anticipates and addresses which Modernism does not.

The Modernist mind (Boghossian) struggles to understand why the notion of universal human values is problematic. That’s what paradigm-lock does. It’s hard to see that rationality itself is a bias and a subjective value. Not everyone cares to be rational and not everyone believes that rationality should be the highest value.

It is not a given that rationality is the best basis for a healthy society. This is an open question. And of course, there is the deeply problematic assumption that there is only one valid form of rationality — my rationality — when in practice there could be dozens of different ways to do and apply rationality.

Is it really rational to force others to be rational, where you define “rational” as that which conforms to your narrow notions of what ought to count as rational? This kind of rationality quickly gets very self-serving. And is it really rational to use rationality to push your biases on everyone else, under the guise of “objectivity” and “universality”?

Click Here to see ALL of Leo's juicy insights.