UCWG 019: Are You Accountable for Your Subjective Preferences?

Today’s guest, Rolf from Germany, is a strategic consultant for expensive professional problems. Ironically, he does not trust his own subjective evaluation on some of life’s most important topics, such as the worth of specific human lives. He states that he would rather flip a coin on certain life and death situations that be the one to make important decisions and live with the consequences. Yet, in other more menial areas he has no qualm about choosing and standing by his decisions.

In the political domain people frequently use words like “human rights” to defer responsibility away from their opinions and acting as though their preference were a natural law. Thus, nearly everyone is constantly at odds with everyone else about their idea of the natural order of things, and conflicts go forever unresolved. If instead they could own their statements as merely their own preferences, a common solution would become more obvious and available to everyone seeking something different.

Accuracy is not always the same thing as utility. A high-functioning person must willingly adopt accuracy as his goal if truth is to become his useful ally. They must look beyond momentary and emotionally gratifying base level actions like lust and gluttony. Rolf uses the philosophy of the free masons as his principal philosophical toolkit for determining truth and his own values. The root of order lies in changing the map or toolkit that people use to conceptualize reality.

The fact that you think a thing important does not make it objectively so. It is often not practical to seek accuracy and truth in all things. You can always choose not to choose. Your preference can be to exert no preference.

Do you hold honesty and accuracy as their highest value?

Are you willing to stand by the consequences of your preferences and principles?