https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=c2x5X29LqS0
Imagine that you’re going to do something like prepare dinner. You might think that’s a good thing. So that’s interesting. So it’s an action, but we’d also put a moral dimension on it. It’s good to feed hungry people, yourself included. Maybe you do a good job of making dinner. That’d even be better. Not only are you making dinner, but you’re making a good dinner. And so that makes making dinner an even more impressive moral feat, because you could make some wretched, cold, dismal, massive, glutinous catastrophe and serve it with contempt and hatred to the people that are around you. You could do that. And it would still be dinner, but it’d be a low quality, it’d be a low quality and all too common occurrence. But let’s say that you do it right. It’s like you’re going to put some effort into it. It’s going to be delicious. That’d be nice. It’s going to be nutritious. It’s going to be attractive. And it’s going to be served with the proper attitude. You’re happy that you have some food. That’s kind of nice. It hasn’t been all that long that everybody had food. And certainly it hasn’t been all that long that everybody had a vast variety of high quality food. And so a little gratitude would be nice. And so you got your… So even… So back to the task at hand. You’re going to make dinner. So the question is, well, what exactly do you do to make dinner? And it’s kind of an abstract idea to make dinner. Let’s go make dinner. You can say that abstractly, but when you actually go to make dinner, it’s not abstract anymore. You go into the kitchen and you open the refrigerator. That’s not abstract, right? That’s not mental. It’s physical. You’re interacting with the world. You grab the door handle on the refrigerator and you open it. You don’t really know how you do that. I know you know how to close your hand and move your arm, but you don’t know how you know how to close your hand and open the door. That’s where your mind runs out. It knows how to operate your voluntary musculature, but it doesn’t know how. So your mind grounds out in your body. And I’m going to make the case that morality does that as well. It’s part of this idea that the world is an action-oriented place. You open the fridge. You think, hey, carrots! We’re going to need some carrots. So you take the bag of carrots out of the fridge and you put them on the counter and you peel the carrots. And again, same thing. Bit of expert behavior there, you know, because you’ve peeled carrots before. And it’s a bit deterministic because you’ve learned how to do it habitually. So you peel the carrots and you take out the parts that aren’t so edible, if you have any sense. And then you take out your knife and maybe you have a nice knife with a nice wide blade at the end so you can chop up carrots. It’s kind of fun to do that if you’re good at it because you can, you know, make 100 slices in 20 or 30 seconds if you’ve practiced it. And you take your carrot and you go… And then you have all these. You don’t have to make that noise, by the way. But you can if you want. And then if you’re good at it, then all the carrots are pretty much the same thickness. And that’s kind of cool. You got a little expertise there and you got all the carrots lined up. And maybe then you put them in some foil and you add a little butter and some, I don’t know, cumin and a bit of pepper. And make them into a foil packet. This is what we do in Canada. You might do that. You guys barbecue, I’ve heard. And then you throw the things on the barbecue and you wait till their steam puffs up the foil and you think done. And if you have any sense at the same time, you know, you’re cooking the steak and it’s done at the same time and the potatoes. And it’s all done at the same time. And it’s caramelized nicely. So it’s got a bit of sweetness. And, you know, you’ve got the right amount of butter for the potatoes. You serve it and that’s good. That’s good. And it took you a long time to learn that. And there’s a hierarchy there. So the hierarchy is the lowest part of the hierarchy is the muscular movements say that you employ when you’re slicing up the carrots. There’s nothing abstract about that. And then there’s the sequencing of the carrots in the foil and the placing them on the grill and all of that. That’s that’s where the the rubber hits the road. And you think, well, hey, I made a good dinner. And then you might think, well, what’s making a good dinner a subset of? You might think, well, you know, if you’re a good friend, good parent, maybe one of the things that you could do is make a good dinner. Like, it’s not the only thing that I make a good dinner. And so I’m a good friend. It’s like, no, but maybe that’s one fifth of it or a tenth of it. It’s it’s some non-trivial proportion of it. Necessary, but not sufficient. Is that right? No, no, that’s not right. It’s not necessary. Anyways, it’s one of the things you could do to be a good friend. And then, you know, if you have a friend, maybe he makes you a good dinner now and then there’s some reciprocity there. So that’s and so you’re capable of engaging in that reciprocity. And that’s another thing that might make you a good friend. And and are a good parent, let’s say.