Morality Without Free Will: A Hedonistic Wager
The most philosophically ambitious segment of Alex O'Connor's 250K subscriber livestream is his attempt to construct a moral framework that not only survives the absence of free will but actually requires it. The argument runs roughly as follows: if determinism is true, then all human action is governed by desire; if psychological hedonism is also true, then all desire ultimately reduces to the pursuit of pleasure; therefore, every action a person takes is an attempt to maximize their own pleasure, and they are either correct or incorrect about whether their chosen action actually achieves that end.
If what you're doing because there's no free will necessitates that you think that whatever you're doing will maximize your pleasure, you're either right or wrong about that in such a way that can only be rectified if you changed your action, and this is practically indistinguishable from ethics.
O'Connor acknowledges this is close to Sam Harris's position but insists on a crucial distinction: Harris tries to leap from "pleasure is desired" to "pleasure is therefore desirable," a move O'Connor refuses to make. Instead, he stays on descriptive ground, arguing that the gap between what people believe will maximize their pleasure and what actually does so creates something "practically indistinguishable" from a normative system. This is a clever sidestep, but it raises an obvious objection. If O'Connor never crosses the is-ought gap, then he has not actually arrived at ethics at all. He has arrived at a theory of rational self-interest under determinism, which is a different animal entirely. Telling someone they are "wrong" about what maximizes their pleasure is an empirical claim, not a moral one, unless pleasure is smuggled back in as an objective good -- the very move he claims to avoid.
He also concedes ground to his previous sparring partner, Stephen Woodford of Rationality Rules, admitting that if subjectivity undermines moral realism, it equally undermines epistemology. This is a significant concession that O'Connor handles with characteristic honesty, noting that the two met privately in Oxford and "more or less agree" now after mutual adjustment.
I stand by the criticisms that I had of his views but I now accept the criticisms he had of mine, which is essentially an inconsistency in the idea that if I'm saying subjectivity is at the basis of all morality, he was pointing out that subjectivity is really at the basis of epistemology as well.
The willingness to publicly revise a position mid-stream is admirable. But the resolution he hints at -- that there is "only one axiomatic core" -- deserves more scrutiny than a livestream can provide. Reducing all of ethics to a single axiom has a long history of producing elegant systems that shatter on contact with the complexity of actual moral life.
Veganism as Minimization of Unnecessary Suffering
O'Connor's discussion of veganism is notable less for its conclusion than for the sophistication of the hypothetical he constructs. Having been persuaded by Peter Singer's arguments, he frames his ethical veganism not as an absolute prohibition on animal harm -- which he rightly notes is impossible, given that agriculture itself destroys habitats -- but as a commitment to minimizing unnecessary suffering.
If it were unhealthy to live on a vegan diet but it weren't severely unhealthy -- like people would feel a bit more tired, they'd be more fatigued or they'd have a slight headache for three days of the week -- can we still morally expect people to eat a plant-based diet if the negative effect on their health isn't severe enough to fully outweigh the suffering and death of the animals?
This is a genuinely interesting thought experiment because it forces the utilitarian calculus into uncomfortable territory. If animal suffering and human suffering are commensurable -- as O'Connor suggests they must be, since "there's no reason to think that it's worth less or more" -- then a slight reduction in human welfare could be morally obligatory if the corresponding reduction in animal suffering is large enough. The implication is demanding: it means ethical veganism is not contingent on the happy coincidence that plant-based diets are healthy, but would remain binding even if they were mildly detrimental.
A counterpoint worth raising is that O'Connor's framing assumes a straightforwardly aggregative utilitarianism. A rights-based theorist might argue that imposing health costs on humans to benefit animals crosses a different kind of moral boundary. And a virtue ethicist might ask whether the relevant question is not "how much suffering is produced" but "what kind of character does this practice cultivate." O'Connor's framework, for all its rigor, operates within a fairly narrow utilitarian lane.
The University Question: Oxford and the Myth of Institutional Learning
O'Connor's reflections on Oxford education are refreshingly deflationary. He argues that the core of an Oxford humanities education is simply reading a great deal, writing essays about what one has read, and discussing those essays with an expert. Since reading lists are publicly available -- he posts his own on his website -- anyone with access to a library could replicate the intellectual content of the degree.
You can go to your library and read and read and read and then write an essay and put it on a blog and get people online commenting and critiquing you. Like, it's so easy. You should go and do it.
This is a popular argument in autodidact circles, and it contains a real kernel of truth. But O'Connor himself undermines it moments later when he admits that the sheer volume of reading Oxford requires is something "you just wouldn't do on your own." The institutional structure provides not just knowledge but coercion -- the productive kind that forces engagement with material one might otherwise skip. The tutorial system, in which a student defends an essay before a specialist, is also difficult to replicate with blog comments from strangers on the internet. The asymmetry of expertise matters.
His more nuanced point -- that independent curiosity must precede formal education for it to be meaningful -- is harder to argue with. O'Connor credits his YouTube channel and independent philosophical reading, not his schooling, with getting him into Oxford in the first place. The institution refined what was already there; it did not create it.
Bottom Line
This livestream captures Alex O'Connor at an intellectually transitional moment: revising his metaethics, experimenting with veganism, and reflecting on whether formal education adds value beyond motivation. The most provocative idea on offer -- that determinism plus hedonism yields something "practically indistinguishable" from ethics -- is genuinely original in its framing, even if it ultimately fails to cross the is-ought divide it claims to sidestep. O'Connor's philosophical instincts are strong, his willingness to revise positions publicly is rare, and his intellectual honesty about the limits of his own arguments sets him apart from most popular philosophy content. The challenge ahead is whether these suggestive sketches can survive the rigorous formalization that Oxford is supposed to provide.