[Music]
good evening dr. Pearson thanks for
continuing this series even us atheists
appreciate the interaction and the the
conversation I wanted to ask you
something that is both emotional and
analytical because often times you're
basically pegged as seeing things very
analytically so you were talking earlier
about you were talking about the the the
juxtaposition between happiness and
honor even though I don't think they're
mutually exclusive personally but if
there's a situation let's say where
someone is truly in love with someone
else and they love them for many years
and decades they have a whole history
together and then someone and then one
of the people in this grouping start
falling in love with someone else so
it's not that there's less love for the
original partner how analytically and
emotionally do you take care of a
situation like that when you feel that
you want to stay honorable and be happy
okay so the first thing I would say is
the devil is always in the details right
so one of the things that I'm not happy
about with much modern moral theorizing
is that it takes a story like that you
know and then tries to extract out a
general moral principle and often that's
impossible because the particular zuv
the situation are very important but
having said that all right so let me
think about that for a minute I'm not
sure that it's possible to be honorable
in a situation like that because I think
that you've acted out the violation
already and having acted out the
violation to confess
it might be the right thing to do
although perhaps not you know because if
you it isn't obvious to me that if you
betray someone then you get to have the
right to tell them about it I know I
know you're not I understand that yeah
yeah I understand I understand
my observation has been that if there's
a tight relationship and if one party is
betrayed by the other in that manner
that it's almost always irreconcilable
it breaks it and you know I've helped
people try to struggle through that but
on both sides of it the person who was
betrayed and the person who did the
betrayal
I've seen people grow up and not do it
again and this was in situations where
their partner didn't know and in a
couple of those situations it seemed to
me that it might have even been a
necessary learning experience for the
person who did it you know it it helped
them develop and that doesn't mean I'm
justifying it but life is complicated
but but I think that society works
better all things considered when you
make a promise and you stick to it and
one of the things I learned from reading
young which which I really liked was you
know he believed that and he had his
affairs too so you might think about it
as somewhat hypocritical but but I think
that people can make mistakes without
having what they think necessarily be
wrong you know he said that there are
things in a marriage that you can't have
unless you're all-in and I believe that
I believe that and so if there's a back
door open or they like to begin with or
a back door opens then I think that
there's something about the relationship
that is lacking at least and I think you
pay a big price for that so I mean it
depends on whether you regard a marriage
as a practical arrangement or a
spiritual arrangement now really it's
both you know and both are important but
if it's a spiritual arrangement or a
psychological arrangement above all then
I do think that
you don't get the transformation without
being all in and if you violate it then
even if you can work it out with your
partner there's something that you will
never get as a consequence