What is Ethics? An Exploration of Choice and Love

What is Ethics? An Exploration of Choice and Love

Forrest Landry joins us for the first public podcast interview he has ever done. In this episode, Daniel Schmachtenberger interviews Forrest on the principles of ethics and choice. This is a critical conversation because we need to make choices in a different way than we have up to this point in history due to technology giving us ever increasing capacity for our choices to make huge impacts. We discuss:

  • What differentiates morals from ethics?
  • What is a good choice and what is a loving choice?
  • The toolkit for making choices.
  • Asking better questions.
  • Formalizing the process of ethical consideration for the world we live in with exponential tech.
  • The distinction between choice and decision.
  • Being, becoming and doing.
  • Being in right relationship with yourself, other people and the world.


The ethical gap is essentially a reference to the difference between what our technology gives us the capacity to do and what our wisdom is to know what we should do. -Forrest Landry

Guest biography: 

Forrest Landry a philosopher, founder, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, and craftsman. He has a unique set of skills in large scale systems design and worked on many software projects in the business and government sectors. His most original and insightful work is in the area of metaphysics – the study of what is, what is the nature of being, what is the nature of knowing, and by what means we make good choices. His foundational work “The Immanent Metaphysics” reflects a decades long effort to restore legitimacy to the practice of metaphysics and construct a rigorous, coherent and precise statement of Ethics.

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8 Comments

  • Cody Westerlund
    This doesn't seem to be working. Play does not progress the bar or produce any sounds. D/L Link for show is broken. Did the audio get misplaced?
  • Cody Westerlund
    Working Now! Thank You whoever fixed it!
  • alexa firmenich
    This was beautiful. Thank you both for such sincere and thought-provoking concepts on so many fronts. A few questions that came up as I was listening… Forrest, when you spoke to the concept that when people move to a new place, one of the best tactics is to 'do as the Romans do' - ie. Social imitation (of memes, behavior, etc) - you seemed to speak to it in the context of continuity, but intuitively this seems to me to be an imitative behaviour that is closer to symmetry? Perhaps I misunderstood. On the part relating to decision vs choice, it was said that "Decision often cuts off other options, presumes a fixed context and that no win-win is possible". Whilst this can often be the case, is there a 'good' way to make decisions in the same way that there are 'good' ways to make choices? I would imagine that a reluctance to take decisions can often lead us down the path towards inaction or paralysis, much in the same way as an overabundance of potential choices. "For every limitation there are two kinds of freedom / For every freedom there is two kinds of limitation" - are there are more than two kinds, ie. multiple kinds on the other spectrum, or is 'two' here for a specific reason? Thank you!
  • Jodi Geigle
    Customer Experience Manager
    Cody, thanks for letting us know! Glad it's now working!
  • kimberlyn spira
    Beyond profound, thank you.
  • Jodi Geigle
    Customer Experience Manager
    Glad you enjoyed it, Kimberlyn. Thank you for listening!
  • Mitchell Forrest
    Thank you! Will be revisiting this one a few more times until I can get a better grasp of the concepts. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and the thoughts it inspired so far in my mind. I am so grateful to be able to listen to Forrest's well rounded, deep thought and Daniel.. as always a fantastic interviewer and communicator.
  • Jodi Geigle
    Customer Experience Manager
    Thank you, Mitchell! So glad you enjoyed it.
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