Name: 野心をどう活かすか｜グレーゾーン (How to use your ambition for good | The Gray Area)
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T17:01:58.000Z
Duration: 50 min 52 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

what do you want to look back on when you lie on your deathbed? All the powerpoints you know you hated to make or all the reports you wrote that no one ever wanted to read, all the products that you didn't believe in that you still spend a lifetime selling?

死の床に伏したとき、あなたは何を振り返りたいだろうか？嫌々作ったパワーポイントや、誰も読みたがらないレポートを書いたこと、生涯をかけて売り続けた信じていない商品のこと？

再帰代名詞

Seems pretty sad to me. We're told from a young age to achieve. Get good grades, get into a good school, get a good job, be ambitious about earning a high salary or a high status position. Some of us love this endless climb but lots of us at least once in our lives find ourselves asking what's the point of all this ambition?

私にはかなり悲しく思える。私たちは小さい頃から、達成するように言われる。良い成績を取り、良い学校に入り、良い仕事に就き、高い給料や高い地位を得ようと野心を燃やす。この果てしない上り坂が好きな人もいるが、多くの人は人生で一度は、この野心に何の意味があるのだろうかと自問自答する。

程度の副詞

The fat salary or the fancy title aren't those pretty meaningless measures of success?

太っ腹な給料や派手な肩書きは、成功の尺度としてはかなり無意味ではないか？

One proposed solution is to stop being ambitious and start being idealistic instead. You hear this from a lot of influencers. Follow your passion. Small is beautiful. The idea is that you should drop out of the capitalist rat race and do what you love. Yoga maybe or watercolor painting even if it makes very little positive impact on the world. But what if instead of trying to be less ambitious we try to be more ambitious about the things that really matter? Like helping others.

ひとつの解決策は、野心的になるのをやめて、代わりに理想主義的になることだ。多くのインフルエンサーがこう言っている。情熱に従え。スモール・イズ・ビューティフル。資本主義のラットレースから抜け出して、自分の好きなことをやるべきだという考え方だ。ヨガでもいいし、水彩画でもいい。たとえそれが世界にほとんど良い影響を与えないとしても。しかし、野心を抑えようとする代わりに、本当に重要なことに対してもっと野心を持つようにしたらどうだろう？他人を助けるとか。

In an era when there's so much chaos, injustice and frankly a feeling of widespread despair it's worth asking what would the world look like if we start measuring our success not in terms of fame or fortune but in terms of how much good we do?

多くの混乱や不公正があり、率直に言って絶望感が蔓延しているこの時代に、もし私たちが名声や富ではなく、どれだけ良いことをしたかによって成功を測り始めたら、世界はどうなるだろうか？

I'm Sigal Samuel and this is The Gray Area.

私はシガール・サミュエル、こちらはグレーゾーンだ。

Today's guest is historian and author Rutger Bregman. He's probably best known for what he yelled at policymakers at Davos a few years ago. Taxes, taxes, taxes. He's tried to get billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes and he's also argued for other policies that could make life better for everyone like a universal basic income. Now he's written a new book called

今日のゲストは歴史家で作家のルトガー・ブレグマンだ。彼は数年前、ダボス会議で政策立案者たちにこう叫んだことで有名だ。税金、税金、税金。彼は億万長者に公平な税負担を求め、またユニバーサル・ベーシック・インカムのようなすべての人の生活を向上させる政策を主張してきた。今、彼は

Now he's written a new book called Moral Ambition which urges us to stop wasting our talents on meaningless work and start trying to do more good for the world. He wants us to be both ambitious and idealistic. To devote ourselves to solving the world's biggest problems like malaria and pandemics and climate change. I invited Rutger on the show because I find his message inspiring and to be honest I also have some questions about it. I want to dedicate myself to work that feels meaningful but I'm not sure that work that helps the greatest number of people is the only way to do that. So in this conversation we'll explore all the different things that can make our lives feel meaningful and ask are some objectively better than others? Hey Rutger welcome to the show. Thanks for having me good to see you. Your book is called Moral Ambition.

彼は今、『Moral Ambition（道徳的野心）』という新しい本を書き、意味のない仕事に才能を浪費するのをやめ、世の中のためにもっと良いことをしようとし始めるよう促している。彼は私たちに野心と理想主義の両方を求めている。マラリアやパンデミック、気候変動といった世界最大の問題を解決することに専念することだ。私がルトガーを番組に招いたのは、彼のメッセージに感銘を受けたからであり、正直なところ、私にも疑問があるからだ。私は有意義だと感じられる仕事に身を捧げたいと思っているが、最も多くの人々を助ける仕事がその

Why should people be morally ambitious? My whole career I've been fascinated with the waste of talent that is going on in modern economists. There's this one study from two Dutch economists done a couple of years ago and they estimate that around 25 percent of all workers think that their own job is socially meaningless or at least doubt the value of their job. That is just insane to me.

なぜ人は道徳的野心を持たなければならないのか？私はずっと、現代の経済学者に見られる才能の浪費に魅了されてきた。オランダの2人の経済学者が数年前に行った研究によると、全労働者の約25％が自分の仕事は社会的に無意味だと考えているか、少なくとも自分の仕事の価値を疑っているという。私には正気の沙汰とは思えない。

I mean this is five times the unemployment rate and we're talking about people who have often excellent resumes you know who went to very nice universities. I'm going to Harvard tomorrow to speak to students there and well it's an interesting case in point 45 percent of Harvard graduates end up in consultancy or finance. Not saying all that is totally socially useless but I do wonder whether that is the best allocation of talent. I mean these people could go on and do great things and as you know we face some pretty big obvious problems out there. Whether it's you know the threat of the next pandemic that may be just around the corner. Terrible diseases like malaria and tuberculosis killing millions of people. The problem with democracy breaking down. I mean the list goes on and on and on and so I've always been frustrated by this enormous waste of talent. Now I'm not saying that morality should suck up everything. I'm personally a pluralist. I think that there are many things that are important in life. You know family, friends, music, art and you don't want to let morality dominate everything but I think in a rich well-rounded life it does play an important role and if we're going to have a career anyway we might as well do a lot of good with it. What about that question specifically about you know someone comes to you and says

つまり、これは失業率の5倍に相当し、しかも、非常に優秀な大学に進学した優秀な履歴書を持っている人たちの話なんだ。明日、ハーバードの学生に話を聞きに行くのですが、ハーバードの卒業生の45％がコンサルタントや金融の仕事に就いているというのは興味深いケースです。そのすべてが社会的にまったく役に立たないとは言わないが、才能の配分が最適かどうかは疑問だ。ご存知のように、私たちは大きな問題に直面しています。次のパンデミック（世界的大流行）の脅威がすぐそこまで来ている。マラリアや結核のような恐ろしい病気が何百万人もの人

I'm a third grade teacher. I'm a social worker. Am I not being morally ambitious enough? So half of the country already works in these so-called essential jobs. We discovered that during the pandemic that you know when some people go on strike we're in real trouble. So my point here is that half of the country doesn't need a lecture from me about being morally ambitious. They're already working in essential jobs. I'm indeed more interested in preaching to my own people to honestly quite a few of my friends. We used to have big ideals and dreams when we were still in university. You know we wrote these beautiful application essays about how we were going to fix tax avoidance and tax evasion. How we're going to tackle global hunger and work at the United Nations and look at us. What has happened? It's pretty sad isn't it? Now we're old and wrinkled and complacent. Yeah. Something has gone wrong I would say. So that doesn't mean that I don't think anyone can be morally ambitious. Rosa Parks was a seamstress. Lech Walesa you know the great social revolutionary in Poland. He was an electrician. So I mean history is littered with examples of people who weren't very privileged and still did a lot of good. But they don't need a lecture from me I think. I'm mainly talking to people who shouldn't just check their privilege but also use that privilege to make a massive difference. What role does personal passion play in that? You write in the book don't start out by asking what's my passion. Ask instead how can I contribute most and then choose the role that suits you best. Don't forget your talents are but a means to an end. Yeah I think follow your passion is probably the worst career advice out there. We at the School for Moral Ambition, an organization I co-founded, we deeply believe in the Gandalf-Frodo model of changing the world. So I always like to say that Frodo, you know, he didn't follow his passion. Gandalf never asked him, oh what's your passion Frodo? He said look this really needs to be done. This needs to be fixed. You got to throw the ring into the mountain.

私は3年生の教師です。私はソーシャルワーカーです。道徳的な野心が足りないのでしょうか？つまり、国民の半分はすでに、いわゆる重要な仕事に就いているのです。私たちはパンデミック（世界的大流行）の際に、一部の人々がストライキを起こすと本当に大変なことになることを知った。私がここで言いたいのは、国民の半分は道徳的野心について私から説教を受ける必要はないということだ。彼らはすでに必要不可欠な仕事に就いている。私は、正直なところ、かなりの数の友人たちに対して、自国民への説教の方に興味がある。私たちはまだ大学生の頃、大

If Frodo would have followed his passion he would have probably, you know, been a gardener, having a life, you know, full of second breakfasts, pretty comfortable in the shire and then the orcs would have turned up and murdered everyone he ever loved. So I think the point here is pretty simple.

もしフロドが自分の情熱に従っていたら、おそらく庭師になっていただろうし、セカンド・ブレックファストだらけの生活を送り、シャイアで快適に暮らしていただろう。だから、ここでのポイントはとてもシンプルだと思う。

Find yourself some wise old wizard, a Gandalf. Figure out what are some of the most pressing issues that we face as a species and ask yourself how can I make a difference.

賢い年老いた魔法使い、ガンダルフを見つけよう。私たち人類が直面している最も差し迫った問題は何なのかを考え、自分自身に問いかけてみてください。

And then you will find out that you can become very passionate about it. It's just don't start with looking at your navel and thinking oh what is it for me? Just ask smart people out there and become passionate about what they say. So you're saying do the work first, trust that the passion will come later? Absolutely, yeah. And I've got a couple of examples of that in the book.

そうすれば、それにとても情熱的になれることがわかるだろう。ただ、自分のへそを見て、自分には何が必要なんだろうと考えることから始めないことだ。頭のいい人たちに聞いて、彼らが言うことに熱中すればいいんだ。つまり、まず仕事をしなさい、情熱はあとからやってくると信じなさいということですか？その通りだ。この本にはその例がいくつかあるんだ。

One school I've got a whole chapter on is called Charity Entrepreneurship. They've since rebranded as Ambitious Impact but it's a school that I like to describe as the Hogwarts for do-gooders. So they recruit really driven entrepreneurial people who want to start a highly effective non-profit and they continuously research this question. It's called prioritization research, thinking about what are some of the most pressing issues we face.

チャリティ・アントレプレナーシップと呼ばれる学校がある。その後、アンビシャス・インパクトという名前に改名されましたが、私はこの学校を「慈善家のためのホグワーツ」と表現しています。彼らは、非常に効果的な非営利団体を立ち上げたいと考えている、本当に意欲的な起業家を採用し、この問題を継続的に研究しています。それは優先順位付けの研究と呼ばれるもので、私たちが直面している最も差し迫った問題は何かを考える。

And then they find these founders of these non-profits and they basically match the founders not only with each other so that you have a co-founder but also with these tasks, right? You basically get a mission. And one of the most successful charities they've launched is called the Lead Exposure Elimination Project. I believe you guys have also written about them. That's right. One of the co-founders is Lucia Coulter. She used to be a doctor at the

そしてNPOの創設者を見つけ、基本的に創設者同士をマッチングさせる。基本的にミッションがある。そして、彼らが立ち上げた最も成功した慈善事業のひとつが、鉛暴露撲滅プロジェクトと呼ばれるものです。君たちもそれについて書いたことがあると思う。その通りです。共同設立者の一人がルシア・クルターです。彼女は以前

NHS. Loved their work but at the same time she was like, can't I do more good, right? I'm currently working as a doctor in a very rich country, mostly treating patients who are already relatively old.

NHS。彼らの仕事は大好きだったけど、同時に彼女は、もっといいことはできないの？私は今、とても豊かな国で医師として働いていて、主にすでに比較的高齢の患者さんを診ています。

It's beautiful work but I want to do more good. And you should talk to her now. I mean she's incredibly passionate about the work she does. Okay, but so that's a good example. So it's not that she completely ditched what she was already doing and her existing passions, right? She found a way to take her passion for healthcare or for global health and sort of put it on a different scale but still using her existing core passion and skill set. That's a good point. Maybe we got to be passionate on a meta level, you know, about our higher level goals. You can be really passionate about making the world a better place, helping a lot of people, improving global health, something like that. But it's quite risky if you get too attached to a certain intervention or something like that. I think that's a very sure way of massively limiting your impact. And you see it a lot, sadly. I've been walking around in the world of philanthropy for the past two years and it just drives me nuts how many of these rich people are all the time, you know, they're gazing at their navel. And like you don't have to come up with the answer yourself. The research has already been done, right? Why do you have to be the one, you know, who needs to have this epiphany about, oh, it's the pandas in this specific region that really need our help.

美しい仕事だけど、私はもっと良いことをしたい。今すぐ彼女と話すべきだよ。彼女は自分の仕事に対して信じられないほど情熱的なんだ。なるほど、でもそれはいい例ですね。つまり、彼女は自分がすでにやっていたことや既存の情熱を完全に捨てたわけではないんですね。彼女はヘルスケアやグローバル・ヘルスに対する情熱を、別のスケールに置き換える方法を見つけたのです。それはいいことだ。私たちは、より高いレベルの目標について、メタレベルで情熱を持つようになったのかもしれない。世界をより良い場所にすること、多くの人々を助けること、グ

There are already Gandalfs and Dumbledores working on it for you, figuring it out.

すでにガンダルフやダンブルドアが、あなたのためにそれを解明している。

Exactly, exactly. And it takes a team to make a big difference. I think it can be quite liberating as well to not have to fight your passion anymore. I speak to quite a few, you know, teenagers and people in their 20s about what they should do with their career.

その通り、その通り。大きな違いを生み出すにはチームが必要だ。自分の情熱と戦う必要がなくなるというのは、とても解放的なことだと思う。私は、10代の若者や20代の人たちと、自分のキャリアをどうすべきかについて話すことが多い。

And a lot of them find a lot of relief in this message that they don't have to find their passion, that there are other people out there who have a job for them to do, right?

そして彼らの多くは、情熱を見出す必要はない、自分たちのために仕事をしてくれる人は他にもいるんだ、というこのメッセージに安堵感を覚えるんだろう？

That they can just sign up for it. Interesting. In your book, there is one Venn diagram that caught my eye. It's, you know, these three circles. The first is labeled sizable. The second is solvable. And the third is sorely overlooked. And in the middle where they all overlap, it says moral ambition. Explain that to me. What does that mean?

ただ申し込めばいいだけだと。面白いですね。あなたの本の中で、私の目を引いたベン図があります。それは3つの円です。1つ目は「sizable」。2つ目は解決可能。そして3つ目は見落とされている。そして、真ん中の重なっている部分には、道徳的野心と書かれている。それを説明してくれ。どういう意味ですか？

Yeah. So this is the triple S framework of making the world a wildly better place.

そうだね。これが、世界をより良い場所にするためのトリプルSのフレームワークなんだ。

And it's connected to this simple point that choosing the cause you work on is probably the most important question you got to answer. And so at the School for Moral Ambition, we work with this framework in selecting these causes. Take something like climate change, for example.

そしてそれは、取り組む大義を選ぶことは、おそらくあなたが答えを出さなければならない最も重要な質問だろうという、この単純な点と結びついている。道徳的野心のための学校では、このようなフレームワークを用いて大義を選んでいる。例えば、気候変動問題を考えてみよう。

Climate change is obviously a very sizable problem. It's very big, threatens a lot of people.

気候変動は明らかに非常に大きな問題だ。非常に大きく、多くの人々を脅かしている。

It's also very solvable, right? We know what we can do. We've got a huge toolbox, a lot of solutions out there that are waiting to be implemented. And then the question is, is it also sorely neglected? And the good news here is less and less so. You could ask yourself, what was the best time to be a climate activist? And the answer is not now.

解決可能なことでもあるよね？私たちは何ができるかを知っている。膨大なツールボックスがあり、多くの解決策があり、実行されるのを待っている。そして、問題は、それがひどく軽視されているかということだ。そして、良いニュースは、そうではなくなってきているということだ。気候変動活動家になるのに最も適した時期はいつか？答えは今ではない。

Exactly. That was the moment. So if you, again, want to maximize your impact, if you want to ask the morally ambitious question, then the question is, okay, what would the climate activists of the 70s have done today, right? Or what is the problem that's currently where climate change was in the 1970s? You see what I mean? That is an entrepreneurial way of looking at doing good.

その通り。その瞬間だった。だから、もしあなたが、自分の影響力を最大化したいのであれば、道徳的に野心的な質問をしたいのであれば、70年代の気候変動活動家なら今日どうしただろうか？あるいは、1970年代に気候変動が起きていた場所で、現在起きている問題は何か？おわかりだろうか？それが企業家的な善行の見方なのだ。

You are really looking for the gap in the market. You could also do that within a cause area, by the way. So if you look at climate change, then you can think, okay, what is the part of the problem that is currently most neglected?

あなたは本当に市場の隙間を探している。ちなみに、ある分野の中でそれを行うこともできる。気候変動に目を向ければ、現在最も無視されている問題は何かと考えることができる。

Okay. So looking at the neglected or sorely overlooked, looking at the solvable and looking at the sizable, I do wonder about the sizable part of that. Does moral ambition always have to be about scale?

無視され、あるいは見過ごされてきた、解決可能な問題と解決可能な問題。道徳的な野心とは、常にスケールの大きなものでなければならないのでしょうか？

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It's about making the biggest possible impact. And if you can achieve your goals during your lifetime, then you're probably not thinking big enough. Look,

ええ、そう思います。そうだね。可能な限り大きな影響を与えることだ。そして、もしあなたが生きている間に目標を達成できるのであれば、あなたは十分に大きなことを考えていないのでしょう。見て

I'm not saying that everyone has to be morally ambitious or something like that. I'm not like preaching with my finger and saying, oh, if you don't live this kind of life, you're a bad person.

みんなが道徳的に野心的でなければならないとか、そういうことを言っているのではない。指をくわえて、ああ、こういう生き方をしなければダメな人間だ、と説いているわけでもない。

I am saying, if you are ambitious anyway, why not redirect that energy to do a lot of good?

どうせ野心的なのなら、そのエネルギーを多くの良いことに振り向けたらどうかと言っているのだ。

I think it will make your life much more meaningful. If you're going to have a burnout anyway, you might as well get that burnout while you help a lot of people, right?

そうすれば、あなたの人生はもっと有意義なものになると思う。どうせ燃え尽きるなら、多くの人を助けながら燃え尽きた方がいいでしょ？

And the same is true for some people who are very idealistic, but not very ambitious.

また、理想は高いが野心はあまりないという人もいる。

Like, wouldn't it be nice to actually achieve a lot? I mean, I personally come from the political left. And yeah, there's this weird leftist obsession with being pure and irrelevant, right? Calling out a lot of people, winning the debate in the group chat, but not actually making a difference for the people you say you care so much about.

実際に多くのことを成し遂げられたらいいと思わない？つまり、私は個人的に政治的左派の出身なんだ。そして、純粋で無関係であることへの奇妙な左翼的強迫観念があるよね？多くの人々を罵倒し、グループチャットでの議論に勝利するが、実際にはあなたがとても気にかけていると言う人々のために変化をもたらすことはない。

I think that's what you call in the book, the noble loser, right?

本で言うところの高貴な敗者ってやつかな？

そうだね。そうだそうだそうだ

But I guess what I'm wondering is, do you believe that there is sort of a moral imperative to do the most good you possibly can do to have the most impact, the most scale?

しかし、私が疑問に思っているのは、最も大きな影響力、最も大きな規模を持つために、できる限りの善を行うことが道徳的な要請のようなものだとあなたは考えているのでしょうか？

Well, obviously at some point you've done enough. I talk about Thomas Clarkson, my favorite abolitionist. He was a British writer and activist. And when he was 25, he had this epiphany that slavery was probably the greatest moral atrocity of his time.

まあ、ある時点で十分なことをしたのは明らかだ。私はトーマス・クラークソンについて語る。彼はイギリスの作家であり活動家だった。彼が25歳のとき、奴隷制度はおそらく彼の時代における最大の道徳的残虐行為であるとの啓示を受けた。

And he was like, you know what? Maybe I can make a difference. Maybe I can spend my life fighting this horrible institution. And that's basically what he did. The first seven years he traveled across the United Kingdom, 35,000 miles, spreading his abolitionist propaganda everywhere. And then he had a total nervous breakdown. That's a burnout. He couldn't walk the stairs anymore. He couldn't speak. He started sweating profusely whenever he wanted to say something. And I read that in his memoirs. And I was like, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, remember your breathing exercises. You can take things too far. Now, the reason I say that only at the end of the book, because most of us first deserve a kick in the butt. So yeah, there are some do-gooders out there. I think they take morality a little bit too seriously. As I said,

そして彼はこう言ったんだ。もしかしたら、僕は何かを変えられるかもしれない。この恐ろしい施設と闘うことに人生を費やせるかもしれない。そして彼は基本的にそうした。最初の7年間、彼はイギリス全土を35,000マイルも旅して、奴隷廃止論者のプロパガンダをあちこちに広めた。その後、彼は完全に神経衰弱に陥った。燃え尽き症候群だ。階段も歩けなくなった。話すこともできなかった。何かを言おうとすると大汗をかくようになった。私は彼の回顧録でそれを読んだ。トーマス、トーマス、トーマス、呼吸法を思い出して。あなたは物事をやりすぎ

I'm personally a pluralist. I'm a father of two young children. I think they're way more important than my career. I am pretty ambitious, right? I do want to make a mark on this world. And I think there are a lot of people out there. We are all, or most of us are scared to death. And what do you want to look back on when you lie on your deathbed? All the PowerPoints you hated to make, or all the reports you wrote that no one ever wanted to read, all the products that you didn't believe in that you still spend a lifetime selling? It seems pretty sad to me. I think this is touching on something really honest, which is that I think a lot of the desire for this sort of big impact may actually come from our fear of our own mortality and this desire to leave a legacy that will outlast us so that we feel like in some sense, it actually mattered that we lived at all.

私は個人的には多元主義者だ。私は2人の幼い子供の父親だ。子供たちは私のキャリアよりもずっと大切だと思う。私はかなり野心的でしょう？この世界で足跡を残したい。世の中にはたくさんの人がいると思う。みんな、いやほとんどの人が死ぬほど怖がってる。死の床に伏したとき、あなたは何を振り返りたいですか？作るのが嫌だったパワーポイントや、誰も読みたがらないレポートを書いたこと、生涯をかけても売り続けたい信じていない商品など。私にはとても悲しく思える。つまり、このような大きな影響力を求める欲求の多くは、実は自分自身の死に対

And I remember dealing with this myself. I'm a journalist now, but before that, I was a novelist.

そして、私自身もこれに対処したことを覚えている。今はジャーナリストだが、その前は小説家だった。

And I didn't care how many people my work impacted, right? It was for me really not about scale. My feeling was, look, if my novel deeply moves just one reader and helps them feel less alone in the world, helps them feel more understood, I will be happy. So I guess my question for you as someone who has personally struggled with this issue of scale is, are you telling me I shouldn't be happy with that? The title of chapter one in your book is literally, no, you're not fine just the way you are. So I think there is absolutely a place for, as the French say, art pour l'art, right? It's just music or art for the sake of art itself. I don't want to let everything succumb to a kind of utilitarian calculus. I think it's better to help a lot of people than just a few people. And as I said, in any rich life, morality does play a big role. I wouldn't want to live in a society where everyone is like Thomas Clarkson, running around on his horseback doing morally ambitious work. But on the margins, I think in the world today, we need a lot of moral ambition. We need much more moral ambition than we currently have.

それに、自分の仕事がどれだけの人々に影響を与えたかなんて気にしていなかった。私にとってはスケールの問題ではなかった。私の感覚では、私の小説がたった一人の読者に深い感動を与え、その読者が世界の中で孤独を感じなくなり、より理解されたと感じられるようになれば、私は満足です。だから、このスケールの問題に個人的に悩んだことのあるあなたへの質問は、それで満足してはいけないということですか？あなたの本の第1章のタイトルは、文字通り、"No, you're not fine just the way you are "で

Yeah. I mean, I personally would not want to end up in a world where everyone is so focused on moral ambition and scale that no one ever writes a novel because they worry it won't impact enough people. When I was reading your book, I kept thinking of the philosopher Susan

つまり、私は個人的には、誰もが道徳的な野心やスケールを重視するあまり、十分な人々に影響を与えないのではないかと心配して、誰も小説を書かないような世界にはなりたくないのです。あなたの本を読んでいるとき、哲学者のスーザンのことをずっと考えていました。

Woolf, who has this great essay called Moral Saints. And she says, if the moral saint is devoting all his time to feeding the hungry or healing the sick or raising money for Oxfam, then necessarily he is not reading Victorian novels, playing the oboe, or improving his backhand. A life in which none of these possible aspects of character are developed may seem to be a life strangely barren. Quite an elitist idea of how to spend your life, by the way, reading a novel and improving your backhand. Or maybe just watching Netflix all day. Fair, fair. But you could swap that out with reading your favorite book or any hobby, playing soccer, whatever it might be. But basically what she's saying is, if you try to make all of your actions as morally good as possible, you kind of end up living a life that's bereft of hobbies or relationships or all the other experiences that make life meaningful. Just talk a little more about how you square that with your urge to be morally ambitious. There is some tension there, right?

ウルフは『道徳的聖人』という素晴らしいエッセイを書いている。もし道徳的な聖人が、飢えた人々に食事を与えたり、病人を癒したり、オックスファムに寄付をすることにすべての時間を捧げているとしたら、その人はヴィクトリア朝の小説を読んだり、オーボエを演奏したり、バックハンドを上達させたりしていないことになる。このような可能性のある人格的側面が何一つ育まれていない人生は、奇妙に不毛なものに思えるかもしれない。ところで、小説を読んでバックハンドを上達させるというのは、かなりエリート主義的な人生の過ごし方だ。あるいは、一

Talk a little bit about that. There is some tension, but I think that tension is mainly felt by philosophers for some reason and not really by me or, I don't know, a lot of normies. It's just, as I said, for me, it's super obvious that life is about many things, including improving your backhand. I'm not saying that people aren't allowed to play tennis anymore, but we spend, what is it, 2,000 work weeks in our career, 10,000 working days, 80,000 hours. That's a lot of time still left at the job. And as I said, 25% of people currently consider their own job socially meaningless. And a lot of our so-called best and brightest are stuck in those jobs.

それについて少し話してください。緊張感はありますが、その緊張感はなぜか哲学者が主に感じるもので、私や多くのノーマーはあまり感じないと思います。ただ、さっきも言ったように、僕にとっては、バックハンドの上達も含めて、人生とはいろいろなことを考えることだというのは、ごく当たり前のことなんだ。テニスをすることが許されなくなったとは言わないけど、私たちはキャリアの中で2,000週間、10,000日、80,000時間を費やしている。それはまだ仕事に残された多くの時間だ。そして申し上げたように、現在25％の人が自分の仕

So we are living in a world where a huge amount of people have a career that they consider socially meaningless, and then they spend the rest of their time swiping TikTok. That's the reality, right?

つまり、私たちは、大量の人々が社会的に無意味だと思われるキャリアを持ち、残りの時間をTikTokをスワイプすることに費やす世界に生きている。それが現実でしょう？

I really don't think that there's a big danger of people reading my book and moving all the way in the other direction. And that's a problem I would honestly like to have.

人々が私の本を読んで、わざわざ別の方向に進んでしまう危険性はあまりないと思う。そして、それは正直なところ、私が望む問題でもある。

So you're saying we're currently very far away from this problem of everyone going full tilt on moral ambition and ignoring everything else in life.

つまり、誰もが道徳的野心に全力投球し、人生における他のすべてを無視するというこの問題から、私たちは現在とても遠いところにいるということですね。

There's only one community I know of where this has become a problem.

これが問題になっている地域は、私が知る限り1つしかない。

It's the effective altruism community. In a way, moral ambition could be seen as effective altruism for normies.

それは効果的な利他主義のコミュニティである。ある意味、道徳的野心はノーマーのための効果的利他主義とも言える。

Okay. I definitely want to get to that, but I'm going to put a pin in that for a moment because I just want to take the flip side of what you were just saying. You're saying like, okay, I'm not really concerned, Sigal, that we're edging into this world where everyone is so focused on moral ambition. But how do you then actually know when it's enough? I think you used the phrase earlier like, at some point it's enough. And I think you write in the epilogue of the book, morality plays a big role in a rich and full life, but it's not everything. And if your inner fire burns bright, no need to stoke it hotter. But to me, that is pretty fuzzy sounding.

今あなたが言ったことの裏返しをしたいので、ちょっとピンを刺しておこうと思う。あなたが言っているのは、みんなが道徳的な野心に集中するような世の中になりつつあることを、私はあまり心配していないということだ。でも、それで十分なのかどうか、どうやって判断するんですか？あなたは先ほど、ある時点で十分だというような言葉を使ったと思います。道徳は豊かで充実した人生において大きな役割を果たしますが、それがすべてではありません。内なる炎が燃え上がっているのなら、それをさらに熱くする必要はない。しかし、私にはそれがかなりあい

How can I know what's enough and avoid pushing so far that moral ambition does take over my life?

どうすれば、何が十分なのかを知り、道徳的野心が人生を支配してしまうことを避けることができるのだろうか？

That does happen to some people. So how can I concretely know like, Sigal, you've done enough.

そういう人もいる。だから、どうすればシガール、君はもう十分やったんだ、と具体的にわかるんだ？

Chill. Well, it depends on how far you want to push yourself. Look, there are no easy answers here.

チル。まあ、どこまで自分を追い込みたいかによるね。いいか、ここに簡単な答えはないんだ。

I think that at some point when you really start to suffer from your moral ambition, that's not where I would want you to end up. I think you should be fueled for 80% by enthusiasm and for maybe 20% by feelings of guilt and shame. So a little bit of guilt and shame in the mix, that's fine. It's actually how this journey started for me. I published this previous book,

自分の道徳的な野心に苦しみ始めると、ある時点で、そこでは終わってほしくないと思う。80％は熱意で、20％は罪悪感と羞恥心で奮い立たせるべきだと思う。だから、多少の罪悪感や羞恥心が混じっても構わない。実際、この旅は私にとってはそうやって始まったんだ。私はこの前の本を出版した、

Humankind, made quite a lot of money on it, honestly, which I never would have expected.

ヒューマンカインドは、正直なところ、予想もしていなかったほどの大金を手にした。

I always thought that I would be a broke history teacher or something like that.

私はいつも、一文無しの歴史教師になるとか、そういうことを考えていた。

And yeah, that gave me a feeling of responsibility like, huh, what does this mean? I actually need to do something with it. And I also felt a little bit ashamed for spending a decade in what I'd like to describe as the awareness industry. I'd been saying a lot about all the things that need to happen in the world. A lot of people will know me for shouting Texas, Texas, Texas at Davos, right?

その結果、責任感が芽生えたんだ。私はこれで何かをしなければならない。そして、意識産業とでも表現したいような業界で10年間過ごしてきたことを少し恥ずかしく思った。私は、世界で起こるべきすべてのことについて多くを語ってきた。ダボス会議でテキサス、テキサス、テキサスと叫んでいた私を知っている人は多いだろう？

And I was a bit fed up with myself, honestly, for standing on the sidelines.

そして、傍観している自分に正直、少しうんざりしていた。

To me, what this is indicating is like, there's some element of subjectivity here, right? Like the question of what percentage of my life should be focused on moral ambition and what should be like playing the oboe or like you're deciding who to compare yourself to and how much you want to push yourself, how much you're okay with having some suffering in your life to achieve a greater goal, how much you're like, I push back a little bit. I think the question itself sort of presumes that doing a lot of good or making a lot of impact is not going to be a nice experience or something like that, that pushing harder will always involve more sacrifices.

私にとって、これが示しているのは、ここには主観的な要素があるということだ。自分の人生の何パーセントを道徳的野心に集中させ、何パーセントをオーボエを演奏するようなことに集中させるかという質問とか、誰と自分を比べるかとか、どれだけ自分を追い込みたいかとか、より大きな目標を達成するために人生に多少の苦しみがあっても平気かとか、ちょっと背中を押すとか。この質問自体が、たくさんの良いことをしたり、たくさんの影響を与えたりすることは、良い経験にはならないとか、より強く押し進めることは常に多くの犠牲を伴うとか、そういう

But if you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, they find a lot of joy in thinking big.

しかし、多くの起業家に話を聞くと、彼らは大きく考えることに喜びを見出している。

They find a lot of joy in climbing the ladder. It's what I always experienced in my career.

彼らは出世することに喜びを見出している。それは私がキャリアの中で常に経験してきたことだ。

I love becoming a member of a student society in Utrecht in the Netherlands where I grew up because I felt so dumb compared to all these older students. And I was like, this is awesome.

私が生まれ育ったオランダのユトレヒトで学生協会のメンバーになったのは、とても楽しかった。そして、これはすごいことだと思った。

I want to learn about philosophy and anthropology and history. And again, when I started my career as a journalist at the Volkskrant, which is sort of the Guardian or well, I guess the New York

哲学と人類学と歴史について学びたい。そしてまた、私がフォルクスクラント紙でジャーナリストとしてのキャリアをスタートさせたとき、それはガーディアン紙のような、あるいはニューヨーク新聞のようなものだった。

Times at the Netherlands, I just love being the youngest journalist there and learning from my older colleagues. And when I started as a writer, I had these big dreams about, I want to write a book that will speak to millions of people about the big questions of history, like why have we conquered the globe? What makes humans special? And then as I did that, I was in my early 30s,

オランダでは、最年少のジャーナリストとして先輩たちから学ぶことができた。作家としてスタートしたとき、私は大きな夢を抱いていた。なぜ私たちは地球を征服したのか？人間を特別な存在にしているものは何か？そうしているうちに、私は30代前半になっていた、

I was, yeah, a bit bored and looking for the next ladder to climb. So for me, climbing a new ladder has mostly been about excitement and enthusiasm. Let's talk about the effective altruism piece of this. Some of our listeners may have heard of it, but for those who haven't, it's a movement that's all about using reason and evidence and data to do as much good as possible.

そう、ちょっと退屈で、次に登るはしごを探していたんだ。だから私にとって、新しいハシゴを登るということは、ほとんどが興奮と熱意だった。効果的な利他主義について話しましょう。リスナーの中には聞いたことがある人もいるかもしれないが、そうでない人のために説明すると、理性と証拠とデータを駆使して、できる限り良いことをしようという運動だ。

I will say I'm not an effective altruist, but I am a journalist who has reported a lot on EA because I work for Vox's Future Perfect section, which was sort of loosely inspired by EA in its early days. So I'm curious where you stand on this. You talk about effective altruism in the book, and you do echo a lot of its core ideas, like this idea that you shouldn't just be trying to do good. You should try to do the most good possible. So is being morally ambitious different from being an effective altruist? Yeah, so I wouldn't say the most good.

私は有能な利他主義者ではないが、VoxのFuture Perfectセクションで働いているため、EAについて多くの報告をしてきたジャーナリストである。ですから、あなたがこの件についてどのようにお考えなのか興味があります。あなたは本の中で効果的な利他主義について語り、その核となるアイデアの多くに共鳴しています。可能な限り多くの善を行おうとすべきです。道徳的に野心的であることと、効果的な利他主義者であることは違うのですか？そうだね。

I was like, you should do a lot of good, which is different, right? That's not about being perfect, but just about being ambitious. So in the book, I study a lot of movements that I admire. As you know, I write extensively about the abolitionists, about the Sovrushets, about the civil rights campaigners, about extraordinary people like Rosa Parks, who was such a strategic visionary. A lot of people remember her as this quiet seamstress, but she was actually a highly experienced activist.

私は、君はたくさんの良いことをするべきだ、それは違うだろう？それは完璧であることではなく、ただ野心的であることなんだ。だからこの本では、私が尊敬する多くの運動を研究している。ご存知のように、私は奴隷制度廃止運動家、ソビエト連邦運動家、公民権運動家、戦略的な先見性を持ったローザ・パークスのような非凡な人々について幅広く書いている。多くの人は彼女を物静かな裁縫師として記憶していますが、実際には経験豊かな活動家でした。

And they really planned this whole Montgomery bus boycott. It didn't just happen. I talk about the animal rights movement. I talk about Ralph Nader and the extraordinary Nader's Raider movement in the 60s and the 70s, when Ralph Nader was able to recruit a lot of really talented young

そして、モンゴメリー・バスのボイコットを計画した。ただ起こったことではないのです。私は動物愛護運動について話しています。ラルフ・ネーダーと、60年代から70年代にかけての驚異的なネーダーズ・レイダー運動について話す。

Ivy League graduates and convince them to not work for boring law firms, but instead go to

アイビーリーグの卒業生に、退屈な法律事務所に勤めるのではなく、次のようなところに行くよう説得するのだ。

Washington and influence legislation. There's one historian who estimates that they've influenced, what is it, 25 pieces of federal legislation. So anyway, the book is a whole collection of studies of movements that I admire. And indeed, effective altruism is also one of those movements that I admire quite a bit. I think there's a lot we can learn from them.

ワシントンで立法に影響を与えた。ある歴史家は、彼らが連邦法の25本に影響を与えたと推定している。いずれにせよ、この本は私が尊敬する運動についての研究を集めたものです。そして実際、効果的な利他主義もまた、私が賞賛する運動のひとつである。彼らから学べることはたくさんあると思います。

And there are also quite a few things that I don't really like about them.

それに、彼らについてあまり好きではない点もかなりある。

So the main thing I think, indeed, what I really like about them is their moral seriousness. As I said, I come from the political left. And if there's one thing that's often quite annoying about lefties is that they preach a lot, but they do little. For example, this simple thing about donating to charity, I think it's pretty easy to make the case that that is one of the most effective things you can do. But then very few of my progressive leftist friends donate anything. So I really like that moral seriousness of EAs. You go to conferences, and you will meet quite a few people who have donated kidneys to random strangers, which is pretty impressive. I'm sorry to say that I still have both of my kidneys.

私が思うに、彼らの本当に好きなところは、道徳的な真剣さだ。申し上げたように、私は政治的には左派の出身です。左翼についてしばしば腹立たしいことがあるとすれば、彼らは多くのことを説教するが、ほとんど何もしないということだ。例えば、チャリティーに寄付するという単純なことだが、それが最も効果的なことの一つであることを主張するのは簡単だと思う。しかし、私の進歩的な左派の友人で寄付をする人はほとんどいません。だから、私はEAの道徳的な真剣さがとても好きなんだ。学会に行けば、見ず知らずの人に腎臓を提供した人に何人も会え

To them. But yeah, I admire the people who really practice what they preach.

彼らにとってはね。でも、そうだね、私は、説いたことを本当に実践している人たちを賞賛するよ。

I guess the main thing I dislike is probably what we already talked about, like where does the motivation come from? One of the founding fathers of effective altruism was the philosopher Peter Singer, obviously, also one of the founding fathers of the modern animal rights movement. And everyone knows him for that thought experiment of the child drowning in the shallow pond. I'm pretty sure that he must be really fed up with talking about that thought experiment, because I am already fed up talking about it, and it's not even my thought experiment.

私が一番嫌いなのは、すでに話したように、動機がどこから来るのかということです。効果的な利他主義の創始者の一人は哲学者のピーター・シンガーであり、現代の動物愛護運動の創始者の一人でもある。ピーター・シンガーといえば、浅い池で溺れる子供の思考実験が有名だ。彼はその思考実験について話すのにうんざりしているに違いない。

Right. So that's the thought experiment where Peter Singer says, look, if you are walking to work and you see a little kid drowning in a shallow pond, you know you could save this kid. Your life will be in no danger. It's shallow, but you will ruin your expensive suit or you will muddy your shoes should you do it. And it's supposed to be like, yes, obviously you should do it. And well, by analogy, we have money. It could easily save the lives of people in developing countries. So you should donate it.

そうですね。つまり、ピーター・シンガーが言う思考実験とは、もしあなたが通勤中に、浅い池で溺れている小さな子供を見たとする。あなたの命に危険はない。浅瀬ではあるが、それをすれば高価なスーツが台無しになるし、靴も泥だらけになる。そうだ、当然やるべきだ。そしてまあ、例えるなら、私たちにはお金がある。発展途上国の人々の命を救うことも簡単にできる。だから寄付するべきだ。

Yeah. Thank you so much for helping me out with that one. Anyway, I never really liked the thought experiment because it always felt like a form of moral blackmail to me.

そうだね。本当にありがとう。とにかく、私はこの思考実験があまり好きではなかったんだ。

And now I'm suddenly supposed to see drowning children everywhere and like, oh, this microphone, it was too expensive. Could have donated that to, I don't know, charity in Malawi or, you know, I just had a sandwich and, you know, the peanut butter on it was also too expensive. It's like a totally inhuman way of, I don't know, looking at life. It just doesn't resonate with me at all. But there are quite a few of people who, um, yeah, um, instantly thought, yes, that that is true. And they discovered, hey, wait a minute, I'm not alone. Uh, let's build a movement together. Um, and I really like that. Um, for me, the historical comparison, um, is, is, uh, the Quakers, um, the early abolitionists who were very weird as well. It was like this small Protestant sect of people who deeply believed in equality. They were some of the first who allowed women to also preach in their meeting houses. They, um, would never bow to anyone, even if it was the, uh, if it was the king of England, they would never, um, take an oath because they were like, yeah, we, we always speak the truth. So why would we take an oath? Anyway, they were seen as very weird. Um, and, um, quite amazing as well. Right. The abolitionism sort of started as a, as a Quaker startup. So that's also how I see EA as very weird, but pretty impressive. And, and, and, um, I think a lot of people in there have done a lot of good work, even though I'd never, you know, joined the church.

溺れている子供たちがあちこちにいて、ああ、このマイクは高すぎた。マラウイのチャリティーに寄付できたかもしれないし、今サンドイッチを食べたけど、ピーナッツバターも高すぎた。まったく人間離れした人生観だよ。私にはまったく響かない。でも、即座に、そうだ、その通りだ、と思った人がかなりいる。そして彼らは、ちょっと待てよ、僕は一人じゃないんだ、と気づいた。一緒にムーブメントを作ろう。私はそれがとても好きです。私にとっての歴史的な比較は、クエーカー教徒、初期の奴隷廃止運動家たちですが、彼らも非常に奇妙な存在でした。プ

It's not for me. And there, yeah, there are some, some obvious downsides to, to the ideology as well. Let's pick up on that weirdness bit, right? So in your book, you, you straight up tell readers join a cult or start your own. Regardless, you can't be afraid to come across as weird. If you want to make a difference. Every milestone of civilization was first seen as the crazy idea of some subculture. I'm curious how you think about the downsides of being in a cult. Yeah.

私には合わない。それに、イデオロギーには明らかにマイナス面もある。その奇妙さについて少し話を進めよう。あなたの本の中で、あなたは読者にカルトに入信するか、自分でカルトを立ち上げろとストレートに言っている。ともかく、変人だと思われることを恐れてはいけない。変化を起こしたいのなら。文明のあらゆるマイルストーンは、最初はサブカルチャーのクレイジーなアイデアと見られていた。カルトに属することのマイナス面をどう考えているのか興味がある。そうだね。

Cults don't have a great reputation. No. Um, so I got to give some credit to Peter Thiel here. Um, maybe not, um, someone that people naturally associated with me, um, uh, is a venture capitalist very much on the right wing side of the political spectrum. Um, he's written this fantastic book, uh, called zero to one about how to build a successful startup. And, um, indeed, one of his advices is to start a cult. Um, a cult is a group, a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens who want to change the world. Um, and they have, uh, some shared beliefs that make them very weird, uh, for the rest of society. Now, as I said, I spent the first decade of my career as a journalist and, um, most journalists think that they should break out of their bubble, uh, that they should, you know, meet people on the other side of the political spectrum.

カルトはあまり評判がよくない。ピーター・ティールには少し敬意を表したい。ピーター・ティールは、ベンチャーキャピタリストで、政治的には右翼的な側面が強い。彼はゼロ・トゥ・ワンという素晴らしい本を書いていて、スタートアップを成功させる方法について書いている。そして、彼のアドバイスの一つは、カルトを始めることだ。カルトとは、世界を変えたいと思っている、思慮深く、献身的な市民の小さなグループのことだ。そして彼らには、社会の他の人々にとって非常に奇妙な、いくつかの共有された信念がある。今申し上げたように、私はキャリ

This is the debate that I used to have with my colleagues. They would say, yeah, we got to make sure that the plumbers read our essays as well. And my response was always like,

これは私が同僚たちとよく議論したことだ。彼らは、そうだ、配管工にも私たちのエッセイを読んでもらわなければならない、と言うだろう。そして私の答えはいつもこうだった、

I, you know, I would love for plumbers to read my essays, but currently my friends aren't reading them. So maybe, maybe we can start there. Right. Um, and this is, um, um, why I think it sometimes makes sense to actually double down on a cult because, um, in a cult you can be radicalized and sometimes that's exactly what's necessary. Um, to give you one simple example, you know, in a world that doesn't really seem to care about animals all that much, it's easy to become disillusioned. But then when, once you don't join a safe space of ambitious do-gooders, you can suddenly get this feeling like, Hey, I'm not the only one, right? There are other people who deeply care about animals as well. And you know what? Uh, I can do much more than I'm currently doing. So it can have a radicalizing effect. Now I totally acknowledge that there are all signs of dangers here. Um, like, uh, you can become too dogmatic. You can be, you know, quite hostile to people who don't share all your beliefs. So I do see all of that. I just want to recognize that if you look at some of these great movements of history, the abolitionists, the suffragettes, yeah, they have cultish aspects. They were, they were in a way.

僕は、配管工の人たちに僕のエッセイを読んでもらいたいんだけど、今のところ友達は読んでくれないんだ。だから多分、そこから始められると思う。そうですね。カルトでは過激化することができるし、それこそが必要なこともある。簡単な例を挙げれば、動物に関心がないような世界では、幻滅するのは簡単だ。でも、ひとたび野心的な善意の人たちが集まる安全な場所に入らなくなると、突然、こう感じるようになるんだ。動物のことを深く考えている人は他にもいる。そしてこう思う。私にも今よりもっとできることがある。だから、先鋭化させる効果がある

Yeah. A little bit like a cult. I want to push a little bit on this question about, you know, cults and dogmatism, but obviously a big downside, as you mentioned, is that you can become dogmatic. You can become kind of deft to criticism from the outside. Do you have any advice for people on how to avoid the downside? Yeah. Don't let it suck up your whole life.

そうだね。カルトに少し似ている。カルトと教条主義について、この質問を少し押し進めたいのですが、あなたがおっしゃったように、明らかに大きなマイナス面は、教条主義になりかねないということです。外部からの批判に弱くなってしまうのです。マイナス面を避けるためのアドバイスはありますか？そうだね。自分の人生すべてをそれに吸い取られないように。

There's this quote from Flaubert, the novelist who once said something like, if you want to be violent and original in your work, you need to be boring in your private life.

フローベールという小説家の言葉だが、彼はかつて、作品において暴力的で独創的でありたければ、私生活では退屈である必要がある、というようなことを言っている。

I'm paraphrasing here. But I've always liked that quote. I don't know. It gives you a certain groundedness and stability. So maybe surround yourself with other types of people and other types of pursuits, right? Basically be a pluralist. I don't know. I don't know. Honestly,

これは言い換えだ。でも、私はいつもこの言葉が好きなんだ。どうだろう。地に足がついた安定感を与えてくれる。だから、他のタイプの人たちや他のタイプの追求に囲まれてみてはどうだろう？基本的に多元主義者であること。どうだろうね。分からないよ。正直なところ、

I don't have like the perfect recipe here. In general, it's super important to surround yourself with people who are critical of your work, you know, who don't take you too seriously, who can also laugh at you, you know, who have a good sense of humor or, you know, who can just see your foolishness and call it out and still be a good friend. But this is like general life advice for everyone. Right, right. Having a strong dose of pluralism can help counteract a lot of the potential pitfalls with these sorts of ideological movements.

完璧なレシピはないんだ。一般的には、自分の仕事に批判的な人たち、つまり、自分のことをあまり深刻に受け止めず、自分を笑い飛ばせる人たち、ユーモアのセンスのある人たち、あるいは、自分の愚かさを見て、それを呼び捨てにできる人たち、それでもなお良い友人でいられる人たちに囲まれることが超重要だ。でも、これは一般的な人生相談のようなもので、誰にでも言えることなんだ。そうだね。多元主義を強く持つことは、この種のイデオロギー運動で起こりうる多くの落とし穴を打ち消すのに役立つ。

Yeah, absolutely. At the same time, you know, I come from such a different place, you know.

そうだね。それと同時に、僕は違う場所から来たんだ。

I was mainly frustrated with all these people on the left side of the political spectrum saying, oh, we need systemic change. We need to abolish capitalism, overthrow the patriarchy, and write, you know, a hundred more monographs about it in utterly inaccessible academic jargon. And I was like, come on, can we actually do something, right? Can we actually find some effective way of actually making a difference? Well, I think one important question is the question of who should we be trying to make a difference for? There is a very interesting concept that you mention in the book, which is humanity's expanding moral circle. What is that?

私は主に、政治的スペクトラムの左側にいる人たちが、ああ、私たちにはシステム的な変革が必要だ、と言うことに苛立ちを感じていた。資本主義を廃止し、家父長制を打倒し、それについて、まったくとっつきにくい学術的な専門用語で、さらに100冊の単行本を書く必要がある。そして私は、さあ、私たちは実際に何かをすることができるのだろうか？実際に変化をもたらす効果的な方法を見つけることができるのだろうか？さて、ひとつの重要な疑問は、誰のために変化をもたらそうとするのかということだと思う。あなたが本の中で触れている非常に興味深

It's, again, a term from Peter Singer, the philosopher, who makes the simple case that throughout history, our moral circle has expanded. So back in the old days, we mainly cared about our own tribe and members of our tribe. And then, you know, we got the big religions and we started caring about people who believe the same things. And then we got the nation states and so on and so on. And he basically says that moral progress is all about expanding the moral circle and to keep pushing that expansion. A couple of years ago, I was actually working on a different book. I wanted to write the history of moral circle expansion. That's what I wanted to do, because it's really interesting that a lot of the first abolitionists, they already cared deeply about animal rights, which makes a lot of sense. Because once you start expanding your moral circle, once you start opening your heart to people who first weren't included in your moral circle, then the question is like, why stop at some point? And I was writing about that, learning about that. And I was like, huh, maybe I should finish this book when I'm 60 or 70 or something. Maybe I should be doing this stuff, you know, not just be writing about it. So that for me, that was incredibly inspirational. That's funny. Okay, if the moral circle is like, okay, who's worthy of our moral consideration? Who's not? Who's in? Who's out? You kind of acknowledge in the book, like, maybe it's not obvious how to tell, are we including everyone in the moral circle that should be included? And you have a few pointers that you offer people on how to check that they're including everyone that should be included. Do you want to give us like a little summary, a few pointers? I think that there are some classic signs that can tell us whether we're on the right side of history. This is one of those fascinating questions that we can ask, right? We can look back on, say, the Romans who threw naked women before the lions, but still thought they were super civilized because unlike the barbarians, they didn't sacrifice kids to the gods, right?

これは哲学者のピーター・シンガーが提唱した言葉で、歴史を通じて私たちのモラルの輪は広がってきたというシンプルな主張だ。昔は、私たちは主に自分の部族やその仲間を気にかけていた。その後、大きな宗教ができ、同じことを信じる人々を気にかけるようになった。そして国民国家ができ、その繰り返しだ。彼は基本的に、道徳的な進歩とは道徳的な輪を広げることであり、その輪を広げ続けることだと言う。数年前、私は実は別の本を執筆していた。モラルの輪の拡大の歴史を書きたかった。というのも、最初の奴隷廃止論者の多くが、すでに動物愛護に深

And every civilization throughout history has always thought we are the most civilized. And obviously we think that today as well, like any modern day liberal in the US or the West in the 21st century will be like, yeah, there's still bad stuff happening, but basically like we've figured things out. And the uncomfortable truth is that probably we are still committed, engaged in some really terrible moral atrocities. I mean, that's highly likely if you just look at the historical track record. So the question is, what will the historians of the future say about us? And then

歴史上のあらゆる文明は、常に自分たちが最も文明的だと考えてきた。21世紀のアメリカや西洋のリベラルな現代人は、ああ、まだ悪いことは起きているが、基本的に我々は物事を理解したようなものだ、と言うだろう。そして、不快な真実は、おそらく私たちはまだ、本当にひどい道徳的残虐行為に手を染めているということだ。歴史的な記録を見れば、その可能性は高い。だから問題は、未来の歴史家が私たちをどう評価するかということだ。そして

I'm not just talking about, oh yeah, the bad Maga people or something like that. No, no, no. I'm talking to you directly who's listening to this podcast right now and probably thinks of his or himself as a pretty decent person. Then the question is, okay, what is that? A couple of signs. Well, one is we've been talking about it for a long time. So the alarm bells have been ringing for a long time. That's one clear sign. In the book, I give the example of the way we treat animals. And it's not as if these arguments are new or anything. A lot of smart people have said this for a long time. Jeremy Bentham already in the late 18th century wrote that it's not about whether these animals can speak or reason or do mathematics. No, it's about the simple question, can they suffer? And we've got an enormous mountain of evidence that tells us, yeah, they can probably suffer really badly. So yeah, if you eat meat and dairy today, then it's quite likely that you're involved in one of those moral atrocities. I've got a few other signs that I talk about. For example, we rationalize these kinds of things by saying that they're natural or normal or necessary. This is what Melanie Joy, the psychologist, calls the three Ns. And you look at something like slavery, and that's also what we did back then, right? We said it was natural.

マガが悪いとか、そういう話じゃないんだ。いや、違う。今このポッドキャストを聴いていて、おそらく自分のことをかなりまともな人間だと思っているあなたに直接話しているんだ。じゃあ、問題は、オーケー、それは何ですか？いくつか兆候がある。ひとつは、私たちがずっとこのことについて話してきたということ。つまり、警鐘は長い間鳴り続けている。これは1つの明確な兆候だ。この本の中で、私は動物の扱い方を例に挙げている。このような議論が新しいとかそういうわけではない。多くの賢い人たちが長い間、このようなことを言ってきた。ジェレミ

Like throughout history, every civilization has always practiced the institution of slavery.

歴史を通じてそうであったように、どの文明も常に奴隷制度を実践してきた。

Like it's just what people do, right? What are you going to do about it? Or necessary, people would say. Yeah, it was just essential for the economy. If we would abolish slavery today, the economy will collapse, and there will be all kinds of perverse consequences.

人がすることでしょ？どうするつもり？あるいは必要なことだ、と人々は言うだろう。そう、奴隷制度は経済にとって必要不可欠だったんだ。今奴隷制を廃止すれば、経済は崩壊し、あらゆる逆効果が生じるだろう。

So anyway, it's interesting to look at those signs and then think, okay, what are some of the worst things that may be happening today? There's sort of a pet peeve I have about the way people sometimes talk about the expanding moral circle. People, I find, typically talk about it as if moral progress or the expansion of the moral circle is some sort of linear process.

とにかく、このような兆候を見て、今日起きている最悪の事態は何だろうかと考えるのは面白い。モラルの輪の拡大について人々が語るとき、私はある種の嫌悪感を抱くことがある。あたかもモラルの進歩やモラルの輪の拡大がある種の直線的なプロセスであるかのように語るのだ。

Mm-hmm. I think that's a really good point you're making. So historians call this the Whig view of history, named after the Whigs, the political party in the UK a few centuries ago, which indeed had this Western triumphalism baked into it. Like we know what's right for the world, and we will show the rest of the world how to be good, how to be moral.

そうだね。それは本当にいい指摘だと思います。歴史学者たちはこれをホイッグ史観と呼んでいて、数世紀前のイギリスの政党であるホイッグにちなんで名づけられた。我々は世界にとって何が正しいかを知っており、世界の他の国々に善良であること、道徳的であることを示すのだ、というような。