I’ve heard Dr. Harris talk about free will a few times, and he’s not a complete “determinist”. My understanding of him is that he views us more as “robots” that run on predetermined tracks set by our past, both personal and evolutionary. He has said that human beings can take in new information and adjust to it, and even that there is some top down control. As for Dr. Peterson, he’s said that happiness isn’t enough to make life worthwhile, because most people don’t experience enough happiness to make life meaningful when only viewed through the “happy” lense. For him, “meaning” is much deeper than whether or not you are happy at any given moment, or even if you’re “happy” with your life overall.

Thanks @Jgladhill

Maybe I'd better read Harris. On Rogan he tried to prove Rogan didn't have the free will to pick any female name. He actually demonstrated how well we do have free will - the choice to focus our minds or not or more or less.

Yes, but "meaning" what? Survival in a viable productive form? For what end? Reducing suffering? Then what about eliminating suffering? Some happiness? A lot of it? You have to have an end-in-itself at the end of the steps towards it to give them meaning!

@JohnDawson dr. Peterson has a generic answer he gives about what “meaning” is, but he also says that each person has to define their own “meaning”. His generic answer I think is best summed up the following few sentences (a rough paraphrasing here) “life is full of misery and suffering, and happiness, when it comes, is a fleeting memory in the face of the difficulties of existence. So what do you do? You pick up your damn cross and you carry it up the hill, struggling towards some higher ideal.” I’m very fond of Dr. Peterson because he doesn’t pretend that there is some secret out there, that only if you could discover it, would make you happy forever and ever amen. “Life sucks, get on with it” is, I think, a good dissemination of his views. The “end” I hear him espouse most often is to get the world around you in order, so first yourself, then your family, then your friends, etc. He believes that if you honestly and genuinely struggle up the hill, and put the world in order around you, you can do a lot of positive “good” in the world. There frankly isn’t a ton of feel good about his message, but I think it’s a major reason why he’s so popular.

Thanks for the most relevant answer to my question I've had so far @Jgladhill . But rather than resolve what I consider a hole in Peterson's thesis, it just kicks it down the road aways.

Yes Peterson gives great advice that by all accounts helps a lot of people - so its a good thing he's become so influential. And when he tells people to aim for "meaning" rather than happiness, that's fair enough if he and his audience think that happiness means some short term, trivial, feel good sensation. i.e. what I'd call hedonism (I hold a different idea of what happiness is). But it still leaves the concept of "meaning" that he says we should strive for as very vague. And that is dangerous.

"The triumph of the master race" gave meaning to a lot of people who were willing to die for it. So did "Utopia for the proletariate". So does "a world wide caliphate to bring Allah's kingdom to earth. So does "save the planet from toxic humanity" So it' important to define, sooner or later and preferably not too late, exactly what meaning means, what is the end goal that gives meaning its meaning - meaning for what?

As I said, the best I can find in Peterson's thesis is: meaning means reduced suffering (but not happiness) in the world. (he's also mentioned "God's kingdom on earth" but hasn't developed what that would look like). You develop his meaning to mean "get the world around you in order ..." and "put the world in order" and "a lot of positive “good” in the world", and that is less vague than "meaning", but still, it seems to me,vague enough to be the motivation of people whose end goal is very different to yours.

Maybe Im expecting too much of Peterson, maybe he wold say: "I'm telling you how to get to where you want to go, its up to you to decide here that is. But sooner or later people have to ask that question, and they need more than "life is suffering" as a guide."

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@JohnDawson I think that Dr. Peterson has said a few times that his focuse is on the individual, and less societal, because he views societies as being defined by the individuals within it. He definition of meaning is vague, but I think that’s so that whoever listens to him can project whatever they need to, to get to “their” meaning. I don’t think he has a solution for every problem, because frankly, some problems can’t be solved in a way that makes anyone affected happy in the slightest. There are clearly times when one person or groups definition of “positive good” could be very different from another, or even downright evil in the cases you outlined above. The rub, as you point out, is that these people don’t view themselves as evil. This is is why I agree with Dr. Peterson’s take that the individual is the locus of society. If the individuals within a society are incorruptible, or as close as they can get, the “evil” versions of “positive good” never get wide spread implementation.