Prior Knowledge

freedom as non-domination

2006-03-10T07:16:00.000+13:00

i agree that non-domination is a useful third conception of freedom that is distinct from negative and positive. and i agree that it is a worthwhile ideal. some comments:

first, Berlin never intended his negative-positive distinction to be exhaustive of notions of freedom so he too could accept non-domination.

the claim that non-domination is necessary for freedom is plausible. but Pettit also claims that it is sufficient. i disagree. consider a government that restricts people's options to a great degree, but the decisions to do so are not the result of arbitrary will. maybe there are many checks and balances, procedures to go through, democratic voting, etc. but it still restricts freedom in the negative sense. are people living under such a government really free? surely not.

i posed this question to someone the other say and they said that subsequent to the book, pettit now accepts this point and that non-domination is not an alternative but a complement to negative freedom. he says so in some article, not sure of the reference.

finally, are non-dom and negative freedom so different? it seems possible to derive a concern for non-dom from a concern for negative freedom. that is, in a situation of domination its always possible that the dominator will restrict negative freedom. maybe out concerns in the non-interfering dominator case are not that there is an intrinsic unfreedom there but an instrumental worry: non-interfering dominators usually start to interfere.

Pettit's 'Freedom as Non-Domination'

2006-01-10T15:51:00.000+13:00

Philip Pettit (see his book 'Republicanism') promotes a notion of republican freedom to contrast with the liberal one. The liberal notion of freedom is that of non-interference. Often, the literature distinguishes freedom as non-interference, sometimes called negative liberty, from positive liberty. Positive liberty is freedom in the sense of self-mastery. However, freedom as non-domination is distinct from both negative and positive liberty. Unlike those in the liberal tradition, Pettit makes domination, rather than interference, the antonym of freedom.

Someone has dominating power over another if
(1) they have the capacity to interfere
(2) on an arbitrary basis
(3) in certain choices that the other is in a position to make.

An act of interference is arbitrary if it is subject only to the judgment of the interfering agent. In such a case, the decision to interfere is made without reference to the interests of those who are interfered with. So, an interfering act is arbitrary because the procedure whereby the decision to interfere was taken was not subject to controls that forced the act of interference to track the interests of the person affected.

Further, we are concerned only with the relevant interests of the person affected rather than with all of her interests. For example, I may have an interest in the state punishing convicted offenders. However, once convicted of an offence, I may also have an interest in the state making an exception just this once by failing to punish me. In this case, the relevant interest is the one I share in common with others rather than the one that treats me as an exception. If the state punishes me, this act of interference is not conducted on an arbitrary basis and does not represent domination.

Consent to interference is not a sufficient check against arbitrariness and domination. A slave, for instance, is dominated by the owner even if the former voluntarily contracts into slavery. Entering into a voluntary contract is consistent with its consequences being objectionable on grounds of asymmetries of power.

Domination can occur without interference. A dominating agent – the power-bearer dominates the power-victim simply by having the capacity to interfere arbitrarily. Interference can occur without domination. A public official may interfere in a way that is forced to track the interests of citizens. Since such interference is not arbitrary, it does not translate into domination over the citizens.

Pettit wants to maximise non-domination through a constitutionally bound authority that ensures that citizens do not dominate one another while itself being bound by constitutional means to not dominate citizens.

proposals for media reform

2005-12-28T19:34:00.001+13:00

The following is an overview of the concluding chapter of Robert McChesney's "Rich Media, Poor Democracy". It lists (often in heavy paraphrase) his suggestions for media reform.

Robert McChesney's main concern is democratic control over the main institutions of the country. He takes democracy to require something like equal influence over political affairs by the citizenry. This, in turn, requires that the citizenry has access to a wide range of well-formed political positions on core issues and to a rigorous accounting of the activities of political and economic powers. He contends that the current media system in the US fails these functions. Systematic reasons why it fails can be found in my previous post - "Mass Media". The proposed media reforms have the aim of giving people easy access to a wider range of political positions and to a rigorous accounting of the activities of political and economic powers.

McChesney takes the main problems to be the ownership structure of the mass media, their profit motivation and their reliance on advertising and suggests the following changes to the media system of the US. He suggests the following ways

(1) build non-profit and non-commercial media with the help of funding from labor unions and progressive foundations. The government can help by, say, providing tax write-offs for donations to non-profit news media and by offering low cost mailing for small non-profit and non-advertising media (a service already extended to the profit oriented media).

(2) the government must establish non-commercial and non-profit public radio and TV. These should be established at various strata - national networks, local stations, public access TV, independent community radio, low power radio and TV for every community. Unlike the major current forms of public broadcasting in the US, these must not generate revenue through advertising or through grants from corporations or individuals. The funding for such public broadcsating is to be through taxation. Some problems to address include the worry that this system might degenerate into a bureaucracy unaccountable to popular desires or that it may become subordinate to censorship by a political authority. McChesney suggests that a system operating at varous levels (national, local, community access) will be more open to public desires and will also set up enough competing voices so as to mitigate fears of political censorship.

(3) Increase regulation. The FCC (federal communications commission) is set up to allow dialog between the public and those with broadcasting licenses. However, the desires of advertisers and the media corporations are rarely challenged (this would partly be due to lobbying by the media industry, which is not balanced by wealthy, well-organised and powerful lobbying for the cause of public interests). Currently, US broadcasters can buy their way out of their public service requirements. To get past the issue of government officials being swayed by media lobbies, McChesney suggests that perhaps licenses should only be for 18-20 hours per day leaving the rest of the time for public service. This public service time should be directed towards children's programs and news and control over the relevant programming should be in the hands of artists, educators and journalists. The funding would come from taxing the broadcasters and advertisers. McChesney also suggests some free time for political candidates, perhaps in combination with a ban on political advertisements.

(4) anti-trust activity, ie, the breaking up of monopolies and oligopolies and ensuring that there is a relatively low percentage of market share beyond which no corporation can step. The primary goal of anti-trust work should not be understood in terms of consumer welfare (defined in terms of product price and quality), but in terms of the role that the concentration of wealth plays in undermining democratic government.

mass media

2005-12-28T19:34:00.000+13:00

The following is an overview of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's propaganda model (from their book "Manufacturing Consent"). All of this is paraphrased (sometimes very closely) from the 'A propaganda model' chapter. Herman and Chomsky set out five 'filters' that affect news choices and serve to narrow the range of news in the media and the style in which it is covered:

(1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms. To publish even a small newspaper these days requires a considerable amount of money (the authors write that the cost of machinery alone runs into several hundred thousand US dollars). Twenty four media giants make up the 'top tier' of media companies in the US. They account for about half of the output of newspapers and most of the sales and audiences in magazines, broadcasting, books, and movies. Given the high cost of maintaining reporters in the field and of gathering news, second and lower tier media cut costs by following the agenda set by the top-tier media and by government and wire services for much of their national and international news. The top tier mews media is, in this sense, 'agenda-setting'.

The top tier media are all large profit making companies and are owned by very wealthy people. Shareholders, money-lending banks and investors all demand a tight focus on profit maximisation as the main goal of these companies.

Many of the main media companies have diversified beyond media. For example, NBC is owned by GE (General Electric). These parent companies or non-media branches of a mainly media company often have a vast stake in political decisions. All business firms are interested in business taxes, interest rates, labor policies, and enforcement and nonenforcement of the antitrust laws. A company like GE also depends on the government to subsidize its nuclear power and military research and development, and to create a favorable climate for overseas sales.

The main companies also have strong ties to government through lobbying, other political expenditure and through not being too critical of the government as they depend on the latter for their broadcasting licenses and franchises.

(2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media. Advertisers have acquired the status of a de facto licensing authority in the sense that without their financial support, a newspaper ceases to be economically viable. Before advertising became prominent, the cost of newspaper had to cover pruduction costs. But with the growth of advertising, newspapers can sell copies below production costs. Any papers that did not attract advertisers are thus at a serious disadvantage. To attract advertisers, papers are interested in audiences with buying power, not with audiences per se. As a result, working class and readical papers are at a serious disadvantage, as their readers are generally have less buying power. There is also the concern that advertisers will practice political discrimination, being unwilling to put their ads in working class or radical papers and programs. Another factor is that advertisers will generally not sponsor programs that engage in serious criticism of corporate practices.

(3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power. The media need a reliable flow of the raw material of news in orderto meet news schedules. They cannot afford to have reporters at all places where important stories may break and, to keep costs down, they concentrate their resources where significant news often occurs and where regular press conferences are held. There is also a cost to proving the accuracy of news reports when challenged. These challenges occur least when the source of the news is prestigious - say, government sources or large corporations and trade groups. As a result, media rely heavily on government sources like the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, city hall and police departments. Business corporations and trade groups are also regular and credible purveyors of stories deemed newsworthy. They also rely on large trade groups who often seek to reduce reporters' costs of information gathering by providing them with press conferences and releases.

There exist unofficial and non-business affiliated experts who are also credible sources who may voice views contrary to the interests of state and business groups. To counter this problem, these groups can put experts on their payroll, fund their research and organise think-tanks that hire them and disseminate their views.

(4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media. "Flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. If flak is produced on a large scale, it can be uncomfortable and costly for media. For, negative criticism of their statements or programs may require media to defend their positions in front of legislatures or courts and may cost them the withdrawal of advertising. Flak can come from independent individuals, but the ability to produce the most costly and voluminous flak correlates with power. It can come from government agencies or from corporate sponsors. There are various corporate funded think-tanks and media monitors that carry out this task.

(5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. The ideology of anti-communism is used to criticise liberals, social democrats and critics of US government policies regarding left-leaning economic rivals. This book was published in the late 80s. I suppose ideologies of patriotism and fear of being labelled anti-American or 'soft on terror' play similar roles today. Issues are often framed in terms of a dichotomy of Communist/anti-Communist powers (or American/anti-American), with gains and losses allocated to contesting sides, and rooting for "our side" considered an entirely legitimate news practice.

These filters narrow the range of news covered by the mass media and especially limit 'big news' (that is, news subject to sustained news campaigns). News from the establishment sources meets a major filter requirement and is voiced in the major media, News from dissidents or from unorganised groups is at a disadvantage in terms of both sourcing cost and credibility. Such news may also fail to comply with the politics and the interests of advertisers and major sources of flak.

Philosophers' Carnival XXI

2005-10-31T21:19:00.000+13:00

Welcome to the 21st Philosophers' Carnival! For those who have just tuned in, the carnival aims to showcase some of the top philosophy posts of the last three weeks from around the blogosphere. There were a lot of entries this time around, so I've broken them up into categories...

Religion and Naturalism

Mathetes brings a refreshingly practical slant to abstract questions of God and Time:

This paper sets out to prove that the man on the street, who has no other source of hope for a better future but God, should hold on to his hope if God is atemporal, but should put his hope elsewhere if God is not.

He makes some questionable assumptions along the way, but it should make for some interesting discussion in the comments section.

Kenny Pearce, in Leibniz on "Efficient" vs. "Final" Causes in Physics, lucidly explains how this Aristotelian distinction can be used to differentiate between the "mundane" and the "miraculous" without asserting that there are exceptions to the laws of nature.

Meanwhile, Warren Platts speculates about Finalism in a Darwinian World. He argues that if advanced civilizations could trigger their own 'big bang' to create a whole new universe, then this could enable the evolution of, well, evolution itself:

[I]f entire universes are units of selection, and if universes that generate intelligent life produce more offspring universes than lifeless universes, then a progressive and purposeful (in the same sense that eyes are purposeful) evolutionary process that’s almost guaranteed to produce intelligent life and culture is just what a Darwinian would expect.

Tiberius and Gaius Speaking offers An Inductive argument from faith that God does not exist. He argues that the prevalence of "faith-based arguments" inductively supports the claim that it is reasonable to believe God does not exist. I'm not sure how compelling the argument is, but you've got to admire the sheer cheek of it!

Matt at Daily Phil argues in favour of Antecedent Naturalism, according to which we take as our starting point the following three principles:

1. Unity - There is only one world in which everything resides...
2. Realism - Nature goes beyond (our) conceptualization / cognitive activity.
3. Continuity - Experience is an engagement with the real elements of nature.

Truth and Fiction

Clark Goble discusses Heidegger and Truth, explaining that "Heidegger accepts our commonsense notion of correspondence. He just rejects as empty or at best unhelpful the theory of truth that is called correspondence."

Over in Fake Barn Country, Jonathan Ichikawa writes about Embedded Fictions and Iterative Imaginings:

We sometimes, but not always, have blunted affective engagement with iterated fictions -- fictional fictions. What explains the difference? I suggest that it has to do with an interest in imagining what's true in the fiction.

Consciousness

Uriah of Desert Landscapes writes about Dainton on the Phenomenal Self, defending the conception of the phenomenal self as a “bare locus of apprehension” against Dainton's objection that without any content to apprehend, being such a 'bare locus' would be subjectively indistinguishable from not-existence. A commentator suggests the slogan: "Phenomenal contents and a subject of experience — you can’t have one without the other."

Consciousness and Culture suggests that the adaptive function of conscious awareness is

[to introduce] a gap or distance between stimulus and response, which makes the stimulus available but not determinate. And this in turn allows for an exceptionally flexible form of behavioral control... [This view implies that] the mechanism of consciousness must have two main components -- two sides of the gap, so to speak -- one of which "presents" the environmental stimuli in some structured manner, while the other "apprehends" such presentations in some "loosely coupled" manner.

Ethics and Society

Will Wilkinson at The Fly Bottle has a fascinating post suggesting that:

Maybe the way to maintain a sense of freedom when in chains is also a way to manage agoraphobic hyperventilation in the unbounded consumer paradise.

Don't miss Jason Kuznicki On Nurturing as the True Purpose of Marriage:

Here I argue that the reason for marriage is neither solely to produce children, nor to seek romantic fulfillment, nor merely to contract with the government for rights or benefits. I propose another model, arguing that it explains the institution of marriage much better than the common reasons given for it in the same-sex marriage debate.

Jim Sias at common sense philosophy defends our moral intuitions against Singer's charge of inconsistency. Sias shows how the coherence of two apparently conflicting intuitions can be restored by taking care to generalize them under the appropriate principle.

In Blackburn, Anscombe, and Natural Law, Edward Feser critiques Simon Blackburn's recent review of the new collection of G.E.M. Anscombe essays. There's also some fun discussion in the comments questioning the plausibility of natural law theory.

The Sharpener raises the question: Why don't we use torture?

Not because of the low effectiveness rate of torture — but because torture fundamentally breaches human rights, including but not exclusively the presumption of innocence.

On my other blog, a short post quoting Nick Bostrom on the "urgent, screaming moral imperative" of anti-aging research provoked some interesting comments, from a range of perspectives, on such issues as how to assess the value of a life, and whether death is bad for you. Feel free to join the discussion!

Meta-philosophy:

In the delightfully titled Characterizing a Fogbank: What Is Postmodernism, and Why Do I Take Such a Dim View of it? Keith DeRose follows through on the title's promise with a post as interesting as it is long. The thriving comments thread is well worth a skim too.

Brian Weatherson quotes and discusses Soames on History, contrasting philosophically relevant history of philosophy vs. history-for-history's-sake history of philosophy. (The critical discussion in the comments section is also very interesting.)

Fluid Imagination, in Value Added Philosophy, first offers an abstract of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and then a critical response -- suggesting that Rorty's concept of edifying philosophy is ill-served by his hermeneutical program and that a better method might focus on "creation" instead of "translation".

Another critique of the book is found over at Strictly Speaking, specifically targeting Rorty's use of Wittgenstein's views of philosophical discourse.

New Blogs

To quickly introduce a couple of blogs you might not have come across before: The Atheist Ethicist celebrates his 50th post by offering "a sampling of some of the issues that I have written about in my first fifty days."

In the introductory post of "Mapping Out the Moral High Ground", Reuben invites topic suggestions and general discussion of his novel approach to life's problems:

Each week or so I will ask a question concerning some aspect of my lifestyle. After it has been discussed and a conclusion reached I shall alter my life style accordingly.

(I understand Reuben is currently flat out finishing his Honours research project. But be sure to check back in a couple of weeks.)

That's it for this edition of the carnival, I do hope you've enjoyed it. Many thanks to all those who made the effort of submitting a post. If others would like to find out how they can contribute in future, check out the Philosophers' Carnival homepage.

Religion: a barrier to clear thinking

2005-10-25T14:49:00.000+13:00

For this final article in the Clear Thinking series I asked myself ‘what is the biggest obstacle to thinking clearly about social and political issues?’ Several answers suggested themselves but time and again I came back to the same thing: religion. In deciding what kind of society to have and what kinds of policies government should pursue, many people take the dictates of religion to be an authoritative guide. Arguing against abortion and euthanasia by appealing to the sanctity of life given by God is but one example, but the same influence occurs in just about every imaginable topic. What we ought to do, so many people believe, depends upon what religion tells us.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What religion says is irrelevant to deciding what we ought to do.

The fallacy of grounding morality upon religion was pointed out by Plato over two thousand years ago. If we discovered that the true religion (if we knew what that was) required us to drown kittens for fun, indiscriminately shoot people, and generally be a nuisance we would not (hopefully anyway) take that as a reason to do those activities. This shows that there are independent standards for what we should do, independent that is of the dictates of religion. What makes it right or wrong for society to allow some activity does not depend on whether religion says it is okay. On the contrary, if religion says it is okay that is because it is okay for reasons independent of what religion says. In short, reason rather than religion should be our guide.

Plato’s pretty convincing demonstration has been ignored by the vast majority of people in the intervening millennia. Why are appeals to religion so common? We might think that religion is not so influential today as in say the middle ages, but events of recent years seem to indicate that more and more people across the globe are letting religion be their guide about decisions for what kind of society to have as well as in personal matters.

There are, I suggest, two reasons for this.

The first is that appeals to religion are so much easier than thinking carefully about issues. Pointing to a list of ten commandments carved in stone or written in a book saves us the trouble of having to figure out for ourselves what to do or what kind of society to have.

It is no doubt true that appealing to religion is easier, but this of course does not make such appeals appropriate. To avoid difficult questions by taking the easy way out is irresponsible.

The second reason is that for many, religion provides some kind of objectivity about ethics that cannot be got any other way. Reason and argument, on this view, are merely personal opinions and such opinions are neither right or wrong, good or bad, correct or incorrect. They are just that: opinions. There are as many opinions as there are people in the world and relying on reason and argument will result in interminable disagreement. Religion on the other hand at least provides (relatively) clear guidance, and guidance from (it is hoped) someone or something who is entitled to decide.

This picture of ethics is an inaccurate one according to philosopher Derek Parfit. He suggests that due to the dominance of religion, non-religious thinking about ethics is something that has been done by only a handful of people (Plato was one) throughout history. It is one of the youngest of subjects. Hence it is no wonder that it has not yet produced clear guidelines. Expecting it to do so is like expecting primitive people of 10,000 years ago to provide clear principles of thermodynamics. To give up on reason and turn to religion is to give up far too prematurely. With more thought, reason will provide the answers that people seek in religion.

So we can be hopeful that by setting aside religion and thinking clearly about social and political issues, the prospects of arriving at reasoned consensus on those issues are good.

consequences of the depletion of oil

2005-10-17T19:32:00.000+13:00

Richard, in a comment on Alex's post "comments on society", writes "So yes, I am still unconcerned about resource depletion. (I remain very concerned about externalities, however; there is no "mere" about it.) Oil prices are going up (no matter the taxes) which will prevent overconsumption and provide an incentive to develop alternatives.That doesn't mean we should just ignore it, of course. I strongly support the Greens' plans to improve public transport, etc. My point is just that we don't need to worry about people using scarce resources irresponsibly. The simple fact is that in a functioning market, people can't afford to overconsume scarce resources. They can make more money through conservation."

The point I want to make is perhaps not relevant to Richard's comment (since I'm not sure that his 'unconcern' about the depletion of oil would extend to this context) and so is not a criticism of his comment, but rather a tangent that builds upon it. I want to address the "...we don't need to worry..." part. I want to talk in particular about the depletion of oil and about possible worrying consequences that are not generally held to be externalities in the sense in which pollution is an externalities. There is great (and increasing) international reliance on oil for transport of everything, including food. There is also great (and increasing) reliance on forms of agriculture that, while arguably more cost efficient than more traditional forms, are also much more reliant on pesticides (of which a key ingredient is oil). Oil is still a major source of electrical power. My general point is that, as we know, the market is not egalitarian in its geographic and socioeconomic distribution of costs and benefits. Those who are likely to lose from the projected huge increases in the price of oil will primarily be people in third world countries and the poor in general.

The most immediate peak-oil problem is that we face a steady increase in its price as the world demand (in barrels per day) outstrips world supply (barrels that can be extracted and refined per day). The supply, in this sense, is partly a matter of the technology of extraction and refining but, more importantly, is a matter of resource depletion. We should not expect the market to come up with and implement an alternative very quickly. The necessary research and development probably will not be carried out until times are dire enough that it becomes profitable to invest in the uncertain gains of research over the increasingly lucrative market for oil.
Further, even after the development of alternatives, I see no reason to think that the alternatives would be distributed in the amounts necessary to the poor. Rather, they would simply go to those who can afford to buy the technology, or, more optimistically, would be provided as a public good by governments of rich nations to their domestic populations. Meanwhile, in the time that it takes to bring the alternative technology to the poor, they are not likely to be able to afford what remains of the oil either, as both the extraction and refining of oil will be much more expensive. While we may optimistically suppose that governments of first world nations will undertake the requisite investment, we cannot expect the governments of the majority of the world's nations to make similar investments in their own countries.

There are also likely to be food shortages until the forms of agriculture can be returned to those that do not rely as heavily on pesticide and forms of economy that do not rely as heavily on international trade. From what I remember, there are constraints on the speed at which the forms of agriculture can be changed. For one, the seeds for strands of crops that rely less on pesticides are becoming less common in an international switch towards homogeneous use of high-yield, pesticide-heavy, strands. Second, the soil used to support the latter kind of crop, or to support the form of agriculture that sees repetitive planting of the same crop may take a few years to return to being the kind of soil that can support traditional farming methods.

Add to these problems their likely accompaniments of an increase in resource wars (both among nations and among local militias) in order to procure both oil and food and the general increase in social disarray and violence expected in times of economic crisis and we have a pretty dismal picture of what we can expect even if there is an eventual introduction of alternative energy. In particular, while the first world and the rich more generally may come off relatively unscathed (facing only a drastic, but survivable, change in their patterns of consumption), the poor face the possibility of vast food shortages, even less access to electricity and intra-national or even inter-national war. I also suppose that given the international wars for oil, the mightiest nations will maintain access to oil for the longest period. Coupled with the likely dire consequences for the third world, this privileged access will probably mean that the gap in wealth and in social conditions between the mighty nations and the third world will increase.

I suggest that we cannot let the market deal with the depletion of oil. We need fairly urgent action by governments around the world (especially those of the rich nations) to invest, both nationally and in the third world, in discovering alternatives and laying down the requisite infrastucture and especially to promote economies that can function well at least in the intermediate stage between the rise in oil prices and the global introduction of alternatives. Of course, if such changes in the policies of nations are to be possible, they would probably have to be coupled with wider concerns of domestic governance in the rich nations, the terms of operation of international financial institutions, media reform in various first world countries and so on.

Philosophy for Kids

2005-10-16T21:19:00.000+13:00

I've previously posted on my own blog about teaching kids philosophy. But it seems appropriate to raise the issue here too. Here are three relevant articles:

One discusses Harvard's Project Zero, which I think sounds very interesting:

Up to 70 per cent of Project Zero's work involves schools. One of its projects - known as "visible thinking" - gives teachers strategies to encourage deep thinking among students.

"We would like schoolchildren to learn to think and learn in a stronger way," Professor Perkins says. "One simple problem with thinking is that it's invisible. So the basic philosophy of this initiative is to make thinking more visible in classrooms so that children can see their own thinking and teachers can see it at work so they can get a hold of it and improve it."

For the utilitarians among us, another confirmed that a philosophy for children programme "was making a real difference to academic results and had resulted in children behaving in a less aggressive and more mature way."

The third contains much of interest. For those who doubt whether kids are ready for philosophy:

Gareth Matthews was in Japan last year talking to fifth-graders about perfect happiness. He read them a story he had written about a child absorbed in the satisfaction of scratching an insect bite. Could this define perfect happiness?

"Scratching an insect bite and enjoying it so much that at the moment you don't enjoy anything else is only one petal on the flower of happiness," one child said.

Matthews, a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was impressed. "Adults are not generally aware of the fact that children are capable of raising interesting philosophical questions and pursuing interesting philosophical issues," he said.

It continues:

Mount Holyoke College philosophy professor Thomas Wartenberg teaches a course called "Philosophy for Children." College students help develop questions based on picture books and then lead discussions for second- and fifth-graders at Jackson Street Elementary School in Northampton, Mass. Out of the adventures of storybook characters come such questions as "What is courage?" Lively discussions develop around the topics of beauty, truth, justice and reality.

Under Wartenberg's supervision, college students help grade-schoolers create a "community of inquiry" in which children learn the crucial elements of a philosophical discussion. He tells children, "You have to listen carefully and think hard and then make up your mind. If you can't defend your answer, you have to think some more."

This sounds like really fun and worthwhile stuff. I wonder if there'd be any chance of a similar programme being developed here at Canterbury?

Recommended Links:

The Stanford encyclopedia entry on children and philosophy.
Philosophy for Children (NZ)

Update [Feb 07]: More here:

New research from Dundee University suggests learning philosophy raises children's IQ by up to 6.5 points and improves their emotional intelligence.

Arguments on a downhill slide

2005-10-13T13:01:00.000+13:00

In debates on any social issue, it is not long before a slippery-slope argument is made. Such arguments take the following form: even though X in itself is not wrong, if X is allowed to occur then Y will also occur and Y is wrong.

Take the euthanasia debate. Some argue that while the terminally ill ideally should have the right to end their own lives, if society allowed this there is the danger that some people would be forced into ending their lives against their will. And that would only be the first step down a slippery slope. People might be killed without even being asked, ‘unproductive’ members of society could be despatched, and who knows what other horrors could be upon us.

Slippery slope arguments are difficult to respond to for two reasons. First they appeal to consequences that are undeniably bad. No one would doubt that a society in which the frail and elderly are killed against their will would be a terrible society. Second they emphasise that no one can say for certain that those bad consequences would not occur. If euthanasia were legalised we don’t know for sure what would happen and if there is some chance of the dire predictions coming true that seems a compelling case against it. Campaigners for euthanasia emphasise that it would be subjected to careful regulation, but how can we be certain that this regulation would succeed? And even if we were, those who make the slippery slope argument respond that euthanasia would bring about a change is people’s beliefs such that the sanctity of life would be undermined, which no amount of regulation could prevent.

Despite these strengths, slippery slope arguments ought to be avoided. It is not enough to point out the mere possibility of something bad happening. That would rule out every conceivable change to society. It has to be shown that the bad things are likely to happen. And for this evidence must be given. Those who make slippery slope arguments are seldom forthcoming with evidence and when they are they usually select only the evidence that supports their case, conveniently ignoring the rest.

Philosopher Richard Arneson has pointed out how, in response to some proposed change to society, uncertainty about the future leads to highly speculative harms being over-exaggerated. British politicians in the Victorian ages, for example, argued that allowing divorced mothers access to their own children would bring about the downfall of the family. To allow unfounded speculative harms to outweigh the real benefits that would be done by say allowing the terminally ill to end their own lives is absurd.

Slippery slope arguments should be resisted by pointing out the clear differences in the steps on the slope. In euthanasia, there is a clear difference between the terminally ill freely choosing to end their live and people being killed against their will. In the absence of any evidence of slipperiness from one step to the next, we can be as sure as it is possible to be that society will not slide down the slope.

Postmodern Abuses of Science

2005-10-13T11:27:00.000+13:00

I’ve just come across the most delicious hoax! In 1996, Alan Sokal, a New York University theoretical physicist submitted an essay to Social Text, an influential cultural studies journal, entitled ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity’. It claimed to be a scholarly article about the postmodern philosophical and political implications of twentieth century physical theories. The central thesis of this article is that quantum gravity (a highly theoretical and still speculative theory of time and space on minute scales - scales of one millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter) has profound and far reaching progressive political and social implications. The article was reviewed by five members of Social Text's editorial board and accepted for publication; it appeared in a special issue of the journal devoted to the ‘Science Wars’ - an ongoing debate between the social sciences and cultural studies on one hand (specifically, postmodern science studies), and natural sciences on the other. Supposedly, this special issue was supposed to vindicate claims of the incompetence of postmodern science studies.

Sokal later revealed the article as a hoax. Alongside some truths, it is an array of deliberately concocted partial-truths, blatant falsehoods, non-sequiturs, and syntactically correct sentences that are ultimately meaningless. Have a read: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/, it is absolutely hilarious! Take this example: ‘Just as liberal feminists are frequently content with a minimal agenda of legal and social equality for women and are ‘pro-choice,’ so liberal (and even some socialist) mathematicians are often content to work within the hegemonic Zermelo-Fraenkel framework (which, reflecting its nineteenth-century origins, already incorporates the axiom of equality) supplemented only by the axiom of choice. But this framework is grossly insufficient for a liberatory mathematics, as was proven long ago by Cohen 1966.’

While I am certainly no expert in mathematics or set theory, it's pretty hard to believe that any editor who knew what the various terms actually mean would not have had some doubts about this passage. What the hell does the axiom of equality in set theory have to do with liberalism, or, indeed, with any political philosophy? Similarly, the axiom of choice clearly has nothing to do with the issue of choice in the abortion debate. Even so, no argument is offered to this end. Wouldn't any editor who had the vaguest knowledge of mathematics have required just a little more by way of explanation here, in order to make these connections just a bit more clear? (Also: ‘liberatory mathematics’? Classic!) Such examples abound – at one point Sokal explicitly, and without argument, denies the existence of the external world. (To assert otherwise would be to ‘cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook...’)

The article, which is almost entirely a pastiche of quotes from a variety of postmodern theorists such as Lacan, Lyotard, Derrida, and Latour et al, constructs a parody almost entirely out of the parodied – something which, ironically, some of the postmodernists under attack would surely appreciate! The disturbing thing I find here is not only the fact that this article was accepted and published as a serious piece of scholarship (what happened to peer review? Any maths or physics undergrad would see through the nonsense!), but that Sokal based it on strategies that are well-established within the postmodern literary genre: appeal to authority instead of logical argument; speculative theories passed off as established science; absurd analogies; ambiguous rhetoric; and confusion between everyday and technical uses of words.

Check out this actual example of postmodern sheer pseudo-scientific brilliance, courtesy of Felix Guattari: ‘We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multi-referential, multidimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their extension: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously.’

What happened to the standards of academic scholarship? Any thoughts on postmodernism, or the intellectual sloppiness often found in postmodern writings? Anyway, read Sokal’s article if you want a good chuckle.

comments on society

2005-10-11T16:56:00.000+13:00

Today’s society is far from perfect. Don’t fear, this article is not intended to be negative. It simply recognizes certain faults in our society, and that’s needed to open the door to a discussion of the way forward. The problems first, and then, tentatively, a solution. We are the running out of fossil fuels. The environment is suffering from the effects of various pollutants, deforestation, other radical interferences. Many suffer from feelings of depression, isolation and apathy. And add insult to injury we are working harder than ever. Half a century ago only half of the adult population worked: that number has nearly doubled and the standard of living has not increased proportionally. The future is scary.

What the hell, it’s a dog eat dog world, right? Of course people will keep driving their cars, and keep knocking over forests to create grazing land for the hamburgers of tomorrow, right? And there’s just nothing we can do about it, right? Well, I’d like to think there is. Maybe, just maybe, we can find out what’s wrong and fix it. I know what follows is a simplification, but I’m hoping it gets at some truth despite.

Why do we use so much fossil fuel? One reason: everything is so darn far from everything else. The things that we care about are spread across miles and miles. Why else? We can’t be expected to freeze can we? But even so, why fossil fuel? The biggest reason all seems to be that its easy. Someone, some big multinational someone, has set it up to work for you, somewhere far away where you can’t see the consequences of your actions. You can’t smell the oil, see the machines churning and grinding. And they don’t expect you to think (in fact they’d rather you didn’t) about how much is left.

Why we deforest, pollute and so forth? You already know part of the answer. Somebody else is making it easy for you. And when you buy that hamburger that caused a tree to go down you make it easy for them too. They can tell themselves they aren’t choosing to deforest, they’re just doing what the market demands. Am I being unfair? Maybe. Perhaps I am giving some South American farmers a short shaft. They have to do what lets them survive. But that’s the point. There are things that they shouldn’t have to do.

What about the more woolly issues, depression, isolation, apathy? A short answer would be really trite. But maybe we can find some of the factors. Lets look at isolation. In our society we live in small groups: couples or families or at most a group of flatmates. We spend long hours at work, often alone at a desk. And people fall through the gaps. We live in a way that lets people slip through unnoticed, unconnected to other people, and with nowhere to go. Is it any wonder that people feel isolated? Some things are just damn difficult to do by yourself, or with a small group of people. Child birth and rearing young kids are some of those things. Two people, at least one of whom is working, simply can’t be expected to have an easy time of it. And it seems like it doesn’t need to be this way.

What about apathy and the long working hours? Here I hazard a guess at the cause: longs hours of monotonous jobs that we don’t or can’t connect with. The benefits of the jobs we do are often just simply not apparent. Who cares that 1000 more widgets have had their wobbles attached, or that 44 people have been distributed copies of that new bestseller, or that one more company has won its lawsuit against yet another company? Did those twelve year olds really need those stylish new clothes we manufactured and sold them? Maybe it pays the bills, but something seems to be wrong.

With the above said do we even need to talk about depression?

Perhaps these problems have a common cause. Perhaps they are linked to the society in which we live. And as such, perhaps a different social structure would serve us better. The question is what kind of system we want. Hopefully you’ll help me with the details, but some things pop out at me. It seems that instead of having big organizations like countries matter so much, we need the focus to be on smaller groups: small enough that everybody knows everybody. People can interact with each other more, know each other more, give each other support. It seems that the majority of the labour should go towards the welfare of these groups. We need to see what we are doing, so that we can feel pride and reap meaning from it, and so that we have to live down the things we do and feel culpable. We need to be more driven by things that matter, not influenced by consumerism, which it seems to me can only work on a large scale. We need to stop working when the days work is done and when it no longer feels worth while. We shouldn’t produce for the sake of production. Working at things that matter to you will be, I hope, a way of life, not an obligation. I hope we will not have to force people to work, but that it will just be a social norm. And individuals will have the right to exit the society whenever they wish.

This is not a reversion to tribalism, but a movement forward. Good communication will have to be maintained between the communities. Technological innovations need not be lost, though some will need to be rethought, and greener. Technological progress can even be made, and will have to be as different situations arise. I’m imagining that there will be no power hierarchy. In theory at least, all members can have a voice in all matters, and will be the one with the loudest voice on those things that concern them most and about which they are most informed. (I do mean all members, but I take it that children will rarely count in the most informed category.) Like I said, the details need to be worked out. Hopefully this is something to start with.

I’ve compiled a wee list of things that strike me as important. Have a look, and then contribute!

Things such a community should do
1) Use wind or solar power.
2) Use sustainable agricultural practice
3) Give the right of exit
4) Maintain strong ties of communication with other groups
5) Grow only to such a size that all members know each other well
6) Be there for each other

Things we can do now
1) Consume less
2) Where possible, buy second hand goods rather than first hand.
3) Support sustainable agricultural practice
4) Follow community focused practices!: Be there for other people. Help people move house, proofread other people’s essays, cook for anyone who’s ill. Maybe we could find a group of people who will commit to do these things for each other?
5) Get information out! (See below)

Getting information out
1) Talk to people about these sorts of issues.
2) Post on websites.
3) Attempt other forms of communication with these sorts of ideas in mind: i.e. academic writing, fiction writing. . .

Outfoxing Plagiarists

2005-10-07T17:23:00.000+13:00

Uriah Kriegel has some clever advice for fighting plagiarism:

Every assignment I give is a two part assignment. The first part is to read your institution’s academic code of honesty plagiarism section. The second part is to write a paper. Failure to fulfil one of the two parts is failure to do the assignment, therefore deserving of a failing grade.

What this does is neutralize the “I didn’t know it was plagiarism” line. A student who didn’t know it was plagiarism did not fulfil the first part of the assignment and therefore fails.

Sticking to a deal

2005-09-25T17:16:00.000+12:00

The election result has left New Zealand First holding the balance of power. One of its policies is to remove all mention of the Treaty of Waitangi from New Zealand law.

Such a policy is sometimes defended on the grounds that the treaty was made so long ago that it is no longer relevant. Since the circumstances of the mid-19th century are so different to those of today how can a document from then matter to us today?

This thought is sometimes reinforced by pointing out that people today are not obligated to make up for wrongs committed by their ancestors. If my great-grandfather insulted your great-grandfather, I do not owe you an apology. So how can it matter to New Zealanders today that the treaty was not adhered to after it was signed?

This line of argument is mistaken but the response often given to it by defenders of the treaty is equally mistaken. That response is to say that the treaty somehow embodies principles for biculturalism that are still relevant today for regulating interaction between Maori and Pakeha.

This is open to the criticisms that it is far from clear what the principles embodied in the treaty are, that figuring out what they are involves much creative interpretation, and that the result will be confusion and judges having too much power.

And these, of course, are precisely the problems that New Zealand First's policy is intended to address. Even if all these difficulties could be overcome, there is still a further problem with the response: if these are good principles for Maori-Pakeha relations then what does it matter whether they are embodied in a 165-year-old treaty or not? Good principles are good principles, so even if the treaty had never occurred the principles should be applied anyway. So what relevance is the treaty?

In contrast to this principle-based answer, a better response to criticisms of the treaty is to make a contract- based answer. Contracts are not merely legal arrangements, they are moral ones too. If I suddenly found myself on another planet with another being whom I did not share any legal system with, it would still possible for us to agree to help each other out and this agreement would create rights and obligations for both of us. Parties to a contract are morally bound to the terms of the contract.

Contracts also bind over time and as circumstances change. If two parties agree to exchange resources several years from now, it is no good if, when the time comes, one of the parties says "but that was several years ago – what does it matter today"?

Part of the point of agreements is that they enable people to make arrangements that persist over time.

Similarly for changed circumstances. If I agreed to give you a lift in my car I ought to do so even if something else I'd rather do instead has arisen in the meantime.

Associations can also be parties to contracts. A Doctor Who appreciation society might make an agreement with a Star Trek fan club to support each other so that a low-point of popularity for Star Trek during a Doctor Who revival, or vice versa, need not spell doom for either. This agreement remains binding even when one side perceives that it is shouldering a greater burden than the other.

The crucial point is that the agreement remains even though the individual members of the clubs change. This then is the relevance of the treaty today. It is an agreement between several associations to establish a common authority while at the same time limiting the power of that authority. Since these associations persist over time, members of those associations today should keep to the terms of the agreement.

Affirmative Action at TPM

2005-09-15T21:27:00.000+12:00

The Philosophers' Magazine has an interesting and well-argued article up on the topic of affirmative action, written by our very own Simon Clarke. Go read it!

After rejecting three common justifications for affirmative action, Simon offers a variant of the 'role-model' argument:

Racial minorities should be given some advantages, even if the beneficiaries of those policies come from the wealthy middle class and even if they are not the ones who can specifically be said to have suffered racial discrimination in the past. They should receive such advantages in order to achieve the conditions for real equality of opportunity. People need to know that they can achieve goals in society. Sending that message helps encourage the belief that opportunities really are open to them, that the rooms that may have once held them captive have been unlocked. It helps bring about real equality of opportunity.

I very much agree with Simon about the importance of people recognizing that opportunities are available to them. When a teacher at Aranui high school asked a student where he thought he'd be in five years time, the student answered, straightforwardly, "Prison." That's where all his older male relatives were, so he didn't see any other options as being genuinely open to him. These social circumstances are tragic, and it would certainly be desirable to change them.

But would Simon's idea really help? It assumes that impoverished Maori will identify with wealthy and successful people of the same race. But is this assumption true? Will seeing the success of upper-class Maori really make the Maori in Aranui think such options are open to them, so long as the real circumstances of the people they know are unchanged? It strikes me as pretty implausible to think that seeing a bunch of rich strangers - even Maori rich strangers - is going to have that sort of impact. We need more widespread, low-level, local reforms to the social structure. Of course, I haven't a clue how to achieve that, or whether it's even possible to achieve through outside intervention. If affirmative action could be shown to have this sort of impact, then that could provide a solid justification for it. But until then, I'm skeptical.

Economic coercion

2005-09-15T10:50:00.000+12:00

The legalisation of prostitution last year saw renewed debate on this age-old issue. Among the arguments, one perennial is that most prostitutes are forced into the occupation as a result of economic circumstances. Women from poor backgrounds have few options and so can hardly be said to freely choose to become prostitutes. Hence, so the argument goes, a society that legalises prostitution is allowing a practice that forces women in dire straits to become prostitutes.

This is a particular instance of a general form of argument that appeals to the notion of ‘economic coercion.’ The same form of argument is often made in other areas. The idea of allowing people to sell their blood and organs is often objected to on the same grounds, as are payments for participation in medical research. I’ve even heard the argument made against boxing. The concern in all these issues is the same: that the people who ‘choose’ these activities would most likely be those from poor economic backgrounds.

Is this a coherent objection to these practices? One possible response is to take a more robust view of personal responsibility. Being offered a lot of money when you have very little makes something very tempting but it is hardly the same as having a gun pointed at your head. However, for the sake of argument let’s set this aside and assume that prostitutes from poor economic backgrounds are in some sense forced into that occupation.

A second response is to say that rather than being an argument against prostitution, concerns about economic coercion are reasons to bring about a fairer distribution of wealth in society. If some people are so poor that they’re forced to become prostitutes, sell their organs, etc then something should be done about this extreme poverty so that they will not be forced to make those decisions. Once this is done, no one will be forced into these desperate occupations.

This I think is a good answer but still leave us with the following question: given that a radical redistribution of wealth will not happen anytime soon (Labour and National are currently vying for who can pander to middle-incomes the most rather than helping the worst off in society), what should be done about prostitution, organ-selling, etc in the meantime? The economic coercion argument seems to say that since prostitution is a result of poverty, this a reason for legally prohibiting it. But that can hardly be the correct response. Many people who work in factories have few other job opportunities available to them but we wouldn’t think this is a reason to prevent them from working in factories. Prohibiting prostitution would actually make would-be prostitutes worse off. Society would be saying “your economic circumstances are so bad that you are forced into option X (whether it is prostitution, organ-selling, boxing or whatever), so we are going to block option X.” But this is crazy. Surely somebody in poverty but with option X, which will allow them to make money, is better off than somebody in poverty without option X.

So why is the economic coercion argument such a common one against organ-selling, prostitution, etc? I suspect the answer is that there is an underlying belief that the people involved are forced to make decisions that are ultimately against their best interests. If economic circumstances forces a person into option X, that is bad if option X is bad for that person. This is a highly paternalistic attitude to take towards people. Society would now be saying “your economic circumstances are so bad that you are forced into option X and we know better than you that X is bad for you.”

Now this may not bother some people, since they may think that paternalism is sometimes justified. But it is not clear that it is in the cases we’re examining. If one is in severe poverty it may well be perfectly rational to sell one’s spare kidney for $10,000. After all, one can survive adequately well on one kidney and $10,000 can make a great deal of difference to one’s quality of life. Similarly, it is far from clear that other decisions such as to become a prostitute or agree to try out a new drug for its effectiveness and side effects are irrational if the compensating rewards are large enough.

Economic circumstances may mean that people are forced into certain activities, but this is no reason to legally block those activities.

Tackle the ball, not the player

2005-08-26T17:41:00.000+12:00

When National announced it would cut taxes, the reaction of many was that this was a cynical ploy to gain votes. When the US invaded Iraq, many suspected that its real motivation was narrow economic interests. When scientists insist that cloning, stem cell research, and other controversial technologies could result in therapeutic benefits, their claims are often put down as hyperbolic attempts to gain more research funding.

These reactions, if true, seem like strong criticisms but they are actually all examples of the same fallacy. Ad hominem arguments attempt to refute a claim by criticising the person who makes it rather than addressing the claim itself. In other words, these examples all tackle the player rather than the ball.

Imagine we discover that Einstein’s work was motivated by a desire for everlasting fame rather than a love of knowledge. What would follow about the truth of his theory of relativity? Absolutely nothing. Surely we wouldn’t think that this discovery gave us reason to reject the theory of relativity.

Imagine we discovered something similar about Nelson Mandela’s struggle against apartheid. This would in no way affect the truth of his belief that the apartheid regime was an evil one that he was justified to resist.

We might revise our assessments of Einstein and Mandela as virtuous men, but these discoveries would not affect the truth of what they said.

Exactly the same point can be made against all ad hominem arguments. The question of whether taxes should be cut is independent of the motivation of whoever proposes such cuts. What the US’s motivations were has no bearing on the truth or otherwise of its claim that the war against Iraq was justified. Perhaps scientists are merely trying to get research money, but it could still be the case that their research could have therapeutic benefits.

If ad hominem arguments are mistaken, why are they so common? The answer, I suggest, is that they are so easy. Take the tax cuts issue. Whether taxes should be cut is a complex question that requires weighing up many factors. These include not only questions of fact but also what principles to apply to these facts. The factual questions include: How would tax cuts affect government spending? Would cuts be made in health and education or only to ridiculous tertiary courses? The questions of principles include: Do income earners have a right to what they earn? Would tax cuts benefit the worst off in society or mainly the better off? Instead of cutting taxes, could there be a better use for the money? Since it is such a burden to have to consider all these questions before coming to a view on tax cuts, it is tempting to avoid them by focusing instead on the motives of the National party.

Why bother trying to assess the justifications for war against Iraq, its benefits and costs, when we could just say ‘but the US is only after oil’?

And what about cloning? Many people recoil at the thought of having to assess that complicated issue. Far quicker to wait for scientists to propose it and then vilify their motivations.

But assessing social and political issues is not that easy. To decide whether taxes should be cut, whether war is justified, and whether cloning should be allowed, we have to assess the merits of the issues themselves rather than the motives of their proponents.

There is one worry remaining. I’ve suggested that ad hominems, though fallacies, are common because those who make them are lazy. This of course sounds like an ad hominem.

a principle relevant to our organisation of economies

2005-08-24T16:21:00.000+12:00

How ought we to organise economic institutions? As part of the answer, I suggest that the libertarian right to produce, market and consume anything at all so long as it has no evident harmful effects should be balanced against a principle of producing and consuming only that which we need (or rather, not too much more than we need).

A prudential reason for the latter principle is that we are not likely to be able to predict all the harmful effects of some product or some pattern of consumption and that concerns of harm minimisation would suggest that we forego various products and patterns of consumption that are not 'relatively' necessary. An obvious example of unforseen ill-effects of a product is the automobile and its reliance on oil. An example of the ill effects of an unnecessary pattern of consumption would be the huge amount of international trade. With the growth of international trade many nations are moving away from a state of self-subsistence where localities or nations can provide for their own basic needs. Concerns of comparative advantage are often presented to argue that it is more efficient overall if some country produces, say, rice, while another produces microchips. This leads to a dependency on large amounts of petroleum to transport goods from country to country or even continent to continent. This dependence is a consequence that looks increasingly unwanted in light of the environmental impact of the consumption of large amounts of oil. The suggested principle might require us to try to return part of the way towards localised, self-subsistent economies.

Another reason for the principle is to do with justice. In the past few centuries, the desire for relatively unnecessary products (or their consumption beyond relatively necessary amounts) has often been satisfied by the military conquest of a resource-rich area of the globe or by the subjugation and exploitation of some group of persons. Consider, for example, the injustices attached to the growth of industries heavily dependent upon gold, spices, cotton, coal, diamonds and oil. The scope of the 'unless the product has harmful effects' proviso in the free-market view is usually limited to a concern for the health of consumers insofar as it is directly affected by the consumption of the relevant product and a rather narrow circumscription of the production process that does not include, say, facts about whether the necessary inputs were obtained justly.

While current state regulatory agencies generally want new products to reach the market unless they are harmful, the suggested principle might recommend that we allow new products to reach the market only if they are 'relatively necessary', cannot be supplemented by other products which can be produced and consumed with less impact on the environment and less injustice and whose effect on the environment and on issues of justice is acceptable.

The Truth is finally here

2005-08-22T01:14:00.000+12:00

Pastafarianism or Flying Spaghetti Monsterism draws on overwhelming observable evidence in order to back its claim that evolution has had, and continues to have, a guiding hand. Due to the irreducible complexity of elements of the natural world, science must consider the possibility that the universe was designed by a greater intelligence.

This is Bobby Henderson's counter-theory to both Darwinian evolution and Christianity. As the case for intelligent design to be taught in schools is increasingly heard in the USA, FSM has seized the opportunity to be heard. FSM seeks to be taught alonside both evolution and Christian intelligent design theory. The argument goes, all those in favour of free speech should allow FSM to be taught in schools. To do otherwise is to be arbitrary and biased. The message of His Greatness the Noodly Splendor should be heard!

Kant's analytic/synthetic distinction

2005-08-17T20:29:00.000+12:00

Kant's analytic/synthetic distinction differs from the common distinction that passes under the same name. Importantly, it seems that Kant's distinction survives the attacks levelled by Quine at the analytic/synthetic distinction in his 'Two Dogmas' paper. (I here follow Richard Smyth's explanation of Kant's distinction in Smyth's book 'Forms of Intuition'. Smyth does not compare the distinction to the contemporary one and neither does he relate Quine to Kant.)

The common use of the terms 'analytic' and 'synthetic' is to refer to a distinction between types of truths. Analytic truths are logical truths and may also include truths of meaning or of convention (though Quine disputes this latter inclusion). Synthetic truths are factual truths.

For Kant, the distinction is between types of justification rather than types of truth. He is concerned with our epistemic right to a given judgment or belief. We have an epistemic right to a judgment if, given the best existing evidence, we cannot be faulted on epistemic grounds for holding that judgment to be true. Epistemic right is an objective rather than a subjective notion in the sense that we are concerned not with the evidence that a particular individual happens to possess, but by the best possible grounds that can be produced from existing evidence.

Consider the class of judgments to which we have a right given available evidence. Within this class of judgments we can distinguish different ways in which the right is secured. The a priori/a posteriori and analytic/synthetic distinctions capture these differences.

Some judgments are such that their justification requires an appeal to experience. An obvious example is - 'The cup in front of me is red'. These are a posteriori judgments. All a posteriori judgments are also asynthetic. All judgments in the class under consideration that are not a posteriori are a priori.

A priori judgments can be split into analytic and synthetic ones. Analytic judgments are justified solely by virtue of logical relations among other judgments that do not themselves need justification from experience.

The analytic judgment 'All bachelors are unmarried' is justified by merely logical relations among a further set of judgments that includes the definition of 'bachelor'. At this step the following Quinean objection can be raised. Quine points out that all statements, even definitions, are made true by the world. The definition of 'bachelor' is made true by facts about our liguistic community and therefore essentially involves the empirical world just as the truth of 'the cup is red' is essentially involving of the world.

But Quine's point that there is no non-natural truth-maker and that the only truth-maker is the empirical world is irrelevant to Kant's distinction. For, Kant's distinction is between types of justification and not types of truth. The fact that analytic judgments may appeal to meanings that originate in the world does not mean that we must appeal to some particular set of experiences in justifying them. The question of origin is separated from that of justification. Though both the 'bachelor' statement and the 'cup' statement are made true by the world, there is a crucial difference in how we justify the two. In particular, justifying the latter- but not the former - requires an appeal to experience.

Subtracting the class of analytic judgments from the class of a priori ones leaves the synthetic a priori ones. What justifies synthetic a priori judgments? Kant suggests that they are justified by the presuppositions of all knowledge. These include Kant's 'forms of intuition'. Unlike analytic judgments, synthetic a priori ones are non-trivial and informative. Since they rely on the presuppositions of all knowledge, they can inform us a little about what shape our knowledge of the world will take.

Morally Right ?

2005-08-16T15:42:00.000+12:00

Here is one of the questions that I am having difficulty in grasping.
Let us take the case of
A fire that has just started at a scientist's office (who works on stem cell research and the development of embryos and has just successfully developed the ideal set of 6 embryos). The doors of the office are unusable for exit since the fire has covered the entire corridor.So the fire brigade arrives and the fireman comes in through the window. He can only take one (thing) back.
Now, does he :
a) Rescue the scientist and let the embryos perish?
b) Rescue the embryos and let the scientist perish?

[First i would like to propose this to all the bloggers and then maybe put what i have figured out across!]

When reasoning fails

2005-08-15T18:00:00.000+12:00

One of the justifications given for the US’s war against Iraq was a humanitarian one: Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator and quite apart from any risks he posed to other countries, the people of Iraq would be better off without him. The common response to this is to point out that there are plenty of other regimes with terrible human rights records, so why doesn’t the US invade these countries too? Surely this shows that the humanitarian justification for the war should not be accepted.

This seemingly convincing argument is actually a fallacy. Suppose I see you give $10 to charity. If I point out that there are at least a dozen other equally worthy charities, does this show that you acted wrongly? Surely not.

What if the other charities were somehow even more worthy? (Similarly, perhaps the people of Myanmar are worse off than Iraqis under Saddam were.) While it would have been better to give to the more worthy charity, this still does not show that you were wrong to give money to the less worthy charity.

What if you did not have enough money to give to the other charities? That would of course be a good excuse, but let us assume for the sake of argument that it’s not true. Say someone with ample disposable income gives to charity. Pointing out that they could have given more to other charities still does not show they acted wrongly by giving to only one.

It might be thought that giving to charity is different from going to war since the latter is a life-and-death matter. But suppose John rescues a child he sees drowning in a park pond. Does John act wrongly when there are several other children also drowning in the pond, even when he knows this? What if he could have saved more but chose not to? This example and the charity case show that while it would be even better to give more to charity/ save more drowning children, it is not wrong to give only $10/ save only one child. Giving only $10 and saving only one child are better than doing nothing.

There is a general lesson to be learnt here. In arguing the rights or wrongs of any issue, consistency is generally thought of as a virtue. If in situation X the right decision is Y, then in any other situation the same as X, the right decision is also Y. But the examples above illustrate that sometimes inconsistency is better than consistency. While consistently doing the right thing is best of all, inconsistently doing right and wrong things is better than consistently doing wrong.

Translating this into the terms of the invasion of Iraq, critics of the humanitarian justification seem to assume that it would have been better for the US to refrain from war completely rather than wage war against Iraq while at the same time doing little or nothing about Myanmar, Zimbabwe, etc. But surely the reverse ranking would be better. It would be best if all unjust regimes in the world were overthrown. But the inconsistency in attacking Iraq but not other regimes which violate human rights is preferable to doing nothing at all. The failure to try to overthrow all unjust regimes in the world is not a reason to refrain from overthrowing at least one of them.

Trust and paternalism

2005-08-15T17:35:00.000+12:00

The distinction between moral and nonmoral paternalism is as Richard puts it:
"I take it the idea is that moral paternalism goes against the person's own values, whereas non-moral paternalism does not."
Are seatbelt laws the latter? Richard says "Someone might really dislike helmets, or not want to mess up his carefully styled hair whenever he cycles. To force him to wear a helmet anyway would thus seem to be a case of forcing values upon him that he does not share." I think this would be a case of MORAL paternalism. So, one and the same law could be moral paternalism towards some people and non-moral towards others. Towards the latter it is more justified, but some way would have to be found to exempt the former. If there is no way, or there is but its too cumbesome or expensive to implement then maybe the paternalism is justified anyway - but then the justification would be that moral paternalism towards a few is justified because of the gains from nonmoral paternalism towards the many.

Richard also asks whether the case where I force my friend into art galleries actually a case of non-moral paternalism? "Perhaps we assume that our friend shares our values..." This is possible of course, but again the friend may not share our values. It might be precisely because he does not value art that i decide forcing him is the only way to show him what he's missing out on. It seems to me that Raz is right that a friend so forcing is more acceptable than government doing so, but that if it were non-moral paternalism e.g due to weakness of the will, government action would be more acceptable.

Richard says: "The strongest argument against paternalism comes from the value of autonomy, of course. But if we set that aside, surely the only other grounds for opposing it are utilitarian."
I think the autonomy argument is over-rated, partly because autonomy is such a slippery concept. Why is autonomy so valuable? Are we just to take it as a fixed point that autonomy is a fundamental value? Seems to me that autonomy has to be the conlcusion of an argument rather than a premise.

Coercive Moral Paternalism

2005-06-09T21:23:00.000+12:00

Things have been awfully quiet around here recently. I hope others get around to contributing something at some point. Anyway, I've long been meaning to write about the interesting seminar on Paternalism & Trust that Simon Clarke gave a couple of months back. It was centred around Raz's anti-paternalist catch-22:

P1. Coercive paternalism is justified only if the paternalist is someone reasonably trusted by the coerced.

P2. A person subjected to coercive moral paternalism cannot reasonably trust the government.

Therefore,
C. Coercive moral paternalism is not justified.

Simon was basically arguing that P2 needs to be modified to recognize that trust comes in degrees, so although paternalism undermines trust, this might be counterbalanced by other "trustworthiness-enhancing conditions of government". An interesting point came out in discussion (from Philip, I think), that the perceived legitimacy of compulsory voting might support this thesis. Voting increases trust in the government by involving one in the democratic process, which may explain why this particular case of coercive paternalism is more acceptable than most.

Anyway, I was wanting to discuss a slightly different issue. It seems to me that the distinction between moral and non-moral paternalism is not entirely clear-cut. Simon defined coercive moral paternalism (CMP) as "use of threats to prevent a person from following their way of life for their own good", e.g. laws against drugs, prostitution, pornography, gambling, etc. Typical examples of non-moral paternalism, by contrast, would be seat-belt and cycle-helmet laws.

I take it the idea is that moral paternalism goes against the person's own values, whereas non-moral paternalism does not. But do the examples really show a difference in kind? Someone might really dislike helmets, or not want to mess up his carefully styled hair whenever he cycles. To force him to wear a helmet anyway would thus seem to be a case of forcing values upon him that he does not share. (You might say that it's to protect his health, which he surely values. But this would extend to banning drugs, which was supposed to be a form of moral paternalism. More generally, everyone values their own well-being, and all paternalism is aimed at promoting that.) Granted, cycle-helmet laws are less intrusive than drug laws, they impose values which are less important to people - less central to their lives - but this seems merely a difference of degree rather than kind.

The alternative is to say that non-moral paternalism is when the person would, upon (perhaps idealized) reflection, come to agree with the paternalist and endorse the coerced action. But that barely seems to be paternalism any more. (It strikes me as quite unobjectionable.) It's more like a self-imposed law to help one overcome weakness of will and such. Perhaps seatbelt laws really do play this role for most people, but there would be exceptions. This definition would mean that the helmet-hating cyclist mentioned above (for example) actually suffered from moral rather than non-moral paternalism. But perhaps that's not so implausible?

Anyway, given this new definition, CMP might be self-defeating -- at least according to a subjectivist conception of well-being. If a person's good is what they would reflectively endorse, and CMP promotes ends that a person would not reflectively endorse, then CMP is (by definition) not to that person's good!

But one thing Simon said suggests he thinks that CMP is not always unjustified:

Coercion can be justified if used by friends or others whose good intentions are not in doubt. This reflects the nature of trust. Government forcing me into art galleries undermines my appreciation of art, but being forced by a close friend who I trust does not.

But does the friend really engage in CMP, or is it actually a case of non-moral paternalism? Perhaps we assume that our friend shares our values, so that his judgment is indicative of what our own values commit us to, or what we would reflectively endorse. That seems a possible alternative explanation, anyway. I'd be curious to hear what others think.

One final (and somewhat hasty) point: P1 strikes me as pretty implausible. The strongest argument against paternalism comes from the value of autonomy, of course. But if we set that aside, surely the only other grounds for opposing it are utilitarian. If we set aside autonomy, then coercive paternalism is justified iff it actually succeeds in making the target better-off. Trust is only relevant insofar as it affects whether the paternalism will be successful. If you can truly (successfully) improve my life, what does it matter whether I trust you?

Bats, Consciousness and Simulation

2005-04-12T15:24:00.000+12:00

I've been meaning to write about the interesting talk Doug Campbell gave on our Cass trip. I can only half-remember it now, but I'd better get something down before the other half disappears too...

Anyway, Doug was talking about Nagel's famous Bat argument. He reconstructs it as follows:

A1: Any sufficiently intelligent creature can in principle grasp any physical fact by adopting an objective perspective (e.g. through science).

A2: There are facts about what it is like to be a bat that can be grasped only by a creature that is capable of adopting a bat-like subjective perspective.

A3: It is not the case that any sufficiently intelligent creature can adopt a bat-like subjective perspective; so
–
A4: The physical facts do not exhaust the facts. (From A1, A2, and A3.)

His response was to highlight two distinct methods of learning facts: theory and simulation. If you want to know what each button on a VCR does, you might take it apart, carefully examine the wiring, and develop a technical theory of how it works. Alternatively, if you have another VCR of the same make and model, you might simply try pressing the buttons on this other VCR and see what happens. An assumption of similarity would allow you to carry over the results to your original VCR. In effect, you learnt about it through simulating its processes on another (similar enough) machine.

Next, suppose we want to know how other people are likely to behave. It would be very difficult to devise a fully-fledged theory of human psychology. Fortunately, we don't need a complex theory because - as with the VCR example - we have a similar 'model' at hand that we can experiment with: ourselves! Doug pointed out that consciousness allows us to learn about the behaviour of other people through simulation. We imagine how we would react in a particular situation, and - on the assumption that we are relevantly similar to the target - we conclude that they would likely react in a similar way. Moreover, Doug suggested that simulation is how we learn "what it is like" from some other perspective. I'm a bit unsure on this point, but I think he may even go so far as to suggest that the process of simulation just is "what it is like" -- i.e. facts about qualia may be identified with facts about simulation?

Now we get to the bit I had difficulty following: relating this point to the bat argument. Bats are far too different from us, so we lack the capacity to accurately simulate their behaviour. But what follows from this? If I recall correctly, I think Doug was wanting to use his point about simulation to deny premise A2 (or was it A3?), but I'm not sure how that works.

There's one crucial question in particular that I'm not sure about. We have these facts about "what it is like", that we can learn about through simulation. So far so good. My question is: are those facts only learnable through simulation? Or is it also possible, at least in principle, to devise a theory of consciousness that would yield facts about what it is like to be a bat?

If such a theory is possible, then A2 is false. But it doesn't seem that such a theory is possible -- that's the whole problem with consciousness; it seems inherently subjective. Alternatively, if qualia facts are only learnable through simulation, then it seems we should be denying A1. That is, assuming we hold such facts to still be physical facts. I'm not sure how plausible that is either though!

I've probably misunderstood the argument somewhere along the line, so if anyone can clarify things for me, please do so!

Blogger Problems

2005-03-30T16:48:00.000+12:00

A quick warning to my fellow contributors: the Blogger system is notoriously unreliable, and has a nasty habit of eating your posts rather than publishing them. The cost of a free service, I suppose. Anyway, I strongly recommend copying your post to the clipboard (press ctrl-A then ctrl-C in the text editor) before pressing the 'publish' button. That way if something goes wrong, you can just 'paste' your work back in again, rather than having to start from scratch.

Update: Blogger's new recover post feature might also help out here.

Identity

2005-03-24T14:45:00.000+12:00

This time a question. Is there anything more fundamental than identity? It seems to me that, at least from our epistemic situation, the most fundamental thing is identity; without identity then all that follows cannot not make any sense.

Immaterial Physicalism

2005-03-21T21:30:00.000+12:00

This is an idea I had some time last year and as there are no current posts on the blog I thought I might share it with you. No doubt no one will agree with it but I am looking forward to hearing why.

Basically the view arises from the following two considerations: (1) The materialist claim is that everything is extended. The essence of extension is that it is dividable. There exist some things which are not dividable, such as gravity and other fields. (I should also note that there is a tradition of existence being connected to oneness, if something can be divided then it does not have oneness and thus does not exist, all that exists are the parts that make it up). Thus we have the immaterial half of the thesis. (2) Plain old physicalism; the physical facts exhaust the facts. It just so happens that the physical picture contains some non-extended things. I would like to argue that in fact all physical things are essentially non-extended and that it is the combination of an infinitude of non-extended things that any extended things arise.

Name Change?

2005-03-20T15:56:00.000+12:00

I have, for the moment, changed the name of this blog from Splitting Atoms [explanation here] to Prior Knowledge (partly in honour of Arthur Prior).

The new name seems more obviously relevant to philosophy. Which do you guys prefer? Or do you have any alternative suggestions?

Tuesday Seminar: Deontic Reasons

2005-03-16T14:15:00.000+13:00

I think this website could serve as a useful forum to discuss issues that arise in Canterbury's weekly seminars. The main post could give a brief overview of the main argument, followed by an open discussion in the comments section.

Yesterday's research seminar was led by Prof. R. Jay Wallace (visiting from the University of California, Berkeley), and discussed the deontic structure of morality.

The full paper is available online, so I'll just quote the abstract here:

Normative reasons apparently come in different varieties. Some are attractive or aspirational, recommending actions in a way that leaves the agent some scope to ignore their claims; other reasons - including those at the center of morality - seem peremptory, demanding compliance in a way that the agent has no discretion to ignore. This paper offers an interpretation of the distinction between what I call aspirational and deontic normativity, paying special attention to the moral realm. I suggest that deontic reasons are grounded in principles that specify reciprocal normative claims, structuring our relationships to other agents. Some conceptions of morality seem much better suited than others to accommodate this distinctive kind of deontic normativity, a thesis I defend by contrasting consequentialist and contractualist approaches.

To illustrate the distinction, Prof. Wallace offered some example scenarios. Suppose that an agent has decisive reason to spend their evening at the cinema - it is a better option for them than any of the available alternatives. The agent might recognise this, but legimately choose to ignore this reason and stay home instead. Such reasons, which an agent has discretion to discount, may be called 'aspirational' reasons. It seems that we have no such discretion in the case of other ('deontic') reasons. If we have a debt to repay, or a friend in need, these provide reasons that we cannot legitimately ignore. What explains this difference?

Wallace points out that deontic structure is not the same thing as conclusive weight. We have (ex hypothesi) conclusive reason to go to the movie, but we nevertheless have discretion to ignore this reason, conclusive or not. Conversely, we might have a deontic reason which is overridden by more powerful considerations. Imagine a medical emergency arises which takes priority over repaying your debt. We are not at liberty to ignore the reasons that arise from our indebtedness; we must recognise their force even as we judge that they are nevertheless overpowered (but not negated) by other reasons.

After dispensing with various other accounts of the distinction, Wallace suggests that the answer may be found by considering the interpersonal context of deliberation as giving rise to reciprocal normativity, which has two key features:

(a) The consideration that grounds my reasons gives someone else a special claim or entitlement to performance on my part.

(b) The consideration that grounds my reasons renders someone else specially vulnerable to being wronged or injured in the case of nonperformance on my part.

He then goes on to explicate this in terms of a 'relational' or contractualist conception of morality, which appeals to those general principles that all might reasonably agree on (as being necessary to a functioning society):

If I discount or neglect my moral reason not to harm someone, for example... I will not merely have acted wrongly, by the terms of a normative standard that applies to my own conduct, but wronged the person I have harmed, insofar as my action will not be justifiable to that person on grounds that it would be reasonable for the person to accept.

Now, I agree that the social considerations make for the most plausible explanation of the aspirational/deontic divide. But I'm not sure if this can be adequately spelled out in contractualist terms, particularly in cases of 'overriding considerations'. Overriding considerations (such as medical emergencies) seem the sort of thing that all could reasonably accept in terms of the general principles of the Social Contract. So my failure to repay my debtor in case of emergency is something that will be justifiable to him. Nevertheless, as noted earlier, the reasons arising from my indebtedness still retain their force even when (justifiably) overriden. So appeals to social justification cannot explain the resilience of deontic force.

(To be clear: there is still a sense in which you've failed your obligation to the debtor and he has a legimate grievance, so the explanation of reciprocal normativity holds strong. But the legitimacy of your action, in accordance with general social principles, is not in question. This makes me think that appealing to the general principles of the social contract might be an inadequate explication of reciprocal normativity.)

Some other issues that might be worth further discussion:
1) Could we dispense with the aspirational/deontic distinction? (What would be the consequences of doing so?)
2) To what extent does it mirror the distinction between self- vs. other-regarding actions (as in, e.g., J.S. Mill's harm principle)?
3) Is Wallace right that consequentialist conceptions of morality cannot account for the a/d distinction?
4) Is he right that contractualist conceptions can account for it?

Feel free to raise any other issues that I've missed...

Philosophers' Carnival

2005-03-15T22:09:00.000+13:00

The eleventh Philosophers' Carnival is coming up next Monday. For those who are new to such things, a "carnival" is a showcase of posts from a wide range of blogs. The carnival "host" also offers a brief description or excerpt from each submitted entry, along with a link which readers can follow to read the whole thing if it catches their interest. The Philosophers' Carnival is a project I started up in August of last year, which serves to showcase specifically philosophical posts from around the net, and is held every three weeks. Full details can be found on the carnival homepage. (I encourage you to click through and view some of the past carnivals - there are a lot of interesting posts on offer!)

Anyway, it'd be cool to include a post from this blog in the upcoming carnival. Self-nominations are very much encouraged - just fill out the online submission form with the details of your post. We're allowed one submission per author, so there's no restriction on how many of us may submit posts to the carnival. If you haven't written a post yet, but would like to write one for the carnival, you've got until the end of the week to do so!

Pleasure Machine

2005-03-15T18:50:00.000+13:00

A common question in philosophy is "what does welfare constitute of?" It has been argued by hedonists that welfare is simply the amount of pleasure experienced minus the amount of pain experienced.

A common thought experiment used in arguing that the hedonistic account of welfare is insufficient is to ask people whether they would rather be mislead into thinking that their parents had died horribly (even though they were perfectly safe and happy), or be tricked into believing that their parents were safe and happy (even though they had died horribly). Most people seem to say that they would prefer their parents to be safe and happy, even if they had to believe they were dead, and suffer from the anguish resulting from that belief. In short: people care about things other than their own subjective happiness. Perhaps it follows that what a person would most prefer to happen, is for their own informed desires to be fulfilled in fact.

However, does this show that welfare hedonism is mistaken? I'm not so sure. Let me work a little on the thought experiment. Two highly sophisticated helmets are invented. One, the "depression helmet", when worn allows the person wearing it to go about their life as usual. However, it causes them to believe that all of their desires have been thwarted. The second helmet is called the "ecstasy helmet" and evokes in the subject a pathological optimism: they believe that they have everything in the world they could possibly want and more.

Would you rather actively fulfill all the desires you have in life, or at least see others fulfill them for you (but wear the depression helmet, so as to believe that the opposite is happening and hence be in utter anguish), or would you rather live what you would have called a worthless life, lying in bed all day like a heroin addict (but because you are wearing the ecstasy helmet you think you have everything that you desire, and because of this you are in utter bliss)?

I would say the first option. There are things I value more than my happiness. Perhaps, however, it would make sense to say that even though I prefer option one, I would be much better off in option two. This is what my intuition seems to tell me. In option one I feel about as happy as is possible. In option two, I feel so bad that I might as well be in hell. It seems that the live and well parents of the person in the depression helmet would agree - they would think that this person was in a terrible position (and, I hazard to guess, the more altruistic ones would sacrifice their lives to have the helmet replaced with an ecstacy one). Yet this seems to be the opposite conclusion intended by 'pleasure machine' type thought experiments.

Perhaps it is simply the case that there is a wide gap between "good for" somebody and "good to" somebody. This isn't a totally new idea - Richard introduced me to the vocabulary although I can't remember exactly which philosopher it was that he read it from. But there seems to be some merit to the distinction.

What do you think?

Introduction

2005-03-10T17:36:00.000+13:00

What is this site?

This is a group blog for Kiwi philosophers and students. Others are most welcome to join the discussion in comments, of course! If you're new to this stuff, the best way to get an idea of what philosophy group blogs are all about is to see them in action. Dave Chalmers has compiled a list of philosophical weblogs, for your browsing convenience.

Info for New Zealanders...

Why should I blog?

If you follow some of the links, you'll no doubt develop your own ideas about what is (and isn't) worthwhile about philosophy blogging. (It's also something I've written a bit about, here.)

One major purpose of this site is to facilitate communication between philosophers. I assume I don't need to convince my target audience of the value of philosophical banter! Individual aims may vary: some might seek feedback on a new idea, others might prefer to explore or explicate old ones, while others yet might want to discuss a 'meta' issue relating to the teaching of philosophy, and so forth.

How does it work?

If you're a New Zealand philosopher or philosophy student, and would like to contribute to this blog, simply email me (r.chappell@gmail.com) and I'll add you to the team. Once you're registered with Blogger.com, you can start posting whenever (and whatever) you like. It's entirely free, and very simple to use.

Russell's Robust Sense of Reality

2005-03-09T22:15:00.000+13:00

This is something I have on my mind, mostly because I have to give a presentation on it on Monday, but also because it is very interesting.

Bertrand Russell (An introduction to philosophical mathematics, p.169) writes:

It is argued, e.g. by Meinong, that we can speak about “the golden mountain,” “the round square,” and so on; we can make true propositions of which these are the subjects; hence they must have some kind of logical being, since otherwise the propositions in which they occur would be meaningless. In such theories, it seems to me, there is a failure of that feeling for reality which ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies. Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.

In this quote it appears that Russell is asserting that there is a strong bond between ontological commitments and formal logic. It seems far more plausible that the function of formal logic is merely a method for evaluating inferences. Any connection between logic and ontology is purely contingent. As Crittenden comments

logic should be neutral between different positions: a system of logic which was available to logicians of a particular philosophical persuasion only would hardly qualify as a logic.

Having said all that I still agree with Russell about his robust sense of reality. Guess I haven’t thought things through or something, but I’m in it for the discussion anyway. (this is my first post so if I've failed at some unspoken rules with blogs then please inform me and i'll attempt to conform in the future)

Happy slave?

2005-03-06T15:06:00.000+13:00

I feel like I should make a post. I'm studying ethics and political philosophy, as well as cognitive psychology at Canterbury this year. I'm finding it all really interesting, although hard to get my head around at times. Anyway, something that I have been a little preoccupied with recently, is the 'Happy slave' objection.

One kind of freedom, put forward by Bernard Williams, is 'primitive freedom'. S is primitively free with regard to some action if she is "unobstructed in doing what she wants by some form of humanly imposed coercion". S's total primitive freedom is the ratio of satisfied desires to unsatisfied desires.

Some would object that this means that a happy slave is more free than the other slaves. Because the happy slave doesnt desire to be a non-slave, he has a higher ratio of satisfied desires. Berlin gives an account of freedom: namely, negative freedom, that avoids this counterexample. According to Berlin's freedom: "I am free to the extent that no person prevents me from doing what I could otherwise do". It makes no reference to the desires of the slave, so the happy slave is equally unfree as the other slaves, although perhaps more lucky.

This has lead me to consider that perhaps what William's primitive freedom was pointing to was closer to welfare than freedom. After all, it is satisfying desires. If primitive unfreedom is to be equated with welfare, however, then we would be committed to saying that the happy slave is more well off than the other slaves, as well as someone that wasn't a slave and wished to be, and, ceteris paribus, is equally well off as the happy non-slave. Does this agree with your intuitions? I'm tempted to say that many people will disagree with that last point. Surely being free is to be factored into your welfare, even if you don't value it. However, perhaps when we say that, we are just telling the happy slave what he ought to value; which strikes me as a little presumptuous. I really intended this post as a bit of a survey. Tell me what you think. How well off is the happy slave?

Ideal Decisions

2005-01-28T17:16:00.000+13:00

To get the ball rolling, here's something I just posted to my other blog. It's nothing too amazing, but perhaps it will encourage others to post something better :)

----

Peter Railton ('Moral Realism' in Facts, Values, and Norms, p.12) writes:

Suppose that one desires X, but wonders whether X really is part of one's good. This puzzlement typically arises because one feels that one knows too little about X, oneself, or one's world, or because one senses that one is not being adequately rational or reflective in assessing the information one has...

I think it's plausible that ideal agent theories identify our self-interest. That is, the choice I would make if I were ideally rational and fully informed, etc., is probably the choice that is best for me. But it may be helpful to raise a variant of the old Euthyphro dilemma, and ask: Is X in my best interests because my idealized self would choose it, or would he choose it because it is in my best interests?

I think the answer is clearly the latter. But that then suggests that the reason why I should X is not just that my ideal self would choose it. Rather, the real reason must be whatever was behind my ideal self's choice. My (normative) reasons are his (descriptive) reasons, in other words.

So I'm now wondering: what would those reasons be? In particular, I wonder whether they would simply reduce to the desire-fulfillment theory of self-interest that I've previously advocated. That is, what's good for us is for our strongest desires to be fulfilled in objective fact. The 'ideal agent' heuristic just serves to rule out any subjective mistakes we might make, such as falsely believing that Y would fulfill our desires.

Do you agree with this reduction, or do you think your idealized self might want you to value strikingly different things from what you do in fact value?

From my earlier post on ideal agent theories:

One way to think of this would be to consider A as temporarily gaining full cognitive powers (i.e. turning into A+), and being frozen in a moment of time until he makes a decision, whilst knowing that the moment the decision is made, he will be turned back into A. This ensures that A+ has motivation to seek what is in A's genuine interest, even in those cases when the apparent interests of A and A+ would otherwise diverge.

Can you imagine being in A+'s position here, and choosing to do something other than what would best fulfill A's desires? I'm not sure I can. [Recall that A+ is perfectly rational.] I just don't know what it would be for something entirely undesired (nor indirectly fulfilling other desires) to be in A's "interests". But those who don't subscribe to a desire-fulfillment theory of value must be imagining something like this. So I'd very much like to hear what it is.