1/27/2012
On What Matters, Ch 10, Oxford University Press 2011
In this chapter author goes about showing that Kant's conception of determinism is too strict to allow for free choice, or rather choices made based on reasons. For Kant, morality is possible only if free will is, and free will is not within the world of space-time, because that is the world where determinism reigns (pg258-9). The most valuable premise for Kant here is the 'ought implies can' premise, where a presupposition of what one ought to do is what one can do. If determinism makes it so one cannot do anything other than what she is, through causal forces, fated to do, then 'ought' is destroyed because 'can' is. (pg259-60) This is the incompatibilist view.
Author argues that there is a compatibilist way of understanding 'can', not in a 'categorical' sense (the actual world could have been different), but in a 'hypothetical' sense (this world could have been slightly different, thus a different outcome). (pg260) This compatibilist view gives space for agents to have acted differently, based on decision making and evaluating past actions (pg261). The reason Kant does not see this is because, according to author, he conflates fatalism with determinism. (pg261-2) Author claims that the compatibilist view of freedom is all that is necessary to underwrite morality (pg263).
The next discussion is an extension of the previous one, because Kant believes that part of morality is the desert of suffering because of to moral turpitude. Kant says that if all actions are 'merely events in space-time', then we could not deserve to suffer for wrongdoing. Author twists his premise to affirm the antecedent and also affirm the consequent. (pg264) Author wants to keep compatibilism about choice but reject compatibilism about desert. (pg265) Author interestingly talks about the search for reasons for action, eventually ending in an ultimate reason (pg266).
One of Kant's arguments for being an incompatibilist about desert is that how we are depends on our actions and decisions in prior versions of ourselves, which were determined by prior decisions, and so on, back to our very creation, for which we were not responsible. (pg267-8) Author affirms this, but denies Kant's later claim that since we do deserve to suffer for bad acts, that acts aren't solely space-time determined. Author argues against the graspable incomprehensibility of the noumenal world, arguing that determinism and choice from another realm is irreconcilable (pg269).
Author ties the whole thing together: (pg 270)
-We can have freedom of choice with actions that are solely space-time
-Thus we can reject Kant's conclusion that our actions cannot be within space-time
-Since Kant's argument is valid, we must reject a premise too
-Reject that we deserve to suffer from our poor choices
Author ends with talking about what we as agents do and don't deserve, and punishment (in the form of suffering) for wrongdoing is not one of them.
1/20/12
Parfit, Derek - Respect and Value
1/20/2012
On What Matters, Ch 10, Oxford University Press 2011
In this chapter author explores the concept that Kant has about respect for the dignity of rational beings. This is different from the concept that all rational beings are good-- some (most/many) aren't. But all rational beings deserve respect because they have dignity. Author's point is that respect for rational beings does not get us much foothold in assessing which acts are right and which are wrong.(pg235)
This analysis starts with claiming that Kant meant that all wrong acts treat people in ways that disrespect their dignity. Surely this is true of some wrong acts like humiliating punishment, defamation, ridicule, acts that display contempt. But it is a stronger claim that all wrong acts fail to respect dignity. Kant wishes to build in the claims that acts like lying, suicide, and masturbation are also against human dignity, but this is hard to swallow (pg234-5). Instead, it seems Kant's claim is better suited to be limited in scope.
Author discusses the taxonomy of Kant's moral system, one that assigns value and a separate system that assigns moral worth, or the rightness or wrongness of actions. Author first starts with laying out a basic distinction between valuable things that can be promoted, and valuable things that aren't promoted in the same way-- they are respected instead. Author uses the term 'good events', but I believe the proper terminology is that there are valued events. Some events (states of affairs, outcomes, acts) are valued instrumentally, some are valued intrinsically. The most inclusive account of valued events is "Actualism": possible acts are valued as ends when they have intrinsic properties that "give us reason to want them to be actual", and means are valued when their ends are valued. (pg236) This account takes both intrinsically valued events and also events that are valued as means. Interestingly, author denies that Acualism applies to things other than events (taken broadly), for instance: it doesn't apply to persisting things like people or artworks. (pg237)
Actualism is not the only account of value: there are other things like objects, people, and concepts that are valuable but aren't teleological. These can't be 'promoted' but are instead 'respected'. Because these things are to be respected, author argues it is good to treat them with the respect they deserve (pg238). Author takes a weird direction though, appearing to argue that acts that respect the value of such things are good as ends (intrinsically valuable?) because they are acts that accord with Actualism.(pg238)
Kant's kinds of ends: ends-to-be-promoted, existent ends, and then ends-in-themselves. Ends-in-themselves are things Kant says have dignity and considers its value incomparable.(pg 239) Kant puts in the ends-to-be-promoted category the value of a good will, which is the will to do one's duty because it is one's duty. Author also claims Kant wants a possible world to be promoted where everyone has a good will. (However we shall see later that this end-to-be-promoted does not place any additional obligation on anyone other than having a good will.) Finally, the ultimate end-to-be-promoted (for Kant) is a world everyone receives happiness in proportion to the goodness of their will. So the steps of the ends-to-be-promoted are: (pg240)
1. Have a good will
2. Live in a world where everybody has a good will
3. Live in a world where we're all appropriately compensated for our good wills
Author goes on to claim that for Kant rationality is an an end-to-be-promoted rather than an end-in-itself. Things that have value as ends-in-themselves have 'dignity', which are of a value incomparable to those that have 'price'. But if rationality had dignity its price would be infinitely higher than other ends-to-be-promoted, like the avoidance of pain. Author claims this view is crazy, so Kant must not hold it. (pg241-2) Instead, author makes a distinction between rationality and humanity. Humanity is the capacity for morality, while rationality is "our other rational capacities and abilities" (pg242) Rationality is an end-to-be-promoted, e.g. worked on, while humanity i.e. the capacity for morality is the end-in-itself and has dignity.
Because we're talking about value and not goodness, every rational being, despite their goodness (or badness) has the value of rationality and therefore deserves respect. (pg240-1) Author suggests that Kant did not hold some common views about the relation between goodness and value (pg243), but that Kant does believe that a good will, the world where all have good will, and where all get their just desserts-- is both valuable and good. (pg244) Author describes Kant's views on the greatest goodness (to-be-promoted) in the "Formula of the Greatest Good" (pg245). Author reads Kant as giving a values-based end-to-be-promoted, similar to a consequentialist.
Author moves next into discussing consequentialism, which is a value-based theory of good action, but the terms to change to "the good" and "ought". (pg246) Most consequentialism uses the good to define the ought. This is distinct from Kant because Kant takes the good and ought to be distinct and one concept not more fundamental than the other (pg247-8). Author contrasts between Moore's tautological formulation of the good and the ought with Kant's (pg248-9). Author then explores how Kant's Formula of the Greatest Good (the world of good will and just dessert) relates to his other formulas (pg250), with the conclusion that if everyone did their duty, this is the best way to promote Kant's Greatest Good. (pg251)
The next line of discussion is about the possibility of connecting act-consequentialism with rule-consequentialism. In this pursuit, author claims we must appeal "to some view about how we ought to assess the effects of our acts." (pg252). Author considers three:
-Marginalist View
-Share of the Total View
-Whole Scheme View
These views are tested against a thought experiment "Rescue", in which four people are needed to save the lives of miners, but five people are unnecessary. (pg253) The Marginalist view suggests that the fifth person joining the mission makes all the actors inconsequential, which is absurd unless you add to it the Share of the Total View. Author casts both Hume and Kant as committed to the Whole Scheme View, since for Kant the achievement of the Greatest Good is by each person doing their duty. In this sense, Kant is a rule-consequentialist (pg255-6). However, author rejects the Whole Scheme View of both Hume and Kant-- the strict rule-following-- in favor of the Martinalist/Total View (pg256). This view, however, implies that Rule- and Act-consequentialism cannot be reconciled.
On What Matters, Ch 10, Oxford University Press 2011
In this chapter author explores the concept that Kant has about respect for the dignity of rational beings. This is different from the concept that all rational beings are good-- some (most/many) aren't. But all rational beings deserve respect because they have dignity. Author's point is that respect for rational beings does not get us much foothold in assessing which acts are right and which are wrong.(pg235)
This analysis starts with claiming that Kant meant that all wrong acts treat people in ways that disrespect their dignity. Surely this is true of some wrong acts like humiliating punishment, defamation, ridicule, acts that display contempt. But it is a stronger claim that all wrong acts fail to respect dignity. Kant wishes to build in the claims that acts like lying, suicide, and masturbation are also against human dignity, but this is hard to swallow (pg234-5). Instead, it seems Kant's claim is better suited to be limited in scope.
Author discusses the taxonomy of Kant's moral system, one that assigns value and a separate system that assigns moral worth, or the rightness or wrongness of actions. Author first starts with laying out a basic distinction between valuable things that can be promoted, and valuable things that aren't promoted in the same way-- they are respected instead. Author uses the term 'good events', but I believe the proper terminology is that there are valued events. Some events (states of affairs, outcomes, acts) are valued instrumentally, some are valued intrinsically. The most inclusive account of valued events is "Actualism": possible acts are valued as ends when they have intrinsic properties that "give us reason to want them to be actual", and means are valued when their ends are valued. (pg236) This account takes both intrinsically valued events and also events that are valued as means. Interestingly, author denies that Acualism applies to things other than events (taken broadly), for instance: it doesn't apply to persisting things like people or artworks. (pg237)
Actualism is not the only account of value: there are other things like objects, people, and concepts that are valuable but aren't teleological. These can't be 'promoted' but are instead 'respected'. Because these things are to be respected, author argues it is good to treat them with the respect they deserve (pg238). Author takes a weird direction though, appearing to argue that acts that respect the value of such things are good as ends (intrinsically valuable?) because they are acts that accord with Actualism.(pg238)
Kant's kinds of ends: ends-to-be-promoted, existent ends, and then ends-in-themselves. Ends-in-themselves are things Kant says have dignity and considers its value incomparable.(pg 239) Kant puts in the ends-to-be-promoted category the value of a good will, which is the will to do one's duty because it is one's duty. Author also claims Kant wants a possible world to be promoted where everyone has a good will. (However we shall see later that this end-to-be-promoted does not place any additional obligation on anyone other than having a good will.) Finally, the ultimate end-to-be-promoted (for Kant) is a world everyone receives happiness in proportion to the goodness of their will. So the steps of the ends-to-be-promoted are: (pg240)
1. Have a good will
2. Live in a world where everybody has a good will
3. Live in a world where we're all appropriately compensated for our good wills
Author goes on to claim that for Kant rationality is an an end-to-be-promoted rather than an end-in-itself. Things that have value as ends-in-themselves have 'dignity', which are of a value incomparable to those that have 'price'. But if rationality had dignity its price would be infinitely higher than other ends-to-be-promoted, like the avoidance of pain. Author claims this view is crazy, so Kant must not hold it. (pg241-2) Instead, author makes a distinction between rationality and humanity. Humanity is the capacity for morality, while rationality is "our other rational capacities and abilities" (pg242) Rationality is an end-to-be-promoted, e.g. worked on, while humanity i.e. the capacity for morality is the end-in-itself and has dignity.
Because we're talking about value and not goodness, every rational being, despite their goodness (or badness) has the value of rationality and therefore deserves respect. (pg240-1) Author suggests that Kant did not hold some common views about the relation between goodness and value (pg243), but that Kant does believe that a good will, the world where all have good will, and where all get their just desserts-- is both valuable and good. (pg244) Author describes Kant's views on the greatest goodness (to-be-promoted) in the "Formula of the Greatest Good" (pg245). Author reads Kant as giving a values-based end-to-be-promoted, similar to a consequentialist.
Author moves next into discussing consequentialism, which is a value-based theory of good action, but the terms to change to "the good" and "ought". (pg246) Most consequentialism uses the good to define the ought. This is distinct from Kant because Kant takes the good and ought to be distinct and one concept not more fundamental than the other (pg247-8). Author contrasts between Moore's tautological formulation of the good and the ought with Kant's (pg248-9). Author then explores how Kant's Formula of the Greatest Good (the world of good will and just dessert) relates to his other formulas (pg250), with the conclusion that if everyone did their duty, this is the best way to promote Kant's Greatest Good. (pg251)
The next line of discussion is about the possibility of connecting act-consequentialism with rule-consequentialism. In this pursuit, author claims we must appeal "to some view about how we ought to assess the effects of our acts." (pg252). Author considers three:
-Marginalist View
-Share of the Total View
-Whole Scheme View
These views are tested against a thought experiment "Rescue", in which four people are needed to save the lives of miners, but five people are unnecessary. (pg253) The Marginalist view suggests that the fifth person joining the mission makes all the actors inconsequential, which is absurd unless you add to it the Share of the Total View. Author casts both Hume and Kant as committed to the Whole Scheme View, since for Kant the achievement of the Greatest Good is by each person doing their duty. In this sense, Kant is a rule-consequentialist (pg255-6). However, author rejects the Whole Scheme View of both Hume and Kant-- the strict rule-following-- in favor of the Martinalist/Total View (pg256). This view, however, implies that Rule- and Act-consequentialism cannot be reconciled.
1/6/12
Parfit, Derek - Merely as a Means
1/6/2012
On What Matters, Ch 9, Oxford University Press 2011
This chapter is an examination of Kant's contention, under the Humanity Principle, that it is wrong to treat persons "merely as a means". On the face of it, it is ok to treat someone 'as a means', but perhaps not 'merely' as such. Author suggests as well that there is a distinction between 'doing something to someone to achieve some aim' and 'treating a person as a means'. (pg213) [This distinction is baffling to me.]
The problem with the prohibition against acting in a way that treats someone 'merely as a means' is that it is either too weak or too strong. Author first talks about how it can be too weak: a slave-owner might let his slaves rest during the hottest part of the day, thereby attending to some degree to their well-being or acting according to some weak (but present) moral principle. Thus, his slaves are not treated 'merely' as a means. (pg213) This is not strong enough, so author suggests it is a matter of degree: you can "come close" to treating some 'merely as a means' (MAAM). (pg214)
Author then introduces two new exceptions to the (treating someone) MAAM prohibition: (pg214)
1) treatment of another is guided by a relevant moral standard in a 'sufficiently important' way
2) you would bear a great burden for this other person
Author is not clear what these conditions amount to, and moves on from them to discuss the differences between acting toward someone MAAM, and regarding someone MAAM. (pg215-6) The trouble with a prohibition against acting toward someone MAAM, is that you can keep your promise by saving a child's life, for the sake of keeping the promise. Thus, you act toward the child MAAM of keeping your promise. If acting MAAM was impermissible, you could not save the child's life. Thus it might be necessary to add:
3) you do not act MAAM if your acts will not harm the other person
Author argues that this will not stop some acts MAAM because of the use of expedient solutions. Perhaps Green would want to act toward Gold in a harmful way, but decides the most expedient is to be kind. This act might still be wrong because Green treats Gold MAAM, but it abides by 3). (pg217) [This may mean that 3) should be thrown away.]
Author tries to revise the principle again, suggesting the provision about avoiding harm is built into the MAAM prohibition: It is wrong to treat someone MAAM (or do so by degree) if the act harms that person. (pg217) Author then considers the usual kill-one-to-save-five trolley problems: (pg218)
Lifeboat (one lifeboat, save either 5 people or 1)
Tunnel (divert a train from hitting 5 and instead it hits 1)
Bridge (operate a trap door to let 1 person fall in front of the train, saving 5)
In all of these cases, someone is harmed in the process of saving 5. However, only in Bridge could the case really be made that one acted MAAM. (pg219) Author tries to figure out whether the prohibition against MAAM would/should stop the operation of the trap door in Bridge. Author argues that because in all cases it is rational for the 1 to consent to saving the 5, including giving up his own life, then the MAAM prohibition is superseded by the Consent Principle, thus making all cases morally permissible. (pg220) Curiously, author argues that the Consent Principle overrides the MAAM prohibition, if someone gives consent. (pg220-1)
The above outcome seems to make the MAAM prohibition very weak. Author considers the "Standard View" of the MAAM prohibition: (pg221)
Harm a person, without her consent, as a means of achieving some aim: this is prohibited as treating someone MAAM.
Author argues that this is wrong in three ways:
a: you may not be treating a person MAAM (instead treating their bodies?)
b: you may be treating them as a means, but not merely
c: even if so, this act might not be impermissible
Author explores the case of injuring someone in self-defense, making it thereby impossible for her to continue to pursue you (breaking Brown's leg when she is running after you intending to kill you). This is an illustration of (a). (pg222)
Author then discusses a complex example where you could save your child's life (from an earthquake) by crushing Black's toe. Crush another of Black's toes and you can save your own life too. However, you believe it is wrong to save your own life this way. Thus, you act according to some moral principle (1), and you endure great harm for Black's sake (2) (see above for these provisos) Thus you treat Black as a means, but not MAAM. This is an illustration of (b). Author considers further refinement to the MAAM prohibition but argues it will not do the trick to bolster the "Standard View" or make Bridge wrong. (pg223-4)
Author considers the case that deception is wrong because it violates the MAAM prohibition, but offers a counter-example to it (pg225)-- deception is wrong for other reasons, not for the MAAM prohibition. Author then discusses whether Kant uses the MAAM language in some special way, so that we are using lay terms for philosophically technical terms-- author finds this unconvincing. (pg226-7)
Though it may be wrong to regard someone MAAM, it is not wrong to act in a way that treats someone MAAM. This was shown in the egoist/promise-keeper-saves-a-child case. The Standard View needs revision that stipulates that it is ok to harm someone as a means for achieving some end, as long as that harm is not too great, and there is no other way to do it (pg229) (Because without this revision, you can't crush Black's toe to save your child).
When considering this harm, author argues that the factors for the decision might include whether someone is treated as a means. But adding 'merely' does not factor into the decision about making the act wrong. (pg230) And furthermore, author cannot find good enough reason to consider an act wrong when adding that someone is being used as a means. We know it is wrong to regard someone as a means, and wrong to regard someone as a mere thing (not a person) (pg226), but that does not prohibit acts that treat people as means, and adding 'merely' does not change the situation.
On What Matters, Ch 9, Oxford University Press 2011
This chapter is an examination of Kant's contention, under the Humanity Principle, that it is wrong to treat persons "merely as a means". On the face of it, it is ok to treat someone 'as a means', but perhaps not 'merely' as such. Author suggests as well that there is a distinction between 'doing something to someone to achieve some aim' and 'treating a person as a means'. (pg213) [This distinction is baffling to me.]
The problem with the prohibition against acting in a way that treats someone 'merely as a means' is that it is either too weak or too strong. Author first talks about how it can be too weak: a slave-owner might let his slaves rest during the hottest part of the day, thereby attending to some degree to their well-being or acting according to some weak (but present) moral principle. Thus, his slaves are not treated 'merely' as a means. (pg213) This is not strong enough, so author suggests it is a matter of degree: you can "come close" to treating some 'merely as a means' (MAAM). (pg214)
Author then introduces two new exceptions to the (treating someone) MAAM prohibition: (pg214)
1) treatment of another is guided by a relevant moral standard in a 'sufficiently important' way
2) you would bear a great burden for this other person
Author is not clear what these conditions amount to, and moves on from them to discuss the differences between acting toward someone MAAM, and regarding someone MAAM. (pg215-6) The trouble with a prohibition against acting toward someone MAAM, is that you can keep your promise by saving a child's life, for the sake of keeping the promise. Thus, you act toward the child MAAM of keeping your promise. If acting MAAM was impermissible, you could not save the child's life. Thus it might be necessary to add:
3) you do not act MAAM if your acts will not harm the other person
Author argues that this will not stop some acts MAAM because of the use of expedient solutions. Perhaps Green would want to act toward Gold in a harmful way, but decides the most expedient is to be kind. This act might still be wrong because Green treats Gold MAAM, but it abides by 3). (pg217) [This may mean that 3) should be thrown away.]
Author tries to revise the principle again, suggesting the provision about avoiding harm is built into the MAAM prohibition: It is wrong to treat someone MAAM (or do so by degree) if the act harms that person. (pg217) Author then considers the usual kill-one-to-save-five trolley problems: (pg218)
Lifeboat (one lifeboat, save either 5 people or 1)
Tunnel (divert a train from hitting 5 and instead it hits 1)
Bridge (operate a trap door to let 1 person fall in front of the train, saving 5)
In all of these cases, someone is harmed in the process of saving 5. However, only in Bridge could the case really be made that one acted MAAM. (pg219) Author tries to figure out whether the prohibition against MAAM would/should stop the operation of the trap door in Bridge. Author argues that because in all cases it is rational for the 1 to consent to saving the 5, including giving up his own life, then the MAAM prohibition is superseded by the Consent Principle, thus making all cases morally permissible. (pg220) Curiously, author argues that the Consent Principle overrides the MAAM prohibition, if someone gives consent. (pg220-1)
The above outcome seems to make the MAAM prohibition very weak. Author considers the "Standard View" of the MAAM prohibition: (pg221)
Harm a person, without her consent, as a means of achieving some aim: this is prohibited as treating someone MAAM.
Author argues that this is wrong in three ways:
a: you may not be treating a person MAAM (instead treating their bodies?)
b: you may be treating them as a means, but not merely
c: even if so, this act might not be impermissible
Author explores the case of injuring someone in self-defense, making it thereby impossible for her to continue to pursue you (breaking Brown's leg when she is running after you intending to kill you). This is an illustration of (a). (pg222)
Author then discusses a complex example where you could save your child's life (from an earthquake) by crushing Black's toe. Crush another of Black's toes and you can save your own life too. However, you believe it is wrong to save your own life this way. Thus, you act according to some moral principle (1), and you endure great harm for Black's sake (2) (see above for these provisos) Thus you treat Black as a means, but not MAAM. This is an illustration of (b). Author considers further refinement to the MAAM prohibition but argues it will not do the trick to bolster the "Standard View" or make Bridge wrong. (pg223-4)
Author considers the case that deception is wrong because it violates the MAAM prohibition, but offers a counter-example to it (pg225)-- deception is wrong for other reasons, not for the MAAM prohibition. Author then discusses whether Kant uses the MAAM language in some special way, so that we are using lay terms for philosophically technical terms-- author finds this unconvincing. (pg226-7)
Though it may be wrong to regard someone MAAM, it is not wrong to act in a way that treats someone MAAM. This was shown in the egoist/promise-keeper-saves-a-child case. The Standard View needs revision that stipulates that it is ok to harm someone as a means for achieving some end, as long as that harm is not too great, and there is no other way to do it (pg229) (Because without this revision, you can't crush Black's toe to save your child).
When considering this harm, author argues that the factors for the decision might include whether someone is treated as a means. But adding 'merely' does not factor into the decision about making the act wrong. (pg230) And furthermore, author cannot find good enough reason to consider an act wrong when adding that someone is being used as a means. We know it is wrong to regard someone as a means, and wrong to regard someone as a mere thing (not a person) (pg226), but that does not prohibit acts that treat people as means, and adding 'merely' does not change the situation.
4/22/11
Dreyfus, Hubert & Kelly, Sean - Conclusion: Lives Worth Living In a Secular Age
04/22/2011
Book Chapter from All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to find Meaning in a Secular Age, Free Press, 2011
This is the final chapter in a book that attempts to find meaning in a world of post-modern technological progress. Authors talk about two kinds of sacredness, or spheres of life that deserve reverence: physis and poietics. Physis involves a mass communal experience and 'wooshing', poietics is about the kind of reverence and understanding that comes from having intimate knowledge with a portion of the world.
Authors start by describing the kind of experience that people have when observing a sports competition, where they get carried away by the roar of the crowd. The first and primary example is the farewell speech and ceremonies for Lou Gehrig. The second example uses David Foster Wallace's exultation of Roger Federer (pg194-6). Authors claim: "There is no essential difference, really, in how it feels to rise as one in joy to sing the praises of the Lord, or to rise as one in joy to sing the praises of the Hail Mary pass..." (pg192-3) The claim is that it is partially due to the community experienced in each, and that such experiences "bring out everything that is important in the situation, letting each thing shine at its very best." (pg193) This is a kind of 'embodied' ecstasy, a celebration of bodily accomplishments. Authors claim that such an aesthetic experience cannot be "approached directly" and instead 'inclines toward reconciliation instead of purification' (pg198). The suggestion is that this sacredness is both fragile and also overpoweringly amoral.
Authors describe four points about the 'sacred moments in sport'. First is the wave metaphor, the wooshing. (pg199) Second is the connection to 'realness', or physis. Third, this phenomenon is not unique to sport but any communal embodied experience (MLK's speech, a family Thanksgiving, are two other given examples- pg202). Fourth, there is something amoral and inherently dangerous about participation in this experience, since one can be drawn in to immoral projects just as easily.(pg202-3) Here authors discuss the risk of being too 'enlightened' and having an overly autonomous reaction to physis events.(pg203-5)
The next section moves to another sacred sphere, that or poiesis or poietics. This is most notably exemplified in the way a craftsman treats her work, and perhaps more importantly, the resource she works. Author claim that "Learning a skill is learning to see the world differently" (pg207) and yet this kind of learning is being 'flattened' in our modern technological age, where technology makes many accomplishments easy. (pg213) The primary example here is the wheelwright, the person who made carriage wheels by hand and needed to know how to treat the wood that was used in the process. That treatment led to a powerful way of seeing the wood (pg208) and also a reverence for the trees, the land, as the origins of the wood the wheelwright must work (pg210). Author point out the need for 'meta-poiesis', which is the skill at recognizing where value is to be had, where meaning can be cultivated or discovered.
The claim that poiesis is being lost in the technological age is next discussed, and the paradigm example is the GPS system that takes all the skill out of navigation. (pg213-215) Authors claim not just that we lose a reverence for the world-- it looks 'increasingly nondescript', but also that we lose an understanding of ourselves (pg213).
The next discussion is around finding the sacred in what might have been considered every-day activities, like having the morning cup of coffee. (pg215-8) The thesis here is that these types of sacred spheres are different for different people and that one cannot just lay-out ahead of time which ones will be considered sacred, and how. One has to experiment, and try it out, to see. (pg218-9) This is very much like the call for the skill at meta-poiesis, with which authors close.
Book Chapter from All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to find Meaning in a Secular Age, Free Press, 2011
This is the final chapter in a book that attempts to find meaning in a world of post-modern technological progress. Authors talk about two kinds of sacredness, or spheres of life that deserve reverence: physis and poietics. Physis involves a mass communal experience and 'wooshing', poietics is about the kind of reverence and understanding that comes from having intimate knowledge with a portion of the world.
Authors start by describing the kind of experience that people have when observing a sports competition, where they get carried away by the roar of the crowd. The first and primary example is the farewell speech and ceremonies for Lou Gehrig. The second example uses David Foster Wallace's exultation of Roger Federer (pg194-6). Authors claim: "There is no essential difference, really, in how it feels to rise as one in joy to sing the praises of the Lord, or to rise as one in joy to sing the praises of the Hail Mary pass..." (pg192-3) The claim is that it is partially due to the community experienced in each, and that such experiences "bring out everything that is important in the situation, letting each thing shine at its very best." (pg193) This is a kind of 'embodied' ecstasy, a celebration of bodily accomplishments. Authors claim that such an aesthetic experience cannot be "approached directly" and instead 'inclines toward reconciliation instead of purification' (pg198). The suggestion is that this sacredness is both fragile and also overpoweringly amoral.
Authors describe four points about the 'sacred moments in sport'. First is the wave metaphor, the wooshing. (pg199) Second is the connection to 'realness', or physis. Third, this phenomenon is not unique to sport but any communal embodied experience (MLK's speech, a family Thanksgiving, are two other given examples- pg202). Fourth, there is something amoral and inherently dangerous about participation in this experience, since one can be drawn in to immoral projects just as easily.(pg202-3) Here authors discuss the risk of being too 'enlightened' and having an overly autonomous reaction to physis events.(pg203-5)
The next section moves to another sacred sphere, that or poiesis or poietics. This is most notably exemplified in the way a craftsman treats her work, and perhaps more importantly, the resource she works. Author claim that "Learning a skill is learning to see the world differently" (pg207) and yet this kind of learning is being 'flattened' in our modern technological age, where technology makes many accomplishments easy. (pg213) The primary example here is the wheelwright, the person who made carriage wheels by hand and needed to know how to treat the wood that was used in the process. That treatment led to a powerful way of seeing the wood (pg208) and also a reverence for the trees, the land, as the origins of the wood the wheelwright must work (pg210). Author point out the need for 'meta-poiesis', which is the skill at recognizing where value is to be had, where meaning can be cultivated or discovered.
The claim that poiesis is being lost in the technological age is next discussed, and the paradigm example is the GPS system that takes all the skill out of navigation. (pg213-215) Authors claim not just that we lose a reverence for the world-- it looks 'increasingly nondescript', but also that we lose an understanding of ourselves (pg213).
The next discussion is around finding the sacred in what might have been considered every-day activities, like having the morning cup of coffee. (pg215-8) The thesis here is that these types of sacred spheres are different for different people and that one cannot just lay-out ahead of time which ones will be considered sacred, and how. One has to experiment, and try it out, to see. (pg218-9) This is very much like the call for the skill at meta-poiesis, with which authors close.
4/1/11
Connolly, John - Augustine on the Will, or Why Cooperation is an Unnatural Act
04/01/2011
Unpublished paper
The primary question of this paper is a launching point for a discussion about Augustine's troubles with the human will. The question involves why we humans are not naturally given to cooperation-- we are often uncooperative, and even when we do cooperate it is sometimes for ulterior motives, or long-term selfishness. The problem here is part of a general one: why are humans so disposed to irrational, sinful behavior? Author takes a walk through St Augustine's attempts to answer this question.
Author first looks at the book of Genesis, where Eve, then Adam, eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. The trouble for many religious thinkers, especially those who claim that God is both all-good and the creator of all things, is two: why did Eve fall prey to the serpent's guile, and furthermore, why was the serpent so guileful? At first face, it appears that there is a dualistic nature to the universe (good and evil, the Manichean perspective), or that God manufactured the creatures of the earth-- including mankind-- with flaws (this is trouble since God is flawless).
Neither of these options were palatable for Augustine, who tried his hand at a solution early on in On Free Choice of the Will. Augustine talks about the evils we suffer and suggests that some of them we suffer because they are just punishments from the evils we have committed. But of course for punishment to be just, the sinful acts must have been voluntary. This puts the trouble into the Will, which just pushes it back-- didn't God design the human will? Why is it subject to these common defects? Augustine puts forward an answer that the will itself was designed just fine, if used in accordance with reason or is properly 'ordered'. If 'disordered', it leads to sin. Author points out how similar this is to the Greeks. Author then takes an interlude to discuss the relative primitive conception of the Will here-- it is probably similar to what Aristotle considered boulesis-- the choice about what is worth pursuing (ideally using reason in that process). This choice is autonomous, as Augustine insists.
Augustine believes it is good that we have the freedom of the will, since then our positive decisions are with merit-- we could do otherwise. But this leads to the next problem: why would a rational will decide to pursue sin over the orderliness of virtue? This problem, author claims, Augustine has no good solution for. Augustine's first attempt considers such a movement of the will a kind of ex nihilo decision-- an irrationality that comes from nothing. And how can one know the cause of that which comes from nothing? This weird answer author calls "the mystery of the missing motivation". The final book of On Free Choice of the Will, added years later, opens a new line of argument: our wills are hopelessly degraded due to the original sin of our parents, Adam & Eve. Our only chance at salvation lies in the grace of God. This theological solution is bolstered by Augustine's common sense that each human is sinful from the beginning of its existence (birth).
Though this seems to be Augustine's final answer on the problem of deficiencies of the will, the author is not satisfied. Author uses an analogy of a standardized test administered to the populous, but only after tutoring a portion of the demographic while ignoring the rest. It is hardly credible that who passes is not at least influenced by those who do the tutoring. And yet, it is technically true that the untutored fail without coercion and on their own autonomy. However, author argues this is unjust and capricious, not all-loving or perfectly just. Augustine begs off, asking that we accept a 'hidden equity'.
Author then discusses the general element of Augustine's struggle about humankind's proneness to sin. For example, many myths seem to point to a earlier age where sin was not a concern. Can this be squared with Darwinian evolution, which seems to show humans as emerging from a primate ancestor into greater cooperation than ever before? Author takes a suggestion from Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, which claims that the development of fixed agricultural and pastoral food production was the cause of much cultural change, including the creation of property, a ruling class, war, disease, and even racism. The thesis was that agriculture and animal husbandry diminished nutritional diversity, exposed humans to new diseases, created a fixed source of value that could be effectively controlled-- tempting an elite class, and finally caused societal divisions that destroyed our spirit of cooperation. Author reads the Genesis story of the fall from Eden into Diamond's description of the changes in human culture with the invention of agriculture.
Unpublished paper
The primary question of this paper is a launching point for a discussion about Augustine's troubles with the human will. The question involves why we humans are not naturally given to cooperation-- we are often uncooperative, and even when we do cooperate it is sometimes for ulterior motives, or long-term selfishness. The problem here is part of a general one: why are humans so disposed to irrational, sinful behavior? Author takes a walk through St Augustine's attempts to answer this question.
Author first looks at the book of Genesis, where Eve, then Adam, eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. The trouble for many religious thinkers, especially those who claim that God is both all-good and the creator of all things, is two: why did Eve fall prey to the serpent's guile, and furthermore, why was the serpent so guileful? At first face, it appears that there is a dualistic nature to the universe (good and evil, the Manichean perspective), or that God manufactured the creatures of the earth-- including mankind-- with flaws (this is trouble since God is flawless).
Neither of these options were palatable for Augustine, who tried his hand at a solution early on in On Free Choice of the Will. Augustine talks about the evils we suffer and suggests that some of them we suffer because they are just punishments from the evils we have committed. But of course for punishment to be just, the sinful acts must have been voluntary. This puts the trouble into the Will, which just pushes it back-- didn't God design the human will? Why is it subject to these common defects? Augustine puts forward an answer that the will itself was designed just fine, if used in accordance with reason or is properly 'ordered'. If 'disordered', it leads to sin. Author points out how similar this is to the Greeks. Author then takes an interlude to discuss the relative primitive conception of the Will here-- it is probably similar to what Aristotle considered boulesis-- the choice about what is worth pursuing (ideally using reason in that process). This choice is autonomous, as Augustine insists.
Augustine believes it is good that we have the freedom of the will, since then our positive decisions are with merit-- we could do otherwise. But this leads to the next problem: why would a rational will decide to pursue sin over the orderliness of virtue? This problem, author claims, Augustine has no good solution for. Augustine's first attempt considers such a movement of the will a kind of ex nihilo decision-- an irrationality that comes from nothing. And how can one know the cause of that which comes from nothing? This weird answer author calls "the mystery of the missing motivation". The final book of On Free Choice of the Will, added years later, opens a new line of argument: our wills are hopelessly degraded due to the original sin of our parents, Adam & Eve. Our only chance at salvation lies in the grace of God. This theological solution is bolstered by Augustine's common sense that each human is sinful from the beginning of its existence (birth).
Though this seems to be Augustine's final answer on the problem of deficiencies of the will, the author is not satisfied. Author uses an analogy of a standardized test administered to the populous, but only after tutoring a portion of the demographic while ignoring the rest. It is hardly credible that who passes is not at least influenced by those who do the tutoring. And yet, it is technically true that the untutored fail without coercion and on their own autonomy. However, author argues this is unjust and capricious, not all-loving or perfectly just. Augustine begs off, asking that we accept a 'hidden equity'.
Author then discusses the general element of Augustine's struggle about humankind's proneness to sin. For example, many myths seem to point to a earlier age where sin was not a concern. Can this be squared with Darwinian evolution, which seems to show humans as emerging from a primate ancestor into greater cooperation than ever before? Author takes a suggestion from Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, which claims that the development of fixed agricultural and pastoral food production was the cause of much cultural change, including the creation of property, a ruling class, war, disease, and even racism. The thesis was that agriculture and animal husbandry diminished nutritional diversity, exposed humans to new diseases, created a fixed source of value that could be effectively controlled-- tempting an elite class, and finally caused societal divisions that destroyed our spirit of cooperation. Author reads the Genesis story of the fall from Eden into Diamond's description of the changes in human culture with the invention of agriculture.
3/18/11
Kraut, Richard - Aristotle on Human Good - An Overview
03/18/2011
This book chapter is a brief walk-through of the arguments author put forward in the book Aristotle on the Human Good. Author goes through the many issues around the structure of Aristotle's metaethical concepts, starting with the question of whether eudaimonia is inclusive of all intrinsic goods or if it is a singular-dominant intrinsic good. Author begins with considering the idea that eudaimonia is an inclusive good of many intrinsic ends, making it a (possibly conceptual) statement about ultimate ends. (pg80) Author believes this is a misreading of a famous passage about the self-sufficiency of eudaimonia (happiness for this author), where it is suggested that eudaimonia is made better by adding it to other worthwhile goods. (pg81) However this conflicts with the next passage, about the 'ergon' or function of humans. From this discussion it appears that virtuous activity (activity done using the exercise of reason) is the singular-dominant good. Furthermore, emphasis that eudaimonia is an activity rather than a state (or rather than both) seems to conflict with the inclusive reading. (pg82-3) Author also points out that in Aristotle's other writings, he does not indicate that eudaimonia is an inclusive end either. Author then looks for a way to re-read the self-sufficiency passage: author reads it to mean that eudaimonia is 'the' good, not 'a' good that can be improved upon. Though this is consistent with the inclusive good reading, it does not establish it. Instead, Aristotle argues that eudaimonia is one intrinsic good, virtuous activity. (pg84-5)
Side note: author reads the discussion in Aristotle that relates to not counting someone as happy even when virtuous if she is insufficiently equipped with an external good (like honor, fortune, health) to be not an indication that these external goods are components of eudaimonia, but instead they are resources needed in order to practice eudaimonia. (pg83)
The next topic author examines is the contest between the practice of contemplation (book 10) and the political virtues (facilitated by practical reason) that is in NE. This is an age-old problem in Aristotle interpretation, and author does not believe that the way out is to highlight the best component of eudaimonia, contemplation, among the other inclusive goods (since author does not advocate the inclusive reading of eudaimonia) (pg86). Instead, author claims that eudaimonia is indeed contemplation, but when you are unable to perform it, you can be happy in the 'second degree' with the political virtues. Author therefore takes the two activities as from the same genus "virtuous activity of the rational soul", but separates them-- strictly speaking eudaimonia is just contemplation. But for a full life, you can't just practice contemplation, so thus the political virtues are needed. (pg87-90)
Author then reviews various other concepts introduced in the NE, the first being Aristotle's understanding of the 'mean', or the right action between two extremes along a theme, for instance, bravery in between foolhardiness and cowardice. While Aristotle calls for a more instructive way of determining the mean, author argues what he provides is the basis for such decisions, namely the exercise of the intellect.
The next discussion is on whether Aristotle should rightly be called an 'egoist'. Author criticizes the interpretation that Aristotle is a benign egoist, who advocates self-regard as the metaethical stance, but because the virtues are the best thing for the self, there should be no societal conflict. Author claims that because the highest good is contemplation, this would mean that other activities, that is, the political virtues, could be seen as conflicting with contemplation (pg93-4). Since contemplation and the good citizenship might easily conflict, this would be a 'departure' from ordinary moral standards which Aristotle wouldn't want to do. (pg94) Furthermore, Aristotle frequently talks about the 'good for man', not for the particular individual, and regards self-love as only good because it is good for others (pg95). Author claims Aristotle isn't an egoist, but doesn't resolve a potential conflict between self-interest and duties to others.
The final substantive section talks about the distinctions between Plato and Aristotle, how Aristotle rejects the abstract view of 'the good' in favor of a objective one, not a perspectival one. (pg99)
This book chapter is a brief walk-through of the arguments author put forward in the book Aristotle on the Human Good. Author goes through the many issues around the structure of Aristotle's metaethical concepts, starting with the question of whether eudaimonia is inclusive of all intrinsic goods or if it is a singular-dominant intrinsic good. Author begins with considering the idea that eudaimonia is an inclusive good of many intrinsic ends, making it a (possibly conceptual) statement about ultimate ends. (pg80) Author believes this is a misreading of a famous passage about the self-sufficiency of eudaimonia (happiness for this author), where it is suggested that eudaimonia is made better by adding it to other worthwhile goods. (pg81) However this conflicts with the next passage, about the 'ergon' or function of humans. From this discussion it appears that virtuous activity (activity done using the exercise of reason) is the singular-dominant good. Furthermore, emphasis that eudaimonia is an activity rather than a state (or rather than both) seems to conflict with the inclusive reading. (pg82-3) Author also points out that in Aristotle's other writings, he does not indicate that eudaimonia is an inclusive end either. Author then looks for a way to re-read the self-sufficiency passage: author reads it to mean that eudaimonia is 'the' good, not 'a' good that can be improved upon. Though this is consistent with the inclusive good reading, it does not establish it. Instead, Aristotle argues that eudaimonia is one intrinsic good, virtuous activity. (pg84-5)
Side note: author reads the discussion in Aristotle that relates to not counting someone as happy even when virtuous if she is insufficiently equipped with an external good (like honor, fortune, health) to be not an indication that these external goods are components of eudaimonia, but instead they are resources needed in order to practice eudaimonia. (pg83)
The next topic author examines is the contest between the practice of contemplation (book 10) and the political virtues (facilitated by practical reason) that is in NE. This is an age-old problem in Aristotle interpretation, and author does not believe that the way out is to highlight the best component of eudaimonia, contemplation, among the other inclusive goods (since author does not advocate the inclusive reading of eudaimonia) (pg86). Instead, author claims that eudaimonia is indeed contemplation, but when you are unable to perform it, you can be happy in the 'second degree' with the political virtues. Author therefore takes the two activities as from the same genus "virtuous activity of the rational soul", but separates them-- strictly speaking eudaimonia is just contemplation. But for a full life, you can't just practice contemplation, so thus the political virtues are needed. (pg87-90)
Author then reviews various other concepts introduced in the NE, the first being Aristotle's understanding of the 'mean', or the right action between two extremes along a theme, for instance, bravery in between foolhardiness and cowardice. While Aristotle calls for a more instructive way of determining the mean, author argues what he provides is the basis for such decisions, namely the exercise of the intellect.
The next discussion is on whether Aristotle should rightly be called an 'egoist'. Author criticizes the interpretation that Aristotle is a benign egoist, who advocates self-regard as the metaethical stance, but because the virtues are the best thing for the self, there should be no societal conflict. Author claims that because the highest good is contemplation, this would mean that other activities, that is, the political virtues, could be seen as conflicting with contemplation (pg93-4). Since contemplation and the good citizenship might easily conflict, this would be a 'departure' from ordinary moral standards which Aristotle wouldn't want to do. (pg94) Furthermore, Aristotle frequently talks about the 'good for man', not for the particular individual, and regards self-love as only good because it is good for others (pg95). Author claims Aristotle isn't an egoist, but doesn't resolve a potential conflict between self-interest and duties to others.
The final substantive section talks about the distinctions between Plato and Aristotle, how Aristotle rejects the abstract view of 'the good' in favor of a objective one, not a perspectival one. (pg99)
2/25/11
Ackrill, John Lloyd - Aristotle on Eudaimonia
02/25/2011
This paper advances the thesis that Aristotle considered eudaimonia to be an inclusive concept of a mixture between the political virtues and the activity of contemplation. Further, the practical/political virtues and contemplation are goods-in-themselves and take part in eudaimonia because they are constitutive of it, not because they are instrumental for eudaimonia.
Author begins by reviewing the main question around Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: what is the best life for a man to lead? The answer seems to first be the political/practical virtues (henceforth: the political virtues), and yet in book 10 of NE, Aristotle seems to claim that it is instead engaging in contemplation.
Author reviews prominent efforts to explain this discrepancy on a higher level-- explaining possible incoherence in Aristotle's thinking.
The first is Gauthier & Jolif, who contend that Aristotle believed that the political virtues create a characteristic state that favors the exercise of contemplation. But this would mean they were instrumental, so they aren't good-in-themselves, which is inconsistent with Aristotle's view on virtues. They try to explain the inconsistency by saying Aristotle confused the value of 'productive activity' with the value of actions themselves.
The second is Hintikka, who argues that Aristotle is locked into a teleological way of thinking, so he must relegate actions he found inherently valuable as means to an even further end, in this case a kind-of place holder: eudaimonia.
The third is Hardie, who argues that Aristotle has a standard view that eudaimonia has one "dominant" activity as the good in human life. (And that is contemplation). Instead of allowing eudaimonia to be inclusive of multiple activities (he has "flashes" where he allows that), Aristotle is committed to one end providing for eudaimonia, for humans: contemplation.
Author believes that Aristotle has an inclusive concept of eudaimonia and that there is no reason to believe he was confused on the matter. (pg59)
Author first takes time to lay out what is meant by an 'inclusive' concept of eudaimonia. (III) The idea is that there is a plurality of ends that make up eudaimonia, as opposed to a single 'dominant' or 'monolithic' end. Author also argues that eudaimonia as a concept does not entail dominance of one end. Author then delves into the text and focuses especially on a sequence in book 1 where Aristotle talks about subordinate activities and outcomes. The idea is that activities valued only instrumentally can be nested in a hierarchy of subordination (buy food-to cook food-to eat food) but that so too can activities valued in themselves also be nested in a hierarchy. Author believes this is the concept of good-as-constitutive, rather than just the standard good-as-means evaluation. (IV) What this allows is that goods-in-themselves can also be goods-for-the-sake-of eudaimonia (pg61-2).
Author then examines book 7 where eudaimonia is considered to be 'self-sufficient', meaning that it isn't aimed at for the sake of anything else, and that it is the final end of human pursuits. (V) (pg63-4) This is a logical point in the concept of eudaimonia. However, eudaimonia itself can be composed of numerous ends-in-themselves. "...There are several final ends. When Aristotle says that if so we are seeking the most final he is surely not laying down that only one of them (theoria) is really a final end." (pg65) Instead, he is saying that once we assess that there are many final ends, we must give the most final, which is eudaimonia. [This seems to turn eudaimonia into a kind-of placeholder.] Author swipes at Kenny, who tries to translate eudaimonia into happiness-- author denies this is possible since happiness can be forsaken for other pursuits, while eudaimonia as a concept cannot. (pg66-7)
Author then tries to debunk the reading that eudaimonia involves a 'dominant' activity or single object of desire. In book 1 chapter 2, Aristotle apparently commits the fallacy of concluding that since everything is done for a reason, a single reason is responsible for why everything is done. While Hardie (proponent of the 'dominant' end) acquits Aristotle (pg68), author holds Aristotle on the hook, but re-reads the passage to include the conceptual argument about eudaimonia previously given. So of course everything is done for the sake of eudaimonia-- that is a conceptual truth. The conclusion is only easy to disprove because there are multiple ends-in-themselves. But if eudaimonia is inclusive of those ends, then the conceptual nature of eudaimonia as including all ends-in-themselves is preserved.
Author then moves to discuss the famous ergon argument from Aristotle in book 1: that the specific function of a being will determine its eudaimonia. For humans, it is the rational element-- that intellect and reason can dictate to the emotions. Author argues this does not readily favor contemplation over practical reason (and the political virtues). (pg70) He even argues against such favoritism since contemplation is distinctive to the gods, not to humans. For author here as well as in other places, 'most final' means, for Aristotle, 'final without qualification'-- a comprehensive end that could easily include many constitutive ends-in-themselves. It doesn't mean one exclusive end-in-itself. (pg71)
The problem for this interpretation of Aristotle is that he should surely have realized that if there are more than a single end-in-itself to pursue, what is the combination-- what's the recipe-- for which ones to pursue, and when? Author complains that this is a difficult answer to work out, especially with Plato's Protagoras looking over Aristotle's shoulder. (VIII) (pg72)
Author goes on to examine the interplay of practical reason and contemplation after book 10-- does practical reason try to maximize contemplation? Do you perform the political virtues for the sake of contemplation? (Author: no. pg 73-4)
This paper advances the thesis that Aristotle considered eudaimonia to be an inclusive concept of a mixture between the political virtues and the activity of contemplation. Further, the practical/political virtues and contemplation are goods-in-themselves and take part in eudaimonia because they are constitutive of it, not because they are instrumental for eudaimonia.
Author begins by reviewing the main question around Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: what is the best life for a man to lead? The answer seems to first be the political/practical virtues (henceforth: the political virtues), and yet in book 10 of NE, Aristotle seems to claim that it is instead engaging in contemplation.
Author reviews prominent efforts to explain this discrepancy on a higher level-- explaining possible incoherence in Aristotle's thinking.
The first is Gauthier & Jolif, who contend that Aristotle believed that the political virtues create a characteristic state that favors the exercise of contemplation. But this would mean they were instrumental, so they aren't good-in-themselves, which is inconsistent with Aristotle's view on virtues. They try to explain the inconsistency by saying Aristotle confused the value of 'productive activity' with the value of actions themselves.
The second is Hintikka, who argues that Aristotle is locked into a teleological way of thinking, so he must relegate actions he found inherently valuable as means to an even further end, in this case a kind-of place holder: eudaimonia.
The third is Hardie, who argues that Aristotle has a standard view that eudaimonia has one "dominant" activity as the good in human life. (And that is contemplation). Instead of allowing eudaimonia to be inclusive of multiple activities (he has "flashes" where he allows that), Aristotle is committed to one end providing for eudaimonia, for humans: contemplation.
Author believes that Aristotle has an inclusive concept of eudaimonia and that there is no reason to believe he was confused on the matter. (pg59)
Author first takes time to lay out what is meant by an 'inclusive' concept of eudaimonia. (III) The idea is that there is a plurality of ends that make up eudaimonia, as opposed to a single 'dominant' or 'monolithic' end. Author also argues that eudaimonia as a concept does not entail dominance of one end. Author then delves into the text and focuses especially on a sequence in book 1 where Aristotle talks about subordinate activities and outcomes. The idea is that activities valued only instrumentally can be nested in a hierarchy of subordination (buy food-to cook food-to eat food) but that so too can activities valued in themselves also be nested in a hierarchy. Author believes this is the concept of good-as-constitutive, rather than just the standard good-as-means evaluation. (IV) What this allows is that goods-in-themselves can also be goods-for-the-sake-of eudaimonia (pg61-2).
Author then examines book 7 where eudaimonia is considered to be 'self-sufficient', meaning that it isn't aimed at for the sake of anything else, and that it is the final end of human pursuits. (V) (pg63-4) This is a logical point in the concept of eudaimonia. However, eudaimonia itself can be composed of numerous ends-in-themselves. "...There are several final ends. When Aristotle says that if so we are seeking the most final he is surely not laying down that only one of them (theoria) is really a final end." (pg65) Instead, he is saying that once we assess that there are many final ends, we must give the most final, which is eudaimonia. [This seems to turn eudaimonia into a kind-of placeholder.] Author swipes at Kenny, who tries to translate eudaimonia into happiness-- author denies this is possible since happiness can be forsaken for other pursuits, while eudaimonia as a concept cannot. (pg66-7)
Author then tries to debunk the reading that eudaimonia involves a 'dominant' activity or single object of desire. In book 1 chapter 2, Aristotle apparently commits the fallacy of concluding that since everything is done for a reason, a single reason is responsible for why everything is done. While Hardie (proponent of the 'dominant' end) acquits Aristotle (pg68), author holds Aristotle on the hook, but re-reads the passage to include the conceptual argument about eudaimonia previously given. So of course everything is done for the sake of eudaimonia-- that is a conceptual truth. The conclusion is only easy to disprove because there are multiple ends-in-themselves. But if eudaimonia is inclusive of those ends, then the conceptual nature of eudaimonia as including all ends-in-themselves is preserved.
Author then moves to discuss the famous ergon argument from Aristotle in book 1: that the specific function of a being will determine its eudaimonia. For humans, it is the rational element-- that intellect and reason can dictate to the emotions. Author argues this does not readily favor contemplation over practical reason (and the political virtues). (pg70) He even argues against such favoritism since contemplation is distinctive to the gods, not to humans. For author here as well as in other places, 'most final' means, for Aristotle, 'final without qualification'-- a comprehensive end that could easily include many constitutive ends-in-themselves. It doesn't mean one exclusive end-in-itself. (pg71)
The problem for this interpretation of Aristotle is that he should surely have realized that if there are more than a single end-in-itself to pursue, what is the combination-- what's the recipe-- for which ones to pursue, and when? Author complains that this is a difficult answer to work out, especially with Plato's Protagoras looking over Aristotle's shoulder. (VIII) (pg72)
Author goes on to examine the interplay of practical reason and contemplation after book 10-- does practical reason try to maximize contemplation? Do you perform the political virtues for the sake of contemplation? (Author: no. pg 73-4)
2/11/11
Bush, Stephen - Divine and Human Happiness in Nicomachean Ethics
02/11/2011
Philosophical Review, Vol 117 No 1, 2008
This paper discusses the ostensibly contradictory position by Aristotle that in the Nichomachean Ethics happiness consists in contemplation (the exercise of theoretic reason) and, also, that happiness consists in the exercise of the political virtues. Author's position is that Aristotle takes a dualistic approach to happiness, one activity of a human is divine happiness, another activity of a human being human happiness. This is contrary to two other interpretations, one he considers "monistic" and another is 'inclusive', or aggregate. The monistic version tries to have the contemplative activity as the good and argues that the civic virtues are somehow related, approximating, or subservient to theoretical reason. The inclusive or aggregate view author believes is an unnatural reading of the text, so it is largely ignored (pg50).
The monist interpretation, after reading book 10 of NE, becomes an intellectualist interpretation since contemplation, or exercise of theoretic reason, is the highest good. The trouble is what the status of the civic virtues like generosity, courage, justice are if they are not human goods in themselves. Author reviews the recent attempts by three authors to show how the civic virtues are related to the intellecualist position. The authors are Gabriel Richardson Lear, John Cooper, and Richard Kraut.
Richardson Lear argues that there are mid-level ends that are both goods-in-themselves but also for some other good. The way that the civic virtues are goods for the sake of happiness is a good-by-approximation. "If a middle-level end approximates the final end in some significant manner, that relation of approximation endows the middle-level end with intrinsic value that is derived from the value of the final end." (pg52) Another author, Cooper, argues differently. For Cooper, contemplation is an activity that is kind-of the progenitor of the exercise of civic virtues, since they are properly executed using practical reason. Since practical reason resembles theoretic reason and practical reason is the executive for the civic virtues, the intrinsic value of theoretic reason is conferred to practical reason and the exercise of the civic virtues. The final author considered here, Kraut, gives a kind-of first-choice, second-choice answer: the highest happiness is contemplation, but failing that, the second-best is civic virtue. (pg54-5) Author gives the problem for each of the intellectual monists: civic virtue and contemplation are two distinct activities; if both constitute happiness, then the view can't be monistic. "While Richardson Lear and Cooper spend proportionately a great deal of time demonstrating that the morally virtuous life is choiceworthy and valuable, neither gives much attention to how we can properly call that life happy." (pg53) Author presents his inconsistent tetrad: (pg54)
a) happiness is monistic
b) contemplative activity is exclusively happiness
c) contemplative activity and morally virtuous activity are distinct from each other
d) morally virtuous activity is happiness
What Cooper and Richardson Lear seem to advocate is that one can have a happy life without practicing theoretic reason since civic virtue approximates (Richardson Leer) or is related to (Cooper) theoretic reason. But this means a life of civic virtue can be a happy one but it lacks the activity of happiness, that is, contemplation. So author takes an interlude through the text of NE to discover whether Aristotle believed that one could be happy without the activity of happiness (pg56-8), or whether Aristotle believed that there was a robust condition of happiness that was separate from the good activity. (Author concludes: no)
Author believes Aristotle is clear that practicing the civic virtues is happiness, and that practicing contemplation is happiness. While this indicts monism, it does not lead him to an aggregate or inclusivist theory; rather, author advances a dualist theory of happiness. Other dualist theories have come from writers like Dominic Scott, whose work author reviews (pg60-1). Scott believes that Aristotle has primary happiness, in the strict sense, as contemplation, but derivative, secondary, happiness in the civic virtues. This is because humans have a bifocal nature-- one of contemplation but also one of practical reason and emotion. Author finds this particular take unconvincing because of the paradigmatic/secondary aspect of happiness.
Instead, author proposes a distinction between the 'characteristic human good' and 'the highest good that humans can obtain'. (pg61-2) The concept is that humans can reach human happiness based on their characteristic human good (practical reason), but that humans also possess theoretic reason, which will allow them to engage in an activity of divine happiness (contemplation). The characteristic human activity is to have its emotions conform to reason (the compound of reason and emotion)-- in the civic virtues. Yet, "The characteristic or peculiar good of a species is not necessarily the highest good that a species can obtain." (pg62) Author takes this thesis through the text of the NE (pg62-68). Along the way author pulls the strands of characteristic human-goods and human-happiness and of divine-goods and divine-happiness (pg64). So, on this reading, the highest human good is civic virtue, but humans can still access even a higher good-- though not a human one (a divine one)-- in contemplation. (pg67)
The interpretive difficulty in author's dualistic theory is a question about whether Aristotle implies that humans are 'mostly theoretic', and so the highest human good should be identified by the practice of their characteristic activity-- their theoretic capacities, contemplation. This would throw the divine element back into the human compound, destroying the dualistic distinction. (pg69-70) This is a question of how Aristotle sees the identity of the human-- what is the distinctive quality for humans? Author favors a reading of 'mostly' (malista) not as 'strictly' but 'especially'. (pg71) Author supposes Aristotle favors a distinction between what is 'merely human' and what is human and also divine. (pg72)
Philosophical Review, Vol 117 No 1, 2008
This paper discusses the ostensibly contradictory position by Aristotle that in the Nichomachean Ethics happiness consists in contemplation (the exercise of theoretic reason) and, also, that happiness consists in the exercise of the political virtues. Author's position is that Aristotle takes a dualistic approach to happiness, one activity of a human is divine happiness, another activity of a human being human happiness. This is contrary to two other interpretations, one he considers "monistic" and another is 'inclusive', or aggregate. The monistic version tries to have the contemplative activity as the good and argues that the civic virtues are somehow related, approximating, or subservient to theoretical reason. The inclusive or aggregate view author believes is an unnatural reading of the text, so it is largely ignored (pg50).
The monist interpretation, after reading book 10 of NE, becomes an intellectualist interpretation since contemplation, or exercise of theoretic reason, is the highest good. The trouble is what the status of the civic virtues like generosity, courage, justice are if they are not human goods in themselves. Author reviews the recent attempts by three authors to show how the civic virtues are related to the intellecualist position. The authors are Gabriel Richardson Lear, John Cooper, and Richard Kraut.
Richardson Lear argues that there are mid-level ends that are both goods-in-themselves but also for some other good. The way that the civic virtues are goods for the sake of happiness is a good-by-approximation. "If a middle-level end approximates the final end in some significant manner, that relation of approximation endows the middle-level end with intrinsic value that is derived from the value of the final end." (pg52) Another author, Cooper, argues differently. For Cooper, contemplation is an activity that is kind-of the progenitor of the exercise of civic virtues, since they are properly executed using practical reason. Since practical reason resembles theoretic reason and practical reason is the executive for the civic virtues, the intrinsic value of theoretic reason is conferred to practical reason and the exercise of the civic virtues. The final author considered here, Kraut, gives a kind-of first-choice, second-choice answer: the highest happiness is contemplation, but failing that, the second-best is civic virtue. (pg54-5) Author gives the problem for each of the intellectual monists: civic virtue and contemplation are two distinct activities; if both constitute happiness, then the view can't be monistic. "While Richardson Lear and Cooper spend proportionately a great deal of time demonstrating that the morally virtuous life is choiceworthy and valuable, neither gives much attention to how we can properly call that life happy." (pg53) Author presents his inconsistent tetrad: (pg54)
a) happiness is monistic
b) contemplative activity is exclusively happiness
c) contemplative activity and morally virtuous activity are distinct from each other
d) morally virtuous activity is happiness
What Cooper and Richardson Lear seem to advocate is that one can have a happy life without practicing theoretic reason since civic virtue approximates (Richardson Leer) or is related to (Cooper) theoretic reason. But this means a life of civic virtue can be a happy one but it lacks the activity of happiness, that is, contemplation. So author takes an interlude through the text of NE to discover whether Aristotle believed that one could be happy without the activity of happiness (pg56-8), or whether Aristotle believed that there was a robust condition of happiness that was separate from the good activity. (Author concludes: no)
Author believes Aristotle is clear that practicing the civic virtues is happiness, and that practicing contemplation is happiness. While this indicts monism, it does not lead him to an aggregate or inclusivist theory; rather, author advances a dualist theory of happiness. Other dualist theories have come from writers like Dominic Scott, whose work author reviews (pg60-1). Scott believes that Aristotle has primary happiness, in the strict sense, as contemplation, but derivative, secondary, happiness in the civic virtues. This is because humans have a bifocal nature-- one of contemplation but also one of practical reason and emotion. Author finds this particular take unconvincing because of the paradigmatic/secondary aspect of happiness.
Instead, author proposes a distinction between the 'characteristic human good' and 'the highest good that humans can obtain'. (pg61-2) The concept is that humans can reach human happiness based on their characteristic human good (practical reason), but that humans also possess theoretic reason, which will allow them to engage in an activity of divine happiness (contemplation). The characteristic human activity is to have its emotions conform to reason (the compound of reason and emotion)-- in the civic virtues. Yet, "The characteristic or peculiar good of a species is not necessarily the highest good that a species can obtain." (pg62) Author takes this thesis through the text of the NE (pg62-68). Along the way author pulls the strands of characteristic human-goods and human-happiness and of divine-goods and divine-happiness (pg64). So, on this reading, the highest human good is civic virtue, but humans can still access even a higher good-- though not a human one (a divine one)-- in contemplation. (pg67)
The interpretive difficulty in author's dualistic theory is a question about whether Aristotle implies that humans are 'mostly theoretic', and so the highest human good should be identified by the practice of their characteristic activity-- their theoretic capacities, contemplation. This would throw the divine element back into the human compound, destroying the dualistic distinction. (pg69-70) This is a question of how Aristotle sees the identity of the human-- what is the distinctive quality for humans? Author favors a reading of 'mostly' (malista) not as 'strictly' but 'especially'. (pg71) Author supposes Aristotle favors a distinction between what is 'merely human' and what is human and also divine. (pg72)
1/13/11
Connolly , John - Aquinas on Happiness and the Will (unpublished chapter)
01/14/2011
Unpublished Manuscript
This is a book chapter about Aquinas' apparent paradox regarding human nature and happiness. The trouble can be summed up as follows:
P1. All humans desire their perfect good (happiness that is perfectly satisfying)
P2. Human nature is sufficient to attain perfectly satisfying happiness
C1. It's within human nature to attain its perfectly satisfying happiness
P3. Perfectly satisfying happiness is the Beatific Vision
P4. The Beatific Vision is received by God's grace only
C2. It's not within human nature to attain perfectly satisfying happiness
The chapter begins by discussing how Aquinas adopted much of the Nicomachean Ethics from Aristotle to talk about the naturally (according to human nature) attainable virtues (bravery, magnanimous-ness, etc.) (and prudence and theoretical reason), and also Aristotle's format for an ethic, that happiness for humans is attaining the goods according to their nature. The change comes when Aquinas posits that we desire, as our complete good, the Beatific Vision (knowledge of God). This desire is part of our nature-- we are paradoxical in some sense because we desire that which is beyond our nature, and it is this thing that will perfectly satisfy humans. (#3) Author points out a problem with this teleological concept of happiness: for Aquinas it is out of the reach of our nature, but still it is the only complete happiness for our nature.
Author delves into the paradox to investigate it more fully. The first investigation is whether Aquinas would be considered 'eudaimonistic' in the sense that Aristotle was. After all, Aristotle believed that:
1.humans have a particular nature
2.happiness for humans is finding (and attaining) the virtues in that nature
3.that happiness is perfectly satisfying.
Because Aquinas breaks both 2. and 3., isn't this a dramatic departure? (#5)
The next investigation is about the ends of human action-- Aquinas' teleology. This is a general review of Aquinas' theories of human action, not just activities done by humans but full-fledged human action. (#6-7) The key piece here is that every human action is done for the sake of one's ultimate end, perfectly satisfying happiness. (The Beatific Vision #8)
Author then spells out how, generally, Aquinas meant for his synthesis of Aristotle and Christian beliefs to work: attainment of the Aristotelian virtues is all humans can do by their natures but provides for imperfect happiness. Perfect happiness comes from receiving God's grace and then infusing those virtues with the divine gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity. By acting with these infused virtues can humans become meritorious of the Beatific Vision. (#10-11) Does this make Aquinas an egoistic rationalist because he recommends being virtuous not as an end-in-itself but for the reward for such behavior? (#12) The trouble here is that grace is supposed to infuse a human with such virtues as charity, which is supposed to be performed out of love for God. It wouldn't be correct to call such performance self-serving, even though it is meritorious of divine reward. (#13) However, author believes that this ethic should be considered consequentialist, our aspirations for the Beatific Vision rewarded by our meritorious behavior while on earth. (#15)
Author returns to the apparent paradox of a perfect good that is desired but unattainable by nature in #16 and also discusses the limitations that Aquinas was under due to Papal edict: it was heretical to claim that humans had a God-like element in themselves, making it possible to attain their perfect good. (#17), yet it was also not possible to claim that the only happiness possible for human nature was that of the Aristotelian virtues, the non-grace-infused humanistic ones. One trouble for Aquinas is his sticking to the Aristotelian principle that "nature does nothing in vain" (#18), since God surpasses the nature of all creatures, yet we have the natural desire for the Beatific Vision as our perfectly satisfying happiness. This leads to the question as to whether the Beatific Vision itself surpasses human nature-- whether human nature desires something it cannot hold. Author believes that (#19) there is a second problem for the principle: desire will then imply the possibility of attaining that desire, which we know in the case of the Beatific Vision, is not attainable, it is instead given by God's will. [Interestingly, it is in the footnotes where Author tells us that, according to the Scholastics, there was a category for a desire with no expectation of fulfillment-- a "velleitas" or wish]
The dilemma that seems to arise here is even worse than the earlier one: at (#20) it seems that the created & finite nature of human beings makes it impossible to hold the Beatific Vision, or, that the Beatific Vision is attainable by a created & finite creature. Or, that a human being can be made to hold the Beatific Vision by having a part of itself be uncreated & infinite. Author believes that Eckhart holds this last disjunct (#21), but that Aquinas cannot due to orthodoxy.
The final portion of the chapter gives Aquinas' rejection of the divine component of the human soul, saying that any similarity between God and humans should be taken to be by analogy, not by sharing the same property. (#23-24)
Unpublished Manuscript
This is a book chapter about Aquinas' apparent paradox regarding human nature and happiness. The trouble can be summed up as follows:
P1. All humans desire their perfect good (happiness that is perfectly satisfying)
P2. Human nature is sufficient to attain perfectly satisfying happiness
C1. It's within human nature to attain its perfectly satisfying happiness
P3. Perfectly satisfying happiness is the Beatific Vision
P4. The Beatific Vision is received by God's grace only
C2. It's not within human nature to attain perfectly satisfying happiness
The chapter begins by discussing how Aquinas adopted much of the Nicomachean Ethics from Aristotle to talk about the naturally (according to human nature) attainable virtues (bravery, magnanimous-ness, etc.) (and prudence and theoretical reason), and also Aristotle's format for an ethic, that happiness for humans is attaining the goods according to their nature. The change comes when Aquinas posits that we desire, as our complete good, the Beatific Vision (knowledge of God). This desire is part of our nature-- we are paradoxical in some sense because we desire that which is beyond our nature, and it is this thing that will perfectly satisfy humans. (#3) Author points out a problem with this teleological concept of happiness: for Aquinas it is out of the reach of our nature, but still it is the only complete happiness for our nature.
Author delves into the paradox to investigate it more fully. The first investigation is whether Aquinas would be considered 'eudaimonistic' in the sense that Aristotle was. After all, Aristotle believed that:
1.humans have a particular nature
2.happiness for humans is finding (and attaining) the virtues in that nature
3.that happiness is perfectly satisfying.
Because Aquinas breaks both 2. and 3., isn't this a dramatic departure? (#5)
The next investigation is about the ends of human action-- Aquinas' teleology. This is a general review of Aquinas' theories of human action, not just activities done by humans but full-fledged human action. (#6-7) The key piece here is that every human action is done for the sake of one's ultimate end, perfectly satisfying happiness. (The Beatific Vision #8)
Author then spells out how, generally, Aquinas meant for his synthesis of Aristotle and Christian beliefs to work: attainment of the Aristotelian virtues is all humans can do by their natures but provides for imperfect happiness. Perfect happiness comes from receiving God's grace and then infusing those virtues with the divine gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity. By acting with these infused virtues can humans become meritorious of the Beatific Vision. (#10-11) Does this make Aquinas an egoistic rationalist because he recommends being virtuous not as an end-in-itself but for the reward for such behavior? (#12) The trouble here is that grace is supposed to infuse a human with such virtues as charity, which is supposed to be performed out of love for God. It wouldn't be correct to call such performance self-serving, even though it is meritorious of divine reward. (#13) However, author believes that this ethic should be considered consequentialist, our aspirations for the Beatific Vision rewarded by our meritorious behavior while on earth. (#15)
Author returns to the apparent paradox of a perfect good that is desired but unattainable by nature in #16 and also discusses the limitations that Aquinas was under due to Papal edict: it was heretical to claim that humans had a God-like element in themselves, making it possible to attain their perfect good. (#17), yet it was also not possible to claim that the only happiness possible for human nature was that of the Aristotelian virtues, the non-grace-infused humanistic ones. One trouble for Aquinas is his sticking to the Aristotelian principle that "nature does nothing in vain" (#18), since God surpasses the nature of all creatures, yet we have the natural desire for the Beatific Vision as our perfectly satisfying happiness. This leads to the question as to whether the Beatific Vision itself surpasses human nature-- whether human nature desires something it cannot hold. Author believes that (#19) there is a second problem for the principle: desire will then imply the possibility of attaining that desire, which we know in the case of the Beatific Vision, is not attainable, it is instead given by God's will. [Interestingly, it is in the footnotes where Author tells us that, according to the Scholastics, there was a category for a desire with no expectation of fulfillment-- a "velleitas" or wish]
The dilemma that seems to arise here is even worse than the earlier one: at (#20) it seems that the created & finite nature of human beings makes it impossible to hold the Beatific Vision, or, that the Beatific Vision is attainable by a created & finite creature. Or, that a human being can be made to hold the Beatific Vision by having a part of itself be uncreated & infinite. Author believes that Eckhart holds this last disjunct (#21), but that Aquinas cannot due to orthodoxy.
The final portion of the chapter gives Aquinas' rejection of the divine component of the human soul, saying that any similarity between God and humans should be taken to be by analogy, not by sharing the same property. (#23-24)
12/17/10
Macdonald, Scott - Ultimate Ends in Practical Reasoning: Aquinas's Aristotelian Moral Psychology and Anscombe's Fallacy
12/17/2010
The Philosophical Review, Vol 50, No 1 Jan 1991
This paper ties to defend the view that humans are rational ultimate ends-seekers against two objections from Elizabeth Anscombe. The view is Aristotle's but more refined by Aquinas, and it is, roughly, that all human activity aims at some (one) ultimate end. Anscombe's objections are given on the first page: first, human actions might have no particular end, and second, to believe that every human action aims at one ultimate end is probably an error in reasoning: a fallacious move from 'every action has some end' to 'some end is had for every action'. (pg31) Aside from the logical fallacy, the author's main task is to account for how the view that multiple intrinsic ends can be admitted to the Aristotelian conception of one ultimate end at which all human action aims. (pg32) Instead of using a reconstruction of Aristotle's argument, author prefers to use Aquinas' throughout the paper, since he believes is more expanded and explicit.
Author considers Aquinas' argument to have four main parts, each of which author goes about refining and defending. (pg34)
[A] Each human action is for the sake of some end
[B] Each human action is for the sake of some ultimate end
[C] There is some single ultimate end for the sake of which all the human actions of an individual human being are done
[D] There is some single ultimate end for the sake of which all human actions of all human beings are done
Over the course of the paper, author refines all the above claims into modified ones:
[A'] Each human action properly so-called, that is, each action resulting from deliberated willing, is for the sake of some end (pg37)
[B'] Each fully rational human action is for the sake of at least one weak ultimate end (pg45)
[C'] There is some single strong ultimate end for the sake of which all the human actions of a fully rational being are done (pg47)
[D'] All fully rational human beings share a purely formal strong ultimate end (pg61)
The paper takes each claim in order and converts it to it's altered state, and then discusses each one. First is to narrow the discussion of human action to human action that is done on a rational basis. Author utilizes a common distinction in Aquinas involving activities associated with humans (e.g. breathing) and actions done by a human qua human-- by virtue of a having reason. (pg35) Thus, Anscombe's first objection, that some human activity is just 'doing what we are doing, just because' is isolated into a different set of activities and author only wants to focus on those done for a reason. Author sketches what it means to perform a human action properly so-called: it is the intellect conceiving of a good, judging it as good, and presenting it to the will as worth doing: 'deliberated willing' (pg36). With this explication, author argues that A' is a conceptual truth talking about a subset of human activity, and author believes this subset is sufficiently large to be interesting (pg38-9). The key point here, which is used as a strategy throughout the paper, is to avoid taking A-D as being empirical generalizations about humans but instead criteria for what rational action consists in for humans (pg39-40). The second main strategy is to insist that Aquinas' arguments are laying out formal criteria, not contentful ones. Which particular ends Aquinas might believe are intrinsically the best are not implicit in A-D. (pg40-1)
In the next section author gives some terminology regarding ends and means: an end is subordinate if it is done for the sake of another end, and such a relation is transitive. (pg42) Author will later give further specifications: subordinate ends can be subordinate-as-constituent or subordinate-as-means (pg52), both of which, author claims, are distinct from the third subordination: instrumental subordination. More terminology: means-ends actions go into a 'tree'; every human action has an end'-tree, and it must contain one 'ultimate' end, meaning an end sought for itself. The argument for each tree having an ultimate end (pg43-4) is that without such an end, the will would not be moved to pursue the subordinate ends or other means. (This might also serve as a reason why an end tree cannot be infinite, without a terminus). An ultimate end (end desirable in itself) is named a 'weak ultimate end', to contrast it with a 'strong ultimate end', which is considered an end or set of ends that fully satisfy a particular human. [Of interest here is that author will talk about creating a strong ultimate end out of deliberation and conscious, rational, discarding of some weak ultimate ends (pg65)] With the argument for the need for at least one end-in-itself (weak ultimate end), author specifies B'.
The next part of the paper seeks to install plausibility for C', and author relies heavily on the formal, criterial aspects of the discussion and also some additional distinctions. For author, a strong ultimate end is considered simple to be an end which fully satisfies the rational human to every extent possible: "it completely fulfills all a human being's rational desires". (pg46-7) However, it does not have to be one thing. It can be an aggregate of many weak ultimate ends, combined together into one (disjunctive?) end. To believe that a strong ultimate end must be one thing is a 'monolithic' conception of the ultimate end, of which, author conjectures, hedonistic utilitarianism is an example. (pg48) However, there can be an aggregate case, which is a collection of weak ultimate ends into some sort of formula. (pg49-50) It is here that author introduces ends that can be ends-in-themselves but also subordinate-as-constituents of a further-- aggregated-- ultimate end. (pg51) "The possibility of an aggregate view of ultimate ends, then, requires us to distinguish three different relations of subordination among ends: instrumental subordination, subordinatino-as-a-constituent-part, and subordination-as-a-means." (pg53)
The worrisome part of Aquinas' argument for the rationality of an ultimate end is the teleological element-- that each being desires its own 'perfection'. But author believes that the case can be made that it is rational to have a strong ultimate end without such teleology. (pg54) The way author goes about this is to try to establish that the human intellect can consider 'the good' in the abstract, or the universal concept of 'the good'. Thus humans can not only consider a particular aim or goal as good-in-itself, but also form a conception of various goods as comprising the (abstract) good. (pg55) We can see how some goods conflict, how some might need weighing, or perhaps even rejecting. Thus a human can conceive of how her collection of good-in-themselves might conflict or might fit together into a coherent and structured ultimate good (using practical reason), the best life (pg56). What is also revealed here is that such an effort will uncover one single strong ultimate end (possibly aggregated), since more than one will mean incoherence or conflict-- a sort of schizophrenia (pg58). Author uses an example of Albert Schweitzer, who may have both wanted to pursue science and also music. Though he chose to pursue science, he could still recognize the pursuit of music as an end-in-itself, but he could not be said to desire it any longer. (pg57-8) Author places the use of practical reason in crafting an aggregate strong ultimate end from multiple ends-in-themselves.
Author introduces one more type of subordinate end, the subordinate-as-specification. (pg59) This subordinate is a determinate specification for a more abstract, indeterminate-ending ultimate end. Author uses 'attain political power' as the ultimate end, and 'win the mayoral race' as a subordinate-as-specification. Author then reviews the three types of ends (strong ultimate, weak ultimate, and instrumental-to-weak-ultimate) and the four subordinate relations (instrumental, -as-means, -as-constituents, -as-specifications) in a prolonged example of a triathelete. (pg60, also see appendix) The upshot of these introductions is that it gives best-life theorists much better tools in talking about the motivations and desires of their human subjects. For instance, it is acceptable to say both that one loves her children for its own sake, but also because it is a constituent of living well (pg63-4).
Author spcifies that rational human agents should all share a formal strong ultimate end-- which would be ether a monolithic or aggregate concept of the individual's most-satisfying good. (pg61-2) The trouble is in figuring out the content. Author believes that practical reasoning isn't just means-ends reasoning, but also reasoning about which ends go into the ultimate one (pg63-4). This is in contrast to philosophers who might argue that there is no rational way to decide between strong ultimate ends. (Frankfurt or Williams?)
The Philosophical Review, Vol 50, No 1 Jan 1991
This paper ties to defend the view that humans are rational ultimate ends-seekers against two objections from Elizabeth Anscombe. The view is Aristotle's but more refined by Aquinas, and it is, roughly, that all human activity aims at some (one) ultimate end. Anscombe's objections are given on the first page: first, human actions might have no particular end, and second, to believe that every human action aims at one ultimate end is probably an error in reasoning: a fallacious move from 'every action has some end' to 'some end is had for every action'. (pg31) Aside from the logical fallacy, the author's main task is to account for how the view that multiple intrinsic ends can be admitted to the Aristotelian conception of one ultimate end at which all human action aims. (pg32) Instead of using a reconstruction of Aristotle's argument, author prefers to use Aquinas' throughout the paper, since he believes is more expanded and explicit.
Author considers Aquinas' argument to have four main parts, each of which author goes about refining and defending. (pg34)
[A] Each human action is for the sake of some end
[B] Each human action is for the sake of some ultimate end
[C] There is some single ultimate end for the sake of which all the human actions of an individual human being are done
[D] There is some single ultimate end for the sake of which all human actions of all human beings are done
Over the course of the paper, author refines all the above claims into modified ones:
[A'] Each human action properly so-called, that is, each action resulting from deliberated willing, is for the sake of some end (pg37)
[B'] Each fully rational human action is for the sake of at least one weak ultimate end (pg45)
[C'] There is some single strong ultimate end for the sake of which all the human actions of a fully rational being are done (pg47)
[D'] All fully rational human beings share a purely formal strong ultimate end (pg61)
The paper takes each claim in order and converts it to it's altered state, and then discusses each one. First is to narrow the discussion of human action to human action that is done on a rational basis. Author utilizes a common distinction in Aquinas involving activities associated with humans (e.g. breathing) and actions done by a human qua human-- by virtue of a having reason. (pg35) Thus, Anscombe's first objection, that some human activity is just 'doing what we are doing, just because' is isolated into a different set of activities and author only wants to focus on those done for a reason. Author sketches what it means to perform a human action properly so-called: it is the intellect conceiving of a good, judging it as good, and presenting it to the will as worth doing: 'deliberated willing' (pg36). With this explication, author argues that A' is a conceptual truth talking about a subset of human activity, and author believes this subset is sufficiently large to be interesting (pg38-9). The key point here, which is used as a strategy throughout the paper, is to avoid taking A-D as being empirical generalizations about humans but instead criteria for what rational action consists in for humans (pg39-40). The second main strategy is to insist that Aquinas' arguments are laying out formal criteria, not contentful ones. Which particular ends Aquinas might believe are intrinsically the best are not implicit in A-D. (pg40-1)
In the next section author gives some terminology regarding ends and means: an end is subordinate if it is done for the sake of another end, and such a relation is transitive. (pg42) Author will later give further specifications: subordinate ends can be subordinate-as-constituent or subordinate-as-means (pg52), both of which, author claims, are distinct from the third subordination: instrumental subordination. More terminology: means-ends actions go into a 'tree'; every human action has an end'-tree, and it must contain one 'ultimate' end, meaning an end sought for itself. The argument for each tree having an ultimate end (pg43-4) is that without such an end, the will would not be moved to pursue the subordinate ends or other means. (This might also serve as a reason why an end tree cannot be infinite, without a terminus). An ultimate end (end desirable in itself) is named a 'weak ultimate end', to contrast it with a 'strong ultimate end', which is considered an end or set of ends that fully satisfy a particular human. [Of interest here is that author will talk about creating a strong ultimate end out of deliberation and conscious, rational, discarding of some weak ultimate ends (pg65)] With the argument for the need for at least one end-in-itself (weak ultimate end), author specifies B'.
The next part of the paper seeks to install plausibility for C', and author relies heavily on the formal, criterial aspects of the discussion and also some additional distinctions. For author, a strong ultimate end is considered simple to be an end which fully satisfies the rational human to every extent possible: "it completely fulfills all a human being's rational desires". (pg46-7) However, it does not have to be one thing. It can be an aggregate of many weak ultimate ends, combined together into one (disjunctive?) end. To believe that a strong ultimate end must be one thing is a 'monolithic' conception of the ultimate end, of which, author conjectures, hedonistic utilitarianism is an example. (pg48) However, there can be an aggregate case, which is a collection of weak ultimate ends into some sort of formula. (pg49-50) It is here that author introduces ends that can be ends-in-themselves but also subordinate-as-constituents of a further-- aggregated-- ultimate end. (pg51) "The possibility of an aggregate view of ultimate ends, then, requires us to distinguish three different relations of subordination among ends: instrumental subordination, subordinatino-as-a-constituent-part, and subordination-as-a-means." (pg53)
The worrisome part of Aquinas' argument for the rationality of an ultimate end is the teleological element-- that each being desires its own 'perfection'. But author believes that the case can be made that it is rational to have a strong ultimate end without such teleology. (pg54) The way author goes about this is to try to establish that the human intellect can consider 'the good' in the abstract, or the universal concept of 'the good'. Thus humans can not only consider a particular aim or goal as good-in-itself, but also form a conception of various goods as comprising the (abstract) good. (pg55) We can see how some goods conflict, how some might need weighing, or perhaps even rejecting. Thus a human can conceive of how her collection of good-in-themselves might conflict or might fit together into a coherent and structured ultimate good (using practical reason), the best life (pg56). What is also revealed here is that such an effort will uncover one single strong ultimate end (possibly aggregated), since more than one will mean incoherence or conflict-- a sort of schizophrenia (pg58). Author uses an example of Albert Schweitzer, who may have both wanted to pursue science and also music. Though he chose to pursue science, he could still recognize the pursuit of music as an end-in-itself, but he could not be said to desire it any longer. (pg57-8) Author places the use of practical reason in crafting an aggregate strong ultimate end from multiple ends-in-themselves.
Author introduces one more type of subordinate end, the subordinate-as-specification. (pg59) This subordinate is a determinate specification for a more abstract, indeterminate-ending ultimate end. Author uses 'attain political power' as the ultimate end, and 'win the mayoral race' as a subordinate-as-specification. Author then reviews the three types of ends (strong ultimate, weak ultimate, and instrumental-to-weak-ultimate) and the four subordinate relations (instrumental, -as-means, -as-constituents, -as-specifications) in a prolonged example of a triathelete. (pg60, also see appendix) The upshot of these introductions is that it gives best-life theorists much better tools in talking about the motivations and desires of their human subjects. For instance, it is acceptable to say both that one loves her children for its own sake, but also because it is a constituent of living well (pg63-4).
Author spcifies that rational human agents should all share a formal strong ultimate end-- which would be ether a monolithic or aggregate concept of the individual's most-satisfying good. (pg61-2) The trouble is in figuring out the content. Author believes that practical reasoning isn't just means-ends reasoning, but also reasoning about which ends go into the ultimate one (pg63-4). This is in contrast to philosophers who might argue that there is no rational way to decide between strong ultimate ends. (Frankfurt or Williams?)
12/10/10
Strawson, Peter - Morality and Perception
12/10/2010
Skepticism and Naturalism Ch 2, Columbia University Press, 1985
Author starts this chapter by talking about two dimensions of analysis of human behavior, the first being humans' natural inclination to talk about moral attitudes, free will, judgments, actions, and beliefs, and the other being the purely objective, morally 'skeptical', approach to the world which takes physical causes and physical behavior to the the only constituent elements. Author points our that a reasoned reply to this skepticism isn't efficacious since one can't be 'reasoned' out of either position. (pg32-3) Instead, it should be noted and agreed that it is a 'condition of our humanity' to see people as moral agents bearing freedom of choice and responsibility, and that occupancy of the other, purely physical, position, can be short-lived at best. (pg33-4) Here there is a contrast between what is natural for humans to assume about each other, and the 'naturalistic' position that can also be occupied, about the same subject matter. Hence two 'radically different' standpoints.
The answer for the author, for dealing with these two disparate positions, is not to choose between them, or even suggest that a choice must be made. In order to have the criteria to make such a choice, author suggests there must be a third, independent metaphysical place to occupy, and author believes there is no such place. Instead, admit both are accurate and habitable, though the naturalistic position less so than the 'naturalist' position of believing humans have moral attributes. While there are parallels between this move and answers to skepticism about the natural world, author argues there is a breakdown in the analogy since it is sometimes salubrious to occupy the naturalistic position, where it is not ever useful to be a physical world skeptic. (pg39-40)
Author argues better analogy is found in the debate over the reality of sensible properties like color, texture, smells. These sensibles can be reduced to surface reflectivity, chemicals in the air, and so on: purely physical properties expressed using micro-structures and causal forces. (pg42) The debate here is between the 'commonsense realist' and the 'scientific realist'. This debate does not need to have one victor; instead, we should recognize 'a certain ultimate relativity in our conception of the real' (pg44).
The trouble with this relativizing move is that it fails to appease the 'hard-line' physicalist, who feels the reductive position is compromised. (pg45) Author then takes an interlude into a discussion about the various internal relative conceptions of what is morally praiseworthy and morally blameworthy. This mild moral relativism perhaps gives the naturalistic reductionist even more grist for the mill, now claiming that the reason we lack agreement is that the entire structure is based either on illusion or on some other mutable human function. Author's answer is just to assert that the naturalist and the naturalistic views aren't incompatible, one we are simply naturally committed to, and the other is intellectually habitable though not for very long (pg49-50).
Skepticism and Naturalism Ch 2, Columbia University Press, 1985
Author starts this chapter by talking about two dimensions of analysis of human behavior, the first being humans' natural inclination to talk about moral attitudes, free will, judgments, actions, and beliefs, and the other being the purely objective, morally 'skeptical', approach to the world which takes physical causes and physical behavior to the the only constituent elements. Author points our that a reasoned reply to this skepticism isn't efficacious since one can't be 'reasoned' out of either position. (pg32-3) Instead, it should be noted and agreed that it is a 'condition of our humanity' to see people as moral agents bearing freedom of choice and responsibility, and that occupancy of the other, purely physical, position, can be short-lived at best. (pg33-4) Here there is a contrast between what is natural for humans to assume about each other, and the 'naturalistic' position that can also be occupied, about the same subject matter. Hence two 'radically different' standpoints.
The answer for the author, for dealing with these two disparate positions, is not to choose between them, or even suggest that a choice must be made. In order to have the criteria to make such a choice, author suggests there must be a third, independent metaphysical place to occupy, and author believes there is no such place. Instead, admit both are accurate and habitable, though the naturalistic position less so than the 'naturalist' position of believing humans have moral attributes. While there are parallels between this move and answers to skepticism about the natural world, author argues there is a breakdown in the analogy since it is sometimes salubrious to occupy the naturalistic position, where it is not ever useful to be a physical world skeptic. (pg39-40)
Author argues better analogy is found in the debate over the reality of sensible properties like color, texture, smells. These sensibles can be reduced to surface reflectivity, chemicals in the air, and so on: purely physical properties expressed using micro-structures and causal forces. (pg42) The debate here is between the 'commonsense realist' and the 'scientific realist'. This debate does not need to have one victor; instead, we should recognize 'a certain ultimate relativity in our conception of the real' (pg44).
The trouble with this relativizing move is that it fails to appease the 'hard-line' physicalist, who feels the reductive position is compromised. (pg45) Author then takes an interlude into a discussion about the various internal relative conceptions of what is morally praiseworthy and morally blameworthy. This mild moral relativism perhaps gives the naturalistic reductionist even more grist for the mill, now claiming that the reason we lack agreement is that the entire structure is based either on illusion or on some other mutable human function. Author's answer is just to assert that the naturalist and the naturalistic views aren't incompatible, one we are simply naturally committed to, and the other is intellectually habitable though not for very long (pg49-50).
12/3/10
Strawson, Peter - The Mental and the Physical
12/03/2010
Skepticism and Naturalism Ch 3, Columbia University Press, 1985
This book chapter discusses the mind-body problem, specifically the 'Identity Thesis' that mental events are identical to physical ones. Author puts the discussion within the context of what author considers to be a dialogue between skeptics and naturalists. Author prefaces the discussion on the identity thesis with a recap of the comparison between the scientistisc approach to natural phenomena and the more phenomenal approach to the same events. For instance, there is a natural disposition to believe in the reality of colors, yet the scientistic approach dispenses with them in favor of some micro-properties, e.g., of surface spectral reflectance. Author contends that either standpoint can be occupied and that neither is superior to the other. (pg52)
The identity thesis is that events or states in a 'person's mental history... are, all of them, identical with events or states belonging to his physical history' (pg53)-- an anti-dualist approach. Author approaches the debate over the truth of the identity thesis by trying to establish some common elements of agreement, and, about the particular arguments supporting it, "tries to circumvent" them. Author gives a 'trivial' truth: that whatever is happening to a human subject at any given moment (in waking life), there are both physical and mental descriptions of it. Author calls them two 'stories'-- the physical and the personal. Perhaps an entirely physical story could be told, but it would leave out all that is "humanly interesting" (pg56). And no one supposes that the personal story isn't correlated with the physical one, at least somehow. (pg57) The discussion moves to what kind of connection could exist between the two kinds of description: is there 'causal linkage' or an identity, or some other model? Here author suggests that, instead of trying to decide what the connection between the two descriptions is, we should be 'noncommittal', preferring instead to be content with the two descriptions and understand there is a 'physical realization of the mental' (pg61).
Interestingly, author rejects as unsound the common objection to the causal claim-- that it makes the mental events into epiphenomena, not causally relevant, or "nomological danglers". It is unsound because the physical account would not yield an explanation for human action or agency. It would yield predictable physical events, but, author claims, the explanations for human behavior/actions lies in the personal descriptions, not the physical events. (pg62-3)
Overall, author believes there should be enthusiasm for uncovering the relationships between the physical operations of the brain and mental events, but remains agnostic about the identity theory. Finally, author wraps up the parallel author drew between the scientistic denial of phenomenal qualities and the physicalist denial of qualia (pg64-68).
Skepticism and Naturalism Ch 3, Columbia University Press, 1985
This book chapter discusses the mind-body problem, specifically the 'Identity Thesis' that mental events are identical to physical ones. Author puts the discussion within the context of what author considers to be a dialogue between skeptics and naturalists. Author prefaces the discussion on the identity thesis with a recap of the comparison between the scientistisc approach to natural phenomena and the more phenomenal approach to the same events. For instance, there is a natural disposition to believe in the reality of colors, yet the scientistic approach dispenses with them in favor of some micro-properties, e.g., of surface spectral reflectance. Author contends that either standpoint can be occupied and that neither is superior to the other. (pg52)
The identity thesis is that events or states in a 'person's mental history... are, all of them, identical with events or states belonging to his physical history' (pg53)-- an anti-dualist approach. Author approaches the debate over the truth of the identity thesis by trying to establish some common elements of agreement, and, about the particular arguments supporting it, "tries to circumvent" them. Author gives a 'trivial' truth: that whatever is happening to a human subject at any given moment (in waking life), there are both physical and mental descriptions of it. Author calls them two 'stories'-- the physical and the personal. Perhaps an entirely physical story could be told, but it would leave out all that is "humanly interesting" (pg56). And no one supposes that the personal story isn't correlated with the physical one, at least somehow. (pg57) The discussion moves to what kind of connection could exist between the two kinds of description: is there 'causal linkage' or an identity, or some other model? Here author suggests that, instead of trying to decide what the connection between the two descriptions is, we should be 'noncommittal', preferring instead to be content with the two descriptions and understand there is a 'physical realization of the mental' (pg61).
Interestingly, author rejects as unsound the common objection to the causal claim-- that it makes the mental events into epiphenomena, not causally relevant, or "nomological danglers". It is unsound because the physical account would not yield an explanation for human action or agency. It would yield predictable physical events, but, author claims, the explanations for human behavior/actions lies in the personal descriptions, not the physical events. (pg62-3)
Overall, author believes there should be enthusiasm for uncovering the relationships between the physical operations of the brain and mental events, but remains agnostic about the identity theory. Finally, author wraps up the parallel author drew between the scientistic denial of phenomenal qualities and the physicalist denial of qualia (pg64-68).
11/12/10
Aydede, Murat - Is Feeling Pain the Perception of Something?
11/12/2010
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol CVI, No 10 Oct 2009
Author uses section I to develop what author calls the Initial Argument: that there is an asymmetry between the following two reports:
1) I see a dark discoloration on the back of my hand
2) I feel a jabbing pain in the back of my hand
The first is a perceptual report using linguistic categories and is considered 'extramental', verifiable, and a 'success' verb. The second seems to be like the first, and one might be invited to consider it a perceptual case just like the first. Yet author points out that, first, whatever the subject in 2) is feeling, it isn't 'in the hand'. (pg533-4) Since it's surely possible to have the pain without anything happening to the hand, and conversely it is possible to have something happening to the hand without the pain, there is an asymmetry about what the subject is attributing in 2) compared to 1). In 1), the subject is attributing an object on her hand. It can be false if there is no object on the hand. In 2), the subject is attributing a pain to her hand. But it cannot be false if there is nothing jabbing her hand-- she will still have a pain 'there'.
In 1), there is a 'premium' placed on the perceived object (pg535) in an epistemic relationship between one's (extramental) environment and one's perceptual process. In 2), there is a potential disconnect between what one feels and one's (extramental) environment, and there is no emphasis placed on the environment to validate the claim. Thus an asymmetry between 1) and 2), specifically that 1) is a report on an environmental condition, while 2) is a report of an experience (pain). So 2) does not fit into the category of perceptual reporting. Hence feeling pain is not a form of perception.
Part II fleshes out what kind of report 2) is instead: it is the experience of pain! The 'puzzle' for all involved is granting that there can be a veridical report of pain happening in a hand when really it is happening in the head. How can 2) be true if it is a report of an experience and not of what is happening extramentally in the subject's hand? The 'report' is about the hand and is, at best, 'confused'. So how can it be true? (pg537) Author discusses the Perceptualist/Representationalist account. Here, the thought is that 2) is a report on an experience that is representing that there is an extramental environmental condition like tissue damage.(pg538) Strong Representationalism claims that the qualitative content is identical to or exhausted by the representational content, which, remember, contains environmental conditions. Weak Representationalism deny the identity and hold that there can be an extra character to the phenomenal character of the pain. Author claims that all Perceptualists must be Representationalists and temporarily treats them equivalently. (pg539)
Concerning the 'puzzle' of how 2) can be a true report given this account, author says the Perceptualist splits the concept of pain into two parts, the PAINe and PAINtd (the concepts of Pain-experience and Pain-tissue-damage). Pain-e is the experience of pain-- its qualitative feel. Pain-td is what the pain-e experience represents, that there is tissue damage taking place at a location L on the body. (pg540) So the Perceptualist may claim that 2) reports of pain-td are true reports of pain-e: Pain-e is the experience of pain-td (environmental, extramental, tissue damage at L), but Pain-e may be mistaken that there is actual pain-td. But the PAINtd (having the concept of pain-rd) is veridical since pain-e really does exist-- there is a pain-td-like experience even though there may not be pain-td (due to e.g. phantom limb). Author claims to be sympathetic to this account of pain reporting, but points out that this line of argument for pain reporting is ironic to the Perceptualist's account of pain experiences. Perception, as noted above, places the 'premium' on the objects represented, while this account of pain reporting seems to place the 'premium' on the experience of the object (not the object-- tissue damage at L-- itself). (pg541) This is a kin to the asymmetry author previously described. Author describes a hallucinatory case where we discover there is no tissue damage-- this does not mean we should rescind our claim to having a pain.(pg541-2)
Here is the taxonomy: pain-td is actual or possible environmental tissue damage, giving rise to pain-e, a physical condition causing the experience of pain. Pain-e should cause the sensory concept PAINe, which is a claim that the experience of pain (pain-e) is representing pain-td at L. Finally, PAINtd is the representational concept of pain-td, but it only arises because of PAINe. So PAINtd infers there is pain-td because of PAINe. (PAINtd is used to 'express' what is represented by pain-e, or [I guess?] PAINe)
Part III is a pause in the dialectic to address a possible objection. The first is the objection that the Perceptualist account can be salvaged by adding a proviso: that mentalistic perceptions like feeling pain be 'read' "opaquely", which means that 'feeling' isn't used as success verb. So there could be the experience of pain-td (PAINe), but it wouldn't imply that there was environmental tissue damage to be located. (pg543) Author tries to explain what is going on with an 'opaque' reading: instead of a perceptual report 'going through' the concept and applying to the object, an opaque report is just a report about the experience (that is supposed to apply to the environment, but might not in many cases). (pg544) For instance, when knowingly looking at an optical illusion, one might claim to see a 'red circle', but we all understand the subject isn't talking about an environmental condition but a visual experience instead. So, the objection continues, mentalistic perceptions are perceptions, they are just taken opaquely. Author replies: it is odd that mentalistic perceptions have to be given a wide opaque berth, while usual perceptions are dominantly transparent. In other words, perceptual reports are dominantly 'committal'-- to make mentalistic reports noncommittal is to take away a key element of genuine perception. The second reply is as follows: if there are cases where pain reports are transparent, then it can be possible that the pain report a subject might give about her hand would turn out false if there was no tissue damage there. This doesn't jibe with our conception of pain. (pg545-6)
Section IV considers two other possible troubles for the author's account. The first is just a question about the validity of the author's claims about the intuitive concept of pain, especially across cultures. Reply: without data, tough to do, but I've cross-checked my own intuitions against scores of my own students and colleagues and haven't really encountered a significant divergence of intuitions. (pg546) The second is an objection that the conception of pain the author is using is a folk-psychological one, and that we shouldn't bend our philosophy of consciousness to try to accommodate folk psychology. After all, physics doesn't bend to folk physical intuitions (e.g. that heavier things fall faster). Author uses the International Association for the Study of Pain's definition of pain following this objection (pg547), and it specifically spells out a distinction between the experience of pain and tissue damage or potential tissue damage.
Section V takes on the Perceptualist by attacking the PAINe/PAINtd distinction, but simultaneously arguing that the Perceptualist needs the distinction for three reasons. (pg550-1) Author argues that Perceptualists want to treat pain reports as reports of experiences of secondary qualities, similar to reports of, say, seeing red. Yet seeing red is a transparent relation that, under normal circumstances, commits subjects to pass through the experience of seeing red and 'label' the object itself as red. (It is still a secondary quality since the primary quality for color is surface spectral reflectance--SSR) So the concept of RED has a 'labeling use' onto things like tomatoes because it can pass from the experience of redness to placing the concept RED onto the object perceived. The supposed analogy for PAINtd breaks down, according to author, since we find it acceptable to be noncommittal about whether there is any tissue damage once we have the concept of PAINtd. (pg549) We commit in genuine perceptual cases, but in mentalistic cases we don't feel that the absence of tissue damage will defeat PAINtd. At best, PAINtd is a sort-of placeholder for what PAINe is an experience of. (pg551) PAINtd is not committed to "labeling" a L on the body as suffering from tissue damage. "Even though there is an appearance/reality distinction for tissue damage (that is pain-td), we do not seem to ever label it by PAINtd, even though it represents pain-td" (pg550) The final part of section V is the move from pain reporting to pain itself and its asymmetry with perception. (pg552-3) The move here is to call sensory experiences 'transparent', meaning they have 'labeling uses' directly to the objects represented by the sensory concepts the subject experiences. What is happening here is that the criterion of 'transparency'/'labeling uses' that sensory concepts ordinarily have for the objects being represented by experiences is used against the PAINtd concept because, according to author, its only representational content is PAINe, not the tissue damage (that may or may not be) at L. (Pain-e is not transparent to PAINtd.)
Section VI uses similar arguments levied against the Perceptualist against the Strong Representationalist. The Strong Representationalist believes that the representational content of sensory concepts exhausts their phenomenal content. Here the condition used in the end of section V are slightly revised. The condition from section V was as follows:
COND: For any experiences of a given kind, they are genuinely perceptual only if they are transparent to the sensory concepts they give rise to. (pg552)
The version author accepts in section VI simply replaces 'perceptual' with 'strongly representational'. Since PAINtd doesn't have the transparency discussed earlier, author rejects Strong Representationalism.
Section VII is objections and replies.
Objection: look at neuroscience. Pain receptors and processing looks just like other sensory processing. Reply: just because it is sensory doesn't make it perceptual. To be perceptual, you have to take a sensory quality to be conceptual or categorized (pg559).
Objection: ok, have a disjunctive version of the perception of pain-- every case where it is veridical, it is perceptual, in phantom cases, it isn't perceptual. Reply: there is no good explanation of why the common practice is to get it wrong sometimes and right other. Furthermore, the asymmetry between perceptual cases and mentalistic cases remains (pg561-2)
Objection: well this is just a psuedo-problem, since pain is, metaphysically perceptual even though we don't treat it that way. Reply: This means we're psychologically mistaken about pain? So how can one be motivated to think it is perceptual? (pg563)
Author's conclusion is that we do not need a perceptual or strongly representational account of phenomenal experiences to be physicalists. Furthermore, there is something important in the fact that these 'intransitive bodily sensations' are different from perceptions in the noninferential manner expounded upon in this paper. (pg565-6)
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol CVI, No 10 Oct 2009
Author uses section I to develop what author calls the Initial Argument: that there is an asymmetry between the following two reports:
1) I see a dark discoloration on the back of my hand
2) I feel a jabbing pain in the back of my hand
The first is a perceptual report using linguistic categories and is considered 'extramental', verifiable, and a 'success' verb. The second seems to be like the first, and one might be invited to consider it a perceptual case just like the first. Yet author points out that, first, whatever the subject in 2) is feeling, it isn't 'in the hand'. (pg533-4) Since it's surely possible to have the pain without anything happening to the hand, and conversely it is possible to have something happening to the hand without the pain, there is an asymmetry about what the subject is attributing in 2) compared to 1). In 1), the subject is attributing an object on her hand. It can be false if there is no object on the hand. In 2), the subject is attributing a pain to her hand. But it cannot be false if there is nothing jabbing her hand-- she will still have a pain 'there'.
In 1), there is a 'premium' placed on the perceived object (pg535) in an epistemic relationship between one's (extramental) environment and one's perceptual process. In 2), there is a potential disconnect between what one feels and one's (extramental) environment, and there is no emphasis placed on the environment to validate the claim. Thus an asymmetry between 1) and 2), specifically that 1) is a report on an environmental condition, while 2) is a report of an experience (pain). So 2) does not fit into the category of perceptual reporting. Hence feeling pain is not a form of perception.
Part II fleshes out what kind of report 2) is instead: it is the experience of pain! The 'puzzle' for all involved is granting that there can be a veridical report of pain happening in a hand when really it is happening in the head. How can 2) be true if it is a report of an experience and not of what is happening extramentally in the subject's hand? The 'report' is about the hand and is, at best, 'confused'. So how can it be true? (pg537) Author discusses the Perceptualist/Representationalist account. Here, the thought is that 2) is a report on an experience that is representing that there is an extramental environmental condition like tissue damage.(pg538) Strong Representationalism claims that the qualitative content is identical to or exhausted by the representational content, which, remember, contains environmental conditions. Weak Representationalism deny the identity and hold that there can be an extra character to the phenomenal character of the pain. Author claims that all Perceptualists must be Representationalists and temporarily treats them equivalently. (pg539)
Concerning the 'puzzle' of how 2) can be a true report given this account, author says the Perceptualist splits the concept of pain into two parts, the PAINe and PAINtd (the concepts of Pain-experience and Pain-tissue-damage). Pain-e is the experience of pain-- its qualitative feel. Pain-td is what the pain-e experience represents, that there is tissue damage taking place at a location L on the body. (pg540) So the Perceptualist may claim that 2) reports of pain-td are true reports of pain-e: Pain-e is the experience of pain-td (environmental, extramental, tissue damage at L), but Pain-e may be mistaken that there is actual pain-td. But the PAINtd (having the concept of pain-rd) is veridical since pain-e really does exist-- there is a pain-td-like experience even though there may not be pain-td (due to e.g. phantom limb). Author claims to be sympathetic to this account of pain reporting, but points out that this line of argument for pain reporting is ironic to the Perceptualist's account of pain experiences. Perception, as noted above, places the 'premium' on the objects represented, while this account of pain reporting seems to place the 'premium' on the experience of the object (not the object-- tissue damage at L-- itself). (pg541) This is a kin to the asymmetry author previously described. Author describes a hallucinatory case where we discover there is no tissue damage-- this does not mean we should rescind our claim to having a pain.(pg541-2)
Here is the taxonomy: pain-td is actual or possible environmental tissue damage, giving rise to pain-e, a physical condition causing the experience of pain. Pain-e should cause the sensory concept PAINe, which is a claim that the experience of pain (pain-e) is representing pain-td at L. Finally, PAINtd is the representational concept of pain-td, but it only arises because of PAINe. So PAINtd infers there is pain-td because of PAINe. (PAINtd is used to 'express' what is represented by pain-e, or [I guess?] PAINe)
Part III is a pause in the dialectic to address a possible objection. The first is the objection that the Perceptualist account can be salvaged by adding a proviso: that mentalistic perceptions like feeling pain be 'read' "opaquely", which means that 'feeling' isn't used as success verb. So there could be the experience of pain-td (PAINe), but it wouldn't imply that there was environmental tissue damage to be located. (pg543) Author tries to explain what is going on with an 'opaque' reading: instead of a perceptual report 'going through' the concept and applying to the object, an opaque report is just a report about the experience (that is supposed to apply to the environment, but might not in many cases). (pg544) For instance, when knowingly looking at an optical illusion, one might claim to see a 'red circle', but we all understand the subject isn't talking about an environmental condition but a visual experience instead. So, the objection continues, mentalistic perceptions are perceptions, they are just taken opaquely. Author replies: it is odd that mentalistic perceptions have to be given a wide opaque berth, while usual perceptions are dominantly transparent. In other words, perceptual reports are dominantly 'committal'-- to make mentalistic reports noncommittal is to take away a key element of genuine perception. The second reply is as follows: if there are cases where pain reports are transparent, then it can be possible that the pain report a subject might give about her hand would turn out false if there was no tissue damage there. This doesn't jibe with our conception of pain. (pg545-6)
Section IV considers two other possible troubles for the author's account. The first is just a question about the validity of the author's claims about the intuitive concept of pain, especially across cultures. Reply: without data, tough to do, but I've cross-checked my own intuitions against scores of my own students and colleagues and haven't really encountered a significant divergence of intuitions. (pg546) The second is an objection that the conception of pain the author is using is a folk-psychological one, and that we shouldn't bend our philosophy of consciousness to try to accommodate folk psychology. After all, physics doesn't bend to folk physical intuitions (e.g. that heavier things fall faster). Author uses the International Association for the Study of Pain's definition of pain following this objection (pg547), and it specifically spells out a distinction between the experience of pain and tissue damage or potential tissue damage.
Section V takes on the Perceptualist by attacking the PAINe/PAINtd distinction, but simultaneously arguing that the Perceptualist needs the distinction for three reasons. (pg550-1) Author argues that Perceptualists want to treat pain reports as reports of experiences of secondary qualities, similar to reports of, say, seeing red. Yet seeing red is a transparent relation that, under normal circumstances, commits subjects to pass through the experience of seeing red and 'label' the object itself as red. (It is still a secondary quality since the primary quality for color is surface spectral reflectance--SSR) So the concept of RED has a 'labeling use' onto things like tomatoes because it can pass from the experience of redness to placing the concept RED onto the object perceived. The supposed analogy for PAINtd breaks down, according to author, since we find it acceptable to be noncommittal about whether there is any tissue damage once we have the concept of PAINtd. (pg549) We commit in genuine perceptual cases, but in mentalistic cases we don't feel that the absence of tissue damage will defeat PAINtd. At best, PAINtd is a sort-of placeholder for what PAINe is an experience of. (pg551) PAINtd is not committed to "labeling" a L on the body as suffering from tissue damage. "Even though there is an appearance/reality distinction for tissue damage (that is pain-td), we do not seem to ever label it by PAINtd, even though it represents pain-td" (pg550) The final part of section V is the move from pain reporting to pain itself and its asymmetry with perception. (pg552-3) The move here is to call sensory experiences 'transparent', meaning they have 'labeling uses' directly to the objects represented by the sensory concepts the subject experiences. What is happening here is that the criterion of 'transparency'/'labeling uses' that sensory concepts ordinarily have for the objects being represented by experiences is used against the PAINtd concept because, according to author, its only representational content is PAINe, not the tissue damage (that may or may not be) at L. (Pain-e is not transparent to PAINtd.)
Section VI uses similar arguments levied against the Perceptualist against the Strong Representationalist. The Strong Representationalist believes that the representational content of sensory concepts exhausts their phenomenal content. Here the condition used in the end of section V are slightly revised. The condition from section V was as follows:
COND: For any experiences of a given kind, they are genuinely perceptual only if they are transparent to the sensory concepts they give rise to. (pg552)
The version author accepts in section VI simply replaces 'perceptual' with 'strongly representational'. Since PAINtd doesn't have the transparency discussed earlier, author rejects Strong Representationalism.
Section VII is objections and replies.
Objection: look at neuroscience. Pain receptors and processing looks just like other sensory processing. Reply: just because it is sensory doesn't make it perceptual. To be perceptual, you have to take a sensory quality to be conceptual or categorized (pg559).
Objection: ok, have a disjunctive version of the perception of pain-- every case where it is veridical, it is perceptual, in phantom cases, it isn't perceptual. Reply: there is no good explanation of why the common practice is to get it wrong sometimes and right other. Furthermore, the asymmetry between perceptual cases and mentalistic cases remains (pg561-2)
Objection: well this is just a psuedo-problem, since pain is, metaphysically perceptual even though we don't treat it that way. Reply: This means we're psychologically mistaken about pain? So how can one be motivated to think it is perceptual? (pg563)
Author's conclusion is that we do not need a perceptual or strongly representational account of phenomenal experiences to be physicalists. Furthermore, there is something important in the fact that these 'intransitive bodily sensations' are different from perceptions in the noninferential manner expounded upon in this paper. (pg565-6)
11/5/10
Strawson, Peter - The Matter of Meaning
11/05/2010
Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties: The Woodbridge Lectures 1983, Ch 4 Columbia University Press, 1985
This chapter or paper is about the conflict between nominalism and realism. The battle is over the reality of abstract objects.
Part 1 of this chapter talks about the perfectly natural way in which people talk about concepts, propositions and thoughts as though they were real things. Yet such things aren't part of the natural world of space and time; the philosopher is accustomed to calling them 'abstract objects'. Yet there are those who are suspicious of such entities, the 'rejectionist', who believes that only things in the world of space-time are existent. Such a rejectionist is responsible for providing an account of what people are doing when they speak, seemingly meaningfully, about someone grasping a 'meaning' of a word, or someone disputing what a concept entails or doesn't. Author calls for the rejectionist to give an account of: (1) what sentences are and how they do what they do, (2) why and how people assent or dissent to sentences and other proposition-like elements of language, and (3) the seeming realness of 'feelings, images, sensations'.
Author recounts one rejectionist argument offered by the later Wittgenstein. The story goes as follows: a person learns the use of a word by learning how it applies to a certain object, or action, or real-world phenomenon, etc. She then comes to use the term 'naturally', and has 'natural' associations with it. But this is just to say she uses it intuitively, not that it has some special status as an abstract object. (pg76) But what does the term 'mean'? Perhaps we should understand meaning not only as how a particular person uses it, but whether she correctly uses it-- but this simply implicates a community of language users who approve or disapprove of the term's usage. It doesn't need to implicate some reference to an abstract object. Author now asks: does this account satisfy? (pg79)
In section 3, author investigates the two aspects of the Wittgensteinian claim-- that there becomes a natural way to use a word, and that its proper use is located in the community of language users. Author opens with a discussion of seeing x as an x. That is, taking a red, globular sense perception and classifying it as an (e.g.) apple. This seems to be a case of recognizing a particular as participating in a universal, yet the rejectionist can just as easily say it is just a case of understanding that a particular can be treated the same way as previous particulars to which the label 'apple' is applied. (pg81-84)
Author believes he'll get more traction for universals in the second part of the rejectionist's claim, that of correct use within a linguistic community. This is because the language-users must all recognize a word-type and sentence-type and situation-type when judging similarity or difference in (therefore correct or incorrect) usage. Here the rejectionist, if she is to justify her position, must resort to assuming the reality of types, hence possibly universals. (pg84) Author also believes the reductionist reply will be faulty. The rejectionist might reply that if these universals are only located as abstract, objects of thought, then you must be able to find them in the mind. Yet investigations into the mind find only more "natural items, events, or processes". (pg85) Author replies that this misses the point: we are talking about the objects of thought, not the process of thought.
Section 4 tries to change the focus of the debate from abducting universals from the natural world to finding them in the abstract, analytical or logical world. Author starts with an intuition pump about analytic truths, or truths of reason or truths proved by the nature of logic, mathematics, or language. The rejectionist might reply that the underwriting for these truths is not abstract entities but the general agreement or assent by the language users, and, specifically, what those language users do to establish its correctness. If they look at the world, then it may be different from whether they just talk and debate the issue at hand.
There is another reply, one offered by Quine instead of Wittgenstein: that there is no special distinction-- that any statement can be revised or changed in face of empirical discovery, or that any statement can be taken as 'analytic' if the rest of the system is changed to fit it. As long as the system stays consistent, 'analytic' and 'synthetic' are mutable and therefore disposable as distinctions. (pg88-9). Author replies that Quine still needs the principle of 'consistency' or non-contradiction, so this, at least, is one logical truth independent of naturalism. The comeback from the rejectionist is more in the Wittgensteinian vein: it is that the community of language users exhibit a thorough rejection of concepts that negate each other-- this is one of the natural facts of language users. For a reply to this, author suggests that it is an external perspective. From the internal perspective, we can see and find contradictions, elements of tension, and so on, in the concepts employed by others. This is an internal ability, which may become expressed or may not, but it is part of the abilities of rationality. (pg90-1) Author then claims the rejectionist will probably use the same line as before: that thoughts are natural occurrences and that, however it may feel we are manipulating abstract entities, what we are actually doing is a natural process of thinking, and that has a distinctive character.
The conclusion is left open: there are the positions of realism and nominalism; though realism has a long philosophical tradition, the nominalist is more and more popular today.
Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties: The Woodbridge Lectures 1983, Ch 4 Columbia University Press, 1985
This chapter or paper is about the conflict between nominalism and realism. The battle is over the reality of abstract objects.
Part 1 of this chapter talks about the perfectly natural way in which people talk about concepts, propositions and thoughts as though they were real things. Yet such things aren't part of the natural world of space and time; the philosopher is accustomed to calling them 'abstract objects'. Yet there are those who are suspicious of such entities, the 'rejectionist', who believes that only things in the world of space-time are existent. Such a rejectionist is responsible for providing an account of what people are doing when they speak, seemingly meaningfully, about someone grasping a 'meaning' of a word, or someone disputing what a concept entails or doesn't. Author calls for the rejectionist to give an account of: (1) what sentences are and how they do what they do, (2) why and how people assent or dissent to sentences and other proposition-like elements of language, and (3) the seeming realness of 'feelings, images, sensations'.
Author recounts one rejectionist argument offered by the later Wittgenstein. The story goes as follows: a person learns the use of a word by learning how it applies to a certain object, or action, or real-world phenomenon, etc. She then comes to use the term 'naturally', and has 'natural' associations with it. But this is just to say she uses it intuitively, not that it has some special status as an abstract object. (pg76) But what does the term 'mean'? Perhaps we should understand meaning not only as how a particular person uses it, but whether she correctly uses it-- but this simply implicates a community of language users who approve or disapprove of the term's usage. It doesn't need to implicate some reference to an abstract object. Author now asks: does this account satisfy? (pg79)
In section 3, author investigates the two aspects of the Wittgensteinian claim-- that there becomes a natural way to use a word, and that its proper use is located in the community of language users. Author opens with a discussion of seeing x as an x. That is, taking a red, globular sense perception and classifying it as an (e.g.) apple. This seems to be a case of recognizing a particular as participating in a universal, yet the rejectionist can just as easily say it is just a case of understanding that a particular can be treated the same way as previous particulars to which the label 'apple' is applied. (pg81-84)
Author believes he'll get more traction for universals in the second part of the rejectionist's claim, that of correct use within a linguistic community. This is because the language-users must all recognize a word-type and sentence-type and situation-type when judging similarity or difference in (therefore correct or incorrect) usage. Here the rejectionist, if she is to justify her position, must resort to assuming the reality of types, hence possibly universals. (pg84) Author also believes the reductionist reply will be faulty. The rejectionist might reply that if these universals are only located as abstract, objects of thought, then you must be able to find them in the mind. Yet investigations into the mind find only more "natural items, events, or processes". (pg85) Author replies that this misses the point: we are talking about the objects of thought, not the process of thought.
Section 4 tries to change the focus of the debate from abducting universals from the natural world to finding them in the abstract, analytical or logical world. Author starts with an intuition pump about analytic truths, or truths of reason or truths proved by the nature of logic, mathematics, or language. The rejectionist might reply that the underwriting for these truths is not abstract entities but the general agreement or assent by the language users, and, specifically, what those language users do to establish its correctness. If they look at the world, then it may be different from whether they just talk and debate the issue at hand.
There is another reply, one offered by Quine instead of Wittgenstein: that there is no special distinction-- that any statement can be revised or changed in face of empirical discovery, or that any statement can be taken as 'analytic' if the rest of the system is changed to fit it. As long as the system stays consistent, 'analytic' and 'synthetic' are mutable and therefore disposable as distinctions. (pg88-9). Author replies that Quine still needs the principle of 'consistency' or non-contradiction, so this, at least, is one logical truth independent of naturalism. The comeback from the rejectionist is more in the Wittgensteinian vein: it is that the community of language users exhibit a thorough rejection of concepts that negate each other-- this is one of the natural facts of language users. For a reply to this, author suggests that it is an external perspective. From the internal perspective, we can see and find contradictions, elements of tension, and so on, in the concepts employed by others. This is an internal ability, which may become expressed or may not, but it is part of the abilities of rationality. (pg90-1) Author then claims the rejectionist will probably use the same line as before: that thoughts are natural occurrences and that, however it may feel we are manipulating abstract entities, what we are actually doing is a natural process of thinking, and that has a distinctive character.
The conclusion is left open: there are the positions of realism and nominalism; though realism has a long philosophical tradition, the nominalist is more and more popular today.
10/29/10
Donagan, Alan - Universals And Metaphysical Realism
10/29/2010
The Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan Vol 1 Historical Understanding and the History of Philosophy, Ch 12. Malpas, Eds. University of Chicago Press, 1994
In this paper Author tries to revive Bertrand Russell's realist theory of universals. Author lays it out using Russell's own language from Problems of Philosophy: 'I am in my room' has a relation 'in' that connects me with my room. The 'in' relation itself has a reality to it. (pg211) The reality of relations like 'in' gives way to the reality of universals quite immediately: me being in my room and your being in your room is not two different cases of 'in'. They are the same case; they aren't two particulars. But they happen at two different places (perhaps at the same time). Thus the two cases of 'in' aren't one particular either. So, the 'in' is a universal. (pg212)
The possibility of the existence of a relational universal is met with the following objection: it seems possible to establish the reality of any particular relational entity by means of a negation proposition. A negation proposition is something like ~x(Relation)y. This is because we use relational entities in negative statements (which are also true or false) just as much as we do in positive ones. For instance: "x isn't in bed" is ~(x (in) bed), and seems to establish the reality of the relational universal 'in', but without, in this circumstance, the 'in' being exemplified (the proposition is true: x doesn't stand to the bed with the 'in' relation). This leads to the absurd conclusion that there are hundreds of existing relations that aren't exemplified. Author claims Russell tried to finesse this by having a Principal of Acquaintance: we have had immediate acquaintance with every understandable proposition; no acquaintance, no apprehension. Author pushes back that this won't do, since it is possible that there are relations we don't in fact understand but we could nevertheless put into a negation proposition. (pg 215-6) [What is author's way out? To assert that it is ok to have such real un-exemplified universals?]
The first objection and reply author discusses is the objection that the universal entity is caught between being divisible among all the places it is exemplified, or that it is indivisible but somehow present in multiple places at the same time. This is the original problem Plato encountered. Author denies that the second choice is problematic: it is only problematic for particulars, not for universals. Universals are naturally indivisible and exemplified multiply: that's what they do. (pg218) An issue along this same difficulty arises regarding the nature of exemplification. Exemplification seems to occur when there are true instances of a universal relating to particulars. But the trouble arises when one tries to explain the relation: x is related to y with the exemplification of the relational universal 'in'. In other words, the exemplification relation is exemplified in the case of x, 'in', and y. In trying to explain the relation of exemplification, an infinite regress arises. (pg219-220) The solution comes from denying that exemplification is a relation. The difference between "x is in bed" and "x isn't in bed" is that one is true and another is false, not that, in one case, 'in' is exemplified and in the other case, 'in' isn't exemplified. (pg221)
The second objection asks whether Russell's version of real universals is too bold. A more moderate Aristotelian version talks about essences and the sharing of them in particulars; yet not every relation has an essence. (pg222) The Aristotelian story has an essence unified as one thing in the human mind through a process of abstraction, yet it is distributed through the various particulars it is instantiated in. Author criticizes this as being even more obscure than Russell's theory of universals (pg223).
A completely different objection is raised by Quine (and, to a lesser extent, Goodman) in the nominalist program. For Quine, what exists is a function of what items are quantified in a set of true statements. Because you can construct a set of quantified statements no variables of which are universals or relations, then you don't need them in your ontology: they are dispensable. Against this objection, Donagan offers two replies: 1) Sellars has argued that quantifying over variables is not the way to determine ontological commitments. 2) if you admit that "two dogs are white", then isn't there a quality that the two dogs both have? (pg224-5)
The next objection might have been offered up inadvertently by Russell himself when he suggested that there could be an artificial language where normal predicates like '...is white' are replaced by a name for a 'discontinuous particular' like 'White'. So, to say that a wall is white, you might express 'wall white', the meeting of two particulars, 'white' and 'wall'. Author pushes back against this, claiming that it wouldn't be possible to establish the name 'White' without reference to the color white, which would have to be put together using some sort of predicate. But of course the language has no predicates, so there wouldn't be a way to establish that 'White' is white. (pg227)
Another objection is Pears': that realism seeks to provide an escape from the 'maze of words' into the real world by means of asserting that the words all refer (at least all the primitive ones do). While this seems informative, it doesn't do the work of actually getting out of the 'maze', and is therefore unhelpful. It is uninformative but appears to inform; it is just a circular system of words. (pg228) Author just says that realism is informative because it explains a fact about language '... is white' using a fact about the world: whiteness. (pg229-230)
The final section of the paper involves the author looking at Russell's motivations to hold his "Realist Principle": 1) not all relational predicates can be disposed of-- some are necessary for a language about the world (pg232-3); and 2) that statements with primitive predicates will be true or false based on how the world is comprised, not based on fantasy or idealism or nominalist acrobatics. (pg233) While it seems modest, this seems to be a realism worth having, since the price of not having it entails errors of idealism or nominalism. (pg234)
The Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan Vol 1 Historical Understanding and the History of Philosophy, Ch 12. Malpas, Eds. University of Chicago Press, 1994
In this paper Author tries to revive Bertrand Russell's realist theory of universals. Author lays it out using Russell's own language from Problems of Philosophy: 'I am in my room' has a relation 'in' that connects me with my room. The 'in' relation itself has a reality to it. (pg211) The reality of relations like 'in' gives way to the reality of universals quite immediately: me being in my room and your being in your room is not two different cases of 'in'. They are the same case; they aren't two particulars. But they happen at two different places (perhaps at the same time). Thus the two cases of 'in' aren't one particular either. So, the 'in' is a universal. (pg212)
The possibility of the existence of a relational universal is met with the following objection: it seems possible to establish the reality of any particular relational entity by means of a negation proposition. A negation proposition is something like ~x(Relation)y. This is because we use relational entities in negative statements (which are also true or false) just as much as we do in positive ones. For instance: "x isn't in bed" is ~(x (in) bed), and seems to establish the reality of the relational universal 'in', but without, in this circumstance, the 'in' being exemplified (the proposition is true: x doesn't stand to the bed with the 'in' relation). This leads to the absurd conclusion that there are hundreds of existing relations that aren't exemplified. Author claims Russell tried to finesse this by having a Principal of Acquaintance: we have had immediate acquaintance with every understandable proposition; no acquaintance, no apprehension. Author pushes back that this won't do, since it is possible that there are relations we don't in fact understand but we could nevertheless put into a negation proposition. (pg 215-6) [What is author's way out? To assert that it is ok to have such real un-exemplified universals?]
The first objection and reply author discusses is the objection that the universal entity is caught between being divisible among all the places it is exemplified, or that it is indivisible but somehow present in multiple places at the same time. This is the original problem Plato encountered. Author denies that the second choice is problematic: it is only problematic for particulars, not for universals. Universals are naturally indivisible and exemplified multiply: that's what they do. (pg218) An issue along this same difficulty arises regarding the nature of exemplification. Exemplification seems to occur when there are true instances of a universal relating to particulars. But the trouble arises when one tries to explain the relation: x is related to y with the exemplification of the relational universal 'in'. In other words, the exemplification relation is exemplified in the case of x, 'in', and y. In trying to explain the relation of exemplification, an infinite regress arises. (pg219-220) The solution comes from denying that exemplification is a relation. The difference between "x is in bed" and "x isn't in bed" is that one is true and another is false, not that, in one case, 'in' is exemplified and in the other case, 'in' isn't exemplified. (pg221)
The second objection asks whether Russell's version of real universals is too bold. A more moderate Aristotelian version talks about essences and the sharing of them in particulars; yet not every relation has an essence. (pg222) The Aristotelian story has an essence unified as one thing in the human mind through a process of abstraction, yet it is distributed through the various particulars it is instantiated in. Author criticizes this as being even more obscure than Russell's theory of universals (pg223).
A completely different objection is raised by Quine (and, to a lesser extent, Goodman) in the nominalist program. For Quine, what exists is a function of what items are quantified in a set of true statements. Because you can construct a set of quantified statements no variables of which are universals or relations, then you don't need them in your ontology: they are dispensable. Against this objection, Donagan offers two replies: 1) Sellars has argued that quantifying over variables is not the way to determine ontological commitments. 2) if you admit that "two dogs are white", then isn't there a quality that the two dogs both have? (pg224-5)
The next objection might have been offered up inadvertently by Russell himself when he suggested that there could be an artificial language where normal predicates like '...is white' are replaced by a name for a 'discontinuous particular' like 'White'. So, to say that a wall is white, you might express 'wall white', the meeting of two particulars, 'white' and 'wall'. Author pushes back against this, claiming that it wouldn't be possible to establish the name 'White' without reference to the color white, which would have to be put together using some sort of predicate. But of course the language has no predicates, so there wouldn't be a way to establish that 'White' is white. (pg227)
Another objection is Pears': that realism seeks to provide an escape from the 'maze of words' into the real world by means of asserting that the words all refer (at least all the primitive ones do). While this seems informative, it doesn't do the work of actually getting out of the 'maze', and is therefore unhelpful. It is uninformative but appears to inform; it is just a circular system of words. (pg228) Author just says that realism is informative because it explains a fact about language '... is white' using a fact about the world: whiteness. (pg229-230)
The final section of the paper involves the author looking at Russell's motivations to hold his "Realist Principle": 1) not all relational predicates can be disposed of-- some are necessary for a language about the world (pg232-3); and 2) that statements with primitive predicates will be true or false based on how the world is comprised, not based on fantasy or idealism or nominalist acrobatics. (pg233) While it seems modest, this seems to be a realism worth having, since the price of not having it entails errors of idealism or nominalism. (pg234)
10/22/10
Anscombe, Elizabeth - Mr Truman's Degree
10/22/2010
The Collected Philosophical Papers of GEM Anscombe, Vol 3: Ethics, Religion and Politics Ch 7 University of Minnesota Press, 1981 (Reprinted from pamphlet, Oxford 1957)
This paper takes a stance against Oxford's granting Harry Truman an honorary degree. Author considers Truman to be a villain, or at least unworthy of an honor. Author first starts with a series of fact-statements or observations: (pg62-4)
1) The Allies said they would follow the basic tenants of wartime respect for civilians as long as the Germans did too (assume this extends to the Japanese).
2) The goal of the war in Europe was established as 'unconditional surrender'. This absolutist position is questionable to author.
3) The Germans did seem to bomb indiscriminately.
4) Rhetoric surrounding the war was often about it being a fight between two whole nations, not two armies. The distinction between civilians and the military was deliberately blurred.
5) When the US declared war on Japan, they sought the objective of 'unconditional surrender'.
6) The Allies changed their strategy to involve widespread, mass bombings
7) The Allies refused to let Japan negotiate a surrender but instead use a new kind of weapon against them.
Author's primary principle in this paper is that to kill the innocent as a means to an end is, always, murder. (pg64) This isn't about 'following the rules as long as the other guy does', it is morally wrong no matter what. The argument is simple:
p1) The atomic bomb was dropped as a means of getting Japan to surrender unconditionally
p2) Innocent lives were undoubtedly killed by the bomb
c1) The person responsible for dropping the bomb killed innocent lives as a means to get Japan to surrender unconditionally.
p3) President Truman is responsible for dropping the bomb.
p4) To kill innocents as a means to an end (getting Japan to surrender unconditionally) is murder
c2) President Truman is responsible for murder.
Author first disputes that Truman is somehow courageous because he made a tough decision. And, given the conditions, many lives were saved by dropping the bomb. But author points out the conditions were inappropriate, 'barbarous'-- those of insisting on unconditional surrender. (pg65) Author further reformulates the argument that you can 'do evil so that good may come' as 'any fool can be as much of a knave as suits him'. (pg65)
In the second section of the paper, author explores how war can sometimes allow for the killing of innocents, perhaps as accidental to attacking valid military targets. Yet if the means for accomplishing a military end involve the killing of innocents, this is not accidental-- this is murder. (pg66-7) This leads to a larger discussion of who compromises 'the innocent' in a war. The people who work in the factories that make munitions? The farmers who grow the food for the front? The conscripts who would prefer not to fight but were drafted? Relating to conscripts, they are not innocent because "innocent" refers not to a condition but an action: someone who is trying to harm you is not an innocent.(pg67)
Author also examines the argument that 'all war is horror; it is only a matter of how much'. Author believes that denying this argument also involves denying pacifism, which author believes is a false doctrine. For author, there are legitimate killings, especially ones to stop injustice or harm to peoples. (pg68-9) Author also briefly describes a justification for the death penalty-- the killing of someone who has been determined to be a malefactor to society. (pg68-9) Author then makes a mockery of the argument that, since all war is evil, it doesn't matter whether innocents die or not-- author considers the argument absurd, even if the premise were true.
Author ends the paper by commenting on the state of moral philosophy at Oxford that might have sanctioned giving Truman the honorarium. (pg71)
The Collected Philosophical Papers of GEM Anscombe, Vol 3: Ethics, Religion and Politics Ch 7 University of Minnesota Press, 1981 (Reprinted from pamphlet, Oxford 1957)
This paper takes a stance against Oxford's granting Harry Truman an honorary degree. Author considers Truman to be a villain, or at least unworthy of an honor. Author first starts with a series of fact-statements or observations: (pg62-4)
1) The Allies said they would follow the basic tenants of wartime respect for civilians as long as the Germans did too (assume this extends to the Japanese).
2) The goal of the war in Europe was established as 'unconditional surrender'. This absolutist position is questionable to author.
3) The Germans did seem to bomb indiscriminately.
4) Rhetoric surrounding the war was often about it being a fight between two whole nations, not two armies. The distinction between civilians and the military was deliberately blurred.
5) When the US declared war on Japan, they sought the objective of 'unconditional surrender'.
6) The Allies changed their strategy to involve widespread, mass bombings
7) The Allies refused to let Japan negotiate a surrender but instead use a new kind of weapon against them.
Author's primary principle in this paper is that to kill the innocent as a means to an end is, always, murder. (pg64) This isn't about 'following the rules as long as the other guy does', it is morally wrong no matter what. The argument is simple:
p1) The atomic bomb was dropped as a means of getting Japan to surrender unconditionally
p2) Innocent lives were undoubtedly killed by the bomb
c1) The person responsible for dropping the bomb killed innocent lives as a means to get Japan to surrender unconditionally.
p3) President Truman is responsible for dropping the bomb.
p4) To kill innocents as a means to an end (getting Japan to surrender unconditionally) is murder
c2) President Truman is responsible for murder.
Author first disputes that Truman is somehow courageous because he made a tough decision. And, given the conditions, many lives were saved by dropping the bomb. But author points out the conditions were inappropriate, 'barbarous'-- those of insisting on unconditional surrender. (pg65) Author further reformulates the argument that you can 'do evil so that good may come' as 'any fool can be as much of a knave as suits him'. (pg65)
In the second section of the paper, author explores how war can sometimes allow for the killing of innocents, perhaps as accidental to attacking valid military targets. Yet if the means for accomplishing a military end involve the killing of innocents, this is not accidental-- this is murder. (pg66-7) This leads to a larger discussion of who compromises 'the innocent' in a war. The people who work in the factories that make munitions? The farmers who grow the food for the front? The conscripts who would prefer not to fight but were drafted? Relating to conscripts, they are not innocent because "innocent" refers not to a condition but an action: someone who is trying to harm you is not an innocent.(pg67)
Author also examines the argument that 'all war is horror; it is only a matter of how much'. Author believes that denying this argument also involves denying pacifism, which author believes is a false doctrine. For author, there are legitimate killings, especially ones to stop injustice or harm to peoples. (pg68-9) Author also briefly describes a justification for the death penalty-- the killing of someone who has been determined to be a malefactor to society. (pg68-9) Author then makes a mockery of the argument that, since all war is evil, it doesn't matter whether innocents die or not-- author considers the argument absurd, even if the premise were true.
Author ends the paper by commenting on the state of moral philosophy at Oxford that might have sanctioned giving Truman the honorarium. (pg71)
10/15/10
Bennett, Jonathan - Whatever The Consequences
10/15/2010
Ethics, Thomson & Dworkin Eds, Harper & Row 1968
This paper seeks to dispute the so-called principle of double effect, which posits a moral difference between actively doing x and passively allowing x to happen (when you could have stopped it). The example that author uses throughout the entire paper is one of a woman who is in labor but has reached complications and will die unless a late-term abortion is performed. However, it is also possible to deliver the baby alive, but the mother will suffer complications and eventually die. Author wants to attack those who believe that there is a moral difference between killing the baby and 'letting the mother die' by delivering the baby. The principle under attack is: "It would always be wrong to kill an innocent human, whatever the consequences of not doing so", though at the outset (pg212) author acknowledges that it isn't possible to refute that principle directly. Instead the strategy will be to show that the structure of the principle, something like 'always don't do x, whatever the consequences' is morally vacuous.
To start, author does not seek discussion with interlocutors who take religious authority or divine command as the basis for the principle; author wants to talk with those who believe there is an independent way to ascertain the validity of the principle. (pg213) Those who follow the principle are provisionally stipulated as 'conservative'. Author argues the conservative makes the following claims: (pg214)
-It is wrong to kill an innocent, whatever the consequences
-operating on the baby will kill it
-not operating (and delivering the baby) is not killing the mother, since her death is only a consequence, not an act of killing
-operating is wrong, not operating is permissible
What is going on here is an Action/Consequence distinction, which author tries to unpack in most of the rest of the paper. An action is considered motion in the physical environment, but will also typically include some of the 'upshots', that is what happened as a result of the physical motion. But not all the 'upshots' or consequences will be included in an action-- some could be considered to fall on the side of mere consequences. Author believes this is a valid distinction, but wonders if there is moral salience to it, especially in the case of the woman in labor. For author, there are 6 ways to approach the distinction between a human action and the consequences that come from it: (pg216-7 & pg222-3)
a) The actor was highly confident that the upshot (consequences) would follow from the action
b) There was a high degree of certainty or high likelihood that the upshot would follow from the action, even if the actor didn't know it
c) The aim or intention with which the action is performed does not include the upshot (consequence), even though such a consequence may inevitably follow
d) An impartial observer who assesses the entire situation would assign a particular upshot to be part of an action
e) There is a high degree of immediacy, 'simplicity of causal connections', short time-lag, etc. for actions but not for consequences
f) Actions can only be activities of a person, while not-doing something, whatever the consequences, is not an action.
Author argues there is moral salience to a-c but they do not apply to the 'obstetrics case', and d-f do apply to the obstetrics case but aren't morally significant. (pg216) To start, a and b both are stipulated in the case that the doctor knows either the woman or the child will die depending on the doctor's actions. So the obstetrics case does not have these elements. And with c, the doctor doesn't kill the baby for the sake of killing the baby-- the doctor does so to save the mother. And vice-versa with saving the baby but killing the mother-- in neither case is the action performed for the sake of killing the innocent human. (pg217)
Author then takes an elaborate detour into the general philosophy behind the conservative principle. The conservative might want to argue that there is a higher degree of immediacy or certainty that the child will die compared to the dying mother. However, author believes this is the wrong kind of argument the conservative would want to make to justify her position. If that argument underwrites the distinction between an action and its consequence, then it might be possible to concoct a case where performing some intentional voluntary motion would create a small chance of killing an innocent but have a large immediate upshot of saving more innocents. This kind of argument is not a 'whatever the consequences' argument. Author discusses how a conservative like Anscombe first denies this kind of argument as an underwriter, but then helps herself to it in her footnotes. (pg218-221) In general, this is a discussion about the permissibility of using 'fantastical' examples in moral theory.
The second group of ways to support an Action/Consequence distinction d-f might have differences in the obstetrics case, but author claims that no one should consider them morally relevant. Author claims that d would actually argue against the conservative position and moves to e, the case of a closer causal connection or a higher degree of immediacy in the killing than in the letting die. Author believes this element is loosely connected with a and b. But e has a difference in immediacy in the obstetrics case, (pg224) where there is no asymmetry in cases a and b (author claims). Author ties e and f together as basically using a distinction between actions and refraining-from-acting to do its work. Though there is a difference, author claims the difference isn't morally relevant. The difference between acting so that x happens and not-acting and allowing x to happen are laid out by author: (pg225-7)
Similarities:
-bodily movements
-the happening of x (e.g. someone dying)
Differences:
-there is a limited set of activities that could be performed in order to kill
-there is a wide set of activities that could be performed when letting-die
These differences are merely of degree, which may not be comforting to the conservative anyway, since it is possible to construct a circumstance where actions are so limited to destroy the difference in set size. More immediately, your moral judgment on whether someone is responsible for a death does not lessen once you learn that A could have killed B a whole variety of ways, not just the way A actually killed B. (pg228-229) And this is the fatal difference-- the set size of the ways in which an impermissible action might have occurred is metaphysically significant but not morally so.
The last portion of the paper discusses the reasons to perhaps stick with such a 'whatever the consequences' rule like the one. A conservative might object to the example, claiming it is too fantastic or fanciful and that it unfairly tests a good rule. Author counters that the example used in the paper is of a kind: there will be other times where this kind of case might come up. A conservative who pushes further might use two different arguments: (pg231-2)
1) You missed something when you analyzed the elements of the Action/Consequence distinction-- something that is morally salient but not nameable. Reply: this is a serious issue; do the tough work to elucidate the moral difference. If you can't, then drop the reply.
2) We must have some rules, or else we would never be able to decide anything on time. A host of particular situations are too complex to try to resolve one-by-one-- we need rules to do it efficiently. Reply: This is a focus on the particular, not the specific. You can make two rules: one that specifies what to do in certain kinds of situations, another that specifies what to do in other kinds of situation. The objection is about the particular, not the specific. Further, this argument is consequentialist: 'if we don't have rules to follow, look at the consequences that might occur!', which doesn't seem to be appealing to the conservative anyway. (pg234)
Ethics, Thomson & Dworkin Eds, Harper & Row 1968
This paper seeks to dispute the so-called principle of double effect, which posits a moral difference between actively doing x and passively allowing x to happen (when you could have stopped it). The example that author uses throughout the entire paper is one of a woman who is in labor but has reached complications and will die unless a late-term abortion is performed. However, it is also possible to deliver the baby alive, but the mother will suffer complications and eventually die. Author wants to attack those who believe that there is a moral difference between killing the baby and 'letting the mother die' by delivering the baby. The principle under attack is: "It would always be wrong to kill an innocent human, whatever the consequences of not doing so", though at the outset (pg212) author acknowledges that it isn't possible to refute that principle directly. Instead the strategy will be to show that the structure of the principle, something like 'always don't do x, whatever the consequences' is morally vacuous.
To start, author does not seek discussion with interlocutors who take religious authority or divine command as the basis for the principle; author wants to talk with those who believe there is an independent way to ascertain the validity of the principle. (pg213) Those who follow the principle are provisionally stipulated as 'conservative'. Author argues the conservative makes the following claims: (pg214)
-It is wrong to kill an innocent, whatever the consequences
-operating on the baby will kill it
-not operating (and delivering the baby) is not killing the mother, since her death is only a consequence, not an act of killing
-operating is wrong, not operating is permissible
What is going on here is an Action/Consequence distinction, which author tries to unpack in most of the rest of the paper. An action is considered motion in the physical environment, but will also typically include some of the 'upshots', that is what happened as a result of the physical motion. But not all the 'upshots' or consequences will be included in an action-- some could be considered to fall on the side of mere consequences. Author believes this is a valid distinction, but wonders if there is moral salience to it, especially in the case of the woman in labor. For author, there are 6 ways to approach the distinction between a human action and the consequences that come from it: (pg216-7 & pg222-3)
a) The actor was highly confident that the upshot (consequences) would follow from the action
b) There was a high degree of certainty or high likelihood that the upshot would follow from the action, even if the actor didn't know it
c) The aim or intention with which the action is performed does not include the upshot (consequence), even though such a consequence may inevitably follow
d) An impartial observer who assesses the entire situation would assign a particular upshot to be part of an action
e) There is a high degree of immediacy, 'simplicity of causal connections', short time-lag, etc. for actions but not for consequences
f) Actions can only be activities of a person, while not-doing something, whatever the consequences, is not an action.
Author argues there is moral salience to a-c but they do not apply to the 'obstetrics case', and d-f do apply to the obstetrics case but aren't morally significant. (pg216) To start, a and b both are stipulated in the case that the doctor knows either the woman or the child will die depending on the doctor's actions. So the obstetrics case does not have these elements. And with c, the doctor doesn't kill the baby for the sake of killing the baby-- the doctor does so to save the mother. And vice-versa with saving the baby but killing the mother-- in neither case is the action performed for the sake of killing the innocent human. (pg217)
Author then takes an elaborate detour into the general philosophy behind the conservative principle. The conservative might want to argue that there is a higher degree of immediacy or certainty that the child will die compared to the dying mother. However, author believes this is the wrong kind of argument the conservative would want to make to justify her position. If that argument underwrites the distinction between an action and its consequence, then it might be possible to concoct a case where performing some intentional voluntary motion would create a small chance of killing an innocent but have a large immediate upshot of saving more innocents. This kind of argument is not a 'whatever the consequences' argument. Author discusses how a conservative like Anscombe first denies this kind of argument as an underwriter, but then helps herself to it in her footnotes. (pg218-221) In general, this is a discussion about the permissibility of using 'fantastical' examples in moral theory.
The second group of ways to support an Action/Consequence distinction d-f might have differences in the obstetrics case, but author claims that no one should consider them morally relevant. Author claims that d would actually argue against the conservative position and moves to e, the case of a closer causal connection or a higher degree of immediacy in the killing than in the letting die. Author believes this element is loosely connected with a and b. But e has a difference in immediacy in the obstetrics case, (pg224) where there is no asymmetry in cases a and b (author claims). Author ties e and f together as basically using a distinction between actions and refraining-from-acting to do its work. Though there is a difference, author claims the difference isn't morally relevant. The difference between acting so that x happens and not-acting and allowing x to happen are laid out by author: (pg225-7)
Similarities:
-bodily movements
-the happening of x (e.g. someone dying)
Differences:
-there is a limited set of activities that could be performed in order to kill
-there is a wide set of activities that could be performed when letting-die
These differences are merely of degree, which may not be comforting to the conservative anyway, since it is possible to construct a circumstance where actions are so limited to destroy the difference in set size. More immediately, your moral judgment on whether someone is responsible for a death does not lessen once you learn that A could have killed B a whole variety of ways, not just the way A actually killed B. (pg228-229) And this is the fatal difference-- the set size of the ways in which an impermissible action might have occurred is metaphysically significant but not morally so.
The last portion of the paper discusses the reasons to perhaps stick with such a 'whatever the consequences' rule like the one. A conservative might object to the example, claiming it is too fantastic or fanciful and that it unfairly tests a good rule. Author counters that the example used in the paper is of a kind: there will be other times where this kind of case might come up. A conservative who pushes further might use two different arguments: (pg231-2)
1) You missed something when you analyzed the elements of the Action/Consequence distinction-- something that is morally salient but not nameable. Reply: this is a serious issue; do the tough work to elucidate the moral difference. If you can't, then drop the reply.
2) We must have some rules, or else we would never be able to decide anything on time. A host of particular situations are too complex to try to resolve one-by-one-- we need rules to do it efficiently. Reply: This is a focus on the particular, not the specific. You can make two rules: one that specifies what to do in certain kinds of situations, another that specifies what to do in other kinds of situation. The objection is about the particular, not the specific. Further, this argument is consequentialist: 'if we don't have rules to follow, look at the consequences that might occur!', which doesn't seem to be appealing to the conservative anyway. (pg234)
9/24/10
Donagan, Alan - Consistency
09/24/2010
The Theory of Morality ch 5, University of Chicago Press, 1979
This chapter attempts to deal with possible inconsistency in the moral system author has laid out in the previous three chapters. Author is less concerned about consistency between all the different precepts, since undoubtedly he mis-formulated some of them in a way that would generate moral conflict. The larger question is whether a system such as this in general is prone to inconsistency. Inconsistency is equated to moral perplexity-- there being a circumstance where the moral precepts give conflicting answers on what to do. Viewed in this light, author looks at Aquinas' cases of moral perplexity: perplexity on account of some prior misdeed, and essential perplexity. Perplexity due to some prior misdeed is the circumstance where a prior action or intention was impermissible or culpable and now the agent is faced with conflicting choices about how to get aright. Author back others like Kant and Aquinas in claiming that this conditional perplexity is not a threat to the system's consistency. (pg145) This still leaves moral perplexity 'simpliciter'.
The possibility of perplexity simpliciter is first given by Bishop Kirk, claiming that only a moral system with one principle could be said to contain no contradictions a priori. Any system with more than one inviolable principle may results in a conflict between the principles. Author denies this, claiming that one can easily imagine two inviolable principles ('absolute prohibitions'), such as not lying and not killing, which would never come in conflict. (pg146-7) Author also considers Peter Geach's conception of Divine law, which never conflicts due to divine providence but can appear to do so because of limits on human understanding. Author does not help himself to this because of the theological commitments it entails, and Donagan has taken a secular route. Author also does not use an ordering principle or weighting, since it is 'incompatible with the very nature of deductive systems'.(pg148) Instead, author claims that there is a structural principle that is derivable from the fundamental principle of respect for rational agents: 'It is impermissible to do evil that good may come of it'. (pg149) [his argument is on pg155] Author labels this the Pauline principle after St. Paul.
Author reviews the previous work, specifically second-order and first-order precepts. The two levels can't conflict since all manner of combinatorial schemes are possible without moral perplexity. Furthermore, author claims that second-order precepts are not independent enough from first-order ones. Thus if there is any inconsistency, it is among the first-order precepts (permissible and impermissible actions). (pg149-150) Author then reviews the different types of duties given in the first-order precepts: duties to self and duties to others within and without institutions. During this time author claims that it isn't possible that one needs to hurt oneself in order to respect others. In cases where there must be a choice between two impermissible acts (not because of perplexity simpliciter, but perplexity after a prior violation), author does not admit that there are degrees of moral impermissibility. Instead, impermissible wrongs can be more or less 'grave'. (pg152) Hence the precept: 'When you must choose between evils, choose the least.' During the review, the principle of beneficence arises as a potential source of inconsistency (pg153). Here the Pauline principle does some work, as does Kant's 'perfect' and 'imperfect' duties. Author argues that some acts are impermissible, but among the permissible ways to promote human well-being, there are many different plans of action. One must be beneficent, but it is left open exactly how. (pg154) Author also discusses Jonathan Bennett's objection to absolute systems because they do not take into account bad consequences. (pg156-7)
The next section (5.3) deals with a 'double effect', an action that is both good and bad. Author talks about the exact formulation of this idea, notably a conflict in formulation between JP Gury and Germain Grisez. (pg158) A case of double effect is killing in self-defense (if killing is wrong). Here it is permissible to defend oneself, even to the death, and yet killing is also impermissible and presumably a grave evil. (pg159) Author also takes the case of abortion: under Gury's formulation it is impermissible to kill the baby to save the mother's life. However, it would probably be permissible to extract a 'cancerous womb' to save a woman's life, even if that cancerous wound happened to contain a baby. For Gury, the principle turns on whether the evil was the means of the good effect or not.(pg159) Author rejects Gury's formulation because of author's previous work in the theory of action; both cases are agent actions voluntarily done.
Author contrasts Gury with the thinking of Germain Grisez, for whom the principle of double effect was about analyzing two factors: the unity of performance (acts) and the unity of intention. If an act cannot be divided into smaller acts which might avoid double effect, then an examination of the intention with which the act is performed is the important factor for double effect. For Grisez, an intention is licit if it is performed for the good effect and not for the bad, and the bad is out-proportioned by the good. (pg161) For instance for Grisez, an abortion may be performed in order to save the mother's life, and yet it is equally permissible to kill the mother in order to save the fetus. (pg162) The problem here is the absolute abstention from violating or coercing an aggressor. The Judeo-Christian tradition sees a fetus that happens to threaten the mother's life as an aggressor, somewhat ungrateful for its life. (pg162) For author however, the performance of an impermissible action leaves one open to coercion (or death, if necessary) because she has forfeit the right to respect. For author then, the principle of double effect is useless since the cases it was meant to cover are not problematic. (pg163) This is lucky for author, since author also objects to Grisez's treatment of intentions as the only morally relevant components of actions (see ch 4).
The final section (5.4) discusses a unique feature of the principle of beneficence, pregnancy. There is a possibility for moral perplexity here because of the possibility of the human race outstripping the available resources. If birth control is impermissible and Malthusian (overpopulation) problems are possible, it seems there could be conflict. However, author argues that contraception is permissible. (pg167) However, abortion is impermissible. (pg168-170) Author considers two arguments for the permissibility of abortion. The first is that a fetus is not a human being. Author: 'that is forced' (pg168). The second is that humans do not have the right to be respected as rational agents, only full-fledged members of a moral community have that right. Author: even if I grant that, isn't it true that a fetus will become a moral community-member if you nurture and let it? 'If respect is owed to beings because they are in a certain state, it is owed to whatever, by its very nature, develops into that state' (pg171). Author does allow for an abortion in the case of rape, since the mother cannot be subjected to labor and child-rearing without a prior voluntary action (pg169). For author, any case where the pregnancy is not the result of a voluntary action would excuse the mother removing the fetus, viable or not.
The Theory of Morality ch 5, University of Chicago Press, 1979
This chapter attempts to deal with possible inconsistency in the moral system author has laid out in the previous three chapters. Author is less concerned about consistency between all the different precepts, since undoubtedly he mis-formulated some of them in a way that would generate moral conflict. The larger question is whether a system such as this in general is prone to inconsistency. Inconsistency is equated to moral perplexity-- there being a circumstance where the moral precepts give conflicting answers on what to do. Viewed in this light, author looks at Aquinas' cases of moral perplexity: perplexity on account of some prior misdeed, and essential perplexity. Perplexity due to some prior misdeed is the circumstance where a prior action or intention was impermissible or culpable and now the agent is faced with conflicting choices about how to get aright. Author back others like Kant and Aquinas in claiming that this conditional perplexity is not a threat to the system's consistency. (pg145) This still leaves moral perplexity 'simpliciter'.
The possibility of perplexity simpliciter is first given by Bishop Kirk, claiming that only a moral system with one principle could be said to contain no contradictions a priori. Any system with more than one inviolable principle may results in a conflict between the principles. Author denies this, claiming that one can easily imagine two inviolable principles ('absolute prohibitions'), such as not lying and not killing, which would never come in conflict. (pg146-7) Author also considers Peter Geach's conception of Divine law, which never conflicts due to divine providence but can appear to do so because of limits on human understanding. Author does not help himself to this because of the theological commitments it entails, and Donagan has taken a secular route. Author also does not use an ordering principle or weighting, since it is 'incompatible with the very nature of deductive systems'.(pg148) Instead, author claims that there is a structural principle that is derivable from the fundamental principle of respect for rational agents: 'It is impermissible to do evil that good may come of it'. (pg149) [his argument is on pg155] Author labels this the Pauline principle after St. Paul.
Author reviews the previous work, specifically second-order and first-order precepts. The two levels can't conflict since all manner of combinatorial schemes are possible without moral perplexity. Furthermore, author claims that second-order precepts are not independent enough from first-order ones. Thus if there is any inconsistency, it is among the first-order precepts (permissible and impermissible actions). (pg149-150) Author then reviews the different types of duties given in the first-order precepts: duties to self and duties to others within and without institutions. During this time author claims that it isn't possible that one needs to hurt oneself in order to respect others. In cases where there must be a choice between two impermissible acts (not because of perplexity simpliciter, but perplexity after a prior violation), author does not admit that there are degrees of moral impermissibility. Instead, impermissible wrongs can be more or less 'grave'. (pg152) Hence the precept: 'When you must choose between evils, choose the least.' During the review, the principle of beneficence arises as a potential source of inconsistency (pg153). Here the Pauline principle does some work, as does Kant's 'perfect' and 'imperfect' duties. Author argues that some acts are impermissible, but among the permissible ways to promote human well-being, there are many different plans of action. One must be beneficent, but it is left open exactly how. (pg154) Author also discusses Jonathan Bennett's objection to absolute systems because they do not take into account bad consequences. (pg156-7)
The next section (5.3) deals with a 'double effect', an action that is both good and bad. Author talks about the exact formulation of this idea, notably a conflict in formulation between JP Gury and Germain Grisez. (pg158) A case of double effect is killing in self-defense (if killing is wrong). Here it is permissible to defend oneself, even to the death, and yet killing is also impermissible and presumably a grave evil. (pg159) Author also takes the case of abortion: under Gury's formulation it is impermissible to kill the baby to save the mother's life. However, it would probably be permissible to extract a 'cancerous womb' to save a woman's life, even if that cancerous wound happened to contain a baby. For Gury, the principle turns on whether the evil was the means of the good effect or not.(pg159) Author rejects Gury's formulation because of author's previous work in the theory of action; both cases are agent actions voluntarily done.
Author contrasts Gury with the thinking of Germain Grisez, for whom the principle of double effect was about analyzing two factors: the unity of performance (acts) and the unity of intention. If an act cannot be divided into smaller acts which might avoid double effect, then an examination of the intention with which the act is performed is the important factor for double effect. For Grisez, an intention is licit if it is performed for the good effect and not for the bad, and the bad is out-proportioned by the good. (pg161) For instance for Grisez, an abortion may be performed in order to save the mother's life, and yet it is equally permissible to kill the mother in order to save the fetus. (pg162) The problem here is the absolute abstention from violating or coercing an aggressor. The Judeo-Christian tradition sees a fetus that happens to threaten the mother's life as an aggressor, somewhat ungrateful for its life. (pg162) For author however, the performance of an impermissible action leaves one open to coercion (or death, if necessary) because she has forfeit the right to respect. For author then, the principle of double effect is useless since the cases it was meant to cover are not problematic. (pg163) This is lucky for author, since author also objects to Grisez's treatment of intentions as the only morally relevant components of actions (see ch 4).
The final section (5.4) discusses a unique feature of the principle of beneficence, pregnancy. There is a possibility for moral perplexity here because of the possibility of the human race outstripping the available resources. If birth control is impermissible and Malthusian (overpopulation) problems are possible, it seems there could be conflict. However, author argues that contraception is permissible. (pg167) However, abortion is impermissible. (pg168-170) Author considers two arguments for the permissibility of abortion. The first is that a fetus is not a human being. Author: 'that is forced' (pg168). The second is that humans do not have the right to be respected as rational agents, only full-fledged members of a moral community have that right. Author: even if I grant that, isn't it true that a fetus will become a moral community-member if you nurture and let it? 'If respect is owed to beings because they are in a certain state, it is owed to whatever, by its very nature, develops into that state' (pg171). Author does allow for an abortion in the case of rape, since the mother cannot be subjected to labor and child-rearing without a prior voluntary action (pg169). For author, any case where the pregnancy is not the result of a voluntary action would excuse the mother removing the fetus, viable or not.
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