03/29/2013
The New York Review, April 4, 2013
This is an excerpt of the first chapter of author's posthumously published book. Author starts by arguing that the divide between the non-religious and the religious is too crude. Plenty of people who don't believe in a personal god have beliefs that there is a "force" that is "bigger than themselves". This can be available to the atheist as well as the theist. Author argues that there can be such a thing as a religious atheist, and uses Einstein as an example: "It was Einstein's faith that some transcendental and objective value permeates the universe, value that is neither a natural phenomenon nor a subjective reaction to natural phenomena." But then if there is a religious atheist, there needs to be a good definition of "religion", which is difficult, according to author, since use of the word is partially meant to define it-- an "interpretative concept". Instead, author opts to look for a "revealing" ideal use of the word. What is the point of such an exercise? For author, it could perhaps help separate questions of science from questions of value; shrinking the impetus for cultural and value wars.
Author attempts to give some structure to a "religious attitude" by claiming it involves making both the "biological and biographical" sources of intrinsic value: that to be religious entails believing there are intrinsic values relating to both human life and the world we inhabit. Of course the problem now is to find out what those values are, and how they are known (hint: traditionally, a god told them to us).
First off, there is a dichotomy between the religious and the naturalist-- for author-- someone who believes that all there is can be revealed by the natural sciences. Another thing the religious attitude is not: it isn't "grounded realism", which takes values to be real but only due to some natural capacity to reason about them. For author, the religious means that value is both "self contained and self-certifying". During this discussion, author defines the term "faith" as well, as, in the first order, that "we accept a felt, inescapable conviction rather than the benediction of some independent means of verification as the final arbiter of what we are entitled to responsibly believe". Author means to include mathematics, logic, and science into what is fundamentally taken on faith. Faith when it comes to value contains another layer, since emotion is part of convictions about value. The point here for author is that the realm of value is about objectively true things (for the religious person) and it is self-justifying. It is not, as some theists believe, that god underwrites values. Author embarks on a description of the 3 abrahamic religions as two-parted: one is a science part and the other is a value part. The science part gives answers to tough questions, and god is included in the story. But, author claims, the science part cannot ground the value part, since they are conceptually distinct. "The universe cannot be intrinsically beautiful just because it was created to be beautiful". Ultimately, author says that values justify themselves within a larger scheme of value, and that a god is conceptually distinct from this.
3/22/13
Guyer, Paul - Passion for Reason: Hume, Kant, and the Motivation for Morality
03/22/2013
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA Vol 86 Issue 2 (Eastern Div)
This is a paper that tries to find some common ground between Hume's conception of morality as grounded in the passions and Kant's as grounded in a duty to law. The first part starts with an examination and summary of Hume's conception of moral principles as motivational, and thus not the sort of thing that reason, analyzed as "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact" is suited to provide (pg5-6). In order to be moved to action we must first have a preference; reason doesn't play that part (pg6).
After this familiar distinction between reasoning and moral sentiment, Hume still tries to explain why we elide them so much: it is because reasoning is a calm activity, as is the realization of moral sentiment-- it too is mostly done calmly (pg7). Author argues further that Hume is offering a more substantive theory: that humans deeply prefer calm and tranquility. Here author reasons that the opposite of a calm passion is a violent one, and a preference for calm would be a preference for freedom from a violent passion, hence humans can have a calm preference for calm freedom (pg7). Author then takes some time to unpack Hume's discussion on the different preferential qualities, focusing specifically on "tranquility" as very highly regarded. Hume means to have the passion for tranquility as both other- and self-regarding, and also argues that this passion must be a calm passion, since it seems absurd to have a violent passion for tranquility (pg8). Thus, according to Hume, we have a strong calm passion for tranquility, the freedom from importune passions.
The next discussion is about Kant, and starts with his famous claim about moral motivation having nothing to do with personal gratification or inclination (pg9). But author argues that Kant believed that reason was not an ultimate end but an instrumental one to attain freedom (pg10-11). The idea author argues for is that, for Kant, we have a passion for our own individual freedom, but reason recognizes that this is universalizeable and thus the passion for (individual) freedom is transformed through reason into some kind of non-passionate motivation for universal freedom (pg11-2). Author first reads Kant's two major formulations in the Groundwork to be relating to securing freedom of choice for all rational actors (pg13). Interestingly, author acknowledges that Kant's version of freedom isn't the negative version of freedom from urgent passions but a positive version of freedom to set one's own ends (pg14). Then, author reads portions of Kant's Critique to suggest that once reason has determined the will to the proper course, it has to pass through the eye of pleasure/pain in motivation before it gets to action (pg14-5). Author goes on to talk about how Kant lists a 'panoply' of aesthetic and/or emotional ways in which humans susceptible to duty (reason) in action (pg15-6). The conclusion is that, for Kant, the self-regarding passion in freedom is molded by reason into a universal concern for the freedom of all (pg17), and becomes a type of "enthusiasm".
Proceedings and Addresses of the APA Vol 86 Issue 2 (Eastern Div)
This is a paper that tries to find some common ground between Hume's conception of morality as grounded in the passions and Kant's as grounded in a duty to law. The first part starts with an examination and summary of Hume's conception of moral principles as motivational, and thus not the sort of thing that reason, analyzed as "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact" is suited to provide (pg5-6). In order to be moved to action we must first have a preference; reason doesn't play that part (pg6).
After this familiar distinction between reasoning and moral sentiment, Hume still tries to explain why we elide them so much: it is because reasoning is a calm activity, as is the realization of moral sentiment-- it too is mostly done calmly (pg7). Author argues further that Hume is offering a more substantive theory: that humans deeply prefer calm and tranquility. Here author reasons that the opposite of a calm passion is a violent one, and a preference for calm would be a preference for freedom from a violent passion, hence humans can have a calm preference for calm freedom (pg7). Author then takes some time to unpack Hume's discussion on the different preferential qualities, focusing specifically on "tranquility" as very highly regarded. Hume means to have the passion for tranquility as both other- and self-regarding, and also argues that this passion must be a calm passion, since it seems absurd to have a violent passion for tranquility (pg8). Thus, according to Hume, we have a strong calm passion for tranquility, the freedom from importune passions.
The next discussion is about Kant, and starts with his famous claim about moral motivation having nothing to do with personal gratification or inclination (pg9). But author argues that Kant believed that reason was not an ultimate end but an instrumental one to attain freedom (pg10-11). The idea author argues for is that, for Kant, we have a passion for our own individual freedom, but reason recognizes that this is universalizeable and thus the passion for (individual) freedom is transformed through reason into some kind of non-passionate motivation for universal freedom (pg11-2). Author first reads Kant's two major formulations in the Groundwork to be relating to securing freedom of choice for all rational actors (pg13). Interestingly, author acknowledges that Kant's version of freedom isn't the negative version of freedom from urgent passions but a positive version of freedom to set one's own ends (pg14). Then, author reads portions of Kant's Critique to suggest that once reason has determined the will to the proper course, it has to pass through the eye of pleasure/pain in motivation before it gets to action (pg14-5). Author goes on to talk about how Kant lists a 'panoply' of aesthetic and/or emotional ways in which humans susceptible to duty (reason) in action (pg15-6). The conclusion is that, for Kant, the self-regarding passion in freedom is molded by reason into a universal concern for the freedom of all (pg17), and becomes a type of "enthusiasm".
3/15/13
Railton, Peter - That Obscure Object, Desire
03/15/2013
American Philosophical Association Proceedings, Vol 86 Issue 2 (2012)
Author starts by recounting some damaging attacks on the concept of desire. It used to be thought that desire + belief could rationalize action, but Quinn, Scanlon, and Parfit all attacked this notion, saying it was too primitive to be counted: a desire as a disposition to bring about P (if the appropriate beliefs were true), is not enough to give a reason for the action: there needs to be something more, something about the P or the subject that explains or gives reason for P (a "desirability characteristic")(pg22-3). Author aims to reply to these attacks here.
Author first considers whether a desire as merely a disposition to act is too bare, and revisits Hume's original formulation of a non-normative passion, something not subject to reasoning (pg23). Author takes a biographical interlude to discuss advertising and how it hopes to affect its viewer: "by liking an image, we could come to want what it represents" (pg24). This first formulation is the simple Humean or neo-Humean model of having a disposition toward effecting P (pg25). One upshot of this understanding of the installation of a disposition toward P (through advertising) is that, to author, desire is "creative". Not just in the instrumental sense but in the sense that thoughts, beliefs, and experiences can create new desires in the subject. Secondly, contra the behaviorists, desire is teleological (pg26-7). Thus, this first formulation is rationally intelligible. Author goes over the etymology of the words desire, want, and like (pg28). Upon revisiting the counterexample offered by Quinn, the Radio Man, who has a "desire" by having the disposition to turn on radios whenever he is near them, author seems to agree with Quinn that what is lacking is the desire (pg29). Author proceeds to the instrumental elements of desire that rhyme with an Aristotelian schema (pg30-1), calling it "appetitive intellect" or "intellectual appetition". But author also shows the two-fold character of desire: one is the "positive affective attraction" and the other is "focused appetitive striving" (pg31).
Author comes around again to the problem with the formulation of desire as a disposition toward P: it fails to capture that desire is a "pro-attitude" (pg32). It is an attitude that is like other emotions, it is regulative on our actions, and also our actions provide feedback to our emotions. Author explores this feed-back relationship through a proxy discussion of fear and confidence (pg33-5). Author incorporates the feedback related to desire into a newer formulation (pg36).
After the more inclusive focumlation, author takes a look at the empirical side of desire in a modern-day psychology course. There, the old categories of want/preference/desire and models of drives and satiation were significantly outdated (pg36-7). The inadequacy of the philosophical formulation, even the prospective/retrospective one author had come to recently, was brought out in the discussion of addiction. In addiction, the pleasure in the experience attenuates and even can become nil but the compulsion to engage in the experience persists. There was a distinction between affect and "incentive salience" (pg37), or wanting (a difference between appreciating P and wanting P). Addictive drugs operate directly on the 'wanting' system, skipping the recalibration and influence of the 'liking' system (pg37). Author goes further into the science of affect, and comes away with 2 broad conclusions: (1) Affect permeates perception and cognition, as well as decision-making (pg38), and (2) any possible distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive affect is not possible. "Cognitive appraisal" is relevant to all affective states, and affect itself is information-giving and proto-normative (pg39).
Returning to meld the psychology of desire with its updated philosophy, author first talks about a 'prospective model' of the world that (constitutionally?) involves affect (pg39-40). Another lesson brought out by talking about modeling the environment to shape expectations and affect, is that desire does not aim baldly, but "under a favorable representation" (pg41). What emerges is that desire is good at aiming at (evolutionary) goods, just like perception is good at aiming at (evolutionarily relevant) truths (pg41). Author walks through a series of disputes in the philosophy of desire and motivation using the prospective model formulated earlier, discussing Parfit, Frankfurt, Williams and finally squaring it with Hume (pg42-5).
American Philosophical Association Proceedings, Vol 86 Issue 2 (2012)
Author starts by recounting some damaging attacks on the concept of desire. It used to be thought that desire + belief could rationalize action, but Quinn, Scanlon, and Parfit all attacked this notion, saying it was too primitive to be counted: a desire as a disposition to bring about P (if the appropriate beliefs were true), is not enough to give a reason for the action: there needs to be something more, something about the P or the subject that explains or gives reason for P (a "desirability characteristic")(pg22-3). Author aims to reply to these attacks here.
Author first considers whether a desire as merely a disposition to act is too bare, and revisits Hume's original formulation of a non-normative passion, something not subject to reasoning (pg23). Author takes a biographical interlude to discuss advertising and how it hopes to affect its viewer: "by liking an image, we could come to want what it represents" (pg24). This first formulation is the simple Humean or neo-Humean model of having a disposition toward effecting P (pg25). One upshot of this understanding of the installation of a disposition toward P (through advertising) is that, to author, desire is "creative". Not just in the instrumental sense but in the sense that thoughts, beliefs, and experiences can create new desires in the subject. Secondly, contra the behaviorists, desire is teleological (pg26-7). Thus, this first formulation is rationally intelligible. Author goes over the etymology of the words desire, want, and like (pg28). Upon revisiting the counterexample offered by Quinn, the Radio Man, who has a "desire" by having the disposition to turn on radios whenever he is near them, author seems to agree with Quinn that what is lacking is the desire (pg29). Author proceeds to the instrumental elements of desire that rhyme with an Aristotelian schema (pg30-1), calling it "appetitive intellect" or "intellectual appetition". But author also shows the two-fold character of desire: one is the "positive affective attraction" and the other is "focused appetitive striving" (pg31).
Author comes around again to the problem with the formulation of desire as a disposition toward P: it fails to capture that desire is a "pro-attitude" (pg32). It is an attitude that is like other emotions, it is regulative on our actions, and also our actions provide feedback to our emotions. Author explores this feed-back relationship through a proxy discussion of fear and confidence (pg33-5). Author incorporates the feedback related to desire into a newer formulation (pg36).
After the more inclusive focumlation, author takes a look at the empirical side of desire in a modern-day psychology course. There, the old categories of want/preference/desire and models of drives and satiation were significantly outdated (pg36-7). The inadequacy of the philosophical formulation, even the prospective/retrospective one author had come to recently, was brought out in the discussion of addiction. In addiction, the pleasure in the experience attenuates and even can become nil but the compulsion to engage in the experience persists. There was a distinction between affect and "incentive salience" (pg37), or wanting (a difference between appreciating P and wanting P). Addictive drugs operate directly on the 'wanting' system, skipping the recalibration and influence of the 'liking' system (pg37). Author goes further into the science of affect, and comes away with 2 broad conclusions: (1) Affect permeates perception and cognition, as well as decision-making (pg38), and (2) any possible distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive affect is not possible. "Cognitive appraisal" is relevant to all affective states, and affect itself is information-giving and proto-normative (pg39).
Returning to meld the psychology of desire with its updated philosophy, author first talks about a 'prospective model' of the world that (constitutionally?) involves affect (pg39-40). Another lesson brought out by talking about modeling the environment to shape expectations and affect, is that desire does not aim baldly, but "under a favorable representation" (pg41). What emerges is that desire is good at aiming at (evolutionary) goods, just like perception is good at aiming at (evolutionarily relevant) truths (pg41). Author walks through a series of disputes in the philosophy of desire and motivation using the prospective model formulated earlier, discussing Parfit, Frankfurt, Williams and finally squaring it with Hume (pg42-5).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
