01/26/2007
Values and Morals, Goldman & Kim eds 1978
Author discusses the two parts of action: belief and desire. Discusses moral training as coming to associate positive ends with positive means-- that is, 'transmutation of means into ends'.
Author cannot pinpoint actual 'moral values' but instead discusses two more easily identified ones: Altruistic values and Ceremonial values. Altruistic means being satisfied when someone else is, and Ceremonial means attaching value to the practices of one's social/societal group.
Author considers 'moral sentiment' to be based from sympathy for one's fellow man.
[Interesting paper: worth re-reading and this is a sub-standard summary]
1/19/07
Frankfurt, Harry - On Truth
01/19/2007
Alfred Knopf, New York 2006
This is a short book of 100 pages, really light in philosophy with big type-face and wide margins. Author introduces by talking about his assumption in his "On Bullshit" book-- the assumption was that truth was good. Now he is backing up that truth is, well, good.
I- Author describes the inestimable practical value of true facts in the conduct of business, social, technical, medical, engineering and other matter. He briefly confronts two 'postmodern' replies, one is that there is no objective reality, or another that we only call those things as true those that are the subject to a constraint (perhaps socially constructed) we have from economic, political, etc. forces. Author rejects this as too 'glib' and obtuse and refers to engineers, architects and physicians-- there may be many different methods that will work, but many more that simply will not. Thus the opposite of falsity is needed, at least. He admits this may constrain objectivity in the social sciences, history.
II- Even if normative claims are neither true nor false, at least they must have a basis in the factual-- in what things someone did or didn't do-- in order to make the judgments in the first place. This is what being reasonable is about-- being responsive to reasons that are facts.
III- Description of Spinoza's account of loving truth, you cannot help but love it. Things that help you find yourself, discover yourself, and make you grow, expand your capabilities, etc, are what you cannot help but love.
IV- Why is truth so good? We need to cope with reality in order to make our way. We need to know some of the properties of reality so that we can adjust ourselves accordingly. We can feel at home when we are confident we know the truth about something. Ignorance leaves us in the dark, to 'mindless groping' (pg61).
V- We are rational beings-- we need truth in order for our rationality to be meaningful (pg65) because we need facts to be responsive to.
VI-VII Lying separates you from the truth, and since we all dwell in reality (the true), then you are being separated from reality, you are being isolated. We also don't like lying because, if we don't detect it, we are undercutting our confidence in find the truth after all.
VIII- Shakespeare talks of pleasant lies that make us feel better but we know to be lies in a sonnet (pg87). If you can do this, go for it.
IX- We need the truth because we wouldn't know our limitations, our abilities, or much about the world. We wouldn't be able to find ourselves!
Alfred Knopf, New York 2006
This is a short book of 100 pages, really light in philosophy with big type-face and wide margins. Author introduces by talking about his assumption in his "On Bullshit" book-- the assumption was that truth was good. Now he is backing up that truth is, well, good.
I- Author describes the inestimable practical value of true facts in the conduct of business, social, technical, medical, engineering and other matter. He briefly confronts two 'postmodern' replies, one is that there is no objective reality, or another that we only call those things as true those that are the subject to a constraint (perhaps socially constructed) we have from economic, political, etc. forces. Author rejects this as too 'glib' and obtuse and refers to engineers, architects and physicians-- there may be many different methods that will work, but many more that simply will not. Thus the opposite of falsity is needed, at least. He admits this may constrain objectivity in the social sciences, history.
II- Even if normative claims are neither true nor false, at least they must have a basis in the factual-- in what things someone did or didn't do-- in order to make the judgments in the first place. This is what being reasonable is about-- being responsive to reasons that are facts.
III- Description of Spinoza's account of loving truth, you cannot help but love it. Things that help you find yourself, discover yourself, and make you grow, expand your capabilities, etc, are what you cannot help but love.
IV- Why is truth so good? We need to cope with reality in order to make our way. We need to know some of the properties of reality so that we can adjust ourselves accordingly. We can feel at home when we are confident we know the truth about something. Ignorance leaves us in the dark, to 'mindless groping' (pg61).
V- We are rational beings-- we need truth in order for our rationality to be meaningful (pg65) because we need facts to be responsive to.
VI-VII Lying separates you from the truth, and since we all dwell in reality (the true), then you are being separated from reality, you are being isolated. We also don't like lying because, if we don't detect it, we are undercutting our confidence in find the truth after all.
VIII- Shakespeare talks of pleasant lies that make us feel better but we know to be lies in a sonnet (pg87). If you can do this, go for it.
IX- We need the truth because we wouldn't know our limitations, our abilities, or much about the world. We wouldn't be able to find ourselves!
1/12/07
Quine, Willard Van Orman - Confessions of a Confirmed Extensionalist
01/12/2007
Future Pasts, Floyd & Shieh eds., Oxford Univ Press
Author introduces himself as an extensionalist. He defines what coextensive means for various parts of speech:
-2 Closed Sentences: coextensive if both true or both false
-2 Predicates/General Terms/Open Sentences: coextensive if true of just the same objects or sequences of objects
-2 Singular Terms: coextensive if they designate the same object
An expression is extensional if replacing one of its parts with a coextensive part preserves truth.
Two main problems for extensionalism:
1) intentional claims about beliefs with more than one mode of presentation.
2) Using a term for fictitious objects like 'pegasus', then using 'flies if existent' and 'flies and exists', using existence as a property. The two predicates are coextensive, but one is true and the other false. Author fixes this problem by translating 'flies if existent' to 'exists, then flies', which is false too.
Author talks of the problem of Principia Mathematica was to use "Propositional Functions", which led back to properties and intentions rather than individuated extensional items. The other issue was 'material implication', which got seriously confused in Principia Mathematica by using 'p implies q' to suggest 'p entails q'. This leads to confusion because it can seem as though 'p entails q' is a necessary truth between p and q, which author refuses.
The first problem of extensionalism is intentions-- 'Tully' and 'Cicero'. If we mention, not use, the sentence 'Cicero denounced Catiline' in the sentence 'Tom believes "...". Then since the sentence 'Cicero...' is mentioned, you cannot substitute into it.
This is 'semantic ascent', which can be very useful. "The quoted sentence is the ascriber's expression of what he would be prompted to assert if he were in the state of mind in which he takes the subject to be." This has no internal component, just external 'assent', etc.
Later, in the meeting, a big complaint of semantic assent was the lack of translation (into other languages, for instance)-- you need meanings for this.
Future Pasts, Floyd & Shieh eds., Oxford Univ Press
Author introduces himself as an extensionalist. He defines what coextensive means for various parts of speech:
-2 Closed Sentences: coextensive if both true or both false
-2 Predicates/General Terms/Open Sentences: coextensive if true of just the same objects or sequences of objects
-2 Singular Terms: coextensive if they designate the same object
An expression is extensional if replacing one of its parts with a coextensive part preserves truth.
Two main problems for extensionalism:
1) intentional claims about beliefs with more than one mode of presentation.
2) Using a term for fictitious objects like 'pegasus', then using 'flies if existent' and 'flies and exists', using existence as a property. The two predicates are coextensive, but one is true and the other false. Author fixes this problem by translating 'flies if existent' to 'exists, then flies', which is false too.
Author talks of the problem of Principia Mathematica was to use "Propositional Functions", which led back to properties and intentions rather than individuated extensional items. The other issue was 'material implication', which got seriously confused in Principia Mathematica by using 'p implies q' to suggest 'p entails q'. This leads to confusion because it can seem as though 'p entails q' is a necessary truth between p and q, which author refuses.
The first problem of extensionalism is intentions-- 'Tully' and 'Cicero'. If we mention, not use, the sentence 'Cicero denounced Catiline' in the sentence 'Tom believes "...". Then since the sentence 'Cicero...' is mentioned, you cannot substitute into it.
This is 'semantic ascent', which can be very useful. "The quoted sentence is the ascriber's expression of what he would be prompted to assert if he were in the state of mind in which he takes the subject to be." This has no internal component, just external 'assent', etc.
Later, in the meeting, a big complaint of semantic assent was the lack of translation (into other languages, for instance)-- you need meanings for this.
1/5/07
Buss, Sarah - Needs (Someone Else's), Projects (My Own), and Reasons
01/05/2007
Journal of Philosophy August 2006
Note: In this paper much of the academic argument against Susan Wolf, Harry Frankfurt, Shelly Kagan, and Bernard Williams is done in the footnotes, along with much more contentious argumentation.
Author begins by noting that she could have picked an occupation that was more 'helpful'. 'Helpful' is undefined, other than something that does more to help those in need. She contrasts this on a very personal level, with her choice of philosophy. She immediately claims that any profession she chose would provide the same level of personal satisfaction, thereby dispelling any 'tradeoff' between being helpful and being happy. She concludes that there are very minor, 'messy' reasons for her choice of a 'relatively unhelpful' profession.
Author doesn't believe her only reason is to be moral, or to subsume all her needs/desires for others. But given the prima facie truth that she has good reason to help another in pressing need, doesn't she have good reason to change her commitments so that she does help others in pressing need? The main point is that she is asking for justification for her current commitments that are relatively unhelpful. [Justification calls for reason-giving and standards-holding-- what if, on this level of structuring commitments, there are no substantive reasons, only structural ones?]
Author examines other possible replies to there is a good reason to be helpful. First is that there is no strong reason to help those in pressing need, or that this strong reason is overridden easily by one's own needs, whatever they may be, because of some special status they have by virtue of being mine. This argument tends to assume there is a contrast between a 'subjective' and 'objective' reasoning, and that there should be some special bridge ('why be moral?') that one has to cross in order to go from the subjective to the objective form of reasoning, and that there is no good reason to do that. Author tries to stay away from this talk of 'subjective' and 'objective' by framing everything in the subjective.
What doesn't work 1: 'There is normative force behind our commitments because they are what we favor.' Author: this doesn't answer our question, since we are asking what we think gives us reasons to do, what interests we find reason-giving for action. And surely being helpful to those in need is reason-giving. [not if we do not rationally decide on what we favor-- what if what we favor is arbitrarily defined, then repeated, then reinforced?]
What doesn't work 2: 'Our commitments make us who we are in a substantive way. To alter them is to abandon oneself, and to question them may be unintelligible.' Author: people can radically change. Offering 'I am what I am' is a cop-out since it doesn't account for the ability to rationally question the justification of what you are. Author: I am a living thing, and then I have commitments. I have reason enough to go on living, and from there to make commitments. If I abandon my commitments, I am still a living thing (the grounds for living aren't gone), so I can form new commitments. (Weird arguments going on pgs 386-387-- this part involves a supposed 'transcendental argument' made on 387 and footnoted in footnote 30. The transcendental argument goes as follows: 'since I believe that life is worth living, I have good reason to make commitments in my life.' Contrast this to: 'It is the commitments in my life that make it worth living.'
What doesn't work 3: 'There is inherent value in variety.' (Wolf?) Author: get over yourself.
What doesn't work 4: There is no over-arching standard by which various commitments can be held up and scrutinized. Just about any commitment is ok. Author: (391) Just because there is no final, ultimate criterion doesn't give us license just to chose willy-nilly. There are reasoned choices to be made, relative weights to be measured, and some will be better than others, even though there is no final scale. Sometimes we can pick the relative merit of some commitments vs others, even if sometimes we can't. Also, the above argument now justifies evil commitments!
Author: beware the trick of our own desires. They are reason-giving, but not especially reason-giving for me just because I happen to have them. The things we rational agents need in order to start to examine our commitments is magnanimity and forgiveness (400). [This could be possibly the weirdest ending to a strong paper.]
Journal of Philosophy August 2006
Note: In this paper much of the academic argument against Susan Wolf, Harry Frankfurt, Shelly Kagan, and Bernard Williams is done in the footnotes, along with much more contentious argumentation.
Author begins by noting that she could have picked an occupation that was more 'helpful'. 'Helpful' is undefined, other than something that does more to help those in need. She contrasts this on a very personal level, with her choice of philosophy. She immediately claims that any profession she chose would provide the same level of personal satisfaction, thereby dispelling any 'tradeoff' between being helpful and being happy. She concludes that there are very minor, 'messy' reasons for her choice of a 'relatively unhelpful' profession.
Author doesn't believe her only reason is to be moral, or to subsume all her needs/desires for others. But given the prima facie truth that she has good reason to help another in pressing need, doesn't she have good reason to change her commitments so that she does help others in pressing need? The main point is that she is asking for justification for her current commitments that are relatively unhelpful. [Justification calls for reason-giving and standards-holding-- what if, on this level of structuring commitments, there are no substantive reasons, only structural ones?]
Author examines other possible replies to there is a good reason to be helpful. First is that there is no strong reason to help those in pressing need, or that this strong reason is overridden easily by one's own needs, whatever they may be, because of some special status they have by virtue of being mine. This argument tends to assume there is a contrast between a 'subjective' and 'objective' reasoning, and that there should be some special bridge ('why be moral?') that one has to cross in order to go from the subjective to the objective form of reasoning, and that there is no good reason to do that. Author tries to stay away from this talk of 'subjective' and 'objective' by framing everything in the subjective.
What doesn't work 1: 'There is normative force behind our commitments because they are what we favor.' Author: this doesn't answer our question, since we are asking what we think gives us reasons to do, what interests we find reason-giving for action. And surely being helpful to those in need is reason-giving. [not if we do not rationally decide on what we favor-- what if what we favor is arbitrarily defined, then repeated, then reinforced?]
What doesn't work 2: 'Our commitments make us who we are in a substantive way. To alter them is to abandon oneself, and to question them may be unintelligible.' Author: people can radically change. Offering 'I am what I am' is a cop-out since it doesn't account for the ability to rationally question the justification of what you are. Author: I am a living thing, and then I have commitments. I have reason enough to go on living, and from there to make commitments. If I abandon my commitments, I am still a living thing (the grounds for living aren't gone), so I can form new commitments. (Weird arguments going on pgs 386-387-- this part involves a supposed 'transcendental argument' made on 387 and footnoted in footnote 30. The transcendental argument goes as follows: 'since I believe that life is worth living, I have good reason to make commitments in my life.' Contrast this to: 'It is the commitments in my life that make it worth living.'
What doesn't work 3: 'There is inherent value in variety.' (Wolf?) Author: get over yourself.
What doesn't work 4: There is no over-arching standard by which various commitments can be held up and scrutinized. Just about any commitment is ok. Author: (391) Just because there is no final, ultimate criterion doesn't give us license just to chose willy-nilly. There are reasoned choices to be made, relative weights to be measured, and some will be better than others, even though there is no final scale. Sometimes we can pick the relative merit of some commitments vs others, even if sometimes we can't. Also, the above argument now justifies evil commitments!
Author: beware the trick of our own desires. They are reason-giving, but not especially reason-giving for me just because I happen to have them. The things we rational agents need in order to start to examine our commitments is magnanimity and forgiveness (400). [This could be possibly the weirdest ending to a strong paper.]
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