tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5031569337420603982024-03-13T05:19:28.910-07:00Gavagai!A philosopher's stone or lapis philosophorum is a legendary substance capable of turning lead into gold. It is my hope that this blog will polish some of my (and possible yours as well) rough and confused philosophical musings into nuggets of things more valuable.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-75324922917611479722017-12-12T18:57:00.003-08:002017-12-12T19:00:57.891-08:00Long delay but I'm still thinking. One topic that's been recently on my mind due to the events stemming from Trump's declaration of Jerusalem is territorial claims.
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We know that many wars have been fought and many nations continue to have tense relationships over disagreements over territory. China and India are both nuclear armed countries who have fought wars and continue to have border skirmishes over land. India and Pakistan as well as Russia and Ukraine. Islands in the S. China sea sometimes have multiple claimants leading to acrimonious relations and possibility of armed conflict.
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My proposal seems to me to be novel and I would appreciate any feedback from anyone who is knowledgeable on the subject.
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Simply put, my idea is of overlapping territories as a solution to territorial disputes. Say the example of a city Bunkerville. Two countries, Eng and Chang, claim it as theirs. The inhabitants of Bunkerville are divided into two nationalities (Engans and Changans).
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One way to settle it would be to have that city geographically divided (one half of the city go to Eng and the other half go to Chang) and then segregate the population accordingly. That's similar to the status quo situation for Jerusalem and many of the proposed settlement solutions.
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But why can't it remain intact?
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Perhaps the citizens of one country can only vote in their elections while citizens of the other can only in theirs but the city is otherwise undivided and remain multi-national. The benefit is that BOTH countries can then claim all of the city (and for historical and cultural reasons they may both have some justification to lay claim) like two Siamese
twins sharing a piece of flesh.
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I see no obvious problems with this. Things overlap all in nature and in man-made society.
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Laws may have to be adjusted so that some laws only apply to one group but not the other or else have the citizens decide on laws that all can live with which may be different from their respective countries proper. But consider countries like Malaysia where you have three main populations: Tamil Indians, Chinese and Malay. These three main groups have different religions and customs. The laws of Malaysia are often group relative. Indians and Chinese are able to buy liquor for example while the Muslim Malay are by law not allowed (as alcohol is Haram in Islam).
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There are practical problems. The first of which is simply getting the people of both nations to agree to this. It might be something of a compromise and territorial disputes are often uncompromising. However if no other obvious and better solutions are available, this should be an option for a <i>modus vivendi</i>.
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I'm sure there are lots of other problems but also potential benefits to this solution but it may very well be better than the dangerous and seemingly intractable positions we see around the world today.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-88329883504244770262013-11-20T01:14:00.000-08:002013-11-20T01:20:33.288-08:00Is everyone equal?It's a fundamental tenant of modern liberal societies that all humanity is equal in some major sense of the word. Perhaps this means that their lives are of equal worth etc. Obviously people are different when it comes to things like intellectual ability, physical ability, physical morphology, and psychological profile and disposition. These are clearly not up for debate. But the law and traditional morality has always considered one life as equal to another in some set of moral senses. <br />
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However, in this post I'd like to question this assumption. What can these qualities be? Some ineffable sense of humanity which everyone has in mere virtue of their humanity? This is not plausible for aliens or artificially created conscious beings may lack humanity yet their lives have all the value of humans lives. So that suggestion of some nebulous "humanity" which all humans have and makes it so that all of us are equal seems dubious. For whatever quality one may have, it may vary between people. With regard to virtues and vices, people are different like anything else. Think about animals. Must liberal egalitarians maintain that animals are not equal to humans in basic worth; that a human's life is worth more, that it is a bigger tragedy for a human to die or to suffer than an animal. I suspect that even most animal rights activists believe this. Given the choice to between an arbitrary human being and an arbitrary cat or lobster to avoid some great harm but not both, most animal rights activist will choose the human to avoid the harm. Human lives are simply worth more they will say which isn't to say that non human animal lives are worth nothing. Now people probably think this because humans have more capabilities more potential or have richer mental lives than other creatures. Thus they reason, human rights are more important. Human lives are more important. Human suffering etc. Of course this is not always the case; some intelligent animals such as great apes and dolphins and elephants probably have more capabilities and richer inner mental lives than severely retarded people. <br />
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However, if the value of a life is dependent on these factors (capabilities, richness of mental lives, etc) and not some intangible "humanity" then human beings individually vary in these qualities from one person to the next just as humanity vary from other species though in smaller degrees. So it seems that at least somewhat plausibly that human lives can vary in their basic value with some lives worth more. This seems more plausible to me given certain examples. Surely the lives of moral saints are worth more than Nazis? Gandhi's life, his suffering, his basic well-being is of more concern than Hitlers is it not? <br />
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However, though this may be all well and true, it doesn't mean that the law ought to respect it for practical concerns. Because it is too difficult to judge the worth of lives, the law may nbot be the right place to adjudicate and all lives ought by the law to weigh all human lives equally. Things like organ donation, allocation of health, economic and other resources ought to follow the egalitarian basic rule of thumb despite acknowledging that it is morally false. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-61411932717350831222013-10-02T03:50:00.000-07:002013-10-02T04:28:19.618-07:00Online civility, the democratic process and why sometimes calling a moron a "moron" is just the right thing to doI've always <a href="http://lapisphilosophorum333.blogspot.com/2011/11/curmudgeon-sage.html">maintained</a> that civility in deliberation is overrated and may even be detrimental to reasoned deliberation and thus the democratic process. There is a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/pdf">recent study</a> which by some accounts purports to show otherwise. I really like studies like this and I think X-phi philosophers ought to be carrying out studies like this. However, the study does not actually show what it explicitly claims to, viz, that the lack of "civility" (i.e., name calling or other rude, boorish behavior in online comments of a science related article) erodes reasoned, democratic deliberation. In fact, I will argue that the spread of this study's message and especially how it has been framed in the mass media <b>might </b>erode such a process.<br />
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The study used a sample of 1,183 people. They read an article about nanotechnology. A control group read a version of the article with comments that were uncivil and included insults such as "If you don't believe that nanotechnology is harmful, you're an idiot!" Others read the same article with comments that did not include rude, insulting and otherwise uncivil comments. The study's authors claim that the rude and uncivil comments made readers of the comments more "polarized," that is, made them "double down" in their views. <br />
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A quick terminological note: The media has reported this study as about online trolling (see <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/24/225793577/popular-science-mag-online-comments-are-bad-for-science">here</a>, <a href="http://www.jyi.org/issue/online-trolls-trigger-negative-sentiments-toward-science/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348927/description/When_trolls_come_out_from_under_their_bridges_its_bad_news_for_scientific_discourse">here</a> and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/you-idiot-course-trolls-comments-make-you-believe-science-less">here</a>, e.g.). However, online trolling as it is commonly defined, isn't simply about using such rude and uncivil language. It is about gaining attention through insincere posts purporting to express some viewpoint but in fact, is meant to instigate an emotional reaction. You can use uncivil language without trolling. To the study's author's credit, they did not use the term "trolling." Science journalists, being what they are, reporting on this story are the one's guilty of such sloppy use of language.<br />
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Anyway, back to the substantive portion of the study. The study concluded with:
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Online communication and discussion of new topics such as emerging technologies has the potential to enrich public deliberation. Nevertheless, this study’s findings show that online incivility may impede this democratic goal.</blockquote>
This is to stretch their findings to an area that is not supported by their own data. What they actually found was that readers of those comments had stronger views than they did before after reading uncivil comments. That "polarization" (in the context of this study, polarization of subjective risk associated with nanotech) in itself does not show that it is bad for deliberation never mind the democratic process. There is nothing wrong with having strong opinions on some topic. In fact, having them, all else being equal, is a sign of a strong democracy. So they reasoned from the fact that readers' opinions were made stronger to the <i>non sequitur</i> that this may "impede" the "democratic goal." <br />
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Instead, what <b>does </b>impede the democratic goal is not strong opinions <i>per se</i> but intractability, i.e., stubborn, persistent opinions despite the presentation of overwhelming counter evidence. Now it may be the case that having strong opinions will make one less likely to change one's opinions in light of such counter evidence but that wasn't what was studied in this study. Furthermore, there are decided counter examples. Scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians and some layman for example have very strong opinions yet to do science, philosophy, mathematics and many things competently means changing one's opinion's in accord with the evidence. So there are people out there who though have strong opinions are far more likely than most to update their views in so far as the evidence warrants it. So it's not at least contradictory that you can both have a strong view yet not be resistant to rational updating of belief. This is obviously not to say all scientists, philosophers, etc are this way. Many stubbornly hold on to outdated views but they are in general far better at conforming their views to the evidence than most. <br />
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But even assuming that most people will become more obstinate when their opinions are strengthened in just such a way (unlike scientists, et al), it doesn't follow that this is generally detrimental to public deliberation in all incidents. In fact, it may even be harmful in many cases <b>not </b>to be uncivil. <br />
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Why is this? Take the example that there is an issue, say, global warming. There are global warming denialists and those who affirm the existence of anthropocentric global warming. If both sides have strong but obstinate opinions, it is far better for both truth and the world than the alternative that only the denialists have strong opinions. This is because the denialists are wrong and furthermore wrong about something that gravely affect our and our children's well-being. Incendiary language may be the motivating factor to strengthen the views of both sides so that there is more balance. When those who do know better don't have as strong as an opinion as those who don't know better, this creates an imbalance that harms deliberation for those who don't know better will be more obstinate (again, assuming that it will make them obstinate to view change) and may dominate a discussion. <br />
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Now where the findings are relevant in the ways the authors suggest is when there is no definitive evidence on some controversial topic (such as nanotech perhaps). Notice that the example I used above of global warming is rather black and white when it comes to the evidence. There is overwhelming evidence for not only anthrocentric global warming that this very well will lead to disastrous consequences (in fact, it already has for large parts of the world) and little evidence contrary. But in some cases, we don't know too much either way. For example, in many unsettled scientific, philosophical, political, issues there are tentative evidence for many different but conflicting views. It would be prudent as the study suggest to be civil in discussions about the veracity of these issues so as to prevent intractability of viewpoints. That much is clearly true. But in much of public discourse, one side is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong. Evolution is true. The earth is not 5,000-6,000 years old. Iraq does not have WMD. Vaccines do not cause autism. Smoking is dangerous to your health. Etc, etc. So in cases where a person's view is so strongly at odds with reality, it may be good for others engaged in deliberation to call a spade a spade; polarization may be what is called for especially when the obstinate, irrational side is overconfident while the side of reason is acting like a (to put it in mildly PC terms) wussy but in less definitive matters and among more reasonable people, it may be far more prudent to remain open minded, skeptical etc and to facilitate this kind of atmosphere, it may, as the study suggests, mean refraining from uncivil behavior.<br />
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Furthermore, the study did <b>not </b>study if "uncivil" behavior made the <b>interlocutors </b>more likely to change/update their views in light of new evidence. That would have been far more interesting because it is directly related to reasoned deliberation, the kind of deliberation necessary for a healthy democracy. Instead, the study focused on non participants of the discussion (3rd party "lurkers"). Being called out a fool may or may not make one more tractable to rational debate. Here's what I suspect. I think being insulted online will not make one more or less likely to change one's viewpoint if only one person does the name calling but if there are more than two people doing the name calling at the interlocutor, he or she will be far more likely than not to change their viewpoints. Sometimes it takes a little community effort to get ignorant and intractable people to be more reasonable. Just listening or being more open minded often requires a little peer push which may involve a little incivility to be truly effective. This suspicion is subject of course to empirical evidence and I hope it will be tested someday (maybe it already has but I don't know where the study(ies) is to be found).<br />
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I worry that the spread of this message may even have a net detrimental effect on reasoned deliberation. Here's my reasoning. Who likely reads articles about this study? It is more likely that those who are interested in this study are the more educated and a little more reasonable than the average person who tend to have opinions that tend to be stronger than the available evidence warrants. But if those who are more reasonable are made to think that this kind of behavior is detrimental, they are the ones that will curb <i>their </i>future behavior by being more "civil" online while those who are not so reasonable (likely less educated and those not likely to read these kinds of articles) will remain their obstinate and uncivil selves. This creates in imbalance that doesn't seem very beneficial to reasoned deliberation. Sadly, it seems that some the study has already influenced some actions detrimental to public discourse. For example on the respected Popular Science online magazine's comments section, the comment function has been shut off (looks like permanently) and the <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments">moderator's reasoning</a> is partly based on the results of this study. It is sad to see that you'd throw the baby out with the bath water. Despite the fact that many comments are low quality, there are sometimes informative posts and they are worth having despite the bad apples. Bad apples often do not spoil the whole bunch. You deal with poor quality comments by doing your job as a moderator, not by complete censorship.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-10315638265159199722013-09-05T01:33:00.001-07:002013-09-05T01:40:01.186-07:00Syrian intervention? (Hell no)My post on another <a href="http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/syria-intervention/">blog</a> about the ethical considerations of possible Syrian military intervention below.
<blockquote>It looks like the US might go to war or at least militarily intervene with Syria (also see here). I am usually against military interventions and I believe that the situation in Syria does not so far warrant justification for intervention. I will talk both about wars and other kinds of mass state sponsored killings (aerial bombings, drone strikes, etc) as military intervention (for the sake of brevity) but I think the same principles apply in both cases. Most military interventions of humanitarian a nature has been unjust in hindsight and from this history alone we ought to be cautious of any proposal for future wars. I usually tend to think in terms of the five criteria I will lay down below for justification in foreign military intervention on behalf of humanitarian reasons. I think the principles are common sense and conjunctive (meaning that all five must be satisfied to justify foreign military intervention). I also believe that there might be additional principles that warrant inclusion as further conjuncts or disjuncts and will modify my 5 accordingly if they are presented to me convincingly. I might simply have not thought about this issue as hard as I could have or haven’t been exposed to the issue to know of alternative thinking.
Here are my five
1. Consent. What I mean by consent is that some degree of agreement or endorsement ought to be secured from the population in which we are going to war on behalf for the intervention (in this case, the Syrian population) and that a majority of the population ought to consent to reasonably fair and neutrally worded opinion surveys.
Some reservations and qualifications: First several surveys might have to be taken (with different wording or across different times and sample places) to insure more stable results. But consent on behalf of those we claim to fight for seems like a no-brainer. Two: what a “majority” means ought to be left for debate in some public space but I think it’s reasonable that it should be a “large” majority, perhaps more than 80%. This ought to be stable over all samples so as to reduce the chance of regional and temporal volatility. A military intervention probably impacts the whole country in profound ways so care and rigor in the ways I have just outlines seems reasonable to me in surveying public opinion. Granted it is often hard to ascertain public opinion through polls due to the political situation in many countries (the Assad regime might not want foreigners meddling with polls) but secret polls are often effective and have been used by international community such as the UN. Finally, this should be informed consent. Meaning that the questions on the surveys ought to reflect reality and the grim possibilities of war. Just because a population may want to overthrow their regime doesn’t mean that they will accept just anyone and anyway to do it. Syrians may agree, for example, that Assad must forcibly go by overwhelming majority but they may not agree that the US or its allies should be the ones doing the over-throwing. They may also fear and reject allowing foreign military or non military help of rebels to overthrow their government for (reasonable) fear that the rebels are Islamic militants, for example. The survey must also make it know that wars of intervention often turn out really bad (especially for the civilians due to collateral damage or the subsequent military occupation to insure stability during the post-war rebuilding process). The common people often become worse off as a result (take a look at Iraq as just one example of a case where the population almost universally agree in poll after poll that after the US led invasion that they are substantially worse than they were under Saddam Hussein).
We don’t know what the Syrian people think at this moment. Worse still, no attempt has even been seriously made to ascertain their opinions as far as I know about foreign US led military intervention.
2. Proportionality. This along with 1 is commonly used by just war theorists to evaluate the justness of any humanitarian war proposal. This is the cure-not-being-worse-than-the-disease criteria. There must be reasonable guarantees that the war will not result in even worse humanitarian crisis than it aims to solve. Wars rarely solve humanitarian problems. We know this from history. The ones that do solve humanitarian problems are of massive proportions (such as Nazi extermination camps and Japanese imperial aggression in Asia). Is the Syrian crisis approaching this level of humanitarian crisis? I’m not aware of any studies that accurately show that it is. 100,000 people have died in Syria from the crisis according to UN’s numbers but we don’t know who is primarily responsible (Assad’s regime, his supporters, or the rebels). I suspect that all have roughly equal roles in the crisis but I’m not sure and I don’t know of any accurate and certain information that currently exists that decisively shows that the Assad regime is mostly responsible.
Keep in mind that according to some of the most reliable data we have on the Iraq casualties, about 1.5 million people (mostly civilians) have died because of the latest Iraq war and countless survivors are injured. The infrastructure destroyed and the whole country in deep fear of fundamentalist and fractional terror. There are now far more birth defects in Iraq from the radioactive munitions used by the US than Hiroshima after the nuke. As we see from this and many other examples, war can snowball out of control into internecine violence even when they are waged on behalf of humanitarian reasons (or at least ostensible ones).
What guarantees have been offered by military powers that Syria will not become another Iraq? What proof is there that the many rebel factions will be better safeguards for human rights and democracy than the Assad regime? How reasonable are these claims?
3. Legitimacy. With this and the two further criteria below, I suspect that they are a bit more controversial than the first two. But I think international law is important and its thus important that wars conducted must surpass some kind of legitimizing hurdle such as UN agreement. The international committee and its opinion matters in international affairs such as foreign wars. Unilateral declarations of wars are problematic partially because they don’t seek the consultation of the rest of the world in a democratizing and process and respects the rule of law.
4. Exhaustion. Diplomacy and other overtly non violent means must be exhausted before violent military actions taken. Sanctions may also be an option on this list.
5. Accuracy. The reasons given by the invading/attacking power must be accurate. Why have this criterion? The reason is basically the same as why you’d want the Constitution to protect you from unlawful searches. If the police thinks you have child porn on your computer but it doesn’t have any evidence, they don’t have the right to search your house even if the search yields, say, some drug paraphernalia. Ex post facto justifications are illegitimate for a reason: to discourage the authorities from indiscriminate searches by the authorities.
In the case of Syria, the prevailing narrative by those wanting to attack is that Assad is the primary perpetrator of the human rights abuses in his country. If it is shown that this is not true (even if other factors may justify an attack is subsequently found).
Those are the five criteria I think are reasonable. Furthermore, because killing is a serious business and modern military interventions which often involves killing on a massive scale and with significant civilian casualty are thus a fortiori serious and standards of proof must also reflect that seriousness. A relatively high standard of proof for each of these criteria ought to be satisfied; mild and merely plausible evidence ought not suffice. In criminal cases, the standard of proof is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Perhaps such a standard or higher ought to be considered for military intervention.
There will be some who think that the five criteria I have set out are too stringent making the chances of just wars of humanitarian nature unnecessarily restrained/conservative and increasing the chances of gross humanitarian crisis. They may have more lax criteria or standards of proof for example. But the onus is on them to show what their criteria are. If they have none they are basically holding that war ought to be subject to the whims of those in power. There will be some who accept some but not all of the criteria I have set out but still believe that intervention is advisable. In that case, the onus is on them to show that the criteria they accept have been met. I believe that not only has all of the criteria I set out above not been met (satisfying conjunctivity requirement) but that none have been met to even a minimally sufficient degree of proof and thus even if you only accept some but not all, the justification for military intervention will be unjust. Many of the western media claims are incredibly suspect such as the claims that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. Not only is there little evidence of this but the evidence presented seems to implicate the rebels as the culprits who use them. For example, Assad refused entry to UN inspectors for months and only three days after granting them unlimited access to inspect weapons (what appears to be) a chemical attack occurred only 15 minutes drives outside of the UN inspection team. The US seems adamant not to investigate further stating that further investigation would be useless (one senior White House official stating that the evidence would be “corrupted” by Assad’s shelling of the sites) that and making clear that they have already reached a decisive conclusion (Cameron’s UK government also seemed to be just as headstrong about intervention, irrespective of pending UN findings). See the quote at the end in this article from Cameron).
</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-33345140780658121632013-03-23T05:29:00.001-07:002013-03-23T05:29:43.056-07:00Poem: "Davidsonian Dilemma"A metaphor is a simile<br />
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A simile is like a metaphorUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-29613025985398810622013-02-20T01:09:00.000-08:002013-02-20T01:17:46.317-08:00My reply to a podcast about gun control<br />
The podcats is <a href="http://philosophybites.com/2013/02/jeff-mcmahan-on-gun-control.html#comments">here</a> and it interviews Jeff McMahan.<br />
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Thank you for this excellent discussion and McMahan is probably my favorite contemporary ethicist but even though I do not consider myself a libertarian, I am skeptical of McMahan's anti-gun arguments.<br />
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Two considerations. 1. a pragmatic one. It is going to be down right impossible or very difficult to prohibit all guns. Let's keep in mind that the two shootings in the US that set off the debate recently are both due to someone stealing a gun from another person (in Sandyhook, the man stole the weapons from his mother who was the legal owner). Gun control would not have prevented these two mass shootings unless that involved taking guns from legally registered owners. Our constitution and our public and our political system will not allow it. So we are left with the option of limited gun control, not outright prohibition which would involve the taking away of guns from people who have legally bought them. But the overall empirical evidence here so far shows that gun control measures are not effective at reducing violent crime. In fact, when you look at large studies there is not even a correlation never mind a causal relationship between gun ownership and gun crimes. Even if it were show show some effect, it would have to be more than a little as this is a constitutional issue and thus the burden of proof is on the gun control advocates and that burden is set high.<br />
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2nd, the issue with many countries with substantially lower gun related crimes but also high gun ownership shows that the problem is likely deeper. I fully accept that US culture is far more violent than those other countries though I am an American and that this is the deeper reason and ought to be the target of violence reduction. It seems more practical (for the 1st consideration above) and more morally relevant to focus on this. It seems defeatist to say that we should focus on gun control as opposed to focusing on the deeper causes of gun violence, namely a violent culture that sees using guns as a way to solve problems. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-80791392738947793322013-02-05T20:05:00.002-08:002013-02-05T20:06:49.556-08:00Another reviewReview of Surviving Death by Mark Johnston (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R26WUDGSXIKENS/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005N8TNCK&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text">here</a>).<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-67164528367699463992013-01-29T03:56:00.003-08:002013-01-29T03:56:47.709-08:00Back with the thought of the dayBeen having trouble with blogger and the censors so haven't been posting but still thinking. But a recurring thought has been occurring to me that the type of society one lives in may affect what kind of ethics one chooses in this way and this has implications for meta-ethics. Perhaps living in less violent societies where people are more considerate to each other in daily contact will have people who are more utilitarian in their outlook on life. My reasoning for this prediction is that people will be more utilitarian in their moral reasoning in these types of societies is that they will expect the same from others such that when they sacrifice benefits to their own or their loved ones for the better of the group, they may expect that favors will be returned. There is thus both reasonable expectation and demand for more selfless behavior benefiting the whole but perhaps harming some individual. These considerations seem to favor more utilitarian ethics for that society but not for others.<br />
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In less considerate societies, people may be more deontological or virtue centered because the expectation and demand for reciprocity in moral decision making is less pronounced and a moral system that protects the just from being patsies is more preferable. But now we make morality socially relative and real moral dilemmas thus become relativized (think trolley problems or other classics such as involuntary organ donation). How can we decide these cases objectively and do real moral debates today hinge on such contingent factors? It seems that at least sometimes objectivity can be seriously undermined for morality though I still am not buying a complete anti-realist case for morality. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-36338329534989031862012-09-19T08:59:00.000-07:002012-09-19T21:04:06.131-07:00Alva Noe and the naturalistic cyborg fallacyThe philosopher of mind has <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/05/21/127029133/about-13-7-cosmos-and-culture#alva">a blog</a> at NPR. In <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/08/24/160017038/making-peace-with-our-cyborg-nature">one post</a> he talked about Lance Armstrong and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). Noe seems to say in the blog that doing these drugs and thus cheating is not wrong or at least blameworthy. Surely he can't be that nutty? Granted philosophers in the past have said some incredibly crazy things but they often have at least some coherent justification for their claims.<br />
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His argument that Armstrong shouldn't be blamed for cheating (granting that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong#Allegations_of_doping">the mountain of evidence</a> against him is accurate, as it appears to be) because humans have always used artificial advantages. This seems like a textbook case of the naturalistic fallacy combined with a case of false comparison.<br />
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Of course humans always have used artificial modifications (a trend Noe calls a fact about our cyborg nature).<br />
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Here I liberally quote from his original article.<br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">For millions of years, our ancestors survived with only the crudest implements. Some 35,000 to 75,000 years ago, a technological revolution took place on an extraordinary scale. Innovation now abounds in the archeological record. Whereas before, generation after generation used the same blunt pounding tools, now we find highly refined instruments for cutting. And we find tools for making tools. We find an increased diversity of building materials and evidence of real specialization in tool use and tool making.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">...</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">The point is not just that we couldn't do what we do without tools. The point is that we couldn't think what we think or see what we see without tools. We wouldn't be what we are without tools. Making tools, changing tools, is a way of making new ways of being. Technologies are evolving patterns of human organization.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">...</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">So let us turn now to the case of Lance Armstrong. He is a trailblazer. One of the greats. He didn't win races on his own. No, like each of us in our social embeddings, he created an organization, one drawing on other people, and the creative and effective use of technology, the mastery of biochemistry, to go places and do things that most of us never will, and that no one ever had, before him.That we now attack him, and tear him down, and try to minimize his achievements.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">... </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; line-height: 23.200000762939453px;">what does this tell us about ourselves?</span></blockquote>
I was pretty surprised that a professional philosopher would make such an incredibly crude and silly argument. Even though Noe is a philosopher of mind, it's no excuse. There has to be more convincing points he made to support his argument right? <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/08/24/160017038/making-peace-with-our-cyborg-nature">Check for yourself</a> and read the whole thing. It really seems as stupid as it appears.<br />
<br />
Someone in the comments section pointed out that Noe seems to justify using a cannon for the shotput with this "argument" he seems to put forward. It's not that Armstrong received help from tools, "cybernetic" or otherwise that makes people (justifiably) angry and the fact that he deserves punishment, it's that he received help that is <i>banned </i>that is the issue. I can't understand how anyone, a philosopher no less, could have missed this vital point.<br />
<br />
But he later posts <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/08/31/160359815/doping-its-just-part-of-the-game">another blog</a> responding to all the criticisms he received in the comments section. Surely he made the clear, well-supported points in <i>this </i>blog that controverts the common sense intuition that cheating in sports by taking PEDs is wrong which he should have in the first blog doesn't he?<br />
<br />
It doesn't appear that way. His second blog seems to be obdurate obfuscation. He claims he was justified because<br />
<br />
1. the anti-doping rules are too vague to matter<br />
<br />
2. breaking a doping rule is not blameworthy because it is a rule not "within" the game or sport itself but cheating "outside" the sport's "internal" rules.<br />
<br />
The first justification is simply ridiculous and I will not even address it other than to say that <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/cycling/2005-08-24-armstrong-samples-details_x.htm">positive drug tests</a> (or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-ends-fight-against-doping-charges-losing-his-7-tour-de-france-titles.html?pagewanted=all">equivalent positive</a>s) is about as clear cut as it gets. It's not that vague. So Noe's point seem to stumble and fall right out of the gates. I can't even imagine a charitable interpretation of it.<br />
<br />
As to the second justification, how he came to see it as non trivial and not a hairsplitting distinction (and more relevantly, why it matters even if there is an interesting distinction to be made) is puzzling. Here's a quote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Doping doesn't put you outside the game any more than sacrificing your marriage or getting up at 3:30 every morning so that you can get time at the ice rink puts you outside the game. Athletes are in it for the achievement. Athletes will not say No.</blockquote>
<br />
Of course, there is no rule within the all sports of cycling that says you cannot dope. Anti-doping rules are more a property of the organizing bodies that govern world cycling venues. But that just shifts the problem to that arena. Surely you can and be justifiably blamed for cheating <i>there</i>? And in some sense, that would also count as cheating in cycling because it would be taking an unfair advantage over non cheaters within the sport. So this "distinction" seems like hairsplitting and purposeful obfuscation.<br />
<br />
The distinction collapses because the point of the rule against cheating is to enforce unfair advantages within the game which breaks the boundary between "outside" rules and "inside" rules. The outside rules are there for a good reason. They are not arbitrary. PEDs such as EPO and many others (and blood transfusions which the USADA also accuses Armstrong of committing) have been found to <a href="http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/epo.html">potentially be deadly</a>. Obviously you don't want people to be encouraged to take these drugs.<br />
<br />
On a charitable interpretation, the only point that Noe seem to be somewhat justified in arguing in defense of doping cheaters as far as I can tell is the "everyone is doing it" argument but I'm not sure Noe is making such an argument (in fact, his own words in the second blog suggests otherwise).<br />
<br />
I suppose you can make the somewhat weakly plausible argument that other cyclists at the level Armstrong performs against are doping as well. Thus if we define "cheating" as doing something against the rules (in the sport or in the system by the governing body authorized to oversee the sport) <i>and </i>giving one an advantage, Armstrong didn't actually cheat because he had no artificial advantage over the other cheaters but prevailed over them with natural ability, hard work and skill.<br />
<br />
But notice that this argument only works if <i>everyone </i>else he competed against were likewise cheating. But that is implausible. Surely there are a few he has competed throughout the years who weren't on PEDs? And notice that Armstrong must have competed against others at the lower levels of competition and surely there are even more of those competitors who weren't on anything at all but used hard work, determination and the rest of what supposedly makes a great American sportsman?<br />
<br />
But in doping Armstrong took an unfair advantage over the others who choose not to use PEDs (or couldn't use them because of limited resources, etc). That's why he deserves blame (not to mention the years of public deception and monetary advantages that comes with that cheating). That's why it's cheating. That's why it's wrong.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-38897513424577987042012-09-18T03:54:00.002-07:002012-09-18T03:54:43.086-07:00Wittgenstein and picturesThe philosopher Ray Monk has <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-and-design/2012/08/ludwig-wittgenstein%E2%80%99s-passion-looking-not-thinking#comment-255632">this article</a> about Wittgenstein and his preference for pictures (as opposed to words). There is an exhibit at the London School of Economics with the theme of pictures and Wittgenstein. While I seem to have some disagreements with Monk about his interpretation of the Tractatus (but who am I to disagree with Monk?) and about his view that philosophers don't draw a distinction between propositions, thoughts and language (they do and some would assert that even pictures have <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/">propositional content</a>), I am reminded by his article of Jaakko Hintikka's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wittgenstein-Philosopher-Wadsworth-Jaakko-Hintikka/dp/0534575943">claim</a> long ago that Wittgenstein's notorious struggles with language, his related dogged focus on illuminating the mysteries thereof and his preference for pictorial representation (which is a sensibility he kept throughout his life) was a result of dyslexia.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-7616495727995357372012-07-11T13:15:00.003-07:002012-07-11T13:29:31.008-07:00Understanding understandingThe recent announcement about the tentative discovery of the Higgs boson have prompted many journalists and scientists to engage in philosophical speculation of what it means to understand something. It seems that many people (even Feynman has said he and other theoretical physicists don't "understand" it) still say they don't understand the nature of quantum phenomenon despite their grasp of the equations which describe them with unprecedented precision. But why do they still think that? journalist Robert Wright has <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/07/modern-physics-and-the-illusion-of-understanding/259542/">written</a> (and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/07/modern-physics-and-the-illusion-of-understanding/259542/">here</a>) about the Higgs boson recently and has remarked about his lack of understanding of its quantum nature after it has been repeatedly explained to him by physicists and science journalists alike. He now takes a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/wittgenstein-weighs-in-on-the-higgs-boson/259608/">philosophical approach</a> to the problem evoking a passage in Wittgenstein's PI.<br />
<br />
However, there may be other passages in W's writing that directly relate to what it means to understand something. I can't recall off the top of my head these passages but I did write one comment regarding some at least W inspired thoughts on what it means to "understand".<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are probably more relevant Wittgenstein passages in the PI or other of his works regarding what it means to "understand" something. Is it simply the ability to explain some concept with precision? Well, physicists can certainly do that with mathematical precision! So there's some other element(s) one may reason. Perhaps that other element is something like a loss of a "weird" feeling. So because experts and laymen alike still have this weird feeling when thinking about the nature of quantum phenomenon, we say that we don't completely understand it. But perhaps this recalcitrant weird feeling we have is simply a cultural relic, something that is a result of cultural (or socio-linguistic) biases.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It would be interesting to test this out. Maybe people from other cultures, cultures that are perhaps more comfortable with things like ambiguity, vagueness, indeteterminancy, etc, such as many Asian cultures will not have this bias and see quantum mechanics as "natural" and will say that they fully understand it once they understand the mathematical descriptions.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This understanding of understanding as it related to quantum mechanics s what I think W will <span style="background-color: white;">endorse.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
When a physicist or Robert Wright says he doesn't "understand" the nature of Higgs bosons or that it "make no sense" could it be that they only "understand" something maybe W's remarks on rule following will shed some light? One interpretation of W's ideas on rule following is that there has to be a further element other than rule following itself, that is, <span style="background-color: white;">besides the applied ability to follow that rule to understanding rules of language.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> On some interpretations of W's remarks, that void is a social element. The social element, as far as I can tell, has to do with social expectations of what other people expect. So it's not enough to follow some rule (formal mathematical or informal linguistic rule e.g.) but there needs to be some expectation that society will accept your explanation of your rule following. In our culture, since quantum mechanics is so counter intuitive to so many, it may just be this element of a lack of social acceptance that is the missing piece to truly understanding quantum mechanics. But notice that this is a cultural bias contingent on the culture and times we live in. Maybe as more of society come to accept quantum mechanics, it will seem less weird and hence, at least according to this interpretation, people will be less likely to say that they don't "really understand" quantum mechanics? </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-25472141817508648422012-06-04T15:26:00.001-07:002012-06-04T15:26:27.482-07:00Crazy metaphysics?Eric Schwitzgebel thinks that metaphysical theories are doomed for weirdness (he calls this "<a href="http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/07/crazyism.html">crazyism</a>." Also see <a href="http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-splintered-skeptic/">here</a>). He gives lots of examples. Much of his examples really are of famous weird metaphysics. Some of the most famous arguments in metaphysics are for really odd conclusions (modal realism, panpsychism, ontological nihilism, unrestricted mereology, etc).<br />
<br />
But why pick on metaphysics? It's not clear to me that metaphysics is any weirder (at least when it comes to a comparison with "common sense" assumptions than many claims in ethics and epistemology. Many utilitarians such as Singer and Unger argued that we are just as obligated to donate every last penny of expendable ready cash in our possession to the needy as we are in saving a drowning child. They even go further and argue that we may be obligated to steal for those that don't donate as much we we do to give to the needy. Kant famously argued that the moral obligation against lying is so strong that we ought not lie even to save an innocent life. <i>That's </i>crazy.<br />
<br />
Many skeptics have argued that we don't know many of the things we think we know. Ratnakirti argued for solipsism based on epistemological arguments, for example. There may be many other equally famous examples from these two branches of philosophy or other non metaphysics branches that are equally or more weird. All these examples show that weirdness is common to these other areas of philosophy as well. It may be that metaphysics is a little more likely to be weird than other branches of philosophy but I don't think there's a large difference in this regard.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-31528642255334457732012-05-28T16:31:00.001-07:002012-05-28T16:36:51.048-07:00Is pain "intrinsically" bad?In the last post, I mentioned that Shelly Kagan said (in passing) in his article published in the Chronicle that pain was an intrinsic bad. I've seen other philosophers say this too but I have yet to see a defense of it.<br />
<br />
What about for very very evil people? Is pain intrinsically bad when experienced by these people? Maybe intuitions defer here but I think mine suggest that pain maybe intrinsically good for the very evil. Perhaps that's because I tend to have more retributive intuitions than most?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-64916955299698752362012-05-28T15:55:00.002-07:002012-05-28T16:26:29.307-07:00Why is death bad?This question seems like it would have an obvious answer and yet philosophers have struggled to provide an adequate answer. This is because many of the answers that common sense and from traditional philosophy has supplied gives incoherent or very problematic answers.<br />
<br />
Shelly Kagan works in this little studied area of ethics. See <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-You-/131818/">here</a> for an interesting article by him published in the the Chronicle which tries to general outline the problems for the different accounts of why death is bad. He supplies and defends a deprivation account of death in his latest book but does not offer significant defense of his own views in the Chronicle article.<br />
<br />
The deprivation account is a comparative account. It basically says that what is bad about death is all the goods that one would not get to enjoy when dead (similar to the opportunity cost of the economists).<br />
<br />
Kagan says that unlike pain which is intrinsically bad, death is a comparative or relative bad. He then provides some challenges to this view which I think are quite damaging to that view and I am not sure how Kagan is able to surmount them in his book since he does defend it. I also think that if you are to gives such an account, you may have to also supply a calculus which includes the bads and goods of life instead of just adding up all the good one misses in death. I haven't seen anyone do that so far in talking about the badness of death which is odd. The negatives may outweigh the positives for many people in the world but it is hard to say that death is not bad for these people. The death seems to be bad even if the accounting of the positives versus the negatives in their lives would have came out in the net negative unless that net negative is so unusually bad that they themselves wish they had not gone on living. Some philosophers have <a href="http://lapisphilosophorum333.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-life-worth-living.html">argued</a> that for almost all human lives, the bad far outweighs any good of living. So not being born is preferable but on a deprivation view, this may imply (with some additional supporting arguments of course) that death is preferable to life.<br />
<br />
I have my own rough views on this topic which I'd like now to sketch out. It is a very tentative view and I'm not sure if people have advanced similar views before as I'm not familiar with the literature.<br />
<br />
I will call my view the fractured-self view (I wish I was a better poet because the name sounds clumsy to me). It is similar to the deprivation view in that it is also a comparative conception of death but it does not focus on the goods that are deprived from death.<br />
<br />
Rather it focuses on what the death does to the self. I believe that much of our conception of ourselves are grounded in our core principles and values and our most valued projects. In fact, I believe that our major life projects fundamentally encapsulate our principles and values and thus are expressions of the self. <br />
<br />
Our major life projects are to fulfill certain roles, professional, familial, moral, artistic, spiritual, etc. When we die, these projects which reflect our principles, our values and thus expressions of our most fundamental self go unfulfilled. We have no prospects of completing them; indeed, not even the opportunity to attempt to. <br />
<br />
That is what is tragic about death. It fractures us in a most fundamental way. Had we lived we would have sought to complete these life projects. So the reason death is bad is because it is bad compared to a counterfactual (the life had the dead individual survived). I believe this view avoids some of the major problems Kagan says have outlined and that of his own views. For example, if non existence is bad because it deprives us of the goods of living, why do we not view the nonexistence before death as just as bad as the nonexistence after? On my view, because the nature of life projects are always future oriented, non existence in the past does not matter because for the simple fact that we cannot complete a project in the past (backward causation notwithstanding) but we can for future projects if we are alive. It is not the time of our birth that prevents us from completing "projects" before we are born; it is the fundamental causal and nomological structure of the world that does that. There's no tragedy in not being able to do the impossible. That's what accounts for the temporal asymmetry. However, on Kagan's view, this objection is problematic because goods in the past are as good as goods in the future (at least ontologically there doesn't seem to be any reason to view them as different from a value perspective).<br />
<br />
My view explains why it is often believed that death for a 90 year old is not as worse as death for a 20 year old. The 20 year old is likely to have many more life projects unfulfilled. The 90 year old, on the other hand, likely would have fulfilled many major life projects and would have very few remaining. She is nearly whole upon her death at 90 whereas the 20 year old's death fractures him in a way that leaves him less than whole. Of course, the 90 year old may still have some projects that go unfulfilled and thus that would explain why it is still somewhat tragic for that nonagenarian to die but just not as tragic as the 20 year old. In short, death prevents us from developing our full selves, being a whole.<br />
<br />
But what about newborn babies? Isn't it tragic for them to die even though they are too young to have any projects in mind? Maybe it is the <i>potential </i>life projects that matters most in evaluating the tragedy of a newborn baby's life. A baby has no life projects but they do have the potential or propensity for developing lots of life-projects and the extinguishing of that potential or propensity by death is what is tragic about death for it.<br />
<br />
There may be lots of problematic issues for this account of life but <i>prima facie</i>, it seems very plausible to me. I need to think more and harder about what the potential problems are and if they can be overcome. This is a very tentative view for me now. One objection may go on to ask the further question why being less than "whole" or developing into "our full selves" is really that bad? I can only think of responding with what was basically hinted at above; that it is bad because our most fundamental values cannot be realized and that is certainly bad. There's no more explaining that needs to be done to explain why things going contrary to our basic values and principles is bad (for us). We've hit philosophical rock bottom. But this may seem circular or question begging but I can't think of any further justification for my view.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-65584311798155364032012-05-20T19:31:00.003-07:002012-05-20T19:32:06.380-07:00ShameWhile reading a very interesting and insightful paper on the topic by J. David Velleman, I realized that the paper's insights are deeply related to the recent case of a young Rutger's student, Tyler Clementi, who had committed suicide when a roomate had spied on and live-streamed video of Clementi in a romantic tryst with another man.<br />
<br />
Clementi was so humiliated that he committed suicide. Yet Clementi was apparently an openly gay person. The video was also not viewed many people (I believe only the roomate and some of his friends) and did not involve very explicit sexual acts. So some may wonder why he became so distraught. <br />
<br />
Velleman's account of shame is complicated and builds on a classical account of shame first ingeniously formulated by Augustine (who used the Genesis story of Adam and Eve for support) and is also similar to the account of shame given by Sartre. The paper is densely argued and there are parts that are opaque but definitely worth reading and it is remarkably relevant, I think, to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/nyregion/Some-Gay-Rights-Advocates-Question-Rutgers-Sentencing.html?pagewanted=all">Clementi case</a> so if interested I suggest reading both <a href="http://nyu.academia.edu/DavidVelleman/Papers/1262215/The_Genesis_of_Shame">the paper</a> and the Clementi case since I don't want to do the paper any injustice by synopsizing the analysis.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-57537689127686888532012-05-18T15:11:00.001-07:002012-05-18T15:20:50.179-07:00Pragmatic worries for metametaphysics<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This is an interesting <a href="http://www.philostv.com/tuomas-tahko-and-thomas-hofweber/">video blog</a> on<i>
meta</i>metaphysics. Here's something the two philosophers did not
explicitly mention: one way to cash out grounding or the
fundamentality relation may be the cutting-nature-at-its-joints talk.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Perhaps an analogy would serve an
explanatory purpose here. Some paintings are abstract, like say,
cubism. Cubism still represents reality but perhaps not as accurately
as say, a photo or a more fine grained painting. The cubist
representations don't cut nature at its joints but does manage to
pick out the same structures as the photo.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But I tend to have pragmatically
inspired worries. Perhaps what we determine to be fundamental may
largely depend on what we have uses for. So say numbers are often
posited to exist because they serve useful purposes but if we can
jettison them for something else that can do the job better (or maybe
we manage to abandon whatever the job they serve to describe
completely) we may not view them as fundamental or even real anymore.
They don't cut nature at its joints at all; nature has no number
joints.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Maybe tables, chairs and even people do
not cut nature at its joints or at least cut it less fundamentally
than more natural objects (perhaps subatomic particles or the cosmos
as a whole?).
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
More specifically, say, tables are
posited to exist because they serve an important role in society but
table-chair composites do not and thus we may not see it as
fundamental or as real as the table and chair individually. The table
is physically separated from the chair, of course, but we posit the
existence of many things that have parts vastly spatially separate
from other parts (the solar system, e.g.). That may be because the
solar system plays such an important roles in our society, our
sciences and so forth. Likewise, the left-half of the table is seen
as less fundamental or real as the whole table perhaps because it
serves a smaller function for us. But say someday we stop using whole
tables for whatever reason but find major indispensable uses of
half-tables and forget all about whole tables. Will we then see whole
tables as we do like table-chairs?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It may be more difficult to jettison
the usage of some things than others because they are so culturally
and socially and personally ingrained.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But pragmatic considerations come in
degrees (which may explain the fundamentality or grounding relation)
and are relative to societies and times (which may undermine
essentialism or neo-aristotelianism).
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
Perhaps the sciences offer the best analogy here. At one time, Newtonian mechanics was a model that was thought to describe reality. But when Einstein came along, his model was then seen by scientists and common folk as a more accurate model which is more fundamental in a sense than Newton's. Scientists don't want to say that Newton was wrong maybe because his model still has practical applications in society. But say, one day, a model of physics will render both Newton and Einstein's theory useless (as an explanatory or any other kinds of tool such as a handmaiden for developing new technologies, say) and posit laws and objects that are so different from anything these two physicists posited that people may forget those other theories and call them false.<br />
<br />
Here, you can say that it is because the new theory more accurately represents reality than the former two or you can say that it has more usages that the previous theories it has supplanted does not. What reasons do we have for the former explanation than the later?<br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-55780603890458618642012-05-15T17:07:00.002-07:002012-05-16T14:00:55.348-07:00Psychopaths and Confucian moral psychologyI have little respect for the New York Times. Their quality of journalism is poor but unfortunately standard fare for much of the world's press. However, occasionally one can find gems such as this well researched <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all">article on psychopathy</a> by Jennifer Kahn.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Psychopathy is a philosophically rich topic with clear relevance for moral psychology and meta-ethical debates on the nature of moral reasons and moral motivation. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What has always interested me about psychopaths is not that they have little regard for other people's welfare which is obvious but that they often display very little regard for their own. They are known to be extremely brazen and do things that jeopardize their own well-being. Punishments often do not sway them from harming others (as the article nicely illustrates). Violent psychopaths have very high recidivism rates. They seem to have little to no fear and show little to no anxiety and stress.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I remember reading or hearing of a famous experiment involving psychopaths. A control group and a psychopathic group were wired up and told they were about to receive painful shocks. The control groups displayed profound stress (measured in physiological makers such as heart rate, galvanic skin response, cortisol levels, etc) between the shocks. In other words, they were anticipating the shocks and felt understandable stressed at the future prospects of the pain. But the psychopathic groups felt almost no stress.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
psychopaths have often do not recognize fear in others (probably because they don't feel the emotion themselves). In one incident, a psychopath was asked to identify a collection of pics of facial expressions representing various emotions. She identified all of them correctly except the photo of a face displaying fear. She said that she didn't know what that face was expressing but she had seen such an emotion before right before she stabs her victims.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As the article illustrates, psychopaths often are carelessness and recklessness. But I am also reminded of a passage in the Analects that says roughly that one tell-tale mark of someone to be feared in a position of power or state rule is someone that have little regard for their own safety. Presumably, this is saying that if they have a history of little regard for their own well-being, they are the type that will have little regard for the well-being of others and ought not be trusted with ensuring the well-being of others. I can't remember the passage so if Carl knows which one this is, I'd really appreciate his help.</div>
<div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-13568672617203457922012-05-09T17:49:00.002-07:002012-05-09T17:51:36.850-07:00Evolution and masochismI just finished reading a really good sci-fi novel called the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Metamorphosis-Prime-Intellect-ebook/dp/B005LSD3Y6/ref=cm_cr-mr-title">Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect</a>. The behavior of the lead protagonist, Caroline, got me thinking of the evolutionary roots of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadomasochism">masochism</a>. Caroline is an extreme masochist and enjoys being tortured. It got me thinking of a passage that always stuck with me after many years from the great 20th century feminist work <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Vintage-Simone-Beauvoir/dp/030727778X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336610556&sr=8-1">The Second Sex</a> by Simone de Beauvior. de Beauvior was quoting (approvingly it appears) the claims of a famous German psychoanalyst (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Horney">Karen Horney</a>) who said something like "All women are masochists". Now this seems way overstated.<br />
<br />
But even if it is somewhat true that there are many female masochists, from an evolutionary perspective, why is that? What possible evolutionary purpose does it serve? If some psychologists <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean">are correct</a>, certain fantasies that are extremely masochistic (even life endangering) seem to be common in women so de Beauvior and Horney seems to be on to something.<br />
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It seems to me that masochists would be <i>more </i>likely to be culled out of the population, that such a trait is detrimental to fitness in the genetic sense. Thus those who are genetically disposed to it should be a very small minority. de Beauvior and Horney suggest a cultural explanation for that prevalence. But mightn't there be an evolutionary answer (as well)? I am divided between the cultural and the genetic dispositional perspectives. Maybe it is a combination of both factors interacting in complex ways (like many complex traits).<br />
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What I'm about to say may be extremely unPC but it seems that one possible reason that may explain the prevalence of female masochism is that it <i>does </i>confer an advantage. It may be that masochistic women are more desirable to men, that more dominant women are less so and thus the masochist traits are passed down more often than otherwise. Maybe even women who resist rape are more likely to be killed by their attackers (especially from foreign barbarian hordes which I'd imagine was once quite a common threat) than those who do not resist (and presumably a masochistic disposition may go some ways to make this acquiescence more likely). Non resisters are then more likely to be then taken into the group of the invaders or attackers as a "war bride" or something like it and thus bodily survive albeit psychically and dignity wise shattered. Mightn't masochism make even psychological recovering from these kinds of incidents more likely?<br />
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But what about male masochists? After all, the term is named after a man (Sacher-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Sacher-Masoch">Masoch</a>). Are male masochists as common as females? If males are far less likely to be masochists then the evolutionary psychological answer I gave may have some support because it does seem that it would be detrimental for males to be masochists. After all the hypothesis is basically a "rape theory" of masochism. Of course even if it is the case that men are far less likely to have that disposition it may be as de Beauvior suggests, because of cultural factors alone which tends to inculcate masochistic tendencies through the conditioned association of certain images and narratives to normal sexual sensibilities. There may not be any sex-selective differences on this account.<br />
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I'm usually not partial to evolutionary psychology because of its common, ad hoc, just-so stories, and I realize that I am giving an evopsy answer (and like many evopsy claims, very unPC!). But I make no claims to giving a scientific answer, just some crazy speculation.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-44897094184856433002012-05-04T14:42:00.002-07:002012-05-04T14:48:25.646-07:00The extended mind and the selfSome philosophers of mind such as David Chalmers and Andy Clark have <a href="http://consc.net/papers/extended.html">defended</a> what is called an extended mind theory (actually there are many kinds of extended mind theories) which claim that our minds are not just physically located in our heads. Some theorists posit that it is a system that is a combination of subsystems such as the brain combined with the rest of the central nervous system and perhaps also combined with the rest of the body (The neuroscientists Antonio Damasio, if I remember correctly, also defended such a view in one of his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Descartes-Error-Emotion-Reason-Human/dp/014303622X/ref=pd_sim_b_1">books</a>). Some others have posited that even the surrounding environment can be included in the whole system which is either identified with the mind or has properties which the mind supervenes. Chalmers and Clark defend a process view which says that the mind extends to the interactive process (not the system per se) between the central nervous system and the immediate environment mediated by the sense organs, etc.<br />
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This is troublesome for the brain view of personal identity. I like that view and I believe Jeff McMahon has defended such a view very admirably. I think it is the best view and it justifies many of the medical practices we have today in the US such as our laws regarding brain death and abortion, very important ethical issues.<br />
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I wonder if there is a way to keep the ethical benefits of a brain view taking into account the criticisms of such a view from the extended mind theory.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-84646890151993207802012-05-01T15:58:00.001-07:002012-05-01T15:58:35.579-07:00Of cosmologists and equivocatorsI've posted many times of the arrogant, condescending and ignorant opinions many physicists such as Feynman, Weinberg, and others have about philosophy (<a href="http://lapisphilosophorum333.blogspot.com/2010/12/philosophy-chauvinism.html">here </a>and <a href="http://lapisphilosophorum333.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-are-physicists-such-bad.html">here</a>). The latest fiasco in this is Lawrence Krauss book which he explicitly claimed including in an <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/">Atlantic interview</a> (then somewhat retracted in the same interview and in other articles) solves age-old philosophical problems such as why is there anything rather than nothing. Of course, Krauss uses the same old silly argument that when the physicist says that particles (or what appears to be particles) can come from <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/">relativistic quantum fields</a> (RQF), the RQFs, they claim, are really "nothing" and the physical laws then generate the particles which solves the problem. Abracadabra! That's how you get something from nothing.<br />
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This despite the obvious objection that because these RQF have certain properties they are not a "nothing" but a something. Krauss and other physicists have only explained how something can come from some other thing, not out of nothing.The philosophers of science David Albert (who also has a PhD in theoretical physics!) point out to this silly error in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html">blistering book review</a> in the New York Times.<br />
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Krauss did not like that review and predictably, went on a legendary tirade calling Albert a "moron philosopher" and calling philosophers in general all sorts of names and denigrating the whole discipline (he has since made somewhat of a retraction of denouncing the whole field.)<br />
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Even Krauss's friend and fellow cosmologist Sean Carroll has basically <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/04/28/a-universe-from-nothing/">taken Albert's side</a> (as well as other cosmologists like Lee Smolin and the evolutionary biologist <a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/philosophy-catfight-pigliucci-vs-krauss/">Jerry Coyne</a>).<br />
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On Sean Carroll's excellent cosmology blog, I <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/04/28/a-universe-from-nothing/#more-8248">posted</a> the following replies (comment #59 and 61) which I state that despite Krauss's errors which Carroll was justified in pointing out (such as ad hom and strawman arguments), Krauss is guilty of something much worse that everyone seems to have missed: you can make a good argument that his statements were insincere, dishonest, and maybe even fraudulent because Krauss exploits an equivocations seemingly purposefully. You can also add to that list, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman">no true scotsman fallacy</a> to the list of all Krauss's errors in the Atlantic interview when asked by a very informed interviewer that if philosophy is so useless why did was modern computer science born from the work of Russell and Wittgenstein? Krauss then said that they are mathematicians! This despite the facts that both Russell and Wittgenstein (not to mention many other philosophers) received their PhDs in philosophy, taught in philosophy departments all their lives, did work in other areas of philosophy, considered themselves philosophers, considered their work in logic to be extensions of Aristotle's and Leibniz's original work etc, etc. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-36774824254353207922012-04-28T19:31:00.003-07:002012-04-28T19:32:58.577-07:00What is the problem of letting die?I'll quote in full this famous moral dilemma from the wiki<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence</b></i> <a class="internal mw-magiclink-isbn" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0195108590" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">ISBN 0-19-510859-0</a> is a philosophical book by <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_K._Unger" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Peter K. Unger">Peter K. Unger</a>, published in 1996. Inspired by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Peter Singer">Peter Singer</a>'s 1971 essay "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine,_Affluence,_and_Morality" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Famine, Affluence, and Morality">Famine, Affluence, and Morality</a>," Unger argues that for people in the developed world to live morally, they are morally obliged to make sacrifices to help mitigate human suffering and premature death in the third world, and further that it is acceptable (and morally right) to lie, cheat, and steal to mitigate suffering. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unger argues that the intuitive moral judgments most people have of several hypothetical moral scenarios, <i>The Shallow Pond,</i> <i>The Vintage Sedan,</i> and <i>The Envelope,</i> are inconsistent.<br />
Unger presents the hypothetical case of <i>The Vintage Sedan</i>: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not truly rich, your one luxury in life is a vintage Mercedes sedan that, with much time, attention, and money, you've restored to mint condition... One day, you stop at the intersection of two small country roads, both lightly traveled. Hearing a voice screaming for help, you get out and see a man who's wounded and covered with a lot of his blood. Assuring you that his wound is confined to one of his legs, the man also informs you that he was a medical student for two full years. And, despite his expulsion for cheating on his second year final exams, which explains his indigent status since, he's knowledgeably tied his shirt near the wound as to stop the flow. So, there's no urgent danger of losing his life, you're informed, but there's great danger of losing his limb. This can be prevented, however, if you drive him to a rural hospital fifty miles away. "How did the wound occur?" you ask. An avid bird-watcher, he admits that he trespassed on a nearby field and, in carelessly leaving, cut himself on rusty barbed wire. Now, if you'd aid this trespasser, you must lay him across your fine back seat. But, then, your fine upholstery will be soaked through with blood, and restoring the car will cost over five thousand dollars. So, you drive away. Picked up the next day by another driver, he survives but loses the wounded leg. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unger reports that most people respond strongly that abandoning the hitchhiker is abominable behavior, and he contrasts this near-universal harsh judgment with the lenient judgments most people give to <i>The Envelope</i>: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In your mailbox, there's something from (the U.S. Committee for) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICEF" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="UNICEF">UNICEF</a>. After reading it through, you correctly believe that, unless you soon send in a check for $100, then, instead of each living many more years, over thirty more children will die soon. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unger argues that the factors that distinguish The Envelope from The Vintage Sedan, in which morality compels us to make a sacrifice, are not morally significant, using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Thought experiment">thought experiments</a> such as variations on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Trolley problem">trolley problem</a> to illustrate his point. Unger contends that psychological factors obscure the moral questions, and that our moral intuitions about problems such as these provide an inconsistent window into our true <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_value" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Moral value">moral values</a>. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unger conspicuously indicates that the author's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalties" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Royalties">royalties</a> from the sales of this book go to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICEF" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="UNICEF">UNICEF</a> and to <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfam_America" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Oxfam America">Oxfam America</a>.</blockquote>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;">
I wrote a paper once outlining my objections to the basic argument Unger and Singer gives. Here's my basic argument in a nutshell.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">My issue with their argument is that they seemed to me to have used a bad analogy between saving the drowning child and donating. These are not analogous cases and the argument seems to rely on an intuition pump that bridges the two cases. That bridging is what gives the bite it has. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">In the case of donating money to, say UNICEF, to save children, I believe that the reason people aren't as likely to criticize or blame others or themselves for not donating is because they understand, consciously or subconsciously, that donating commits one to far more than the case of saving the child.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">In the case of donating, the case commits one to more, because the argument can iterate itself. Say you donate 10 dollars. The argument can be applied again making an additional $10 donation morally obligatory, and so on until all of one's disposable income is gone such that a person is on the brink of destitution. The demanding obligation does not discharge itself after one donation for most people and may not do so until one is in essential poverty. Both Singer and Unger seems to bite the bullet and see that this unforgiving conclusion must be accepted.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">But now notice that there is no more analogy to be made because in the case of the saving of a drowning child, that was just a one-off, incident. The example only asks the reader to save the drowning child once. There is no stipulated or implied further commitments. </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Now a better analogy would be made between donating all one's disposable income and something like a scenario where you'd have to continuously save drowning children, say, once every hour for the rest of your life. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">I suspect that most people would still say that you are morally required to do so (if you physically can) but that we ought not blame someone for choosing to let all those children die. It is simply too harsh a requirement. It's like asking someone to be a moral saint. We cannot blame someone for their all too human weaknesses especially when we know that we may not have the moral resolve and integrity to choose such a harsh life ourselves. So even though it may be morally required to keep saving children and to donate all our disposable income, people ought not be blamed for not doing so because the demand is too harsh.</span></blockquote>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-57720758123688733682012-04-26T14:13:00.000-07:002012-04-27T14:06:11.776-07:00Evolution of morality and moneyWhat does money have in common with morality? Think about money. The original purpose of money may have been as a tool. It is used symbolically and as a stand-in or proxy for more useful items, items that people desire and need. Its sole purpose was a fungible item. Its utility was instrumental. It provides ways to do things that otherwise would be difficult or impossible.<br />
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But we all know that today, many people view money as an end in itself (such as misers). Many greedy people take pleasure or utility in making money, hording it, etc. Even some regular people may value some of this money-is-a-good-in-itself trait. They have no plans to spend it, to buy things they desire but the money itself gives them pleasure and happiness. Likewise, loss of that money may constitute grief even if some people have already got all the material items and services they could ever want. Most of us, though, still primarily view money as a means to an end, that is, as a means to obtain goods and services which we directly desire.<br />
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Now consider the evolutionary purpose of morality. It may have also served an evolutionary end; that is, the propagation of our species (more specifically our genes). But we have come (and by we, I mean those of us especially concerned with morality such as philosophers and other morally conscious people) to see morality as an end in itself. In other words, we have categoricalized morality (in the sense that Kant was using "categorical"). In viewing it as such, we may have even altered the structure of morality itself. So instead of seeing morality as instrumental (whether it may be as a tool to propagate the species or to propagate our own utility or the utility of the whole human society, etc) we see it as a good in itself. But some of our intuitions about the instrumental aspects of morality are still in play which is why I suspect gives some of the appeal of consequentialist ethics. That appeal may have some evolutionary roots.<br />
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But I also suspect that the categorical appeal, perhaps newer as an evolutionary development, may also have its roots in the same way that appeal for money has for the miser, that is, it is also culturally instilled. It becomes the end in itself, the good will of Kant or his categorical imperative, is good regardless of the consequences because morality shifts its values the same way that society shifts their values for goods so that some people value money in itself instead of the things it could buy. Morality becomes categorical instead of hypothetical in the same way that money becomes a direct source of good for many people (misers) and not a means to other ends. A tension between these two different ways of looking at morality is most clearly seen when the categorical and the hypothetical comes apart in practical deliberation as infamous philosophers' examples have often focused on such as in trolley problems and other thought experiments pitting our categorical values against our hypothetical values. I wonder how much of the rift in ethics can be explained by this analogy with money?<br />
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In this way, we may feel the tug in two directions. On one hand, we feel the appeal of consequentialism because we still see the instrumental value of morality (the hypotheical imperatives) but we also see that at the other end is categorical value that some actions/character traits/motives are good in themselves the consequences not even relevant to their goodness (an extreme example of this is the famous dialogue between Kant and his friend, Benjamin Constant regarding the morality of lying to save an innocent person's life). <br />
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In saying the things I just said, I want to make clear that I believe that both our categorical and hypothetical intuitions are a result of both evolution and culture unlike perhaps with money. The miser's value in having money is likely purely a cultivated value. He wasn't born with the disposition to value money though he probably was born with the disposition to value certain things that money could buy (food, status, power, shelter, attention from the opposite sex ,etc). But those who favor the categorical values in morality likely have their intuitions both as a result of dispositions given by evolution and culture. Evolution perhaps helped instill values that favored a categorical outlook to avoid certain kinds of rationalizations of immoral behavior (see <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Morality-Cambridge-Studies-Philosophy/dp/0521036259/ref=cm_cr-mr-title">The Myth or Morality</a> for a defense of this evolutionary perspective on the categorical). But cultures also can instill categorical values (reading Kant can enforce one's innate dispositions to value them, e.g.). Whereas reading, say, Bentham, may enforce our hypothetical values even though we may have some of these intuitions given us by our natural dispositions from evolution. <br />
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So in this way, we may have intuitions both natural and cultivated that pull in different directions and perhaps this may explain why meta-ethical debates are so difficult to resolve.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-15401142646615978822012-04-24T14:19:00.002-07:002012-04-26T14:14:17.637-07:00A review of The Myth of Morality<a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2INM4SGM5WWVM/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm">Here</a> at amazon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-65007340050040346802012-04-15T15:16:00.001-07:002012-04-29T14:08:54.137-07:00A Critique of BrzezinskiI posted this on another blog.<br />
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<blockquote>
Brzezinski: Dangerously Wrong<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski" style="color: #2970a6; text-decoration: none;">Zbigniew Brzezinski</a> is a well known political scientist and the media often gives him <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9MO47sqWRQ" style="color: #2970a6; text-decoration: none;">opportunities</a> to voice opinions on foreign policy. How deserving is this accorded credibility? Well, though I have not read much from him, from the looks of <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/after_america" style="color: #2970a6; text-decoration: none;">this article</a> he wrote in foreignpolicy it would appear that his competence as a expert on international affairs is grossly inadequate and, moreover, because that incompetence is combined with influence, it makes him very dangerous too. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
So I will only criticize that article. It is about the dangers of a declining US and the rise of China. (Anyone who is more familiar with his writing and views, please disabuse me of my ignorance if I am shown to misunderstand him.) </blockquote>
<blockquote>
My criticisms are two fold: First a hermeneutic critique and then a theoretical one. On the one hand, he seems to have made severely deficient errors in interpreting and applying the ideas in the <em>Leviathan </em>of Thomas Hobbes. The theoretical critique relies on findings in modern social science. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In Brzezinski’s article, he argues that the decline of the US and the rise of China posses a great threat to the security of the world. He gives almost no explicit support for this pessimistic view except for a brief reference to an ominous “Hobbessian world,” an allusion to the thoughts of the 17<sup>th</sup> century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
While a sudden, massive crisis of the American system — for instance, another financial crisis — would produce a fast-moving chain reaction leading to global political and economic disorder, a steady drift by America into increasingly pervasive decay or endlessly widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by 2025, an effective global successor. No single power will be ready by then to exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, expected the United States to play: the leader of a new, globally cooperative world order. More probable would be a protracted phase of rather inconclusive realignments of both global and regional power, with no grand winners and many more losers, in a setting of international uncertainty and even of potentially fatal risks to global well-being. <strong>Rather than a world where dreams of democracy flourish, a Hobbesian world of enhanced national security based on varying fusions of authoritarianism, nationalism, and religion could ensue.</strong>Perhaps we can reconstruct the argument he has in mind from this suggestion. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Brzezinski may be construing states as similar to what Hobbes viewed people. Hobbes thought, famously and overly pessimistically, that life was “nasty, brutish and short” in a state of nature for human beings. The only way to establish civil society was for everyone to give up much of the freedoms they have in that state of nature (such as the freedom to kill and rob one another) and to submit to an all powerful sovereign (usually a king) who will use force and coercion to enforce cooperation among all for the benefit of all. This sovereign has many powers including life and death over his subjects. Why would anyone submit to this? Because there are clear benefits to living in a civilized society. One gives up certain freedoms from the state of nature in order to achieve some peace-of-mind and more opportunities for cooperative relationships and hence mutual benefit. This is why Hobbessian political philosophy is often termed a kind of “social contract theory” (if I have misunderstood Hobbes, I hope Allen, who likely has studied him more extensively than I, will correct me). </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In order for Hobbes to get his argument off the ground, he had to rely on several criteria and premises. 1. that everyone in a state of nature is roughly equal in strength, intelligence, cunning, etc. and mostly care about themselves and thus there will be a perpetual state of “war of all against all.” 2. An absolute sovereign needs to be all powerful. 3. He or she has the implicit or explicit consent of all governed and 4. He or she is disinterested between his subjects and applies the rule of law fairly to insure the benefit of all. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Brzezinski seems to suggest that the US is analogous to such an absolute sovereign and the other states of the world are analogous to people in Hobbes’s world. He also assumes that without an absolute sovereign the world would devolve into something analogous to people in the state of nature, a state of war of all against all. How accurate is this? </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Hobbes’s argument requires that all premises set out above are true (it’s complicated why his argument requires all these premises). Not only do states not satisfy all of Hobbes’ premises for his argument which is aimed at individual people and an absolute sovereign, they seem to satisfy <em>none</em> so there is a glaring disanalogy between states and people. Some non-absolute sovereign states are far more powerful than others and thus is not analogous to Hobbes’s first premise. China, for example, can obliterate the tiny state of San Marino quite literally in seconds by pressing one button. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The US does not behave in the way an absolute sovereign behaves in a Hobbesian world. It constantly undermines international law and is itself a partisan actor. It is not impartial but unquestioningly biased for its own interests and those of its allies. Its unilateral military actions are not meant to enforce international law but constantly undermines it and it does so for its own interests to the detriment of everyone else. Besides that, other states likely would not consent to absolute rule by the US even if the US does have absolute power over everyone which, of course, is certainly untrue. There are already some world powers that are close in military might to that of the US and under the right circumstances may defeat it in a war (US wars in Vietnam, Korea and Afghanistan are just a few examples). </blockquote>
<blockquote>
So there appears to be few similarities between people and states and between an absolute Hobbessian sovereign and the US in the scheme of a Hobbesian framework. Brzezinski’s analogy breaks down on those two fronts. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
But his folly does not end there. He assumes that without an absolute Hobbessian sovereign there cannot or is unlikely to evolve peaceful cooperation in a multipolar world with many roughly equally powerful states without an absolute sovereign. For the sake of argument, assume that Brzezinski is right that the US is currently such an absolute sovereign. Is he then also correct that as China matches the US in power there cannot evolve peaceful cooperation between states and that international affairs will likely devolve into a “state of nature” where all is against all because the optimal strategy would be not cooperating? </blockquote>
<blockquote>
That is pure rubbish. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
First of all, why did Hobbes think that in a state of nature people will devolve into such a state of war of all against all? <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/#FurQueAboStaNat" style="color: #2970a6; text-decoration: none;">Some modern philosophers</a> have argued that Hobbes was thinking of a scenario similar to a one-off <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/" style="color: #2970a6; text-decoration: none;">prisoner’s dilemma game</a>. In this game, it is always rational not to cooperate with another player for defecting is the optimal choice (it strictly dominates in the jargon).<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;"><colgroup><col width="106*"></col><col width="86*"></col><col width="63*"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr valign="TOP"><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="42%"></td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="34%"><strong>Cooperate</strong></td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="25%"><strong>Defect</strong></td></tr>
<tr valign="TOP"><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="42%"><strong>Cooperate</strong></td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="34%">3, 3</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="25%">0, 5</td></tr>
<tr valign="TOP"><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="42%"><strong>Defect</strong></td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="34%">5, 0</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;" width="25%">1, 1</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Thus one can argue that players ought to devolve into a Hobbessian State of Nature in situations that are modeled by this game and when there is no absolute sovereign to coerce or enforce rules to cooperate. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
But one-off prisoner dilemma games often do not model situations in the real world. Rather relevant situations in the real world are more accurately modeled by <em>iterated</em> prisoner dilemma games (with memory). Here many games are repeated one after another with indefinite (or unknown) number of games. That seems far more like reality because we don’t only play only a single “game” with other players (other people or other states for that matter) in the world and just “go home” afterword. Rather we are stuck with each other for good or bad, doomed to either cooperate or defect in many repeated situations. Moreover, we remember how each behaved in previous games and update our future decision accordingly to take into account that information. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
So lets say that in the future, there is relative decline of the US and that is balanced by an ascending China such that there is now a bipolar world with two roughly equally powerful superpowers and thus no one “absolute sovereign” (I’m abstracting from the more likely scenario that it will likely turn into a multipolar world with more than two equally powerful superpowers). Does that mean it is rational for both countries to not cooperate (to defect) such as in one-off prisoner’s dilemma games? No. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The optimal strategy for iterated prisoner’s dilemma games is the famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat" style="color: #2970a6; text-decoration: none;">tit-for-tat strategy</a>. In this game, cooperation can spontaneously evolve and it is completely rational to cooperate. The best strategy is to cooperate at first then play tit-for-tat with random (or actually pseudo-random) forgiveness if the other player keeps defecting. The basic strategy is that one ought to always cooperate unless provoked (this is called a “nice” strategy) and once in a while forgiving non cooperative behavior by cooperating which stops “death spirals” that is, repeated, alternating revenge tactics. Such a strategy is optimal and do not require an absolute sovereign to enforce cooperation. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The success of the tit for tat strategy, which is largely cooperative despite that its name emphasizes an adversarial nature, took many by surprise. In successive competitions various teams produced complex strategies which attempted to “cheat” in a variety of cunning ways, but tit for tat eventually prevailed in every competition. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
This result may give insight into how groups of animals (and particularly human societies) have come to live in largely (or entirely) cooperative societies, rather than the individualistic “red in tooth and claw” way that might be expected from individuals engaged in a Hobbesian state of nature. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The more cooperative players are to begin with the quicker and more beneficial the strategy will work to the benefit of all players. However, as many game theorists are also quick to point out, trust is asymmetric: it is far easier to break than to build back up once it is broken. Distrust or broken trust also has multiplier effects and is contagious. Rather than consent to be ruled by an absolute sovereign, in situations modeled by iterated prisoner’s dilemma, it is most rational to instead build trust from the beginning. The US has consistently undermined trust in international affairs by its capricious unilateral actions, military, political and economic. But the faster people start building trust and cooperating, the more beneficial this strategy will be for everyone. Even the iterated prisoner’s dilemmas underscores the actual situation in the world for these games assume that all players are only interested in themselves. In the real world, interests often overlap and, moreover, there exists some instances of empathy, altruism, friendship and alliances across nations (some sense of cosmopolitanism and the brotherhood of mankind). </blockquote>
<blockquote>
We can excuse Hobbes’s ignorance for he lived 300 years before the development of modern game theory. Brzezinski cannot rely on such an excuse. His argument seems to be dependent on the assumption that states in the world takes on a Hobbessian structure with the US as absolute sovereign and furthermore the world needs such a structure to maintain peaceful cooperation. Not only is he wrong, and furthermore, wrong, but he is dangerously wrong. He has likely misunderstood and misapplied Hobbes’s ideas which is itself deeply flawed. By arguing that the world needs an absolute sovereign and, hence, presumably promoting international support for continued American hegemony instead of embracing and promoting a multipolar world with rational and trustworthy actors, Brzezinski may be undermining the possibility of peaceful global cooperation.</blockquote>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-503156933742060398.post-80009514607645532872012-04-07T17:18:00.001-07:002012-04-07T17:26:21.213-07:00Is there an obligation to resurrect extinct groups?I'm raising this question as it pertained to <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-group/">group rights</a>. Some groups have been systematically exterminated such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians">Aboriginal Tasmanians</a> through the genocidal policies of the Australians. If groups have rights and one of them is not to be exterminated as many human rights advocates claim, do they also have a right to be resurrected, say, through cloning or some other means? One may obtain enough genetic material from dead people to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/apr/22/zavos-clones-human-embryo">clone them</a>. I'd imagine that once the technology is made reliable and cost effective, maybe the Australian government and other governments that have engaged in successful genocide of an entire group of people may be obligated to resurrect from extinction some members of the whole group. Groups, unlike individual people, can be resurrected from the dead and perpetrators, institutional or individual of their extinction, (or their ancestors) may be obligated to do so at least <i>prima facie</i>. But there might be significant ethical problems with this. If so what are these problems? One obvious concern is how many individuals must be resurrected? One? A few or the antegenocide population?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4