This question has been asked not only by children but occasionally (perhaps it should be more often) by philosophers. Wittgenstein considered it of utmost philosophical importance and spiritually importance as well. One answer I have heard a philosopher give (actually, not his answer but another philosopher's) is that since there is only one state nothingness can be in but an infinite number (in fact, uncountably infinite) of states of existence (at least something) can be in, existence is far more probable.
But my objection to this is analogous to Kant's objection to the use of existence as a property; it's not a property but a condition for having properties. Complete nonexistence or nothingness is not a "state," rather, existence is a condition for all possible states while complete nonexistence is not one of any of those possible states.
It might then be said that existence and non existence are metastates and if so, then there are just two metastates. If both are equally probable then it just so happens that there is existence.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Moral effort
One of my favorite passages in the Analects is the one where Confucius is asked whether one of his students behaved badly and against filial piety when he refused to mourn the deaths of his parents for the prescribed time and in accordance to all the ritual procedures. Confucius responded that only the student himself knew the answer and that the answer depended on his efforts to act rightly in the face of contingent circumstances. I can't remember the exact reference to this passage but if Carl or Jeremy knows I'd appreciate it if they post it in the comments section. D.C. Lau in his introduction to his translation of the Analects says that this passage is one of a few paramount o the understanding of the Analects.
Confucius seems to be making a statement about moral effort and "trying one's best" and its relationship to moral responsibility. I don't see much literature at all in moral responsibility on moral effort. I wonder why because I think it is one of the most illuminating ideas shedding light not only one responsibility conditions but offers the glimpse to a compatibilist analysis of free will.
Here are some implications of what such an analysis might look like in regards to the free will debate. Many incompatibilists think that for us to be free and responsible in our moral actions, we would need to have the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP) or the ability to do otherwise. Now some compatibilists have tried to come to a version of how this principle may be possible/coherent and true when determinism is also true. I will make a later post on this from angle but here I will focus on moral effort's contribution.
Moral effort looks at counter-factuals to analyse when someone could have done otherwise. X is responsible for some act a whenever he did a but could have done otherwise had he made more effort to. We judge our own actions and others by this kind of counter-factual all the time. Our own guilt much of the time stems from this feeling that we could have done otherwise had we made more effort but didn't do so causing some great undesirable effect one us or others. Consider that this status is both self reflective and completely made without consideration to the truth of determinism or indeterminism. Moreover, our guilt seems to have propositional content; that is, we can either be true or false regarding our guilt. Certain conditions make it appropriate to feel guilty, others not. Certain mitigating or absolving conditions make it wrong to feel guilty or not guilty when other conditions were in place.
I suggest we do this when we feel or believe that we could have done otherwise had we applied more effort but did not in fact do so. Alternative possibilities were there which we are responsible for because we did not apply more effort to make it obtain. Even if we were to find out that global determinism is true and that we in fact could not have done otherwise, we would likely still feel guilty because our inability to do otherwise says something about our moral character or moral psychological status at that time. That status is worthy of moral blame or not and is subject to normative demands to change.
Your capabilities for certain acts are within a possibility horizon. The possibilities inside are contingent on your efforts and whether or not you choose to do it. What is outside of that horizon, you cannot do not matter how much effort you put in. You are not responsible for anything falling outside.
Consider this scenario using effort to analyse doing otherwise in some other non moral way. Michael Jordan misses a slam dunk in practice. He blames himself for missing it because had he made more effort (to jump higher), he could have made the dunk. That much is obvious. He feels "guilty" and pissed at himself irrespective of the truth of determinism because his guilt is not directed at the belief of some metaphysical reality being true or false but at his own psychological status at the time which he now believes worthy of blame. It displayed indolence and a lack of care for improvement which Jordan loathes and is against his highest values (especially his work ethic and value for the sport). So he is blaming himself for not doing otherwise in some sense but that blame is has nothing to do with doing otherwise in some indeterministic sense but in a counter-factual sense which then directed at his state of mind at some time causing the miss. This state of mind is subject to choice, his values, change through future effort, etc. Notice that determinism/indeterminism is factored out of the equation here. It is elbowed out of considerations.
Notice also that this look is context sensitive. Certain obtaining conditions may make it harder (requiring more effort) than others to do the same action (a nagging ankle sprain, e.g.). But I think that context sensitivity is a desideratum here.
Now consider Danny Devito. He tries to dunk a basketball and misses by several feet. Now he does not blame himself at all (if he is honest with himself) even though he could of as well applied more effort at that time. Why? Because even if the counter-factual was true and he had applied all his little heart could muster, he would have still missed by several feet because he is short and fat, not tall and athletic like Jordan. No matter how much he values basketball and has a committed work ethic, he will never dunk a basketball. He has nothing to blame himself for even if he has these internal qualities of trying his hardest and value for playing basketball.
Our internal sense of our own capacities are prima facie accurate most of the time especially in regards to some matters. Now our accuracy is irrelevant to the truth conditions of whether we could have done otherwise had we applied more effort. One is a epistemic limitation and the other a metaphysical one. The importance for free will will be the metaphysical one while the one relevant for moral considerations will be for epistemic and metaphysical. Free will is irrelevant to whether or not we believe we could have done otherwise; we either have it or we don't. We could be mistaken in believing we have it as some philosophers and many neuroscientists scientists (mistakenly) think. Analogously, Danny Devito have an overblown sense of his own basketball prowess if he feels guilty at missing the dunk the same way Jordan feels. His guilt would be mistaken, misplaced much as someone who though he had killed someone in cold blood later found out that he was hypnotized into thinking so. His guilt stems from a deluded belief. We could be mistaken in believing we don't have it as well. Notice that I have provided with the help of Confucius the truth conditions of doing otherwise (PAP) through a moral effort analysis which may partially provide a complete look at freedom as well.
Implications of this look at moral effort. I would need to flesh out this analysis substantially and still I don't think I would have a complete analysis of free will and moral responsibility because I think these are cluster concepts. there are many things we mean by freedom and being responsible either character wise of for some particular action. But I do think that moral effort explains much of freedom and responsibility in the morally relevant cases. This is especially the case when you consider the fact that we have privileged access to our own capacity to do otherwise had we given more effort. Now sometimes we could be wrong but the fact that we could be genuinely wrong (or right depending on actual particular circumstances of the case) provide the metaphysical criterion for PAP. Morally relevantly, since our own access is privileged, that means we are more accurate in assessing our own case of when we could have done otherwise than other people from a non first person perspective in evaluating us. The possibility of moral inaccuracy in assigning blame, guilt, laudation, etc even in our own evaluations from the first person perspective is unfortunate but may be something we just have to deal with if we are ever going to attempt a just and moral society. Much as physical scientists will always have to deal with inaccuracy in their measurements, that doesn't stop them from getting at the truth and doing scientific work, neither should it stop us from doing moral judgments.
But it does show that in many cases, I think, "big cases" such as serious crimes people commit, which people are generally quick to judge, the only person that really knows that he was really responsible and whether he could have done otherwise is the person that committed it for example. We may not have the privileged access to see what the contingent and relevant contextually sensitive circumstances were such that he really could have done otherwise.
However, in other cases where people, at least in our culture are not quick to judge/condemn/blame (and I think these also morally relevant cases) such as when people have atrocious opinions (racist, sexists or violent, etc) but hold on to them despite given evidence against them doing so (they hold on to them because of prejudice and bias, etc), we should be more judgmental because in these cases, it is more accurate to judge whether someone could have done otherwise. Almost anyone could overcome their own prejudice with some (extra) effort it seems to me unless they have some psychologically weird condition (pathological it would have to be) to be prejudiced and not respond to good reasons to abandon their demonstrably falsified views in the face of counter evidence. Thus for those who believe e.g., that Iraq has WMD and links to al Qaeda despite all the facts against it, they should be blamed and appropriately sanctioned for having such an unjustified belief but our culture is loathe to blame them because (perhaps due to our liberal and post modern sensibilities) we tend to think that everyone has a right (liberal) to their opinions and that everyone's opinions are worth as much as any other's (post modern). But people don't realize how much harm irrational beliefs cause in the world. In this example, I don't think the coalition governments of the US, UK, Australia, etc would have gone to war had public opinion been against it (over 70% of Americans supported the Iraq war at the start according to almost all polls). 1.5 Million Iraqis died so far (and counting) as a result according to some respectable sources. It's reasonable that these people would have changed their views (and I think there is good psychological and sociological evidence to support this) had their friend's, family, media, etc who are not so biased and prejudiced been more condemnatory in demanding epistemic integrity from those who do hold irrational beliefs.
OTOH, in many cases where people are predisposed to blame such as in murder cases etc, we are in many times unsure not only if the person truly did it but what his or her conditions psychological or otherwise were at the time to warrant a just condemnation. He or she might not have been able to do otherwise even with more effort. It might be impossible to make an accurate judgment. Many times, we don't blame someone even if they could have done otherwise had they given more effort because such would have been too onerous on them to ask for such efforts. In such a case, I think it is community-relative whether or not blame is justified. Some communities may require more moral effort to be a part of that community than others and if the equilibrium for moral effort in that society warrants that the individual could have applied a certain degree of moral effort more and had he done so past that community relative benchmark, the desired effect would have been obtained, then that would be a justified case where the community can blame him for his actions (or omission to do something as the case may be). In other cases where no reasonable and normal individual (for that society) is expected to put that much effort in to surpass some threshold the community itself has in place from what is normally and reasonable expected of each other, people might be justifiably loathe to cast the first stone. Individuals may be excused though not exonerated for the action. OTOH, I think when someone tries their best and still cannot help doing something morally required of them (by compulsion perhaps) or omits to doing something required when they have tried their best effort then we would say that this person is exonerated from the act because it "wasn't his fault". He had no other choice, he was forced, etc.
In Confucius's case, he did not judge his student probably because he did not know or know for beyond reasonable doubt to condemn because the extenuating circumstances were not transparent and evident to him. Had the student been in dire financial straights and could not afford to take 3 years off work to mourn in accord with ritual propriety? Might there have been some other thing the student suffered through at the time that Confucius did not know and was not in the position to know which expiated or mitigated blame? Maybe, maybe not. He felt (and perhaps judiciously so) he was not in the right position to know.
Confucius seems to be making a statement about moral effort and "trying one's best" and its relationship to moral responsibility. I don't see much literature at all in moral responsibility on moral effort. I wonder why because I think it is one of the most illuminating ideas shedding light not only one responsibility conditions but offers the glimpse to a compatibilist analysis of free will.
Here are some implications of what such an analysis might look like in regards to the free will debate. Many incompatibilists think that for us to be free and responsible in our moral actions, we would need to have the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP) or the ability to do otherwise. Now some compatibilists have tried to come to a version of how this principle may be possible/coherent and true when determinism is also true. I will make a later post on this from angle but here I will focus on moral effort's contribution.
Moral effort looks at counter-factuals to analyse when someone could have done otherwise. X is responsible for some act a whenever he did a but could have done otherwise had he made more effort to. We judge our own actions and others by this kind of counter-factual all the time. Our own guilt much of the time stems from this feeling that we could have done otherwise had we made more effort but didn't do so causing some great undesirable effect one us or others. Consider that this status is both self reflective and completely made without consideration to the truth of determinism or indeterminism. Moreover, our guilt seems to have propositional content; that is, we can either be true or false regarding our guilt. Certain conditions make it appropriate to feel guilty, others not. Certain mitigating or absolving conditions make it wrong to feel guilty or not guilty when other conditions were in place.
I suggest we do this when we feel or believe that we could have done otherwise had we applied more effort but did not in fact do so. Alternative possibilities were there which we are responsible for because we did not apply more effort to make it obtain. Even if we were to find out that global determinism is true and that we in fact could not have done otherwise, we would likely still feel guilty because our inability to do otherwise says something about our moral character or moral psychological status at that time. That status is worthy of moral blame or not and is subject to normative demands to change.
Your capabilities for certain acts are within a possibility horizon. The possibilities inside are contingent on your efforts and whether or not you choose to do it. What is outside of that horizon, you cannot do not matter how much effort you put in. You are not responsible for anything falling outside.
Consider this scenario using effort to analyse doing otherwise in some other non moral way. Michael Jordan misses a slam dunk in practice. He blames himself for missing it because had he made more effort (to jump higher), he could have made the dunk. That much is obvious. He feels "guilty" and pissed at himself irrespective of the truth of determinism because his guilt is not directed at the belief of some metaphysical reality being true or false but at his own psychological status at the time which he now believes worthy of blame. It displayed indolence and a lack of care for improvement which Jordan loathes and is against his highest values (especially his work ethic and value for the sport). So he is blaming himself for not doing otherwise in some sense but that blame is has nothing to do with doing otherwise in some indeterministic sense but in a counter-factual sense which then directed at his state of mind at some time causing the miss. This state of mind is subject to choice, his values, change through future effort, etc. Notice that determinism/indeterminism is factored out of the equation here. It is elbowed out of considerations.
Notice also that this look is context sensitive. Certain obtaining conditions may make it harder (requiring more effort) than others to do the same action (a nagging ankle sprain, e.g.). But I think that context sensitivity is a desideratum here.
Now consider Danny Devito. He tries to dunk a basketball and misses by several feet. Now he does not blame himself at all (if he is honest with himself) even though he could of as well applied more effort at that time. Why? Because even if the counter-factual was true and he had applied all his little heart could muster, he would have still missed by several feet because he is short and fat, not tall and athletic like Jordan. No matter how much he values basketball and has a committed work ethic, he will never dunk a basketball. He has nothing to blame himself for even if he has these internal qualities of trying his hardest and value for playing basketball.
Our internal sense of our own capacities are prima facie accurate most of the time especially in regards to some matters. Now our accuracy is irrelevant to the truth conditions of whether we could have done otherwise had we applied more effort. One is a epistemic limitation and the other a metaphysical one. The importance for free will will be the metaphysical one while the one relevant for moral considerations will be for epistemic and metaphysical. Free will is irrelevant to whether or not we believe we could have done otherwise; we either have it or we don't. We could be mistaken in believing we have it as some philosophers and many neuroscientists scientists (mistakenly) think. Analogously, Danny Devito have an overblown sense of his own basketball prowess if he feels guilty at missing the dunk the same way Jordan feels. His guilt would be mistaken, misplaced much as someone who though he had killed someone in cold blood later found out that he was hypnotized into thinking so. His guilt stems from a deluded belief. We could be mistaken in believing we don't have it as well. Notice that I have provided with the help of Confucius the truth conditions of doing otherwise (PAP) through a moral effort analysis which may partially provide a complete look at freedom as well.
Implications of this look at moral effort. I would need to flesh out this analysis substantially and still I don't think I would have a complete analysis of free will and moral responsibility because I think these are cluster concepts. there are many things we mean by freedom and being responsible either character wise of for some particular action. But I do think that moral effort explains much of freedom and responsibility in the morally relevant cases. This is especially the case when you consider the fact that we have privileged access to our own capacity to do otherwise had we given more effort. Now sometimes we could be wrong but the fact that we could be genuinely wrong (or right depending on actual particular circumstances of the case) provide the metaphysical criterion for PAP. Morally relevantly, since our own access is privileged, that means we are more accurate in assessing our own case of when we could have done otherwise than other people from a non first person perspective in evaluating us. The possibility of moral inaccuracy in assigning blame, guilt, laudation, etc even in our own evaluations from the first person perspective is unfortunate but may be something we just have to deal with if we are ever going to attempt a just and moral society. Much as physical scientists will always have to deal with inaccuracy in their measurements, that doesn't stop them from getting at the truth and doing scientific work, neither should it stop us from doing moral judgments.
But it does show that in many cases, I think, "big cases" such as serious crimes people commit, which people are generally quick to judge, the only person that really knows that he was really responsible and whether he could have done otherwise is the person that committed it for example. We may not have the privileged access to see what the contingent and relevant contextually sensitive circumstances were such that he really could have done otherwise.
However, in other cases where people, at least in our culture are not quick to judge/condemn/blame (and I think these also morally relevant cases) such as when people have atrocious opinions (racist, sexists or violent, etc) but hold on to them despite given evidence against them doing so (they hold on to them because of prejudice and bias, etc), we should be more judgmental because in these cases, it is more accurate to judge whether someone could have done otherwise. Almost anyone could overcome their own prejudice with some (extra) effort it seems to me unless they have some psychologically weird condition (pathological it would have to be) to be prejudiced and not respond to good reasons to abandon their demonstrably falsified views in the face of counter evidence. Thus for those who believe e.g., that Iraq has WMD and links to al Qaeda despite all the facts against it, they should be blamed and appropriately sanctioned for having such an unjustified belief but our culture is loathe to blame them because (perhaps due to our liberal and post modern sensibilities) we tend to think that everyone has a right (liberal) to their opinions and that everyone's opinions are worth as much as any other's (post modern). But people don't realize how much harm irrational beliefs cause in the world. In this example, I don't think the coalition governments of the US, UK, Australia, etc would have gone to war had public opinion been against it (over 70% of Americans supported the Iraq war at the start according to almost all polls). 1.5 Million Iraqis died so far (and counting) as a result according to some respectable sources. It's reasonable that these people would have changed their views (and I think there is good psychological and sociological evidence to support this) had their friend's, family, media, etc who are not so biased and prejudiced been more condemnatory in demanding epistemic integrity from those who do hold irrational beliefs.
OTOH, in many cases where people are predisposed to blame such as in murder cases etc, we are in many times unsure not only if the person truly did it but what his or her conditions psychological or otherwise were at the time to warrant a just condemnation. He or she might not have been able to do otherwise even with more effort. It might be impossible to make an accurate judgment. Many times, we don't blame someone even if they could have done otherwise had they given more effort because such would have been too onerous on them to ask for such efforts. In such a case, I think it is community-relative whether or not blame is justified. Some communities may require more moral effort to be a part of that community than others and if the equilibrium for moral effort in that society warrants that the individual could have applied a certain degree of moral effort more and had he done so past that community relative benchmark, the desired effect would have been obtained, then that would be a justified case where the community can blame him for his actions (or omission to do something as the case may be). In other cases where no reasonable and normal individual (for that society) is expected to put that much effort in to surpass some threshold the community itself has in place from what is normally and reasonable expected of each other, people might be justifiably loathe to cast the first stone. Individuals may be excused though not exonerated for the action. OTOH, I think when someone tries their best and still cannot help doing something morally required of them (by compulsion perhaps) or omits to doing something required when they have tried their best effort then we would say that this person is exonerated from the act because it "wasn't his fault". He had no other choice, he was forced, etc.
In Confucius's case, he did not judge his student probably because he did not know or know for beyond reasonable doubt to condemn because the extenuating circumstances were not transparent and evident to him. Had the student been in dire financial straights and could not afford to take 3 years off work to mourn in accord with ritual propriety? Might there have been some other thing the student suffered through at the time that Confucius did not know and was not in the position to know which expiated or mitigated blame? Maybe, maybe not. He felt (and perhaps judiciously so) he was not in the right position to know.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Coincident objects
In an earlier post I said that I did not think it strictly correct to say that persons are or identical to their functional brains (more specifically, their cerebrums). My reasoning is as follows:
There is a principle of metaphysics that seems correct and I think most metaphysicians would agree. It is Liebniz's law of identity or the indiscernibility of identicals. Expressed in 2nd order logic, it says
Basically, it just says that an object has all the properties it has. That seems so true to be trivial and it is. There is a stronger principle of identity that is the converse of that principle which says that if objects a and b has all (both genuine and "mere-cambridge") properties in common then they are identical. This later principle is a little more controversial as a famous paper by Max Black but this last principle is not relevant to this case.
Since the first principle thus cannot be faulted. But consider this example by Gibbard: Let's say that there is a lump of clay called "Lumpl" which is created at exactly the same time as a statue which is made out of that clay. We will call this statue "Goliath." They are also destroyed at a same later time. Now both the statue and the lump of clay exists at exactly the same time and occupy the same region of space. Thus are they the very same object or alternatively, does Lumpl=Goliath?
If you say "yes" then there seems to be properties which each has that the other does not have. Lumpl, for example, has the modal property that it can survive being stepped on but if Goliath is stepped on, he will be destroyed. Goliath has the property that it can survive the loss of one of its arms but Lumpl will not survive that loss of clay. Thus this seems to be a case where we either say that they are not the same object even though they occupy the same region of space and time or we say that the Leibniz's principle is false, i.e., that something can have properties it does not have. I think the later is nonsensical and so we should accept the former.
For similar considerations, I think persons are coincident with their functional cerebrums but are not strictly speaking, identical with them much as Goliath is coincident with Lumpl but not strictly speaking identical with it. There seems to me to be good metaphysical and practical ethical reasons not to identify persons with their brains but to see them as coincident together.
But it has occurred to me that one possible way to flesh this out better is to view Lumpl and Goliath (or other coincident objects) as having different essential properties. We know that one can have different inessential properties and still be the same thing. You may have been taller or shorter than you are in some possible scenario and still be you. You might have liked the color blue instead of hating it and you'd still be you. But your essential properties will remain. Changing them will change the truth of the identity conditions.
Thus for Lumpl, called it now "l," it may have a set of essential conditions which we can express as a conjunction of sentences ascribing its essential properties: [P1(l) & P2(l) & P3(l)...] with P1, P2, P3... all being essential properties of Lumpl. This conjunction we can call "E." It will include the property of survival after being stepped on among one of its conjuncts. E will be disjunctive with some string of sentences call it "In" with In itself just a string of disjunctive sentences of its inessential properties, Q1, Q2, Q3.... Thus In=[(Q1(l) v Q2(l) v Q3(l)...]. Thus E v In will be all the properties, essential and inessential, Lumpl has and will identify it in this world and all possible worlds (complete description of Lumpl) while E by itself will identify it in all possible worlds (essential description). Some properties may be indefinite whether it is or is not essential, however.
When we look at it like this, coincident objects don't seem to be that counter-intuitive and odd. Two coincident objects have different essential properties so for Lumpl, the property of survival after getting stepped on will be in its essential sentential conjunctive string but for Goliath, it will not be. Descriptively, they are thus different. I don't see there to be any more difficulties when viewed this way than mereological objects. A car's tires are part of the car but the tires are not identical with the whole car. They share overlapping regions of space. The only difference in coincident objects is that they share all their occupied space instead of partially as in mereological objects.
There is a principle of metaphysics that seems correct and I think most metaphysicians would agree. It is Liebniz's law of identity or the indiscernibility of identicals. Expressed in 2nd order logic, it says
Basically, it just says that an object has all the properties it has. That seems so true to be trivial and it is. There is a stronger principle of identity that is the converse of that principle which says that if objects a and b has all (both genuine and "mere-cambridge") properties in common then they are identical. This later principle is a little more controversial as a famous paper by Max Black but this last principle is not relevant to this case.
Since the first principle thus cannot be faulted. But consider this example by Gibbard: Let's say that there is a lump of clay called "Lumpl" which is created at exactly the same time as a statue which is made out of that clay. We will call this statue "Goliath." They are also destroyed at a same later time. Now both the statue and the lump of clay exists at exactly the same time and occupy the same region of space. Thus are they the very same object or alternatively, does Lumpl=Goliath?
If you say "yes" then there seems to be properties which each has that the other does not have. Lumpl, for example, has the modal property that it can survive being stepped on but if Goliath is stepped on, he will be destroyed. Goliath has the property that it can survive the loss of one of its arms but Lumpl will not survive that loss of clay. Thus this seems to be a case where we either say that they are not the same object even though they occupy the same region of space and time or we say that the Leibniz's principle is false, i.e., that something can have properties it does not have. I think the later is nonsensical and so we should accept the former.
For similar considerations, I think persons are coincident with their functional cerebrums but are not strictly speaking, identical with them much as Goliath is coincident with Lumpl but not strictly speaking identical with it. There seems to me to be good metaphysical and practical ethical reasons not to identify persons with their brains but to see them as coincident together.
But it has occurred to me that one possible way to flesh this out better is to view Lumpl and Goliath (or other coincident objects) as having different essential properties. We know that one can have different inessential properties and still be the same thing. You may have been taller or shorter than you are in some possible scenario and still be you. You might have liked the color blue instead of hating it and you'd still be you. But your essential properties will remain. Changing them will change the truth of the identity conditions.
Thus for Lumpl, called it now "l," it may have a set of essential conditions which we can express as a conjunction of sentences ascribing its essential properties: [P1(l) & P2(l) & P3(l)...] with P1, P2, P3... all being essential properties of Lumpl. This conjunction we can call "E." It will include the property of survival after being stepped on among one of its conjuncts. E will be disjunctive with some string of sentences call it "In" with In itself just a string of disjunctive sentences of its inessential properties, Q1, Q2, Q3.... Thus In=[(Q1(l) v Q2(l) v Q3(l)...]. Thus E v In will be all the properties, essential and inessential, Lumpl has and will identify it in this world and all possible worlds (complete description of Lumpl) while E by itself will identify it in all possible worlds (essential description). Some properties may be indefinite whether it is or is not essential, however.
When we look at it like this, coincident objects don't seem to be that counter-intuitive and odd. Two coincident objects have different essential properties so for Lumpl, the property of survival after getting stepped on will be in its essential sentential conjunctive string but for Goliath, it will not be. Descriptively, they are thus different. I don't see there to be any more difficulties when viewed this way than mereological objects. A car's tires are part of the car but the tires are not identical with the whole car. They share overlapping regions of space. The only difference in coincident objects is that they share all their occupied space instead of partially as in mereological objects.
Moral absolutism
Judith Jarvis Thomson has once given this example of a moral absolute truth: "It is wrong to torture babies for fun." She claims that in no possible world is this false and hence, not culturally or even possible world relative. Anyone that disagrees simply don't know what "moral" or "torture" or "babies" mean. In fact, I suspect she thinks that this is tantamount to an analytic truth much like squares have four sides is true in all possible worlds. Anyone that disagrees with that don't seem to understand "square" or "sides" or maybe "four" the intended way.
However, there may be possible but highly unlikely conditions where it is acceptable or permitted to infringe a baby's right in such a way. Consider some scenario much like that told by short story (can't remember the name) by Ursula LeGuin in which a people on some planet tortures an innocent child for fun. Now consider that these people know that by some weird set of circumstances and obtaining conditions that their fun in such a way is the only cause of their own existence. Or alternatively, by having fun in such a way, it leads to (by some weird causal mechanism in their world, say) their only way of avoiding an eternity of damnation and horrendous suffering for all of them.
Thus, it may now seem that they may torture the baby for fun if only ultimately to avoid some even far worse calamity.
But since this will be their ultimate and not immediate aim, we may be able to save that absolutist claim by tacking on to it the additional clause that the "fun" must be their ultimate aim instead of some instrumental aim or means to some further aim.
Perhaps there are other moral absolutist claims but just because there are does not mean that there are no relativist claims as well which are true only relative to some moral group and if there are some of these kinds of relativist claims, it does not mean that morality even in these cases are not objective.
However, there may be possible but highly unlikely conditions where it is acceptable or permitted to infringe a baby's right in such a way. Consider some scenario much like that told by short story (can't remember the name) by Ursula LeGuin in which a people on some planet tortures an innocent child for fun. Now consider that these people know that by some weird set of circumstances and obtaining conditions that their fun in such a way is the only cause of their own existence. Or alternatively, by having fun in such a way, it leads to (by some weird causal mechanism in their world, say) their only way of avoiding an eternity of damnation and horrendous suffering for all of them.
Thus, it may now seem that they may torture the baby for fun if only ultimately to avoid some even far worse calamity.
But since this will be their ultimate and not immediate aim, we may be able to save that absolutist claim by tacking on to it the additional clause that the "fun" must be their ultimate aim instead of some instrumental aim or means to some further aim.
Perhaps there are other moral absolutist claims but just because there are does not mean that there are no relativist claims as well which are true only relative to some moral group and if there are some of these kinds of relativist claims, it does not mean that morality even in these cases are not objective.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Lies
I mentioned in earlier posts that two major problems with the traditional (and all non traditional definitions ASAIK) of lying are problematic when it comes to cases of equivocation and implicature. My intuition strongly tells me that equivocations are lies when they are told with the intent to deceive but I am not so sure about implicature. My intuitions does not seem to be against implicatures with the intent to deceive as being lies. It may be a case by case thing with some cases being more intuitively lies than others.
There seems to be a way to get past the problems with a slight tweak of the definition. One can define lying (a modification of the traditional definition) thus:
X lies iff X expects (or believes) his interlocuter Y to interpret X's expression "P" to be expressing a proposition which X does not actually believe (or believes to be false) and for the purpose of deceiving Y into believing that P.
This definition may be adapted mutatis mutandis to other definitions of lies such as Fallis' which does not have a deception criterion but replaces it with a (intentional) violation of a Gricean linguistic norm to speak truthfully.
Under my definition, both equivocation and implicature are classified as lies. Why? The difference is in the reflective and psychologically transparent nature of the definition because it reflects what someone expects his interlocuter to be interpreting what he said.
To see this definition in action, here is a scenario involving equivocation.
John owes Jill $800 and has no intention to pay her back. Ever. He also has no cash on him now but has enough in his bank account to pay her. Jill sees John walking down the street and asks to be remunerated for the loan. John says "I have no money on me, but I will go to the bank". Jill agrees to wait for him. Instead of going to The People's Bank of Kentucky, John's bank (qua financial institution), John goes sun-bathing by the river bank and thus reneges on his obligations to pay Jill back once again.
Has John lied? Yes according to my definition. Under the traditional definition or the non traditional ones, it is indeterminate if John lied. Other definitions focus on what proposition was expressed which is ambiguous in the case of equivocation. But since John expected and intentionally made it so that Jill would interpret "bank" as John's financial institution and not some other meaning of that term for the purpose of deception, he lies. In other words, since John believes that Jill interprets "I will go to the bank" as the proposition I will go to my financial institution [presumably to get her money] (which John does not believe he will be doing) and not "I will go to the river bank" [to sunbathe] and for the purpose of deceiving her, he has lied.
Now take implicature. Consider our scenario above with a slight twist. John goes to his bank [financial institution] but instead of withdrawing money to pay Jill, he stands around the lounge for a bit and returns home. John implied that he is going to the bank to get money to pay Jill but what he said explicitly to her did not make mention of the rest. Under my definition, John is lying because he expects Jill to interpret what he says as "I will go to the bank to get the money to pay you back" and not as "I will go to the bank and do nothing but lounge around."
I thought of this definition when I remembered the reading of David Lewis's seminal book on linguistic conventions called "Convention: A Philosophical Study". In this work, Lewis uses the work done by the theoretical economist Thomas Schelling on focal point equilibria to solve for game theoretic "coordination problems" in socio-economic conventions. Lewis used it to analyse linguistic and other kinds of social conventions. In Lewis's work, he came up with the idea of "common knowledge" which employs the kind of reflective and psychologically transparent expectations and beliefs required for establishing linguistic/social conventions. His idea of common knowledge, however, has a theoretically possible indefinite number of iterations (I expect my interlocutor to expect that I expect that he expects that I expect and so on). Theoretically this could go on forever (and nothing will thus be accomplished) but rarely in actual socio-linguistic circumstances it goes beyond a few iterations. My definition stops at the second iteration. X expects or believes that his interlocuter Y believes X to be expressing some proposition P.
There may be cases where my definition draws the line too far and includes implicature scenarios as involving lies when they intuitively clearly should not be. I can't think of any off the top of my head but I suspect it so.
There seems to be a way to get past the problems with a slight tweak of the definition. One can define lying (a modification of the traditional definition) thus:
X lies iff X expects (or believes) his interlocuter Y to interpret X's expression "P" to be expressing a proposition which X does not actually believe (or believes to be false) and for the purpose of deceiving Y into believing that P.
This definition may be adapted mutatis mutandis to other definitions of lies such as Fallis' which does not have a deception criterion but replaces it with a (intentional) violation of a Gricean linguistic norm to speak truthfully.
Under my definition, both equivocation and implicature are classified as lies. Why? The difference is in the reflective and psychologically transparent nature of the definition because it reflects what someone expects his interlocuter to be interpreting what he said.
To see this definition in action, here is a scenario involving equivocation.
John owes Jill $800 and has no intention to pay her back. Ever. He also has no cash on him now but has enough in his bank account to pay her. Jill sees John walking down the street and asks to be remunerated for the loan. John says "I have no money on me, but I will go to the bank". Jill agrees to wait for him. Instead of going to The People's Bank of Kentucky, John's bank (qua financial institution), John goes sun-bathing by the river bank and thus reneges on his obligations to pay Jill back once again.
Has John lied? Yes according to my definition. Under the traditional definition or the non traditional ones, it is indeterminate if John lied. Other definitions focus on what proposition was expressed which is ambiguous in the case of equivocation. But since John expected and intentionally made it so that Jill would interpret "bank" as John's financial institution and not some other meaning of that term for the purpose of deception, he lies. In other words, since John believes that Jill interprets "I will go to the bank" as the proposition I will go to my financial institution [presumably to get her money] (which John does not believe he will be doing) and not "I will go to the river bank" [to sunbathe] and for the purpose of deceiving her, he has lied.
Now take implicature. Consider our scenario above with a slight twist. John goes to his bank [financial institution] but instead of withdrawing money to pay Jill, he stands around the lounge for a bit and returns home. John implied that he is going to the bank to get money to pay Jill but what he said explicitly to her did not make mention of the rest. Under my definition, John is lying because he expects Jill to interpret what he says as "I will go to the bank to get the money to pay you back" and not as "I will go to the bank and do nothing but lounge around."
I thought of this definition when I remembered the reading of David Lewis's seminal book on linguistic conventions called "Convention: A Philosophical Study". In this work, Lewis uses the work done by the theoretical economist Thomas Schelling on focal point equilibria to solve for game theoretic "coordination problems" in socio-economic conventions. Lewis used it to analyse linguistic and other kinds of social conventions. In Lewis's work, he came up with the idea of "common knowledge" which employs the kind of reflective and psychologically transparent expectations and beliefs required for establishing linguistic/social conventions. His idea of common knowledge, however, has a theoretically possible indefinite number of iterations (I expect my interlocutor to expect that I expect that he expects that I expect and so on). Theoretically this could go on forever (and nothing will thus be accomplished) but rarely in actual socio-linguistic circumstances it goes beyond a few iterations. My definition stops at the second iteration. X expects or believes that his interlocuter Y believes X to be expressing some proposition P.
There may be cases where my definition draws the line too far and includes implicature scenarios as involving lies when they intuitively clearly should not be. I can't think of any off the top of my head but I suspect it so.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
"flourishing metric"
In the previous post I suggested that what I called a "flourishing metric" be used to compare when something is over or under valued in the market outside of the value or price set by supply and demand forces in the market. I realized that one way to do with may be to work off of Martha Nussdaum's "capabilities approach" which is built on original Sen's idea. Both Nussbaum and Sen are influenced by the Aristotelian notion of flourishing.
So I decided to look up Nussbaum's capabilities approach to refresh my memory after having been years since I've read her "Frontiers of Justice." Nussbaum has a open list of ten or so "capabilities" that defines human flourishing. I wikied "capabilities approach" and it turns out that economists are actively trying to obtain such a metric.
Perhaps things like housing can be assessed to their objective quantifiable value based on the contribution they contribute to flourishing or, relatedly, our "capabilities". Any value over and above that value may be construed as over evaluation (such as due to greedy profiteering, etc)
So I decided to look up Nussbaum's capabilities approach to refresh my memory after having been years since I've read her "Frontiers of Justice." Nussbaum has a open list of ten or so "capabilities" that defines human flourishing. I wikied "capabilities approach" and it turns out that economists are actively trying to obtain such a metric.
Perhaps things like housing can be assessed to their objective quantifiable value based on the contribution they contribute to flourishing or, relatedly, our "capabilities". Any value over and above that value may be construed as over evaluation (such as due to greedy profiteering, etc)
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