Just as ideas of "moral relativism" have become more widespread among the public, there has been a reaction from intellectuals who have been starting to argue that morality is universal. The leaders of this movement are mostly members of the New Atheist movement which seeks to challenge religion in public life, transcending just a separation of church and state. The New Atheists want to prove that religion has no intrinsic value, that essentially science can replace whatever benefits religion has, or at least what motivations continue its existence. Fellow traveler Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, described religion as shrinking over time as science has been able to give more satisfying explanations for just about everything. The scientific revolution in the 17th century under Bacon, Galileo, and Newton explained the workings of the universe purely by the natural laws of mechanics, contradicting the claims of medieval science. The 18th century enlightenment gave a basis for political authority by human reason. Darwinian evolution explained in the 19th century how all life including human nature itself was the result of blind natural forces, following geology's contradiction of biblical accounts of the age and formation of the Earth. Today the secularist hope is that morality and the purpose of life too can be explained without reference to God or the supernatural.
These thinkers wish to challenge the notion of non-overlapping magisteria, coined by Stephen Jay Gould. Religion and science are said to each be accurate in their own field of human knowledge. As was said in an episode of the Simpsons dealing with evolution, how would you like scientists giving sermons in church? More broadly, for those secular intellectuals suspicious of science, science cannot answer the only questions which really matter, the moral ones
One of the four horsemen of New Atheism, Sam Harris, has taken up the challenge to the enduring ethical dilemmas brought about by the is-ought distinction and the naturalistic fallacy in a gallant effort to refuse to religion its longtime monopoly on universal morality. Harris' target is also secular moral relativism, associated with fashionable postmodern nonsense, which weakens the claim that morality can be based on a secular, rational basis without religion.
The is-ought distinction was formulated by 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume not as an absolute separation between fact and value but rather that there is something missing between the two. "But if you insist that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning. The connection between these propositions is not intuitive. There is required a medium which may enable the mind to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that medium is I must confess passes my comprehension; and it is incumbent on those to produce it who assert that really exists and is the original of all our conclusion concerning matter of fact."- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 1748. Hume thought that it couldn't be shown that there was anything else that could be true except for fact and logical deduction, which led him to a mild skepticism and later developed into positivism.
Harris' argument is pretty straightforward. The is-ought distinction does not mean that science cannot determine human values, only that being scientific in of itself is not enough to be valued. This strict dichotomy is unrealistic as scientists do work with a code of ethics in their field, much as the medical profession does. Science itself is built on a certain moral view, that we should use evidence gathered by repeated observation to improve health and the quality of life. He goes on to his main argument that since all feelings be they right or wrong are dependent on physical states of the brain, then science which gives us knowledge of these brain states can discern what leads to "good" brain states and minimizes "bad" brain states. Because facts relate to the real world, ought is not being conflated with fact but something external, and so the is-ought gap is closed. Harris' scientific realism trumps Hume's positivism.
I agree so far, that is-ought is not an absolute wall of separation and understanding morality is based on what facts tell us. But Harris' next task is to articulate what exactly is the criterion for good and bad. He asserts it to be "the flourishing of conscious creatures" or "the maximization of total well-being for conscious creatures". By well being he means the age old concept of happiness. We should want more of what is good for us and less of what is bad. That certainly makes us happy when the good outweighs the bad. His moral landscape is a thought experiment in which morals can be seen as a landscape of high peaks correlated with the greatest joys and pits of the worst suffering. Harris wants to use science to steer us away from the deepest pits and towards the peaks using the knowledge of science, much as we would use to navigate our surroundings with GPS.
The most important question with The Moral Landscape is, why is happiness good? What makes it so? I can assert that suffering is good and pleasure is bad and not either be in logical contradiction or factually wrong. The happiness criterion of Harris is consequentialism: "the rightness of an act depends on how it impacts the well-being of conscious creatures." Consequentialism, aka teleological ethics, concerns how acts relate to desired ends. The question for the consequentialist is do all people desire the good? The naturalistic fallacy, often mistaken to be the same as is-ought, is that just because something is desirable does not make it good. That is because I can desire what is bad for me and others. I can eat rat poison, I can steal and harm others and enjoy it while I am doing it. That people do want what is good is an old belief going back to Socrates, that all people desire the good and do not intentionally do wrong but for a lack of knowledge. Those who steal may think it is in their benefit, but stealing gives others reason to harm you and legitimizes others to steal, and do you want to live in a world where you can't trust anybody? This seems like an appeal to enlightened self-interest, but it also deals in positive consequences.
Modern economics and much of psychology works on the assumption that everybody pursues what they believe to be in their own interest even if it is not. Morals he too would argue are based on consequences because some people have better lives than other, objectively. Because people don't have free will, and are governed solely by physical processes, they do what they do given their genetic makeup and environmental influences. Presumably the way to a better life is first to gain knowledge about these factors, and then to either develop ways to live with or even change them.
Harris ends up with a sort of Utilitarianism in which we ought to act in the most useful way to maximize everybody's happiness. Utilitarianism in contrast to altruism and egoism is agent neutral, happiness should be for the self as well as other equally. Here then is the additional question of why maximize someone else's happiness? I know the practical benefits this gives, but why not egoism? He gives the Neo-Darwinian account of how altruism became adaptive through inclusive fitness to advance our genes by favoring kin and by engaging in reciprocity; "the biology of our moral impulses, kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and sexual selection explain how we have evolved to be, not merely atomized selves in thrall to our self-interest, but social selves disposed to serve a common interest with others." Inclusive fitness operates at the level of the gene and the general consensus is that genes select at the level of the individual, not for the group, and so is selfish in a way.
Utilitarianism however isn't about pleasing others to ultimately benefit ourselves, which is rational or enlightened egoism, but is the position that happiness is agent neutral, everyone's happiness is the same. Why ought we take the well-being for ALL conscious creatures and not just ourselves, as egoism would entail, or just for others and not ourselves as altruism entails? Harris then has two different challenges 1) happiness is to be desired according to consequences and 2) I ought to maximize the happiness of everybody.
Harris's answer to egoism can be discerned from his philosophical materialism. Harris denies that there is a thing as as an autonomous self with free will that can or even does act independently. Citing neuroscience, brain activity occurs milliseconds before a thought becomes conscious to us. While he is right about that, acceptance of his position on free will as well as his utilitarianism depends on acceptance of philosophical materialism.
Whatever one's ontology is, Harris makes a cogent argument from his own. This is a valuable work just for the relation of scientific realism which most atheists/agnostics hold to ethical realism which not every atheist/agnostic holds given the influence of moral relativism and subjectivity in contemporary thought.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
The Problem of Universal Morality
Just as ideas of "moral relativism" have become more widespread among the public, there has been a reaction from intellectuals who have been starting to argue that morality is universal. The leaders of this movement are mostly members of the New Atheist movement which seeks to challenge religion in public life, transcending just a separation of church and state. The New Atheists want to prove that religion has no intrinsic value, that essentially science can replace whatever benefits religion has, or at least what motivations continue its existence. Fellow traveler Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, described religion as shrinking over time as science has been able to give more satisfying explanations for just about everything. The scientific revolution in the 17th century under Bacon, Galileo, and Newton explained the workings of the universe purely by the natural laws of mechanics, contradicting the claims of medieval science. The 18th century enlightenment gave a basis for political authority by human reason. Darwinian evolution explained in the 19th century how all life including human nature itself was the result of blind natural forces, following geology's contradiction of biblical accounts of the age and formation of the Earth. Today the secularist hope is that morality and the purpose of life too can be explained without reference to God or the supernatural.
These thinkers wish to challenge the notion of non-overlapping magisteria, coined by Stephen Jay Gould. Religion and science are said to each be accurate in their own field of human knowledge. As was said in an episode of the Simpsons dealing with evolution, how would you like scientists giving sermons in church? More broadly, for those secular intellectuals suspicious of science, science cannot answer the only questions which really matter, the moral ones. Non-overlapping magisteria was developed by philosophers, and is greatly misunderstood. David Hume formulated an early version, the is-ought distinction. No amount of facts can prove something to be morally right and wrong. Just because it happens doesn't make it good. This itself is a restatement (sort of) of what mothers have told their children. "If everybody jumped of a cliff, would you do it too." Yes it is true that everybody else is doing it, but according to Hume's philosophy there is no certainty that the behavior associated with what you, child, see as good (others do it) necessarily follows. The "good" of their actions depends on something other than the instances of observed behavior. G.E. Moore would expand this idea as the naturalistic fallacy in his Principia Ethica. Reacting against the Utilitarians like John Stuart Mill, he added to is/ought the difference between something which is desired and something that is good. This is important because, going all the way back to Plato's dialogues, many philosophers and psychologists today believe that everybody aims for what they see and as good and do not intentionally do wrong. The Socratic approach is that just as lack of knowledge leads to folly in a given task, lack of knowledge of what is good for the soul is the source of wrong. Modern economics is based on the principle that every individual pursues their self-interest, according to what they desire and how they think they are able to attain it. The problem is that we can desire what is actually bad for us or others unintentionally. If everything desired is good, then there is no way to condemn the sadist because he or she finds what they do desirable.
After is-ought and the naturalistic fallacy where facts about the natural world and feelings of pleasure are not the criterion of moral judgements, what is left? Science appears to be at an impasse, both the natural sciences and psychological accounts of preference cannot account for morality. Neodarwinism can certainly account for how we developed the capacity to make moral judgements and why this ability has stuck around. So science can clarify the facts which are of course used in moral discourse. Much of our arguments about morality do revolve around facts. When I accuse you of stealing, there is the important matter of proving you did indeed steal something. If condemning Barack Obama for saddling our grandchildren with debt, I must prove that he has increased the debt through his actions and describe what those are. And the definitions which we use in moral argument are subject to being true or false. When we approve or disprove of an action, we must explain the basis from which we are criticizing it, whether from an egoistic point of view or an altruistic one. Psychology can explain why we hold certain moral dispositions above others. The methods to convince others of our position can be studied with some objectivity.
What is left is what is important. Why be moral, what makes it moral? My position is that the sciences can go pretty far in explaining reality, but stop short at the most important stuff of thought. Once we figure out what we ought to do, science can take over and do great good. It begins and ends there. We should at the very least acknowledge that ethical propositions are not right or wrong in the way facts are, be it of the natural world or facts about ourselves. This leaves two options. Either morality transcends facts and lies in something like religion or intuition. Or ethical statements are not right or wrong in any sense because they are not based in facts and are just expressions of feeling which add nothing to the truth of a statement. The latter view means the statement you shouldn't kill is just stating the fact you don't like it that some people kill. The ethical part is like adding an exclamation point to a sentence, it doesn't make the sentence any more truthful. This view of ethics, non-cognitivism, would make ethical statements expressions of assent or dissent or commands for others to act upon. I can assert that what is pleasurable is good, but someone else can assert pain is good and not be factually or logically in error. What we are asserting is our preference, even if that preference is say to not live over living. Because all we can talk about are facts, and moral claims are not facts, they are not true or false.
P.1 All we know are true and false are facts
P.2 A moral claim in itself is not a fact
C. Therefore moral claims are not true or false
This position depends on those two premises. If it can be shown that we know more than facts, then my conclusion doesn't follow. But we cannot speak about our knowledge of what cannot proved. What knowledge cannot be proved is private language, accessible to only one person. If you see a slightly different shade of red, and I cannot tell by your observable behavior or physical state, then I must conclude the "fact" that you see a slightly different shade of red nonsense. I cannot describe what it is like to experience color to someone who has been blind their whole life. This is the problem of qualia, purely subjective conscious experience. The way we feel is known to us and can't really be known by others than as an analogy to their own feelings. To say I'm in pain from burning my hand on the stove evokes in you feelings which if I felt them would probably be very similar to what I would feel in that situation. But there is no way of proving this. Quoting Wittgenstein "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
It is with this non-cognitivism, owed to the writings of A.J. Ayer and R. M. Hare which denies moral claims are right or wrong as facts are, that I believe ethics can survive. The non-cognitivist position doesn't necessarily mean ethics is useless and we should become amoral. Rather I believe it forces us to rethink what it means to be moral. Morality is about approval or disaproval of an act. As such most of moral discussion should be about facts. But the stuff of morality lies in our preferences, something which is certainly real, but is outside of being true or false. The preferences we have are just that, preferences. They denote the most important experience we have, perhaps the key to the meaning of life itself. If I do not sound clear on what I mean by preferences or approval being moral, that is my point. Morality is still a problem, because it is only as universal as it is universally agreed upon. Protagoras' quote "man is the measure of all things" is followed by "of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not." There are as many moral positions as there are people. If all humans agreed, morality would not be a problem. Thomas Hobbes described the problem thus:
It is true, that certain living creatures, as Bees, and Ants, live sociably with one another and therefore some man may perhaps desire to know, why Man-kind cannot do the same. To which I answer,
These thinkers wish to challenge the notion of non-overlapping magisteria, coined by Stephen Jay Gould. Religion and science are said to each be accurate in their own field of human knowledge. As was said in an episode of the Simpsons dealing with evolution, how would you like scientists giving sermons in church? More broadly, for those secular intellectuals suspicious of science, science cannot answer the only questions which really matter, the moral ones. Non-overlapping magisteria was developed by philosophers, and is greatly misunderstood. David Hume formulated an early version, the is-ought distinction. No amount of facts can prove something to be morally right and wrong. Just because it happens doesn't make it good. This itself is a restatement (sort of) of what mothers have told their children. "If everybody jumped of a cliff, would you do it too." Yes it is true that everybody else is doing it, but according to Hume's philosophy there is no certainty that the behavior associated with what you, child, see as good (others do it) necessarily follows. The "good" of their actions depends on something other than the instances of observed behavior. G.E. Moore would expand this idea as the naturalistic fallacy in his Principia Ethica. Reacting against the Utilitarians like John Stuart Mill, he added to is/ought the difference between something which is desired and something that is good. This is important because, going all the way back to Plato's dialogues, many philosophers and psychologists today believe that everybody aims for what they see and as good and do not intentionally do wrong. The Socratic approach is that just as lack of knowledge leads to folly in a given task, lack of knowledge of what is good for the soul is the source of wrong. Modern economics is based on the principle that every individual pursues their self-interest, according to what they desire and how they think they are able to attain it. The problem is that we can desire what is actually bad for us or others unintentionally. If everything desired is good, then there is no way to condemn the sadist because he or she finds what they do desirable.
After is-ought and the naturalistic fallacy where facts about the natural world and feelings of pleasure are not the criterion of moral judgements, what is left? Science appears to be at an impasse, both the natural sciences and psychological accounts of preference cannot account for morality. Neodarwinism can certainly account for how we developed the capacity to make moral judgements and why this ability has stuck around. So science can clarify the facts which are of course used in moral discourse. Much of our arguments about morality do revolve around facts. When I accuse you of stealing, there is the important matter of proving you did indeed steal something. If condemning Barack Obama for saddling our grandchildren with debt, I must prove that he has increased the debt through his actions and describe what those are. And the definitions which we use in moral argument are subject to being true or false. When we approve or disprove of an action, we must explain the basis from which we are criticizing it, whether from an egoistic point of view or an altruistic one. Psychology can explain why we hold certain moral dispositions above others. The methods to convince others of our position can be studied with some objectivity.
What is left is what is important. Why be moral, what makes it moral? My position is that the sciences can go pretty far in explaining reality, but stop short at the most important stuff of thought. Once we figure out what we ought to do, science can take over and do great good. It begins and ends there. We should at the very least acknowledge that ethical propositions are not right or wrong in the way facts are, be it of the natural world or facts about ourselves. This leaves two options. Either morality transcends facts and lies in something like religion or intuition. Or ethical statements are not right or wrong in any sense because they are not based in facts and are just expressions of feeling which add nothing to the truth of a statement. The latter view means the statement you shouldn't kill is just stating the fact you don't like it that some people kill. The ethical part is like adding an exclamation point to a sentence, it doesn't make the sentence any more truthful. This view of ethics, non-cognitivism, would make ethical statements expressions of assent or dissent or commands for others to act upon. I can assert that what is pleasurable is good, but someone else can assert pain is good and not be factually or logically in error. What we are asserting is our preference, even if that preference is say to not live over living. Because all we can talk about are facts, and moral claims are not facts, they are not true or false.
P.1 All we know are true and false are facts
P.2 A moral claim in itself is not a fact
C. Therefore moral claims are not true or false
This position depends on those two premises. If it can be shown that we know more than facts, then my conclusion doesn't follow. But we cannot speak about our knowledge of what cannot proved. What knowledge cannot be proved is private language, accessible to only one person. If you see a slightly different shade of red, and I cannot tell by your observable behavior or physical state, then I must conclude the "fact" that you see a slightly different shade of red nonsense. I cannot describe what it is like to experience color to someone who has been blind their whole life. This is the problem of qualia, purely subjective conscious experience. The way we feel is known to us and can't really be known by others than as an analogy to their own feelings. To say I'm in pain from burning my hand on the stove evokes in you feelings which if I felt them would probably be very similar to what I would feel in that situation. But there is no way of proving this. Quoting Wittgenstein "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
It is with this non-cognitivism, owed to the writings of A.J. Ayer and R. M. Hare which denies moral claims are right or wrong as facts are, that I believe ethics can survive. The non-cognitivist position doesn't necessarily mean ethics is useless and we should become amoral. Rather I believe it forces us to rethink what it means to be moral. Morality is about approval or disaproval of an act. As such most of moral discussion should be about facts. But the stuff of morality lies in our preferences, something which is certainly real, but is outside of being true or false. The preferences we have are just that, preferences. They denote the most important experience we have, perhaps the key to the meaning of life itself. If I do not sound clear on what I mean by preferences or approval being moral, that is my point. Morality is still a problem, because it is only as universal as it is universally agreed upon. Protagoras' quote "man is the measure of all things" is followed by "of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not." There are as many moral positions as there are people. If all humans agreed, morality would not be a problem. Thomas Hobbes described the problem thus:
First, that men are continually in competition for Honour and Dignity, which these creatures are not
Secondly, that amongst these creatures, the Common good differeth not from the Private; But man, whose Joy consisteth in comparing himselfe with other men, can relish nothing but what is eminent.
Thirdly, that these creatures, having not (as man) the use of reason, do not see, nor think that they see any fault, in the administration of their common business; whereas amongst men, there are very many, that thinke themselves wiser, and able to govern the Publique, better than the rest; and thereby bring it into Distraction and Civill warre.
Lastly, the agreement of these creatures is Naturall; that of men, is by Covenant only, which is Artificiall
Because we are not hive minds, because there is disagreement, there is the need for ethics not as finding what we ought to do through ratiocination, but by convincing others to adopt our like and dislikes. All for the purpose of facilitating social life. Universal morality is always going to a problem so long as people are people.
(Update 2/11/17 I still hold a preference view of moral ends, but because I am a scientific realist there are objectively best means to fulfill our preferences. The fact-value/is-ought gap is transcended if facts relate to objectively reality. I´m a moral realist, at least at this point, about means but not towards an ultimate end or preference for our actions.)
(Update 2/11/17 I still hold a preference view of moral ends, but because I am a scientific realist there are objectively best means to fulfill our preferences. The fact-value/is-ought gap is transcended if facts relate to objectively reality. I´m a moral realist, at least at this point, about means but not towards an ultimate end or preference for our actions.)
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Leibniz's Law
In philosophy there are three generally accepted laws of thought: identity, noncontradiction, and the excluded middle. The law of identity asserts that a thing is itself and not something else; A is A. The law of noncontradiction asserts that something is not itself and something else, A is not B if A is A. The excluded middle asserts that A cannot be both A and non A (B), it is either A or non A (B). These laws are generally accepted in western philosophy, although there is great disagreement over where and what they apply to, and if such distinctions exist in the natural world. Other laws have been proposed to also be laws of thought, one of them is the principle of sufficient reason PSR which says that there is a reason or cause for everything. This one is quite controversial because of its metaphysical implications.
The Identity of Indiscernibles is another one of the candidates for being a law of thought, but one which appears to follow the traditional laws of thought more than the PSR because it deals with identity and not relation. The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, also called Leibniz's Law, states that if two things share the same properties, then they are the same things. If everything that can be said about one thing can be said about the other, then they share the same identity.
Leibniz puts it in his essay On the Principle of Indiscernibles: "there are no purely extrinsic denominations, because of the interconnexion of things, and that it is not possible for two things to differ from one another in respect to place and time alone, but that it is always necessary that there shall be some other internal difference."
Sounds reasonable enough, but why is it called the identity of Indiscernibles? Because the things in question are supposed to be able to differ extrinsically, in time space or number, and still be able to be the same thing. Just because the Earth exists in different spaces and at different times during the year does not mean it isn't the same thing the whole year. Position in space, motion, time, number etc. are different modes of the physical world, what could be called physical substance. Though physical things may differ in certain respects, that doesn't mean they do not share the same quality of being physical, all existing in space and time. To be truly different from something else, the subject must also differ in other predicates like color, taste, or smell.
When I first tried to understand Leibniz's Law this way, by reading a straight definition, I didn't quite grasp it or its importance. The best way to understand the principle is understanding what could have motivated Leibniz to formulate the principle. He goes on to say in his essay "this overthrows the whole of purely corpuscularian philosophy. First, there cannot be any atoms, otherwise there could be two things which differ only extrinsically. Then, if place by itself does not make a change, it follows that there cannot be any change which is merely local."
Corpuscularian philosophy refers to a type of atomism put forth by 17th century thinkers like John Locke and Robert Boyle active in the scientific revolution which differs from atomism in that the tiny units which make up everything can in principle be infinitely divided, but also while existing in a void (which Descartes denied). They can be infinitely divided because the qualities that objects have are not just the configuration of atoms, but are also the products of the powers of interacting corpuscles. These additional powers come from the quality of solidity, where the void between corpuscles is filled. In that way everything sensual can be more than just the motion of atoms as they can join together. This meant that objects have two kinds of qualities, primary qualities which are due to atomic arrangement and secondary qualities which were the result of interaction with the senses. Primary qualities were said to reflect the corpuscles as they really are; having the qualities of extension, motion, figure, solidity, and number which are common to all objects of sense. Secondary qualities do exist to the corpuscles but are caused by their interaction. Color, taste, smell, and sound the way we experience them do not exist in the objects themselves but are produced by the acting on our senses, they are purely subjective. This distinction was problematic from the beginning, but is crucial to the corpuscularian philosophy. If everything is physical in nature, subjective things like pain can explained as an emergent property, much as in chemistry where elements behave differently together than individually.
Leibniz's Law suggests that this distinction is untenable. Secondary qualities are in a sense real attributes which demarcate different kinds of things, and are not just products of the action of physical things. "Just as shape is to extension, and derived force is to an entelechy, so are phenomena to light; light is in a way the matter of images. This cannot be located in the mere power of acting, since action is again something relative to a state which varies." Light is not just the power of photon particles to produce electrical signals through the eyes to the brain. If that was true then there would be no means of differentiating light from any other corpuscles, which differ only extrinsically.
The implications of this law or principle are profound. Materialism or physicalism would be downright false, as they claim everything is physical which would mean differing only extrinsically. Non-physical things like the ideas of love or freedom which are quite different than physical things cannot be reduced to physical sensations, brought on by physical objects. They are something in themselves, perhaps. Leibniz's Law has been used to support dualism, that mind and body are different. The qualities of consciousness are that it is subjective and not reducible to a time and place, the mind is continuous for as long as it exists, and has intention behind its actions. Since physical objects are known to a third party, are reducible to time and place, and do not have intentionality it follows that mind and body are somehow different or separate because of their different properties.
Critics of the implications of Leibniz's Law invoke the masked man fallacy. If my father is accused of being a masked thief, I can say he does not appear to have the character of being a thief and isn't wearing a mask so he is not the masked thief. Or, Clark Kent cannot be Superman because Superman has been observed flying and Clark Kent has not. The qualities shared must be intrinsic to the nature of what we're talking about, the true properties of these objects, and not just appearances. Critics of dualism would assert that it seems as though mind has different properties than matter, but that is just because we don't fully understand how it works given the difficulty of studying consciousness from a third person point of view. Much like it was thought that the sun circles the Earth, "the sun can't be the center of the solar system because it moves in the sky while we stand still."
Still Leibniz's Law is something to think about as artificial intelligence advances. Does behaving intelligently demonstrate consciousness, if consciousness is defined by its subjective nature?
Thoughts on Jean Paul Sartre
I read Sartre after becoming acquainted with Descartes' philosophy, that "I" am identified with my thoughts (the famous I think therefore I am). Sartre offers not just a guide to live ones own life but I think a totally new way of viewing philosophy, which goes beyond the cogito. I am not my thoughts, thoughts being for Descartes all that can be certain to exist. Thoughts exist for sure, but they in no way prove that I exist as existence in Sartre's phrase precedes essence. Consciousness is always consciousness of something, something which exists. Descartes described the self as that which doubts, affirms, denies, and chooses. There was a missing step in the cogito, that having thoughts is something that belongs to consciousness. The act of doubting presupposed there is something to doubt. In that sense consciousness is only the act of willing which lies behind doubt, affirmation, and denial. The "I" is not defined by existence but by the choices made in regard to existence. Therefore we are free to choose the meaning of our own existence. This of course means that existence is independent of our consciousness and is meaningless.
Sartre's transcendence of Descartes' ego came first through through the concept of intentionality, formulated by Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl, that thought is always about something. The knowledge of the phenomenal or empirical world is in terms of subjective awareness and not from a passive standpoint. Using this framework, Sartre argues that there isn't such a thing as human nature. The essence of what is human is chosen by us, but always in regard to existence. Because of this the act of defining our own existence also defines the existence of others. The self is mediated through the other. Through our actions we have a responsibility not only for our own meaning but for those of everybody else. This point I did not realize before reading Existentialism is a Humanism and answers the Marxist charge Sartre alludes to that existentialism cuts ourselves off from our fellow humans and engages us in egocentric contemplation, the same trap Descartes got us into with the cogito. This central point is what I think makes Sartre's lecture a success. Existentialism is a humanism.
Where I don't think Sartre is successful is proving of libertarian free will, the subject of Being and Nothingness, which is central to his ethical claims. Basically, Sartre argues that consciousness or "being-for-itself" is essentially nothing. Nothing is the absence of the being-in-itself which consciousness is aware of. It's absence only makes sense (as how can there "be" nothing) if consciousness imagines there is something there when there is not. Consciousness is purely negative, it's power is to negate being, which I guess is where the concept of identity come from. So we create the meaning in our lives out of pre-existing consciousness by some kind of selective awareness, which I guess we choose. Okay. Where I fall off the wagon is how the negatory power of consciousness to selectively choose being can actually affect anything in the world of being-in-itself. This in other words is similar to the interaction problem which plagues dualism. If mind is not physical or just being-in-itself, then how on earth does mind have causal relationships with the physical world in which it inhabits? Even if mind is free to cogitate as it wills, I don't see a necessary connection between this and having the ability to change the world. I see it this way: I don't control my body all of the time, I don't consciously control the beating of my heart or my digesting of food. Yet the sensations from this activity impinge on my thoughts, and I have no control of the fact that I have these sensations. In what way am I free if I don't control much of anything, assuming that being-for-itself has causal relations with being-in-itself? I can control pretty little during the time I am awake.
An even greater challenge is the possibility of epiphenomenalism, that consciousness is not physical but itself does not cause anything in the physical world. Even if consciousness isn't physical or part of being-in-itself, everything about my physical body which I think I have causal power over can be explained in terms of physical causes. That I am writing this review can be explained by the observable behavior of my hands inputting what the neurons in my brain are firing off from memories of reading Existentialism is a Humanism. No consciousness, no being-for-itself needed to explain the behavior of writing this review. This sounds absurd, but is a possible explanation for how a dualist ontology could work, which is what I think Sartre leads us to. This would put his ethical position in a weird place. I can determine the meaning of life mentally, but I don't know if I can act on it, unless I do and hopefully it'll align with my desires. Sartre does say that we must live without hope if we choose the meaning of our lives.
"As for “despair,” the meaning of this expression is extremely simple. It merely means that we limit ourselves to a reliance upon that which is within our wills...For there is no God and no prevenient design, which can adapt the world and all its possibilities to my will. When Descartes said, 'Conquer yourself rather than the world,' what he meant was, at bottom, the same – that we should act without hope."
-Jean Paul Sartre
This sounds very stoic to me. That we ought to live unconcerned with things out of our control, body and reputation, and limit desire to what is in our control.
This however could make life even more absurd when paired with Sartre's radical freedom. At least the stoics had natural law and were determinists. If I choose the meaning of my life regardless of external circumstances, I'll have to have a very strong will. This undermines existentialism as a social philosophy and does make it more an egocentric endeavor and less a political humanism since it is possible that I cannot act out the meaning I will for my life as an example to others.
"As for “despair,” the meaning of this expression is extremely simple. It merely means that we limit ourselves to a reliance upon that which is within our wills...For there is no God and no prevenient design, which can adapt the world and all its possibilities to my will. When Descartes said, 'Conquer yourself rather than the world,' what he meant was, at bottom, the same – that we should act without hope."
-Jean Paul Sartre
This sounds very stoic to me. That we ought to live unconcerned with things out of our control, body and reputation, and limit desire to what is in our control.
This however could make life even more absurd when paired with Sartre's radical freedom. At least the stoics had natural law and were determinists. If I choose the meaning of my life regardless of external circumstances, I'll have to have a very strong will. This undermines existentialism as a social philosophy and does make it more an egocentric endeavor and less a political humanism since it is possible that I cannot act out the meaning I will for my life as an example to others.
The Cogito-Nick Anderson On Philosophy
I'm tired of American politics, the subject of my other blog Nick Anderson On Liberty. After four years of getting my bachelor's degree in political science and working in various political jobs, it's becoming more of a chore. Or to put it nicely, a duty. It's not something I want to devote a recreational blog to. This blog is going to be about philosophy in the most general sense. I'm going to analyze whatever I mentally get stuck on, or whatever interests me. The more tradition philosophical issues like free will and morality but maybe thoughts about movies, books, or music that I want to extrapolate. I hope this will get the juices going, make it easier to write down what's going on in my head.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
On Nature
Life is the struggle to become an individual. The continual failure of nature to preserve itself in an organized, complex, individuated form is responsible for change, manifested in time, which characterizes existence.
All things are in flux even while everything is interconnected into a single existence. Change consists of opposites, going from hot to cold, dead and alive. The contradiction subsists in nature's taking of individual forms.
Any single thing is always consistent with itself. Nature can be understood either in the abstract, as a whole subtracted from its instances, or by individual examples separated from others. Yet the activity of life is change not stasis. It is a process. It is a process from individual instance to another individual instance. This is understood from experience; all things appear in motion and opposed to one another. The intellect can through its own prejudices discover the underlying nature of existence. Heres how.
Every individual either owes its existence to itself or another individual. It is clear that individuals do not always exist, coming in and out of existence. Individuals change; they are affected by other things and have effects on other things. Individuals in nature depend on another individual for their own existence. Yet if every individual depends on another, this leads to an infinite regress. We have to explain each explanation. If everything needs an explanation, there cannot be any arbitrary stopping points. The truth of sufficient reason is true for posited things, individuals. From nothing nothing comes.
Nothing is not the absence of being, but of a particular conception of being. It is the absence of intentional being, of being known to consciousness. Consciousness is aware of being both spatially and temporally, in separate bits and pieces.
Posited being requires another posited being for explanation because its unique existence is made in reference to nothing, the absence of said posited being.
As nature continually changes according to our knowledge of it, it escapes meaning and taken together reason too. Individual things can be given meaning and reason, but not existence as such which avoids individuality.
This means that from our standpoint, life is tragic. The good is the fulfillment of the will, the bad which opposes it. The achievement of the good requires knowledge, which is only possible with particular contingent things. The achievement of any good is fleeting, it will perish in time. Whatever we will, whether it is satisfied in nature is beyond the will. There is no necessary connection between our will and changes in existence, as our consciousness depends totally on existence and is only independent because it is selective nature.
Life is the continual failure to seek identity between existence and consciousness.
All things are in flux even while everything is interconnected into a single existence. Change consists of opposites, going from hot to cold, dead and alive. The contradiction subsists in nature's taking of individual forms.
Any single thing is always consistent with itself. Nature can be understood either in the abstract, as a whole subtracted from its instances, or by individual examples separated from others. Yet the activity of life is change not stasis. It is a process. It is a process from individual instance to another individual instance. This is understood from experience; all things appear in motion and opposed to one another. The intellect can through its own prejudices discover the underlying nature of existence. Heres how.
Every individual either owes its existence to itself or another individual. It is clear that individuals do not always exist, coming in and out of existence. Individuals change; they are affected by other things and have effects on other things. Individuals in nature depend on another individual for their own existence. Yet if every individual depends on another, this leads to an infinite regress. We have to explain each explanation. If everything needs an explanation, there cannot be any arbitrary stopping points. The truth of sufficient reason is true for posited things, individuals. From nothing nothing comes.
Nothing is not the absence of being, but of a particular conception of being. It is the absence of intentional being, of being known to consciousness. Consciousness is aware of being both spatially and temporally, in separate bits and pieces.
Posited being requires another posited being for explanation because its unique existence is made in reference to nothing, the absence of said posited being.
As nature continually changes according to our knowledge of it, it escapes meaning and taken together reason too. Individual things can be given meaning and reason, but not existence as such which avoids individuality.
This means that from our standpoint, life is tragic. The good is the fulfillment of the will, the bad which opposes it. The achievement of the good requires knowledge, which is only possible with particular contingent things. The achievement of any good is fleeting, it will perish in time. Whatever we will, whether it is satisfied in nature is beyond the will. There is no necessary connection between our will and changes in existence, as our consciousness depends totally on existence and is only independent because it is selective nature.
Life is the continual failure to seek identity between existence and consciousness.
Friday, January 2, 2015
The Proper Role of Government
My political philosophy begins with the idea that every human being owns themselves and has a right to do what they please with their own body so long as they do not interfere with someone else's equal right to their own person. Whether that person be born or unborn, young or old, of any race, religion, or gender. It is the natural liberty of the individual that I hold as the basis for all rights. Conscious life is not something given, but chosen. As humans beings with the gift of reason, we become conscious of ourselves, control our actions and have the ultimate decision of whether to live our lives to the fullest, given our personal nature, or to live according to the dictates of nature and of others. The latter has been the unfortunate condition of mankind for much of its history. But in the United States in America this has been enshrined for over two centuries in the Declaration of Independence as ¨we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.¨
From this self-ownership comes the right to keep what we make with our person. A society based on private property and mutual exchange ensures the most peaceful social arrangement, and the only one compatible with natural liberty. Protection of what is ours in our person and property allows for self-improvement to our higher faculties. A free society is essential for virtue, as the reach towards the highest good differs from person to person. But the overriding principle is that of happiness. The system of private property and voluntary exchange guarantees that whatever an individual’s definition of happiness may be, my course of pursuing it will not stifle them.
The purpose of government is to protect this liberty fundamental to the development of the angels of our nature. In a state of unlimited liberty, there is the constant threat of voluntary action which takes away our life, liberty, and property depriving us of the essence of our existence. Government’s primary role is prevent harm to others, consisting in the initiation of physical force against others. This includes murder, theft, bodily hard among other things. From this right derives the right of individuals to enter into contract with each other, cementing voluntary agreement into law to facilitate cooperation. As we make these contracts, there is the constant threat of one party not holding up their side or agreeing to the contract on false pretenses. To this government must prosecute fraud, of deliberately misleading a party to a contract.
In our time, government has grown far beyond the principle of protecting our natural, inalienable liberty described by the Declaration of Independence as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My principles of government allow for a far smaller government which provides national defense, courts, police, and the provision of public goods individuals are not able to provide by contract like infrastructure or education. I add to these basic provisions the principle of subsidiarity, government should be done at the most local level possible. Government is always the use of force from one person over another and should be as close to the individual it is using force against.
From this self-ownership comes the right to keep what we make with our person. A society based on private property and mutual exchange ensures the most peaceful social arrangement, and the only one compatible with natural liberty. Protection of what is ours in our person and property allows for self-improvement to our higher faculties. A free society is essential for virtue, as the reach towards the highest good differs from person to person. But the overriding principle is that of happiness. The system of private property and voluntary exchange guarantees that whatever an individual’s definition of happiness may be, my course of pursuing it will not stifle them.
The purpose of government is to protect this liberty fundamental to the development of the angels of our nature. In a state of unlimited liberty, there is the constant threat of voluntary action which takes away our life, liberty, and property depriving us of the essence of our existence. Government’s primary role is prevent harm to others, consisting in the initiation of physical force against others. This includes murder, theft, bodily hard among other things. From this right derives the right of individuals to enter into contract with each other, cementing voluntary agreement into law to facilitate cooperation. As we make these contracts, there is the constant threat of one party not holding up their side or agreeing to the contract on false pretenses. To this government must prosecute fraud, of deliberately misleading a party to a contract.
In our time, government has grown far beyond the principle of protecting our natural, inalienable liberty described by the Declaration of Independence as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My principles of government allow for a far smaller government which provides national defense, courts, police, and the provision of public goods individuals are not able to provide by contract like infrastructure or education. I add to these basic provisions the principle of subsidiarity, government should be done at the most local level possible. Government is always the use of force from one person over another and should be as close to the individual it is using force against.
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