http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25friedman.html
"Paging Uncle Sam"
by Thomas Friedman
February 25, 2009
The New York Times
In a way, you can almost look at the history of the 20th century as an argument for Hobbes' views - when there were a lot of nations with power, we had great power politics, and that gave us two world wars. When you had two, we didn't have major wars, but that's mainly because of MAD, and we nearly all died. And since the fall of the USSR, we've had twenty years of peace and prosperity nearly the world over.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
a brief manifesto
Philosophers often try to answer ethical questions like, "Are you obligated to flip the switch?" "Is abortion permissible, given..." "How important is it to keep your promises?" I do not want to write about these topics, not exactly. I'd rather discuss questions like, how would it change your life if you found out you were going to die in a month? What would you do differently? What does this reveal about the way you've been living your life, and the order of your soul? What does this mean for those of us who haven't yet realized that death is, indeed, coming for us to?
I would rather write about what happens when one's central goals become impossible to achieve - whether it's failing out of a chosen career (professional academic, concert pianist, whatever), or losing your love (whether it's death or maybe the fact that they were just never that into you), or a legislative battle, or whatever. I want to write about the lingering possibility of failure that hovers over all our projects, and what it is to live with that.
(on a similar note, I want to write about what it means for us that we may, indeed, never really have that good an understanding of the people around us - or even ourselves - what it means that we may be drastically wrong about these things).
I want to write about how to both agree and disagree with another, what an honorable enemy might be, the difference between treating others as mere means, and as ends in themselves, and the various distortions and misconceptions this distinction has been subject to.
that's all for now.
I would rather write about what happens when one's central goals become impossible to achieve - whether it's failing out of a chosen career (professional academic, concert pianist, whatever), or losing your love (whether it's death or maybe the fact that they were just never that into you), or a legislative battle, or whatever. I want to write about the lingering possibility of failure that hovers over all our projects, and what it is to live with that.
(on a similar note, I want to write about what it means for us that we may, indeed, never really have that good an understanding of the people around us - or even ourselves - what it means that we may be drastically wrong about these things).
I want to write about how to both agree and disagree with another, what an honorable enemy might be, the difference between treating others as mere means, and as ends in themselves, and the various distortions and misconceptions this distinction has been subject to.
that's all for now.
critiquing concepts
I'm trying to figure out how we critique concepts; as near as I can tell, there isn't a unitary answer (maybe: they are untrue to reality?)
One case is I think exemplified by the article "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility." Clearly, what's up with the argument presented is that this concept of "ultimate moral responsibility" has some funkiness in it. What's going on - what is the cause of what, who did what, etc - whatever we say about "ultimate moral responsibility," these things won't get touched. What we need to do, then, is set that concept aside, and ask ourselves: knowing the facts, and knowing our purposes, what concept of moral responsibility do we need? This is a kind of move I like to make a lot - step back from the argument, then ask what concept we need, given our aims, rather than just asking whether the concept applies or not. (this paragraph could use some conceptual sharpening).
Another, different case is that of racism (and similar matters). In this case, a person (or indeed anything - the point goes beyond interpersonal interaction) is identified as having one trait (e.g. A), and our concepts lead us to infer that this person is also X, Y, and Z (stupid, lazy. and immune to pain). But if we were to pay closer attention to the individual instance - if we were to see what's in front of our faces - we'd realize that this person, while A, is not X or Y. The bias study cited at the end of this post demonstrates this point pretty interestingly.
(I am less confident about what follows)
The troublesome cases seem to come in when having and using (or whatever) the concept shapes the experience / reality. (It strikes me that I want to finish Haslanger's paper "But Mom, Crop-Tops Are Cute!"). This can happen in a lot of different ways. For example (this is not meant to be an exhaustive list), having a concept can more or less cause me to see things differently. If I am expert at big cats, and a puma bounds through the room, I might see a puma, while you just see a large cat.
The trouble seems to set in when we have different concepts that can't really be integrated (in contrast, it doesn't impugn the concept "large cat" to know what a puma is). I don't know of good cases like this.
It also strikes me that when it is a case of having a concept cause you to have different sorts of experiences, we can ask "what sort of life would we like to lead," whereas this is more difficult when the concepts "alter reality" in... ? way.
CITATIONS
"The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility"
by Galen Strawson
in Ethical Theory: An Anthology
ed. Russ Shafer-Landau
2007
Blackwell Publishing
"Researchers Try to Cure Racism"
by Brandon Keim
January 20, 2009
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/racetraining.html
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
a character
One of the things I do is write stories. Here's an idea for a character in some s/f story. Every day, they compile a scrapbook of their activities - pictures, annotations, diary entries, memorabilia, audio clips, video, etc etc. The thing is, they have a habit of dying. Every time they die, a large machine grows a new body; this new person is fairly similar in character, as it were, but it's not like we're imprinting memories. And then this new person goes and reads all the scrapbooks in order to get a sense of their past. And then they walk out of the facility and pick up their recently deceased predecessor's live exactly where they left it off. It's a sort of immortality, I suppose.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
omission / comission
This is a distinction that some moral philosophers are fond of. This is my take on it: when we are evaluating the actions of others (or our past selves), there is a difference between considering (or having it in one's "horizon of possibilies") an option, and not doing it, and not even considering it (and not doing it). This does not mean that one is excusable, or whatever, and one not; it just means that we should react to the two very differently; fixing each error calls for a different prescription, etc. On the other hand, in my own decision making, about what to do next, this distinction can play no possible role. After all, if I am at the point where I wonder "would this be an error of omisssion or comission," then I am already at the point of considering it, and would perforce be an error of comission.
The upshot of this is that, in cases such as the famous trolley problem, the omission / comission distinction has no bearing. It is a moral failing to hold that it does. I say this because I feel it is a way of avoiding responsibility. Taking responsibility for one's surroundings involves knowing what will happen depending on what you do next, and taking the actions appropriate to your aims.
The upshot of this is that, in cases such as the famous trolley problem, the omission / comission distinction has no bearing. It is a moral failing to hold that it does. I say this because I feel it is a way of avoiding responsibility. Taking responsibility for one's surroundings involves knowing what will happen depending on what you do next, and taking the actions appropriate to your aims.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
r.m. hare
I've read some of Hare's works (the bulk of Freedom and Reason, some of Moral Thinking and The Language of Morals), though I haven't made a thorough study of him. Nevertheless, he's had a big influence on me. His position on morality can be summed up rather quickly: if I assert that X is the right thing to do, I am committed to a) holding that everyone in relevantly similar circumstances should do X (universal) and b) doing X (prescriptivism). There are lots (lots) of details to fill in (e.g. what exactly is the proper connection between my assertion that X is right and my actually doing X? Anscombe anyone?). Nevertheless, there is something very attractive about this position.
For one, it is a very thin notion. There is nothing to my being obligated other than my being obligated. For example, if I fail to do what I should do, all that that implies is that I failed to do it. It does not imply blame, or punishment, or regret, or remorse. I am not particularly fond of moral theories that want to start with notions related to those I just mentioned; I feel it is too easy to import attitudes that are best reformed. Or, in other words, I shouldn't do the right thing because I will be praised for it / will be able to live with myself / will be rewarded for it. You do the right thing because it is the right thing.
Here's an example: what I feel is my worst quality. And that is a propensity towards righteous anger. That is, in certain situations, I will come to think that I have been wronged - or actually that somebody has been wronged - and that it is now available to me to castigate the wrongdoer. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of doing this - of making the sinner feel the weight of their sin. It is for these reasons that I try, very strenuously, to never feel this way. Too often, I could have acted to prevent the unpleasantness in the first place. (Here's a mundane example: I notice that someone has left their soda in a precarious position. Rather than fixing it - after all it's not my responsibility - I wait for it to fall, hopefully on something of mine, and am then in a position to castigate the soda-spiller (this disguises the fact that I am as much to blame for the spilled soda as the soda's owner)). And frankly, yelling (actually I don't yell; I aim for a different style) at people to make them feel bad about the past is unproductive (at least, it is unproductive of what it appears to be intended to produce, i.e. a change in their behavior, though it may be very productive of other things, e.g. pain and satisfaction). The business of our lives is the future: what is to be done next? And so the appropriate course is to figure out, in concert with the other party, how to avoid this in the future.
For one, it is a very thin notion. There is nothing to my being obligated other than my being obligated. For example, if I fail to do what I should do, all that that implies is that I failed to do it. It does not imply blame, or punishment, or regret, or remorse. I am not particularly fond of moral theories that want to start with notions related to those I just mentioned; I feel it is too easy to import attitudes that are best reformed. Or, in other words, I shouldn't do the right thing because I will be praised for it / will be able to live with myself / will be rewarded for it. You do the right thing because it is the right thing.
Here's an example: what I feel is my worst quality. And that is a propensity towards righteous anger. That is, in certain situations, I will come to think that I have been wronged - or actually that somebody has been wronged - and that it is now available to me to castigate the wrongdoer. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of doing this - of making the sinner feel the weight of their sin. It is for these reasons that I try, very strenuously, to never feel this way. Too often, I could have acted to prevent the unpleasantness in the first place. (Here's a mundane example: I notice that someone has left their soda in a precarious position. Rather than fixing it - after all it's not my responsibility - I wait for it to fall, hopefully on something of mine, and am then in a position to castigate the soda-spiller (this disguises the fact that I am as much to blame for the spilled soda as the soda's owner)). And frankly, yelling (actually I don't yell; I aim for a different style) at people to make them feel bad about the past is unproductive (at least, it is unproductive of what it appears to be intended to produce, i.e. a change in their behavior, though it may be very productive of other things, e.g. pain and satisfaction). The business of our lives is the future: what is to be done next? And so the appropriate course is to figure out, in concert with the other party, how to avoid this in the future.
a city of thought
This is an image that I really like, but that I haven't yet figured out how to state eloquently. So here comes the crude version. Basically, it is my image of my own thought processes.
Imagine that you're looking at a structure of some sort through a dense fog. And as the fog clears, you catch a glimpse, an edge, an impression here and there. But it's less like a structure behind the fog being revealed, and more like the fog itself coalescing into the structure, the city. Thinking is the process of refining this image, of working at it until the edges sharpen and it snaps into focus. But the process isn't smooth; for a long time, you may think that everything is set one way, but then suddenly the whole vision snaps into a different arrangement, and you realize that there are things you never understood, floors and walls and trusses you never imagined. And once you've got one element more or less set, one building, one shape, you start to see its vague connections to all these other half-seen half-understood areas, all these lines stretching out into the distance.
In other words, the process of thinking (and I'm talking about doing philosophy here) is the process of constructing a city of thought.
It is one of the funny aspects of philosophy that everyone has to do this for themselves. This is perhaps why we've made so little progress (as opposed to various other disciplines). We are all always starting anew; we are all required to judge for ourselves - else we wouldn't be doing philosophy proper. (I think this is much like the claim that there should never be normal philosophy; we should always be engaged in (or at least have the possibility of near to hand) revolutionary philosophy).
If this is the case, then how is this a thing that we can do together? What are the works of others to me? If I am required to always be starting over, what help can what another has said be to me?
The answer, I take it, is not so much that they provide us with the answers, but with building materials. And sure, these materials may be flawed; we might want to throw them out and make our own. But there's a difference between proving the Incompleteness Theorems the first time (Godel) and proving them once you know the general path (everyone else). (Though they're both proofs, both equally valid, doing one is much harder than doing the other).
This blog, then, is about gathering raw materials.
Imagine that you're looking at a structure of some sort through a dense fog. And as the fog clears, you catch a glimpse, an edge, an impression here and there. But it's less like a structure behind the fog being revealed, and more like the fog itself coalescing into the structure, the city. Thinking is the process of refining this image, of working at it until the edges sharpen and it snaps into focus. But the process isn't smooth; for a long time, you may think that everything is set one way, but then suddenly the whole vision snaps into a different arrangement, and you realize that there are things you never understood, floors and walls and trusses you never imagined. And once you've got one element more or less set, one building, one shape, you start to see its vague connections to all these other half-seen half-understood areas, all these lines stretching out into the distance.
In other words, the process of thinking (and I'm talking about doing philosophy here) is the process of constructing a city of thought.
It is one of the funny aspects of philosophy that everyone has to do this for themselves. This is perhaps why we've made so little progress (as opposed to various other disciplines). We are all always starting anew; we are all required to judge for ourselves - else we wouldn't be doing philosophy proper. (I think this is much like the claim that there should never be normal philosophy; we should always be engaged in (or at least have the possibility of near to hand) revolutionary philosophy).
If this is the case, then how is this a thing that we can do together? What are the works of others to me? If I am required to always be starting over, what help can what another has said be to me?
The answer, I take it, is not so much that they provide us with the answers, but with building materials. And sure, these materials may be flawed; we might want to throw them out and make our own. But there's a difference between proving the Incompleteness Theorems the first time (Godel) and proving them once you know the general path (everyone else). (Though they're both proofs, both equally valid, doing one is much harder than doing the other).
This blog, then, is about gathering raw materials.
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