Long-time readers will know that I often criticize the 'tribalistic' elements of partisan politics, i.e. letting group loyalties trump reasoned judgment. Ampersand objects:
Is this negative use of “tribalistic” both racist and colonialist? It seems to me that it is, but I hesitated to bring it up because Richard might mistake it for me accusing him of racism. It’s racist in the same way that using the phrase “what a gyp” is racist; however, people of good will can thoughtlessly use these phrases without themselves being racist. The racism is in the society that normalizes these phrases, to the point that even anti-racist individuals use them without noticing.
Bollocks. What, exactly, is wrong with the word 'tribalism'?
It's a useful word (can you think of a replacement that communicates the desired idea so vividly?), and doesn't harm anyone. Such petty complaints, on the other hand, encourage hypersensitivity -- which is bad for several reasons. Firstly, it increases the chances that people will feel offended unnecessarily, if they come to perceive a harmless piece of language as a personal or racist slight. Second, calling "racism" on things that are completely harmless risks trivializing what should be a serious matter. Third, attending to such trivialities is a pointless and unpleasant distraction.
I'm inclined to think that moral demands on our will or attention should be minimized at the best of times. To demand that people attend to such trivialities of speech without good reason is all the more objectionable. For this reason, it is often considered rather rude (and rightly so). This suggests a further, more crassly pragmatic point: nobody likes the 'language police', and it reflects poorly on the political Left to be associated with such PC crap.
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Time for my annual blogging summary. (Cf. 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.)
Metaphysics
An early post set out what I see as "The Ultimate Question" in metaphysics: whether there are substantive facts about identities, essences, etc., or whether (as I'm inclined to think) it is all ultimately reducible to qualitative facts. I argue that this issue goes hand-in-hand with whether we prefer a Constituent- or World-based Ontology. I then consider a couple of objections to my anti-haecceitism.
One important shift in my views came in the post, 'Structure and Similarity', in which I argue that some properties are metaphysically privileged (e.g. green over grue). Speaking of 'grue', I argue here that - contrary to the standard presentation of the argument - the objectively gerrymandered nature of the grue predicate can be established (without question-begging) on epistemic grounds.
Finally, some methodological aids: I summarize Yablo's helpful take on 'Logical Subtraction and Partial Truth', quote Sider on Semantic and Metaphysical Intuitions, and spell out what I take to be involved in so-called 'Ontological Reduction' (e.g. of the mental to the physical).
Mind
My 'Zombie Review' gave a short but relatively comprehensive assessment of the 'zombie' argument against physicalism (and various objections). Perhaps the most interesting related post was the one on 'Zombie Rationality', though my curiosity was also piqued by the question whether there could be (metaphysical) constraints on qualia, and whether inverted emotions are possible.
Shifting gears, 'The Homunculus in the Chinese Room' explains why I think Searle's argument is deceptive and invites conceptual confusion. And I offer A New Knowledge Argument that pre-empts the standard 'ability hypothesis' objection.
Religion
Nothing really new here, though I recently diagnosed the flaw in the ontological argument with greater precision than I'd previously managed. 'Respect and Religious Belief' discusses exactly what you'd expect. 'The Logical Problem(s) of Evil' makes an important point against those who claim that the LPE has been refuted. And 'Human Sovereignty' discusses an interesting issue relating to the so-called 'free will defence' (a long-standing interest of mine).
Epistemology
My two main interests here have concerned (i) higher-order evidence and meta-coherence, and (ii) rational objectivity. These intersect in my arguments concerning Personal Bias and Peer Disagreement.
On more traditional topics, I propose a rather deflationary understanding of Knowledge as Sufficiently Safe Belief. And my discussion of 'Skepticism and Wacky Priors' raises some important issues concerning the commitments we incur by rejecting radical skepticism.
Philosophical Methodology
I already discussed some 'methodology'-related posts in the 'metaphysics' section, above. Another central point of interest concerned 'Assessing Arguments and Begging Questions', and (relatedly) the role of thought experiments in advancing the rational dialectic. On the other hand, I warn against 'Bigoted Moral Intuitions', arguing (in comments) that there are formal grounds for considering intuitions of impermissibility to be more easily debunked than intuitions of conceptual possibility (which I rely upon elsewhere). [See also the comments here.]
'Derivative Objections' makes an important point about confusing objections to an analysis with merely derivative objections against the analysans itself. A couple of more critical posts argued against the overuse of logical formalisms and substituting opinion polls for philosophical analysis (the latter post includes a must-see video clip).
Meta-blogging
Though never made explicit, I think I may have previously assumed a kind of naive 'egalitarian' ideal of discourse, whereby every online discussion is open to all (regardless of substantive ability, at least; there could be constraints against formal abuses), and one should try to reason with whomever one meets in the discursive space of the blogosphere. But frustrating exchanges with some unusually clueless interlocutors convinced me that I no longer have the patience for this. So my post on 'The End(s) of Discussion' set out my new thoughts on the matter. I've also grown more comfortable with the idea of deleting low-quality comments and banning repeat offenders (truly a blessing, as long-time readers might have noticed).
Moral Theory
One favourite topic is 'value holism', which I've recently discussed in relation to individual longevity, and earlier in terms of the world as a whole. See especially 'Welfare and Contributory Value', and 'World Consequentialism'.
I've discussed some standard objections to consequentialism, defending its 'Evaluative Non-Integration', and potentially self-effacing nature. I also argued that fairness considerations reinforce rather than mitigate the "demands" of benevolence (contra Liam Murphy) -- though I favour a 'minimalist' account of private obligation, on grounds that the impartial good is better advanced through political action.
The best objection to utilitarianism I've come across is G.A. Cohen's anti-fungibility argument. I guess I also have some concerns about how conservative our moral methodology should be, as discussed in 'Moral Roots and Alienating Aspirations'. (See also Rationality and Reflective Endorsement.)
Turning to some abstract advances in 'conceptual engineering', I struggled a bit to clarify for myself exactly what is involved in following a reason. I also learned a lot from summarizing Murphy's view on 'Moral Demands and Compliance Effects' -- arguing that the latter concept has greater moral significance. 'Theorizing about Desire' and 'Coercion isn't Compulsion' also argue about the theoretical roles of certain moral concepts.
Applied Ethics
The only thing approaching a common thread here was my concern to pin down what, if anything, talk of 'authenticity' amounts to. My post on 'Authentic Development' is perhaps my primary effort, though my later discussion of 'Authentic Affect' also seems relevant. Along the way I explore how to define (gender) dysfunction, question the distinction between enhancement and curing impairments, and defend the desirability of 'Virtue Pills'. Related discussions of interest concern whether we owe recompense for turning someone evil (e.g. if police work causes officers to become racist), and whether it is preferable to be outstanding or well-rounded.
Other discussions of interest include 'Rape by Fraud', the moral implications of (our lack of concern about) spontaneous abortion, whether it's bad for babies to die, and whether there are Moral Experts. Finally, I'm very interested in assessing 'The Grim Aesthetic', or whether bubbly cheerfulness is a virtue.
Political Philosophy
'Initiating Force' undermines the standard basis for deontological libertarianism. (See also Libertarian Parables.)
I'm also bothered by common misunderstandings of civic virtue. See, e.g., Civic Virtue and Negative Campaigning, Bipartisanship and In-Betweenism, and (more recently) Obama, Warren, and Civic Inclusion.
A more traditional topic of interest is raised in 'Free Collective Speech': should states seek to "express" the "voice of the people", or merely provide a neutral liberal framework for the interactions of free individuals?
Happy new year!
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... is here, and presented in verse!
(I submitted my post on 'Gambling Life for Immortality' -- though 'Obama, Warren, and Civic Inclusion' also seems to have received a passing mention in relation to one of the other entries.)
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When a Skeptic claims that something (e.g. knowledge, free will) does not exist, a tempting response is to point to the world, and say, "There's some important difference between this case and that one, so I'm just talking about whatever it is that sets the former apart. You can't deny that there is such a thing." For example, there's an important difference between our ordinary actions and those performed out of compulsion -- e.g. hypnotic suggestion or mental illness. It is arguably just this difference that talk of 'free will' is supposed to track. Is this a legitimate anti-skeptical move?
It's always open to the Skeptic to argue that there isn't really any such "important difference" there. We assume there's a difference, but it may be superficial. A skeptic may argue that on closer examination we will find the various cases to be relevantly similar. That's a fine counter-response, if they can manage it. It shows that the anti-skeptical argument from ostension is never a knock down argument. But I think it may often serve an important philosophical purpose nonetheless.
Skeptical arguments often proceed in a very 'top-down' form. They start from a theoretical assumption (e.g. that knowledge requires certainty, or that free will requires ultimate sourcehood), and go on to show that nothing can meet this assumed requirement. That's fine as far as it goes, but if a requirement is impossible to meet, that should set off some alarm bells. In particular, it should make us question whether it's really such an important requirement after all. And that's where the argument from ostension comes in. It's a way to bring the Skeptic's theoretical assumptions into question. Maybe the Skeptic can meet the challenge, but it's often worth asking.
It's easy to make mistakes when one is engaging in a priori theorizing, after all. So the bottom-up (ostensive) method serves to keep us grounded, reminding us of the (apparently) important distinctions that our theorizing sought to capture in the first place. This assumes that intuitions about particular cases are generally more reliable than top-down theoretical intuitions; but that strikes me as a fairly safe assumption. (It is possible for systematic theorizing to override more particular judgments, of course; but some justification is required. Not just any old theoretical intuition will do.)
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I've finally finished a rough draft of my paper on 'value holism' -- you can check it out here. Any feedback would be very welcome (even just to point out the sections that seem most unclear or in need of further work). Thanks!
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The ontological argument:
1. We can think of a greatest conceivable being – call it 'God'.
2. It is greater (qua being) to exist than not.
3. So for any being X to qualify as the greatest conceivable, X must exist.
4. So God [the greatest conceivable being] exists
The refutation:Distinguish the properties things
are conceived to have vs. those they really
do have. (Santa is conceived to be a material person, made of flesh and blood, but in fact he's a mere figment of our imaginations.) When we think of the 'greatest conceivable being' in #1, is it
actually great? Or merely
conceived to be great? If the latter, then the premises are insufficient to establish the conclusion: it may be possible for us to conceive of some X
as supremely great (existing) without it actually being so.
In other words: insofar as we can imagine the qualities of a supreme being, one of the things we imagine may indeed be that it exists ("according to the fiction", so to speak). This act of imagination is compatible with the being in question not actually existing -- and hence not actually qualifying as 'supreme'. It's one thing to be imagined as the greatest conceivable, and quite another to really be that way in fact. So, for the ontological argument to be valid, we would have to replace the first premise with:
1*: We can conceive of some being, 'God', and this being is in fact the greatest conceivable being.
But of course if we accept premise 2 then there's no reason at all to think that 1* is really true. There's no reason to think that any being actually possesses the qualities required to qualify as the greatest conceivable (which, after all, include necessary existence).
The ontological argument raises a lot of other interesting issues: whether existence is a predicate, whether it is a perfection, whether there is a unique set of qualities that would render a being insurpassably great, etc. But I think the above counterargument -- based on the distinction between the actual properties of a represented thing vs. the properties it is represented to have -- cuts to the core of the matter.
It's also worth noting that all I've done here is bring out the core insight that finds inchoate expression in the slogan, "You can't define God into existence." I recall there was a bit of a brouhaha a while ago as theists complained about Dawkins' so swiftly "dismissing" the ontological argument on these grounds. But it seems to me that Dawkins was exactly right. It's like Zeno's paradox. The argument is very obviously unsound -- sophistry, even -- and you don't have to be a philosopher to see this. The difficulty simply lies in pinpointing the error, and explaining it in a philosophically sophisticated way. Any old fool can recognize that there's an error there to be found (they even have a rough sense of what the error is).
Granted, the ontological argument is philosophically very rich, and rewards further discussion and exploration in the philosophy classroom. But that's not because there's any real question as to its soundness (as would be relevant to a popular book on the question whether God exists). It's simply because the mistakes - and the further questions it raises - are so subtle and interesting. It is, in short, of purely academic interest. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
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Bryan Caplan asks:
Suppose you were offered the following gamble:
1. With probability p, you will live forever at your current age.
2. With probability (1-p), you instantly, painlessly die.
What is your critical value of p? If you combine expected utility theory with the empirical observation that happiness is pretty flat over time, it seems like you should be willing to accept a very tiny p. But I can't easily say that I'd accept a p<1/3.
Caplan seems to be making two false assumptions about individual utility/wellbeing:
(i) Hedonism - all that matters is the felt pleasantness of one's mental states.
(ii) Additivity - the utility of one's life as a whole is simply the sum of the utilities of each moment in the life.
Now, (i) seems clearly false. We care (self-interestedly, even) about things other than subjective happiness. So the mere fact that 'happiness is pretty flat over time' doesn't suffice to show that what we care about is similarly constant in its realization.
More importantly: this sort of case helps to cast doubt on (ii). Rather than evaluating a life indirectly, by summing together one's evaluations of its temporal parts, we may skip to directly evaluating the life as a whole. Such global preferences may take into account the "big picture", including relations between the parts (e.g. we might prefer a life that improves rather than declines with time, even if the net momentary utility is the same), and the overall 'shape' of the life. [See this recent post for more detail.]
But if that is so, then it's no longer so clear that an infinitely long life (of moderate happiness) is thereby infinitely valuable. In fact, it may be only a modest improvement on a life of (say) 80 years -- much less, perhaps, then the gap in value between a life of 80 years and one of just 25 (say). It depends on what you want out of life, and how much of that is achievable between the years of 25-80, as opposed to how much is achievable only with immortality. If most of what I care about falls into the first group, then (unless the odds are very favourable) it would seem downright irrational for me to risk all that for a chance of attaining the lesser goods in the latter group.
An interesting test is to question whether my future self (age 79) would regret this decision. Assuming not -- assuming the decision not to gamble is endorseable from a 'timeless' perspective -- then this would reinforce the claim that it is indeed what is in my best interests. It would really be true, from a self-interested perspective, that the value added by living from 25-80 is greater than the value added by the eternity of 80+. On the other hand, it seems at least possible that my youthful preference is instead a result of temporal bias or discounting (or sheer lack of imagination), of a sort that my future selves would regret. This would clearly undermine my above claims about life utilities. (Though it raises tricky issues about how changing global preferences can be combined into a single 'lifetime utility' -- I'll probably post more on this in future.)
I leave the reader with two questions:
(A) What is your critical value for p? (In particular, is it larger than 'tiny'?)
(B) What do you imagine is the preferred critical value for p from the perspective of your future self? Do you think that, on your deathbed, you would be willing to risk "losing" the last 50 years [supposing that was really possible] for a shot at immortality?
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People often assume that there's some genuine sense in which what we ought to do (believe) is determined by whatever we believe we have most reason to do (believe). Call this 'subjectivism'. Subjectivist positions seem common in debates over peer disagreement and normative uncertainty (to name just a couple of examples). But I think it is mistaken.
Granted, there may well be wide-scope requirements e.g., to not believe (i) that the evidence conclusively supports P without also believing (ii) that P is true. But it doesn't follow from my believing of (i) that I ought to also believe (ii). Perhaps I should instead give up my belief in (i).
As I pointed out in 'Rational Objectivity', rational status is not perfectly transparent: we can be irrational without realising it. In particular, it's possible to believe that I rationally ought to φ [e.g. believe P] without this truly being so. This possibility of error is essential to any non-trivial rational norm, thus ruling out the possibility of subjectivism. (Bootstrapping cases are helpful to illustrate this objection more vividly. We can describe a scenario in which it an agent is patently unreasonable in believing P. But subjectivism implies, absurdly, that their belief may be justified by the mere fact that they erroneously take their evidence to support the ludicrous proposition.)
If subjectivism is so daft, why are so many people initially tempted to accept it? I think there are three main reasons. The first, noted above, is the confusion of narrow- and wide-scope requirements. The second is that in bootstrapping cases, the agent is at least exhibiting some (perhaps limited) procedural epistemic virtues. A good epistemic agent will, after all, align their beliefs with their judgments about the evidence. The problem is that this is woefully insufficient to qualify as a good epistemic agent, if one's judgments about the evidence are not themselves reasonable. Indeed, taken in isolation, partial "virtue" may simply lead one further astray. (Compare: an instrumentally rational psychopath at least displays certain 'executive virtues', but their competence actually becomes a bad thing given how warped their ends are.)
The third - and I think most important - reason has to do with considerations of 'action guidance'. The theoretical role of rational norms is, after all, to guide us when we can't tell what we (objectively) ought to do. So there has got to be something a bit more subjective about them. The considerations that make one option rationally superior to another must be considerations that are accessible to us. Subjective beliefs are the obvious candidates: they're accessible to us in a way that external facts are not. And, indeed, there are independent theoretical motivations for accepting a kind of 'internalism' about rationality, i.e. the thought that what's rational for me depends entirely upon facts internal to my mind, not the external world.
But it's simply a mistake to think that internalism implies subjectivism. After all, subjectivism restricts itself to a very specific subset of my beliefs, namely my normative beliefs about what I ought to do. What about my ordinary non-normative beliefs? If I know that a generally reliable source just told me "P is false", but I irrationally interpret this as evidence that P is true, subjectivism licenses my irrational belief that P. But we needn't go along with this. There's a perfectly accessible fact which counts against the belief, namely the testimonial evidence I just heard (and perfectly well remember). Again, I know full well what the source said -- this information is as accessible to me as any -- my error is one of normative interpretation. I unreasonably interpreted this basic fact as evidence for P when really it is (as I should have known) evidence against P. My mistake, right?
This is the key issue. The subjectivist claims that what's rational is determined by what the agent treats as evidence. These normative judgments are themselves taken as 'given' and beyond dispute. But I contend that we cannot get any worthwhile action-guiding norms when so much is taken as given. If my normative judgments are sufficiently unreasonable, then their implications are of no rational help. (Garbage in, garbage out.) There is no sense in which I 'ought', automatically, to do whatever it seems to me I ought to do. Even in the most subjective of genuine rational norms, tailored for non-ideal agents, my beliefs about what I ought to do are always open to question, and so might be rationally trumped by certain of my other beliefs -- even if I'm too irrational to realize it.
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Many are complaining that by reaching out to Rick Warren, Obama is offering a slap in the face to progressives. This is silly. Yes, Warren has badly screwed up views on social issues. Most Americans do. That doesn't mean they must be shunned or demonized; it means that we need to do more to engage with them and bring them to their senses.
No matter the strength of our first-order disagreements, we should be able to 'detach' from these and treat each other with respect. That was kind of the whole point of Obama's "new politics". For those culture warriors who are shocked, just shocked, that Obama can bear to associate with evangelical conservatives, or who see such expressions of respect as somehow undermining his first-order commitment to liberalism, I can only ask: weren't you paying attention? This is exactly what we want: a president who will advance solidly liberal policies, without demonizing or alienating conservative-leaning people. If we can leave off the tribalistic hating for just a moment, maybe some of 'Them' can even be brought around to our side.
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Analysis is switching publishers from Blackwell to OUP, and it isn't the only high-profile philosophy journal with such migratory rights. This raises the question: how can we as philosophers ensure that the next time one of our journals' editorial boards ditches their commercial publisher, they aren't forced into the clutches of another? How can we secure the requisite funding to make open access publication (on the model of Philosophers' Imprint) a live option?
There's no shortage of funds in principle. After all, university libraries are already funding journals. They're just doing it in a ridiculously inefficient way -- buying subscriptions from commercial publishers, rather than funding the journals directly. The latter would end up being much cheaper on net, especially since the only significant expense (I gather) for online publication is the employment of an "editorial assistant" to take care of the administrative work. So in theory the decision for universities (collectively) to fund open-access journals seems like a no-brainer. The only question is how to bring this about. (I guess that's really two questions: what is the precise plan, and who has the power to implement it?)
The simplest option may be a piecemeal approach, whereby individual universities independently arrange to "adopt" -- and henceforth fund -- some prestigious journal. (Just as the University of Michigan funds the Philosophers' Imprint.) This won't solve everything, but every step helps.
Some questions:
(1) How difficulty would it be, in practice, to organize such an 'adoption'?
(2) Who, in each university, is in a position to authorize it? (Who should I be discussing this with?)
Alternatively: is there some appropriate academic body that can extract the requisite funding from its member libraries, and so solve the collective action problem in one fell swoop? (I assume we can't wait for Congress to fix this for us...) Any other ideas?
(N.B. A lot of philosophers share this ideal -- the 'Open Access Philosophy' Facebook group alone has over 350 450 members, including some very prominent philosophers -- so it seems like we really should be able to make progress here, if only we can figure out how.)
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