Education

Most of us would probably agree with Calvin that rote memorization isn't what education should be about. I'm tempted to go even further and suggest that schools shouldn't focus so much on facts. That's not to say they should teach falsities, of course. Rather, they should focus on imparting skills - "know how", rather than propositional ("know that") knowledge. Logic, critical analysis, precis writing, computer skills, research skills, etc. To some extent schools do teach these things, but there's certainly room for improvement. For instance, some basic philosophy should be taught in schools - everyone could use a bit of training in logic and critical thinking.

I've heard it argued that the curriculum is too full, forcing teachers to rush through topics at the cost of exploring ideas in any real depth. If this is the case, it shouldn't be. The goal should not be to cram as much information as possible into students' heads. They soon forget it all, anyway.

Even if our memory for factoids was better, the advent of the internet has, I think, changed the role of the teacher somewhat. Almost limitless information is now accessible - the trick, of course, is knowing where to find it. So rather than imparting information, teachers might do better to teach their students how to find reliable information for themselves.

Even more important is to change mere information into knowledge, and for that in turn to develop into understanding. Guiding this process should, I think, be the teacher's main role. Quickly forgotten isolated factoids don't even make it to the second stage [knowledge], and they certainly don't contribute much to our overall understanding. Learning a whole bunch of pointless facts is just... well, pointless.

That's not to say that there's never a place for rote memorization of facts. Memorizing times tables is probably well worth it - making this information internally accessible not only saves a lot of time, but may also improve one's understanding of numbers and their interrelations. One might argue along similar lines that there would likely be some (slight) benefit to internalizing almost anything. The question is whether this is worth the opportunity costs. I'm sure there must be better things for young chemistry students to do than memorize the order of elements in the periodic table.

High school science in particular might do better to be taught differently. Science is presentated as stable collection of facts about the world - a closed book (a textbook) - rather than an ongoing method of inquiry. With the possible exception of biology, there's little sense of continuing progress, no sense of historical context, and the level of interest suffers in consequence. As noted in that Phil Mole article I've previously quoted, this approach leaves students with a rigidly naive understanding of science, one that is dangerously vulnerable to criticism and disillusionment.

My general impression is that science (especially physics) is taught with too much technical information (e.g. maths equations) and not enough conceptual understanding. That's not surprising, since it's much easier to teach an algorithm than to explain what it actually means. But for people receiving a general education, I would think the latter is much more important. Rather than providing a technical preparation for engineers and such, high school should provide a broader (conceptual) understanding of science and scientific theories, rather than narrowly focusing on its technical applications. (The more technical aspects could easily be taught at introductory tertiary level, for those who require it.)

I saw a news-doco on TV a while back which suggested that NZ primary schools, at least, are heading more in this (extra-factual) direction. One slightly disturbing feature of it was that the driving force was some wacky woman who apparently cared more about making kids feel good than actually teaching them anything. We were shown a circle of kids taking turns at affirming their own inherent brilliance: "I'm a genius at math!", one insisted. "I'm a genius at drawing!", says the next. I may not be a genius, but I seriously doubt that encouraging such delusions in young children is going to help their later development.

That's not to say that self-esteem is always bad. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings identifies three different sorts of "self esteem":

(a) Having the self-confidence to actually think, objectively, about how good a person you are, and to seriously entertain the possibility that you should conclude that you are not a very good one, as opposed to fleeing from anything that might force you to evaluate yourself...

(b) Thinking that you matter enough that it matters how good a person you are...

(c) Thinking that you are, in fact, a good person, or good in some particular respect...

If, instead of self-examination, you opt for always thinking you're just great, regardless of whether it's true or not, then I would have thought that would get in your way whenever you'd do better by actually recognizing some fault and trying to correct it. And I see no reason to think that inculcating this sort of disregard for the truth in children is a good thing.

On the other hand, the idea that (a) and (b) really matter to being a good person, or a successful one, seems to me quite plausible.

I entirely agree. It's important that kids have a sense of self-worth [i.e. (b)], and a good teacher may help develop that (though parents no doubt play a much larger role here). But it need not be artificially inflated. Kids should know that they don't need to be geniuses in order to be valuable people. Having said that, I do agree that it's important that kids realise that they can achieve at school, if they're willing to put the work in. But that's quite a different matter from raising unrealistic expectations (the teacher in the news-doco called all her students "potential Einsteins", which is surely going too far), let alone pretending this potential has already been realised.

Carnivals

A quick reminder that the next Philosophers' Carnival will be held next Sunday, 6 Feb, at Studi Galileiani.

You can submit a post here.

In other news, the first Carnival of the Godless has just been published at Unscrewing The Inscrutable. It includes Jonathan's interesting post on Deathbed Evangelism, where I've commented previously. It's also interesting to compare Andrew Olmsted with Sean Carroll on whether religion and science conflict. (My comments at Andrew's blog make it clear I agree much more with Sean!)

They also included my post on God-given value (though I'm not sure the description is quite how I would have put it!).

I haven't had a change to read through the rest yet, but it looks like there is much of interest on offer, so I'd encourage you to hop on over and check it out, if you haven't done so already.

New Comments Feature

I've borrowed some code from the 'Kubrick template' at the blogger-templates site, which should add formatting buttons [bold, italics, link, quote] to the comments form. If I've screwed anything else up in the process, let me know...

Click to Make a Difference

This may be the best (most worthwhile) thing I've ever seen on the internet. From So what can I do?:

Okay folks, this has got to be the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to do something positive. All you have to do is click. That's it. Just visit the six sites below and click the big colored button. Advertisers on the sites make a donation based on the number of clicks, which represent people who've seen their ads. Click here for more information on how it works. The six sites are:

* The Child Health Site sponsors work that helps prevent life-threatening diseases in children, restores vision to blind children, and enables child amputees to walk. Yesterday, clicks helped 1,685 children get and stay healthy.

* The Literacy Site buys books for children through their partner, First Book. Yesterday, clicks bought books for 903.5 children.

* The Hunger Site supports hunger relief efforts of Mercy Corps and America's Second Harvest (see the January 24th post). Each click provides 1.1 cups of staple food. Yesterday, clicks bought 166,541 cups of staple food for the hungry around the world.

* The Rainforest Site helps preserve rainforests through their charity partners. Each click saves 11.4 square feet of endangered rainforest. Yesterday, clicks protected protected 1,094,560 square feet of endangered land.

* The Breast Cancer Site funds mammograms for women who otherwise would not be able to afford them. Yesterday, clicks bought 10.8 mammograms.

* The Animal Rescue Site provides food and care to rescued animals. Each click buys .6 bowls of food. Yesterday, clicks provided 107,301 bowls of food to animals in shelters and sanctuaries.

I've bookmarked one of the sites (they all link to each other) and click each day as soon as I turn on my computer. It takes me less than 30 seconds to click through all six sites. That's a lot of good for less than 30 seconds a day. Try it and spread the word! No excuses. You'll see: it's the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to make a difference.

It looks legitimate, and is verified by the scambusters at Truth or Fiction. (Though if you have information to the contrary, do let me know.) So I'm adding this to my daily routine - I hope you'll do the same.

Update: Yup, it really is legit. I've added a link to the bottom of my blog's template. I encourage other bloggers to do likewise! :)

Update [15 Feb]: Another free charity is Poverty Fighters, who give 25c per click, for up to 2 clicks per computer per day.

Ideal Decisions

Peter Railton ('Moral Realism' in Facts, Values, and Norms, p.12) writes:

Suppose that one desires X, but wonders whether X really is part of one's good. This puzzlement typically arises because one feels that one knows too little about X, oneself, or one's world, or because one senses that one is not being adequately rational or reflective in assessing the information one has...

I think it's plausible that ideal agent theories identify our self-interest. That is, the choice I would make if I were ideally rational and fully informed, etc., is probably the choice that is best for me. But it may be helpful to raise a variant of the old Euthyphro dilemma, and ask: Is X in my best interests because my idealized self would choose it, or would he choose it because it is in my best interests?

I think the answer is clearly the latter. But that then suggests that the reason why I should X is not just that my ideal self would choose it. Rather, the real reason must be whatever was behind my ideal self's choice. My (normative) reasons are his (descriptive) reasons, in other words.

So I'm now wondering: what would those reasons be? In particular, I wonder whether they would simply reduce to the desire-fulfillment theory of self-interest that I've previously advocated. That is, what's good for us is for our strongest desires to be fulfilled in objective fact. The 'ideal agent' heuristic just serves to rule out any subjective mistakes we might make, such as falsely believing that Y would fulfill our desires.

Do you agree with this reduction, or do you think your idealized self might want you to value strikingly different things from what you do in fact value?

From my earlier post on ideal agent theories:

One way to think of this would be to consider A as temporarily gaining full cognitive powers (i.e. turning into A+), and being frozen in a moment of time until he makes a decision, whilst knowing that the moment the decision is made, he will be turned back into A. This ensures that A+ has motivation to seek what is in A's genuine interest, even in those cases when the apparent interests of A and A+ would otherwise diverge.

Can you imagine being in A+'s position here, and choosing to do something other than what would best fulfill A's desires? I'm not sure I can. [Recall that A+ is perfectly rational.] I just don't know what it would be for something entirely undesired (nor indirectly fulfilling other desires) to be in A's "interests". But those who don't subscribe to the desire-fulfillment theory of value must be imagining something like this. So I'd very much like to hear what it is.

Moral Equality

I know, I've been posting an awful lot about religion and morality recently, but what can I say - they're interesting topics. And there are so many misconceptions just crying out to be addressed...

Matt Powell of Wheat and Chaff writes:

In MLK's cosmology, and in mine, all men are equal because all men have souls created in the image of God. That is our source of equality. Take away the soul, and the equality is gone.

As I understand the rest of his post, Matt seems to be asking for some ability or descriptive/substantive attribute that all people have in equal proportions. But people vary according to just about any measure one might care to imagine. So he suggests we all have equal 'souls'. I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. Perhaps the 'soul' is our innermost self; the part of us that makes difficult decisions, engages in moral deliberation, etc.? If that's the case, then it just doesn't seem true that our souls are any more 'equal' (in the descriptive sense Matt is after) than the rest of us. Just like some people are faster runners than others, so some make better decisions, are more morally developed, and so forth. So if 'soul' means anything like what I suggested above, it cannot do the work Matt demands from it. (And if it doesn't mean this, then I'm not sure it means anything substantive.)

But of course, when we talk about people being 'created equal', we're not talking about any such descriptive equality. Rather, it is meant as an affirmation of moral equality. This might be best understood not as a substantive property possessed by others, but rather a claim about how we ought to treat them. Everyone is (prima facie) worthy of equal consideration. It would be wrong to discount someone else's interests just because they're of a different race or religion from you. More succinctly: all count in the moral calculus.

Although very abstract, I think it's a simple enough concept for any moral agent to understand. It's not about how fast we can run, how rationally we can think, or any other ability or descriptive property we may possess. It doesn't require that we have some internal organ that is literally identical or 'equal' to our neighbour's one. So it doesn't require God-given 'souls' - indeed, it doesn't require religion at all. It's simply about morality, and how we ought to treat others.

Matt continues:

[O]n what basis do you believe men to be equal? And what scientific evidence could I provide you with to prove to you that different races of people might in fact be unequal?

If there is no scientific evidence that I could provide you with to make that case, then that sounds a lot like religion to me.

Matt seems to have confused religion with a priori knowledge generally. I can't imagine any scientific evidence that would 'prove' to me that not all bachelors are unmarried, or that 2+2=5; does it follow that my mathematical and semantic beliefs are somehow "religious" in nature?

To answer the first question: some reasons for including all people's interests in the moral calculus were described in my recent post, objective moral relativism.

As for whether this claim is revisable, I have my doubts. I think the fundamentals of morality are a priori, though of course the details depend upon contingent facts. So while scientific findings may show how to better help people (and thereby change our particular moral beliefs), it's difficult to see how it could cast doubt on something as axiomatic as moral equality. (Though scientific advances have been known to cause revisions to what beforehand seemed like analytic truths - so who knows for sure?)

But we could, at least, speculate as to possible circumstances which might downplay the practical import of this principle. Imagine the 'Lucky' race, whose members tend to be very happy and satisfied almost independently of contingent life events. Since nothing we do is likely to thwart their desires anyhow, we might well employ the heuristic of ignoring the interests of Luckies. (Within limits, of course; death would obviously still harm them!) We might treat other races as if they were more important, morally speaking. But this would not be a case where moral equality was genuinely 'disproved'; in actual fact Luckies are still just as important as anyone else. It's just that, as a practical matter, the best way to fulfill (everyone's) desires generally is to ignore Luckies and put more energy into looking after everyone else.

Update: Matt responds here.

God-Given Value

Macht writes:

Even if humans had never fallen into sin, human life wouldn't be valuable in itself. Apart from God, human life is no more valuable than a hydrogen atom.

I agree that nothing is valuable 'in itself'. Rather, it's always a matter of being valuable for something (or to someone). God values us, therefore we have value (to God). Similarly, other people value us, therefore we have value (to those people).

What's the difference here? Either indirect ('relative') value is real value, in which case humans are far more valuable than hydrogen atoms regardless of God's existence; or else indirect value isn't real value, in which case nothing is valuable, again regardless of God's existence. The first option is obviously preferable - nihilism is just silly. But if one denies the reality of relative values, then silliness is all you're left with.

God created each human for a purpose. We literally exist to fulfill God's purpose. We don't exist and then have to somehow create some purpose for our existence.

God created us for a purpose. (But what purpose God?) It follows that we have a purpose for God. It doesn't follow that it is our purpose. Even if God existed, we would still have to 'create' our own purpose - even if we merely decided to make that purpose identical to God's.

Imagine some mad scientist created an army of intelligent (self-aware) robots, for the purpose of taking over the world. Now consider one of those AIs. Is it this individual's purpose in life to help MadSci take over the world? Not necessarily. It may be MadSci's purpose for them, but thinking agents can rebuke the 'purposes' of their creators. They must, in the end, decide their own 'purpose' in life for themselves.

So the reason it is wrong for humans to kill is not because human life is valuable in itself. The reason it is wrong to kill is because, except for in a very few circumstances, God has given us no authority to take a human life.

I think that's a pretty atrocious suggestion. In fact, I'd be fairly surprised if anyone was genuinely willing to embrace the consequences of this view. For suppose God were to tomorrow trumpet from the skies: "Behold, ye little mortals, the Jews have fulfilled the purposes I had for them. I value them no longer." Would that suddenly make it true that Jewish people are worthless? Would that make it morally permissible to hurt or kill them? Absurd!

I guess the central point is that theists seem to assume that God's subjectivity is somehow objective in a way that no-one else's subjectivity is. I don't see how that's supposed to work. It's as if they were to argue, "God likes the taste of pumpkin; therefore pumpkin is objectively tasty." Well I'm sorry, but it ain't. Jewish people have value, and the taste of pumpkin doesn't (to me), and God's opinion isn't gonna change that. He's not the only being who values things, after all. It seems the theist believes that 'might makes right'. But what a flimsy foundation for morality that is!

Chocolate-Flavoured Poo

I've previously linked to this fun post at OrangePhilosophy, but I'd like to get into a bit more detail this time. Mark introduces the problem:

'If you had to choose, would you rather eat poo-flavored-chocolate or chocolate-flavored-poo?' First, I had to clarify some of the background conditions. Would the poo make me sick? No. Would it be human poo? Yes. Would the poo really taste like chocolate, and have the consistency and texture thereof? Yes. Would the real chocolate taste just like real poo, and look like real poo? Yes. Would the real chocolate make me sick? No (except for possible attendant nausea of course). Would the poo be yours? Maybe. Would the poo be like dark or milk chocolate? Just answer the question!

The answer is obvious, and goes down easy. I'd eat the poo. Why?

Because it tastes like chocolate, and it won't make me sick, whereas the chocolate would taste like poo.

I'm in full agreement with Mark. But there were a few people who commented that they think it would be better to eat the poo-flavoured chocolate. I don't think this makes any sense. As I commented there:

As I see it, the only bad things about poo are the nasty properties (smell, taste, sickness) that have been removed in the present scenario. There's nothing intrinsicly bad about poo. In fact, like I said before, I'm not even sure that what's left is 'poo' at all. So the chocolate came out of someone's anus. Who cares?

The opposing camp just doesn't make any sense to me. They clearly have strikingly different values - perhaps what Jeremy describes as the view that "our body has some kind of moral or aesthetic value that gets diminished in certain ways if it's put to wrong uses"... I just can't see why anyone would think that claim is true.

Jeremy responded:

The one motivation I've seen for this view is that we already seem to hold it with certain things. The sex with a dead chicken example is one sort of thing that many people think is morally wrong or at least objectively bad in an aesthetic sense. Yet there's no harm that can be attributed to the chicken, since it's dead, and presumably any harm to the human already has happened, or they wouldn't be considering such an act...

Die-hards against this sort of view aren't going to be convinced, of course. Those opposed to intuitionism probably won't accept the very business of using such examples, and some might resist the particular examples by pointing out that people actually do both and so some see it as fine, but most people do think there's something wrong with both actions.

I guess I'm one of those 'die-hards'; having sex with a dead chicken is disgusting, for sure, but I don't see it as a moral issue. Unless, perhaps, the act would cause further mental harm to the troubled agent. But grossness alone is insufficient (indeed, I would say entirely irrelevant) for moral judgment.

No-one else in that thread made any serious effort, that I noticed, to defend choosing the poo-flavoured chocolate. Many just seemed to assume that eating poo was somehow intrinsically bad/disgusting. But I'd like to hear more reasons behind such a view, so if anyone reading this can think of one, please do let me know.

One other comment I made that I'd like to copy across to here:

Irem asked: "I wonder whether there are some poo-eaters who wish they were not so weak" [for choosing the 'easy' way out, even though deep down they know it's the wrong choice].

I'd like to turn this around, and ask whether there are some chocolate-eaters who wish they were not so irrational.

It strikes me as plausible that some chocolate-eaters might be like someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The victim of OCD is irrational: they feel a compulsive need to (say) wash their hands for a whole hour, despite knowing that - rationally speaking - this is a waste of time, and so not good for them. But they do it anyway.

I wonder if some chocolate-eaters might be like that? They just can't bear the thought of eating "poo", even though they know (rationally) that it would do them no harm. So they suffer through the poo-flavoured chocolate, an awful experience - but they do it anyway, because their disgust is so overpowering that they can't help but be irrational in this case.

Does that sound plausible? Do you think it's irrational to prefer the poo-flavoured chocolate? If not, why not?

God and Evil

My post on natural evil received several interesting comments from Macht and Brandon. To quickly summarize: they basically argued for the 'ignorance' response, i.e. just because we can't imagine why a morally perfect being would allow evil, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is no such reason; an omniscient being would know all sorts of stuff we don't! I don't think is a very good response, though, as I argued there:

Let's suppose for a moment that an omnipotent, omniscient deity exists. Your argument implies that there is nothing [this] God could possibly do which would justify us doubting his benevolence. If he turned Earth into Hell and tortured us for all eternity, you could answer "he might have a reason, you can't know cos you're not omniscient like he is". Really. That's just absurd.

One could also turn it around to defend the claim that God is omni-malevolent, or perfectly evil. This strikes us as silly, of course - just look at all the good in the world! - but if the 'ignorance' response is sound then identical logic can be used to negate all such evidence. Sure, it seems to us that the world contains goodness, and it's hard to see why a perfectly evil agent would want to allow this. But we can't be sure that an omniscient evil-doer couldn't have some hidden reason to allow these goods. Perhaps it's all part of their plan, and serves to bring about some 'greater evil' which is beyond our comprehension.

So I think the biggest problem with the ignorance response is that it makes us too ignorant. Such extreme skepticism just seems entirely unwarranted. It's obvious that the world is too good to take any suggestion of an evil-God seriously. Similarly, the world is not good enough for an omni-benevolent God.

This then leads to Macht's intriguing suggestion that God simply isn't omnibenevolent:

God is good, but he is only good to us in the ways he promises to be good to us. And these promises don't include anything like "maximizing the happiness of all people" or "making sure no bad things happen to anybody, ever."

Put like that, he doesn't really sound any better than any averagely-decent, promise-keeping human being. And of course if one takes the Bible literally (*shudder*) then he sounds even worse than your average person. But I guess this formulation could be tightened up so that God is still impressively good, yet not 'omnibenevolent'. I'd consider that a respectable solution to the problem of evil.

Even better, I think, would be to deny omnipotence. I actually find the idea of a benevolent but powerless deity rather appealing - it would just add so much more meaning to our lives if God actually needed us. Our choices would actually matter in the 'fight against evil' (I mean this in the fantasy-novel sense, not the neo-conservative sense). If God is both omniscient and omnipotent, by contrast, then "all the world's a stage", for surely nothing we do would be allowed to get in the way of his ultimate plan.

Further, as mentioned in the earlier post, if we allow an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God on the basis of the 'ignorance' defence, it seems to rob us of any moral responsibility. Such a God would ensure that things turned out for the best, so there'd be no point in us meddling. If God wanted a tsunami-victim saved, he could easily do so himself. The fact that he didn't would seem to imply that harming the victim is all part of his divine 'plan'. So why should we interfere with that? Why should we help others if God doesn't - wouldn't it be hubris to presume to know better than him?

Come to think of it, one might plausibly use this line of thinking to explain why God must never interfere with the world. Human moral responsibility is surely a very important good (right up there with the old favourite of 'free will'). Yet it seems the only way to protect this is to ensure that we believe that God won't prevent evils, and that it is instead up to us to do so (to the best of our ability). The main problem with this response is that only the belief is necessary - it need not be true. So God should secretly prevent evils whenever he can do so without our noticing.

Alternatively, one could deny God omniscience (and omni-benevolence with it), as Raymond Feist does in his fantasy novels, if memory serves (I read them many years ago). The idea, then, is that it's up to us to teach God, to show him what 'works' and what doesn't. I find this by far the most appealing religious picture I've ever come across. Imagine the responsibility! It's up to us to ensure that God turns out well, that he learns right from wrong, and so forth. Wouldn't it be grand! (I suppose I could just have kids of my own, but I don't imagine any of them would turn out to be omnipotent.)

Lastly, I suppose, we could dispense with wishful thinking altogether and just admit that we're the only 'intelligent designers' playing in this corner of the cosmic ballpark. This is not nearly so fun as the previous suggestion, I admit, but it has the added advantage of being true, which may count for something. [Begging the what? I don't see no question. Shush, you.]

Update: Macht responds here.

Human Nature

Jason comments:

[W]e definitely observe animals acting according to some form of natural plan.
The question then becomes: What is the nature of man? Actions that are in accordance with that nature are good, while those that go against it are evil.

I brought up the obvious problem of rape, to which he responded:

I believe that man's fundamental nature--the part of his nature that is more important than all others--is that he (or she) is capable of making complex long-range plans: We plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, or loan money at interest, or design microchips. This long-range planning is both unique to humans and our chief means of survival (as large vertebrates go, we're quite puny otherwise). Because these things constitute our nature, it is wrong to violate the essential nature of another. This would include rape, which is wrong because it violates the ability of the raped individual to act according to the plans that they have made.

I hope I've cleared things up, but please let me know if I have not. This idea is more or less a derivation of Ayn Rand, but it's easy to see in Aristotle as well--and in Henry Veatch, another great modern exponent of Aristotle.

I'm happy to go along with the Kantian idea of respecting people's rational agency. But I don't see why we should want to justify this by appealing to some notion of 'fundamental nature'.

Firstly, I just don't see what normative force this descriptive fact is supposed to have. Perhaps rationality and long-term planning are unique to humans - but so what? I don't see how it follows that we have a moral duty to cherish this particular characteristic. It doesn't strike me as obvious that it's always wrong to "violate the essential nature of another". For what if someone's "essential nature" was to hurt and exploit others: would it be wrong of us to 'violate' a parasite's parasitism? I also find implausible the implication that it's somehow wrong to go beyond the confines of our common 'nature'. So long as you don't harm anyone, why not do something new, something 'unnatural' - what's wrong with being different? Simply put: what in the world does any of this have to do with morality?

Secondly, even if we wanted to base morality on human nature, what makes 'planning' the fundamental aspect of it? This choice just seems arbitrary. Language and communication are, arguably, even more fundamental to us. We're social animals, after all. Reproduction is something else that's pretty central to many people's lives. Eating and breathing are utterly essential to all of us. Walking on two legs sets us apart from other mammals, driving in cars even more so. More abstract characteristics would include creativity, love, hate, jealousy, etc. All seem important parts of our 'nature'. Which is 'fundamental'? What does the word even mean in this context?

Will Wilkinson has an excellent post on this subject:

You and I are both part of the club of humanity because we have a shared ancestor: the first human. This, however, implies nothing about our having a metaphysically deep shared natured. Evolution works on selection over natural variation. That is, evolution works because members of a species are not homogenous. So at any time, there is simply a distribution of traits throughout a population. Maybe the distribution is a normal curve. Maybe it isn't. In any case, the distribution changes over time, and thus so do the traits of the "typical" member (if there is one). There simply is no non-contingent common core of traits that ties us together other than our shared lineage and consequent genetic similarity.

This is why I find the idea that there is a right way to live according to nature extremely dubious... We have no "deep" nature. Right now, in this neighborhood of our evolutionary history, there is a distribution of traits that one might call "typical" in a statistical sense. But this has no more deeply normative significance than would the fact that 90% of us prefer almonds over pistacchios. It makes no sense to argue that we thus ought to prefer pistacchios. People with statistically "deviant" behavioral dispositions are by definition not "normal," but their behavior is not a scintilla less "natural" than that of the normals.

As I see it, to base morality on human nature is to confuse how people are with how we ought to be (the old is-ought gap). So if you're talking about 'human nature' in a purely descriptive/biological sense, it has little to say about ethics.

But if you're talking about some special sort of extra-biological, metaphysical 'human nature', then it seems you've already smuggled in normativity. That is, one could define our 'fundamental' human nature in terms of what's morally most important about us; but it would be circular to then try to explain morality in terms of this metaphysical 'nature'.

So appealing to human nature as the foundation of morality is either fallacious or redundant. This is clearly no good either way. Have I misunderstood it?

Objective Moral Relativism

The problem with subjectivism, I think, is that it confuses morality with other sorts of value. Value is indeed often agent-relative; our tastes may differ, or something may happen that is good for you and yet bad for me. But morality is a specific subset of value. It isn't about what's "good for me" or "good for you", it's about what's good for us, collectively. And this, as I will endeavour to show in this post, is a matter of objective fact - that is, it is something about which our beliefs may be mistaken.

Before we get into morality, note that even agent-relative value concerns objective facts. This is because value derives from desire fulfillment, and this is clearly something we can be mistaken about. You might think smoking is good for you, until you get lung cancer, at which point you will realise that you were previously mistaken about what was in your best interests.

So, although value is assigned relative to a 'valuer' (or set of desires), it becomes an objective matter once this parameter is fixed. It is a matter of objective fact whether something is good or bad relative to a particular set of desires. Such 'objective relativism' sounds oxymoronic, but it's really no more odd than other such relational facts as that birds are larger than bees, and Europe is north of Africa.

According to our general analysis of value, 'X is good' is considered to simply reduce to 'X is such to fulfill the desires in question'. Now that we're interested specifically in moral value, we must specify precisely which desires those would be. I would suggest: all of them, i.e. the aggregate of everyone's desires. I find this a fairly intuitive claim, and one which comports well with how we use moral terms. Besides, there don't seem any plausible alternatives. For example, to consider only your own desires, would be described as self-interest, not morality. More generally, it would seem unacceptably arbitrary to include the desires of some people but not others. Morality is supposed to be more universal than that.

I think this conception of morality captures the best of both objectivism and subjectivism. Subjectivists are right that there are no mind-independent values 'out there' in the world, just waiting for us to detect them. We read value into the world; it's not something that's "objectively" there to begin with.

However, it does not follow that all value is just a matter of opinion; this is where subjectivists go drastically wrong. The question of how to fulfill a set of desires is one that has an objective answer, quite independently of our individual beliefs about the matter. What is "good for us" has the same answer whether asked by you or by me, for the parameter remains fixed on that same group - "us" - the entire time. So the objectivist is correct to maintain that morality is universal, and grounded on something more solid than mere individual opinions.

I'm effectively accepting the general subjectivist framework described in my previous post, but suggesting that questions of moral value are concerned with a particular 'viewpoint': that of humanity as a whole. For those who are interested in assessing values from this perspective (i.e. the perspective that yields what we call 'moral' values), it is a matter of objective fact that Martin Luther King Jr. improved the world. It's not just my opinion that he helped fulfill desires generally; it's damn well true that he did so.

So we can have quasi-objective morality whilst recognising that there is no 'intrinsic' value existing in the world independently of human interests and desires. We can have an objective moral relativism. What more could we want?

See also Alonzo Fyfe's essay, Resolving the Objectivist/Subjectivist Debate.

Update: As to why we might be interested in the moral perspective, see here.

Devil's Advocate: Subjectivism

Johnny-Dee argues that moral reformers like Martin Luther King Jr. pose a problem for moral subjectivism:

The challenge for the moral subjectivist is to give a meaningful account of what MLK was up to. If morality is subjective, why should anyone ever go against the the status quo? Moreover, the subjectivist cannot say that MLK brought about a better state of affairs through his efforts. All the subjectivist can say is that MLK brought about another type of morality that is just as legitimate as the one he replaced. This is problematic for two reasons: (1) it is obvious that the morality MLK introduced is, in fact, better than the one he denounced; (2) if MLK was just introducing another equally viable ethic, he should be called immoral for going against the accepted morality of his culture.

Unfortunately, I don't think subjectivism is so easily refuted. Clearly one could go against the status quo for the sake of personal/subjective values. MLK didn't like racism, so he fought against it. Simple. Moreover, the subjectivist can say that the resultant state of affairs was indeed better according to MLK's values - and, of course, our own. So there's nothing problematic about the fact that most of us prefer the obtaining of a less racist state of affairs.

The only serious restriction subjectivism poses here is that we cannot say that this result is better for everyone, or just 'better' simpliciter. But - arguably - neither of those statements would be true anyway. The first is clearly false: some individuals (e.g. racists) are surely worse off now than they used to be. The second, one might argue, is technically meaningless: value judgments must be made relative to some set of interests or preferences, so there is no 'better', simpliciter. The universe doesn't care about racism. Only people do. (That's the grain of truth hidden within in the otherwise pernicious doctrine I play at defending in this post.)

So JD's talk of equally 'legitimate' rival moralities may be taken as nonsensical by the subjectivist. "Equally legimate from whose viewpoint?", the subjectivist could ask. From within our perspective, racism is simply wrong, and any suggestion to the contrary is mistaken. We don't consider the racist's views to be legitimate. They are to him, within his viewpoint, but that's not one that we need approve of. Objectively speaking, there just isn't any fact of the matter independent of these rival perspectives. One might say it is the viewpoints themselves that are equally legitimate, rather than the substantive moralities they in turn endorse. But they're not 'equally legitimate' in any positive sense - for there's no standard against which to make such a judgment - instead, they're simply incommensurable.

As for the 'going against his culture' objection, subjectivists (unlike cultural relativists) would deny that the dominant culture is privileged in any way. MLK was wrong according to the racists, but right according to himself (and us). There's nothing more to be said about the matter, according to subjectivists. We certainly shouldn't call him "immoral", for we share his values! But yes, racists could do so (and probably did).

JD continues:

The very idea of progress in morality presupposes an objective standard against which these changes can be evaluated. The alternative is to say that no morality is better or worse than another (i.e., there is no objective standard), which belittles the work of great moral reformers like Martin Luther King Jr.

Although I'm sympathetic towards these sentiments, a subjectivist could plausibly disagree. Clearly objective progress is impossible according to subjectivist/relativist accounts, but one can still assess changes according to how well they comport with one's own subjective preferences. We think MLK is great. He changed the political landscape in a way that we all consider favourably. The subjectivist would say there's nothing belittling about this. Cosmic approval being not ours to bestow, the greatest honour we can give someone is our personal approval, and MLK receives precisely that.

P.S. I'm actually not a subjectivist. Indeed, moral relativism quite often infuriates me. My next post will balance this one by explaining why...

New Feature: Sideblog

[26 Dec] If you're reading this from my main page, you'll see I've added a 'sideblog' to the sidebar. I usually only blog about a small fraction of the interesting posts and articles that I come across. Now I can share those other links too without cluttering up my main blog with lots of little posts. Very handy!

Update: [11 Jan] I'm so impressed with the folks at Sideblog.com that I've decided to pay (all of $1) for their 'premium service'. So now you can leave comments on side-posts (just click the little number below each post). Also, my sideblog's archives are now publicly available, in case you want to dig up an old link.

21 Jan: Just out of curiosity, is anyone else finding the sideblog useful or interesting? Not that it much matters, since I find it invaluable just for myself (I never used to remember to check back on others' posts that I'd commented on, but my 'commenting elsewhere' links now make this much easier). But I guess there wouldn't be much point to the "here's a link I found interesting"-type posts if no-one else was using them. I notice a couple of other bloggers picked up on the recent age-quiz link, at least. But do let me know what you think of it more generally :)

And, as always, any advice or suggestions are most welcome. For example, I can change the number of entries that are displayed. At the moment it's on 15, which at my current rate means new posts will probably be available for about 3-5 days before disappearing into the archives.

P.S. All those who read my blog via RSS will need to visit the main page every now and then if you want to keep track of my side-posts also. The folks at Sideblog.com have promised that the next release will include an RSS feed, but I have no idea when that will be.

P.P.S. Due to time-zone issues, the sideblog's purported 'time of posting' is 5 hours behind my local time [GMT +12]. (As if I'd ever be awake at 7am! Ha.)

The Source of Morality

Darksyde writes:

Where do morals, principles, ethics, whatever term one wishes to use, originate from? Theists of course always credit their respective deity with the origin and basis of ethics. [...] I would tentatively suggest that religiously justified morality with regard to slavery, becomes relative to whose interpretation you consider the most plausible. And, unsurprisingly, those Christians who supported slavery tended to side with Davis, those who did not sided with the abolitionists. The same is true in other issues outside of slavery. QED: Relativism is the default position in all cases in which God refuses to enlighten us - which happens to be all modern cases incidentally. And morals are acquired via cultural interaction and child development, which strengthens the provisional conclusion that morality is relative.

I think DS may be guilty of conflating the foundation of moral truths with that of our moral beliefs. How we learn about something is an entirely different matter from what makes it true. After all, our beliefs about (say) astronomy are likewise picked up in a cultural context. People used to think the sun went round the Earth; we now believe differently. That surely doesn't make astronomy 'relative'. Some beliefs are just plain false. Like, say, the belief that slavery is morally okay. People used to think that, and we might be able to explain this by appealing to their cultural context (or whatever), but this doesn't make the belief any less false.

DS argues that the existence of conflicting interpretations implies that religion cannot provide an objective basis for morality. But really this only shows that religion cannot provide an objective method for resolving moral disputes. In other words, it can't guarantee that we know the objective moral truths. But this isn't a particularly damaging result; I don't think many theists claim themselves to be morally omniscient, do they?

Practical problems aside, then, the thorny theoretical issue is not how we come to have moral beliefs, but rather, what makes them true (or false). It is here - as 'truth-maker', not 'belief-maker' - that many theists appeal to God. But this then raises the famous Euthyphro dilemma, the ultimate refutation of authority-based ethics:

Is X good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? If the latter, then moral standards exist independently of God. But the former is just a variant of subjectivism - moral truths are fixed by whatever God happens to prefer. If he liked slavery, then that fact alone would make slavery 'good'. Such arbitrariness makes for a pretty unsatisfactory moral foundation. Besides, it makes a mockery of calling God "good" - for that is just to say that God does what he likes, which doesn't seem a particularly praiseworthy characteristic. More sophisticated accounts argue that morality derives from God's character rather than his commands; but I don't see how that variation fares any better. To assess God in any meaningful way, we must appeal to a standard that is independent of him.

To wrap up: I agree with DS that our moral beliefs, like all our other beliefs, are culturally acquired. However, this implies nothing about what makes them true. In particular, it does not - in itself - support moral relativism. Even once we know the source of our beliefs, we are still left wondering about the source of moral truth (and normative 'force' in general). I think religious explanations fail here, but for different reasons than those proposed by DS. The question of relativism will receive further attention in my next posts...

Respect, Tolerance & War

Respect and tolerance are often conflated. But I think we would do better to keep the two concepts distinct. 'Tolerance', as I use the term here, simply requires that one be willing to coexist (relatively harmoniously) with the subject. 'Respect' goes beyond this bare requirement, for it also implies some degree of positive sentiment on your behalf. Respect is tolerance that is happily, rather than grudgingly, granted. Or, to adopt a militaristic metaphor: tolerance is a non-aggression pact; respect is closer to an alliance.

If I hear someone suggest that (say) homosexuality is immoral, my immediate reaction is to label them 'intolerant'. But that would clearly be a mistake according to the explication above. Most anti-gay conservatives are willing to tolerate homosexuals in the weak sense of allowing them to co-exist (though the political actions of some may put strain on the 'harmony' requirement). The fact that they don't respect (approve of) homosexuality is an entirely different matter.

In a pluralistic society like our own, tolerance is more than a virtue - it's a civic duty. I don't think the same can be said of respect. It might be virtuous to respect others (within reason), but I don't think it's obligatory in any strong sense. It certainly isn't a political obligation; who we respect is none of the State's business.

I note here that I mean for the possible subjects of toleration to include not merely people, but also ideas. (It's clear that the Nazis were intolerant of Jews; but a useful definition must also extend to less extreme cases.) That is, one can be intolerant through refusing to allow an idea to openly co-exist in the 'marketplace of ideas'. "Political correctness" may be seen as intolerant in this way - it seeks not to critically engage harmful ideas, but to quash them entirely.

Such ideological genocide may sometimes be warranted (however distasteful I may find it). At least, I wouldn't want to rule out the possibility a priori. Occasionally right-wingers can be heard to complain, "But you're being intolerant of my intolerance!", as if their opponent was somehow inconsistent or hypocritical because of this. I think Doing Things With Words has the right sort of response to this:

I'd tentatively suggest a criterion like this: we tolerate all and only views that are themselves tolerant under this criterion. Aside from indulging my love of recursion, this criterion lets us exclude both intolerant views and views that tolerate everything. That seems worthwhile, since it lets us avoid charges of relativism.

For the sake of freedom, you are not free to sell yourself into slavery. This is no contradiction, it's a necessary protective measure. Similarly for tolerance: we cannot tolerate the intolerant. Were we to do otherwise, tolerance itself would suffer - and the rest of us with it!

A similar case could probably be made for a widespread respect which is still selective enough to disrespect the disrespectful. Politics aside, we might well have a moral duty to subscribe to such a rule. I'm not sure about that though, I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts.

So, what do you think? Where should we draw the line(s) between respect, tolerance, and full-blown ideological warfare?

Infinite Knowledge

A post over at Scottish Nous got me wondering whether I know infinitely many things.

I think perhaps I do. For I know all of the following:

• 1 is a number


• 2 is a number


• 3 is a number

. . .


• 1 000 000 000 is a number

etc., ad infinitum.

There are infinitely many statements in that list, and I know every one of them, so it seems like I must have an infinite amount of knowledge. Yay for me!

Is there any problem with this reasoning? Being a bear of very little (certainly finite) brain, I presumably don't have all that knowledge actually tokened 'inside' me - how could it possibly fit? It must be merely potential, I think, and is perhaps best explained in dispositional terms: If someone were to ask me 'is X a number?', for any particular X (and there are infinitely many options they could choose from), I could answer it correctly.

I've touched on some similar issues before. I'd just like to get sampling of others' opinions here: are you happy to grant that we have infinite knowledge? Or would you rather restrict knowledge to actually-tokened thoughts, to the exclusion of 'potential' ones that we're merely disposed towards affirming?

Philosophers' Carnival #8

... is now up at Enwe's Meta-blog.

She begins by noting the lack of female participants. I hope in future carnivals we might hear more from Lindsay, Shieva, and Michelle, and perhaps Harriet and "Amanda" too (though there's some controversy over whether the latter is actually female).

Gender imbalance aside, there are a lot of really excellent posts on offer in this carnival. Three in particular stood out for me.

First is Chris' post on how to study intuitions, which I think raises some very important methodological issues for experimental philosophers.

Second: Clark's provocative discussion of philosophy and rhetoric, raising the question of whether we can genuinely seek truth or merely reinforce/rationalize our philosophic prejudices.

Third is this gem from OrangePhilosophy, which playfully asks: "If you had to choose, would you rather eat poo-flavored-chocolate or chocolate-flavored-poo?" You might be surprised by how deeply philosophical some of the resulting conversation is!

The Structure of Justification

Amanda Doerty writes:

[E]very belief is based on assumptions, and those assumptions are based on other assumptions, which are based on others, and so on, until we are left with assumptions that we simply accept even though we have no justification for doing so.

This is known as the 'regress' argument, and there are several ways to resolve it. Firstly, one could follow Amanda in suggesting that the regress stops at unjustified beliefs. This would be epistemological nihilism - a denial of genuine justification.

A second option is to say that the regress stops at intrinsically justified (or 'self evident') beliefs. This is called foundationalism. The main problem with this view is that it isn't true. Nothing is self-evident when taken in isolation, but only when considered in relation to other assumptions that we hold. Perhaps we can be certain of how things seem to us (but perhaps not!), but even then, it's difficult to see how one could ground beliefs about the external world on such a subjective foundation.

The final option is to never stop the regress. Coherentists consider the structure of justifiction to be circular rather than linear. Quine speaks of a mutually-reinforcing 'web of beliefs', whereas Everitt & Fisher (Modern Epistemology, pp.102-3) prefer the analogy of a crossword puzzle:

In the image of the crossword, the answers in the crossword form the corpus of our beliefs, each individual answer that we fill in representing a single belief. When we get an answer that fits with an answer that we have already, that fact helps to confirm the correctness of the second answer [...] to some degree. But it is equally true that the second answer helps to confirm the correctness of the first answer. There is no asymmetry here in terms of confirmation [...] Notice, too, that the more answers which we get that fit in with the answers which we already have, the better confirmed we regard all of the answers, both the original set and the later additions.

So, on this view, we're never left with 'unsupported assumptions'. Every belief of mine is justified to the extent that it coheres with all the others.

When I pointed this out, Amanda made the interesting response:

Within a Coherentist framework, aren't you still accepting the assumption that the Coherentist framework is the right one? Sure, you might manage to get all of your other beliefs off the hook - but you still need to assume at least that one belief in Coherentist style justification.

Here we need to make the crucial distinction between what I believe about the nature of justification, and what is actually true about the nature of justification. If coherentism about justification is true, then it doesn't matter whether I assume it or not. The fact remains that my beliefs will be justified to the extent that they cohere with each other.

Now, we can ask whether my belief in coherentism is justified. I can straight away point out the fact that it coheres nicely with my other beliefs. So if coherentism is in fact true, then my belief here qualifies as a justified one. If coherentism is not in fact true, then I don't know whether my belief in it would be justified or not - I guess that would depend on what alternative account of justification happens to be true.

The important point to note here is that for my beliefs to be justified, I don't need to assume coherentism is true. It simply must be the case (in objective fact) that coherentism is true.

Natural Evil

Many people have been discussing the problem of evil recently. Let's pretend that appeals to 'free will' can answer the problem of moral evil (which I don't believe for a moment), and just consider the problem posed by natural evil. An omnipotent God could have prevented the recent tsunami without interfering with our free will. So if he were truly benevolent, he would have done so. Yet the tsunami occurred. So there mustn't be any truly benevolent and omnipotent God.

There are several responses the theist could make. Firstly, he could try to reduce all natural evil to moral evil, by suggesting that natural disasters were caused by the free choices of supernatural beings. Cf. Maverick philosopher:

If someone can see his way clear to accepting the existence of a purely spiritual being, then the belief in angels, fallen or otherwise, will present no special problem. Given the existence of fallen angels, the Free Will Defense may be invoked to account for natural evils such as tsunamis: natural evils turn out to be a species of moral evils.

I suppose believing in fallen angels (or gremlins, or *insert supernatural villain of choice*) is no worse for our ontology than believing in the theistic God. But it's more than a bit lame to appeal to such entities when explaining natural phenomena. I mean, it'd be understandable if you were the shaman of an isolated tribe that'd just discovered the wonders of the wheel. But, really, hasn't our civilization learnt a thing or two about how the world works since then? *shakes head in disgust*

An even worse response would be to deny that anything bad had happened. Norm Weatherby writes:

The Tsunami is "Evil"? How so? It's a natural phenomena. It's neutral in the good vs evil game. Lots of people who were eventually going to die, died. That's bad? Maybe inconvenient or sad for some. Hardly "evil".

Yes, that's bad. How morally obtuse are you? We're supposed to believe that the incredible suffering of untold thousands (millions?) is "maybe inconvenient" (a gracious concession, to be sure), but not really anything bad? Perhaps one would prefer to restrict use of the word 'evil' to agents - I sure hope that's the sole reason for the scare quotes - but there can be no question that natural catastrophes are indeed harmful.

More generally, for those who deny that human suffering is unjust (perhaps by appealing to 'original sin'), this raises the question of why it matters when we harm each other. Aren't rape and murder wrong? Even in the case of natural disasters, why should we help the purported 'victims' if they weren't wronged? If God doesn't think they're worth helping, why should we? But surely we should help them. So this response can't work.

Another misled (though at least not misanthropic) response was suggested by 'Jeremy' in the comments at Jason's blog:

I don't hold myself to that standard. I have some degree of relative power (being a citizen of a relatively wealthy country), yet I don't think the choice NOT to contribute to the tsunami relief effort is evil. Presumably god is more moral than any human, but I'm still not convinced that requires that he be an intercessory deity.

1) We don't claim omnibenevolence - and just as well! It's permissible for us not to give to charity, but it sure isn't morally perfect of us.
2) A key disanalogy is that it costs us to help. But God (we're told) is omnipotent, so there are no opportunity costs to his actions. If you could relieve the suffering (or, better yet, prevent the disaster in the first place) just by clicking your fingers, surely we agree that it would be morally despicable to fail to do so.

More interesting is the 'Moorean' response seemingly favoured by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and perhaps Brandon of Siris. In short: God exists, therefore the problem of evil must have a solution. Taken alone this response is patently question-begging. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if supplemented by an independent proof of God's existence. But I've never come across a plausible one of those before (especially not one that proves benevolence), so I currently don't think much of this strategy.

The usual response is simply to plead ignorance. We can't see why God would allow such an awful event, but perhaps he had some reason that we are unaware of. There are several problems with this. Justifying harm in the name of "God's plan" or the "greater good" would seem to assume utilitarianism, which I'd expect most theists to oppose. Further, if God is omnipotent then he shouldn't need to employ bad means to good ends. He presumably could bring about those ends directly. Plans are for the powerless - what need would God have of them?

Moreover, Chris Kane at FBC has previously argued that God can't make use of incomprehensible justifications, for in doing so he would fail to be a perfect moral example. In the comments there, Clayton (see also here) makes the point that the ignorance response would seem to deprive us of moral responsibility, for we can no longer reliably tell good from bad, right from wrong. What seems atrocious to us might be part of God's plan. To respin an earlier question: if God doesn't think someone is worth helping, why should we?

Indeed, I think this response is just a more sophisticated version of the 'no harm was done' response - the key change being that we're instead supposed to believe 'the harm was worth it'. I guess it's possible, but I sure don't find it plausible.

Another interesting approach is the slippery slope argument against interference, which is similar to the claim that there is no 'best possible world' so God cannot be faulted for not creating it. Opiniatrety exposes the invalid logic employed here:

The argument is a reductio of the antecedent of (2)--that it's legitimate to criticize God for creating a decent enough world if He could have created a better world instead. But that reductio only establishes the following:

(6a) There is some decent enough world such that God would be exempt from criticism for creating it, even though He could have created a better world instead.

It does not establish that this world is such a world. There may be a principled way of picking out the worlds such that God can be [criticized] for not creating a better one (even though they are decent enough). And our world can be such a one.

Blogosophy offers an even more forceful refutation:

If No Best Possible World were sound, then since the argument doesn't depend on any actual features of the world--and particularly doesn't depend on the nature or amount of evil and suffering in the world--it would be sound even if the world were literally Hell on Earth... But if that's the case there's something horribly wrong with any definition of benevolent that's compatible with the No Best Possible World defense; we wouldn't ordinarily call a being benevolent if it created only Hell and condemned *everyone* to it. So either NBPW requires that you adopt an unacceptable definition of benevolent, or it is unsound.

The modal realism solution seems to work, except that modal realism itself is so implausible.

Lastly, there's an argument I heard once (but not recently), suggesting that God shouldn't ever break the laws of nature. I don't recall the exact argument, but the gist of it was that living in an unpredictable/chaotic world would be really bad, so we need exceptionless laws of nature to prevent this. But that doesn't sound very plausible either. Surely God could have prevented the tsunami without anyone realising the laws of nature had been broken, so nobody would be upset. Perhaps this is meant to be a 'slippery slope' argument, but then it falls victim to the above criticisms.


To sum up then, I don't think there is any good answer to the problem of natural evil. The best 'solution' is probably just to plead ignorance, but we saw that this is problematic in several ways. Even if the problem of evil isn't a decisive refutation, I think it's about as close as philosophical arguments ever get. If anyone wasn't already entirely convinced of the existence of the theistic God, it should be more than enough to lead them to skepticism. And even for the convinced theist, I think it should at least raise some significant doubts.

Causal History vs. Causal Powers

A while back I asked: does the past matter?, i.e. would it make any significant difference if the world had been created (false memories and all) just five minutes ago? My answer was 'no'. We would still be alive and human, and our words would still have meanings. What matters is how things are, not how they came to be.

I speculated that this position would commit me to rejecting all sorts of causal theories. But I now realise the problem is not quite so sweeping. Instead, I need to distinguish between placing importance on causal histories and causal powers, and reject only the former.

The difference is highlighted nicely by Fodor in Psychosemantics (p.45):

God could make a genuine electron, or diamond, or tiger, or person, because being an electron or a diamond or a tiger or a person isn't a matter of being the effect of the right kind of causes; rather, it's a matter of being the cause of the right kind of effects. And similarly, I think, for all the other natural kinds. Causal powers are decisively relevant to a taxonomy of natural kinds because such taxonomies are organized in behalf of causal explanation. Not all taxonomies have that end in view, however, so not all taxonomies classify by causal powers. Even God couldn't make a gen-u-ine United States ten cent piece; only the U.S. Treasury Department can do that.

But is that last sentence true? If the world were created 5 minutes ago, would that mean that there are no genuine ten cent pieces? I'm not convinced. But perhaps such a radical change of context would alter what we mean by those words.* So perhaps the key question is whether in our present context God could create a genuine U.S. ten-cent piece, and there I'm more inclined to agree with Fodor after all. Being made by the U.S. Treasury Dept is (an essential) part of what we mean by 'genuine U.S. ten-cent piece'. So it looks like causal histories can be relevant after all. (Just not in the cases I discussed in my previous post, I think.)

* = Come to think of it, this statement itself seems to imply some sort of causal [history] theory of meaning. For if meaning depends on external context, which in turn depends upon causal histories (as it must if there has been any 'radical change' in the present case), then clearly meaning must at least partially depend upon causal histories.

Huh, maybe the past does matter after all. I wasn't expecting to conclude that when I started writing this post. Oh well.

Upcoming Carnival

[10 Jan] The first Philosophers' Carnival for 2005 is set for next Monday, 17th Jan, at Enwe's Meta-blog.

If you have a philosophy-related blog, don't forget to submit a post! Whether analytic, continental, or history of philosophy, we want to hear from you.

Update: [14 Jan] There's still time to get those last-minute entries in...

Links & Site Design

My general approach to site design is to offer a comprehensive main page, with minimalistic (hence fast-loading) post-pages. This will hopefully encourage readers to jump around the site freely (e.g. by following 'previous post' or 'category' links). Features that appear on the main page only are linked to at the very top of my sidebar.

Any suggestions are, as always, most welcome.

I've re-installed Haloscan trackbacks, in case anyone wants to respond to a post of mine on their own blog. (Alternatively, just leave a link in the comments.)

[Update - you can send trackbacks from this page.]

The other major change is to my blogroll. Rather than having a separate 'category' page, I've decided to put my full blogroll on the main page sidebar. More convenient that way, I think.

I normally don't like huge blogrolls, since they tend to be a bit meaningless, but I've taken some steps to try to avoid this problem.

First, my mini-blogroll of 'Selected Links' still appears on individual post-pages. So if you only want to see my top recommendations, consult that instead. Those are the blogs that are so good I feel the need to have direct access to them from every page of this site.

Second, the blogroll is split into 10 loose groups/clusters:
- meta
- university group blogs
- topical group blogs
- academics
- general philosophy blogs (esp. students)
- misc. philosophy-related (esp. politics/culture/linguistics)
- more politics (esp. law/economics/libertarians)
- "traditional" = historical/conservative/religious philosophy
- "untraditional" = sci/tech/atheism
- New Zealand blogs

Third, the blogs are (roughly) ranked by relative position within a group, with my favourites towards the top of each group.

You may be wondering why I've bothered with such a large blogroll. One reason is that there are a lot of good sites out there that deserve a link, and that some of my visitors might enjoy reading. (The sideblog serves a similar purpose.) Others I've included precisely because I disagree with them - David Horowitz aside, there is something to be said for intellectual diversity. Lastly, there are some reciprocal links - if you've been generous enough to link to me, it's only fair that I return the favour. [But see the update below.]

If you think you've been categorized into the wrong group, let me know and I'll consider changing it.

Update: Reciprocal links are now taken care of automatically by the 'recent referrals' list at the bottom of the main page.

Analyticity

A statement is said to be 'analytic' if it is true simply in virtue of its meaning alone - 'true by definition', we might say. Synthetic statements, by contrast, depend upon empirical facts for their truth values. Quine, in his 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (in From a Logical Point of View), disputes that this is a genuine distinction. He begins by identifying two classes of analytic statements:

1) Logical truths, e.g. "No unmarried man is married". These statements are true by virtue of their logical form (we could replace each appearance of 'married' with a generic 'X' and the sentence would still clearly be true).

This class is unproblematic, as we have a clear method to decide whether a statement counts as a logical truth. If a (compound) statement always comes out true, no matter what truth-values we assign to the atomic statements of the language, then it is a logical truth. (Consider "P or not-P": it is true no matter whether we assign P as 'true' or 'false'.)

2) The other, more interesting, class contains statements that can be turned into logical truths by substituting synonyms. For example, "No bachelor is married" can be turned into the logical truth above by replacing 'bachelor' with its synonym, 'unmarried man'.

So we can explain analyticity in terms of synonymy. The question Quine then raises is: can we provide an adequate account of synonymy?

An obvious strategy would be to appeal to 'definition' (as I did myself in the very first sentence of this post). But this doesn't help, because most definitions (e.g. in dictionaries) just report pre-existing synonymies, rather than stipulatively creating new ones.

Quine goes on: (pp.24-25)

Just what it means to affirm synonymy, just what the interconnections may be which are necessary and sufficient in order that two linguistic forms be properly described as synonymous, is far from clear; but, whatever these interconnections may be, ordinarily they are grounded in usage. Definitions reporting selected instances of synonymy come then as reports upon usage.

Another natural answer here would be to define X and Y as synonyms iff they can interchanged in appropriate contexts without altering the truth value (i.e. if they're interchangeable salva veritate). But what contexts must we include here? Mere extensional interchangeability is clearly insufficient - for 'featherless biped' and 'human being' are extensionally identical (true of all the same actual objects), but clearly differ in meaning. So genuine synonyms must also be intensionally identical. That is, they must satisfy something like: "Necessarily, all and only X's are Y's" (where 'necessarily' is so narrowly construed as to apply only to analytic statements). But this is just to say that "All and only X's are Y's" is analytic. So we've come full circle! We can explain either analyticity or synonymy in terms of the other, but then this other one is left unsupported.

But do they really need support? One might think these concepts are intuitive enough that we could dispense with the formal explications. But further consideration casts doubt on this. Quine points out that he has no idea whether the statement "Everything green is extended" is analytic. (The statement is certainly true, but is it true partly in virtue of how the universe is, or merely because of what the words mean?)

Further, as Everitt & Fisher point out in Modern Epistemology, scientific advances have caused us to revise statements that were once seen as being obviously analytic. For example: "Two bodies which are both falling downward cannot be moving in opposite directions" (contra spherical Earth), "For any two events A and B, either A is before B or it is not" (contra special relativity), and "If a woman gives birth to a child, she is its mother" (contra IVF).

As Everitt & Fisher explain:

What these three examples show is the way in which unforeseen scientific advances can radically change our acceptance of propositions which initially seemed immune to empirical findings. In each case, our willingness to regard the "a priori truth" differently is based on the fact that the new empirical information undermines some very general assumptions which lay behind the a priori truth. [...] Sometimes the new information shows that the old "truth" was true if taken in one way but not if taken in another, where the very idea that there are two ways in which that truth might be understood becomes intelligible only in the light of the new empirical information. (p.112, original emphasis)

Nevertheless, I'm not convinced that any of this conclusively refutes the viability of the analytic/synthetic distinction. Because it does seem plausible to me that meanings change over time, and that the three examples above really are analytic on the appropriate interpretations of 'down', 'mother', etc. (Though E&F insist that there are "no good grounds" for understanding this as a change of meaning rather than only a change of empirical beliefs, presumably the reverse is also true.) And Quine's own example simply shows that there are some borderline cases which we're not sure about. I guess that's enough for us to conclude that the distinction isn't clear-cut, at least. But I'm not sure we should want to dismiss the distinction altogether.

Having said that, I do agree with Quine (p.43) that nothing is (in principle) unrevisible:

[I]t becomes folly to seek a boundary between synthetic statements, which hold contingently on experience, and analytic statements, which hold come what may. Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. Even a statement very close to the periphery [of our 'web of beliefs'] can be held true in the face of recalcitrant experience by pleading hallucination or by amending certain statements of the kind called logical laws. Conversely, by the same token, no statement is immune to revision. Revision even of the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what difference is there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin Aristotle?

But given my above remarks I guess my response would be to reject the claim that analytic statements hold "come what may". For if meanings change, then what is true simply in virtue of those meanings may also change. So I think I might like to uphold a slightly muted version of the analytic/synthetic distinction, whereby even analytic statements are open to revision, since scientific advances may lead us to revise the concepts upon which those analytic statements depend. Does that sound at all plausible?

P.S. Doing things with words has also posted an essay on this topic.

Teaching Advice?

I'm doing some part-time tutoring over the holiday break. In particular, I'm teaching maths and science to a couple of intelligent young (about 12 years old) Asian students. I was wondering if anyone has any advice to offer about activities or topics I could cover to make the lessons a bit more interesting than your usual tired curriculum.

In the maths lessons I'd like to do some 'problem solving'-type questions. Does anyone know of a good online resource which offers some examples of these? I think I might also try to explain some basic proofs, e.g. that there is no greatest prime number. (That's pretty advanced for kids so young, I know, but I think they could manage it. There's really just two things I'd need to explain: (1) factorials, which would be easy enough, and (2) why (k*n + 1) is guaranteed to not be a multiple of n. This would be slightly trickier, but not excessively so, I don't think.)

As for science, I think I'd quite like to explore the conceptual side of things in more detail, rather than just doing lots of exercises (which are effectively just applied maths, after all). So again, any resources which might help here would be much appreciated. Also, to give them a taste of the practical aspect, a few "baking soda & vinegar" type experiments would probably be a good idea too.

So... any ideas?

Selfish Selflessness?

Is altruism/selflessness possible? Or is everything we choose to do selfish by definition? I think the only plausible answers are: yes and no, respectively. To suggest otherwise would be to rob the words of all meaning.

People sometimes suggest that because we do what we choose, and choose what we want, it follows that we're 'selfish' - after all, we're merely doing what we want to do. But I think what this argument really shows is that 'doing what you want' is a poor definition of selfishness. If you want to help others, that isn't selfish - not according to what I mean by the word, anyway.

Common usage suggests that there is a meaningful distinction to draw here: some acts are selfish and others aren't. When the egoist denies this, it makes me suspect that he is talking about some other concept altogether, and mistakenly using the same word 'selfish' to refer to it. Further, since every act is vacuously 'selfish' (by his definition), I can only think that the concept he has in mind is not a very interesting or useful one.

A year ago, on the Internet Infidel forums, I suggested some definitions which I think help clarify - and thereby resolve - the altruism debate. A slightly edited version follows:

Desire: A "desire that P" is a motivational disposition to make a proposition P true, and keep it true.

It is important to note the difference between self-regarding desires, and other-regarding desires. The difference concerns who (me, or someone else) is the subject, or primary beneficiary, of the proposition P. (E.g. a desire that I win the lottery is self-regarding, whereas a desire that African children not starve is other-regarding.)

Action/Intention: No need for definitions here, we all know what they mean. Instead, the important thing to note is that people always act so as to (attempt to) fulfill some of their desires, according to their beliefs (false beliefs will obviously impede this).

Best/Self interest: That which will in fact serve to bring about (in the long term) the greatest fulfillment of ALL of your own desires.

Note that action/intention will (alas) not always be consistent with what is in fact one's best interest.

Selfishness: An inappropriate degree of self-regarding behaviour. Acting only according to self-regarding desires, with an inappropriate disregard for others (i.e. lack of other-regarding desires).

Altruism: The opposite of selfishness: Acting in the interests of other people, at the cost of your own best interest. Extreme altruism may be characterized as acting in accordance with your other-regarding desires, with total disregard for yourself (i.e. lack of self-regarding desires).

These definitions make it clear that if you genuinely want to help other people, then acting on that desire is selfless, not selfish. Sure, you're doing what you want (in a sense), but since what you want is admirably altruistic, so is the resulting action. There is a meaningful distinction to be made here; one that psychological egoists neglect.

Egoists often suggest that our apparent acts of altruism are really, deep-down, motivated by a desire to make ourselves feel good. But even if satisfying our desire to help others does bring pleasure, it does not follow that the original cause of our action was a desire for the pleasure. That would be to confuse the true aim of our actions with a beneficial side-product. Just because something good results, it does not follow that this something must have been our motivation all along.

Compare the following two cases:

1) S desires that the old lady gets across the road safely.
2) S desires that he feel good about himself.
Let us stipulate that in both cases, S believes that helping the old lady cross the road will achieve his desire. So S helps the old lady cross the road, in either case.

It should be clear that - despite the identical consequences - these are two quite distinct motivations driving S's actions, and either case is possible. Contra GeniusNZ's comment, the most simple explanation is to take this result at face value, and recognise that not all desires are selfish. The sort of "reduction" he seems to have in mind would require denying the very possibility of other-regarding desires, suggesting instead that we "really" just desire warm fuzzy feelings, and use helping other people as a means to that end.

I find such a "reduction" completely unmotivated. It involves rejecting our common-sense understanding of human action, and implies that we are engaged in massive self-deception. Further, it conflicts with the thought-experiments described in my desire-fulfillment post, which demonstrate that we sometimes care more about how other people really are than how we think they are (and therefore how we feel about it). The results of such thought-experiments seem inconsistent with the idea that what we "really" desire is just our own pleasure.

I don't see that anything is gained by denying the existence of other-regarding desires - certainly nothing that can counterbalance the costs of such a revisionary theory! So why the perverse insistence that everyone is (deep down, "really") selfish? Such a position strikes me as silly and entirely unmotivated. But maybe someone else can explain what I'm missing here...

Update:
A couple of clarifications are in order. Firstly, we might desire something merely as a means to fulfilling another desire - lets call the former an 'instrumental' desire. Compare this to 'intrinsic' desires, the content of which we see as an end-in-itself, to be fulfilled for its own sake, not for any derivative purpose. The difference here can be highlighted by considering a counterfactual: Suppose you could attain everything else you wanted (e.g. warm fuzzy feelings, etc.), would you still want to fulfill the present desire? If so, then it is intrinsic.

Psychological egoists claim (in effect) that we have no intrinsic other-regarding desires. Whenever it seems like we want to help someone else, our "real" aim is to make ourselves feel better (or whatever). I think this claim is absurd. I see no reason at all to doubt the possibility of intrinsic other-regarding desires, and hence the possibility of altruism.

Secondly, many people seem a bit confused by the teleological metaphors used by evolutionary theory (e.g. 'selfish' genes 'aiming' to replicate themselves), and have conflated the distinct concepts of biological and psychological selfishness. For example, after a good discussion of how 'selfish' genes could give rise to altruistic behaviour, No Right Turn writes:

So according to biologists, we're not really altruistic. All that money is being contributed not because we genuinely care for the victims of the tsunami, but because we expect them to one day pay us back.

The problem with this is that selfishness and altruism (as used in the present discussion) are psychological categories, and so are beyond the expertise of biologists. (One might as well ask a physicist: he could tell us that atoms aren't selfish, but that doesn't imply anything about the properties of higher-level entities.)

Biological altruism is improving another organism's survival chances at the expense of your own. Such behaviour undeniably exists. Moreover, it can be explained by appeal to purely 'selfish' genes. So we might say, speaking loosely, from the gene's 'point of view', that organisms "behave altruistically, but from selfish motives". For the sake of conceptual clarity, it is critical that one realises such 'loose talk' is not meant literally. 'Motive' is a psychological category. Genes don't really have minds. Hence, any literal attribution of motives to genes would be a category error.

Now consider psychological altruism - the original topic of this post. We might characterise this as being motivated to help other people. This matter is entirely independent of biological and genetic altruism. Selfish genes might build altruistic minds, and that's no disgrace for the latter. One must be careful not to confuse our psychological motivations (i.e. desires) with the metaphorical analogues we attribute to genes. We (qua psychological agents) might act from genuinely altruistic motives, despite the ultimate explanation for both the behaviour and the motives being found in our 'selfish' genes.

So biologists cannot disprove altruism after all, because we're talking about two completely different things. Kind-hearted people donate aid because they really do care (at least some of them). Their genes might not care, but as only a fool would identify himself with his genes, I don't see that we have any problem here.

[15 Jan: First section edited significantly to improve clarity.]