Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
1/15/09
In short
1. We act.
2. To act is to have reasons.
3. To have reasons is to be committed to concepts with moral content.
Adding: I really didn't mean this post as some kind of dig at Neal. On the contrary, the moral skepticism discussion in the Gaza thread below got me thinking about some of the meta-ethical problems that I work on, and those three statements occurred to me. Together, they seemed to me to be a succinct elaboration of a view that I've pretty consistently espoused for awhile now, and which I think is general enough to garner wide agreement. I thought that was neat, and worth writing down.
But just as Neal reacted more harshly that was warranted, so should I have toned down my response. Believe it or not, hours before Neal's broadside I abandoned a long comment about Mackie and error theory because diving into the literature seemed pedantic. Suffice it to say that I recognize that the three statements above don't constitute a proof for the existence of moral concepts. One could say, in something like the way Mackie does, that our commitments are in error. The weird thing about this line of thinking is that it assumes that the existence of moral concepts requires that they meet some standard beyond what is necessary for the truth of claims like 1, 2, and 3. Why do they need to meet such a standard? To me it seems more plausible to suppose that the standards for what a reason is, and what counts as a reason, are internal to the project of moral reasoning.
Which brings me to sociobiology. Again, "stupid" is too harsh. Let me first be clear what I'm not denying. Facts about human nature and biology certainly can inform our moral decisions. So, for example, we now know that lead poisoning is correlated with loss of impulse control and, subsequently, criminality. We also know that a leading cause of lead poisoning in the United States had historically been the ingestion of chips of lead-based paint by young children. These facts have some clear moral implications, and those implications have led to a variety of policies designed to reduce the incidence of lead poisoning.
Sociobiology is different. Supposing that a successful sociobiology were possible, what it would give us is an explanation of moral concepts which justifies them through a reduction to adaptive fitness. In reducing-complex-realities-to-syllogisms words, a successful sociobiology might give you statements like the following:
S1: People will act altruistically in situation S because doing so expresses a trait which has proven to be adaptive.
At most S1 will tell you whether people will act altruistically in S. But the moral question is, how ought people to act in S. The answer to the moral question, in turn, has to do with what reasons people in S have. But sociobiology doesn't address its explanations to those whose actions it describes -- the only reason it could give is, 'have reasons to act altruistically because having such reasons encourages the expression of genetic endowments quite similar to your own.' That wouldn't motivate most people. Which is to say that even if sociobiology is maximally successful in explaining altruism on its own terms, people in S would find themselves in search of reasons to act altruistically and sociobiology would offer no guidance. In other words, sociobiology neither answers moral questions nor removes the need to answer them.
2. To act is to have reasons.
3. To have reasons is to be committed to concepts with moral content.
Adding: I really didn't mean this post as some kind of dig at Neal. On the contrary, the moral skepticism discussion in the Gaza thread below got me thinking about some of the meta-ethical problems that I work on, and those three statements occurred to me. Together, they seemed to me to be a succinct elaboration of a view that I've pretty consistently espoused for awhile now, and which I think is general enough to garner wide agreement. I thought that was neat, and worth writing down.
But just as Neal reacted more harshly that was warranted, so should I have toned down my response. Believe it or not, hours before Neal's broadside I abandoned a long comment about Mackie and error theory because diving into the literature seemed pedantic. Suffice it to say that I recognize that the three statements above don't constitute a proof for the existence of moral concepts. One could say, in something like the way Mackie does, that our commitments are in error. The weird thing about this line of thinking is that it assumes that the existence of moral concepts requires that they meet some standard beyond what is necessary for the truth of claims like 1, 2, and 3. Why do they need to meet such a standard? To me it seems more plausible to suppose that the standards for what a reason is, and what counts as a reason, are internal to the project of moral reasoning.
Which brings me to sociobiology. Again, "stupid" is too harsh. Let me first be clear what I'm not denying. Facts about human nature and biology certainly can inform our moral decisions. So, for example, we now know that lead poisoning is correlated with loss of impulse control and, subsequently, criminality. We also know that a leading cause of lead poisoning in the United States had historically been the ingestion of chips of lead-based paint by young children. These facts have some clear moral implications, and those implications have led to a variety of policies designed to reduce the incidence of lead poisoning.
Sociobiology is different. Supposing that a successful sociobiology were possible, what it would give us is an explanation of moral concepts which justifies them through a reduction to adaptive fitness. In reducing-complex-realities-to-syllogisms words, a successful sociobiology might give you statements like the following:
S1: People will act altruistically in situation S because doing so expresses a trait which has proven to be adaptive.
At most S1 will tell you whether people will act altruistically in S. But the moral question is, how ought people to act in S. The answer to the moral question, in turn, has to do with what reasons people in S have. But sociobiology doesn't address its explanations to those whose actions it describes -- the only reason it could give is, 'have reasons to act altruistically because having such reasons encourages the expression of genetic endowments quite similar to your own.' That wouldn't motivate most people. Which is to say that even if sociobiology is maximally successful in explaining altruism on its own terms, people in S would find themselves in search of reasons to act altruistically and sociobiology would offer no guidance. In other words, sociobiology neither answers moral questions nor removes the need to answer them.
1/7/09
6/17/08
Tuesday philosophy blogging: Wittgenstein in 60 seconds
Take almost any problem from the philosophical canon. What is the source of the problem? In many cases, it is that we have convinced ourselves (or have become convinced by others) that something we take for granted can only be true if something else, something far more exotic, is also true.
Take, for example, the so-called problem of free will. Here, what we take for granted is that we act and make choices. Many of us, however, are also convinced that action and choice require that there exist a faculty of will which is capable of operating independently of outside causal influence. The problem arises because we are physical beings, and as such, we cannot possess a faculty that operates independently of outside causal influence. And so it becomes tempting to either adopt an extravagent metaphysics or to say that we don't really act or make choices -- that it is all an illusion.
What Wittgenstein pushes on here is the idea that we need to identify some kind of occult faculty -- the will -- in order to provide a grounding for our talk of action and choice. We can, Wittgenstein points out, talk perfectly sensibly about actions and choices. Trouble begins only when we start introducing concepts that can't be talked about sensibly.
Take, for example, the so-called problem of free will. Here, what we take for granted is that we act and make choices. Many of us, however, are also convinced that action and choice require that there exist a faculty of will which is capable of operating independently of outside causal influence. The problem arises because we are physical beings, and as such, we cannot possess a faculty that operates independently of outside causal influence. And so it becomes tempting to either adopt an extravagent metaphysics or to say that we don't really act or make choices -- that it is all an illusion.
What Wittgenstein pushes on here is the idea that we need to identify some kind of occult faculty -- the will -- in order to provide a grounding for our talk of action and choice. We can, Wittgenstein points out, talk perfectly sensibly about actions and choices. Trouble begins only when we start introducing concepts that can't be talked about sensibly.
11/10/07
I'll give you agreeable, woody, and complex...
In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.
The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was "agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was "weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was.
The blogger goes on to make some points about subjectivity that sound about right, but I don't think they are necessary to explain the horseshit that is wine and food criticism.
7/31/07
Tuesday pedantry, philosophy of language edition
According to intentionalism, the meaning of an utterance or a text is whatever the author intended to communicate by it. This means that the correct way to interpret texts is to figure out what the author was trying to communicate. |Neil the Ethical Werewolf|
Follow the link for his discussion and argument. Here's what seems odd to me about the claim that meaning is determined entirely by speaker's intent. A speaker uses already existing words to mean things, and those already existing words come to the speaker with meanings already attached.
Now, I suppose that the reply has got to be that there are separable questions, one having to do with the antecedent meanings of words and the other having to do with the meaning of utterances. And as far as it goes this distinction isn't implausible, since it's far from obvious that the meaning of any given concatenation of words is reducible to the meanings of the words themselves.
But this seems to leave us short of the intentionalist absolutism asserted by our lycanthropic interlocutor, since it limits the power that a speaker's intentions can have to determine the meaning of an utterance. It is no longer possible to maintain that "the meaning of an utterance or a text is whatever the author intended to communicate by it." Instead, the strongest possible claim that can be made is that speaker's intention contributes to the meaning of an utterance.
3/8/07
1/8/07
What! ANOTHER free will thread?!
In comments, Deer -- who inexplicably lacks her own blog[1] -- pointed out that zefrank took on the question of free will today. Make your own judgment as to what zefrank is getting at, but know that I wholeheartedly agree with what I think he's getting at.
Which brings me to a nutty view that I hold on alternate Thursdays and some of the days in between. Very briefly, the idea is that the emphasis we place on choice and agency is misplaced, and that if we're going to be impressed by something about consciousness then what we ought to be impressed by is apprehension.
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1 CaringBridge doesn't count!
Which brings me to a nutty view that I hold on alternate Thursdays and some of the days in between. Very briefly, the idea is that the emphasis we place on choice and agency is misplaced, and that if we're going to be impressed by something about consciousness then what we ought to be impressed by is apprehension.
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1 CaringBridge doesn't count!
1/4/07
Dark night of the frizbanontosity (free-will thread number 3)
Julian Sanchez thinks I don't take my disbelief in free will seriously enough. He may be right... I take very few things seriously enough.
Seriously, though, this is a false dichotomy:
There's a third option that Julian probably considers too ridiculous to mention, and that is that my actions are the result of something at is a) not the result of any understood causality, and b) is still moored to agency. It is pure agency, in which I am the cause of many things.
This unlikely piece of a human being--that has agency free from prior cause--used to be called "the soul." Athiests reject it, I myself find it highly improbable, and Julian may argue that it is incoherent. I might even agree with him.
However, incoherent or not, it is the underpinning of all of our traditional conceptions of agency, and, I might add, is still a widely-used concept among everyone except philosophers.
The first part of this paragraph really baffles me. A real hologram of a woman is not a real woman, just a real hologram. That is an important distinction, regardless of one's background beliefs.
But the last sentence of the paragraph is where the rubber meets the road. A very valid question to ask about my point of view is what the impact on my behavior should be. And I don't have a good answer. If I'm right, I'm not even sure it's a meaningful question.
Bonus: At the end of his post, Julian links approvingly to Will Wilkinson's list of easy answers to hard questions. About free will, Wilkinson writes,
Whatever. I won't believe that until someone provides three examples.
(I tried simply commenting at Julian's lounge, but my comment vanished into pre-approval ether. Perhaps it will surface at some point, although I think this post is more complete.)
Seriously, though, this is a false dichotomy:
Jason is focused on how bad things look if (as is probably not the case) the universe is fully deterministic: Our actions are scripted, and what we think are our choices are merely the upshot of impersonal, immutable physical laws playing out. But as philosophers have long observed, indeterminism doesn't seem to leave us in a much more satisfactory situation. Perhaps some of my actions are influenced by the probabilistic behavior of quantum particles that make up my brain, say. But this would just make my actions random, not free: They escape the shackles of causality at the cost of coming unmoored from agency, from a connection with my reasons and motives.
There's a third option that Julian probably considers too ridiculous to mention, and that is that my actions are the result of something at is a) not the result of any understood causality, and b) is still moored to agency. It is pure agency, in which I am the cause of many things.
This unlikely piece of a human being--that has agency free from prior cause--used to be called "the soul." Athiests reject it, I myself find it highly improbable, and Julian may argue that it is incoherent. I might even agree with him.
However, incoherent or not, it is the underpinning of all of our traditional conceptions of agency, and, I might add, is still a widely-used concept among everyone except philosophers.
The claim that consciousness is an "illusion" suggests a helpful analogy. There's a clear sense in which a convincing holographic image can be described as an illusion. On the other hand, it's still a real hologram. Whether it's apt to describe it as illusory will depend on your background beliefs about what you're looking at. Am "I" "really" "deciding" what words to write just now? Well, sure, in the same sense that when my laptop carries out a floating point operation, the "computer" is "really doing" a "calculation." Once you stop fantasizing about heaven, you tend to find the world we have is enough.
The first part of this paragraph really baffles me. A real hologram of a woman is not a real woman, just a real hologram. That is an important distinction, regardless of one's background beliefs.
But the last sentence of the paragraph is where the rubber meets the road. A very valid question to ask about my point of view is what the impact on my behavior should be. And I don't have a good answer. If I'm right, I'm not even sure it's a meaningful question.
Bonus: At the end of his post, Julian links approvingly to Will Wilkinson's list of easy answers to hard questions. About free will, Wilkinson writes,
It is frequently possible to have done other than what we did in fact do.
Whatever. I won't believe that until someone provides three examples.
(I tried simply commenting at Julian's lounge, but my comment vanished into pre-approval ether. Perhaps it will surface at some point, although I think this post is more complete.)
1/3/07
Hey hell I pay the price
Near the end of an article reporting scientific evidence for the claim that employees work more efficiently when paired with more efficient co-workers, Slate's Tim Harford throws this in:
What the evidence showed was that there was a strong correllation between increased efficiency and falling under the gaze of a relatively more efficient worker. Leaving aside Harford's guesses about the underlying psychology, I don't see what's so cynical about the thought that observation motivates people to work work more efficiently. Sensitivity to the judgements of one's peers, it seems to me, is a necessary condition for the very existence of human civilization.
Two other quick thoughts. First, I think that Harford's valorization of individual contemplation is, as a matter of intellectual history, linked in interesting ways to the free will debate. Without going into detail let me just say that I think that a lot of this goes back to ideas that were introduced aroud the time of the Protestant Reformation. Second, I'd be curious to see what sort of hay feminist scholars can make of this line of research. My own experience is that when you start talking about the male gaze to the uninitiated they roll their eyes, so it would be helpful to be able to cite scientists rather than theorists when making assertions about the coercive effects of a gaze.
There are, broadly, two explanations. One is that workers are spurred to greater efforts when contemplating the superior speed of their colleague. This is psychologically plausible but economically irrational. A more cynical explanation is that workers do not like it when faster colleagues are looking at them, because they fear being accused of slacking off. |Slate|
What the evidence showed was that there was a strong correllation between increased efficiency and falling under the gaze of a relatively more efficient worker. Leaving aside Harford's guesses about the underlying psychology, I don't see what's so cynical about the thought that observation motivates people to work work more efficiently. Sensitivity to the judgements of one's peers, it seems to me, is a necessary condition for the very existence of human civilization.
Two other quick thoughts. First, I think that Harford's valorization of individual contemplation is, as a matter of intellectual history, linked in interesting ways to the free will debate. Without going into detail let me just say that I think that a lot of this goes back to ideas that were introduced aroud the time of the Protestant Reformation. Second, I'd be curious to see what sort of hay feminist scholars can make of this line of research. My own experience is that when you start talking about the male gaze to the uninitiated they roll their eyes, so it would be helpful to be able to cite scientists rather than theorists when making assertions about the coercive effects of a gaze.
1/2/07
Free will thread number 2
Despite what a compatabilist would argue, if determinism is true, it truly doesn't matter what you think or do.
Julian Sanchez is discussing a very weak type of determinism (in which our desires and methods of reason are affected by extrinsic forces). I believe in "true," or at least stronger, determinism, in which the very idea of free will is an illusion. We are nothing more than wind-up machines and there is no way to choose anything other than what you are about to choose.
To my mind, this renders all human endeavors to be somewhat of a bad joke. What's the point in punishing someone for doing something when there is really no free agent there who "did" that thing? What's the point of even having this conversation? You may be compelled to respond, but just keep in mind that "you" don't exist. You are a living, breathing player piano. There is no changing your tune.
Someone with a computer bigger than the universe and enough data about where you started out could predict not only the moment of your death, but also the exact thought process that will lead you to choose cheerios over wheaties tomorrow morning. Of course, someone with those sorts of resources would already know that their own consciousness was simply an illusion and would probably use those resources to take a long vacation instead.
The only refuges from this bleak view appear to be new science and old religion, and I don't hold out much hope for either.
Julian Sanchez is discussing a very weak type of determinism (in which our desires and methods of reason are affected by extrinsic forces). I believe in "true," or at least stronger, determinism, in which the very idea of free will is an illusion. We are nothing more than wind-up machines and there is no way to choose anything other than what you are about to choose.
To my mind, this renders all human endeavors to be somewhat of a bad joke. What's the point in punishing someone for doing something when there is really no free agent there who "did" that thing? What's the point of even having this conversation? You may be compelled to respond, but just keep in mind that "you" don't exist. You are a living, breathing player piano. There is no changing your tune.
Someone with a computer bigger than the universe and enough data about where you started out could predict not only the moment of your death, but also the exact thought process that will lead you to choose cheerios over wheaties tomorrow morning. Of course, someone with those sorts of resources would already know that their own consciousness was simply an illusion and would probably use those resources to take a long vacation instead.
The only refuges from this bleak view appear to be new science and old religion, and I don't hold out much hope for either.
That settles it
Hey look! These two recent articles have prompted a couple of prominent bloggers to post about the philosophical problem of Free Will. As Julian points out, it's more or less an orthodoxy among philosophers these days to think that the truth of determinism offers no threat to the notion of responsibility. For those of you who love teh jargon, this position is called compatibilism.
Lots of non-philosophers, not having been conditioned to accept the orthodoxies of the field, find compatibilism to be counter-intuitive. So, consider one of the ways that we often read tragic literature. On the reading I am thinking of, the protagonist's actions, and eventually his fall, arise inexorably from features of his character which are pre-set and beyond his control. Everything that happens is, to put it another way, determined. And yet we don't find that the predictability of it all detracts from our inclination to see the character as responsible for his actions.
Since Jason admitted in comments some time ago that one of his beloved views is that the universe is deterministic, I'm sure this will lead to an exciting comment thread.
Lots of non-philosophers, not having been conditioned to accept the orthodoxies of the field, find compatibilism to be counter-intuitive. So, consider one of the ways that we often read tragic literature. On the reading I am thinking of, the protagonist's actions, and eventually his fall, arise inexorably from features of his character which are pre-set and beyond his control. Everything that happens is, to put it another way, determined. And yet we don't find that the predictability of it all detracts from our inclination to see the character as responsible for his actions.
Since Jason admitted in comments some time ago that one of his beloved views is that the universe is deterministic, I'm sure this will lead to an exciting comment thread.
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