In this post, I would like to spend some time reflecting on the relationship between empiricism and theism. By empiricism I mean the thesis that all knowledge is mediated through the senses. By theism, of course, I mean the thesis that there is a God. More strongly, by theism I mean the thesis that there is a God who is active in the physical world and who is not a part of the physical world.
One way to make sure these two thesis are compatible would be to suppose that we have senses which relate us to God directly, or to immaterial things of one kind or another. I am more interested in a stronger kind of empiricism which would say that all knowledge is mediated through the senses and the only senses available to us are those which relate us to ordinary sensible things, such as extended, colored, odorous, loud, painful, sour, or rough things.
In the Bible, God appears in visible and audible form in both the Old and New Testament. So God is not excluded from taking part in the sensible world, although he is not limited by it. In the New Testament, we find God the Son taking on human form and thus becoming a physical being. The apostles refer to empirical data in arguing for the Gospel, pointing to what they and others have seen and what can be empirically verified--not merely the accounts of others then living, but inferences to the best explanation regarding their own behavior: the apostles ask others to look at their lives and choose between self-consciously crazy and honest.
So an empirical account of knowledge can account for knowledge of an active God. There are arguments for God's existence and claims about God's nature which appear to be excluded by an empirical account, however. Introspective arguments for the existence of God cannot obviously be accommodated, and it likewise seems hard to say how we could know attributes of God which appear non-empirical, such as his omnipotence or simplicity.
Let us begin with an example of an introspective argument for God's existence. One which I am strongly sympathetic to is C.S. Lewis's argument from desire. It goes as follows: I have a longing which cannot be satisfied in this world. The best explanation for why I would have any given longing is that it is supposed to be satisfied. A longing which cannot be satisfied in this world thus requires me to suppose another world where it can be satisfied. This is not an argument directly for God's existence, but for heaven, which cannot easily be separated from God's existence.
Can we account for this argument in empirical terms? I think we can. The second premise could be arrived at through induction from empirical observation or through the presumption of the goodness of creation (more on that presumption in another post). The first premise is an observation about oneself which might be noticed by introspecting, but might also be noticed by observing one's own behavior. Indeed, the argument is stronger if one has the premise that not only I, but all those around me have this intense longing which nothing in this world can satisfy. Introspection need not be non-empirical. Some introspection, at least, is transparent, that is, to introspect one looks outward. To introspect one's desires, one looks at the world and sees what draws one.
Next, let us address God's omnipotence. To claim that God is omnipotent is to claim that God has the power to do whatever he wants. To arrive at such a claim we do not need to observe God doing everything he might want to do, but merely a representative sample. If God can raise someone from the dead who has been dead for a while, we infer that he can raise someone from the dead who has been dead for less time, and perhaps for more time. If God can part a sea, calm a sea, and stir up a sea we infer that he has tremendous control over seas. As we notice many such cases where God exhibits tremendous power, and as we hear God claim that he can do anything which he says he will do, we infer that God can do anything he pleases. This is actually a relatively simple case, since God reveals himself as a tremendously powerful God. He does not use the term "omnipotent," but he does claim such superlative power that it is hard not to think that he would use the term if his audience was simply philosophers and theologians rather than also fishermen, shepherds, and children.
Finally, let us consider a more esoteric attribute of God: simplicity. I am not convinced that we need to attribute simplicity to God, but an account of how we learn about God probably should not entail anything one way or the other on the matter. To claim that God is simple is to claim that he is not composed of parts. It is usually derived from the claim that he is not dependent on anything that is not himself for his existence. Thus, it is argued, God cannot be dependent on the existence of any parts to compose him. So, God cannot be dependent on there being such a property as "being loving," and he cannot be dependent on there being such a property as "being omnipotent" (one needn't think that such properties have any real existence apart from their instantiation, anyway, but that is, again, for another post).
Now, if all one means by God's being simple is that God is not composed of parts which he depends on, then one can get there pretty easily. We know that God is not a physical being. There is no evidence that God parts could, even in principle, split off of God. So, sure, we can accept the claim that God is simple. If one is inclined to reject the claim, it is likely because of a conflicting understanding of the Trinity. The point I am trying to make, however, is that simplicity is a functional attribute. If we claim that God is simple, we are claiming that the way God has revealed himself is best explained by means of the concept of simplicity. We do not need to see God's simplicity or omnipotence in order to know that God is simple or omnipotent.
Empiricism is not the claim that we can only know about sensible things, but that we can only know anything via sensibility. God has revealed himself through sensible things, and all theological argument goes by way of that revelation. The text of scripture is sensible, the words God did and the actions he performed had sensible effects.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Possibility of Best of All Possible Worlds
It has been argued that there might be no best of all possible worlds. Alvin Plantinga finds it suspect in God, Freedom, and Evil, and I believe argues against it elsewhere. I am only vaguely aware of the argument at this point, so the following should be taken as my starting point prior to investigation.
The argument that there might be no best of all possible worlds seems to go as follows. Suppose you have some possible world. It has various properties in virtue of which it is a world of such-and-such goodness. If it had more of this sort of property, called "world-great-making properties," it would be a better world. But there seems to be no reason to suppose that we could not add some of these world-great-making properties on to a world ad infinitum, and thus there would be no cap to greatness of worlds.
The examples of world-great-making properties tend to be physical things like happy people and beautiful beaches. Other examples are also possible, such as good deeds or magnificent accomplishments. Where I seem to disagree with those who hold that there may be no best of all possible worlds is that I find the idea that we could keep on adding world-great-making properties on ad infinitum without consequence.
Take the example of possession of beautiful beaches. Suppose that a world is better the more beautiful beaches it has. In that case, we would, all else being equal, want as many beautiful beaches as we could. Not all else would be equal, however, because the world is one where beaches take up space and physics is set up in such a way that one cannot just keep enlarging the earth. Even if one did, perhaps at some size it would be a world-ungreat-making property in virtue of making it take so long for civilizations to communicate with each other.
One might respond that God could have altered the laws of physics to accommodate the scale of the planet and thus the beaches. This is not obvious, however. Physics is rather elegantly set up. This elegance is quite likely a world-great-making property. It is not at all obvious what options God had for logically consistent, life enabling physics systems. Perhaps others were too clunky, or had other problematic side effects.
A similar response can be given to the case of good deeds. Given that time does not end, in fact, if good deeds are a world-great-making property, then this world has an infinite quantity of greatness, since we will do an infinite number of good deeds after the resurrection. Nevertheless, it is plausible that, in actualizing some world, God might bracket that phase of each world. What we seem to be interested in is, rather, whether this is the best of all possible world segments from creation up to, but not including, heaven.
Each good deed takes some amount of time. Actually reaching heaven seems to be a world-great-making property, and the supposition that God might bracket heaven out of the best-world equation relies on heaven actually occurring in each possible world under consideration. So one could not have an infinite number of good deeds, and one might only be able to fit so many before the amount of time added counteracted the greatness added to the world.
Just as world-great-making properties might not be worth adding because of world-ungreat-making properties which they require, some world-ungreat-making properties might be mitigated or redeemed by world-great-making properties which they enable. Our understanding of how various events interact and the values of various world-great- and world-ungreat-making properties makes it quite difficult to tell preecisely how great of a world we have ended up with. As a case in point, the death of Jesus Christ occurring is a very large world-ungreat-making property. However, the resurrection is a much greater world-great-making property which the disciples did not anticipate.
My argument is not a knock-down argument, of course, but neither is the one I am responding to. What I have read of Plantinga seems to say little more than that it is not obvious that one could not keep increasing greatness by adding various items or states of affairs. I am responding that it is not obvious that one could do so. It may well come down to a clash of intuitions.
The argument that there might be no best of all possible worlds seems to go as follows. Suppose you have some possible world. It has various properties in virtue of which it is a world of such-and-such goodness. If it had more of this sort of property, called "world-great-making properties," it would be a better world. But there seems to be no reason to suppose that we could not add some of these world-great-making properties on to a world ad infinitum, and thus there would be no cap to greatness of worlds.
The examples of world-great-making properties tend to be physical things like happy people and beautiful beaches. Other examples are also possible, such as good deeds or magnificent accomplishments. Where I seem to disagree with those who hold that there may be no best of all possible worlds is that I find the idea that we could keep on adding world-great-making properties on ad infinitum without consequence.
Take the example of possession of beautiful beaches. Suppose that a world is better the more beautiful beaches it has. In that case, we would, all else being equal, want as many beautiful beaches as we could. Not all else would be equal, however, because the world is one where beaches take up space and physics is set up in such a way that one cannot just keep enlarging the earth. Even if one did, perhaps at some size it would be a world-ungreat-making property in virtue of making it take so long for civilizations to communicate with each other.
One might respond that God could have altered the laws of physics to accommodate the scale of the planet and thus the beaches. This is not obvious, however. Physics is rather elegantly set up. This elegance is quite likely a world-great-making property. It is not at all obvious what options God had for logically consistent, life enabling physics systems. Perhaps others were too clunky, or had other problematic side effects.
A similar response can be given to the case of good deeds. Given that time does not end, in fact, if good deeds are a world-great-making property, then this world has an infinite quantity of greatness, since we will do an infinite number of good deeds after the resurrection. Nevertheless, it is plausible that, in actualizing some world, God might bracket that phase of each world. What we seem to be interested in is, rather, whether this is the best of all possible world segments from creation up to, but not including, heaven.
Each good deed takes some amount of time. Actually reaching heaven seems to be a world-great-making property, and the supposition that God might bracket heaven out of the best-world equation relies on heaven actually occurring in each possible world under consideration. So one could not have an infinite number of good deeds, and one might only be able to fit so many before the amount of time added counteracted the greatness added to the world.
Just as world-great-making properties might not be worth adding because of world-ungreat-making properties which they require, some world-ungreat-making properties might be mitigated or redeemed by world-great-making properties which they enable. Our understanding of how various events interact and the values of various world-great- and world-ungreat-making properties makes it quite difficult to tell preecisely how great of a world we have ended up with. As a case in point, the death of Jesus Christ occurring is a very large world-ungreat-making property. However, the resurrection is a much greater world-great-making property which the disciples did not anticipate.
My argument is not a knock-down argument, of course, but neither is the one I am responding to. What I have read of Plantinga seems to say little more than that it is not obvious that one could not keep increasing greatness by adding various items or states of affairs. I am responding that it is not obvious that one could do so. It may well come down to a clash of intuitions.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Argument for Everything Being Necessary
Here I present an argument that everything is necessary. The argument can be modified to result in different types of necessity depending on the types of necessity used in the premises. Let me present the argument, and then elaborate.
1. God necessarily exists. (Premise)
2. Necessarily, if God exists, then God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (Premise)
3. There is a best of all possible worlds. (Premise)
4. Necessarily, if God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then, if there is a best of all possible worlds, God actualizes the best of possibility worlds. (By definition of terms)
5. Necessarily, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (from 1 and 2)
6. Necessarily, if there is a best of all possible worlds, God actualizes the best of possibility worlds. (from 4 and 5)
7. Necessarily, God actualizes the best of all possible worlds. (from 3 and 6)
If the weakest necessity involved above is logical necessity, then this proves that it is a logical necessity that God actualize the best of all possible worlds. Ceteris paribus for other types of modality.
A defense of there being a best of all possible worlds would take a post of its own. Let me say merely that for this argument I am conceiving of these worlds as not merely initial states but including all of time from their beginnings into eternity. If this is problematic, then conceive of possible worlds as possible initial conditions and add an argument for divine determinism. This is required to preserve the strength of modality. If a view like molinism is right, and we have some say in what worlds are possible in the relevant sense, then this will weaken the modality of the conclusion by weakening the modality of premise 3.
Premises 2 and 4 should be familiar to anyone who has thought much about the problem of evil. Actualizing the best of all possible worlds, in the present context, is roughly equivalent to making it the case that there is the least possible evil. To the extent that they are not equivalent, the problem of evil needs a more nuanced account of what is wrong. Let the best of all possible worlds be defined such that, were we to know that God had actualized it, we would be satisfied that God had, in fact, done the right thing in actualizing it, and thus God would be vindicated.
If one does not hold that God necessarily exists, one can dodge the argument, although it is a pretty common claim. This does not, however, require one to reject the claim that God exists, and leaves one with a conclusion that everything is necessary given God's existence, which is not much weaker. Weakening the strongest modality via molinism, as mentioned above, also brings the argument down to a more intuitive level.
So, there are three ways to respond to this argument. One can accept the conclusion that everything that occurs is, say, metaphysically necessary, one can reject a premise (likely 1 or 4), or one can weaken the modality so far that it is more intuitively plausible.
1. God necessarily exists. (Premise)
2. Necessarily, if God exists, then God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (Premise)
3. There is a best of all possible worlds. (Premise)
4. Necessarily, if God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then, if there is a best of all possible worlds, God actualizes the best of possibility worlds. (By definition of terms)
5. Necessarily, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (from 1 and 2)
6. Necessarily, if there is a best of all possible worlds, God actualizes the best of possibility worlds. (from 4 and 5)
7. Necessarily, God actualizes the best of all possible worlds. (from 3 and 6)
If the weakest necessity involved above is logical necessity, then this proves that it is a logical necessity that God actualize the best of all possible worlds. Ceteris paribus for other types of modality.
A defense of there being a best of all possible worlds would take a post of its own. Let me say merely that for this argument I am conceiving of these worlds as not merely initial states but including all of time from their beginnings into eternity. If this is problematic, then conceive of possible worlds as possible initial conditions and add an argument for divine determinism. This is required to preserve the strength of modality. If a view like molinism is right, and we have some say in what worlds are possible in the relevant sense, then this will weaken the modality of the conclusion by weakening the modality of premise 3.
Premises 2 and 4 should be familiar to anyone who has thought much about the problem of evil. Actualizing the best of all possible worlds, in the present context, is roughly equivalent to making it the case that there is the least possible evil. To the extent that they are not equivalent, the problem of evil needs a more nuanced account of what is wrong. Let the best of all possible worlds be defined such that, were we to know that God had actualized it, we would be satisfied that God had, in fact, done the right thing in actualizing it, and thus God would be vindicated.
If one does not hold that God necessarily exists, one can dodge the argument, although it is a pretty common claim. This does not, however, require one to reject the claim that God exists, and leaves one with a conclusion that everything is necessary given God's existence, which is not much weaker. Weakening the strongest modality via molinism, as mentioned above, also brings the argument down to a more intuitive level.
So, there are three ways to respond to this argument. One can accept the conclusion that everything that occurs is, say, metaphysically necessary, one can reject a premise (likely 1 or 4), or one can weaken the modality so far that it is more intuitively plausible.
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Existence
The question of what it is for something to exist is, in some ways, the prototypical philosophical question. It takes a word, "is," which seems quite ordinary, and manages to make it puzzling. The most intuitive answer to the question is to disregard it, perhaps by claiming that the concept of existence is a basic concept, that is, a concept which cannot and need not be explained except by pointing out what does and what does not exist.
In the continental tradition, however, it seems more is said. Heidegger, of course, made the question famous, but throughout the continental figures I think we find a shared conception of being. I do not intend to argue that any particular individual held this view, but rather, here, I would like to focus on sketching it. If theoretical physics loses you, skim those paragraphs, the rest should only be as hard as usual.
First, some background. Kant held that there was only one unified experience, at least in any individual's case. That is, I have a single unified experience of a continuum of space and of time which are tied together, and likewise for everyone else. Thus, everything I find around me belongs to the same space-time. Every object is affected by what is before it in time, affects what is after it in time, and mutually affects what is at the same time as it (See the Critique of Pure Reason I. Division one, Bk.2, Sec.III.3 titled "Analogies of experience"). On Kant's view, these relations are how things get ordered in time to begin with.
This fits well with current understandings of spacetime and relativity on which an object which is unable to have an effect on another object does not stand in any particular relation of before, after, or simultaneous with the other object. On the other hand, it clashes with views of quantum mechanics which permit backwards-causality or hold that events are determined by the boundary conditions, i.e., the conditions at the start, end, and along the light-cone bounding an area. It also has the consequence that if God cannot be effected from without, then he is necessarily in the past. One could, however, strip the claim that the causal relations order events in time, and simply claim that for an object to exist, it must effect other objects, and that the collection of objects effected, mediately or immediately, constitute a reality.
Kant does not hold the view I am seeking to sketch, since he holds that noumena may exist, and that we have no way of knowing how they really are. However, from here, it seems Kant's followers, in seeking to do away with the noumena, wind up holding that for something to exist, not merely for us but at all, it must be related to other existent things in just this manner. Thus, a reality is given as a set of things which interact with each other, whether mediately or immediately. In order to be part of reality, then, an object must somehow have an effect on other parts of reality.
The difficulty with such a definition is that it seems to permit multiple realities, so that existence is relative to realities. Such realities would be incapable of interacting, otherwise they would form a single reality. One might say, then, that existence would be relative to the observer. An observer in one reality would find different existent things than would an observer in a different reality, and each reality would fail to exist from the point of view of the other.
Let us return to the possibility that God effects all of reality without, himself, being effected by it. In order for such a God to exist on this view, the view must hold that an object can exist even if it only effects other objects without being effected itself. However, one does not want realities to be able to branch. If we say that there is only one continuum of time, and that events are ordered in time by how they effect each other, we can avoid branching while maintaining the possibility of effecting without being effected, but at the cost of excluding some quantum mechanical views and likely relegating God to the past (although the later could be handled by holding that God's place in time would always be found just a moment ago, since he acts at all times, and thus he would be found to be at all times).
If we permit events in time to have separate orders, which Kant does not but relativity might, then we can get branching even if relations of what affects what determine temporal order. If objects only affect further objects, however, then some objects are affected. If we exclude for other reasons the possibility of two creators, we can limit unaffected things to God, and everything else will both affect and be affected. This still does not guarantee a unified reality, but it does make it vastly more plausible.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Platonic Epistemology
A platonic epistemology holds that our ability to know something as defective is dependent on there being a perfect thing of its kind which we, at least implicitly, know, and thus which we can compare the defective thing to. Thus, to know that a line is crooked, we must know some straight line well enough to compare the crooked line to the straight one and thereby see that the crooked line is unlike the straight line.
In language, the meaning of a term is given in part by the possibility of using a different term to mean something else. That is, there is a contrastive element to meaning. The term 'dark' contrasts with the term 'light', and the term 'crooked' contrasts with the term 'straight'. Platonic epistemology takes this to apply to knowledge, too. So far, so good. If there could be no circumstance where the use of a term would be inappropriate, it would be, like, meaningless.
Platonic epistemology takes a further step however. It claims that the term on at least one side of any spectrum must have a referent. Thus, a platonist would claim that for 'light' to have meaning there must be a perfect light, and that for us to use the term 'light' perfectly, we must somehow know this perfect light. This strikes me as implausible and otiose. We do not need a perfect light to understand what darkness is, or even what imperfect(ly bright? or white?) light is. We do not need to know perfect equality to recognize near-but-not-quite equality. We simply need to recognize that there are conceivable cases which would be more equal, brighter, whiter, etc., and conceivability need not entail actuality. It need not even entail possibility.
The puzzle for any platonic epistemology is to explain how we come to know the perfect things. Given that they do not seem to need to appear in the world of sensation, it is unclear where we are supposed to have learned them. On any theory where we know what perfect goodness, truth, and beauty are like, it would have to provide a merely implicit knowledge, since otherwise one cannot account for disagreement. Plato's theory was that we were alive in the world of the Forms before we were born. Christian Platonists hold that the perfect things are ideas in the mind of God. I am only really interested in the latter.
In order to fill the role which perfect things are supposed to fill in a platonic epistemology, ideas in the mind of God would need to be made accessible to us in some manner. One way would be for God to immediately transfer them into our minds. Another way would be for us to, as it were, look into the mind of God instead of a platonic heaven of ideas. In either case, we are presumed to walk around with implicit knowledge of perfection of various sorts waiting to be triggered by seeing things in the world which relate to them.
But if we are presumed to walk around with mere knowledge of such things, then the need for the perfect things per se seems to have dropped out. Why not dispose with the perfect things, at least as a criterion of being able to recognize imperfect things, and just leave the implicit knowledge? If one does this, then one is back at the point where one has a conception of more white, etc., and since one has already granted that the knowledge involved is implicit, one may go a further step and suppose that the implicit knowledge is not conceptual knowledge but rather embedded in one's perceptual and cognitive capacities. That is, perhaps we do not so much know what it would be like for something to be whiter, as we have a visual system which can simulate varying degrees of whiteness and represent this degree of whiteness thus and so. Likewise, the visual system may simply process visual stimuli in such a way that we recognize straightness as a norm embedded in how we perceive, rather than as a concept to which we must compare lines. It is notable in this respect that there is variation in what different people recognize as perfection of different colors.
In language, the meaning of a term is given in part by the possibility of using a different term to mean something else. That is, there is a contrastive element to meaning. The term 'dark' contrasts with the term 'light', and the term 'crooked' contrasts with the term 'straight'. Platonic epistemology takes this to apply to knowledge, too. So far, so good. If there could be no circumstance where the use of a term would be inappropriate, it would be, like, meaningless.
Platonic epistemology takes a further step however. It claims that the term on at least one side of any spectrum must have a referent. Thus, a platonist would claim that for 'light' to have meaning there must be a perfect light, and that for us to use the term 'light' perfectly, we must somehow know this perfect light. This strikes me as implausible and otiose. We do not need a perfect light to understand what darkness is, or even what imperfect(ly bright? or white?) light is. We do not need to know perfect equality to recognize near-but-not-quite equality. We simply need to recognize that there are conceivable cases which would be more equal, brighter, whiter, etc., and conceivability need not entail actuality. It need not even entail possibility.
The puzzle for any platonic epistemology is to explain how we come to know the perfect things. Given that they do not seem to need to appear in the world of sensation, it is unclear where we are supposed to have learned them. On any theory where we know what perfect goodness, truth, and beauty are like, it would have to provide a merely implicit knowledge, since otherwise one cannot account for disagreement. Plato's theory was that we were alive in the world of the Forms before we were born. Christian Platonists hold that the perfect things are ideas in the mind of God. I am only really interested in the latter.
In order to fill the role which perfect things are supposed to fill in a platonic epistemology, ideas in the mind of God would need to be made accessible to us in some manner. One way would be for God to immediately transfer them into our minds. Another way would be for us to, as it were, look into the mind of God instead of a platonic heaven of ideas. In either case, we are presumed to walk around with implicit knowledge of perfection of various sorts waiting to be triggered by seeing things in the world which relate to them.
But if we are presumed to walk around with mere knowledge of such things, then the need for the perfect things per se seems to have dropped out. Why not dispose with the perfect things, at least as a criterion of being able to recognize imperfect things, and just leave the implicit knowledge? If one does this, then one is back at the point where one has a conception of more white, etc., and since one has already granted that the knowledge involved is implicit, one may go a further step and suppose that the implicit knowledge is not conceptual knowledge but rather embedded in one's perceptual and cognitive capacities. That is, perhaps we do not so much know what it would be like for something to be whiter, as we have a visual system which can simulate varying degrees of whiteness and represent this degree of whiteness thus and so. Likewise, the visual system may simply process visual stimuli in such a way that we recognize straightness as a norm embedded in how we perceive, rather than as a concept to which we must compare lines. It is notable in this respect that there is variation in what different people recognize as perfection of different colors.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Autonomy and Economics
One imagines a state-run economy and a laissez-faire economy as opposed. One aims for the utmost regulation, the other for none at all. Both extremes aim at the same end, however: that the economy exhibit the values of the people. This end requires two things: that the values of the people appear in the economy, and that they do so because of how the people express themselves in the economy. Each extreme fails to achieve one of these two criteria.
A state-run economy would be one where the state ensured that certain values appeared in the economy, that certain items were valued more, others less, and that resources circulated in precise accord with the acknowledged values. Because the appearance of the values is guaranteed by the state, however, the connection to people's expression of their values in the economy is voided. The closest connection to the values of individuals one could possibly obtain would be if the people voted on how to set up the economy, but this would not represent the values of the people as economic agents.
A laissez-faire economy, however, while ensuring that the economic actions of individuals is what determines what values are represented in the economy, fails to ensure that the values represented are those expressed. The economy easily loses the ability to represent nuance in the evaluative views of consumers, and tends to represent extreme views. Some individuals lack the buying power to express their values beyond the value which a low cost has, others find that certain values are represented so extremely in certain areas that, though other values are a factor, those other values never make a difference in what they buy. The represented values thus skew in two directions: cheap and toward the values of the rich. Only in places where the cost is low and further values are brought in to the mix to differentiate products can the poorer classes of society have an economic vote in the values represented.
The political divide with respect to economics, it seems to me, runs roughly on these lines. Both sides seek the same aim. The left focuses on the end product: what values the economy represents; the right focuses on the process: the ability of economic transactions to have an effect on the values which the economy represents. By dividing in this way, both leave out a concern that all individuals have an equal economic vote. Neither focuses on the dignity of economic agents as such. The right fears that regulations will keep them from expressing themselves economically. The left fears that deregulation will allow disproportionate impact by the rich and powerful.
As an aside: there is something very Hegelian about the way in which the left and the right seem to be identical, just in different domains. Here the right, rather than the left, is obsessed with self-expression at any cost.
The point of this post is to show where the conflict lies. By seeing that both aim at the same end, we locate a shared point of reference with respect to which we can argue about particular views. I am not confident about any particular solution (I am not an economist), but an excellent solution would be one which clearly enabled all classes to have an economic vote while keeping corporations from doing things which would keep particular classes' economic actions from making a difference in the values represented. One approach, then, might be to provide a basic income to all. In theory, this would protect consumers from being forced to buy from companies which are otherwise too big/cheap to avoid and re-create something of the situation which Alexis de Tocqueville noted in America when he said,
"the workmen have always some sure resources which enable them to refuse to work when they cannot get what they conceive to be the fair price of their labor." (Democracy in America, Vol.2, p. 189 in the Bradley edition).Whether the theory would work out in practice is, of course, debatable.
Culture and Self
In this post I intend to continue to sketch my view of selves and of culture.
First, a definition: selves are beings who act with respect to other selves qua selves. This is a tad circular, but has important consequences. Spelling these consequences out should clarify why it is difficult to write the definition so as to be completely non-circular. First, selves are agents, since they act. Second, they are able to act with respect to other agents, since they act with respect to selves and selves are agents. Third, some of the agents which they act with respect to can reciprocate, since they are selves, too.
Next, a definition of culture. Culture is the remains of the actions of selves which allows other selves to recognize selves. That is, culture is what happens when selves act in such a way that something is left behind whereby another self can act with respect to them. Culture is, then, the modification of the world by selves in a manner which is recognizable as such.
Selves, being agents which act with respect to other selves qua selves, are bound to inhabit a culture. On the view I am sketching, a self in a community picks up on the remains as actions of selves and appropriates them. Thus, a self absorbs elements of other selves into its own manner of being a self. It learns language and ways of gesturing, for example. A self is the modification of a self-receptive body by culture, or is always a self which has been informed by culture.
Culture is the remains of the actions of selves, and selves are beings which appropriate culture. There is a reciprocal relation between the two such that culture is carried on by selves who, in carrying it on, also change it by developing it in their own selves.
In order to express oneself in culture, a self must be able to modify the world. Likewise, in order to appropriate culture one must have, or at least presume, the capacity to copy it. Culture and selves are thus limited to the same kinds of stuff. If culture is totally physical, then selves must be able to modify the physical. If selves cannot modify the physical, then the culture of such selves cannot be physical. In other words, the cultural world of a self is the world which is shared by other selves. To recognize another as a self is to recognize that individual within culture.
In recognizing ourselves as like others, then, we recognize ourselves as beings who are visible in the shared world of culture. Unless one wants to claim that there is something else available to be recognized--and I suppose one might--this means that our bodies constitute our selves in culture. Likewise, material things constitute culture. Agents, selves, and culture are not material things, but they exist through material things. They (we) may be something along the lines of either events or properties. This is not to say that we do not exist, but rather that most of what we think of as existing are not material things in the way we usually think. That is, most things do not strictly supervene on their material parts. In particular, cultural things, and selves qua beings in culture, exist only with reference to a culture. This does not mean that we would cease to exist on a desert island, but that we would exist only by bringing along our culture with us. Our selfhood can only be recognized via the concepts which a culture provides.
Because we are constituted by culturally situated bodies, our bodies have an impact on how we appropriate culture. Our biology places boundaries on what we can do and imposes consequences which may differ from self to self. Culture is likewise constituted by a world situated among selves. The physical, biological, and environmental nature of the world places boundaries on the development of culture. It likewise imposes consequences on us depending on how we develop it into culture.
In both cases, the consequences imposed by nature, whether our own biology or physical nature, impose norms on how we should act by excluding some actions from the set of those which will permit the flourishing.of selves and culture. Thus, a further value to autonomy is that it allows for the variation in human beings to be properly accounted for. In this way, autonomy is good precisely because our bodies impact how we should seek the good life.
What counts as flourishing in each case is attaining the goals of the kind of thing in question. Thus, a flourishing self will be a self which attains the end of selfhood. A flourishing culture will be a culture will be one which attains the end of culture. We must ask, then, what the particular end of each is.
Because selves are beings which act with respect to other selves, to be a self is to act in a manner which takes into account the nature of other selves as selves. This means that it requires recognizing other selves as like oneself in being selves, and thus as like oneself in being agents whose actions are performed as actions with a cultural meaning and motivated, in part, on account of how other selves are. A culture is the remains and support of such actions, and thus for it to flourish is for it to express correctly the selfhood of all selves and support the mutual recognition of selves. As materially constituted, however, the end of each self is particular to itself and involves the good of the body. Likewise, the end of culture involves the maintenance of the basis of culture. Sustainability is a good of both culture and selves. The sustainability of culture is the ability of the culture to continue as a culture, which includes the ability of the environment to provide the material basis for culture practices, including housing and food. The sustainability of a self is most obviously the ability of a self to survive, but also to avoid burnout and maintain a resilient concern for others.
First, a definition: selves are beings who act with respect to other selves qua selves. This is a tad circular, but has important consequences. Spelling these consequences out should clarify why it is difficult to write the definition so as to be completely non-circular. First, selves are agents, since they act. Second, they are able to act with respect to other agents, since they act with respect to selves and selves are agents. Third, some of the agents which they act with respect to can reciprocate, since they are selves, too.
Next, a definition of culture. Culture is the remains of the actions of selves which allows other selves to recognize selves. That is, culture is what happens when selves act in such a way that something is left behind whereby another self can act with respect to them. Culture is, then, the modification of the world by selves in a manner which is recognizable as such.
Selves, being agents which act with respect to other selves qua selves, are bound to inhabit a culture. On the view I am sketching, a self in a community picks up on the remains as actions of selves and appropriates them. Thus, a self absorbs elements of other selves into its own manner of being a self. It learns language and ways of gesturing, for example. A self is the modification of a self-receptive body by culture, or is always a self which has been informed by culture.
Culture is the remains of the actions of selves, and selves are beings which appropriate culture. There is a reciprocal relation between the two such that culture is carried on by selves who, in carrying it on, also change it by developing it in their own selves.
In order to express oneself in culture, a self must be able to modify the world. Likewise, in order to appropriate culture one must have, or at least presume, the capacity to copy it. Culture and selves are thus limited to the same kinds of stuff. If culture is totally physical, then selves must be able to modify the physical. If selves cannot modify the physical, then the culture of such selves cannot be physical. In other words, the cultural world of a self is the world which is shared by other selves. To recognize another as a self is to recognize that individual within culture.
In recognizing ourselves as like others, then, we recognize ourselves as beings who are visible in the shared world of culture. Unless one wants to claim that there is something else available to be recognized--and I suppose one might--this means that our bodies constitute our selves in culture. Likewise, material things constitute culture. Agents, selves, and culture are not material things, but they exist through material things. They (we) may be something along the lines of either events or properties. This is not to say that we do not exist, but rather that most of what we think of as existing are not material things in the way we usually think. That is, most things do not strictly supervene on their material parts. In particular, cultural things, and selves qua beings in culture, exist only with reference to a culture. This does not mean that we would cease to exist on a desert island, but that we would exist only by bringing along our culture with us. Our selfhood can only be recognized via the concepts which a culture provides.
Because we are constituted by culturally situated bodies, our bodies have an impact on how we appropriate culture. Our biology places boundaries on what we can do and imposes consequences which may differ from self to self. Culture is likewise constituted by a world situated among selves. The physical, biological, and environmental nature of the world places boundaries on the development of culture. It likewise imposes consequences on us depending on how we develop it into culture.
In both cases, the consequences imposed by nature, whether our own biology or physical nature, impose norms on how we should act by excluding some actions from the set of those which will permit the flourishing.of selves and culture. Thus, a further value to autonomy is that it allows for the variation in human beings to be properly accounted for. In this way, autonomy is good precisely because our bodies impact how we should seek the good life.
What counts as flourishing in each case is attaining the goals of the kind of thing in question. Thus, a flourishing self will be a self which attains the end of selfhood. A flourishing culture will be a culture will be one which attains the end of culture. We must ask, then, what the particular end of each is.
Because selves are beings which act with respect to other selves, to be a self is to act in a manner which takes into account the nature of other selves as selves. This means that it requires recognizing other selves as like oneself in being selves, and thus as like oneself in being agents whose actions are performed as actions with a cultural meaning and motivated, in part, on account of how other selves are. A culture is the remains and support of such actions, and thus for it to flourish is for it to express correctly the selfhood of all selves and support the mutual recognition of selves. As materially constituted, however, the end of each self is particular to itself and involves the good of the body. Likewise, the end of culture involves the maintenance of the basis of culture. Sustainability is a good of both culture and selves. The sustainability of culture is the ability of the culture to continue as a culture, which includes the ability of the environment to provide the material basis for culture practices, including housing and food. The sustainability of a self is most obviously the ability of a self to survive, but also to avoid burnout and maintain a resilient concern for others.
Monday, February 19, 2018
The Good of Autonomy
It is generally good to permit people to do as they please. This is a relatively modern notion, I think. It can also become a distinctively modern idol to which we sacrifice ourselves and our children. It is, nevertheless, a genuine good. What supports this good?
Autonomy is good because it allows us to exercise our deliberative capacities. It thus enables us to express our moral point of view. Autonomy matters because autonomous decisions matter to others. If my decision has no impact whatsoever on others, then my deciding thus quite literally means nothing. So allowing autonomy is a calculated risk. We allow others to mess up in order to attain a good of self-expression.
Why is self-expression good? It is not an unmitigated good. Indeed, the expression "self-expression" is not perfectly clear. When we express ourselves, we also form ourselves. In writing this post, I do not merely express my thoughts, I also develop my thoughts. My thoughts on this topic are altered by expressing them. Before, my thoughts were a bit of a fuzz, but by writing this the thoughts come into focus or, more accurately, coalesce into an articulated form. The joints of my thoughts become, not visible, but definite and therefore visible. In deciding we define ourselves and thereby clarify for ourselves and others who we are. So self-expression is a part of self-development.
To be a self is, on my account, to be a being who can perceive and act with regard to others as others. The other elements of being a self arise from this interaction with others in culture. We absorb things from others--ideas, phrases, heuristics, rules, ways of acting and modes of thought. These varied things from varied people clash. They require synthesis into a coherent self, a self who can pursue a single life. In this synthesis, dissonances must be resolved between mind and body, body and world, mind and culture, etc., and in doing so one changes.
So to develop oneself through self-expression is to articulate how one has picked up the culture around oneself, and to present what one has picked up to other, thus to contribute to altering culture. So self-expression does two things. First, it develops culture by contributing to a re-synthesizing of its elements and thus providing more for others to pick up on. Second, it develops oneself by nailing down (often partial) resolutions to various tensions we find ourselves in.
We resolve tensions in our culture in our own persons and then hold up our answers, our lives and words, to others for them to accept or reject. If we aim to reach a solid resolution, we must accept this phase as well. Others then pick up what we say as elements of themselves, whether as useful antagonists or as allies. They think with us: by means of what we have contributed. We then pick up their developments and the cycle repeats. We hope that we are coming to a closer and closer approximation, but this can only occur by taking seriously the goods others are responding to, addressing them, and finding a place for them in a renewed culture.
Autonomy is good, then, because it helps us to resolve debates about how to live, how our culture should be understood and what it should and become. Autonomy is good because it permits exploration of ways of being and doing. It is a risk because we may go wrong. The role of autonomy is to answer questions which can be answered by seeing different ways of life, and the point of autonomy can only be preserved where opposing views are given a fair and serious hearing. Autonomy is pointless without disagreement and it is sterile without debate between opposed views. To utilize autonomy is to invite dispute regarding one's choices.
Autonomy is good because it allows us to exercise our deliberative capacities. It thus enables us to express our moral point of view. Autonomy matters because autonomous decisions matter to others. If my decision has no impact whatsoever on others, then my deciding thus quite literally means nothing. So allowing autonomy is a calculated risk. We allow others to mess up in order to attain a good of self-expression.
Why is self-expression good? It is not an unmitigated good. Indeed, the expression "self-expression" is not perfectly clear. When we express ourselves, we also form ourselves. In writing this post, I do not merely express my thoughts, I also develop my thoughts. My thoughts on this topic are altered by expressing them. Before, my thoughts were a bit of a fuzz, but by writing this the thoughts come into focus or, more accurately, coalesce into an articulated form. The joints of my thoughts become, not visible, but definite and therefore visible. In deciding we define ourselves and thereby clarify for ourselves and others who we are. So self-expression is a part of self-development.
To be a self is, on my account, to be a being who can perceive and act with regard to others as others. The other elements of being a self arise from this interaction with others in culture. We absorb things from others--ideas, phrases, heuristics, rules, ways of acting and modes of thought. These varied things from varied people clash. They require synthesis into a coherent self, a self who can pursue a single life. In this synthesis, dissonances must be resolved between mind and body, body and world, mind and culture, etc., and in doing so one changes.
So to develop oneself through self-expression is to articulate how one has picked up the culture around oneself, and to present what one has picked up to other, thus to contribute to altering culture. So self-expression does two things. First, it develops culture by contributing to a re-synthesizing of its elements and thus providing more for others to pick up on. Second, it develops oneself by nailing down (often partial) resolutions to various tensions we find ourselves in.
We resolve tensions in our culture in our own persons and then hold up our answers, our lives and words, to others for them to accept or reject. If we aim to reach a solid resolution, we must accept this phase as well. Others then pick up what we say as elements of themselves, whether as useful antagonists or as allies. They think with us: by means of what we have contributed. We then pick up their developments and the cycle repeats. We hope that we are coming to a closer and closer approximation, but this can only occur by taking seriously the goods others are responding to, addressing them, and finding a place for them in a renewed culture.
Autonomy is good, then, because it helps us to resolve debates about how to live, how our culture should be understood and what it should and become. Autonomy is good because it permits exploration of ways of being and doing. It is a risk because we may go wrong. The role of autonomy is to answer questions which can be answered by seeing different ways of life, and the point of autonomy can only be preserved where opposing views are given a fair and serious hearing. Autonomy is pointless without disagreement and it is sterile without debate between opposed views. To utilize autonomy is to invite dispute regarding one's choices.
Mind/Body Dissonance
This post is about mind/body dissonance, that is, cases where what one thinks or feels about one's body does not align with how one's body is.
If all a human person is is a human mind, then to respect the human being will always be to view those thoughts and feelings as authoritative for how the body should be, assuming the individual understands what they are thinking or feeling correctly. Neither cutting nor anorexia are authorized by the individuals' feelings about themselves. So even in this case there is a requirement that the actions be rationally authorized in some manner. What is that manner? It is not immediately obvious.
If one grants that human beings are partially or entirely constituted by their bodies, then one cannot make nearly so strong a claim about the mind's authority over the body. In cases of mind/body dissonance, it is clear that something has gone wrong. The puzzle is over whether the mind ought to be molded to fit the body or vice-versa. In either case, the embodied human being is changed yet preserved.
Notice here that we all agree that individuals with cases of mind/body dissonance should not exist. Disagreements occur over how to make it the case, if we should, that no such individuals exist. No one (at least that I would be inclined to take too seriously) would hold that such individuals should be eradicated qua individuals, but merely qua cases of mind/body dissonance. That is, the dissonance should be resolved in some manner.
Our desires about how to appear carry some weight. We can dress ourselves in various ways, work out, get our hair cut in different styles, etc. Conflicts in society begin to arise when the changes are more permanent or less superficial or have a more direct impact on health or bodily integrity. The conservative approach is to hesitate, to be wary of irrevocable change. The logic here is the same as the argument against the death penalty. One had better be quite sure that one knows and wants what one is getting oneself into.
The same argument, incidentally, can be marshaled in favor of acting according to the view that global worming is real, against abortion, and for safety-net policies. It is not a knock-down argument, and no one thinks it is. It is a solid consideration, however.
How can we tell when to take the risk and change our own bodies? This is what is argued about in discussions of transgender and transhuman thought. When do the benefits outweigh the costs? In the next post, I will consider one possible benefit: preserving autonomy, that is, letting people do as they please.
If all a human person is is a human mind, then to respect the human being will always be to view those thoughts and feelings as authoritative for how the body should be, assuming the individual understands what they are thinking or feeling correctly. Neither cutting nor anorexia are authorized by the individuals' feelings about themselves. So even in this case there is a requirement that the actions be rationally authorized in some manner. What is that manner? It is not immediately obvious.
If one grants that human beings are partially or entirely constituted by their bodies, then one cannot make nearly so strong a claim about the mind's authority over the body. In cases of mind/body dissonance, it is clear that something has gone wrong. The puzzle is over whether the mind ought to be molded to fit the body or vice-versa. In either case, the embodied human being is changed yet preserved.
Notice here that we all agree that individuals with cases of mind/body dissonance should not exist. Disagreements occur over how to make it the case, if we should, that no such individuals exist. No one (at least that I would be inclined to take too seriously) would hold that such individuals should be eradicated qua individuals, but merely qua cases of mind/body dissonance. That is, the dissonance should be resolved in some manner.
Our desires about how to appear carry some weight. We can dress ourselves in various ways, work out, get our hair cut in different styles, etc. Conflicts in society begin to arise when the changes are more permanent or less superficial or have a more direct impact on health or bodily integrity. The conservative approach is to hesitate, to be wary of irrevocable change. The logic here is the same as the argument against the death penalty. One had better be quite sure that one knows and wants what one is getting oneself into.
The same argument, incidentally, can be marshaled in favor of acting according to the view that global worming is real, against abortion, and for safety-net policies. It is not a knock-down argument, and no one thinks it is. It is a solid consideration, however.
How can we tell when to take the risk and change our own bodies? This is what is argued about in discussions of transgender and transhuman thought. When do the benefits outweigh the costs? In the next post, I will consider one possible benefit: preserving autonomy, that is, letting people do as they please.
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