journal

martha04

Philosophy-Here-and-Now-Powerful-Ideas-in-Everyday-Life-3rd-Edition-by-Lewis-Vaughn.pdf

Home >Social Science homework help >Philosophy homework help >journal

HERE AND NOW THIRD EDITION

POWERFUL IDEAS IN

EVERYDAY LI FE Lewis Vaughn

HERE AND NOW

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT PHILOSOPHY HERE AND NOW:

"Above all, Vaughn's text does ,vhac few ochers are able co do, namely, co show chat ph ilosophy actually matters ,vich respect co ho,v we chink and live in the world. For all its brevity the book 1nanages co run the gamut of critical topics, and to offer real-world (and often hu1norous) examples of each. He does not offer the luxury of viewing d ifficult questions fro1n a position of abstracted detachment and safety. Rather, he hurls readers straight into the teeth of the sconn and allows che1n co feel the raw terror, wonder, and exhilaration chat rightly belong co the study of philosophy."

- Daniel Bramer, Holy Family University

"Vaughn has chosen the most important topics in philosophy. His 1nenu cannot be improved upon. With a beautiful opening chapter on the nature of ph ilosophical chinking and remarkably concise chapters on the 1nosc engaging issues in philosophy, and with a nice 1nix of classic and conce1nporary philosophers, chis is a terri fic text. It is visually appealing as well."

- Paul Herrick, Shoreline Community College

"Philosophy Here and Now is written in a clear, engaging, and lively style. The author does an excellent job of explain ing abstract and conceptually intricate material to novices. The book introduces students to philosophy as a living enterprise, full of intellectual surprises and relevance to everyday hu1nan concerns."

- Phil ip Robbins, University of Missouri

"I can't imagine not using Philosophy Here and Now. My experience with the textbook has been completely posit ive. When students lee you know how much they like reading the text you know you 1nade the right decision in adopting the book."

- Teresa Cantrell, University of Louisville

"This is the best text I have found for my int roductory class. Q uestions and exercises engage the students' lives di rectly and ask chem co explain their own understanding/beliefs about a matter. The appendix on writing philosophy papers can easily stand on its o,vn as the most valuable cool I use in my class. I have yet co find anyth ing at chis price with a comparable content."

- Stephen Orr, Solano Community College

PH L PHY HERE AND NOW

POWERFUL IDEAS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

THIRD EDITJC)~

Lewis Vaughn

NEWYORK [ OXFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford University Press is a departmenr of the University of Oxford. Ir furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and ed ucation by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford U niversity Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press I 98 Madison Avenue, New York, NY I 00 I 6, United States of America.

For titles covered by Section I 12 of the US Higher Education Opportuni ty Act, please visit www.oup.com/us/he for the latest in formatio n about pricing and alternate formats.

All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system} o r transmi tted, in any form o r by any means} w itho ut the prior permissio n in wriring of Oxford University Press, or as expressly pcrmincd

by law, by lice nse, o r under terms agreed with the appropriate reproductio n rights organization. Inquiries concern ing reproduction outside the scope of the

above should be sent to the RighL< Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not ci rculate this work in any o cher form and you m ust impose this sam e condi tion on any acquirc r.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in -Publication Data

Names: Vaughn, Lewis} autho r.

Title: Philosophy here and now : powerful ideas in everyday li fe I Lewis Vaughn. Description: T H IRD EDITION. J New York : Oxford University Press, 2018. Identifiers: LCCN 2018014409 I IS BN 9780190852344 (pbk.) SubjecLs: LCSH: Philosophy- Textbooks. Classification: LCC 8 031 .V38 2018 I DOC 100-dc23 LC record available ar https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014409

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

Printed by LSC Communications, Inc. Printed in the United States of America

• PREFACE XXI

CHAPTER 1 PHILOSOPHY AND YOU 1

CHAPTER 2 GOD AND RELIGION 57

CHAPTER 3 MORALITY AND THE MORAL LIFE 135

CHAPTER 4 MIND AND BODY 205

CHAPTER s FREE WILL AND DETERM INISM 240

CHAPTER 6 KNOWLEDGE AND SKEPTICISM 274

CHAPTER 7 AESTHETICS 332

CHAPTER 8 THE JUST SOCIETY 354

CHAPTER 9 THE MEANING OF LIFE 406

APPENDIX A THE TRUTH ABOUT PHILOSOPHY MAJORS 431

APPENDIX B ANSWERS TO EXERCISES 437

APPENDIX c HOW TO WRITE A PHILOSOPHY PAPER 441

NOTES 451

GLOSSARY 457

CREDITS 461

INDEX of MARGINAL

QUOTATIONS 463

GENERAL INDEX 465

VII

Preface xxi

CHAPTER 1 PHILOSOPHY AND YOU l

1.1 PHILOSOPHY: THE QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING 2

The Good of Philosophy 2

Philosophical Terrain 4 What Do You Believe? Your Philosophical Beliefs 5 Essay/Discussion Questions 7

1.2 SOCRATES AND THE EXAMINED LIFE 8

Philosophers at Work: Plato 9

PLATO: The Republic 10 Philosophers at Work: The Pre-Socratics 12

Essay/Discussion Questions 14

1.3 THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY 14

Reasons and Arguments 15 Philosophy Lab 16

Philosophers at Work: Phi losophy Takes on Racism 20

Reading Philosophy 27 Philosophers at Work: Hypatia 29 Philosophers at Work: Early Women

Philosophers: Themistoclea, Arignote,

and Theano 31

Fallacious Reasoning 33 Philosophy Now: Phi losophy in the News 34 Essay/Discussion Questions 40

REVIEW NOTES 40

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 42

KEY TERMS 42

ARGUMENT EXERCISES 43 ix

x Contents

NARRATIVE: Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates 47

PROBING QUESTIONS SS

FOR FURTHER READING SS

CHAPTER 2 GOD AND RELIGION 57

2.1 OVERVIEW: COD AND PHILOSOPHY 58

Why Religion Matters 59

Overview: The Philosopher's Quest 59 Philosophy Now: Who Believes in God? 60 What Do You Believe? Hard-Wired for God? 63

Belief and Disbelief 64

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical Views 66

2.2 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF COD 66

Cosmological Arguments 66

AQUINAS: Summa Theologica 67 Philosophers at Work: St. Thomas Aquinas 68 Philosophy Now: Science and the Uncaused

Universe 69

CRAIG: Reasonable Faith 70

Design Arguments 72

PALEY: Natural Theology 72

HUME: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion 74 Philosophy Now: Do Scientists Reject Religion? 78

Onto logical Arguments 79

ANSELM: Proslogium 79 Philosophy Now: Evolution and Intelligent

Design 80

KANT: Critique of Pure Reason 83 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

2.3 COD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 84

Rowe's Argument f rom Evil 84

ROWE: Philosophy of Religion 84

The Free Will Defense 87

SWINBURNE: Is There a God? 87

The Soul-Making Defense 88

HICK: Evil and the God of Love 88 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

2.4 THEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 92

ST. TERESA OF AVILA: The Life of Teresa of Jesus 92

MACKIE: The Miracle of Theism 93 Philosophy Lab 94

ROWE: Philosophy of Religion 95 Philosophy Now: Proof of the Power of Prayer? 96

SWINBURNE: The Existence of God 97 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

2.5 BELIEF WITHOUT REASON 98

James: Pragmatic Fait h 99

JAMES: "The W ill to Believe" 100

MARTIN: Atheism: A Philosophical

Justification 106

Pascal: Betting on God 106

What Do You Believe? Do You Live by Faith? 107

PASCAL: Pensees and Other Writings 107 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

2.6 EASTERN RELIGIONS 109

Buddhism 109

SUMEDHO: Buddha-Nature 112

RAHULA: What the Buddha Taught 112 Philosophy Now: Buddhism and Science 114

H induism 116

Philosophy Now: The Caste System 120

Daoism 123

CHUANG TZU: All Things Are One 123

LAO-TZU: Tao-te ching 124 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

Contents x1

x i i Contents

REVIEW NOTES 126

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 129

KEY TERMS 129

FICTION: Arthur C. Clarke, "The Star" 131

PROBING QUESTIONS 133

FOR FURTHER READING 134

CHAPTER 3 MORALITY AND THE MORAL LIFE 135

3.1 OVERVIEW: ETHICS AND THE MORAL DOMAIN 136

Eth ics and Morality 136

Moral Theories 139

Philosophy Now: Morality and the Low 141 Philosophy Now: The Morality of Human

Cloning 144

Religion and Morality 146

SHAFER-LANDAU: Whatever Happened

to Good and Evil? 147 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

3.2 MORAL RELATIVISM 148

Subjective Relativism 149

Cultural Relativism 151

What Do You Believe? Cultural Relativism

and Women's Rights 152

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

3.3 MORALITY BASED ON CONSEQUENCES 155

Utilitar ianism 156

MILL: "What Uti litarianism Is" 158 Philosophy Now: Util itarianism and the Death

Penalty 160

Philosophy Lab 164

Eth ical Egoism 165

Philosophers at Work: John Stuart Mill 165 Philosophy Now: Torture and the Ticking Bomb

Terrorist 166

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical Views 169

3.4 M ORALITY BASED ON DUTY AND RIGHTS 169

KANT: Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals 170 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

3.5 MORALITY BASED ON CHARACTER 175

ARISTOTLE: Nicomachean Ethics 176

SHAFER-LANDAU: The Fundamentals of Ethics 180

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical Views 181

3.6 FEMINIST ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CARE 181

JAGGAR: "Feminist Ethics" 182

CROSTHWAITE: "Gender and Bioethics" 182

HELD: The Ethics of Care 184

Philosophers at Work: Mary Wollstonecraft 186

BAIER: "The Need for More Than Justice" 188 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

3.7 ALBERT CAMUS: AN EXISTENTIALIST VOICE 188

CAMUS: The Myth of Sisyphus 190 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

3.8 CONFUCIANISM 192

CONFUCIUS: Analects 193

NOSS: A History of the World's Religions 195 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

REVIEW NOTES 196

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 198

KEY TERMS 198

FICTION: Ursula K. Le Guin, " The Ones Who Walk Away

from Ornelas" 200

PROBING QUESTIONS 203

FOR FURTHER READING 203

Contents xiii

xiv Contents

CHAPTER 4 MIND AND BODY 205

4.1 OVERVIEW: THE M IND-BODY PROBLEM 206

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

4.2 SUBSTANCE DUALISM 211

DESCARTES: Discourse on the Method of Rightly

Conducting the Reason 2 12

SCHICK: Doing Philosophy 212

DESCARTES: Meditations on First Philosophy 213 What Do You Believe? The Immortal Soul 2 14

SEARLE: Mind 216

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical Views 217

4.3 MIND-BODY IDENTITY 217

SMART: "Sensations and Brain Processes" 217

CHALMERS: The Conscious Mind 2 18

NAGEL: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" 220 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

4.4 THE M IND AS SOFTWARE 222

FODOR: "The Mind-Body Problem" 222

BLOCK: "Troubles with Functionalism" 223

What Do You Believe? Al and Human Rights 224

SEARLE: Mind 226

Philosophers at Work: Alan Turing 227 Philosophers at Work: John R. Searle 228 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

Philosophy Now: Al, Ethics, and War 230

4.5 THE MIND AS PROPERTIES 230

CHALMERS: The Conscious Mind 232 Philosophy Lab 233 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

REVIEW NOTES 234

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 235

KEY TERMS 236

FICTION: Terry Bisson, "They're Made out of Meat" 237

PROBING QUESTIONS 238

FOR FURTHER READING 238

CHAPTER 5 FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM 240

5.1 OVERVIEW: THE FREE WILL PROBLEM 241

What Do You Believe? Fate 245 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

5.2 DETERMINISM AND INDETERMINISM 246

D'HOLBACH: "Of the System of Man's Free Agency" 246

Philosophers at Work: Will iam James 248

JAMES: "The Dilemma of Determinism" 249 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

5.3 COMPATIBILISM 250

LOCKE: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 251

STACE: Religion and the Modern Mind 251 Philosophy Now: Does Belief in Free Will Matter? 252

ROWE: "Two Concepts of Freedom" 254 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

5.4 LIBERTARIANISM 255

Philosophy Now: Science and Free Will 256

VAN INWAGEN: An Essay on Free Will 257 Philosophy Lab 258

TAYLOR: Metaphysics 258 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

5.5 SARTRE'S PROFOUND FREEDOM 261

SARTRE: "Existentialism Is a Humanism" 262

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical Views 266

Contents xv

xvi Contents

REVIEW NOTES 266

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 268

KEY TERMS 268

FICTION: Thomas D. Davis, "A Little Omniscience Goes

a Long Way" 270

PROBING QUESTIONS 273

FOR FURTHER READING 273

CHAPTER 6 KNOWLEDGE AND SKEPTICISM 274

6.1 OVERVIEW: THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 275

What Do You Believe? Cognitive Relativism Undone 277

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

6.2 THE RATIONALIST ROAD 281

Plato's Rationalism 281

PLATO: Meno 283

Descartes' Doubt 284

DESCARTES: Meditations on First Philosophy 285 Philosophy Now: Living in The Matrix 287 Philosophy Lab 288

Descartes' Certainty 288

DESCARTES: Meditations on First Philosophy 288

Philosophers at Work: Rene Descartes 290 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Phi losophical

6.3 THE EMPIRICIST TURN 293

Locke 293

LOCKE: An Essay Concerning Human

Understanding 293

Berkeley 299

BERKELEY: Of the Principles of Human Knowledge 300

Hume 303 Philosophers at Work: David Hume 304

HUME: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 305

Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical Views 310

6.4 THE KANTIAN COMPROMISE 311

KANT: Critique of Pure Reason 312 Philosophers at Work: Immanuel Kant 313 Philosophy Now: Conceptualizing the World 316 Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

6.5 A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON KNOWLEDGE 319

AINLEY: "Feminist Philosophy" 320

ANTONY: " Embodiment and Epistemology" 320

ANDERSON: "Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science" 321

COLE: Philosophy and Feminist Criticism 321 Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

REVIEW NOTES 325

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 328

KEY TERMS 329

FICTION: Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass" 330

PROBING QUESTIONS 330

FOR FURTHER READING 331

CHAPTER 7 AESTHETICS 332

7.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY OF BEAUTY 333

Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

7.2 WHAT IS ART? 333

Philosophy Now: Is It Art? 334

BELL: Art 335 Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

Philosophy Now: Controversial Ar t 336

Contents xv ii

xvii i Contents

7.3 AESTHETIC VALUE 338

Philosophers at Work: Arthur C. Dante 339 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

7.4 PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND HUME 340

ARISTOTLE: The Poetics 340 Philosophy Lab 341

HUME: Of the Standard of Taste 343 Philosophy Now: Feminist Art 344 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

REVIEW NOTES 349

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own

KEY TERMS 350

FICTION: Edgar Allan Poe, "The Oval Portrait" 351

PROBING QUESTIONS 352

FOR FURTHER READING 352

CHAPTER 8 THE JUST SOCIETY 354

8.1 OVERVIEW: JUSTICE AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 355

What Do You Believe? Polit ica l Views in

Flux 358 Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical

8.2 PLATO'S THEORY: JUSTICE AS MERIT 360

PLATO: The Republic 361 Philosophy Now: Merit or Equality: Who Gets

to Live? 363

Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical Views 364

8.3 SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORIES 364

Hobbes 365

Philosophers at Work: Thomas Hobbes 365

HOBBES: Leviathan 366

Locke 370

LOCKE: Second Treatise of Government 371

Rawls 375 Philosophers at Work: John Locke 375

RAWLS: A Theory of justice 376 Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

8.4 SOCIALIST THEORIES 379

Philosophy Lab 380 Philosophy Now: Is the United States a Socialist

Country? 381

MARX and ENGELS: Manifesto of the Communist

Party 381 Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

8.5 FEMINISM ANO SOCIAL JUSTICE 387

OKIN: Justice, Gender, and the Family 388

MILLER: Political Philosophy 392 Writing to Understand: Crit iquing Philosophical

REVIEW NOTES 393

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own

KEY TERMS 395

FICTION: William Golding, "Lord of the Flies" 397

PROBING QUESTIONS 405

FOR FURTHER READING 405

CHAPTER 9 THE MEAN ING OF LIFE 406

9.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY ANO THE MEAN ING

OF LIFE 407

Philosophy Lab 410

9.2 PESSIMISM: LIFE HAS NO MEANING 411

TOLSTOY: My Confession 411

Contents xix

xx Contents

SCHOPENHAUER: "On the Sufferings of the World" 413

BAGG/NI: What's It All About? 414 Philosophy Now: Nietzsche: Reflections

on Meaning 415

9.3 OPTIMISM : LIFE CAN HAVE MEANING 416

Meaning from Above 416

TOLSTOY: My Confession 416 Philosophy Now: Is Religion Necessary

for a Meaningful Life? 4 19

BAGG/NI: What's It All About? 420

Meaning from Below 4 21

EDWARDS: The Encyclopedia of Philosophy 421

REVIEW NOTES 426

What Do You Believe? What Can and Cannot Give Life Meaning? 427

Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views 428

FICTION: Voltaire, "The Good Brahmin" 429

PROBING QUESTIONS 430

FOR FURTHER READING 430

Appendix A: The Truth about Philosophy Majors 431

Appendix B: Answers to Exercises 437

Appendix C: How to Write a Philosophy Paper 441

Notes 451

Glossary 457

Credits 461

Index of Marginal Quotations 463

General Index 465

PREFACE ................................... _. ........ _. .... .._ ............ ._ ............................................................... .-................................ _. ........ __. ._ ....................... __. .............. . ............ __. ........ __. .......... ........... ......... ................. .... ..... _. ... .

This third edition of Philosophy Here and Now stays true to the aspirations and char- acter of the first and second. From the beginning, the text has been designed to provide an extraordinary amount of encouragement and guidance to students \vho are encountering philosophy for the first (and perhaps last) time. !rs ambitious aim is to get such students to take some big steps tO\vard understand ing, appreciating, and even doing philosophy. Philosophy Here and Now thus tries to do a great deal more than most other texts or readers. To foster a serious understanding of philosophy, it includes solid coverage of critical thinking skills and argument basics as well as guid- ance and practice in reading philosophical works. Studenrs of course can appreciate the point and power of philosophy as they comprehend philosophical \vritings, but their appreciation blossoms when they see ho\v philosophical issues and reasoning play out in contemporary society and how philosophical insights apply to their O\vn lives. So the book's coverage and pedagogical features help students grasp philoso- phy's relevance and t imeliness. Studenrs learn how to do philosophy-to think and write philosophically-\vhen they get encouragement and practice in analyzing and critiquing their own vie\vS and those of the philosophers they study. To this end, Phiwsophy Here and Now emphasizes philosophical writing, reinforced with step- by-step coaching in how to \vrite argumentative essays and supported by multiple opportunities to hone basic skills.

In addition to these core elements, Philosophy Here and Now further engages today's learners \Vith abundant illustrations and color graphics; marginal notes, questions, and quotes; profiles of a diverse array of philosophers; and ample repre- sentation of non-Western and nont raditional sources.

TOPICS AND READINGS

Nine chapters cover the existence of God, morality and the moral life, mind and body, free wi ll and determinism, knowledge and skepticism, aesthetics, political philosophy, and the meaning of life. These topics are explored in read ings from seventy-five traditional and contemporary philosophers integrated into the main text, featuring both indispensable standards and ne\ver selections. The standards include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Pascal, Anselm, Descartes, Hume, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, d'Holbach, Paley, James, Sartre, Marx, and others. Among t he more recent voices are Searle, Chalmers, Craig, Swinburne, H ick, Mackie, Rowe, Gard- ner, Blum, Dersho\vitz, Rahula, Jaggar, Held, Baier, Nagel, Block, Van l n\vagen, Taylor, D u Sautoy, Ducasse, Cole, Ainley, Rawls, O kin, and Schopenhauer.

All these selections are juxtaposed with end-of-chapter pieces of fiction or narrative-stories meant to explore and dramatize the philosophical issues encountered

xxi

xxii Preface

in the chapters. They include some classic stories such as "The Good Brahmin" by Volta ire, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Ornelas" by Ursula Le Guin, and "They're Made Out of Meat" by Terry Bisson, as \veil as lesser-kno\vn fiction by notable writers like Arthur C. Clarke and William Golding. Each story is accompanied by discus- sion/essay questions designed to dra\v out irs philosophical implications.

MAIN FEATURES

• A comprehensive introductory chapter that lays the groundwork for philo- sophical thinking. Through examples drawn from philosophical literature and everyday life, th is chapter explains clearly the nature and scope of philosophy and ho\v it relates to students' lives. This much, of course, is \vhat any good text in this field should do. But this first chapter also shows how to devise and evalu- ate arguments and guides students in critically thinking, reading, and \vriting about philosophical issues.

• Critical thinking questions that correspond to relevant passages in the main text or readings. These questions, located in the margins of the text, invite stu- dents to ponder the implications of the material and to th ink critically about the assumptions and arguments found there. The questions are numbered and highlighted and easily lend themselves to both \vriting assignments and class discussion. The point of their marginal placement is to prompt students to think carefully and analytically as they read.

• Four types of text boxes that demonstrate the value and relevance of philoso- phy in the modern world:

• "Philosophy Now" -These boxes contain news items and research reports that illustrate ho\v each chapter's philosophical issues permeate everyday life. They demonstrate that philosophical concerns arise continually in science, society, ethics, religion, politics, medicine, and more. Each box ends \vith questions that prompt critical thinking and philosophical reflection.

• "What Do You Believe?"-Prompting student engagement and reflec- tion, these boxes explore issues related to the chapter's topics and challenge students' beliefs.

• "Philosophers at Work'' -These boxes profi le the lives and work of com- pelling figures in philosophy, past and present, Western and non-Western or nontraditional, men and women. Some feature philosophers from the past \vhose story adds a human and historical dimension to the ideas discussed in the chapter, and some profile contemporary thinkers who are grappling \vith the important issues of the day. The point of these features is, of course, to sho\v that philosophy is very much a living, relevant enterprise.

• " Philosophy Lab"-These boxes present simple thought experiments chal- lenging students to think through scenarios that can reveal deeper philo- sophical insights or perspectives.

• In-depth coverage of philosophical writing includes step-by-step coaching in argument basics and multiple opportunities to hone critical thinking skills.

• "Writing to Understand: Critiquing Philosophical Views" -These boxes appear at the end of each section and consist of essay questions that prompt students to critically examine the strengths and weaknesses of the vie\vS dis- cussed in the sections.

• "Writing to Understand: Arguing Your Own Views" - These boxes prompt students to explain and defend thei r O\vn views on the chapter's topics in short essays.

• " How to Write a Philosophy Paper" -This appendix offers concise, step- by-step guidance in crafting an effective philosophical essay.

• A final chapter on ''The Meaning of Life." This chapter discusses how philoso- phers have clarified and explored the topic of life's meaning. It covers the main philosophical perspectives on the subject and samples the views of philosophers past and present.

All these features are supplemented \Vith other elements to make the material even more engaging and accessible:

• Marginal quotes. These pithy, compelling quotes from an array of philosophers appear throughout the text, inviting students to join the ongoing conversation of philosophy.

• Key Terms, marginal definitions, and end-of-book Glossary. Key Terms in each chapter appear in boldface at their first appearance in a chapter, and mar- ginal definitions help studenrs learn the terms within their immediate context. A list of the chapter's Key Terms appears at the end of each chapter, along \vith the page numbers on which the term and irs definition fi rst appear. Last, a Glossary of those Key Terms and definitions provides an essential reference for students as they review and prepare fo r tesrs as well as draft their own philosophical essays and argumenrs.

• Chapter Objectives. This list at the beginning of each chapter helps to scaffold student learning by providing both structure and support for previewing, note taking, and retention of content.

• End-of-chapter reviews. Concluding each chapter, this feature revisits the Chapter Objectives, encouraging students to reflect and revie\v.

• An index of marginal quotes. This supplemental index helps students locate the words of philosophers that seem especially insightful or inspiring to them.

• For Further reading. Located at the end of each chapter, these useful referen ces point students to sources that \viii enhance thei r understanding of chapter issues and argumenrs.

• Timeline. Featuring philosophers' lives and important events, this visual learn- ing tool helps students appreciate the historic significance of philosophical ideas by placing them \vithin a larger context.

• Charts, tables, and color photos. Appearing throughout the book, these have been selected or created to deepen studen t engagement with and understanding of complex ideas and abstract conceprs. In addition, captions fo r these images include brief, open-ended questions to help studenrs "read" visuals \Vith the same critical attention they learn to bring to written texrs.

Preface xx11 1

xxiv Preface

NEW TO THIS EDITION

• An expanded chapter on aesthetics ( Chapter 7). Jc covers issues relating to the definition of art, objective and subjective standards, femi nist art, controversial artworks, on line art, and the philosophical examination of art by Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Gardner, Ducasse, and Dan to. Several new photos illustrate fem inist art, controversial art, and art that provokes discussion about what art is and isn't.

• Expanded coverage in Chapter 9 {The Meaning of Life). In addition to in- cluding readings by Tolstoy, Schopenhauer, Baggini, and Ed\vards {and com- mentary on Niet2Sche), the text now adds four more philosophers who debate the objectivity of meaning in life. Klemke and Lucretius lay out their case for subjectivist meaning, and Wolf and Belshaw argue fo r objectivist meaning.

• More history of philosophy in Chapter 1. No\v there's coverage of the pre- Socratics Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides, as well as four early women phi- losophers: Hypatia, Themistoclea, Arignote, and Theano.

• More text boxes adding depth to discussions or demonstrating how philo- sophical thinking can tackle tough contemporary issues. These cover human rights for robots, to rturing terrorists, racism, Buddhism and science, belief in God, and scientists and religion.

ANCILLARIES

The Oxford University Press Ancillary Resource Center {ARC) {www.oup-arc.com/ vaughn-philosophy-here-and-no\v) houses a \vealth of instructor resources, includ- ing an Instructor's Manual with sample syllabi, reading summaries, essay/discussion questions, suggested Web links, and a glossary of key terms from the text; a Com- puterized Test Bank \Vith fifty or more multiple-choice and true/false questions per chapter {also available as a traditional "pencil-and-paper" Test Bank in the Instruc- tor's Manual); and PowerPoint lecture outlines.

A companion website {www.oup.com/us/vaughn) contains study materials for students, including level-one and level-nvo practice quizzes with multiple-choice and true/false questions taken from the Test Bank, essay/discussion questions, read- ing summaries, flashcards of key terms from the text, and suggested Web links.

All instructor and student resources are also available as cartridges for Learning Management Systems. For more information, please contact your Oxford University Press Sales Representative at 1-800-280-0280.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A text like th is is not possible \Vithout the help of a lot of talented and consci- entious people. At the top of the list are my fine editors at Oxford University Press-most notably Robert Miller and Meg Botteon, as well as Alyssa Palazzo

and Sidney Keen. Throughout the formative stages of this text, many astute re- viewers provided invaluable suggestions and criticisms, and the book is much the better for it. Many thanks to:

Kristin Borgwald Miami Dade College

Daniel Bramer Holy Family University

Jeremy Byrd Tarrant County College

Teresa Cantrell University of Louisville

Alberto Gonzalez College of the Canyons

Aaron Rizzieri Yavapai College

Stephen Russell Orr Solano Community College

Allen Shonvell Ivy Tech Community College

John Shuford Lin.field College

Russell S\vanson Florida South Western State College

Rabbi Doug Weber Castleton University

Steve Wyre Mohave Community College

Preface xxv

CHAPTER

PHILOSOPHY AND YOU

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

1.1 PH ILOSOPHY: THE QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING

• Know the practical and theoretica l benefits of studying philosophy.

• Take an inventory of your philosophical beliefs.

• Know the four main divisions of philosophy and the kinds of questions they examine.

1.2 SOCRATES ANO THE EXAMINED LIFE

• Understand why Socrates declared that "the unexamined life is not worth living."

• Explain the Socratic method and how Socrates used it in search of understand ing.

• Relate how Socrates showed that Thrasymachus's notion of justice was wrong.

• Exp lain how reductio ad absurdum arguments work.

1.3 THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY

• Define argument, statement, conclusion, and premise.

• Know the two conditions that must be met for an argument to be good.

• Define deductive argument, inductive argument, valid, sound, cogent, strong, and weak. Understand inferences to the best explanat ion and how their strength is evaluated.

• Be able to ident ify arguments in the form of modus ponens, modus to/lens, affirming the consequent, and denying the antecedent .

• Be able to ident ify arguments in various contexts and tell whether they are valid or invalid, sound or not sound, strong or weak, and cogent or not cogent.

• Understand the guidelines for reading and appreciating philosophy.

• Be aware of common fallacies and know how to identify them in various contexts .

2 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Science gives us know·

ledge, bur only philosophy can give us wisdo m. -Will Durant

1 Suppose you had a fundamental belief that the mind, or soul, does not survive the death of the body. What other beliefs would this fundamen- tal belief be likely to support?

Philosophy should be responsive ro human ex·

pcricncc and yet critical of the defective thinking it sometimes encounters.

-Martha Nussbaum

1.1 PHILOSOPHY: THE QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING

The title of chis text, Philosophy Here and Now, is meant co emphasize chat philoso- phy is, well, here and now-chat is, relevant and current. This means chat philoso- phy, even with its ancient lineage and seemingly remote concerns, applies co your li fe and your times and your world. Philosophy achieves chis immediacy by being many good things at once: it is enlightening, choughc-provoking, life-changing, liberating, theoretical, and practical. The world is fu ll of scudencs and teachers ,vho can attest co these claims. More importantly, you will find proof of chem in the remainder of chis text-and in the writings of the great philosophers, in your grasping what they say and the reasons they give for saying it, and in your o,vn honest accempcs co apply philosophy co your life.

Philosophy is the name chat philosophers have given co both a d iscipline and a process. As a discipline, philosophy is one of the humanities, a field of study out of which several ocher fields have evolved-physics, biology, political science, and many ochers. As a process, philosophy is a penetrating mode of reflection for understanding life's most important truths. This mode is what ,ve may call the philosophical method-the systematic use of critical reasoning co cry co find answers co fundamental questions about reality, morality, and kno,vledge. The method, however, is not a master key used exclusively by professional philosophers co unlock mysteries hidden from common folk. The philosophical method is the birthright of every person, fo r ,ve are all born with the capacity co reason, co ques- tion, co discover. For thousands of years, great minds like Ariscocle, Plato, Confu- cius, Descartes, Aquinas, and Sartre have used it in their search for wisdom, and ,vhac they found has changed countless lives. Bue amateur philosophers like you have also used it-and continue co use it-to achieve life-altering understanding chat ,vould have eluded chem otherwise.

The Good of Philosophy

Philosophy is not just about ideas; it's about fundamental ideas, chose upon which ocher ideas depend. A fundamental belief logically supporcs ocher bel iefs, and the more beliefs it supporcs the more fundamental it is. Your belief or disbelief in God, for example, might support a hose of ocher beliefs about morality, life after death, heaven, hell, free will, science, evolution, prayer, abortion, miracles, homo- sexuality, and more. Thanks co your upbringing, your culture, your peers, and ocher influences, you already have a head full of fundamental beliefs, some of chem true, some false. Whether true or false, they constitute the framework of your ,vhole belief system, and as such they help you make sense of a wide range of important issues in life-issues concerning what exists and what doesn't, what actions are right or ,vrong (or neither), and ,vhac kinds of things we can kno,v and not kno,v. Funda- mental beliefs, therefore, make up your "philosophy of life," which informs your chinking and guides your actions.

Perhaps now you can better appreciate philosophy's greatest practical benefit: it gives us che intellectual wherewithal co improve our lives by improving our

Phi losophy: The Quest for Understanding 3

philosophy of life. A faulty philosophy of life-that is, one that comprises a great many false fundamental beliefs-can lead to a misspent or misdirected life, a life less meaningful than it could be. Philosophy is the most powerful instrument we have for evaluating the worth of our fundamental beliefs and for changing them for the better. Through philosophy we exert control over the t rajectory of our lives, making major course corrections by reason and reflection.

The Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 BCE), one of Western civil ization's great intellectual heroes, says, "An unexamined life is not \VOrth living." To examine your life is to scrutinize the core ideas that shape it, and the deepest form of scrutiny is exercised through philosophy. This search for answers goes to the heart of the tradi- tional conception of philosophy as a search for wisdom (the term phiwsophy is derived from Greek words meaning " love of wisdom"). With the attainment of wisdom, we come to understand the true nature of reality and how to apply that understanding to living a good life.

Philosophy's chief theoretical benefit is the same one that most other fields of inquiry pursue: understanding for its own sake. Even if philosophy had no pract ical applications at all , it would sti ll hold great value fo r us. We want to know how the world works, what t ruths it hides, just for the sake of knowing. And philoso-

Figure 1.1 Socrates (469-399 ace).

phy obliges. Astronomers search the sky, physicists study subatomic part icles, and archaeologists search fo r ancient ruins, all the while knowing that what they find may have no practical implications at all . We humans wonder, and that's often all the reason we need to search for ans\vers. As the great philosopher Aristotle says, "For it is owing to thei r wonder that people both no\v begin and at first began to philosophize."

For many people, the quest for understand ing through philosophy is a spiri- tual, transformative endeavor, an ennobling pursuit of truths at the core of life. Thus, several philosophers speak of philosophy as something that enriches or nur- tu res the soul or mind. Socrates, speaking to the jurors who condemned him fo r practicing philosophy on the streets of Athens, asked, "Are you not ashamed that, while you take care to acquire as much wealth as possible, with honor and glory as \vell , yet you take no care or thought for understanding or t ruth, or for the best possible state of your soul?" In a similar vein, the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE) said , "Let no young man delay the study of philosophy, and let no old man become \veary of it; for it is never too early nor too late to care fo r the well-being of the soul." And in our own era, the philosopher Walter Kaufmann (1921- 1980) declared, "Philosophy means liberation from the two d imensions of routine, soaring above the well kno\vn, seeing it in ne\v perspectives, arousing wonder and the wish to fly."

Along with philosophical inquiry comes freedom. We begin our lives at a partic- ular place and time, steeped in the ideas and values of a particular culture, fed ready- made beliefs that may or may not be true and that \Ve may never think to question.

2 Is it possible to lead a meaningful life w ith· out self-examination?

Philosophy is the highest music.

-Plato

4 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

If you passively accept such beliefs, then those beliefs are not really yours. If they are not really yours, and you let them guide your choices and actions, then they-not you-are in charge of your life. You thus forfeit your personal freedom. But phi- losophy helps us rise above th is predicament, to transcend the narro,v and obstructed standpoint from which we may vie,v everything. It helps us sift our hand-me-down beliefs in the light of reason, look beyond the prejudices that blind us, and see what's real and true. By using the philosophical method, we may learn that some of our beliefs are on solid ground and some are not. In either case, through philosophy our beliefs become truly and authentically our own.

Philosophical Terrain

Figure 1.2 Aristotle (384-322 BCE).

Philosophy's sphere of interest is vast, encompassing funda- mental beliefs drawn from many places. Philosophical ques- tions can arise anywhere. Part of the reason for th is is that ordinary beliefs that seem to have no connection with philoso- phy can become philosophical in short order. A physiologist may ,vant to know ho,v our brains ,vork, but she ventures into the philosophical arena ,vhen she wonders ,vhether the brain is the same th ing as the mind-a quest ion that science alone

To teach how to live

w itho ut certainty and ycr

without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps ,he

chief thing that philoso· phy, in our age, can do for those who srudy it.

-Benrand Russell

3 Has your thin king recent ly led you to reflect on philosophi- cal questions? If so, how did the thought process begin, and what f undamental belief did you end up contemplating?

Metaphysics is the study of reality in ,he broadest

sense, an inquiry into rhc clcmcnral narurc of rhc

universe and the things JO It.

cannot answer. A lawyer studies how the death penalty is ad- ministered in Texas, but he does philosophy when he considers whether capital pun- ishment is ever morally permiss ible. A medical scientist wants to kno,v ho,v a human fetus develops, but she finds it d ifficult to avoid the philosophical query of ,vhat the moral status of the fetus is. An astrophysicist studies the Big Bang, the cataclysmic explosion thought to have brought the universe into being-but then asks whether the Big Bang shows that God cause.cl the universe to exist. On CNN you see the horrors of ,var and famine, but then you find yourself grappling with ,vhether they can be squared with the existence of an all-po,verful, all-knowing, and all-good God. Or you ,vonder ,vhat your moral obligations are to the poor and hungry of the ,vorld. O r you ponder whether government should help people in need or leave them to fend for themselves.

We can div ide philosophy's subject matter into four main divisions, each of ,vhich is a branch of inquiry in its o,vn right ,vith many subcategories. Here's a brief rundown of these divis ions and a sampling of the kinds of quest ions that each asks.

Metaphysics is the study of reality in the broadest sense, an inquiry into the elemental nature of the universe and the things in it. Though it must take into ac- count the findings of science, metaphysics generally focuses on basic questions that science cannot address. Questions of interest: Does the ,vorld consist only of matter, or is it made up of other basic things, such as ideas or minds? Is there a spiritual, ideal realm that exists beyond the material world? Is the mind the same thing as the body?

Phi losophy: The Quest for Understanding 5

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Your Philosophical Beliefs

Where do you stand on the fundamencal issues in philosophy? Here is your chance co cake inventory of your vie,vs. After you finish chis course, cake the survey again co see if your perspective has changed or become ,nore nuanced. AnS\ver ,vich chese numbers: 5 = true; 4 = probably crue; 3 = neither probable nor i1nprobable; 2 = probably false; I = false.

I. Ac lease so,ne 1noral nonns or principles are objectively true or valid for everyone.

2. Mora l standards are relative co what individuals or cu ltures bel ieve. __ 3. Mind and body consist of nvo fu nda,nencally different kinds of scuff- nonphysical

scuff and physica l scuff. __ 4. The 1nind, or soul, can exist ,vichouc che body. __ 5. Our mental scares are nothing bur bra in scares (,n ind scares are identical co bra in scares).

6. No one has free ,vi ii. __ 7. Persons have free will (so,ne of our actions are free). __ 8. Although our actions are determined, they can still be free (free ,viii and decenn inis,n

are nor in confl ict). __ 9. The God of crad icional Western religions (an all-knowing, all-po,verful, all-good deity)

exists. __ 10. The apparent design of the universe shows char it had an intell igent designer. __ 11. Right actions are chose co,nmanded by God; ,vrong actions are chose forbidden by

God. __

12. God does nor ,nake actions right or ,vrong by commanding chem co be so. __ 13. We can know some th ings about che external world. __ 14. We cannot know anything about che external world. __ 15. The theory of evolution is a beccer explanation of the apparent design of biologica l life

chan che theory of "incelligenc design." __ 16. Truth about something depends on what a person or culture believes. __ 17. Libercarianis,n is che correct political theory. __ 18. Welfare liberalis,n is che correct moral theory. __ 19. Meaning in life comes from outside ourselves, fro,n God or so,ne ocher transcendent

real ity. __ 20. Meaning in life comes from ,vichin ourselves. __

How are mind and body related? Do people have immortal souls? Do humans have free wi ll, or are our actions determined by forces beyond our control? Can actions be both free and determined? Does God exist? How can both a good God and evil exist simultaneously? What is the nat ure of causality? Can an effect ever precede its cause? What is the nature of time? Is time travel possible?

And what, Socrates, is the food of che soul> Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of che soul. - Plato

6 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

MAIN DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

DIVISION

Metaphysics

Epistemology

Axiology

Logic

Epistemology is the study of knowledge.

Axiology is the study of value, including both aesthetic value and moral

value. Ethics is the study of moral value using the methods of philosophy.

QUESTIONS

Does the world consist only of matter, or is it made up of other basic th ings, such as ideas or mind? Is there a spiritual, ideal realm that exists beyond the material world? Is the mind the same thing as the body? How are mind and body related? Do people have immortal souls? Do humans have free wi ll, or are our actions determined by forces beyond our control? Can actions be both free and deter- mined? Does God exist? How can both a good God and evi l exist simultaneously? What is the nature of causal ity? Can an effect ever precede its cause? What is the nature of time? Is time trave l possible?

What is knowledge? What is truth? Is knowledge possible- can we ever know any- thing? Does knowledge require certainty? What are the sources of knowledge? Is experience a source of knowledge? Is mysticism or faith a source? Can we gain knowledge of the empirical world through reason alone? If we have knowledge, how much do we have? When are we justified in saying that we know something? Do we have good reasons to believe that the world exists independently of our minds? Or do our minds constitute reality?

What makes an action right (or wrong)? What th ings are intrinsically good? What is the good life? What gives life meaning? What makes someone good (or bad)? What moral principles should guide our actions and choices? Which is the best moral theory? Is killing ever mora lly permissible? If so, why? Are mora l standards objective or subjective? Is an action right merely because a culture endorses it? Does morality depend on God? What makes a society just?

What are the ru les for drawing correct inferences? What are the nature and struc- ture of deductive arguments? How can propositional or predicate logic be used to evaluate arguments? Upon what logical principles does reasoning depend? Does logic describe how the world is- or just how our minds work? Can conclusions reached through inductive logic be rationally justified?

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Questions of interest: What is knowl- edge? What is truth? Is kno\vledge possible-can \Ve ever kno\v anything? Does knowledge require certainty? What are the sources of kno\vledge? Is experience a source of knowledge? Is mysticism or faith a source? Can we gain kno\vledge of the empirical \vorld through reason alone? If \Ve have kno\vledge, how much do \Ve have? When are we justified in saying that \Ve know something? Do we have good reasons to believe that the \vorld exists independently of our minds? Or do our minds con- stitute reality?

Axiology is the study of value, including both aesthetic value and moral value. The study of moral value is kno\vn as eth ics. Ethics involves inquiries into the nature of moral judgments, virtues, values, obligations, and theories. Questions of interest: What makes an action right (or wrong)? What things are intrinsically good? What is the good life? What gives life meaning? What makes someone good (or bad)? What moral principles should guide our actions and choices? Which is the best moral

Phi losophy: The Quest for Understanding 7

theory? Is ki lling ever morally permissible? If so, why? Are moral standards objective or subjective? Is an ac- t ion right merely because a culture endorses it? Does morality depend on God? W hat makes a society just?

Logic is the study of correct reasoning. Ques- tions of interest: W hat are the rules for d rawing cor- rect inferences? What are the nature and structure of deductive arguments? How can propositional or pred- icate logic be used to evaluate argumenrs? Upon what logical principles does reasoning depend? Does logic describe ho,v the world is-or just ho,v our minds work? Can conclusions reached through induct ive logic be rationally justified?

In addition to these divisions, there are subdivi- sions of philosophy whose job is to examine critically the assumptions and principles that underlie other fields. Thus ,ve have the philosophy of science, the philosophy of la,v, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of history, the philosophy of language, and many others. When those laboring in a discipline begin questioning irs most basic ideas-ideas that define irs subject matter and principles of inquiry- philosophy, the most elemental mode of investigation, steps 1n.

Figure 1.3 Plat o, point ing upward t oward the h igher realm of ideas, and Aristotle, gesturing down toward the th ings of t his earth.

ESSAY/ DISCUSSION QUESTIONS SECTION 1.1

1. What is the philosophical method? W ho can make use of this approach to important questions? Can only philosophers use it? H ave you used it? Ho,v?

2. What are some fundamental beliefs that are part of your philosophy of life? Ho,v do these beliefs influence your life?

3. What is philosophy's greatest practical benefit? Do you think studying philosophy could change your life goals or your fundamental beliefs? Why or why not?

4. How can philosophy enhance your personal freedom? What are some of your fundamental beliefs that you have never fully examined? What might be the result of never examining a fundamental belief?

5. Which of the four main divisions of philosophy interests you the most? W hy? W hat philosophical ques tions listed in this section would you most ,vant to have ans,vers to?

Logic is the study of correct reasoning.

There's a difference

between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.

- Charles M. Schulz

8 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

The point of philosophy

is to start with something so simple as not to seem worrh stating. and to end with something so para-

doxical that no one will believe it. - Bertrand Russell

4 Socrates says that a good man can never be harmed. What do you think he means by this?

The Socratic method is a qucstion-and .. answcr

dialogue in which proposi- tions arc methodically scrutinized to uncover the

trurh.

The chicfbcncfir, which rcsuk< from philosophy, arises in an indirect man ..

ncr, and proceeds more

from its secret> insensible

inAucncc, than from its immediate application.

- David Hume

1.2 SOCRATES AND THE EXAMINED LIFE

There is no better way to understand and appreciate the philosophical quest for knowledge than to study the life and work of Socrates, one of philosophy's greatest practitioners and the most revered figure in irs history. Socrates wrote no philosophy, but ,ve know about his thinking and character through his famous pupil Plato, who portrayed him in several dialogues, or conversations (notably in Euthyphro, Crito, and Apology). For two and a half millennia Socrates has been inspi ring generations by his devotion to philosophical inquiry, his relentless search for ,visdom, and his determination to live according to his o,vn high standards. As mentioned earl ier, he famously said that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and he became the best

example of someone living his life by that maxim. Thus, at a time when most phi- losophy was di rected at cosmological speculations, he turned to critically examining people's basic conceprs, common beliefs, and moral thinking.

For Socrates, an unexamined life is a tragedy because it resulrs in grievous harm to the soul, a person's true self or essence. The soul is harmed by lack of kno,vledge- ignorance of one's o,vn self and of the most important values in life (the good). But knowledge of these things is a mark of the soul's excellence. A clear sign that a per- son has an unhealthy soul is her exclusive pursuit of social status, ,vealth, po,ver, and pleasure instead of the good of the soul. The good of the soul is attained only through an uncompromising search for what's true and real, through the wisdom to see what is most vital in life. Such insight comes from rational self-examination and critical questioning of facile assumptions and unsupported beliefs. To get to the truth, Socrates thought, we must go around the false certitudes of custom, tradition, and superstition and let reason be our guide. Thus he played the role of philosophi- cal gadfly, an annoying pest to the people of Athens, prodding them to wake up and seek the wisdom within their grasp.

We know very little about Socrates' life. He spent all his days in Athens except for a term of military service in which he sold iered in the Peloponnesian War. He ,vas married and had three sons. He spent much of his time roaming the streets of Athens, speaking ,vith anyone who would listen. His habit was to ask people seem- ingly simple questions about their views on virtue, religion, justice, or the good, challenging them to think critically about their basic assumptions. This sort of question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are methodically scrutinized to uncover the truth has become known as the Socratic method. Usually when Socrates used it in conversations, or dialogues, with his fellow Athenians, thei r views ,vould be exposed as false or confused. The main point of the exercise for Socrates, ho,vever, was not to win arguments but to get closer to the truth. He thought people ,vho pursued this noble aim as he did should not be embarrassed by being sho,vn to be wrong; they should be delighted to be weaned from a false opinion. Nevertheless, the Socratic conversations often ended in the humiliation of eminent Athenians. They were enraged by Socrates, ,vhile many youths gravitated to him.

Eventually Socrates ,vas arrested and charged ,vith disrespecting the gods and corrupting the youth of the city. He was tried before five hundred jurors, a majority

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Plato

No philosopher- with che possible exception of Ariscocle-has had a deeper and more lasting effect on Western choughr chan Plato (c. 427- 347 BCE). He ,vas born in Athens into an inAuencial ariscocracic fa,nily and grew up during che perilous years of che Peloponnesian War, a struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesian scares. He was a student and admirer of Socrates, who turned Plato's

Socrates and the Examined Life 9

Figure 1.4 Plato (c. 427- 347 8C£).

m ind coward philosophy and che pursuit of wisdom. He ,vas horrified by Socrates' execution in 399 for irnpiery and corruption of Athenian youth, so he left Athens and traveled ,videly, possibly co Sicily and Egypt. When he returned co Athens, he founded the Academy, a reaching college regarded as che first university, and devoted che rest of his life co reaching and writing philosophy. (The Academy endured for hundreds of years until ic ,vas abolished by che Eastern Roman ernperor Justi nian I.) The Acade,ny's ,nose renowned studen t ,vas Ariscocle, who entered the school ar age seventeen and re,nained for C\venry years.

Plato's chinking is e,nbodied in his dia logues, nvenry-five of which exist in cheir co,nplece form. They were ,vrircen during a span of fifty years and have been divided into three periods: early, middle, and lace. The early dia logues include Eurhyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Gorgias. These early works portray Socrates as a brill iant and principled deAarer of his contemporaries' bogus clai,ns ro knowl- edge. The midd le dialogues include Phaedo, Republic, and Theneretur; che lace ones consist of Critias, Pnrmenides, Sophirt, Laws, and ochers.

of whom voted co convict him. H is sentence was death or exile; he chose death by poison rather than leave his beloved Athens. In his d ialogues Crito and Phaedo, Plato recounts che events of che trial, including Socrates' address co che jurors. Socrates is portrayed as a man of brill iant intellect and unshakeable integrity who would not compromise his principles, even co escape death.

In one form or another, che Socratic method has been pare of Western e.ducacion for centuries. le is one of che ways chat philosophy is done, a powerful procedure for applying critical chinking co many scacemencs chat seem out of reason's reach. As Socrates used it, che method typically ,vould go like chis: (1) someone poses a ques- tion about che meaning of a concept (for example, "What is justice?"); (2) Socrates' companion gives an answer; (3) Socrates raises questions about che answer, proving chat che answer is inadequate; (4) co avoid che problems inherent in chis answer, che companion offers a second ans,ver; (5) seeps (3) and (4) are repeated a number of

10 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Figure 1.5 The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David.

times, ultimately revealing that the companion does not kno\v \vhat he thought he

knew. To Socrates, this negative outcome is actually a k ind of progress. False answers are eliminated, opinions are improved, and perhaps the truth is a little closer than before.

Let's watch Socrates in action. Here is his conversation with Thrasymachus, a teacher eager to demonstrate that Socrates is not as \vise as people say he is. The ques- tion is "What is justice?" and Thrasymachus insisrs that justice is whatever is in the interest of the strongest-that is, might makes right.

Plato, The Republic

Listen, then, he [Thrasymachus] said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you won't.

Let me first understand you, I [Socrates] replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You can not mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast [an athlete), is stronger than we are, and fi nds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is , and right and just for us?

That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

Not at all , my good sir, I sa id; I am trying to understand them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer.

Socrates and the Examined Life 11

Well, he said, have you never heard that fo rms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies?

Yes, I know. And the government is the ruling power in each state? Certainly. And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical,

tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the j ustice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who t ransgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.

Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word " interest" which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words "of the stronger" are added.

A small addition, you must allow, he said. Great or small, never mind about that: we must first inquire whether what you are

saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say "of the stronger"; about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further.

Proceed. I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers? I do. But are the ru lers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err? To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes

not? True. When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when

they are mistaken, contrary to their in terest; you admit that? Yes. And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects- and that is what

you call justice? Doubtless. Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of

the stronger but the reverse? What is that you are saying? he asked. I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not

admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they com- mand, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted?

Yes. Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the

stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, just ice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, 0 wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger?•

Astonishment is chc root

of philosophy. -Paul Tillich

5 Socrates never seems adversaria l or combat- ive in his dialogues. What effect do you t hink this approach has on those who enter into dialogue with him?

12 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

PH I LOSO PH ERS AT WORK

The Pre-Socratics

Philosophy began in ancient Greece in rhe sixth century BCE a,nong thinkers ,vho broke with age-old tradition co ponder important ,narrers in an entirely novel ,vay. For centuries, hu,nans had been devising allS\vers co fundamental questions: What is rhe nature of the world? Whar is ir ,nade of-one kind of scuff or ,nany kinds? Does rhe ,vorld have an origin or has it always existed? Why is the world rhe ,vay it is? What ,nakes things happen-gods, magic, or something else? What is rhe reality behind rhe appearances of reality? Their answers ,vere generally drawn fro,n 1nyrhology and rradirion, from old stories about rhe gods or from hand-me-down lore and law. But rhe first philosophers-called pre-Socratics because most of the,n came before Socrates (fifth century BCE)-refused to rake th is parh. It is mosrly rheir way of seeking answers about the world, rather rhan the answers the,nselves, char distinguished chem and 1nade chem rhe first philosophers. Once chis philo- sophical fire was lie, ir spread co lacer thinkers in rhe ancient ,vorld, a period of about a thousand years, from approximately 600 BCE co around 500 CE. Ir ,vas in chis era char Western phi losophy first established itself, defined almost all irs main areas of study, and gave us philosophica l heroes (most notably, Socrates, Plaro, and Arisrorle) who continue co inAuence our ch inking on imporranr ideas and issues.

So,ne of rhe more notable pre-Socratics: Thales (c. 625-547 BCE). Accord ing co tradition, Thales ,vas rhe first philoso-

pher. In ancient Greece he and his new ,vay of chinking garnered a great deal of

Figure 1.6 Thales of Miletus (c. 625-547 ace).

respect for an odd reason: he ,vas said co have predicted rhe solar eclipse of 585 BCE and co have derived his prediction ,virhour appeals to divine or orherworldly forces. On th is account he has also been called rhe first scienrisr, for in chose ri,nes rhere ,vas no clear distinction between philos- ophy and science. Thales' grearesr conrriburion to both philosophy and science ,vas his method. He sec out co look for natural-nor myth ic-explanations for natu- ral pheno,nena, and he insisted char such accounts be as simple as possible, preferably accounting for everyth ing by positing a sin- gle substance or element. This, as it turns our, is also rhe preferred approach of ,nodern science.

Empedocks (c. 495- c. 435 BCE). In rhe ninereenrh century Charles Danvin propounded rhe theory of biological evolution, explaining char evolution op- erates through whar he called "natural selection." The basic ourlines of natural selection, however, didn't originate ,virh Darwin. They ,vere first arriculared in rough fonn rwenry-five centuries ago by a pre-Socratic philosopher na,ned Em- pedodes. Using observation and imagi- nation, Empedocles ,nainrained char an i,nals were nor created whole by a deiry and placed on rhe earrh-rhey evolved.

Parmenides (c. 515-450 BCE). Par- menides ,vas rhe ,nose groundbreaking and inAuenrial philosopher of rhe pre- Socrarics. We know lirrle about his life- nor much more rhan char he lived in Elea (a Greek colony on rhe southern coast of Italy) and raughr rhe famous master of par- adoxes, Zeno. We also kno,v char through rhe centuries he won rhe arrenrion and ad- miration of several eminent thinkers, fro,n Plato co Plutarch co Hegel. Like rhe ocher pre-Socratics, he conrribured more co rhe shape of philosophica l inquiry rhan co its conrenr. Parmenides' clai,n co fame rests mosrly on his sysremaric e1nploy1nenr of deductive argu,nenr. He seems co have been rhe first thinker outside rhe field of marhe,narics co reason deductively and consisrenrly from basic premises co inrer- esring conclusions. In rhe process, he ce- mented basic distinctions char have been essential co philosophica l inquiry co chis day. For one rhing, he conrrasred reason and rhe senses. He contended char knowl- edge of rhe world could be acquired only through reason, only through a deductive chain of reasoning such as he himself used.

Figure 1.7 Empedocles (c. 49x. 435 see).

Socrates and the Examined Life 13

The senses, however, were unreliable. Fig. 1.8 Parmenides (c. 515-450 see).

14 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Red11ctio ad abs11rdu111 is an argumcnr form in which a set of statements to be proved false is as· sumed, and absurd or false statements arc deduced from the set as a whole}

showing that the original statement must be false.

Socrates uses his famous question-and-anS\ver approach to prove that Thrasy- machus's defin ition of justice is \vrong. In particular, he applies a common form of argument called redttctio ad absurdu»z. (Other argument forms are discussed in the following section.) The basic idea behind it is if you assume that a set of statements is true, and yet you can deduce a false or absurd statement from it, then the original set of statements as a whole must be false. So, in the preceding d ialogue, Socrates says in effect, Let's assume that Thrasymachus is right that justice is whatever is in the interest of the powerful, and that people are just if they obey the laws made by the powerful. It is clear, ho\vever, that the powerful sometimes make mistakes and demand obedience to la\vS that are not in their best interest. So if Thrasymachus's definition of justice is correct, then it is right for people to do what is in the interest of the po\verful, and it is also right to do \vhat is not in the interest of the powerful. H is idea of justice then leads to a logical contradiction and is therefore false.

ESSAY/ DISCUSSION QUESTIONS SECTION 1.2

1. Could the execution of someone for saying unpopular things happen in this country? Why or why not? Are there countries in the \vorld where such things happen regu larly? Is the execution of someone for his or her offensive speech ever justified? Explain.

2. What do you think Socrates would think about modern consumer societies?

3. Socrates is often regarded as the noblest of the great philosophers. Is this opinion justified? Why or why not?

4. Write an imaginary Socratic dialogue benveen yourself and a friend . Imagine that your friend declares, "Everyone lies. No one ever tells the truth," and you want to sho\v that those statements are false.

5. Write a Socratic dialogue between two fictional characters. Imagine that the opening statement is, "C.ourresy to others is always a cynical attempt to serve your own interests. Respect for people has nothing to do with courtesy."

1.3 THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY

As we have seen, to think philosophically is to bring your po\vers of critical reasoning to bear on fundamental questions. When you do this, you are usually clarifying the meaning of concepts, constructing and evaluating philosophical theories, or devis- ing and evaluating logical arguments. This latter task constitutes the principal labor of philosophy. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and other great thinkers do not deliver their philosophical insights to us without argument, as if we are automatically to accept their vie\vS \Vith no questions asked. Philosophers provide reasons for think- ing their ideas are plausible-that is, they give us arguments. And if we believe what

Thinking Philosophically 15

they say, it should be because there are good reasons for doing so. Like\vise, if we expect intelligent people co accept our philosophical vie\vS, \Ve must argue our case. Since the philosophy we read \vill most likely contain arguments, our understand- ing of the text will hang on our abil ity co identify and understand chose arguments.

Reasons and Arguments

As you might have guessed, the term argument does not refer co heated d isagreemenrs or emotional squabbles. An argument is a group of statements in \vhich one of chem is meant co be supported by the others. A statement (or claim) is an assertion chat something is or is not the case and is therefore the kind of utterance chat is either true or false. In an argument, the statement being supported is the con clusion , and the scacemenrs supporting the conclusion are the premises. The premises are meant co provide reasons for believing chat the conclusion is true. A good argument gives us good reasons for accepting a conclusion; a bad argument fails co provide good reasons. In philosophy-and in any ocher kind of rational inqui ry-accepting a conclusion (statement) \Vithout good reasons is an elementary mistake in reasoning. Believing a statement without good reasons is a recipe for error; believing a statement for good reasons increases your chances of uncovering the truth.

When we do philosophy, then, we are likely at some point co be grappling with argumenrs-we are trying co either (1) devise an argument co support a statement or (2) evaluate an argument co see if there really are good reasons for accepting irs conclusion.

Note chat argument in the sense used here is not synony- mous with pem,asion. An argument provides us with reasons for accepting a claim; it is an attempted "proof" for an asser- tion. But persuasion does not necessarily involve giving any reasons at all for accepting a claim. To persuade is co influence people's opinions, \vhich can be accomplished by offering a good argument but also by misleading with logical fallacies, exploiting emotions and prejudices, dazzling with rhetori- cal gimmicks, hiding or distorting the faces, threatening or coercing people-the list is long. Good arguments prove something \vhether or not they persuade. Persuasive ploys can change minds but do not necessarily prove anything.

No\v consider these nvo simple arguments:

Argument 1 It's wrong to take the life of an innocent person. Abortion takes the life of an innocent person. Therefore abortion is wrong.

An a.rgume.nt is a state· men, coupled wh h o,her statements that arc meant

to supporr that statement. A s tatement (claim) is an asscrrio n that something

is o r is not the case and L~ therefore the kind of urrer- ancc that is either true or false. A conclusion is the sra,emen, being suppon ed. A premise is a sratcmcnt supporting the conclusion.

Argument2 God does not exist. After a ll , most college students believe that that is the case.

Figure 1.9 Hit ler was a master persuader, relying not on good arguments but on emotional rhetoric. How many people today would be persuaded by a contem- porary politician w ith Hitler's rhetorical talents?

16 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Philosophy asks ,he simple question, what is it all about? -Alfred North \'qhicehead II I II I II 111111111111 Ill II I II I II I II I II Ill 1111111

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Do you live an examined life? The follo,ving srarements express some fundamenral beliefs-beliefs char countless people have bur may never have thought much abour. Read each sraremenr and select che ones char you sincerely believe. Then rry ro recall if you have ever seriously questioned these beliefs. (Passing thoughts and idle revelry do not counr.) Be honesr. This liule experiment could be very revealing-and help- ful as you chink abour your life and values.

I. God exists and ,varches over me. 2. God somerimes answers prayers. 3. There is a heaven. 4. I have both a body and an im morral soul. 5. My emotions are not under my control; rhey just happen. 6. It is ,vrong co criticize ocher cultures. 7. It is ,vrong co judge or her people's acrions. 8. The mora l principles chat I ,vas raised ro bel ieve are the right ones. 9. Political conservatives are wrong about most issues.

10. Political liberals are wrong about most issues. 11. I make free choices; all my decisions are up co me. 12. I can come ro kno,v some things by faith alone. 13. My emotions are my best guide co what is morally right or ,vrong. 14. People are basically bad. 15. People are basically good.

In Argument I, the conclusion is "abortion is wrong," and it is backed by nvo

premises: "Ir's ,vrong to take the life of an innocent person" and "Abortion takes the life of an innocent person." In Argument 2, the conclusion is "God does not exist,"

,vhich is supported by the premise "After all, most college students believe that that is the case." D espite the differences between these nvo passages (differences in con- tent, the number of premises, and the order of their parts) , they are both arguments because they exemplify basic argument struc ture: a conclusion supported by at least one premise.

Though the compo nenrs of an a rgument seem clea r enough, people often fail to distinguish benveen a rgumenrs and stro ng statemenrs that contain no arg uments at all. Suppose we change Argument I into this:

Abortion is wrong. I can' t believe how many people think it's morally okay. The world is insane.

Now there is no a rgument, just an expression of exasperat io n or anger. There are no statements giving us reasons to believe a conclusio n. What we have are some un- suppo rted assertions that may merely appear to make a case. If we ig no re the distinc- tion between genuine arguments and nonargumentative material, critical reasoning is undo ne.

Thinking Philosophically 17

The simplest way co locate an argument is co find its conclusion first, then its premises. Zeroing in on conclusions and premises can be a lot easier if you keep an eye out for indicator uJords. Indicator words often tag along \vich arguments and indicate that a conclusion or premise may be nearby.

Here are a fe\v conclusion indicator \vords:

consequently

thus

therefore

it follows chat

as a result

hence

\vhich means chat

Here are some premise indicator words:

in view of the fact assuming chat

because since

due co the face that for

inasmuch as given that

Just remember chat indicator words do not guarantee the presence of conclusions and premises. They are simply telltale signs.

Assuming we can recognize an argument when we see it, ho\v can we cell ifit is a good one? Fortunately, the general criteria for judging the merirs of an argument are simple and clear. A good argument-one chat gives us good reasons for believing a claim-muse have (1) solid logic and (2) true premises. Requirement (1) means chat the conclusion should follow logically from the premises, chat there muse be a proper logical connection between the supporting scacemenrs and the statement supported. Requirement (2) says chat what the premises assert must in fact be the case. An argu- ment that fails in either respect is a bad argument.

There are two basic kinds of arguments-deductive and inductive-and our two requirements hold for both of chem, even though the logical connect ions in each type are distinct. Deductive arguments are incende.d co give logically conclusive support co t heir conclusions so chat if the premises are true, the conclusion absolutely must be true. Argument I is a deductive argument and is therefore supposed co be const ructed so that if the two premises are true, its conclusion cannot possibly be false. Here it is with irs structure laid bare:

Argument 1

1. It's wrong to take the life of an innocent person. 2. Abortion takes the li fe of an innocent person. 3. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

Do you see that, given the form or structure of this argument, if the premises are true, then the conclusion has to be true? It would be very strange-illogical, in fact-to agree that the two premises are true but that the conclusion is false.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in chc cho ices

one makes . .. and the choices we make arc ultim~

arcly out responsibility. -£lea.nor Roosevelt

6 Recall some state- ments that you have heard or read in which st rong assert ions were made but no argument was presented. Did the assert ions prove any- thi ng? What was your reaction at the t i me? Were you persuaded or impressed by them?

A deductive argument is an argument intended to give logically conclusive

support to its conclusion.

18 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Philosophy, when super- ficially studied, excite.< doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it. -Francis Bacon

An inductive argume.nt is an argument intended to

give probable support ro its conclusion.

Now look at this one:

Argument 3

1. All dogs are mammals. 2. Rex is a dog. 3. Therefore, Rex is a mammal.

Again, there is no way for the premises to be true while the conclusion is false. The deductive form of the argument guarantees this.

So a deductive argument is intended to have this sort of airtight st ructure. If it actually does have th is structure, it is said to be valid. Argument I is deductive because it is intended to provide logically conclusive support to its conclusion. It is valid because, as a matter of fact, it does offer this kind of support. A deductive argu- ment that fails to provide conclusive support to its conclusion is said to be invalid. In such an argument, it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Argument 3 is intended to have a de.ductive form, and because it actually does have this form, the argument is also valid.

An elementary fact about deductive arguments is that their valid ity (or lack thereof) is a separate issue from the truth of the premises. Validity is a structural matter, depending on how an argument is put together. Truth concerns the nature of the claims made in the premises and conclusion. A deductive argument is sup- posed to be built so that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true-but in a particular case, the premises might not be true. A valid argument can have true or false premises and a true or false conclusion. (By defin ition, of course, it cannot have true premises and a false conclusion.) In any case, being invalid or having false premises dooms a deductive argument.

Inductive arguments are supposed to give probable support to their conclusions. Unlike deductive argumenrs, they are not designe.d to support their conclusions deci- sively. They can establish only that, if their premises are true, their conclusions are probably true (more likely to be true than not). Argument 2 is an inductive argu- ment meant to demonstrate the probable truth that "God does not exist." Like all in- ductive arguments (and unlike deductive ones), it can have true premises and a false conclusion. So it's possible for the sole premise-"After all, most college studenrs bel ieve that that is the case"-to be true while the conclusion is false.

If inductive argumenrs succee.d in lending very probable support to their conclu- sions, they are said to be strong. Strong arguments are such that if their premises are true, their conclusions are very probably true. If they fail to provide th is probable support, they are terme.d iueak. Argument 2 is a weak argument because its prem- ise, even if true, does not show that more likely than not God does not exist. What college st udenrs (or any other group) believe about God does not constit ute good evidence for or against God's existence.

But consider this inductive argument:

Argument 4

1. Eighty-five percent of the students at th is univers ity are Republicans. 2. Sonia is a student at this university. 3. Therefore, Sonia is probably a Republican.

Thinking Philosophically 19

This argument is strong. If its premises are true, irs conclusion is likely to be true. If 85 percent of the university's students are Republicans, and Sonia is a university student, she is more likely than not to be a Republican too.

When a valid (deductive) argument has true premises, it is a good argument. A good deductive argument is said to be sound. Argument I is valid, but we cannot say whether it is sound until ,ve determine the t ruth of the premises. Argument 3 is valid, and if its premises are true, it is sound. When a st rong (inductive) argument has true premises, it is also a good argument. A good inductive argument is said to be cogent. Argument 2 is ,veak, so there is no way it can be cogent. Argument 4 is st rong, and if irs premises are t rue, it is cogent.

Checking the validity or strength of an argument is often a plain, commonsense undertaking. Using our natural reasoning ability, ,ve can examine ho,v the premises are linked to the conclusion and can see quickly whether the conclusion follows from the premises. We are most likely to make an easy job of it when the argumenrs are simple. Many times, ho,vever, we need some help, and help is available in the form of methods and guidel ines for evaluating arguments.

Having a fam il iarity with common argument patterns, or forms, is especially useful ,vhen assess ing the validity of deductive argumenrs. We are likely to encoun- ter these forms again and again. Here is a prime example:

Argument 5

1. If the surgeon operates, then the patient will be cured. 2 . The surgeon is operating. 3. Therefore, the patient will be cured.

This argument form contains a conditional premise-that is, a premise consist- ing of a conditional, or if-then, statement (actually a compound statement composed of nvo constituent statements). Premise 1 is a conditional statement. A conditional statement has two parrs: the part beginning with if (called the antecedent), and the part beginning ,vith then (known as the consequent). So the antecedent of Premise 1 is "If the surgeon operates," and the consequent is "then the patient will be cured."

The best ,vay to appreciate the structure of such an argument (or any deductive ar- gument, for that matter) is to t ranslate it into traditional argument symbols in ,vhich each statement is symbolized by a letter. Here is the symbolization for Argument 5:

, . If p, then q. 2 . p. 3. Therefore, q.

We can see that p represenrs "the surgeon operates," and q represents "the patient wi ll be cured." But notice that we can use this same symbolized argument form to represent countless other arguments-arguments with different statemenrs but hav- ing the same basic structure.

It just so happens that the underlying argument form for Argument 5 is extremely common-common enough to have a name, modus ponens (or affirming the anteced- ent). The truly useful fact about modus ponens is that any argument having this form is valid. We can plug any statemenrs we ,vant into the formula and the result will be a valid argument, a circumstance in which if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

Philosophy is like trying to o~n a safe w ith a com~ bination lock: each linle adjustmen, of the dials

seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place docs the doo, open. -Ludwig \'7iugenstein

20 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

PH I LOSO PH ERS AT WORK

Philosophy Takes on Racism So,ne people have no patience for philosophy's preoccupation ,vith conceptual anal- ysis, fine distinctions, and argument niceties- the fussy murmurings of pedants and bores, they might say. Bue chis attitude underesci,naces the power of philosophical precision and che good work it does on some of che weightiest issues of our rime.

Consider the issue of racis,n, a 1nonscrous evil co d ispel from society and often a hard topic co discuss ,vichouc raising voices and elevating blood pressures. What can philosophy possibly say about ch is issue char could be helpful or en lightening?

Apparently, a great dea l. The distinguished phi losopher Lawrence Blu,n, au- thor of che book "I'm Nor a Racist But . .. ", dra,vs anencion co che "conceptual in- Aacion" of che terms racist and racism. He and ocher scholars observe char che words are so overused and 1nisapplied chat they are losing their moral po,ver co indict and co sha,ne. Their reckless use causes 1nisunderscanding and resenunent. Blum says:

Some feel that the word [racist] is thrown around so much that anything involving "race" that someone does not like is liable to castigation as "racist." ... A local newspaper called certain blacks "racist" for criticizing other blacks who s upported a white over a black candidate for mayor. A whi te girl in Virginia said that it was "racist" for an African American teacher in her school to wear African attire .... Merely mentioning someone's race (or racial designatio n), using the word "Oriental" for Asians without recog- nizing its origins and its capacity for insu lt, or socializing only with members of one's own racial group are called "racist.'"

Blum cues through popular confusion about racis,n by offering a plausible definition of che word. All forms of racism, past and present, he says, involve cwo key elements: (I) an anicude or belief char another race is inferior or (2) antipathy (hatred, hoscilicy) coward char race.

lnferiorizatio n is linked to historical racist doctrine and racist social systems. Slavery, segregatio n, imperiali sm, aparthe id, and Nazism all treated certain groups as inferior to other groups ....

An equally prevalent argument form is modus to/lens (or denying the consequent). For example:

Argument 6

1. If the dose is low, the n the healing is slow.

2. The healing is not slow. 3, Therefore, the dose is not low.

Thinking Philosophically 21

Though race-based antipathy is less related to the original

concept of "racism," today the term unequivocally encompasses racial bigotry, hostility, and hatred. Indeed, the racial bigot is many people's paradigm image of a "racist." . ..

Historical systems of racism did of course inevitably involve racial antipathy as well as inferiorization. Hatred of Jews was cen- tral to Nazi philosophy; and it is impossible to understand Ameri- can racism without seeing hostility to blacks and Native Americans as integral to the nexus of attitudes and emotions that shored up slavery and segregation.t

If racism ahvays involves either inferiorization or antipathy, as Blu,n argues, then 1nany actions that people call racist actually ,nay be so,neching else.

Not every instance of racia l conflict, insensitivity, discomfort, miscommunication, exclusion, injustice, or ignorance should be called "racist." Not all racial incidents are racist incidents . . . . We need a more varied and nuanced moral vocabulary for talking about the domain of race .. . . All forms of racial ills should elicit concern from responsible individuals. If someone displays racial insensitiv- ity, but not racism, people should be able to see that for what it is)

Blum is careful co point out chat we can't conclude from this "conceptual inflation" chat racism and inequa lity have been overstated. Indirect or veiled racism, he says, is likely worse chan ,ve ,n ight think.

The point here is not chat Blum is right about racism (he may or ,nay not be), but chat ph ilosophica l th inking like chis is powerful and can yield very useful in- sights into real problems.

• Lawrence Blum, "I'm Not a Racist B11t . . . :" 7he Moral Quandary of Race {Ithaca, NY: Cornell Universiry Press, 2002), 1- 2.

l Blum, 8. I Blum, 9.

···························································································································•••;yl'-. .. ,,.

, . If p, then q.

2. Not q. 3. Therefore, not p.

Modus tollens is also a valid form, and any argument using this form must also be valid.

•

22 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

7 Before read ing this chapter, would you have found any of the invalid argument forms persuasive? Why or why not?

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. -Epictetus

There are a lso common argument forms that are invalid. Here a re two of them:

Argument 7 (Affirming the Consequent)

1. If the mind is an immaterial substance, then ESP is rea l. 2. ESP is rea l. 3- Therefore, the mind is an immaterial substance.

1. If p, then q. 2. q. 3- Therefore, p.

Argument 8 (Denying the Antecedent)

1. If morality is relative to persons (that is, if moral rightness or wrongness depends on what people believe), then moral disagree- ment between persons would be nearly imposs ible.

2. But morality is not relative to persons. 3- Therefore, moral disagreement between persons is not nearly

imposs ible.

1. If p, then q. 2. Not p. 3- Therefore, not q.

The advantage of being able to recognize these and other common a rgument forms is that you can use that skill to readily determine the validity of many deduc- tive arguments. You kno\v, for example, that any a rgument having the same form as modus ponens or modus to/lens must be valid, and any argument in one of the com- mon invalid forms must be invalid.

Inductive arguments also have distinctive forms, and being fam iliar with the forms can help you evaluate the arguments. In enumerative induction, we arrive at a

generalization about an enti re g roup of things after observing just some members of the g roup. C,onsider these:

Argument9

Every formatted disk I have bought from the computer store is defective.

Therefore, a ll formatted d isks sold at the computer store are probably defective.

Argument 10

All the hawks in th is wild li fe sanctuary that I have observed have had red tai ls.

Therefore, all the hawks in this sanctuary probably have red tails.

Argument 11

Sixty percent of the Bostonians I have interviewed in various parts of the city are pro-choice.

Therefore, 60 percent of a ll Bostonians are probably pro·choice.

As you can see, enumerative induction has this form:

X percent of the observed members of group A have property P.

Therefore, X percent of all members of group A probably have property P.

Thinking Philosophically 23

The observed members of the group are simply a sample of the entire group. So based on what we know about this sample, \Ve can generalize to all the members. But how do \Ve kno\v \vhether such an argument is strong? Everything depends on the sample. If the sample is large enough and representative enough, \Ve can safely assume that our generalization dra\vn from the sample is probably an accurate reflec- tion of the whole group of members. A sample is represen tative of an entire group only if each member of the group has an equal chance of being include.cl in the sample. In general, the larger the sample, the greater the probability that it accur- ately reflects the nature of the group as a \vhole. Often common sense tells us when a sample is too small.

VALID AND INVALID ARGUMENT FORMS

VALID ARGUMENT FORMS

Affirming the Antecedent (Modus Ponens)

If p, then q.

p .

Therefore, q.

Example: If Spot barks, a burglar is in the

house.

Spot is barking.

Therefore, a burglar is in t he house.

INVALID ARGUMENT FORMS

Denying the Consequent (Modus To/lens)

If p, then q.

Not q.

Therefore, not p.

Example: If Spot barks, a burglar is in the

house.

A burglar is not in the house.

Therefore, Spot is not barking.

Affirming the Consequent Denying the Antecedent If p, then q. If p, then q.

q . Not p.

Therefore, p. Therefore, not q.

Example: Example: If t he cat is on t he mat, she is asleep. If the cat is on the mat, she is asleep.

She is asleep. She is not on the mat.

Therefore, she is on t he mat. Therefore, she is not asleep.

24 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

We do not kno\v ho\v many formatted disks from the computer store are in the sample mentioned in Argument 9. But if the number is several dozen and the disks \vere bought over a period of weeks or months, the sample is probably sufficiently large and representative. If so, the argument is strong. Like\vise, in Argument 10 \Ve don't kno\v the size of the sample or ho\v it was obtained. But if the sample \vaS taken from all the likely spots in the sanctuary where hawks live, and if several hawks \Vere ob- served in each location, the sample is probably adequate-and the argument is strong. In Argument 11, if the sample consists of a handful of Bostonians intervie\ved on a few street corners, the sample is definitely inadequate and the argument is weak. But if the sample consists of several hundred people, and if every member of the whole group has an equal chance of being included in the sample, then the sample would be good enough to allo\v us to accurately generalize about the whole population. Typically, se- lecting such a sample of a large population is done by professional polling organizations.

In the argument form kno\vn as analogical induction (or argument by analogy), \Ve reason in this fashion: T\vO or more th ings are similar in several ways; therefore, they are probably similar in one further \vay. Consider this argument:

Argument 12

Humans can walk upright, use simple tools, learn new skill s, and devise deductive arguments.

Figure 1.10 How much is a watch like the uni- verse? Everything depends on the relevant simi- larit ies and differences.

Chimpanzees can walk upright, use s imple tools, and learn new ski ll s.

Therefore, chimpanzees can probably devise deduc- tive arguments.

This argument says that because chimpanzees are simi- lar to humans in several respects, they probably are similar to humans in one further respect.

Here's an argument by analogy that has become a classic in philosophy:

Argument 13

A watch is a complex mechanism with many parts that seem arranged to achieve a specific purpose- a pur- pose chosen by the watch's designer.

In s imilar fashion, the universe is a complex mecha- nism with many parts that seem arranged to achieve a specific purpose.

Therefore, the universe must also have a des igner.

We can represent the form of an argument by analogy in this way:

X has properties P1 , P2, P3, plus the property P 4.

Y has properties P1, P2, and P3,

Therefore, Y probably has property P4.

Thinking Philosophically 25

The strength of an analogical induction depends on the relevant similarities be- tween the two things compared. The more relevant similarities there are, the greater the probability that the conclusion is true. In Argument 12, several similarities are note.cl. But there are some unmentioned diss imilarities. The brain of a chimpanzee is smaller and more primitive than that of a human, a difference that probably inhibirs higher intellectual functions such as logical argument. Argument 12, then, is ,veak. A common response co Argument 13 is chat the argument is weak because although the universe resembles a watch in some ,vays, in ocher ,vays it does not resemble a watch. Specifically, the universe also resembles a living thing.

The thi rd type of inductive argument is kno,vn as inference to the best explanation (or abduction), a kind of reasoning chat ,ve all use daily and that is at the heart of scientific investigations. Recall chat an argument gives us reasons for believing that something is the case. An explanation, on the other hand, states how or ivhy some- thing is the case. It attempts co clarify or elucidate, not offer proof. For example:

1 . Megan definitely understood the material, for she could answer every question on the test.

2. Megan understood the materia l because she has a good memory.

Sentence 1 is an argument. The conclusion is "Megan definitely understood the material," and the reason (premise) given for believing chat the conclusion is true is "for she could answer every question on the test." Sentence 2, though, is an expla- nation. It does not try co present reasons for believing something; it has nothing co prove. Instead, it tries co sho,v why something is the way it is (why Megan understood the material). Sentence 2 assumes chat Megan understood the material then cries co explain ,vhy. Sud, explanations play a crucial role in inference co the best explanation.

In inference co the best explanation, we begin with premises about a phenom- enon or state of affairs co be explained. Then ,ve reason from chose premises co an explanation for chat state of affairs. We try co produce not just any old explanation, but the best explanation among several possibilities. The best explanation is the one most likely to be true. The conclusion of the argument is that the preferred explana- t ion is indee.d probably true. For example:

Argument 14

Tariq flunked his philosophy course.

The best explanation for his failure is that he didn't read the material.

Therefore, he probably didn't read the material.

Argument 15

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant was found with the murder weapon in his hand, blood on his clothes, and the victim's wallet in his pocket. We have an eyewitness putting the defendant at the scene of the crime. The best explanation for all these facts is that the defendant committed the murder. There can be very little doubt- he's gu il ty.

The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other

people's. -Dean Inge

26 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

The true function of phil- osophy is to educate us in

the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to fur ther reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions. -George Henry Lewes

Here's the form of inference to the best explanation:

Phenomenon Q.

E provides the best explanation for Q.

Therefore, it is probable that E is true.

In any argument of this pattern, if the explanation given is really the best, then the argument is inductively strong. If the explanation is not the best, the argument is inductively weak. If the premises of the strong argument are t rue, then the argu- ment is cogent. If the argument is cogent, then we have good reason to bel ieve that the conclusion is true.

The biggest challenge in using inference to the best explanation is determining ,vhich explanation is the best. Somet imes this feat is easy. If our car has a flat tire, we may quickly uncover the best explanation for such a state of affa irs. If we see a nail sticking out of the flat and there is no obvious evidence of tampering or of any other extraordinary cause (that is, there are no good alternative explanations), we may safely conclude that the best explanation is that a nail punctu red the tire.

In more complicated situations, we may need to do ,vhat scientists do to evalu- ate explanations, or theories-use special criteria to sort through the possibilities. Scientists call these standards the criteria of adequacy. Despite this fancy name, these criteria are basically just common sense, standards that you have probably used yourself.

One of these criteria is cal led conservatism. This criterion says that, all things being equal, the best explanation or theory is the one that fits best ,vith what is al ready kno,vn or established. For example, if a friend of yours says-in all seriousness-that she can fly to the moon ,vithout using any kind of rocket or spaceship, you probably ,vouldn't bel ieve her (and might even think that she needed psychiatric help). Your rea- sons for doubting her would probably rest on the criterion of conservatism-that ,vhat she says conflicts with everything science knows about spaceflight, human anatomy, aerodynamics, la,vs of nature, and much more. It is logically possible that she really can fly to the moon, but her claim's lack of conservatism (the fact that it conflicts ,vith so much of ,vhat we already know about the ,vorld) casts serious doubt on it.

Here is another useful criterion for judging the worth of explanations: simplicity. Other things being equal, the best explanation is the one that is the simplest-that is, the one that rests on the fe,vest assumptions. The theory making the fe,vest assump- tions is less likely to be false because there are fewer ,vays for it to go ,vrong. In the example about the flat tire, one possible (but strange) explanation is that space aliens punctured the tire. You probably ,vouldn't put much credence in this explanation be- cause you ,vould have to assume too many unknown entities and processes-namely, space al iens ,vho have come from who-kno,vs-,vhere using who-knows-what methods to move about and puncture your ti res. The nail-in-the-tire theory is much simpler (it assumes no unknown entities or processes) and is therefore much more likely to be true.

When you are carefully reading an argument (whether in an essay or some other context), you ,viii be just as intereste.d in whether the premises are true as in whether the conclusion follows from the premises. If the ,vriter is conscientious, he or she

Thinking Philosophically 27

will try to ensure that each premise is either well supported or in no need of sup- port (because the premise is obvious or agreed to by all parties). The needed support will come from the citing of examples, statistics, research, expert opinion, and other kinds of evidence or reasons. This arrangement means that each premise of the pri- mary argument may be a conclusion supported in turn by premises citing evidence or reasons. In any case, you as the reader \vill have to evaluate carefully the truth of all premises and the support behind them.

Reading Philosophy

Unfortunately, arguments in philosophical essays rarely come neatly labeled so you can find and evaluate them. You have to do that \vork yourself, a task that requ ires careful reading and th inking. The process can be challenging because in the real world, a rgumenrs can be s imple or complex, clearly stated or perplexing, and apparent or hidden. This is true for philosophical essays as well as for any other kind of \vriting that contains arguments. In some philosophical prose, the relationship between the conclusion (or conclusions) and the premises can be complicated, and even good arguments can be surrounded by material irrelevant to the arguments at hand. The remedy for these difficulties is instructive examples and plenty of practice, some of which you can get in this chapter.

Let's begin by identifying and analyzing the argument in the following passage. The issue is whether humans have free will or are compelled by forces beyond their control to act as they do (a topic we take up in Chapter 5). The statemenrs are num- bered for ease of reference.

(1) The famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857- 1938) made a name for himself by using the "determinism defense" to get his clients acquitted of serious crimes. (2) The crux of this approach is the idea that humans are not reall y responsible for anything they do because they cannot choose freely- they are "determined," predes- tined, if you will , by nature (or God) to be the way they are. (3) So in a sense, Darrow says, humans are like wind-up toys with no control over any action or decision. (4) They have no free will. (S) Remember that Darrow was a renowned agnostic who was skeptical of all reli - gious claims. (6) But Darrow is wrong about human free wi ll for two reasons. (7) First, in our everyday moral life, our own commonsense experience suggests that sometimes people are free to make moral decisions. (8) We should not abandon what our commonsense ex- perience tells us without good reason- and (9) Darrow has given us no good reason. (10) Second, Darrow's determinism is not con- fi rmed by science, as he claims- but actually conflicts with science. (11) Modern science says that there are many things (at the subatom- ic level of matter) that are not determined at all : (12) they just happen.

Indicator words are scarce in this argument, unless you count the words "fi rst" and "second" as signifying premises. But the conclusion is not hard to find; it's

28 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Statement 6: "Darrow is \vrong about human free \viii for nvo

reasons." Locating the conclusion enables us to see that some statements (Statements 1 through 4) are neither conclusion nor premises; they a re just background information on Darrow's views. Most argumentative essays contain some supplemental in-

formation like th is. Statement 5 is irrelevant to the argument; Darrow's agnosticism has no logical connection to the premises or conclusion. Statement 12 is just a reword ing of Statement 11. After this elimination process, only the following premises and conclusion (Statement 6) remain:

(6) But Darrow is wrong about human free will for two reasons.

(7) Fi rst, in our everyday moral life, our own common- sense experience suggests that sometimes people are free to make moral decis ions.

Figure 1.11 Clarence Darrow (1857-1938). (8) We should not abandon what our commonsense expe- rience tell s us without good reason.

Philosophy is a kind of jo urney, ever learning yet

never arriving at the ideal perfection of truth. -Albert Pike

(9) Darrow has given us no good reason.

(10) Darrow's determinism is not confirmed by science, as he claims- but actually conAicts with science.

(11) Modern science says that there are many th ings (at the subatomic level) that are not determined at all.

Statements 7 through 11 are the premises. They are all meant to provide support to Statement 6, but thei r support is of unequal weight. Statement 10 gives indepen- dent support to the conclusion without the help of any other premises, so it is an independent premise. We can say the same thing about Statement 11; it too is an independent premise. But notice that Statemenrs 7, 8, and 9 are dependent premises supporting the conclusion. That is, taken separately, they are weak, but together they constitute a plaus ible reason for accepting Statement 6. Statement 10 directly sup-

porrs the conclusion and in turn is supported by Premise 11. Now take a look at th is passage:

(1) As the Is lamic clerics cling to power in Iran, students there are agita ting for greater freedom and less suppression of views that the clerics d islike. (2) Even though ultimate power in Iran rests with the mu llahs, it is not at a ll certain where the nation is headed. Here's a rad ical suggestion: (3) the Is lamic republic in Iran will fall within the next five years. Why do I say this? (4) Because the majority of Iranians are in favor of democratic reforms, (5) and no regime can stand for very long when citizens are demanding access to the political pro- cess. (6) Also, Iran today is a mirror image of the Soviet Union before it broke apart- there's widespread d issatisfaction and d issent at a time when the regime seems to be trying to hold the people's loyalty.

Thinking Philosophically 29

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Hypatia

Hypacia (c. 370-415) was the greatest philosopher of her day. She lived in che Greek cicy of Alexandria, ,vhich in the fourth century was che incelleccual epicen- ter of che ,vorld, excelling in scientific and philosophical learning. Jc also ,vas the home of the famed Library, which contained thousands of scholarly manuscripts dra,vn fro,n the best thinkers of ancient times, including che works of Pla-

Figure 1.12 Hypatia (c. 370-415).

to and Ariscocle. In chis rich environment, Hypacia achieved fame as a Neoplaconisc philosophy teacher, an astronomer, and a mathematician. Ac around age C\Vency- five or thirty she became the director of che school of the reno,vned philosopher Plocinus-a very high honor, since women were cradicionally noc appointed co such offices. Another indication of her sterling reputation ,vas chat she was appointed by a Christian govenunenc even though she was known co be a pagan.

She caught che works of che "pagan" philosophers such as Plato and Aristocle, and students ca,ne from far-Aung places for che privilege of being her students. She also is thought to have ,vricren three commentaries on noted mache,natical treatises.

In 415, she ,vas brutally murdered by a mob of Christian zealots. She ,vas pulled from her chariot, hauled to a church, stripped naked, and skinned alive ,vith oyster shells.

(7) Every nation that has taken such a path has imploded within five years. (8) Finally, the o ld Iranian trick of ga ining support for the government by fomenting hatred of America will not work anymore (9) because Iran is now trying to be friends with the United States.

The conclusion is Statement 3, and the premises are Statements 4 th rough 9. The fi rst nvo statements are extraneous. Statements 4 and 5 are dependent premises and

so are Statements 6 and 7. Statements 8 and 9 constitute an a rgument chat gives sup- port to the passage's main conclusion (Statement 3). Statement 8 is the conclusion; Statement 9, the premise. Notice also that the sentence "Why do I say this?" is not a statement.

So remember: When you read a philosophical essay, you are not simply trying to glean some facts from it as you might if you were reading a science text or tech- n ical report. Neither are you follo,ving a storyline as if you were reading a mystery novel (though philosophy papers sometimes contain their share of mysteries). In most cases, you are tracing the steps in an argument, trying to see ,vhat conclusion the ,vriter wants to prove and whether she succee.ds in proving it. Along the way, you

8 Suppose you are presented with written material containing statements and argu- ments that strike you as irreverent or un- orthodox. Would you be able to read such a text with an open mind? Can you recall a case in which you did just that?

30 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Small amounts of philoso· phy lead to arhcism, but larger amounts bring us

back to God. -Francis Bacon II I II I II 111111111111 II I II I II I II I II I II Ill I 111111

may encounter several premises with their accompanying analyses, clarifications, explanations, and examples. You may even run into a whole chain of arguments. In che end, if you have read \veil and che \vricer has \vriccen \veil, you are left not \vich a ne\v sec of data or a story ending, but a realization-maybe even a revelation-that a conclusion is, or is not, worthy of bel ief.

The best way co learn how co read philosophy \veil is co read philosophy often. You wi ll probably gee plenty of chances co do chat in your current philosophy course. Having a fe\v rules co guide you in your reading, however, may help shorten che learning curve. As you read, keep che follo\ving in mind.

1. Approach the text with an open mind. If you are studying philosophy for che first time, you are likely-at lease at first-co find a good bit of che material diffi- culc, strange, or exasperating, sometimes all three at once. That's normal. Philosophy is an exploration of che rugged frontiers of our kno\vledge of fundamental th ings, so much of chis new territory is likely co seem daunting or unfamiliar. There's also an excellent chance chat your first visits co this terrain will be vexing, perhaps even infuriating, because you may sometimes disagree \vich what you read.

There is no shame in experiencing any of these reactions. They come with che territory. Bue if you are co make any head\vay in philosophy, you need co try your best co counteract these attitudes and feelings. Remember, philosophy at ics best is a fa ir-minded, fearless search for t ruth. Anything chat interferes with this noble quest muse be overcome and case as ide.

Avoid making a judgment about an essay's ideas or arguments until you fully un- derstand them and have fairly considered them. Make sure you are not reading with che intent co prove che conclusions false (or true). Be open co che possibil ity that che essay could give you good reasons co change your mind about something.

Try co maintain a neutral attitude coward the \vricer, presuming neither that she is right nor wrong, neither sinner nor saint. Don't assume chat everything a renowne.d philosopher says muse be true, and don't presuppose that everything a philosopher you dislike says muse be false. Give the writer the same attention and respect chat you would give a friend who is discussing a serious issue with you.

If you are reading che work of a famous philosopher and you find yourself think- ing chat his or her ideas are obviously silly or ridiculous, think again. The odds are good that you are misunderstanding what you read. Jc is wiser co assume chat the cexc offers something of value (even if you disagree with it) and that you need co read more carefully.

2. Read actively and critically. Philosophical reading is incense. Jc cannot be rushed. Jc cannot be cramme.d. Jc cannot be done while your mind is on automatic pilot.

Philosophical reading is active reading. Instead of reading just co gee through a piece of writing, you muse cake your time and ask yourself what key terms and passages mean, ho\v che argument is structured, what the central thesis is, \vhere che premises are, how certain key ideas are related, whether che main conclusion conflicts \vich propositions you know are true, even how che material compares with ocher philosophical writing on the same subject.

Thinking Philosophically 31

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Early Women Philosophers: Themistoclea, Arignote, and Theano Among the pre-Socratics, Pythagoras (c. 550- 500 BCE) is the most fa,nous (he gave us the Pythagorean theorem, a geo,netry-dass staple) and possibly the ,nose influ- ential. He inspired a long line of followers-Pythagoreans-dating fron1 the sixth century BCE ,veil into the ne,v rnillennium. What isn't so ,vell kno,vn is char n1any of these followers were ,vomen, distinguished philosophers in their own right. Here is pare of Mary Ellen Waithe's discussion of three of the,n:

The ancient sources indicate that women were active in early

Pythagorean societies and may have played a central role in the development of early Pythagorean philosophy. Diogenes Laertius reports that:

Aristonexus asserts that Pythagoras derived the greater part of his ethical doctrines from Themistoclea, the priestess of Delphi.

Earl y Pythagoreans viewed the cosmos or universe as orderly and harmonious. Everything bears a particular mathematica l relation- ship to everything else. Harmony and order exist when things are in their proper relationship to each other. This relationship can be expressed as a mathematical proportion. One of the "sacred discourses" is attributed to Pythagoras' daughter, Arignote. According to Arignote:

The eternal essence of number is the most providential cause of the whole heaven, earth and region in between. Likewise it is the root of the continued existence of the gods and daimones, as well as that of divine men.

Arignote's comment is consistent with one attributed to her mother, Theano of Crotona, in that all that exists, all that is rea l can be distinguished from other things through enumeration. The eternal essence of number is a lso directly related to the harmoni - ous coexistence of different things. This harmony can be expressed as a mathematica l relationship. In these two ways, number is the cause of all things .*

• Mary Ellen Waithe, "Early Pythagoreans," in A History of\'(fome11 Philosophers (Dordrccht,

The Netherlands: Marrinus Nijhoff, 1987), 11- 12.

32 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Philosophical reading is also critical reading. In critical reading, you ask not just \vhat something means but whether a statement is true and if the reasoning is solid. You ask if the conclusion really follows from the premises, \vhether the premises are true, if the analysis of a term really makes sense, if an argument has been overlooked, if an analogy is weak, whether there are counterexamples to key claims, and \vhether the claims agree with other things you have good reason to believe.

3. Identify the conclusion first, t hen t he premises. When you first begin reading philosophical texts, they may seem to you like dark thickets of proposi- tions into \vhich you may not enter without losing you r way. But your situation is really not that bad. In argumentative \vriting (the kind you are most likely to encounter in philosophy), you can depend on there being, \veil, an argument, a conclusion backed by premises. There could, of course, be several arguments that support the main argument, and the arguments could be complex, but these sets of conclusion-plus-premises wi ll all serve as recognizable guideposts. If you \Vant to penetrate the thicket, then, you must first identify the argument (or arguments). And the key to doing that is to find the conclusion first, then look for the premises.

When you find the main conclusion, you thereby identify the main point of the essay, and you then have the number-one clue to the function of all the rest of the text. Once you uncover the point that the writer is trying to prove, finding the supporting premises becomes much easier. And when you isolate the premises, locating the text that explains and amplifies the premises gets easier too. Therefore, the first-and most important-question you can ask about a philosophical essay is, "What claim is the writer trying to prove?"

4. Outline, paraphrase, or summarize the argument. Understanding an essay's argument is so important that testing \vhether you really "get it" is crucial. You can test your grasp of the argument by outlining, paraphrasing, or summarizing it. If you can lay out an argument's premises and conclusion in an outline, or if you can accurately paraphrase or summarize the argument, you probably have a pretty good understanding of it. Very often studenrs who think they comprehend an argu- ment are surprised to see that they cannot devise an adequate outl ine or summary of it. Such failu res suggest that, although outl ining, paraphrasing, or summarizing may seem to some to be unnecessary, they are not-at least not to those who are ne\v to philosophy.

5. Evaluate t he argument and formulate a tentative judgment. When you read philosophy, understanding it is just the first step. You also must do something that many beginners find both difficult and alien: you must make an informed judg- ment about what you read. Simply reiterating what the writer has said wi ll not do. Your judgment is what matters here. Mainly, this judgment is your evaluation of the argument presented by the writer-an assessment of (1) whether the conclusion fol- lo\vS from the premises and (2) whether the premises are true. Only when the answer to both of these questions is yes can you say that the conclusion of the argument is worthy of acceptance. This kind of evaluation is precisely what your instructor expects when she asks you to critique an argumentative essay in philosophy.

Thinking Philosophically 33

Fallacious Reasoning

You can become more proficient in reading and ,vriting philosophy if you kno,v ho,v to identify fallacies ,vhen you see them. Fallacies are common but bad arguments. They are defective arguments that appear so often in writing and speech that phi- losophers have given them names and offered instructions on how to recognize and avoid them.

Many fallacies are not just faile.d arguments-they are also deceptively plaus ible appeals. They can easily appear sound or cogent, misleading the reader. Their poten- t ial for slipperiness is another good reason to study fallacies. The best way to avoid being taken in by them is to study them until you can consistently pick them out of any random selection of prose. Here are some of the more prevalent ones.

Straw Man

The straw man fallacy is the misrepresentation of a person's views so they can be more easily attacked or dismissed. Let's say you argue that the war in Afghanistan is too costly in lives and money, and your opponent replies th is way:

My adversary argues that the war in Afghanistan is much too difficult for the United States, and that we ought to, in effect, cut and run while we can. But why must we take the coward's way out?

Thus, your point has been distorted, made to look more extreme or radical than it really is; it is now an easy target. The notion that ,ve ought to "cut and run" or "take the co,vard 's ,vay out" does not fallow from the statement that the war in Afghanistan is too costly.

The straw man kind of distortion, of course, proves noth ing, though many people fall for it every day. This fallacy is probably the most common type of fallacious reasoning used in politics. It is also popular in many other kinds of argumentation- including student philosophy papers.

Appeal to the Person

Closely related to the straw man fallacy is appeal to the person (also known as the ad hominem fallacy). Appeal to the person is the rejecting of a statement on the grounds that it comes from a particular person, not because the statement, or claim, itself is false or dubious. For example:

You can safely discard anything that Susan has to say about govern- ment. She's a dyed-in-the-wool socialist.

Johnson argues that our current welfare system is defective. But don't listen to him- he's a conservative.

Ad hominem arguments often creep into student philosophy papers. Part of the reason is that some appeals to the person are not so obvious. For example:

Swinburne's cosmological argument is a serious attempt to show that God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe.

A fallacy is a common but bad argument.

This is patenrly absurd; but whoever wishes to become

a philosopher m ust learn not to be fr ightened by

absurdities.

-Bercrand Russell

The straw man is the fal-

lacy of misrepresenting a

person's views so they can be more easily attacked or d ismissed.

Appeal to the person is the fallacy of rejecting a starcmcnr o n the grounds

that it comes from a par~ ticular pe rson, not because

the statement, or claim,

itself is false o r dubious.

34 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

PH I LOSO PHY NOW

Philosophy in the News

Very ofcen, behind rhe headlines ,ve see every day rhere lurks a deeper philosophical issue. And when people reAecr on rhe stories, rhey frequendy find themselves pondering fundamen- tal questions and beliefs. Philosophy is hard ro avoid. Here is a sa,npling of possible headlines paired ,virh rhe philosophical questions rhey raise.

Tea Parry Rejects Enridemenr and Welfare Progra,ns

Man Claims Our-of-Body Experience

Residents De,nand Death Penalty for Child Killer

Christopher H itchens Book Says "God Is Nor Grear"

Japan Tsuna,ni Kills Thousands

Scienrisrn Say "Big Bang" Uncaused

Attorneys Say Hormones Caused Woman to Kill

Stem Cell Research Banned

China Says It Muse Be Judged by C hinese Morality

Is libertarianism a viable political rheory?

Can the mind (soul) exist independendy of rhe body?

Is capital punishment ever morally permissible?

Does God exist? Does religion do more harm rhan good?

Does natural evil show thar there is no God?

Is Aquinas's firsr-cause argument doomed?

Do we have free will? Are all our actions caused by factors beyond our control?

Is rhe fetus a person ,virh full moral righrs fro,n the mo,nent of conception?

Is morality relative to cultures? Does "human righrn" apply only to rhe West?

Are most perennial debates in politics really about fundamental philosophi- cal issues that are never discussed? Could these issues be resolved if people,

in good faith, applied the Socratic method?

However, he is a well -known theist, and this fact raises some doubts about the strength of his case.

Dennett argues from the materialist standpoint, so he begins with a bias that we need to take into account.

Some of the strongest arguments against the death penalty come from a few people who are actually on death row. They obviously have a vested interest in showing that capita l punishment is mor- all y wrong. We therefore are forced to take their arguments- however convincing- with a grain of salt.

Thinking Philosophically 35

Figure 1.13 Politics is rife with fallacie-pecially straw man, appeal to the person, and slippery slope. What fallacies in polit ics have you heard or read lately?

Each of these argumenrs is defective because it asks us to reject or resist a claim solely because of a person's character, background, or circumstances- things that are generally irrelevant to the truth of claims. A statement must stand or fall on its own merits. The personal characterist ics of the person espous- ing the vie,v do not necessarily have a bearing on its truth. Only if we can sho,v that someone's dubious tra its somehow make the claim dubious are we justi- fied in reject ing the claim because of a person's personal characterist ics. Such a . .

ci rcumstance 1s rare.

Appeal to Popularity

The appeal to popularity (or appeal to the masse.s) is another extremely common fallacy. It is arguing that a claim must be t rue not because it is backed by good rea- sons, but simply because many people believe it. The idea is that, somehow, there is t ruth in numbers. For example:

Of course there's a God. Everyone believes that.

Seventy percent of Americans believe that the president's tax cuts are good for the economy. So don't try to tell me the tax cuts aren't good for the economy.

Most people believe that Jones is guilty, so he's gui lty.

In each of these argumenrs, the conclusion is thought to be t rue merely because it is believed by an impressive number of people. The number of people ,vho bel ieve a claim, ho,vever, is irrelevant to the claim's truth. What really matters is how much

Appeal to popularity is the fallacy of arguing that a claim must be true not because it is backed by good reasons, but simply because many people bel ieve it.

36 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Genetic fallacy is the fal lacy of arguing that a statement can be judged true or false based on irs source.

There arc mo re things in

heaven and earth, Horatio,

than arc dream t of in your

philosophy. -William Shakespeare

Equivocation is rhe fallacy of assigning two different meanings to the same

s ignificant word in an

argum ent.

support che claim has from good reasons. Large groups of people have been-and are-wrong about many things. Many people once believed chat the Earth is flat, mermaids are real, and human sacrifices help crops grow. They were wrong.

Remember, however, chat the number of people who accept a claim can be rele- vant co its truth if the people happen co be expercs. T wency professional astronomers ,vho predict an ecl ipse are more reliable than one hundred nonexpercs ,vho swear chat no such eclipse ,vill occur.

Genet ic Fallacy

A ploy like the appeal co the person is the genetic fallacy-arguing chat a statement can be judge.cl t rue or false base.cl on its source. In an appeal co the person, some- one's character or circumstance is thought co cell the tale. In che genetic fallacy, t he truth of a statement is supposed co depend on origins ocher than an individual- organizacions, political platforms, groups, schools of thought, even exceptional states of mind (like dreams and intuitions). Look:

That new military reform idea has gotta be bunk. It comes from a liberal think tank.

At the city counci l meeting Hernando sa id that he had a plan to curb the number of car crashes on Highway 19. But you can bet that what- ever it is, it's half-baked- he said the plan came to him when he was stoned on marijuana.

The U.S. Senate is considering a proposal to reform affirmative action, but you know their ideas must be ridiculous. What do they know abou t the rights of the disadvantaged? They're a bunch of rich, white guys.

Equivocat ion

The fallacy of equivocation is assigning two different meanings co the same sig- nificant ,vord in an argument. The ,vord is used in one sense in a premise and in a different sense in another place in the argument. The s,vicch in meaning can deceive che reader and disrupt che argument, rendering it invalid or weaker than it would be ochenvise. Here's a classic example:

Only man is rational.

No woman is a man.

Therefore, no woman is rational.

And one ocher:

You are a bad writer.

If you are a bad writer, then you are a bad boy.

Therefore, you are a bad boy.

The first argument equivocates on the word man. In the first premise, man means humankind; in the second, male. Thus, the argument seems co prove chat ,vomen

Thinking Philosophically 37

are not rational. You can see the trick better if you assign the same meaning to both instances of man. Like th is:

Only humans are rational.

No woman is a human.

Therefore, no woman is rationa l.

In the second argument, the equivocal term is bad. In the first premise, bad means incompetent; in the second, immoral.

Appeal to Ignoran ce

As its name implies, this fallacy tries to prove something by appealing to what ,ve don't kno,v. The appeal to ignorance is arguing that either (1) a claim is true because it hasn't been proven false or (2) a claim is false because it hasn't been proven true. For example:

Try as they may, scientists have never been able to disprove the existence of an afterlife. The conclusion to be drawn from th is is that there is in fact an afterlife.

Super Green Algae can cure cancer. No scientific study has ever shown that it does not work.

No one has ever shown that ESP (extrasensory perception) is real. Therefore, it does not exist.

There is no evidence that people on welfare are hardworking and re- sponsible. Therefore, they are not hardworking and responsible.

The fi rst two arguments try to prove a claim by pointing out that it hasn't been proven false. The second two t ry to prove that a claim is false because it hasn't been proven true. Both kinds of arguments are bogus because they assume that a lack of evidence proves something. A lack of evidence, however, can prove nothing. Being ignorant of the facts does not enlighten us.

Notice that if a lack of evidence could prove something, then you could prove just about anything you wanted. You could reason, for instance, that s ince no one can prove that horses can't fly, horses must be able to fly. Since no one can disprove that you possess supernatural powers, you must possess supernatural powers.

False Dilemma

In a dilemma, you are force.cl to choose between two unattractive possibilities. The fallacy of false dilemma is arguing erroneously that since there are only two alterna- t ives to choose from and one of them is unacceptable, t he other one must be true. C-onsider these:

You have to li sten to reason. Ei ther you must sell your car to pay your rent, or your landlord will throw you out on the street. You obviously aren't going to sell your car, so you will be evicted.

Appeal to ignorance is

the fallacy of arguing that either ( I ) a claim is true because ir hasn'r been

proven false or (2) a claim is false because i r has n' r

been proven true.

False dilemma is rhe fallacy of arguing errone· oudy that since there arc

only two alternatives to choose from and one of them is unacceptable, the

o ther one must be true.

38 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most

trivial of human pursuit'\.

-William James

Begging the question is the fallacy of trying to prove a conclusio n by us .. ing chat very same concJu ..

s1o n as suppo rr.

You have to face the hard facts about the war on drugs. Either we must spend bill ions of dollars to increase military and law enforce- ment operations aga inst drug cartels, or we mus t legal ize all drugs. We obviously are not going to legalize all drugs, so we have to spend bill ions on anti-cartel operations.

The fi rst argument says chat there are only two choices co consider: either sell your car or gee evicted, and since you \viii not sell your ca r, you wi ll gee evic ted. This argument is fallacious because (presumably) the first premise is false-there seem co be more than just nvo alternatives here. You could gee a job, borro\v money from a friend, or sell your DVD player and TV. If the argument seems convincing, it is because ocher possibilities are excluded.

The second argument asserts chat there are only nvo ways co go: spend bil- lions co attack drug car tels or legalize all drugs. Since we won't legalize all d rugs , \Ve must therefore spend billions co assault the cartels. The first (either/or) prem- ise, however, is fa lse; t here are at lease three ocher options. The bi ll ions could be spent co reduce and prevent drug use, drug producers could be given mon- etary incentives co switch co non-drug businesses, or only some drugs could be legalized.

Begging the Q uestion

The fallacy of begging the question is crying co prove a conclusion by using that very same conclusion as support. It is arguing in a circle. This way of trying co prove something says, in effect, "X is true because X is true." Few people would fall for chis fallacy in such a simple form, but more subtle kinds can be beguiling. For example, here's the classic instance of begging the question:

The Bible says that God exists.

The Bible is true because God wrote it.

Therefore, God exists.

The conclusion here ("God exists") is supported by premises that assume that very conclusion.

Here's another one:

All citizens have the right to a fair trial because those whom the state is obliged to protect and give consideration are automaticall y due judicial criminal proceedings that are equitable by any reasonable standard.

This passage may at first seem like a good argument, but it isn't. It reduces co chis unimpressive assertion: "All citizens have the right co a fair trial because all cit- izens have the right co a fai r trial." The conclusion is "All citizens have the right co a fair trial," but that's more or less what the premise says. The premise-"chose whom the state is obliged co protect and give consideration are automatically due judicial criminal proceedings that are equitable by any reasonable scandard"-is equivalent co "All citizens have the right co a fair trial."

Thinking Philosophically 39

When circular reasoning is subtle, it can ensnare even its O\vn creators. The fallacy can easily sneak into an argument if the premise and conclusion say the same thing but say it in different, complicate.cl ways.

Slippery Slope

The metaphor behind this fallacy suggests the danger of stepping on a dicey incline, losing your footing, and sliding to disaster. The fallacy of slippery slope, then, is a rguing erroneously that a particular action should not be taken because it wi ll lead inevitably to other actions resulting in some dire outcome. The key word here is er- roneously. A slippery slope scenario becomes fallacious \vhen there is no reason to believe that the chain of events predicted wi ll ever happen. For example:

This trend toward gay marriage must be stopped. If gay marriage is permitted, then traditional marriage between a man and a woman wi ll be debased and devalued, which will lead to an increase in di- vorces. And higher divorce rates can only harm our children.

This argument is fallacious because there are no reasons for believing that gay marriage will ultimately result in the chain of events described. If good reasons could be given, the argument might be salvaged.

Composition

Sometimes what is true about the parts of a thing is also true of the whole-and sometimes not. The fallacy of composition is arguing erroneously that what can be said of the parts can also be said of the whole. Consider:

Each piece of wood that makes up this house is lightweight. There- fore, the whole house is lightweight.

Each soldier in the platoon is proficient. Therefore, the platoon as a whole is proficient.

The monthly payments on th is car are low. Hence, the cost of the car is low.

Just remember, sometimes the \vhole does have the same properties as the parts. If each part of the rocket is made of steel, the whole rocket is made of steel.

D ivision

If you turn the fallacy of composition upside down, you get the fallacy of division- arguing erroneously that what can be said of the whole can be said of the parts:

The house is heavy. Therefore, every part of the house is heavy.

The platoon is very effective. Therefore, every member of the platoon is effective.

That herd of elephants eats an enormous amount of food each day. Therefore, each elephant in the herd eats an enormous amount of food each day.

Slip pery slope is , he fal- lacy of arguing erroneously that a particular action should no, be taken be- cause it will lead inevitably to other actions n:sulting

in some dire outcome.

Composition is the fallacy of arguing erroneously ,hat whar can be said of the pan s can also be said of the whole.

Philosophy should quicken life, no, deaden it. -Susan Glaspell

Division is the fallacy of arguing erroneously , hat what can be said of the whole cm be said of the parts.

40 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

ESSAY/ DISCUSSION QUESTIONS SECTION 1.3

1. What is the difference between an argument and an explanation? What is the difference between an argument and a set of accusations? or expressions of outrage?

2. Ho\v is reading philosophy different from, say, reading a physics text or reading a novel?

3. Think about the political commentators you've read or listened to. What fallacies have they been guilty of using?

4. The straw man fallacy is rampant in political debates. Give an example of such a tactic being used by commentators or politicians, or make up an example of your O\vn.

5. Devise an argument in favor of the proposition that people should (or should not) be punished as Socrates was for speaking their minds.

Review Notes

1.1 PHILOSOPHY: THE QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING

• Studying philosophy has both practical and theoretical benefits. To some, the pur- suit of kno\vledge through philosophy is a spiritual quest.

• Taking an inventory of your philosophical beliefs at the beginning of this course will help you gauge your progress as you study.

• The four main divisions of philosophy are metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and logic. There are also subdivisions of philosophy that examine basic issues found in other fields.

1.2 SOCRATES AND T H E EXAMINED LIFE

• For Socrates, an unexamined life is a tragedy because it results in grievous harm to the soul , a person's true self or essence. The soul is harmed by lack of kno\vledge- ignorance of one's own self and of the most important values in life (the good).

• The Socratic method is a question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are methodical ly scrutinized to uncover the truth. Usually when Socrates used it in conversations with his fellow Athenians, thei r views \vould be exposed as false or confused. The main point of the exercise fo r Socrates, however, was not to win arguments, but to get closer to the truth.

• Socrates says, in effect, Let's assume that Thrasymachus is right that justice is \vhat- ever is in the interest of the powerful, and that people are just if they obey the laws made by the powerful. But the powerful sometimes make mistakes and demand obedience to laws that are not in their best interest. So if Thrasymachus's definition of justice is correct, then it is right for people to do what is in the interest of the po\verful, and it is also right for them to do what is not in the interest of the po\verful. His idea of justice then leads to a logical contradiction.

• The basic idea behind reductio ad absurdum is if you assume that a set of statements is true, and yet you can deduce a false or absurd statement from it, then the original set of statements as a whole must be false.

1.3 THINKING PHILOSOPH ICALLY

• An argument is a group of statemenrs in which one of them is meant to be sup- ported by the others. A statement (or claim) is an assertion that something is or is not the case and is therefore the kind of utterance that is either true or false. In an argument, the Statement being supported is the conclusion, and the statements supporting the conclusion are the premises.

• A good argument must have (I) solid logic and (2) true premises. Requi rement ( I) means that the conclusion should follo\v logical ly from the premises. Requi re- ment (2) says that what the premises assert must in fact be the case.

• A deductive argument is intended to give logically conclusive support to its con- clusion. An inductive argument is intended to give probable support to its con- clusion. A deductive argument with the proper structure is said to be valid; a deductive argument that fails to have this structure is said to be inval id. If induc- tive argumenrs succeed in lending probable support to their conclusions, they are said to be strong. If they fail to provide this probable support, they are termed \veak. When a valid (deductive) argu ment has true premises, it is said to be sound. When a strong (inductive) argument has true premises, it is said to be cogent. In inference to the best explanation, we begin \Vith premises about a phenomenon or state of affai rs to be explained. Then we reason from those premises to an explana- tion for that state of affairs. We try to produce not just any explanation, but the best explanation among several possibilities. The best explanation is the one most like! y to be true.

• The guidel ines for reading philosophy are: ( I) Approach the text with an open mind; (2) read actively and critically; (3) identify the conclusion first, then the premises; (4) outline, paraphrase, or summarize the argument; and (5) evaluate the argument and formulate a tentative judgment.

Review Notes 41

42 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 1

1. Do you believe, as Thrasymachus did, that might makes right, that morality is not about objective right and wrong but about who has the most po\ver? Devise an argument to support your belief.

2. Choose one of your fundamental beliefs that you have not thought much about and write an argument defending it or rejecting it.

3. Socrates said to his jurors, "Are you not ashamed that, while you take care to acqui re as much wealth as possible, \vith honor and glory as well, yet you take no care or thought for understanding or truth, or for the best possible state of your soul?" Do you agree with this attitude? Why or \vhy not?

4. What is the difference between the way philosophy approaches impor- tant questions and the \vay that religion does?

5. Argue the case for using (or not using) the Socratic method in education.

Key Terms

appeal to ignorance The fallacy of argu- ing that either ( 1) a claim is true because it hasn't been proven fulse or (2) a claim is fulse because it hasn't been proven true. (37)

appeal to popularity The fallacy of arguing that a claim must be true not because it is backed by good reasons, but simply because many people be- lieve it. (35)

appeal to the person The fallacy of re- jecting a statement on the grounds that it comes from a particular person, not because the statement, or claim, itsel f is false or dubious. (33)

argument A statement coupled with other statements that are me.ant to sup- port that statement. ( 15)

axiology The study of value, including both aesthetic value and moral value. (6)

begging the question The fallacy of try- ing to prove a conclusion by us ing that very same conclusion as support. (38)

composition The fallacy of arguing er- roneously that \vhat can be said of the parts can also be said of the \vhole. (39)

conclusion In an argument, the state- ment being supported. (15)

deductive argument An argument in- tended to give logically conclusive sup- port to its conclusion. (17)

division The fallacy of arguing errone- ously that what can be said of the whole can be said of the parts. (39)

epistemology The study of knowledge. (6)

equivocation The fallacy of assigning two different meanings to the same sig- nificant word in an argument. (36)

ethics (moral philosophy) The study of morality using the methods of philosophy. (6)

fullacy A common but bad argument. (33)

false dilemma The fallacy of argu ing erroneously that since there are o nly nvo alternatives to choose from, and one of them is unacceptable, the other one must be true. (37)

genetic fallacy The fallacy of argu ing that a statement can be judged true o r false based on irs source. (36)

inductive argument An argument in- tended to give probable support to irs conclusion. (18)

logic The study of correct reasoning. (7)

metaphysics The study of reality, an in- quiry into the fundamental nature of the un iverse and the th ings in it. (4)

premise In an argument, a statement supporting the conclusion. (15)

Argument Exercises

(Answers in Appendix B)

Exercise 1.1

redttctio ad absttrdtt»i An argument of th is form : If you assume that a set of statements is t rue, and yet you can de- d uce a false o r absurd Statement from it, then the original set of statements as a whole must be false. (14)

slippery slope The fallacy of argu- ing erroneously that a particular action should not be taken because it will lead inevitably to other actions resulti ng in some di re outcome. (39)

Socratic method Q uestion-and-ans\ver dialogue in which propositions are me- thodical ly scrutinize.cl to uncover the truth. (8)

statement (claim) An assertion that

someth ing is or is not the case and is therefore the kind of utterance that is ei- ther t rue o r false. (15)

straw man The fallacy of misrepresent- ing a person's views so they can be more easily attacked or dismissed. (33)

For each of the passages that follow, indicate whether it constitutes an argument. For

each argument, specify both the conclusion and the premises.

1. Faster-than-light t ravel is not possible. It would violate a law of nature. 2 . You have neglected your duty on several occasions, and you have been absent

from work too many times. Therefore, you a re not fit to serve in your current capactty.

3. Racial profiling is not an issue for white people, but it is an issue for blacks. 4. The flu epidemic on the East C,oast is real. Government health officials say so.

A nd 1 personally have read at least a dozen ne,vs stories that characterize the situatio n as a "flu epidemic."

5. C,ommunism is bunk. Only na"ive, impressionable p inheads believe that stuff.

Argument Exercises 43

44 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

6. Current-day Christians use violence to spread their right-to-life message. These Christians, often referred to as the religious right, are well known for violent demonstrations against Planned Parenthood and other abortion cl in- ics. Doctors and other personnel are threatened with death, clinics have been bombed, there have even been cases of doctors being murdered.-Letter to the editor, Arizona Daily Wildcat

7. I am writing about the cost of concert tickets. I am outraged at how much ticket prices are increasing every year. A few years ago, one could attend a popular concert for a decent price. Now some musicians are asking as much as $200 to $300.-Letter to the editor, Buffalo News

8. Homeland security is a cruel charade for unborn child ren. Some 4,000 per day are ki lled in thei r mother's \vomb by abortion. This American holocaust \vas legalized by the Supreme Court in an exercise of raw judicial power.- Letter to the editor, Buffalo News

9. Witches are real . They are mentioned in the Bible. There are many people today \vho claim to be witches. And historical records reveal that there \vere \Vitches in Salem.

10. Stretched upon the dark silk night, bracelets of city lights glisten brightly.

Exercise 1.2

For each passage that follows, list the conclusion and premises.

1. There are those \vho mainta in .. . that even if God is not required as the author of the moral la\v, he is nevertheless required as the enforcer of it, for \Vithout the threat of divine punishment, people wi ll not act morally. But this position is [not plausible]. In the first place, as an empirical hypothesis about the psychology of human beings, it is questionable. There is no un- ambiguous evidence that theists are more moral than nontheists. Not only have psychological studies failed to fi nd a significant correlation between frequency of religious worship and moral conduct, but convicted criminals are much [more] likely to be theists than atheiscs. Second, the threat of divine punishment cannot impose a moral obligation, for might does not make right. Threats extort; they do not create a moral duty.-Free Inquiry, Summer 1997

2. I love Reason [magazine], but [regarding a previous article by Nick Gillespie] I'm wondering if al l the illegal drugs that Nick Gillespie used to take are finally getting to him. He has a right to speak out against President Bush, but \vhen he refers to him as "the millionaire president \vho waited out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard," it reminds me of the garbage rhetoric that I might see if I \vere reading Ted Rall, or Susan Sontag, or one of the other hate-mongering, America-bashing, leftist whiners. That kind of ad hominem attack is not only disrespectful to a man who is doing a damned good job as commander-in-chief (with approval ratings of more than 80 percent); it detracts from the whole point of the article.-Letter to the editor, Reason, July 2002

3. The fifth way [of proving that God exists) is taken from the governance of the \vorld. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act

for an end, and chis is evident from their acting ahvays, o r nearly always, in the same \vay, so as co obtain che best result. H ence it is p lain chat they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now \vhacever lacks knowledge cannot move cowards an end, unless it be directed by some being endo\ved with knowledge and intelligence; as che a rrow is directed by the archer. There-

fore some intelligent being exists by \vhom all natural things are di rected co their end; and chis being we call God.-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

4. The fi rst thing chat muse occur co anyone studying mora l subjectivism [the view that the rightness o r \vrongness of an action depends on che beliefs of an individual o r g roup] seriously is chat che view allows che possibility that an action can be both right and not right, or wrong and not wrong, etc. This possibility exists because, as \Ve have seen, the subjectivist claims chat che moral character of an action is determined by individual subjective states; and these states can vary from person co person, even \vhen di rected coward the same action o n che same occasion. H ence one and che same action can evidently be determined co have-simultaneously-radically different moral characters . ... [If] subjectivism ... does generate such contradicto ry conclu- sions, the position is certainly uncenable.-Phillip Montague, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, June 1986

5. A Flo rida judge dismissed a la\vsuit that accused che Vatican of hiding instances of sexual abuse by priests. The suit was thro\vn out because Florida's statute of

limitations had run out on the case. I submit that the d ismissal was proper and ethical considering che community stature and functio n of priests and che ben- efits chat accrue co society in the aftermath of che decision. Lee's consider com- munity stature first. The community stature of priests muse always be taken into account in these abuse cases. A priest is not just anybody; he performs a special role in society-namely, co provide spiritual guidance and co remind people that there is both a moral o rder and a divine order in the \vorld. The priest's role is special because it helps co underpin and secure society itself Anything that could undermine this role muse be neutralized as soon as possible. Among those things that can weaken the priestly role a re publicity, public debate, and legal actions. Abuse cases a re better handled in private by those who are keenly a\vare of the importance of a positive public image of priests. And what of che benefits of curtail ing che legal proceedings? The benefits co society of dismissing che legal case outweigh al l the alleged disadvantages of continuing with public hear- ings. The primary benefit is the continued nurturing of che community's fa ith,

without \vhich che community would cease co function effectively.

Exercise 1.3

In the following passages, identify any fallacies. Some passages may contain more than one fallacy.

1. The New York Times reported that o ne-chi rd of Republican senators have been guilty of Sen ace ethics violations. But you know chat's fa lse-the Times is a notorious liberal rag.

Argument Exercises 45

46 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

2. Geraldo says that st udenrs who cheat on exams should not automatically be expelled from school. But it's ridiculous co insist chat students should never be punished for cheating.

3. My sweater is blue. Therefore, the acorns chat make up the sweater are blue. 4. Kelly says chat many women who live in predominantly Muslim countries are

discriminated against. Bue how the heck would she know? She's not a Muslim. 5. The study found that 80 percent of women ,vho cook the d rug daily had no

recurrence of breast cancer. But that doesn't mean anything. The study ,vas funded in part by the company chat makes the drug.

6. The only proof capable of being given chat an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the ocher sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible co produce chat anything is desirable, is chat people actually desire ic.-John Stuart Mill

7. Gremlins exist, chat's for sure. No scientist has ever proved that they don't exist.

8. The former mayor was convicted of drug possession, and he spent time in jai l. So you can safely ignore anything he has to say about legalizing drugs.

9. I believe chat baby-carrying storks are real creatures. No one has ever proved chat they don't exist.

10. O nly man has morals. No woman is a man. Therefore, no woman has morals.

The Trial and Death of Socrates 47

NARRATIV E

The Trial and Death of Socrates Plato

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427- 347 see} is one of the most influential thinkers of Western civilization. He was the student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, and timeless inspiration to all who sought wisdom through phi losophy. In this nar- rative, one of his many dialogues, Plato relates Socrates' address to the jury at his famous trial for corrupting Athenian youth and disrespecting the gods.

How you, 0 Athenians, have been affected by my ac- cusers, I cannot tel l; but I know that they almost made me forget who I was- so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me- I mean when they said that you should be upon your guard and not allow your- selves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless- unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth; for if such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have scarcely spoken the truth at all ; but from me you shall hear the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their man- ner in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No, by heaven! but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am confident in the justice of my cause: at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before you, 0 men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator- let no one expect it of me. And I must beg of you to grant me a favo ur: lfl defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have been in the habi t of using in the [market], at the tables of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. For I am more than seventy years of age, and appearing now for the first time in a court of law, I am quite a stranger to the language of the place; and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were real ly

From Plato, The Apology, in Dialogues of Plato, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Oxford, 1896.

a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his country: Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly ....

Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavor to clear away in a short time, a slander which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if to succeed be for my good and yours, or likely to avail me in my cause! The task is not an easy one; I quite understand the nature of it. And so leaving the event with God, in obedience to the law I will now make my defence.

I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the accusation which has given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has encouraged Meletus to prefer this charge against me. Well, what do the slanderers say? They shall be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words in an affidavit: 'Socrates is an evi l-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doc- trines to others.' Such is the nature of the accusation: it is just what you have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes, who has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in air, and talking a deal of nonsense concerning mat- ters of which I do not pretend to know either much or little- not that I mean to speak disparagingly of any one who is a student of natural philosophy. I should be very sorry if Meletus could bring so grave a charge against me. But the simple truth is, 0 Athenians, that I have nothing to do with physical speculations. Very many of those here present are witnesses to the truth of th is, and to them I appeal. Speak then, you who have heard me, and tell your neighbours whether any of you have ever known me hold forth in few words or in many

48 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

upon such matters .... You hear their answer. And from what they say of th is part of the charge you will be able to judge of the t ruth of the rest.

As little foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and take money; this accusation has no more truth in it than the other. Although, if a man were really able to instruct mankind, to receive money for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an hon- our to him. There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and are able to persuade the young men to leave their own citizens by whom they might be taught for nothing, and come to them whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they may be allowed to pay them ....

I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, 'Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.' Now I regard this as a fa ir challenge, and I wil l endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am ca lled wise and have such an evil fame. Please do attend then. And although some of you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certa in sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom, which I may fa il to describe, because I have it not myself ; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, 0 men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I wil l speak is not mine. I w ill refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that w itness shall be the God of Delphi- he will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether- as I was saying, I must beg you not to

interrupt- he asked the oracle to tell him whether any one was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who is in court, will confi rm the truth of what I am saying.

Why do I mention this? Because I am going to ex- plain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, 'Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.' Accord ingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him- his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination- and the resu lt was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I wen t away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautifu l and good, I am better off than he is- for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.

Then I went to another who had still higher preten- sions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him. Then I went to one man af- ter another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: But necessity was laid upon me,-the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!- for I must tell you the truth- the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in re- pute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the ta le of my wanderings and of the "Herculean" labours,

as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutab le. After the poli ticians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I sa id to myself, you will be instan tly detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them- thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked bet ter about their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or sooth- sayers who also say many fine things, but do not under- stand the meaning of them. The poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I fu rther observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.

At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and here I was not mis- taken, for they did know many things of which I was ig- norant, and in this they cer tainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good ar tisans fell in to the same error as the poets;- because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high mat ters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, nei- ther having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as I was.

This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many ca lumnies. And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the tru th is, 0 men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is wor th little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustrat ion, as if he said, He, 0 men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth wor th nothing. And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether

The Tria l and Death of Socrates 49

citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public mat- ter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter pover ty by reason of my devotion to the god.

There is another th ing: Young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like to hear the pretenders exam- ined, and they often imitate me, and proceed to exam- ine others; there are plenty of persons, as they quickly discover, who think that they know something, but really know little or nothing; and then those who are examined by them instead of being angry with themselves are an- gry with me: This confounded Socrates, they say, this vil- lainous misleader of youth!- and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practise or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell ; but in order that they may not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all phi losophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretence of knowledge has been detected- which is the truth; and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are drawn up in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies. And this is the reason why my three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon me; Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the crafts- men and poli ticians; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I said at the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of such a mass of calumny all in a moment. And this, Omen of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed noth ing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet, I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speak- ing the truth?- Hence has arisen the prejudice against me; and this is the reason ofit, as you will find out either in this or in any fu ture enquiry.

I have said enough in my defence against the first class of my accusers; I turn to the second class. They are headed by Meletus, that good man and true lover of his country, as he calls himself. ... He says that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth; but I say, 0 men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evi l, in that he pretends to be in earnest when he is only in jest, and is so eager to bring men to trial from a pretended zeal and interest about

50 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

matters in which he really never had the smallest interest. And the truth of this I will endeavour to prove to you.

Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. You think a great deal about the improvement of youth?

Yes, I do. Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you

must know, as you have taken the pains to discover their corrupter, and are citing and accusing me before them. Speak, then, and tell the judges who their im- prover is.- Observe, Meletus, that you are silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful, and a very considerable proof of what I was saying, that you have no interest in the matter? Speak up, friend, and tell us who their improver is.

The laws. But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to

know who the person is, who, in the first place, knows the laws.

The judges, Socrates, who are present in court. What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are

able to instruct and improve youth? Certainly they are. What, all of them, or some only and not others? All of them. By the goddess Here, that is good news! There are

plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of the audience- do they improve them?

Yes, they do. And the senators? Yes, the senators improve them. But perhaps the members of the assembly corrupt

them?- or do they too improve them? They improve them. Then every Athenian improves and elevates them;

all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their corrupter? Is that what you affirm?

That is what I stoutly affirm. I am very unfortunate if you are right. But suppose I

ask you a question: How about horses? Does one man do them harm and all the world good? Is not the exact op- posite the truth? One man is able to do them good, or at least not many- the trainer of horses, that is to say, does them good, and others who have to do with them rather injure them? Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or of any other animals? Most assuredly it is; whether you and Any- tus say yes or no. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. But you, Meletus, have

sufficiently shown that you never had a thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about the very things which you bring against me.

And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question- by Zeus I will: Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or among good ones? Answer, friend, I say; the question is one which may be easily answered. Do not the good do their neighbours good, and the bad do them evil?

Certainly. And is there any one who would rather be injured

than benefited by those who live with him? Answer, my good friend, the law requires you to answer- does any one like to be injured?

Certainly not. And when you accuse me of corrupting and dete-

riorating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally?

Intentionally, I say. But you have just admitted that the good do their

neighbours good, and evil do them evil. Now, is that a truth which your superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him; and yet I corrupt him, and intention- ally, too- so you say, although neither I nor any other human being is ever likely to be convinced by you. But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unin- tentionally; and on either view of the case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offences: you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally- no doubt I should; but you would have nothing to say to me and refused to teach me. And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but of punishment.

It will be very clear to you, Athenians, as I was saying, that Meletus has no care at all , great or small, about the matter. But still I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the lessons by which I corrupt the youth, as you say.

Yes, that I say emphatically. Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speak-

ing, tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms,

what you mean! for I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach other men to acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire atheist- th is you do not lay to my charge- but only you say that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes- the charge is that they are different gods. O r, do you mean that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?

I mean the latter- that you are a complete atheist. What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think

so, Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, like other men?

I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon earth.

Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras: and you have but a bad opinion of the judges, if you fancy them illi terate to such a degree as not to know that these doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, which are full of them. And so, forsooth, the youth are said to be taught them by Socrates, when there are not infrequently exhibi- t ions of them at the theatre (price of admission one drachma at the most); and they might pay their money, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father these ex- t raordinary views. And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any god?

I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.

Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure that you do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking, men of Athens, that Meletus is reckless and impudent, and that he has wri tten this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthfu l bravado. Has he not compounded a riddle, th inking to try me? He said to himself: I shall see whether the wise Socrates will discover my facetious contradiction, or whether I shall be able to deceive him and the rest of them. For he certain ly does appear to me to contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of be- lieving them- but this is not like a person who is in earnest.

I should like you, 0 men of Athens, to join me in ex- amining what I conceive to be his inconsistency; and do you, Meletus, answer. And I must remind the audience of my request that they would not make a disturbance if I speak in my accustomed manner:

Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human th ings, and not of human beings? ... I wish, men

The Tria l and Death of Socrates 51

of Athens, that he would answer, and not be always try- ing to get up an interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not flute-p layers? No, my friend; I will answer to you and to the court, as you refuse to answer for your- self. There is no man who ever did. But now please to answer the next question: Can a man believe in spiritua l and divine agencies, and not in spirits or demigods?

He cannot. How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by

the assistance of the court! But then you swear in the indictment that I teach and bel ieve in divine or spiri- tual agencies (new or old, no matter for that); at any rate I bel ieve in spiri tual agencies- so you say and swear in the affidavit ; and yet if I believe in divine be- ings, how can I help believing in spiri ts or demigods- must I not? To be sure I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent. Now what are spirits or demigods? are they not either gods or the sons of gods?

Certainly they are. But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented

by you: the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that I do not believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods; that is, if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any other mothers, of whom they are said to be the sons- what human being will ever believe that there are no gods if they are the sons of gods? You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses. Such non- sense, Meletus, could only have been intended by you to make trial of me. You have put this into the indict- ment because you had nothing real of which to accuse me. But no one who has a particle of understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same men can believe in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that there are gods and demigods and heroes.

I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defence is unnecessary; but I know only too well how many are the enmities which I have incurred, and this is what wi ll be my destruction if I am destroyed- not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.

Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you

52 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

to an untimely end? To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calcu late the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong- acting the part of a good man or of a bad .. . .

Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, 0 men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death- if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the phi- losopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might just ly be arraigned in court for denying the exis- tence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death, fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not rea l wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fea r apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not th is ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that man knows what he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are- that whereas I know but li ttle of the world be- low, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonourable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. And therefore if you let me go now, and are not convinced by Anytus, who said that since I had been prosecuted I must be put to death ... - if you say to me, Socrates, th is time we will not mind Anytus, and you shall be let off, but upon one condition, that you are not to enquire and speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing so again you shall die- if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have li fe and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of phi- losophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: You, my friend- a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens- are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so li ttle about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the

soul, which you never regard or heed at all? And if the person with whom I am arguing, says: Yes, but I do care; then I do not leave him or let him go at once; but I proceed to interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I th ink that he has no virtue in him, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervalu- ing the greater, and overvaluing the less. And I shall re- peat the same words to every one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the ci tizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For know that th is is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all , old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is not my teach- ing, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, 0 men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Any- tus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whichever you do, understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times . .. .

And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me ....

Now do you th ink that I could have remained alive all these years if I had taken part in public affairs, and had always maintained the cause of justice like an hon- est man, and had held it a paramount duty, as it is, to do so? Certainly not, Athenians, nor could any other man. But throughout my whole life, both in private and in public, whenever I have had to take part in pub- lic affairs, you will find I have always been the same and have never yielded unjustly to anyone; no, not to those whom my enemies falsely assert to have been

my pupils. But I was never anyone's teacher. I have never withheld myself from anyone, young or old, who was anxious to hear me discuss while I was making my investigation; neither do I discuss for payment, and refuse to discuss without payment. I am ready to ask questions of rich and poor alike, and if any man wishes to answer me, and then listen to what I have to say, he may . . ..

I believe in the gods as no one of my accusers be- lieves in them: and to you and to God I commit my cause to be decided as is best for you and for me.

[The vote is taken and he is found guilty by 281 votes to 220.)

There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I ex- pected it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal; for I had thought that the majority against me would have been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I should have been acquitted. And I may say, I think, that I have escaped Meletus. I may say more; for without the assistance of Anytus and Lycon, any one may see that he would not have had a fi fth part of the votes, as the law requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine of a thousand drachmae.

And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, 0 men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for- wealth, and family interests, and mil itary offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good pri- vately to every one of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such an one? Doubtless some good thing, 0 men of Athens, if he has his reward; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your bene- factor, and who desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in the Prytaneum, 0 men of Athens, a reward which

The Tria l and Death of Socrates 53

he deserves far more than the ci tizen who has won the prize at O lympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the rea lity. And if I am to estimate the penalty fairly, I should say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.

Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in what I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one, although I cannot convince you- the time has been too short; if there were a law at Athens, as there is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you. But I cannot in a moment refute great slanders; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evi l, or propose any penalty. Why should I? Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certain ly be an evi l? Shall I say imprison- ment? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year- of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and cannot pay. And if I say exi le (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life, if I am so irrational as to expect that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you will have no more of them, others are likely to endure me. No indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wander- ing from city to city, ever changing my place of exi le, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the young men will flock to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their request; and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.

Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere wi th you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a dis- obedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and

54 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although a th ing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to proportion the fine to my means. Well, per- haps I could afford a mina, and therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thir ty minae, and they will be the sureties. Let thirty minae be the penalty; for which sum they will be ample security to you.

{2nd vote: The jury decides for the death penalty by a vote of 360 to 141.J

Not much time will be gained, 0 Athenians, in re- turn for the evil name which you will get from the de- tractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise, even although I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fu lfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death . ...

The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death- they too go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award- let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated- and I think that they are well. . ..

Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about the thing which has come to pass, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little, for we may as well ta lk with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges- for you I may tru ly call judges- I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. H itherto the divine faculty of which the internal oracle is the source has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about triAes, if I was going to make a slip or

error in any matter; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when I was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was on my way to the court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I either said or did touching the matter in hand has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this silence? I will tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. For the cus- tomary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things- either death is a state of noth ing- ness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no conscious- ness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with th is the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I th ink that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, 0 my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I myself, too, shall have a wonderful interest in there meeting and conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the son ofTelamon, and any other ancient hero who has suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my

own sufferings with theirs. Above all , I shall then be a ble to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, 0 judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan exped ition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infi nite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! In another world they do not pu t a man to death for asking questions: assur- edly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.

Wherefore, 0 judges, be of good cheer about dea th, and know of a certainty, that no evi l can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approach- ing end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the t ime had arrived when it was bette r for me to

Probing Questions

For Further Reading 55

die and be released from trouble; wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accusers; they have done me no harm, although they did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, 0 my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,-then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring abou t that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways- I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

I. Whar does Socrates ,nean by "The unexamined life is nor worth living"? How does chis vie,v relate co Socrates' accivicy as rhe cicy's in rellecrual gadAy? Socrates see,ns ro chink chat many of his jurors lead unexamined lives. Why does he chink chis?

2. Socrates ,vas executed because he deal t in offensive and dangerous ideas. Have there been ochers in history ,vho have also suffered because sociecy thought their ideas ,vere unaccept- able? Is a sociecy ever justified in punishing people for expressing such ideas?

3. Socrates died for his principles. Whar ideas in your life would you be ,villing ro die for?

For Further Reading

Simon Blackburn, Oxfo,d Dictionary of Phiwsophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, 2005). A concise guide to hundreds of philosophy topics, with many of the entries being of substantial length.

N icholas Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, I 969). A one-volume student reference covering the major divisions of philosophy.

Eliot D. Cohen, Phiwsophers at W0rk (Ne,v York: H olt, Rinehart, and W inston, 1989). Reports of how people in d ifferent professions use philosophy.

Edward Craig, e.d., Routledge Encycwpedia of Phiwsophy, IO vols. (New York: Routledge, 1998). A fi ne source of information o n a vast number of philosophical topics.

56 Chapter 1 Philosophy and You

Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1995). A good one-volume philosophy reference featuring many excellent articles on philosophical issues.

Brooke Moore and Richard Parker, Critical Thinking, 8th e.dition (New York: McGraw-Hill , 2007). A comprehensive and readable treatment of critical chinking skills.

Louis P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn, e.ds., Classics of Philosophy, 3rd edition (Ne,v York: Oxford University Press, 20 IO). The most comprehensive anthology of Western philosophy available.

Bertrand Russell , The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959). A very readable classic work by an eminent philosopher. Focuses mostly on issues in epistemology.

Lewis Vaughn, Great Philosophical Arguments: An Introduction to Philosophy (Ne,v York: Oxford University Press, 20 12). A text with readings organized by topic and by the standard arguments chat have occupied thinkers throughout the centuries.

1 , ' ' I CHAPTER

GOD AND RELIGION

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

2.1 OVERVIEW: GOD AND PHILOSOPHY

• Understand t he importance of relig ious beliefs in the world and how t hey can influence what people t hink, do, and value.

• Know how ph ilosophy tries to understand and evaluate

relig ious claims.

• Give an overview of t he trad itional arguments for the existence of God and object ions

to them.

• Define theism, atheism, agnosticism, monotheism, polytheism, deism , pantheism, and panentheism.

2.2 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

• Exp lain and evaluate Aquinas's fi rst-cause argument and Craig's Kalam cosmological argument.

• Exp lain and evaluate Paley's

analogical design argument and the best-explanation design argument.

• Exp lain and evaluate Anselm 's

ontological argument .

2.3 GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

• Understand Rowe's argument from evil and some major criticisms of it.

• Critically examine the free will defense.

• Explain and evaluate Hick's soul-making theodicy.

2.4 THEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

• State and evaluate the argument from relig ious experience.

• Summarize Swinburne's

argument from relig ious experience and assess criticisms of it.

• Assess the claim that the

argument from relig ious experience fail s because

religious experiences are incompatible.

58 Chapter 2 God and Religion

2.5 BELIEF WITHOUT REASON

• Summarize and evaluate James's pragmatic argument for believing the religious hypothesis.

2.6 EASTERN RELIGIONS

• Explain how Buddhism differs from Western religious traditions.

• Explain the natu re and signifi cance of the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita.

• State and evaluate Pascal's wager.

• State and explain the Buddha's Four Noble Truths.

• Know how the Chuang Tzu characterizes the Dao.

• Define samsara, atman, brahmin, and Brahman.

• Identi fy the parallels to the Dao in Western philosophy.

2.1 OVERVIEW: GOD AND PHILOSOPHY

What does philosophy have to do w ith religion? Throughout h istory they have often been intertwined. At t imes the two have bowed respectfully to each other (although sometimes from a distance), thrown stones at each other's conceptual temples, \vo rked in each other's backyards, and chased w isdom along d ivergent

paths that often crossed. For Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, doing philosophy is not merely a search for t ruth; it is a spiritual quest, a journey to h igher, invaluable things. From the Easte rn religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confu- cianism, and Daoism come ph ilosophical insights t hat have influenced m ill ions and earned the respect of Western thinkers. To the great philosophers of t he medieval period-Augustine, Boethius, Avicenna, Anselm, Maimonides, Aqui- nas, and others-reason is a g ift from God, and ph ilosophy can reveal h idden knowledge and sacred t ruths. In modern philosophy, f rom Descartes to the pres- ent, ph ilosophers (both religious and secular) examine cla ims about God, immor- tality, good and evil, and ultimate reality. Many contemporary thinkers \vould insist that philosophy, us ing irs own distinctive methods of inquiry, seeks t ruth and, through t ruth, transcendence.

What some of the great philosophers have to say about God and rel igion is the subject of this chapter. Of course, being philosophers, they do not simply declare

their views to be correct-they a rgue thei r cases. It is then up to us to evaluate their a rgumenrs to see if their claims are \VOrthy of our acceptance. To embrace a vie\v merely because it is comfortable, fam iliar, and emotionally satisfying is to violate the spir it of philosophical inquiry, which asks us to bel ieve for good reasons.

God is not what you imagine or what you

thin k you understand. If you understand, you have failed. -Augustine

1 Are reasons or arguments relevant to your current religious beliefs? If so, how? If not, do you think your beliefs are nonethe less rationa l? Expla in.

Overview: God and Phi losophy 59

Why Religion Matters

Belief in God or in a spiritual reality has shape.cl civil izations and altered history. In che name of che divine, devotees have raised up and laid low mighty empires. They have built temples, creace.d arc, produced sacred cexcs, and crafted ceremony and song. They have bequeathed co che world moral and legal codes, explanations of how che universe works, and conceptual maps sho\ving \vhere ind ividuals belong in a divine plan. From such things, councless mi llions have dra\vn a sense of purpose, meaning, and courage in che face of loss.

Bue there is also a dark side of che religious realm. Faith has often engendered moral blindness, intolerance, narro\v-mindedness, and cruelty. With unshakeable confidence in a transcendent po\ver, believers have burned places of \vorship, books, heretics, and unbelievers. In che name of their gods they have trampled on human rights, blocked sci- entific inquiry, oppressed \vomen, waged holy \vars, and infl icted terrorism on innocents.

le seems chat ho\vever we tally these lists of good and evil, we muse conclude chat che impact of religion on earth is incalculably large. This face alone is reason enough co examine che claims of religion critically and dispassionately-chat is, philosophically.

Religious belief or disbelief moves not just societies, but also individual lives. What- ever your ideas about God and religion, they will surely influence your chinking about some very important matters. Based on these beliefs, you may decide \vhac sore of entities exist in che universe, what claims are true or false, and what things are good or bad. And from such views, your choices flow, and from your choices, your life is made.

Overview: The Philosopher's Quest

You may already have strong views about che existence of God and about che merics of a specific religious tradition. Where d id chose vie\vS come from? Chances are good chat you bel ieve what you do because you were ra ise.cl chat \vay, craine.d in a particular faith by your parencs or culcure. If so, you came by your religious beliefs accidentally. Out of che many religions of che \vorld (and che thousands of faith groups), you found yourself in one of chem. And che mere face chat your parents or your society hande.d chose beliefs co you does not mean they are true. The point is not chat che religious vie\vS \Ve inherit are false, but chat blindly accepting chem is a poor \vay co discover che t ruth about chem.

To judge che worth of any religious claims, co decide among che many compet- ing assertions, we need che objective seance and critical reasoning of philosophical inquiry. The \vay of che philosopher is not co ask how you came co have a belief, but iuhether the belief is supported by good reasons. She kno\vS chat co judge a religious view from che standpoint of che rel igious trad ition chat spa\vned it is co beg che question and co bias her inquiry from che scare. She strives instead for che philosophical ideal of unbiased evaluation in che cour t of reason.

This court has been in session for hundreds of years as philosophers and theolo- gians have debated religious issues, particularly che existence or nonexistence of God. They have put forth a number of argumencs co cry co demonstrate che latter, several of which are discussed in chis chapter and ics readings. The argumencs concern che

2 How has your belief or nonbelief in God influenced the major choices you've made in your life? How has your belief or nonbelief affected your attitude toward science, mor- ality, your educat ion, people who don't share your beliefs, atheists, abort ion, and te rrorist acts?

I do not feel obliged to believe that ,he same God who has endowed us w ich sense, reason} and intdlccr

has intended us to forgo their USC. -Galileo Galilei

3 Suppose you, like many people, have come by your beliefs about religion acciden- tally (because you were born at a part icular place and t ime). How do you think you should respond to this fact ? Should you (1) st ill assume your be- liefs are true, (2) re ject all your current beliefs, (3) suspend judgment about the beliefs, or (4) evaluate your be- liefs using reason and evidence?

60 Chapter 2 God and Religion

PH I LOSO PHY NOW

Who Believes in God? According ro many surveys, belief in God, or gods, is ,videspread on rhe planer bur is neither universal nor unchanging.

2007

2014

% of American adults who say

Believe in God; absolutely certain

71 o/o

63%

Believe in God; fairly certain

17%

20%

Pew Research Center, 2014

Belief in God by Level of Education

Do not believe in God

Believe in God; absolutely certain

Believe in God; not too/ not at all certain

High school or less

43%

Some college

33%

College

38% 28% 19%

Pew Research Center, 2014

Percentage of people who do not identify with any religion

Pew Research Center, 2012

2007

15.3%

2009

16.8%

Certainty of God's existence vs. atheism

Japan

Percentage of people who said they 4 .3% were certain of God's existence

Atheist 8.7%

Live Science, 1991- 2008

Sweden France

10.2% 15.5%

19.3% 23.3%

2011

18.6%

2012

19.6%

Great United Britain States

16.8% 60.6%

18.0% 3.0%

Why do you think "absolutely certain" belief in God in the United States declined slightly between 2007 and 2014? Does the fact that the vast major- ity of Americans believe in God provide evidence for God's existence? Why

or why not? Why do you think "absolutely certain" belief in God declines

the more education a person has? European countries have much lower rates of belief in God (and higher rates of atheism) than the United States

does. What conclusions can you draw from this?

Overview: God and Phi losophy 61

Figure 2.1 Most people probably acquire their religious beliefs in childhood. Did you come by your current relig ious beliefs that way? If so, do you think you should critically examine them in adulthood? Why or why not?

God of the th ree main Western religious traditions-Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This being is thought to be the creator of the universe, a person (as opposed to an impersonal force or substance, as in some Eastern religions) \vho is a ll-powerful (omnipotent), a ll-kno\ving (omniscient), and all-good (omnibenevolent).

To try to prove the existence of this God, many th inkers have advanced cosmological arguments, which reason from the existence of the universe, or cos- mos (or some fundamental feature of it), to the conclusion that God exists. For ex- ample, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argues that some th ings in the universe are caused to exist, and that nothing can cause itself to exist or come into being through an infinite series of causes. So there must be a first uncaused cause of everyth ing- and this fi rst uncaused cause is God.

Philosophers, of course, aren't the only ones \vho argue this way. Many people- perhaps you are one of them-have thought or said something along these lines: "If God doesn't exist, how d id the universe come into being? Ho\v did we come into being? To say that the \vorld \vasn't caused by anyone or that it was the result of an accident makes no sense. Only a supreme being could have caused it to exist." Phi- losophers have simply given this kind of argument more precision and coherence, as well as more critical scrutiny.

Many try to make their case for God through teleological arguments, which rea- son from apparent signs of design or purposeful creation in the \vorld to the existence of a supreme designer. William Paley (1743-1805), an English theologian and moral philosopher, presents a classic version of this approach. Arguing by analogy, he asserrs that a \Vatch is devise.cl by an intelligent designer; the universe resembles a \Vatch in

IClriticism of religious belief., is often considered

impolite or even uncon· stitutional (although it isn't). Religion is treated

like a senile rdacivc whose bizarre statements arc not to be questioned. -\X'alter Sinnott-Armstrong

Cosmological arguments arc arguments that cry m show thar from the fact that rhc universe exists}

God exists.

Teleological arguments arc arguments that try to show that God must exist because features of the

universe show signs of pur· pose or design.

62 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

An ontological argument is an argument that tries to demonstrate God 's exist·

ence by logical analysis of the concept of God.

I think we must atrack- whcrcvcr we meet it- the no nsensical idea that mu-

tually exclusive pro posi-

tions about God can both be true.

-C. S. lewis

An argument from religious experience is an argument of this form: A per.son seems m have ex-

perienced God; the experi- e nce m ust have actually

been a genuine e ncounter

with God; therefore, God probably exists.

that it too looks as if it were designed by some intelligent being; therefore, the universe \vas probably also created by an intelligent designer-in ocher words, by God.

Some philosophers have case the design argument as an inference co the best explanation. This version begins by pointing co some impressive features of the uni- verse such as the intricate workings of biological systems or the just-so calibration of physical properties chat allo\vS the universe co exist. le then claims chat the best explanation of such amazing faces is chat God designed the universe. God muse be the best explanation for these facts because it seems utterly improbable that they could have just happened without the intervention of a deity. So if God is the best explanation, then God muse exist.

Ontological arguments appeal not co empirical facts about the cosmos, but co the concept of God itself. From the definition of God, we prove \vith logic alone that a supreme deity is a reality. St. Anselm (1033-1109) \vas the first to articulate such an argument, and ever since, ocher philosophers have been offering their O\vn versions. He first posies a definition of God as the greatest possible being. This asser- tion, Anselm says, implies chat God muse act ually exist, because ifhe did not exist in reality (and only existed in our minds), he would not be the greatest possible being. (Existing in reality is thought co make something greater than if it exises merely in someone's mind.) Therefore, God exises.

Anselm's a rgument is not easy co grasp on a quick reading. To appreciate it, you may need co read it several times and spend some extra time \vich it. Just keep this in mind: There are good reasons why intrigued philosophers have been examining and reexamining Anselm's argument for the past nine hundre.d years. (We \vill take a closer look at the argument lacer in chis chapter.)

For Anselm and ochers, the strongest ar- gumenes for God's existence spring from pure reason. But for many people, definitive evidence chat God exises comes from personal experience-from direct a\vareness of what seems co be God's divine presence. People ex- perience something chat they believe is God or is of God, and chis apparent encounter forms the basis of an argument from religious ex- perience. The argument says chat a person seems co have experienced God; the experience muse have actually been a genuine encounter with God; therefore, God probably exists. This way of arguing is essentially an inference co the best explanation. The best explanation of the person's experience is chat God's presence \vas somehow sense.cl, and if so, God likely exists.

Figure 2.2 Some people think the world so wondrous that a d ivine designer must have brought it forth, but others have thought the world so thoroughly f lawed in its design that we might well con- clude that the designer was incompetent. Which view are you more sympathetic to?

Philosophers have subjected all the preced- ing arguments co critical examination, ques- tioning both thei r conclusions and the truth of their premises. In the following sections, we

Overview: God and Phi losophy 63

will review some of these criticisms as well as reasoned responses to them. For now, it is important to understand that even if the arguments fail to prove their case, that doesn't demonstrate the nonexistence of God. If scientisrs have so far failed to fi nd evidence for life outside our solar system, that doesn't prove that life doesn't exist

somewhere out there. The failure of these arguments would sho\v only that they g ive

us no good reasons to believe in the traditional God of Western religion. But there is another kind of argument that does purport to establish God's non-

existence: the argum ent from evil. You have probably heard this a rgument, or the complaint that inspires it, before. When you have seen people confronted \Vith un- bearable evil- pain, suffering, and injustice-you may have heard them say some- thing like this: "Why did this trage.dy happen? W hy d id God allo\v my mother-a

WHAT DO YOU BELi EVE?

Hard-Wired for God?

An argument from evil is an argument purpo rting

to show that since there is unnecessary evil, an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God mus, not c:xi ,;:t.

Do you bel ieve in God? If so, \vhy? So,n e scientists chink they know why. Here is a recent report on rhe issue:

Humans are programmed to bel ieve in God because it gives them a bet- ter chance of surviva l, researchers cla im. A s tudy into the way ch ild ren's bra ins develop suggests that du ring the process of evolution those with re ligious tendencies began to benefit from their beliefs- possibly by work· ing in groups to ensure the future of the ir community.

The findings of Bruce Hood, professor of developmental psychology at Bristol University, suggest that magical and supernatural beliefs are hard- wired into our bra ins from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological fo rce. His work is supported by other researchers who have found evidence li nking religious feelings and experience to par- ticular regions of the brain. They suggest people are programmed to re- ce ive a feeling of spirituali ty from electrical activity in these areas.

The findings challenge atheists such as Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, who has long argued that re ligious beliefs result from poor education and ch ildhood "indoctrination."- Oaily Mail, September

7, 2009

Suppose it is true that we are all programmed to believe in God. Would t his fact support or undermine the proposition that God exists? If theism

has evolutionary advantages, would this fact constitute a good reason for

believing in God? Why or why not?

64 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

4 Think about the four types of argume nts for the existence of God glossed here. At this po int in your readi ng of this chapter, which type do you think makes the strongest case for God? Why? Which do you think makes the weakest?

5 If you were to have a religious experience that seemed to be of God, would your experience be strong evidence for God's existence? Why or why not? Would you be able to disting uish a genu- ine experience of God from a fa lse one-say, instances of wishful thinking, hallucination, or fantasy? If so, how? If not, would this fact change your degree of confidence that the ex- perience was genuine?

I don't want a God that would go around ki lling people's little girls. Neither do I want a God who would kill his own son. -Bishop John Spong

A theodicy is a defense of the traditional conceptio n

of God in light of the existence of evil.

A theist L~ someone who believes in God.

Theism is belief in , he

existence of God.

An atheist L\ someone w ho denies God's existence.

devout and loving person-to suffer so horribly for so long and then die so young? If there is a God, \vhy does he permit such evils?" Believers in every age have struggled to reconcile the existence of evil with their belief in an all-powerful, all-kno\ving, and all-good God. The argument from evil asserts that these two things cannot be reconciled, and we are therefore forced by reason to abandon our bel ief.

Stated more precisely, the argument from evil says t hat if an all-powerful, all- kno\ving, and all-good God existed, unnecessary evil \vould not exist. (Some evil is deemed necessary, as \vhen a child is given a painful injection to save her life, or \vhen a farmer endures months of backbreaking work to assure a good harvest to fee.cl his family. Unnecessary evil is t hought to have no such excuses for occurring.) An all-powerful and all-kno\ving God would kno\v about, and be able to prevent, evil, and an all-good God \vould want to prevent it. But there is in fact unnecessary evil in the world. Therefore, an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God does not exist.

Philosophers have tried to answer the argument from evil in a variety of ways. Probably the most d ramatic response is that unnecessary evil exisrs because God cannot or \vi ll not prevent it; that is, he is a finite deity, lacking one or more of the traditional divine attributes. This line, ho\vever, would seem to most people to make God un\vOrthy of worship.

Other approaches t ry to defend against the argument from evil while retain- ing all the attributes in the traditional notion of God. These counterarguments are known as theodicies. They admit that evil exisrs but claim that it is necessary evil, required to achieve some greater good. So they deny that unnecessary evil exists in the \vorld, \vhich is the crucial premise in the argument from evi l. The point of a theo- dicy is not to prove that God exisrs, but to show that the argument from evil does not succeed. It tries to demonstrate that there may be good reasons to think that the crucial premise is false-that is, to think that all the evil in the world is necessary. Among the possibilities are that evil is necessary to effect the moral improvement of individuals, to better the human race, to punish humans for sin, or to help people understand the true nature of evil.

Perhaps the most promising theodicy is the free will defense. It maintains that evil is a necessary result of humans having free will. God created people with the free.dom to choose between good and evil, but he could not give people free wi ll and at the same time ensure that they \vould never do evil. That's impossible even for God. So the evil produced by humans is a necessary result of thei r enjoying God's gift of free.dom.

Belief and Disbelief

A \vide spectrum of beliefs regarding the existence of God is possible, and fortu- nately there is some standard terminology to help us sort them out. A person who bel ieves in the existence of God is a theist , and belief in the existence of God is theism . Someone who denies the existence of God is an atheist, and such denial is atheism . A person \vho neither bel ieves nor disbelieves in God is kno\vn as an agnostic. If you are an agnostic, you may think that the evidence for or against

Overview: God and Phi losophy 65

Bahai Buddhist Buddhist

Christian Christian Confucian Confucian/Daoist

Hindu Judaic Judaic Judaic

Islamic Sikh Shinto

Figure 2.3 There are thousands of religious groups in the world, worshiping thousands of gods in countless ways. Do you believe that one of these groups is the true one? Is one of these gods the right god?

theism is inconclusive, that you do not know what is the case. Or you may take the more radical agnostic view that knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God is impossible. That is, the truth about God is unknowable.

Belief in God or the divine can take different forms, and there are terms to reflect that fact. The vie\v taken by many religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, is monotheism, belief in one God. Belief in several gods is polytheism, also prevalent throughout the world. A doctrine that arose among prominent thinkers in France and England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is deism, the notion that there is one God who is essentially an "absentee landlord." This God created the universe but put it on autopilot and now ignores it, taking no interest in human affairs. Prominent deists of the past include George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Voltaire. Pantheism is the view that God and the universe are one and the same, a divine Whole. God and the world are basically identical. The great philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) held this view, and other thinkers, including Albert Einstein (1879-1955), were sympathetic to it. Pantheism is distinct from panentheism, the idea that God is in the universe and the universe is in God.

Some thinkers have questioned the basic approach to the God question that most philosophers have taken. They reject the notion that has guided much of tradi- tional philosophical inquiry-the vie\v that rational belief in God requires reasons or evidence. They insist that we may rationally believe in the existence of God even though we have no good reasons for doing so. Others believe that faith and reason

Atheism is , he denial of the existence of God.

An agnostic L~ someone who neither accepts nor denies God's cxisrcncc.

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing m worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on rhc

walls of his cell. -C. S. Lewis

6 Do you think the argument from evi l is a strong argument for the nonexistence of God? Why or why not? If you believe in God, how do you reconcile that belief with the existence of evil? If you don't believe in God, is the argument from evil a factor in your nonbelief?

Monotheism is a bel ief in one God.

Polytheism is a belief in many gods.

D eism is a belief in o ne God who created the world but lefr it unat- tended to run o n its own.

Panthe.ism is the view that

God and the universe arc one and the same ,hing, a divine \'(!hole.

Panentheism is the view that although God and the world arc distinct, rhc world is part of God.

6 6 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

If God lived on earth,

people would break his windows.

-Jewish Proverb

7 Rabbi Harold Kush - ner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, a rgues that unnecessary evil exists in the world because God is not able to prevent it. That is, God is finite, a less powerful deity than the traditiona l God. Do you think this is a good explanat ion of unnecessary evil? Why or why not? Would a fin ite God deserve your respect and devot ion?

A God that can be under- stood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in word\? -\Y/. Somerset Maugham

Reason in man is rather

like God in the world. -1homas Aquinas

are incompatible, and that we can legitimately come to kno,v religious truths, in- cluding the existence of God, only th rough a leap of faith.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHI LOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 2 .1

I. Do you bel ieve in God? If so, can you state reasons for your belief? Do you think your bel ief is rational? Would you bel ieve in God whether or not you had good reasons? Explain your position on these questions.

2. Would you consider yourself an agnostic or atheist? If so, do you have reasons for your lack of bel ief in God? Is your lack of bel ief rational? Do you think that bel ievers are irrational? Explain.

3. What is Will iam Paley's teleological argument? Do you think the analogy between a watch and the universe is strong enough to prove the existence of a designer?

4. What is the argument from evil? Do you think the existence of evil shows that God doesn't exist? Why or why not?

5. Some philosophers and theologians believe that reason is a gift from God and should be used in the search for truth about God. Do you agree?

2.2 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

We can sort the argumenrs for God's existence into two categories: (1) those that appeal to the evidence of experience (,vhat philosophers call a posteriori arguments) and (2) those that appeal to logical relations (called a priori argumenrs). A poste- riori arguments reason from empirical facts about the world to the conclusion that God exisrs. Cosmological, teleological, and religious-experience argumenrs are of this kind. A priori arguments logically derive the conclusion that God exisrs from conceprs of God. Ontological argumenrs take this form.

Cosmological Arguments

Cosmological arguments can boast a long lineage, having been set out by many theorisrs from Aristotle, Plato, Ghazali, Averroes, Aquinas, and Spinoza to contem- porary philosophers such as Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig. They all begin ,vith the empirical fact that the universe, or one of its essential properties, exisrs-and end with the conclusion that only God could be responsible for this fact. In his masterpiece Summa Theologica, the Roman Catholic scholar Thomas Aquinas

Arguments for the Existence of God 67

offers five "proofs" (his famous "Five Ways") of God 's existence, the first th ree of which are cosmological arguments. This is how Aquinas lays out the first two:

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

The existence of God can be shown in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and

evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, fo r nothing can be in motion except it is in po- tentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in actuali ty.

For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actu- ality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fi re, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiali ty in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infi nity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent mov- ers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a fi rst mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we fi nd there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a th ing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; fo r so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the in- termediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the in termediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermedia te cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will the re be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.'

Aquinas's argument from motion (his first way) goes like this: It is obvious that some things in the universe are moving (that is, changing), and if they are mov- ing, something else must have cause.d them to move. And this "something else" must also have been moving, set in motion by yet another thing that \vas moving, and this thing set in motion by another moving th ing, and so on. But th is series of things-moving-other-things cannot go on forever, to infinity, because then there

8 Why does Aqu inas think there cannot be an infin ite chain of movers? Do you accept his reasons for this? Can you conceive of a series of movers st retching infin itely into the past? If so, can you detect any cont radictions inherent in your concept ion?

9 Why does Aqu inas insist that there must be a first cause? Does his a rgument show t hat the fi rst cause is in fact God? Does it show, for example, that the fi rst cause could not be an evil demon o r an impersonal fo rce?

68 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

Believe nothing, no matter w here you read it, or w ho

said it, no matter if I said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your

own common sense. -The Buddha

PH I LOSO PH ERS AT WORK

St. Thomas Aquinas

Tho,n as Aquinas (1225-1274) was born into a no- ble family in sourbern Italy ro even tually become che greatest philosopher of che medieval period and, co rbis day, che official rbeologian of che Ro,nan Catholic Church. Because his fa,nily had decided char he should be a Figure 2.4 Thomas Aqu inas great church leader, they packed him off before rbe (1225- 1274), the phi losopher who age of six co che Benedictine rnonascery of Mon re fused Aristotle with Christian ity. Cassino for training. Ar fourteen, he was sent co rbe University of Naples for furrber study, and there his life rook ,vhar his fa,nily con- sidered a radical turn. Ar age nvency, he joined che scholarly Dominican order and pursued, not a leadership position in che church, but rbe rarefied life of rbe intellect.

Becoming alarmed at Aquinas's change of plans, his fami ly had him kid- napped and locked in che fam ily castle for several ,nonths. When it became clear chat he was not going ro relinqu ish his scholarly a,nbit ions, they released hirn, and he continued his stud ies and his writing at the University of Paris and in Cologne, Ro,ne, Naples, Virerbo, and Orvieco.

Aquinas's great concribucion co both philosophy and Christian ity ,vas his fusion of Aristotle's phi losophy with Christian doctrines. In theology he distin- guished between reason and faith, giving each its o,vn domain of inqu iry. Reason can be used co prove che existence of God, he says, bur only ch rough faith can we kno,v such rnysceries as che incarnation and the trin ity.

,vould not be something that scarce.cl all che moving. There muse therefore be an ini- tial mover (a "First Mover"), an extraordinary being that sea reed che universe moving but is not icself move.cl by anything else-and chis being we call God .

Aquinas's second ,vay is his famous first-cause argument. He maintains chat ev- erything we can observe has a cause, and it is clear chat nothing can cause icsel f. For something co cause itself, it would have co exist prior to itself, which is impossible. Neither can something be caused by an infinite regress of causes-chat is, a series of causes screeching co infinity. In any series of causes, Aquinas says, there muse be a first cause, which causes che second, ,vhich causes the thi rd, and so on. Bue in an infinite series of causes, there ,vould be no first cause and thus no subsequent causes, including causes existing now. So infinite regresses make no sense. Therefore, there muse be a first cause of everything, and chis first cause we call God. (Here Aquinas is not thinking of a first cause of a temporal series of causes, as in a sequence of fall ing dominoes, but of a fi rst cause chat sustains che whole series of causes, like the bottom building block chat holds up all che others in a stack.)

Arguments for the Existence of God 69

Against these two arguments, philosophers have lodged several criticisms. One of the strongest takes a im at Aquinas's claim that an infinite regress is not possible. Aquinas thinks that a chain of causes must have a first cause; othenvise there \vould be no subsequent causes in the \vorld. In an infinite regress of causes, he contends, there would be no fi rst cause and therefore no subsequent causes. Critics reply that just because an infinite chain of causes has no first cause, that doesn't mean that the chain of causes has no cause at all: in an infinite chain of causes, every link has a cause. Many philosophers, including David Hume (17 11-1776), see no logical con- t radiction in the idea of an infinite regress. They hold that the universe need not have had a beginning; it may be eternal, without beginning, and without a first cause or a fi rst mover. The universe may have s imply always been.

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Science and the Uncaused Universe

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself (or

herself) in the slight derails we arc able to perceive

with our frail and feeble minds. -Albert Einstein

The notion chat so,ne events in che universe are entirely uncaused is now \Videly accepted a,nong quantum physicists, the scientists \Vho study the realm of subaco,nic particles (such as electrons, positrons, and quarks). According co quantum physics, subatomic particles fre- quently pop in and out of existence randomly-chat is, they appear and disappear uncaused out of a perfect vacuum. From these findings, some scientists have speculated chat che uni- verse itself ,nay have arisen uncaused. This is how two physicists describe che pheno,nenon:

[T]he idea of a First Cause sounds somewhat fishy in light of the modern

theory of quantum mechanics. According to the most commonly accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics, individual subatomic particles can behave in unpredictable ways and there are numerous random, uncaused

events.- Richard Morris, Achilles in the Quantum World, 1997

[Q]uantum electrodynamics reveals that an electron, positron, and photon occasionally emerge spontaneously in a perfect vacuum. When this hap- pens, the three particles exist for a brief t ime, and then annihilate each other, leaving no trace behind .... The spontaneous, temporary emergence of particles from a vacuum is called a vacuum fluctuation, and it is utterly

commonplace in quantum fi eld theory.- Edward Tryon, "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?" Nature, Vol. 246, Dec. 1973, pp. 396- 397.

Suppose some subatomic events are uncaused. Does this show that the universe is uncaused? What bearing does the phenomenon have on the cosmological arguments of Aquinas and Craig? How might Craig reply to the physicists quoted above?

70 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

10 Does the Big Bang prove that the uni- verse must have had a beginning? Some scientists have thought that the Big Bang was not the begin- ning of the universe, because the un iverse is "oscillating"-that is, it expands and contracts continua lly in an eternal cycle of a Big Bang fol lowed by periods of expansion then contraction and another Big Bang. There is now reason to think that the universe is not oscillating, but if oscillation were a plau- sible possibility, wou Id this undermine the claim that the universe began to exist?

Some claim that the worst problem \Vith Aquinas's a rgumenrs is that at best they prove only that the universe had a first mover o r first cause-but not that the first mover or first cause is God. For a ll the arguments show, the first mover or first cause could be an impersonal substance o r energy, o r several minor deities, or a supreme but evil demon. Perhaps the universe is, as many scientisrs and philosophers allege,

simply an eternal, uncaused brute fact. Inspired by recent findings in scientific cosmology (the study of the origin and

structure of the universe), some philosophers have been interested in another kind of cosmological argument. Scientific evidence suggests that the universe suddenly came into existence about fourteen billion years ago in an unimaginably massive explosion known as the "Big Bang." Until that moment, the universe that \Ve ex- perience today simply was not. Using th is fact as a starting point, William Lane Craig defends the Ka/am cosmological argument (a name derived from medieval Islamic scholars):

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith

In particular, I find the kalam cosmological argument for a temporal first cause of the universe to be one of the most plausible arguments for God 's existence ... . The argu- ment is basically this: both philosophical reasoning and scientific evidence show that the un iverse began to exist. Anyth ing that begins to exist must have a cause that brings it into being. So the universe must have a cause. Philosophical analysis reveals that such a cause must have several of the principle theis tic attributes.

Figure 2.5 Was the Big Bang the beginni ng of the universe? Did the Big Bang have a cause?

Arguments for the Existence of God 71

The argument may be formulated in th ree s imple steps.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The un iverse began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The logic of the argument is va lid and very simple; the argument has the same logical structure as the argument: "All men are morta l; Socrates is a man; the refore, Socrates is mortal." So the question is, are there good reasons to believe that each of the steps is true? I think there are.•

Craig chinks che first premise is obviously true: Nothing scares co exist w ithout a cause. Bue many d ispute chis, insisting chat there is no logical reason why che

u niverse could not be uncaused. They ask why che notion of an uncaused origina- t ion of things makes no sense while che idea of a god creating things out of noth- ing does.

Some argue against Premise 1 on empirical grounds, pointing co findings in quantum physics suggesting chat some events involving subatomic particles a re un- caused. This evidence has prompted theorises co speculate chat che universe itself may be uncaused. Ac che very lease, they say, it proves chat someching's coming into existence uncaused is not impossible. (See che box "Philosophy Now: Science and che Uncaused Universe.")

Craig a rgues for Premise 2 ("The universe began co exist") in much che same way chat Aquinas a rgues fo r a first cause: The universe muse have begun co exist because che alternative is an infinite regress of past events, which is impossible. H e maintains chat che very idea of an actual infinity of th ings involves logical contradictions:

[W]hat is infinity minus infin ity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory an- swers . .. . [l]nfin ity minus infinity is infinity. But suppose instead you subtract all the numbers grea ter than 2- how many are left? Three. So infinity minus infinity is 3! ... This implies that infinity is just an idea in your mind, not something that exists in rea li ty.3

Many philosophers reject chis understanding of infinity. They agree chat infinity can be perplexing, but they point out chat mathematicians kno\v how co work \vich infinity without inviting contradictions. More co che point, they hold chat there is no logical absurd icy in che notion of a series of even es screeching into an infin ite future. We can easily conceive of chis. Likewise, they say, there is no logical absurd icy in che idea of a series of events continuing into an infin ite past. We can scraighcforwardly conceive of chis as \veil .

Craig says chat infinit ies may exist in mathematics (as in che series 0, l , 2, 3, . . . ), but chat they a re merely potential infinities, not actual infinities. Potential infinit ies "approach infinity as a limit, but they never actually gee there . . . . [E)xiscence in che mathematical realm does not imply existence in che real world.'" Ochers reply chat we may not be able co actually count co infinity or measure an infinite number of segments between two poines, but chat does not mean chat che numbers or segmenes a re nonex1scenc.

11 Is it obvious to you, as it is to Craig, that nothing starts to exist without a cause? Do you think that the universe could be uncaused? Why or why not?

12 Can you conceive of a series of events stretching infinitely into the future? Can you conceive of a series of events continuing infinitely into the past? Do you think there is a contradiction lurking in the idea of an infi- nite series of causes? Does the weirdness of infinity in mathematics show that infinities in the empirica l world cannot exist?

What we need is not the will m believe, but ,he will

to find out. -Bercrand Russell

72 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

Figure 2.6 In his book The Grand Design, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking declares, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist .... It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going." Is Hawking's view plausible? Why or why not?

Design Arguments

Teleological, or design, arguments for the existence of God are straightforward, the gist being chat since the world seems co show signs of purposeful des ign, it most likely was purposefully designed-chat is, intentionally made by an intelligent be- ing, which we call God. A popular version takes che form of an argument from analogy and was famously laid down by che eighceench-cencury Anglican clergyman William Paley:

William Paley, Natural Theology

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that, for anything I knew to the con- trary, it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had given- that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason and for no other; viz., that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in

Arguments for the Existence of God 73

the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g., that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, if a diffe rent size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order than that in which they are placed, e ither no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. To reckon up a few of the plainest of these parts, and of their offices, all tending to one resu lt: We see a cylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring, which, by its endeavor to relax itself, turns round the box. We nex t ob- serve a fl exib le chain (artificially wrought for the sake of flexure) communicating the action of the spring from the box to the fuse. We then fi nd a series of wheels, the teeth of which catch in, and apply to, each other, conducting the motion from the fuse to the balance, and from the balance to the pointer, and, at the same time, by the size and shape of those wheels, so regulating that motion as to terminate in causing an index, by an equable and measured progression, to pass over a given space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels are made of brass, in order to keep them from rust; the springs of steel, no other metal being so elastic; that over the face of the watch there is placed a glass, a material employed in no other part of the work, but in the room of which, if there had been any other than a transparent substance, the hour could not be seen without opening the case. This mechanism being observed (it requ ires indeed an examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous knowledge of the subject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have said, observed and under- stood), the infe rence, we think, is inevi tab le, that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it fo r the purpose which we find it answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use ....

Every ind ication of contrivance, every manifesta tion of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; wi th the d ifference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. I mean that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still more, if poss ible, do they go beyond them in number and variety; yet in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.1

It is obvious, Paley says, that the "several pares [of the watch] are framed and put together for a purpose," \vhich suggests that it had an intelligent designer. Likewise, the un iverse manifescs countless parts, all seemingly formed and arranged to achieve various ends. From this he concludes that the universe also probably has an intel-

ligent des igner, but one that surpasses immeasurably the po\ver and understanding of humans. This great designer must be God.

Before Paley made h is case in Natural Theology (1802), David Hume (1711- 1776) had launched a famous critique of design arguments in his Dialogues Concern- ing Natural Religion (1779), and it has been echoed and amplified by thinkers ever since. In Dialogues, Hume presents a discussion of the issues among th ree fic tional characters-Demea, the orthodox believer; C leanthes, the theologian; and Philo, the skeptic. Using Philo as h is mouthpiece, Hume assaults the design argument from analogy on nvo broad fronts. H e fi rst contends that the argument fails because the

As the poet said, "O nly God can make a tree• -

probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. -Woody Allen

74 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

13 Is Hume's argument about reasoning from parts to the whole cor- rect? We certainly can't reason that because the bricks of a house are light in weight, the whole house is light in weight. But can't we legitimately argue that, say, because a bucket of water from a pond is polluted, the whole pond is poll uted?

14 Do you agree with Hume that we can draw no conclusions about the cause of phenomena that are "sing le, individual. without parallel or specific resemblance"? Would contemporary scientists accept Hume's view?

15 Is Hume's sugges- tion that the universe is like a living th ing at least as plausible as the view that it is I ike a machine? Why or why not? Suppose Hume is right. What would the implications be for Pa ley's argument?

analogy is \veak, hampered by too fe\v relevant s imilarities and too many d issimi-

larities. He then reasons that even if the argument demonstrates that the universe

has a designer, the designer may not be the trad it ional God of theism. Here is Philo

argu ing the first point:

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an arch itect or builder because this is precisely that species of effect which we have expe- rienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certa inty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking that the utmost you can here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presump- tion concerning a similar cause; and how that precision will be received in the world, I leave you to consider ....

But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual phlegm and philosophy have been pre- served in so wide a step as you have taken when you compared to the universe houses, ships, furniture, machines; and, from their similarity in some circumstances, in ferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design, intelligence, such as we d iscover in men and other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hund red others which fall under daily ob- servation. It is an active cause by which some particu lar parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a ha ir, can we learn anyth ing concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree? ...

When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an argument from experience. But how th is argument can have place where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, withou t parallel or specific resemblance, may be difficu lt to explain. And will any man tell me with serious counte- nance that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human because we have experience of it? To ascerta in this reasoning it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance ....

Now, if we survey the un iverse, so far as it falls under our knowledge, it bears a great resemblance to an an imal or organized body, and seems actuated with a like principle of life and motion. A continual circulation of matter in it produces no disorder; a continual waste in every part is incessantly repaired; the closest sympathy is perceived throughout the entire system; and each part or member, in performing its proper offices, operates both to its own preservation and to that of the whole. The world, therefore, I infer, is an animal; and the Deity is the soul of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it.6

Philo asserts that trying to draw a conclusion about the cause of the un iverse based

on what \Ve know about the cause of, say, a house is pointless because the dissim ila rit ies

Arguments for the Existence of God 75

benveen the two phenomena are enormous. We cannot make any firm inferences about the a rchitect of the universe from \vhat we know about the a rchitects of houses. Further, he says, the intelligence that we observe in mankind is just one of the many forces that produce changes in the world. We therefore have no reason to presume that intelligence is the one th ing that is responsible for the universe as a whole. If we

contend that it is, \Ve commit the logical fallacy of arguing from the part to the \vhole: because a part of a system has a particular characteristic, the entire system must have that characteristic too. As Philo purs it, "From observing the growth of a hai r, can we learn anyth ing concerning the generation of a man?" In a similar \vay, he says, we err if \Ve conclude that one event always causes another just because \Ve observe a single instance of such a pairing. We would need to encounter many instances of headaches preceded by a change in the \veather before we could plausibly infer that the latter caused the former. Likewise, we can establish no firm conclusions about the cause of the universe, because \Ve have only a single universe to examine. Finally, Philo tries to undermine the machine-universe analogy by offering what he considers a better comparison. The universe, he argues, is more like a living thing than a machine. In the world, as in living things, there is a continual circulation of matter, damage and waste a re remedied, and each part operates to preserve itself and the \vhole. Living things cre- ate and regulate themselves, unlike machines, which requi re designers and technicians.

On the second point-that even if the universe has a designer, he may not be God-Philo has th is to say:

Now, Cleanthes, said Philo, with an air of alacrity and triumph, mark the consequences. First, by this method of reasoning you renounce a ll cla im to infin ity in any of the at- tributes of the Deity. For, as the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it fall s under our cognizance, is not infinite: What pretensions have we, upon your suppositions, to ascribe that attribute to the Divine Being? You will insist that, by removing him so much from all similarity to human creatures, we give in to the mos t arbitrary hypothesis, and at the same time weaken all proofs of his existence.

16 If there are many imperfections in nat ure, as Hume

suggests, would we necessarily be forced to conclude t hat the designer was also imperfect?

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Secondly, you have no reason, on your theory, for ascribing perfection to the Deity, even in his fi. nite capacity; o r for supposing him free from every error, mis take, or incoherence in his undertakings. There are many inexplicable difficulties in the works of Nature which if we allow a perfect au thor to be proved a priori, are easily solved, and become only seeming difficulties from the narrow capacity of man, who cannot trace infinite relations. But accord ing to your method of reason ing, these difficulties become all real; and, perhaps, will be insisted on as new in- stances of likeness to human art and contrivance. At least, you must acknowledge that it is impossible for us to tell , from our limited views, whether this system contains any great fau lts or deserves any consider- able praise if compared to other poss ible and even

Figure 2. 7 Was the world designed by God w ith humans in mind? If so, some have claimed, God must have erred, because the earth seems more hospitable to insects than to humans. The famous agnostic and tr ial lawyer Clarence Darrow once said, "There are some millions of different species of animals on th is earth, and one-half of these are insects .... If t he land of the earth was made for l ife, it seems as if it was intended for insect life, which can exist almost anywhere." Do you agree?

76 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

17 Hume suggests that, for a 11 we know, there could have been many designers of the universe instead of one supreme deity. Is it reasonable to suppose that this is a genuine possibility?

David H ume,

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

real systems. Could a peasant, if the Aeneid were read to him, pronounce that poem to be absolutely fau ltless, or even assign to it its proper rank among the productions of human wit, he who had never seen any other production?

But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain uncertain whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who imitated others, and copied an art which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, th roughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labor lost; many fruitless trials made; and a slow but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. In such subjects, who can determine where the truth, nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies, amidst a great number of hy- potheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may be imagined?

And what shadow of an argument, continued Philo, can you produce from your hypothesis to prove the unity of the Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several dei- ties combine in contriving and framing a world? This is only so much greater similarity to human affa irs. By sharing the work among several, we may so much further limit the attributes of each, and get rid of that extensive power and knowledge which must be supposed in one deity, and which, according to you, can only serve to weaken the proof of his existence. And if such fool ish, such vicious creatures as man can yet often unite in framing and executing one plan, how much more those deities or demons, whom we may suppose several degrees more perfect? . ..

And why not become a perfect anthropomorphite? Why not assert the deity or dei- ties to be corporeal, and to have eyes, a nose, mouth, ears, etc.? Epicurus maintained that no man had ever seen reason but in a human figure; therefore, the gods must have a human figure. And this argument, which is deservedly so much ridiculed by Cicero, becomes, according to you, solid and phi losophical.

In a word, C/eanthes, a man who follows your hypothes is is able, perhaps, to as- sert or conjecture the universe sometime arose from something like design. But be- yond that position he cannot ascertain one single ci rcumstance and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world , fo r aught he knows, is very fau lty and imperfect, compared to a superior stan- dard, and was only the fi rst rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance. It is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity, and is the object of derision to his superiors. It is the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since his death has run on at adven- tures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him ... .7

Philo declares that if we carefully and consistently apply the kind of reasoning used in the design argument (as Cleanthes would have us do), \Ve would have to accept some uncomfortable conclusions about the nature of the designer. Accord- ing to Cleanthes, \Ve are supposed to judge the nature of the cause by the nature of the effect, and we are to reason from the attributes of human designers to the at- tributes of God. By this logic, Philo says, \Ve \vould have to conclude that God (the cause) may not be infinite, because the universe (the effect) is not infinite. We \vould be forced to admit that God may not be perfect, because the universe is itself not

78 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

PH I LOSOPHY NOW

Do Scientists Reject Religion?

The answer is yes and no. A 2009 Pew Research Center survey showed that just over half of scientists (51 percent) believe in a deicy or higher po,ver, while belief in God or a higher po,ver among Americans is much higher- 80 ro 95 percent in some surveys. Bur scientists' spiritual and religious beliefs (and disbelief) are diverse and often illuminating. Here's a sampling of rhe views of so,ne of che more eminent and influential figures.

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spiri- tuality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feel ing, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or litera- ture, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow

mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.- Carl Sagan (1934- 1996)

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there

is no God, only that God is not necessary.- Stephen Hawking (1942- 2018)

Science is ... a powerful way, indeed to study the natural world. Science is not particu larly effective ... in making commentary about the supernatu- ral world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and qu ite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other.

- Francis Coll ins (1950- )

I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual in formation, puts all our experi- ences in a magnificently consistent order, but is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physica l pain and physi- cal delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, god and eternity.- Erwin Schrodinger (1887- 1961)

I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science. - Wernher von Braun (1912- 1977)

Why do you chink chat only half of scientists believe in a deity or higher po,ver? Which scientist's belief quoted above is closest co your own view of God and rel igion? Why?

Arguments for the Existence of God 79

Ontological Arguments

C-osmological and teleological appeals rest ultimately o n the evidence of experience. Ontological a rgumencs rest on logic alone. Logic tells us that some th ings cannot possibly exist-round squares and married bachelors, for example. They cannot ex- ist because they involve logical contradictions. A nd logic tells us that it is (logically) possible that golden mounta ins and flying horses exist (tho ugh they are not actual), fo r they involve no logical contradictions. So isn't it at least plausible that \Vith logic alo ne we could someho\v prove the existence of God? Anselm thought so. H e was the fi rst to articulate a precise statement of an ontological argument, and other thinkers s ince h im have offered their O\vn vers ions. H e reasons that since God by defin ition is the greatest possible being, God must actually exist, because if he did not exist in reality (and merely existed in our m inds), he \vould not be the greatest possible be-

ing. Here is the argument in A nselm's own \vords:

Anselm, Proslogium

And so, Lord, do thou, who dost give understand ing to faith, give me, so far as thou knowest it to be profitable, to understand that thou art as we believe; and that thou art that which we believe. And, indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which noth- ing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, s ince the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God? (Psalms xiv.1). But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hea rs of this being of which I speak- a being than which nothing greater can be conceived- understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist.

For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to under- stand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the paint- ing, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.

Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists in the under- standing, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understand ing. And assured ly that, than which nothing greater can be con- ceived, cannot exist in the understand ing alone. For, suppose it exists in the un- derstand ing alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

18 Does existence al- ways add greatness to an ent ity? That is, is it

always greater to exist t han not to exist? Why or why not ?

Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

And it assured ly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to ex- ist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence,

Figure 2.8 St. Anselm (1033-1109), medieval philosopher and theologian and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He held that reason was a friend of faith, not a source of religious skepticism.

80 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Evolution and Intelligent Design

Science maintains char che best explanation for the apparent design of biological life is rhe the- ory of evolution, which says char living things, in all their variery and co,nplexiry, arose ch rough

natural processes. Bur some dai,n char life on earth is best explained by the interven- t ion of a supreme intelligence. Michael Behe fainously argues char some biologi- cal systems are so profoundly incricace- so "irreducibly co,nplex"-rhac they could nor have been produced by gradual evo- lutionary changes. Only an intelligent de- signer can account for such complexiry.

The consensus among scientists is char evolution operates through ,vhat Danvin called "natura l selection." The basic idea is char offspring of organisms differ physically fro,n their parents in various ,vays, and these differences can be passed on generi- cally co their offspring. If an offspring has an inherited trait (such as sharper vision or a larger brain) char increases its chances of

Figure 2.9 Could the human eye- a very complex surviving long enough to reproduce, the in- system- have evolved through natural selection? dividual is more likely co survive and pass

Anselm,

Proslogium

rhe craic on co che next generation. After severa l generations, th is useful trait, or adaptation, spreads throughout a whole population of individuals, differentiating che population from its ancestors. Behe's claim is char it is i1npossible for irreducibly co,nplex systems to be produced through natural selection. He says chat an irreducibly complex system (for example, the eye) is co,nposed of several inter- connected, perfectly marched pares such char if even one part is 1nissing, the sysre,n will nor function. An eye can i1nprove the survival prospects of organis,ns only if it functions, and

if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that, than which nothing greater can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There is, then, so tru ly a being than which nothing greater can be con- ceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; and this being thou art, O Lord, our God.

So tru ly, therefore, dost thou exist, 0 Lord, my God, that thou canst not be con- ceived not to exist; and rightly. For, if a mind could conceive of a being better than thee, the creature would rise above the Creator; and this is most absurd. And, indeed, whatever else there is, except thee alone, can be conceived not to exist. To thee alone, therefore, it belongs to exist more truly than all other beings, and hence in a higher

Arguments for the Existence of God 81

proper functioning requires char each of irs pares is rhere co do its job. Accord ing to evolu- tion, rhe eye ca,ne abour through slow, incre,nenca l changes. Bur, Behe asks, how can an unfin ished, nonfuncrioning eye improve survival? This shows, he argues, char the eye and all ocher irreducibly complex sysrems ,vere created ,vhole-nor ch rough evolution, bur by so,ne grear inrell igence.

But most biologists deny that rhe development of irreducibly complex systems ch rough natura l selection is physically impossible. Behe chinks natural selection requires that a coin- plex sysrem be fonned by gradua l addition of components until a functioning model is achieved. But critics point out char rhe components can be present all along or arise ar dif- ferent t imes, performing tasks that improve various processes. Then, because of a change in the genome, the pares may be put to new uses, fonning an irreducibly complex structure.

From the face that biologists generally do not kno,v precisely how each step of such a process happens, ir does nor follow chat the process is impossible or unknowable. Phi lip Kircher th inks that rhe remedy for our ignorance of these marrers is more and betrer re- search, not the presumption of an inrell igenr designer:

Even if intelligent designers were right in supposing that the phenomena they indicate couldn't have evolved by natural selection, only a more explicit identification of the causal mechanism that was at work could justify the conclusion that that mechanism is intelligent.- Philip Kitcher, Living With Darwin, 2007

Suppose evolution is t rue and intelligent design t heory is false. Would this mean that there is no supreme being w ho made biological life possible? Can someone consistently believe in both evolution and God?

degree than all others. For, whatever else exists does not exist so truly, and hence in a less degree it belongs to it to exist. Why, then, has the fool said in his heart, there is no God (Psalms xiv. ir), since it is so evident, to a rational mind, that thou dost exist in the highest degree of all? Why, except that he is dull and a fool?' 0

Here's che a rgument seated more formally:

1. God, by definition, is the greatest being possible. 2. Suppose che greatest being possible exiscs only in the understanding (in the

mind, as a mental object).

82 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

19 What is the most plausible meaning of "exists in the under- standing alone "? Could it mean that the concept of the greatest being possible is not actually exemplified, that it does not refer to anyth ing exist ing in re- a lity? If so, how would such an interpreta- tion affect Anselm's argument?

If God did not exist, i, would be ncccs.sary ,o invent him. -Voltaire

I cannot conceive of a God who rcv.oards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of ,he kind that we experi- ence in o urselves. Neither

can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual

tha, survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fca, o, absurd ego-

ism, cherish such thoughrs. I am satisfied with the mys,cry of the eternity of life and with the aware- ness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the

existing world} together

with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason ,hat manifests itself in nature.

-Albert Einstein

3. Then a greater being than the greatest being possible can be conceived, one existing not just in the understanding, but also in reality (for a being is greater if it exists in reality than if it exiscs only in the understanding).

4. But this yields a contradiction, for a being greater than the greatest being possible is impossible.

5. Therefore, God, the greatest being possible, must exist in reality, not just in the understanding.

Many have found fault with this line of reasoning. The fi rst major criticism came from an eleventh-cent ury monk named Gaunilo, who thought that Anselm ,vas try- ing to define God into existence. He maintained that if Anselm's argument were a good piece of reasoning, we could use it to prove the existence of many things that obviously do not exist-for instance, the greatest island possible. We could argue that the greatest island possible must actually exist because if it existed only in the understanding, there could conceivably be an island that is greater, namely, one that exists in reality as ,vell as in the understanding.

Anselm replied that his reasoning does not pertain to things like Gaunilo's island, but only to God, the greatest being possible. Others have suggested that Gaunilo's critique fails because his island is not a possibility. To them it seems that for any island thought to be the greatest possible, ,ve can ahvays imagine how it can be greater by enhancing its properties. Such an island could therefore never be the greatest. Critics have rejected both of these suggestions, and some have countered that Anselm's line could prove the existence of absurd things other than a perfect island-like a supremely evil superbeing.

In putting forth his argument, Anselm makes nvo assumptions: (I) existence makes something greater (that is, something is greater if it exists in the ,vorld than ifit exists only in the mind as an idea) and (2) existence can be a defining property. Critics have questioned both of these. On the first count, they contend that there is no good reason to think that existence adds to the value of an entity. After all, it is not obvious that it is better for, say, a thoroughly evil being to exist than not to exist. On the second count, they doubt that existence can be any kind of defining property at all. Anselm assumes that one th ing can be greater than another thing even though they have ex- actly the same properties, differing only in that the fi rst thing exists and the second does not. In his view, existence is another defining property-the essential attribute that the one thing has and the other lacks. But is this plausible? Suppose you imagine an incredibly beautiful beach, detailing in your mind its every property (,vhite sand,

Figure 2.10 Could there be such a thing as the greatest possible beach?

Arguments for the Existence of God 83

lovely palm trees, blue \Yater, etc.). Then you add one more attribute-actual exis- tence. Does this last step change the defining properties of your beach-or does it simply indicate that the beach with al l irs defining properties is actual? Many philoso- phers, including Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), would choose the latter. As Kant says,

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

"Being'' is obviously not a real predicate [term designating a property]; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations, as existing in themselves .... By whatever and by however many predicates we may think a thing- even if we completely determine it- we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this th ing is."

In any case, some detractors think the weakest link in Anselm's chain of reason- ing is Premise 2, the supposition that the greatest being possible exists only in the understanding. This claim gives rise to the contrad iction that a greater being than the greatest being possible can be conceived (one existing in reality) . But they argue that the contrad iction d issolves if we take Premise 2 to mean not that the greatest being possible exisrs in some sense in the mind (the vie\v that Anselm seems to take), but simply that the concept of the greatest being possible does not refer to any actu- ally existing thing. The latter, they insist, is the more reasonable reading of "exisrs only in the understanding," and it does not yield any contradictions about the nat ure of God. With th is reading of Premise 2, Anselm's argument does not go th rough.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 2.2

1. What is Aquinas's first-cause argument? Does it prove the existence of the traditional God of theism? Does it prove that the universe had a first cause?

2. What is Craig's cosmological argument? Critique irs two premises. Are they true? Explain why you think they are true (or false). If the argu- ment is sound, what does it prove? Does it prove that God exists?

3. What are the relevant similarities and d ifferences benveen Paley's \Vatch and the universe? Is the \Vatch analogy a good one?

4. Are Hume's criticisms of the design argument cogent? Does he suc- cessfully refute it?

5. Are the assumptions behind Anselm's argument justified? That is, are there good reasons for accepting them?

If triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.

- Charles de Montesquieu

84 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

M oral evil is evil that comes from human choices and actions and

the bad things that ar ise from them.

Natural evil is evil that

resuk s from the workings of narurc.

2.3 GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Some people doubt the existence of God because they bel ieve that the traditional ar- guments for theism fall short and that no other evidence in God's favor seems forth- coming. Others take a stronger stand against theism by setting forth the argument from evi l. They ask, in effect, "If God existS, how can there be so much unnecessa ry evil in the ,vorld? An all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God might allo,v some evils because they are necessary to bring about some greater good. But much of the ,vorld 's evils seem to be entirely and blatantly gratu itous. So ho,v can ,ve conclude anything other than that there must be no such God?"

Philosophers and theologians have generally concerned themselves with nvo types of evil. Moral evil comes from human choices and actions and the bad things that arise from them. Injustice, murder, deceit, theft, and torture are moral evils from which flow pain, suffering, inju ry, loss, and death. Natural evil results from the workings of natu re. From hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, fires, d isease, and drought come vast sums of evil in the form of human and animal suffering. To make thei r case, atheists have usually appealed to both kinds of evil, challenging theistS to explain why a perfectly good and powerful God would allow such horrors.

Rowe's Argument from Evil

One of the more influential versions of the argument from evil is provided by philo- sopher William L. Rowe, ,vho focuses on evil as " intense human and an imal suffering":

Wil liam L. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion

Taking human and an imal suffering as a clear instance of evil which occurs with great frequency in our world, the ... problem of evil can be stated in terms of the following argument for atheism.

1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby preventing the occurrence of any greater good.

2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any in- tense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby preventing the occurrence of some greater good.

Therefore,

3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

What are we to say about th is argument for atheism, an argument based on the profusion of one sort of evil in the world? The argument is valid; therefore, if we have rational grounds for accepting its premises, to that extent we have rational grounds for accepting atheism. Do we, however, have rational grounds for accepting the premises of th is argument?

God and the Problem of Evi l 85

Figure 2.11 Does a fawn's suffering alone in the forest lead to a greater good? Could an omnipotent God obtain th is greater good some other way?

The second premise of the argument expresses a belief about what a morally good being would do under certain circumstances. Accord ing to this belief, if a morally good being knew of some intense suffering that was about to occur and he was in a position to prevent its occurrence, he would prevent it unless he could not do so without thereby losing some greater good of which he was aware. This belief (or something very close to it) is, I think, held in common by theists and nontheists. Of course, there may be disagreement about whether something is good, and whether, if it is good, one would be morally just ified in permitting some intense suffering to occur in order to obtain it. Someone might hold, for example, that no good is great enough to justify permitting an innocent ch ild to suffer terribly. To hold such a view, however, is not to deny premise 2 which claims only that if an omniscient, wholly good being permits intense suffering then there must be some greater good (a good which outweighs the suffering in ques- tion) which the good being could not obtain without permitting the intense suffering. So stated, 2 seems to express a belief that accords with our basic moral principles, principles shared by both theists and nontheists. If we are to fau lt th is argument, there- fore, we must find some fault with its first premise.

Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn's intense suffer- ing is pointless, leading to no greater good. Could an omnipotent, omniscient being have prevented the fawn's apparently pointless suffering? The answer is obvious, as even the theist will insist. An omnipotent, omniscient being could easily have pre- vented the fawn from being horribly burned, or, given the burning, could have spared the fawn the intense suffering by quickly ending its li fe, rather than allowing the fawn to lie in terrible agony for several days. Since no greater good, so far as we can see, would have been lost had the fawn's intense suffering been prevented, doesn't it appear that premise 1 of the argument is t rue, that there exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby preventing the occurrence of any greater good? .. .

20 Do you agree with Rowe that it seems un- likely that all instances of intense human and animal suffering lead to greater goods? And do you think that if all that suffering does lead to greater goods, that "an omnipotent, omniscient being could not have achieved at least some of those goods without permit- t ing the instances of suffering that lead to them"?

86 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

William L. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion

The truth is that we are not in a position to prove that 1 is true. We cannot know with certainty that instances of suffering of the sort described in 1 do occur in our world. But it is one thing to know or prove that 1 is true and quite another thing to have rational grounds for believing 1 to be true. We are often in the position where in the light of our experience and knowledge it is rational to believe that a certain statement is true, even though we are not in a position to prove or to know with certainty that the statement is true. In the light of our past experience and knowledge it is, for example, very reason- able to believe that neither Goldwater nor McGovern will ever be elected president, but we are scarcely in the position of knowing with certainty that neither wil l be elected president. So, too, with , , although we cannot know with certainty that it is true, it per- haps can be rationa lly supported, shown to be a rational belief.

Consider again the case of the fawn's suffering. There are two distinct questions we need to ra ise: "Does the fawn's suffering lead to some greater good?" and "Is the greater good to which it might lead such that an omnipotent, omniscient being could not obtain it without permitting the fawn's suffering?" It may strike us as unlikely that the answer to the first question is yes. And it may strike us as quite a bit more unlikely that the answer to the second question is yes. But even if we should think it is reason- able to believe that the fawn's suffering leads to a greater good unobtainable without that suffering, we must then ask whether it is reasonable to believe that all the instances of profound, seemingly pointless human and animal suffering lead to greater goods. And, if they should somehow all lead to greater goods, is it reasonable to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient being could not have brought about any of those goods without permitting the instances of suffering which supposedly lead to them? When we consider these more general questions in the light of our experience and knowledge of the variety and profusion of human and animal suffering occurring daily in our world, it seems that the answer must be no. It seems quite unlikely that all the instances of intense human and animal suffering occurring daily in our world lead to greater goods, and even more unlikely that if they all do, an omnipotent, omniscient being could not have achieved at least some of those goods without permitting the instances of suffer- ing that lead to them. In the light of our experience and knowledge of the variety and scale of human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of those instances of suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without the loss of a greater good seems an extraordinary, absurd idea, quite beyond our belief. It seems then that although we cannot prove that premise 1 is true, it is, nevertheless, altogether reasonable to believe that 1 is true, that it is a rational belief."

Some theisrs reject Premise 1 by appealing to human ignorance. They argue that there could be goods unkno\vn to us that justify the evil we see-goods compre- hended by God but beyond our ken. O r our concept of good may not be God's, for his morality is of a higher, purer kind than ours. In God's eyes, then, \vhat we believe is evil might be good, or what \Ve think is good might be evil.

Defenders of Premise 1 reply that we may indeed be una\vare of goods that God discerns, but none of the goods we do know about could ever compensate for life's vast burden of seemingly gratuitous evil. We need not know what God knows to be justified in believing Premise 1. As Rowe says,

That things appear to us to be a certain way is itself justification for thinking things are this way. Of course, th is justification may be de- feated. But apart from such defeat, the fact that th ings appear to us

God and the Problem of Evi l 87

to be a certain way renders us rationally justifi ed in bel ieving that they are that way.'l

And co assert that God's morality is higher than ours, some argue, is co case doubt on all our moral judgments and co render meaningless our terms good and evil. J. L. Mackie observes chat on chis higher-morality vie\v, "When the theist says that God is wholly good he does not mean chat God has anything like the purposes and tendencies chat would count as good in a human being. But then why call him good? Is not chis description misleading?"14

The Free Will Defense

To many theists, the best way co counter the argument from evil is co present a theo- dicy, an explanation of why God permits evil. The point is co provide good reasons why evil may be a necessary part of God's creation, thereby showing that the argument from evil fails. Chief among such approaches is the free \viii defense, which is usually offered as an explanation of moral evi l. It says that human free will is an enormous good, so much so chat a universe \vhere humans have free will is better than one \vhere they don't, even if thei r exercise of freedom brings about much evil. Moral evil is the unavoidable byproduct of God's gift of free will. According co Richard S\vinburne,

Richard Swinburne, Is There a God?

The free-will defence claims that it is a great good that humans have a certain sort of free will which I shall call free and responsible choice, but that, if they do, then neces- sarily there will be the natural possibility of moral evil. ... A God who gives humans such free will necessarily brings about the possibili ty, and puts outside his own control whether or not that evil occurs. It is not logical ly possible- that is, it would be self. contradictory to suppose- that God could give us such free will and yet ensure that we always use it in the right way.'s

Here free will may sound like a serious restriction of God's po\ver (a denial of h is omnipotence), but most philosophers, \vhether theist ic or not, have not taken that vie\v. They have interpreted God's omnipotence not as the power co do any- th ing whatsoever, but as the po\ver co do anything chat is logically possible. They have ackno\vledged that God cannot make a square circle or a married bachelor, cause 2 + 2 co equal 5, o r create a triangle with four sides. But logical impossibili- t ies are fundamenta l faces about rea lity and are not thought co sec any restrictions on God's power.

Against the free will defense, two main objections have been raise.cl. The first is the contention chat there is no reason why an omnipotent God could not have created free agents \vho ahvays choose the good. As Mackie says, "If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer \vhac is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such chat they always freely choose the good?"16 Bue

What mean and crud things men do for ,he love

of God.

-Vl. Somerset Maugham

21 Is Mackie correct in saying that an omnipo- tent God could have created people with free will who always choose the good? Is such a state of affairs logically possible?

You can say rhat you trust God anyway- that no

arguments can undermine your fai th. But that is just a statement describing

how stubborn you arc; it has no bearing w hatsoever on the questions of God's

goodness. -B. C. Johnson

88 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

many theisrs assert that to ensure people ahvays freely do what is right, God would have to farce them to do so-and forcing people to act freely is logically impossible.

The second objection is that even if God could not have made humans so they always freely choose the good, he could have at least made people such that they do less evil than they actually do. In this vie\v, God could have given people bet-

ter moral character so their desire to do good would be stronger and their desi re to do evil would be weaker. Such an a lteration in their character would not diminish their capacity to act freely, and even a slight change \vould reduce the amount of evil in the world. Many theists would object to this line, however, charging that such manipulation of character by God would indeed curtail free wil l. God's t inkering with people's psychological makeup would be analogous to controlling a person's behavior through hypnosis or d rugs.

The Soul-Making Defense

In any case, free wi ll is not the only good that has been offered as a justification for God's perm itting evil. The philosopher John Hick says that the greatest good is "soul-making." In his theodicy, he argues that evil in the form of suffering is necessary to provide humans w ith a world \vhere moral and spiritual progress is pos- sible. Personal growth-soul-making-can take place only when people make free choices in response to the pain and anguish of living. Hick expla ins:

John Hick, Evil and the God of Love

Instead of regarding man as having been created by God in a finished state, as a finitely perfect being fulfi ll ing the divine intention for our human level of existence, and then falli ng disastrously away from this, the [minority view) sees man as still in process of creation. lrenaeus himself expressed the point in terms of the (exegetically dubious) distinction between the 'image' and the 'likeness' of God referred to in Genesis i.26: 'Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' His view was that man as a personal and mora l being already exists in the image, but has not yet been formed into the fi nite likeness of God. By this 'likeness' lrenaeus means something more than personal existence as such; he means a certain valuable quality of personal life which reflects finitely the divine life. This represents the perfecting of man, the ful- fi lment of God's purpose for humanity, the 'bringing of many sons to glory', the creat- ing of 'children of God' who are 'fellow heirs with Christ' of his glory.

And so man, created as a personal being in the image of God, is only the raw mate- rial for a further and more difficult stage of God's creative work. This is the leading of men as relatively free and autonomous persons, through their own dealings with life in the world in which He has placed them, towards that quality of personal existence that is the finite likeness of God . . . .

In the light of modern anthropological knowledge some form of two-stage concep- tion of the creation of man has become an almost unavoidable Christian tenet. At the very least we must acknowledge as two d istinguishable stages the fashioning of homo

God and the Problem of Evi l 89

sapiens as a product of the long evolutionary process, and his sudden or gradual spiri- tua lization as a ch ild of God. But we may well extend the first stage to include the devel- opment of man as a rational and responsible person capable of personal relationship with the personal Infinite who has created him. This first stage of the creative process was, to our anthropomorphic imaginations, easy for divine omnipotence. By an exer- cise of creative power God caused the physical universe to exist, and in the course of countless ages to bring forth within it organic life, and fina lly to produce out of organic li fe personal li fe; and when man had thus emerged out of the evolution of the forms of organic life, a creature had been made who has the possibility of existing in conscious fellowship with God. But the second stage of the creative process is of a different kind altogether. It cannot be performed by omnipotent power as such. For personal life is essentially free and self-directing. It cannot be perfected by divine fiat, but only through the uncompelled responses and will ing co-operation of human individuals in their ac- tions and reactions in the world in which God has placed them. Men may eventually become the perfected persons whom the New Testament ca lls 'chi ldren of God', but they cannot be created ready-made as th is.

The value-judgement that is implici tly being invoked here is that one who has attained to goodness by meeting and eventually mastering temptations, and thus by rightly making responsible choices in concrete situations, is good in a richer and more valuable sense than would be one created ab initio in a state either of innocence or of virtue. In the former case, which is that of the actual moral achievements of man- kind, the individual's goodness has within it the strength of temptations overcome, a stability based upon an accumulation of right choices, and a positive and responsible character that comes from the investment of costly personal effort. I suggest, then, that it is an ethically reasonable judgement, even though in the nature of the case not one that is capable of demonstrative proof, that human goodness slowly buil t up through personal histories of moral effort has a value in the eyes of the Creator which justifies even the long travai l of the soul-making process ... .

If, then, God's aim in making the world is 'the bringing of many sons to glory', that aim will naturally determine the kind of world that He has created. Antitheistic writers almost invariably assume a conception of the divine purpose which is contrary to the Christian conception. They assume that the purpose of a loving God must be to create a hedonistic paradise; and therefore to the extent that the world is other than this, it proves to them that God is either not loving enough or not powerful enough to create such a world. They think of God's relation to the earth on the model of a human being building a cage for a pet animal to dwell in. If he is humane he will naturally make his pet's quarters as pleasant and healthfu l as he can. Any respect in which the cage falls short of the veterinarian's ideal, and contains possibilities of accident or disease, is evidence of either limi ted benevolence or limited means, or both. Those who use the problem of evil as an argument against belief in God almost invariably think of the world in this kind of way. David Hume, for example, speaks of an architect who is try- ing to plan a house that is to be as comfortable and convenient as possible. If we find that 'the windows, doors, fi res, passages, stairs, and the whole economy of the build- ing were the source of noise, confusion, fatigue, darkness, and the extremes of heat and cold' we should have no hesitation in blaming the architect. It would be in vain for him to prove that if this or that defect were corrected greater ills would resu lt: 'sti ll you would assert in general, that, if the architect had had skill and good intentions, he might have formed such a plan of the whole, and might have adjusted the parts in such a manner, as would have remedied all or most of these inconveniences'.

22 According to Hick, what is the "soul - making process"? Is it, as he says, of such great va lue that it justifies all the human and animal suffering involved in it?

90 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

John Hick, Evil and the God of Love

But if we are right in supposing that God's purpose for man is to lead him from human Bios, or the biological life of man, to that quality of Zoe, or the personal life of eternal worth, which we see in Christ , then the question that we have to ask is not, Is this the kind of world that an all-powerful and in finitely loving being would create as an environment for his human pets? or, Is the architecture of the world the most pleasant and convenient possible? The question that we have to ask is rather, Is this the kind of world that God might make as an environment in which moral beings may be fash- ioned, through their own free insights and responses, into 'children of God'?

Such critics as Hume are confusing what heaven ought to be, as an environment for perfected finite beings, with what this world ought to be, as an environment for be- ings who are in process of becoming perfected. For if our general conception of God's purpose is correct the world is not intended to be a paradise, but rather the scene of a history in which human personality may be formed towards the pattern of Christ. Men are not to be thought of on the analogy of animal pets, whose life is to be made as agreeable as possible, but rather on the analogy of human chi ldren, who are to grow to adulthood in an environment whose primary and overriding purpose is not immedi- ate pleasure but the realizing of the most valuable potentia lities of human personality.

Needless to say, this characterization of God as the heavenly Father is not a merely random illustration but an analogy that lies at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus treated the likeness between the attitude of God to man and the attitude of human parents at their best towards their children, as provid ing the most adequate way for us to think about God. And so it is altogether relevant to a Christian understanding of this world to ask, How does the best parental love express itself in its influence upon the environment in which chi ldren are to grow up? I think it is clear that a parent who loves his children, and wants them to become the best human beings that they are capable of becoming, does not treat pleasure as the sole and supreme value. Certainly we seek pleasure for our children, and take great delight in obtaining it for them; but we do not desire for them unalloyed pleasure at the expense of their growth in such even greater values as moral integrity, unselfishness, compassion, courage, humour, reverence for the truth, and per- haps above all the capacity for love. We do not act on the premise that pleasure is the su- preme end of life; and if the development of these other values sometimes clashes with the provision of pleasure, then we are willing to have our ch ildren miss a certain amount of this, rather than fail to come to possess and to be possessed by the finer and more precious qualities that are possible to the human personali ty. A child brought up on the principle that the only or the supreme va lue is pleasure would not be likely to become an ethically mature adult or an attractive or happy personality. And to most parents it seems more important to try to foster quality and strength of character in their children than to fill their lives at all times with the utmost possible degree of pleasure. If, then, there is any true analogy between God's purpose for his human creatures, and the purpose of loving and wise parents for their children, we have to recognize that the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain cannot be the supreme and overriding end for which the world exists. Rather, this world must be a place of soul-making. And its value is to be judged, not primarily by the quantity of pleasure and pain occurring in it at any particular mo- ment, bu t by its fitness for its primary purpose, the purpose of soul-making ....

If, then, the evi l in human life finally reveals its nature according as it becomes or fa ils to become a phase in the fu lfilment of God's purpose, we must conclude, so far as the present life is concerned, that there are both good and evi l suffering, and that there are redeemed and unredeemed sinners. Any revision of the verdict must depend upon lengthening the perspective out until it reaches a new and better conclusion.

God and the Problem of Evi l 91

If there is any eventual resolutio n of the interplay between good and evil, any decisive bringing of good out of evil , it must lie beyond this world and beyond the enigma of death. Therefore we cannot hope to state a Christian theodicy witho ut taking seriously the doctrine of a life beyond the grave. This doctrine is not, of course, based upon any theory of natural immortality, but upon the hope that beyond death God will resurrect or re-create or reconstitute the human personality in both its inne r and its outer as- pects. The Christian cla im is that the ultimate life of man- after what further scenes of 'soul-making' we do no t know- lies in that Kingdom of God which is depicted in the teaching of Jesus as a state of exultant and blissful happiness, symbolized as a joyous banquet in which all and sund ry, having accepted God's gracious invi tation, rejoice to- gether. And Chris tian theodicy must point forward to that final blessedness, and claim that th is in finite future good will render worthwhile all the pain and trava il and wicked- ness that has occurred on the way to it. Theodicy cannot be content to look to the past, seeking an explanation of evil in its origins, but must look towards the future, expecting a triumphant resolution in the eventual perfect fu lfilment of God's good purpose.'7

Critics have assa iled Hick's view on several fronts, arguing that suffering can warp character as well as build it, that God's allo\ving people to suffer for their own good constitutes morally repugnant paternalism, and that H ick's theodicy has the bizarre implication that our trying to eradicate evil would be \vrong. Rowe's main criticism is that far more evil afflicts people than is required for soul-making:

The problem Hick's theodicy leaves us is that it is altogether rea- sonable to believe that some of the evil s that occur could have been prevented witho ut either d iminishing our mora l and spiritual devel- opment or undermining o ur confidence tha t the world operates ac- cording to natural laws.18

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 2.3

1. Do you th ink H ick's soul-making theodicy is an adequate response to the argu ment from evil? Explain.

2. Do you believe that Rowe's argument from evil is sound? Do you accept his firs t premise? Why or why not?

3. Consider this view: The evil experienced on this earth is n il when compared to the infin ite and eternal happiness that Christians will ex- perience a fter death. If this assertion is true, does it successfully rebut the argu ment from evil?

4. Some say that \vhat humans m ight consider evil is actually good in the eyes of an omniscient God with infinite wisdom. Evaluate this claim.

5. Do you believe that physical good is impossible without physical evil? That is, is evil necessary for good to exist? Alternatively, is evil needed so we can understand and appreciate the good?

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. - Isaiah 5:20 (King James Version)

23 Do you think Rowe's criticism of the soul-making theod icy is cogent? Ca n you conceive of a world that has slight ly less suffering than our world has, yet in which plenty of soul-making takes place?

92 Chapter 2 God and Relig ion

24 Can all relig ious ex- periences be expla ined in naturalistic terms? Are the naturalistic ex- planations better than the theistic one? What criteria would you use to decide?

God is real since he pro· duces real effects. -William James

2.4 THEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Many people affi rm that thei r belief in God does not rest on the kinds of appeals we have just examined. The cosmological, teleological, and ontological a rgumenrs carry no \veight with them. They believe in God because they have had a religious experi- ence that they think gives them kno\vledge of God's existence. For them, it is this religious experience that justifies thei r theism.

Some mainta in that their encounters with the divine involve sensory content- they hear a voice, feel a touch, o r see a light or a face o r a form. Many biblical accounrs-such as St. Paul's encounter on the road to Damascus and Moses' hearing a voice from a burning bush-are like th is. Other people report having no sensations

at a ll but nonetheless sensing a d ivine presence. Here is one such description from St. Teresa of Avila:

St. Teresa of Avila, The Life of Teresa of Jesus

I was at prayer on a festival of the glorious Saint Peter when I saw Christ at my side- or, to put it better, I was conscious of Him, for neither with the eyes of the body nor with those of the soul did I see anything. I thought He was quite close to me and I saw that it was He Who, as I thought, was speaking to me.'9

And here, from William James, is another:

[A]II at once I experienced a feeling of being raised above myself, I felt the presence of God- I tell of the thing just as I was conscious of it- as if his goodness and his power were penetrating me altogether. The throb of emotion was so violent that I could barely tell the boys to pass on and not wait for me .... Then, slowly, the ecstasy left my heart; that is, I felt that God had withdrawn the communion which he had granted, and I was able to walk on, but very slowly, so strongly was I still possessed by the interior emotion .... I thi nk it well to add that in this ecstasy of mine God had neither form, color, odor, nor taste; moreover, that the feeli ng of his presence was accompanied with no determinate localization. It was rather as if my personality had been transformed by the presence of a spiritual spirit . ... At bottom the expression most apt to render what I felt is this: God was present, though invis ible; he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him.'0

Since such occurrences a re thought to justify belief in God, we can dev ise an argument from religious experience that looks like this:

1. Religious experiences occur in \vhich God seems to be sensed. 2. The best explanation for these experiences is that God is indeed sensed (God

caused the experience). 3. Therefore, God probably exists.

Theism and Religious Experience 93

Premise I is true. Few deny that people have experiences that they take co be of God. Premise 2, however, is not obviously true and is often concesce.d. Some critics reject it on che grounds that naturalistic explanations of religious experiences are as good as, or better than, theistic explanations. J. L. Mackie, for example, points out chat religious experiences are generally indistinguishable from experiences \vich a kno\vn psychological or physical cause.

J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism

We are all fam iliar with dreams. Waking visions and hallucinations are relatively infre- quent, but still common enough. Many people have occasionally had the impression of hearing words spoken when there have been no such physical sounds in the neighbour- hood. Many religious experiences closely resemble, even in their sequences of contrast- ing phases, the almost universal human experience of being in love. Hysteria, delusions, cycles of mania and depression are known and reasonably well understood psychopathic phenomena in innumerable cases where there is no religious component; but experi- ences which have such components, which count as religious par excellence, share many features with these pathological ones. Experiences of the mystical kind are often induced by certain drugs. Some of the experiences reported by mystics almost irresistibly invite in- terpretation as expressions of violent sexual passion. From a psychological point of view, as [William] James himself makes clear, the phenomena of conversion, 'mind-cure', sensory or motor automatisms (such as hearing voices) , in- spiration, mysticism, and so on lend themselves very readily to being un- derstood in terms of the operation of unconscious or subconscious parts of the mind .... Theologians themselves have long recognized that it is not easy to decide, about particular visions and messages, whether they come from God or from the devil. As James says ... 'No appearances whatever are infallible proofs of grace .... The good dispositions that a vi- sion, a voice, or other apparently heavenly favor leave behind them are the only marks by which we may be sure that they are not possible deceptions of the tempter'. Admittedly these alternatives, God and the devil, would both fall under the broad heading of 'some supernatural source'. But it will be fairly readily admitted today that the experiences initially ascribed to the devil are fully explicable in terms of purely human but subconscious motives; since it is also admitted that those which the theologian would ascribe to God are not intrinsically distinguishable from those which he would in itially ascribe to the devil, it follows that even what he classes as genuinely religious experiences do not intrinsically resist explanation in purely human terms. And this in itself seems fatal to any argument from religious experience to any supernatural conclusions whatever."

Seil!, some contend chat a rel igious experience can give us good reasons for believing chat God exists, just as ordinary sense experience can give us good reasons for believing chat a cat is on che mac. Richard S\vinburne takes chis line. He maintains that by applying a basic prin- ciple of rationality (\vhac he calls the "principle of credulity"), we can

Figure 2.12 The Bible tells of Paul's con- version to Christianity after being struck bl ind during an encounter w ith God on the road to Damascus. Was it possible for Paul to know that he experienced God instead of, say, a very powerfu l Greek or Roman deity?

94 Chapter 2 God and Religion

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Read the rwo sets of statements below. On the left is a list of sensory or perceptual experiences char people have from rime ro rime. There is no question about the re- ality of these experiences; both common sense and science show char they do in face occur. On the right is a list of experiences char religious people often report. Noc everyone agrees char these experiences have a spiritual or religious cause.

They sometimes feel a "sense of presence," a psychological stare char engenders a feeling char someone unseen is nearby, even though no one is really there.

They sometimes feel certain about an idea or claim even when they are facrually ,vrong. This sense of certainty often arises from strong emotions.

They sometimes feel rhac something or someone unseen is touching rhem even when nothing is there- a known psychological or physiological reaction.

They sometimes feel che presence of God.

They sometimes have a strong feeling of certainty about religious matters.

They sometimes have seemingly physical sensations chat suggest chat God is touching chem.

Suppose you are religious and you have the experiences listed on the right. How do you distinguish these from the natural occur- rences on the left? Saying that you "just know" does not answer

the question. Do you have a special faculty unknown to science that helps you distinguish the two? What exactly allows you to separate the natural phenomena from the genuinely spiritual? Does faith en-

able you to tell the difference between the two kinds of events? Is it possible to misidentify your sensations?

be justified in believing chat our experience reveals God 's presence. The principle

is roughly this: In the absence of reasons co the contrary, if something seems co be present, then it probably is present. When applied co religious experiences, the prin- ciple cells us that "in the absence of special considerations, a ll religious experiences

ought co be taken by thei r subjects as genuine, and hence as substantial grou nds for

bel ief in the existence of their apparent object-God, Mary, o r Ultimate Reality,

or Poseidon." 22 The special considerat ions include doubts about the reliabil ity of the

Theism and Religious Experience 95

perception (for example, when the person involved is known to hallucinate or to be under the influence of alcohol o r d rugs) and strong evidence that the object of the perception does not exist.

Clearly, to make sense of our o rdinary experience and to acquire true beliefs, we must apply an epistemological rule like Swinburne's principle of credulity. But his

principle is faulty, some say, inclining us to believe that an object is present when it isn't. Others doubt that any such principle could ever justify us in bel ieving that a religious experience accurately reveals reality. As W illiam L. Ro,ve says,

Will iam L. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion

[T]he Principle of Credulity presupposes that we have some understanding of what reasons there might be for questioning our experiences and some way of telling whe- ther or not these reasons are present. Consider aga in our example of your experience which you take to be a perception of a large, coiled snake. Like other physical objects that make up the world we perceive by our five senses, snakes are public objects that are observable by others who satisfy certa in conditions. That is, we can predict that people with good eyesight will see a snake (if one is there) provided there is good light and they look in the right direction. It is because physical objects are subject to such predictions that we can understand what reasons there might be for questioning an experience which seems to be a perception of a snake and can often tell whether such reasons are present. In the case of divine beings, however, matters are quite d ifferent. Presumably, it is entirely up to God whether to revea l his presence to some human be- ing. If God does so, he may or may not d isclose himself to others who are in a similar situation. What this means is that it is quite difficu lt to discover reasons for thinking that someone's ordinary religious experience is delusive. But s ince the Principle of Credulity supposes that we understand what reasons there might be to question an experience, some doubt exists as to whether the principle can be fairly applied to ex- periences whose subjects take them be perceptions of the presence of a d ivine being.'3

By the lights of any adequate principle of rationality, we generally have good reason to doubt the truth of an experience if those ,vho have it disagree about it. That is, we rightfully doubt experiences if they a re not rel iable. Many point to the apparent incompatibil ity of religious experiences as proof that they a re indeed un- reliable. Generally, religious experiences in Western trad itions are of a God who is a divine person separate from the world. But experiences in Eastern trad itions a re often of a d ivine something that is entirely impersonal or identical with the world. Believers may have an experience of God as one being, God as a trinity of persons, God as many, God as emptiness o r noth ingness, or God as an ultimate reality. If someone experiences God as a person and another experiences God as impersonal, how can both of these experiences be true? H o,v can both of them provide a window on reality? Religious experiences tend to arise out of and support specific rel igious

traditions-traditions that differ drastically and disagree substantially in their views of spiritual reality. Conflicts among experiences o r traditions that spa,vn experiences seem to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of all alleged encounters with the divine.

25 Why does Rowe doubt that Swinburne's principle of credulity can be successfully applied to religious ex- perience? Do you agree with him?

96 Chapter 2 God and Religion

PH I LOSO PHY NOW

Proof of the Power of Prayer?

Praying for ochers (intercessory prayer) is a com,non practice of millions world,vide, and its efficacy is an article of faith for nu,nerous religious groups. For ,nose, it isn't necessary co prove so,nehow that prayer works; they have faith that it does, and that's that. Bur a few have sought proof through science, hop- ing to uncover evidence that praying for sick people can make them well.

A fa,nous 1988 study by cardiologist Randolph Byrd looked at medical cornpl ica- rions in heart patients, some of,vho,n were prayed for and so,ne nor. Those who ,vere prayed for seemed to do bet- ter chan rhe ochers. In 1999, a larger, simi lar study of heart patients found that the prayed-for group had fewer medica l problems than a group nor prayed for. In a Figure 2.13 Can science prove that prayer works?

2001 study of eight hundred heart patients, researchers found no significant effect of intercessory prayer on the patients' health. In 2006, researchers studied eighteen hundred people ,vho had undergone heart surgery and d iscovered char prayer had no effect on their recovery.

Unfortunately, most prayer studies have been too Aawed for their results to be taken seri- ously. The upshot is char so far, science has nor shown that intercessory prayer can improve people's health.

Many critics (both religious and nonrel igious) think th is kind of research is hopelessly misgu ided. To them, since intercessory prayer is neither well defined nor explained, studying it see,ns like chasing shadows. Son1e ask, Do the effects of prayer depend on the number or the faith of the people praying? If a deity can intervene in human affairs at any rime, how can researchers ever crust study results? How can scientists cake into account che inAuence of prayers fro,n people nor involved in the studies?

Do you believe that intercessory prayer works? What are your grounds for

believing or not believing? Could science ever prove that prayer has real effects?

Theism and Religious Experience 97

Swinburne, ho\vever, thinks othenvise:

Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God

Now, of course, devotees of different religions describe their religious experiences in the religious vocabulary with which they are fam iliar. But in itself th is does not mean that their d ifferent descriptions are in conflict- God may be known under different names to different cultures (as both Old and New Testaments acknowledge- see Exo- dus 6:2- 3 and Acts l]:23). Likewise a Greek's cla im to have talked to Poseidon is not necessaril y in conflict with a Jew's claim to have talked to the angel who watches over the sea; it is so only if to admit the existence of Poseidon is to commit one to a whole polytheistic theology, and there is no need to suppose that generally it is.

Admitted ly, sometimes the giving of one description to the object of religious ex- perience does carry commitment to a doctrine regarded as false by devotees of another religion. Claiming to have experienced the heavenly Christ commits one to a belief in an Incarnation that an orthodox Jew would not admit. But in these cases, if the oppo- nent of the doctrine can produce good grounds for regard ing the doctrine as false, that is reason for the subject of the experience to withdraw his original claim. Among those grounds may be that others have had confl icting experiences and that their experiences are more numerous and better authenticated; but there may be many grounds of other kinds as well. The subject of the religious experience need not in such a case withdraw his original cla im totally; he need only describe it in a less committed way- for ex- ample, claim to have been aware of some supernatural being, not necessarily Dionysus (as originally claimed). The fact that sometimes ... descriptions of the object of a religious experience are in conflict with descriptions of the object of another rel igious experience means only that we have a source of challenge to a particular deta iled claim, not a source of scepticism about a ll claims of rel igious experience.'"'

Suppose, then, that religious experiences did not clash in any important way. C-ould \Ve then conclude that such experiences sho\v that God exisrs? Perhaps, but

agreement among experiences in itself cannot sho\v that they yield knowledge of the divine, for we know that people can have the same sensory experience that turns out to be illusory (such as seeing a mirage).

Skeptics give another reason for denying that harmony among religious experiences attests to d ivine presence: the d ifficulty of recognizing God. They ask, How can you ever be sure that you are perceiving or experiencing God? Can you recognize an all-po\verful, al l-knowing, and all-good being when you encounter it? How can you distinguish such a being from one that is incredibly powerful but finite, or one that is enormously power- ful and knowledgeable but demonic? In any case, ho\v can \Ve use our senses to detect God, since he presumably cannot be sensed? Some say their experiences come \vith a feeling of certainty that God is present. But ho\v can such feelings give us knowledge? Feelings are not a reliable source of kno\vledge, for \Ve can feel certain about many things and still be wrong. Some think we can recognize God th rough a kind of spiritual sixth sense. But unlike our ord inary senses, which have been tested again and again for reliability, no extra sense has been shown to be trusnvorthy. So ho\v can we rely on it?

In many areas of unde r ..

standing. none so much as in our understanding of

God, we bump up against

a simplicity so profound that we must assign com-

plexities to it to comprc·

hcnd it at all. It is mindful of how we paste decals to a sliding glas.s door ro keep

from bumping our nose against it. - Robert Brault

98 Chapter 2 God and Religion

Theists have tried in various ,vays to answer these questions. O ne frequently heard defense is that the validity of religious experience does not depend on agree- ment or disagreement among various descriptions of it, for the true religious experi- ence cannot be describe.cl at all. The experience is the same for everyone, but it gives rise to d ifferent descriptions because it is ineffable. It simply is not possible to put into words an encounter ,vith the divine.

Perhaps an experience of God is indeed ineffable, but if so then nothing at all can be truthfully asserted about it, including the claim that religious experience can give us knowledge of God 's existence. If nothing can be truthfully stated about something, then any statement about it would be false. So to affirm that ineffable religious experience gives us knowledge of God is to likewise assert something false.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 2.4

1. Some argue that the truth of rel igious experiences is corroborated by positive effects in the lives of those who have them-such as leading a morally better life. But consider: People can be inspired to be more virtuous by reading compelling works of fiction, but that doesn't show that the ,vorks are true. If an alleged experience of God inspires some- one to lead a better li fe, is that reason enough to conclude that the experience is indeed of God?

2. What is the best explanation of religious experiences? Evaluate these nvo rival hypotheses: (1) religious experiences are caused by God; (2) religious experiences arise from people's o,vn minds (due to hallucinations, wish- ful thinking, drugs, etc.). Which explanation is better? Why?

3. What is S,vinburne's principle of credulity? W hat is Ro,ve's criticism of it? Do you agree ,vith Rowe?

4. Do disagreemenrs among religious experiences cast doubt on the trust- worthiness of those experiences? Do you agree ,vith Swinburne's view that such disagreemenrs do not necessarily undermine the truth of the experiences?

5. Is it possible for someone to d istinguish between an experience of an omnipotent God and an experience of a being that is extremely power- ful but fi nite?

2.5 BELIEF WITHOUT REASON

The point of the arguments we've considered so far is to provide epistemic justification for believing (or not believing) in God-that is, reasons for believing that theism is true (or false). But there are also arguments intended to offer pragmatic justification

Bel i et Without Reason 99

for belief.-reasons to think that believing in God offers practical advantages. Many who make pragmatic appeals deny that there can be any rational grounds for theism. They are convince.cl that the best-made arguments for God's existence are doomed to fail, but that \Ve should believe anyway because belief brings \vith it certain invalu- able benefits. In this way they can maintain that even though the truth of theism is not backed by reasons, belief in God can nevertheless be rational.

The best examples of such arguments come from William James (1842-1910), the distinguished American philosopher and psychologist, and Blaise Pascal (1623- 1662), the French philosopher and mathematician who devise.cl what we no\v call "Pascal's wager."

James: Pragmatic Faith

C-ontrary to his scientifically minde.d colleagues, James argues that sometimes \Ve may be justified in making a leap of faith to embrace a belief that is entirely unsup- ported by evidence. In the absence of any evidence that could help us decide an is- sue, when we are presented with a t rue choice between opposing beliefs (a "genuine option"), believing on faith may be the rational thing to do. To James, a genuine option is one that is live, forced, and momentous. A live option presents someone with alternatives that he believes could possibly be actualize.cl. A forced option is one that is unavoidable because the two possibilities are mutually exclusive, and not deciding is the same as choosing one of the alternatives. (An example from James is, "Either accept this truth or go \Vithout it.") A momentous option is one that really matters, because t he stakes are high, the decision is irreversible, or the choice offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When we are confronted with a genuine option \Vith no evidence to go by, James says, \Ve have the right to let our "passional nature"-our feelings and desires-decide.

James thus repudiates evidentialism, the vie\v that we are justified in believing something only if it is supported by sufficient evidence. In James's day, the foremost champion of evidentialism was W. K. C lifford, \vho declared, "It is \vrong ahvays, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."15 In other words, it is morally zurong to believe beyond the evidence. Against th is position James asserts, "Our passional nature not only la\vfully may, but must, decide an op- tion between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds."26

To James, the decis ion to believe or not to believe in a d ivine reality (the "reli- gious hypothesis") is a genuine option that the intellect cannot help us decide. It is indeed momentous, for '\ve are supposed to gain, even no\v, by our belief, and to lose by our nonbelief, a certain vital good."17 The skeptic, out of fear of being wrong, would have us refrain from believing and wait until evidence tilts one way or the other. But James insists that the wiser choice-and the more advantageous-is to believe the religious hypothesis, to refuse to forfeit your "sole chance in life of get- t ing upon the winning side." Moreover, to discover whether a divine being exists, we may fi rst have to have faith that it does. Unless we first believe, we may not be able to confirm the truth through our O\vn experience. One who insists on evidence

Believe ,hat life is worth

living, and your belief will help crca<c that fact. -William James

Evidentialism is the view that we arc justified in bel ievi ng something only if

it is supported by sufficient evidence.

The way ro sec by fai th is to shut the eye of reason. -Benjamin Franklin

100 Chapter 2 God and Religion

before bel ief" might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the

gods' acquaintance."

This is how James makes his case:

W il liam James, "The W i ll to Believe"

Let us give the name of hypothesis to anything that may be proposed to our belief; and just as the electricians speak of live and dead wires, let us speak of any hypothesis as either Jive or dead. A live hypothesis is one which appeals as a rea l possibil ity to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the Mahdi, the notion makes no electric connection with your nature- it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. As an hy- pothesis it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even ifhe be not one of the Mahdi's followers), the hypothesis is among the mind's possibilities: it is alive. This shows that deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual th inker. They are measured by his willingness to act. The maximum of liveness in an hypothesis means willingness to act irrevocably. Practically, that means belief; but there is some believing tendency wherever there is will ingness to act at all.

Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an option. Options may be of several kinds. They may be-1, living or dead; 2,forced or avoidable; 3, momentous or trivial; and for our purposes we may call an option a genuine option when it is of the forced, living and momentous kind.

1. A living option is one in which both hypotheses are live ones. If I say to you: " Be a theosophist or be a Mohammedan," it is probably a dead option, because for you neither hypothesis is likely to be alive. But if I say " Be an agnostic or be a Christian" it is otherwise: tra ined as you are, each hypothesis makes some appeal, however small, to your belief.

2. Next, if I say to you: "Choose between going out with your umbrella or without it," I do not offer you a genuine option for it is not forced. You can easily avoid it by not going out at all. Similarly, if I say "Either love me or hate me," "Either call my theory true or ca ll it false," your option is avoidable. You may remain indifferent to me, neither loving nor hating, and you may decl ine to offer any j udgment as to my theory. But if I say "Either accept this truth or go without it," I put on you a forced option for there is no standing place outside of the alternative. Every dilemma based on a complete logical disjunction, with no possibil ity of not choosing, is an option of this forced kind.

3. Finally, if I were Dr. Nansen and proposed to you to join my North Pole expedi- tion, your option would be momentous; for this would probably be your only similar opportunity, and your choice now would either exclude you from the North Pole sort of immortality altogether or put at least the chance of it in to your hands. He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed. Per contra, the option is trivial when the opportunity is not unique, when the stake is insignificant, or when the decision is reversible ifit later proves unwise. Such t rivial op- tions abound in the scientific life. A chemist finds an hypothesis live enough to spend a year in its verification: he believes in it to that extent. But if his experiments prove inconclusive either way, he is quit for his loss of time, no vital harm being done.

Belief Without Reason 101

It will facilitate our discussion if we keep all these distinctions well in mind.

... It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so- sings Clough, whi lst Huxley exclaims: "My only consolation lies in the reflection

that, however bad our posterity may become, so long as they hold by the plain ru le of not pretending to believe what they have no reason to believe because it may be to their advantage so to pretend [the word 'pretend' is surely here redundant), they will not have reached the lowest depths of immorali ty." And that delicious enfant terrible Clifford writes: "Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer .... Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in th is matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away .... If [a] belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence [even though the belief be true, as Clifford on the same page explains], the pleasure is a sto- len one .... It is sinful, because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs as from a pestilence, which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the rest of the town . . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

111

All th is strikes one as healthy, even when expressed, as by Cl ifford, with somewhat too much of robustious pathos in the voice. Free-will and simple wishing do seem, in the matter of our credences, to be only fifth wheels to the coach. Yet if anyone should thereupon assume that intellectual insight is what remains after wish and will and sentimental preference have taken wing, or that pure reason is what then settles our opinions, he would fl y quite as directly in the teeth of the facts ....

Here in th is room, we all of us believe in molecules and the conservation of energy, in democracy and necessary progress, in protestant Christianity and the duty of fight- ing for "the doctrine of the immortal Monroe," all for no reasons worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more inner clearness, and probably with much less, than any disbeliever in them might possess .... Our reason is quite satisfied, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand of us, if it can find a few argu- ments that will do to recite in case our credulity is criticized by some one else. Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. Our belief in truth itself, for instance, that there is a t ru th, and that our minds and it are made for each other,- what is it but a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social system backs us up? We want to have a truth; we want to believe that our experiments and studies and discussions must put us in a continually better and better position towards it; and on this line we agree to fight out our thinking lives. But if a pyr- rhonistic sceptic asks us how we know all this, can our logic find a reply? No! Certa inly it cannot. It is just one volition against another,-we are willing to go in for life upon a trust or assumption which he, for his part, does not care to make .... As a rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use ....

Evidently, then, our nonintellectual nature does influence our convictions. There are passional tendencies and volitions which run before and others which come after belief, and it is only the latter that are too late for the fair; and they are not too late when

"Faith" means not wanting

to know.

-Friedrich N ietzsche

26 Do you agree with Clifford that it is immoral to believe any- thing on insufficient evidence? Why or why not?

102 Chapter 2 God and Religion

William James, "The Will to Believe"

27 Is it ever rat ional to believe something w ithout evidence? James says yes; Cl ifford says no. Who is right?

the previous passional work has been already in their own direction. Pascal's argu- ment, instead of being powerless, then seems a regular clincher, and is the last stroke needed to make our faith in masses and holy water complete. The state of th ings is evidently far from simple; and pure insight and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only th ings that rea lly do produce our creeds.

Our next duty, having recognized this mixed up state of affairs, is to ask whether it be simply reprehensible and pathological, or whether, on the contrary, we must treat it as a normal element in making up our minds. The thesis I defend is, briefly stated, th is: Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between proposi- tions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, "Do not decide, but leave the question open," is itself a passional decision just like deciding yes or no,-and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth . ...

VII

... There are two ways of looking at our duty in the matter of opinion,-ways entirely different, and yet ways about whose difference the theory of knowledge seems hitherto to have shown very li ttle concern. We must know the truth; and we must avoid error,- these are our first and great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. Although it may indeed happen that when we believe the truth A, we escape as an incidental consequence from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens that by merely disbelieving B we necessarily bel ieve A. We may in escaping B fall into believing other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad as B; or we may escape B by not believing anything at all , not even A.

Believe truth! Shun error!- these, we see, are two materially different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by colouring differently our whole intellectual li fe. We may regard the chase for truth as paramount, and the avoidance of error as second- ary; or we may, on the other hand, treat the avoidance of error as more imperative, and let truth take its chance. Clifford, in the instructive passage which I have quoted, exhorts us to the latter course. Believe nothing, he tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies. You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being in error is a very small matter when compared with the blessings of real knowledge, and be ready to be duped many times in your investigation rather than postpone indefinitely the chance of guessing true. I myself find it impossible to go with Clifford. We must remember that these feelings of our duty about either truth or error are in any case only expressions of our passional li fe. Biologi- cally considered, our minds are as ready to grind out falsehood as veracity, and he who says "Better go without bel ief forever than believe a lie!" merely shows his own prepon- derant private horror of becoming a dupe. He may be critical of many of his desires and fears, bu t th is fear he slavishly obeys. He cannot imagine anyone questioning its binding force. For my own part, I have also a horror of being duped; but I can believe that worse things than being duped may happen to a man in this world: so Clifford's exhortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sound. It is like a genera l informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.

Belief Without Reason 103

In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain light- ness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher.

VIII

... The question next arises: Are there not somewhere forced options in our speculative questions, and can we (as men who may be interested at least as much in positively gaining truth as in merely escaping dupery) always wait with impunity till the coercive evidence shall have arrived? It seems a priori improbable that the truth should be so nicely adjusted to our needs and powers as that. In the great boardinghouse of nature, the cakes and the butter and the syrup seldom come out so even and leave the plates so clean. Indeed, we should view them with scientific suspicion if they did.

Moral questions immediately present themselves as questions whose solution cannot wait for sensible proof. A moral question is a question not of what sensibly exists, but of what is good, or would be good if it did exist. Science can tell us what exists; but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart. Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man. Challenge the statement and science can only repeat it oracularly, or else prove it by showing that such ascertainment and correction bring man all sorts of other goods which man's heart in turn declares. The question of having moral beliefs at all or not having them is decided by our will. Are our moral preferences true or fa lse, or are they only odd biological phenomena, making things good or bad for us, but in themselves indifferent? How can your pure intellect decide? If your heart does not want a world of moral reali ty, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one. Mephistophelian scepticism, indeed, w ill satisfy the head's play-instincts much better than any rigorous idealism can. Some men (even at the student age) are so naturally cool-hearted that the moralistic hypothesis never has for them any pungent life, and in their supercilious presence the hot young moralist always feels strangely ill at ease. The appearance of knowingness is on their side, of naivete and gullibili ty on his. Yet, in the inarticulate heart of him, he clings to it that he is not a dupe, and that there is a realm in which (as Emerson says) all their wit and intellectual superiority is no better than the cunning of a fox. Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or fall by the results. The sceptic with his whole nature adopts the doubting attitude; but which of us is the wiser, Omniscience only knows.

Turn now from these wide questions of good to a certain class of questions of fact, questions concern ing personal relations, states of mind between one man and another. Do you like me or not?- for example. Whether you do or not depends, in countless in- stances, on whether I meet you half..vay, am wi lling to assume that you must li ke me, and show you trust and expectation. The previous fa ith on my part in your liking's exis- tence is in such cases what makes your liking come. But if I stand aloof, and refuse to budge an inch until I have objective evidence, until you shall have done something apt, as the absolutists say, ad extorquendum assensum meum, ten to one your liking never comes. How many women's hearts are vanquished by the mere sanguine insistence

I respect fuith, but doubt is what gets you an

education.

-\X'ilson MizJ\er

28 Are the beliefs involved in James's do-you-like-me exam- ple really groundless? Or are they backed by basic principles of human psychology?

104 Chapter 2 God and Religion

of some man that they must love him! He wi ll not consent to the hypothesis that they cannot. The desire for a certain kind of truth here brings about that special truth's existence; and so it is in in- numerable cases of other sorts. Who gains promotions, boons, appointments, but the man in whose life they are seen to play the part of live hypotheses, who discounts them, sacrifices other things for their sake before they have come, and takes risks for them in advance? His faith acts on the powers above him as a cla im, and creates its own verification . ...

There are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in it coming. And where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the " lowest kind of immorali ty" into which a thinking being can fall. Yet such is the logic by which our scientific absolutists pretend to regu late our lives!

Figure 2.14 Is it your faith that can change others' attitudes, or is it your behavior?

In truths dependent on our personal action, then, faith based on desire is certainly a lawful and possibly an indispensable th ing.

William James, "The Will to Believe"

29 James assumes that we are better off in this life if we believe the religious hypothesis than if we don't. Is this assumption correct? What evidence can you bring to bear on this question?

But now, it will be said, these are all ch ildish human cases, and have nothing to do with great cosmical matters, like the ques-

tion of religious faith. Let us then pass on to that. Religions differ so much in their accidents that in discussing the religious question we must make it very generic and broad. What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis? Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things.

Fi rst, she says that the best things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word. " Perfection is eternal"- this phrase of Charles Secretan seems a good way of putting this fi rst affirmation of religion, an affirmation which obviously cannot yet be verified scientifically at all.

The second affirmation of religion is that we are better off even now if we believe her first affirmation to be true.

Now let us consider what the logical elements of th is situation are in case the religious hypothesis in both its branches be really true. (Of course, we must admit that possibility at the outset. If we are to discuss the question at all, it must involve a living option. If for any of you religion be a hypothesis that cannot, by any living possibili ty be true, then you need go no farther. I speak to the 'saving remnant' alone.) So proceed- ing, we see, fi rst, that religion offers itself as a momentous option. We are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to lose by our non belief, a certain vital good. Sec- ondly, religion is a forced option so far as that good goes. We cannot escape the issue by remaining sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we posi- tively chose to disbelieve. It is as if a man should hesitate indefinitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not perfectly sure that she would prove an angel after he brought her home. Would he not cut himself off from that particular angel- possibility as decisively as if he went and married someone else? Scepticism, then, is

Belief Without Reason 105

not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,- that is your fa ith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, j ust as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. To preach scepticism to us as a duty until 'sufficient evidence' for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to tell ing us, when in presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. It is not intellect against all passions, then; it is only intellect with one passion laying down its law. And by what, forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this pas- sion warranted? Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear? I, for one, can see no proof; and I simply refuse obedience to the scientist's command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk. If religion be true and the evidence for it be still insufficient, I do not wish, by putting your extinguisher upon my nature (which feels to me as if it had after all some business in th is matter) , to forfeit my sole chance in life of getting upon the winning side,-that chance depending, of course, on my will ingness to run the risk of acting as if my pas- sional need of taking the world religiously might be prophetic and right.

All this is on the supposition that it rea lly may be prophetic and right, and that, even to us who are discussing the matter, religion is a live hypothesis which may be true. Now to most of us religion comes in a still farther way that makes a veto on our active faith even more illogical. The more perfect and more eternal aspect of the uni- verse is represented in our religions as having personal form. The universe is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou, if we are religious; and any relation that may be possible from person to person might be possible here. For instance, although in one sense we are passive portions of the universe, in another we show a curious autonomy, as if we were small active centers on our own account. We feel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own active good-will as if evidence might be forever withheld from us unless we met the hypothesis halfway. To take a t rivial illustration: just as a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances, asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no one's word without proof, would cut himself off by such churlishness from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would earn,-so here, one who should shut himself up in snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all , might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the gods' acquaintance. This feeling, forced on us we know not whence, that by obstinately believing that there are gods (although not to do so would be so easy both for our logic and our life) we are doing the universe the deep- est service we can, seems part of the living essence of the religious hypothesis. If the hypothesis were true in all its parts, including th is one, then pure intellectualism, with its veto on our making willing advances, would be an absurdity; and some participa- tion of our sympathetic nature would be logically required. I therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wi ll fully agree to keep my will ing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for th is plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule. That for me is the long and short of the formal logic of the situation, no matter what the kinds of truth might materially be.'&

30 Is it reasonable to expect that by first having faith in God you can confirm his existence in your expe- rience? Would having fa ith before you get confirmation distort this method of inquiry and bias the resu lts?

106 Chapter 2 God and Religion

Fai,h indeed ,ells whar the senses do not tell} but no t

the conrrary of whar they sec. It is above them and not contrary to them.

-Blaise rascal

Despite the eloquence of James's argument, it has many detractors. For starters, they deny his assumption chat the claims of rel igion cannot be decided by argument and evidence. As ,ve have seen, many theists and atheists chink chat reason can in- deed decide che issue of God's existence, and che traditional argumenrs chat we've examined are attempts co do just chat.

Ochers doubt James's assertion chat it is better co believe the religious hypothesis than not co believe it because by bel ieving we acquire "even now ... a certain vital good." He doesn't say ,vhac chis vital good is, but if he means something like a better life, happiness, or spi ritual satisfaction in chis life, he seems co be on shaky ground. Jc is not obvious chat religious believers of any sore lead better, happier, or more sat- isfying lives than nonbelievers.

Some have also taken issue with James's notion of verifying through our experi- ences the religious hypothesis by first bel ieving it. Faith is supposed co be the prereq- uisite for experiences chat will enable us co confirm some d ivine reality. Bue critics say chat having faith first is not likely co corroborate anything. Michael Marcin explains the point chis way:

Michael Mart in, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification

James talks as if bel ieving in God and seeing whether the hypothesis that God exists is confi rmed in one's experience is like an experiment. But his procedure lacks an es- sential element of standard experimental procedure: he does not seem to allow for the disconfirmation of the hypothesis by the resu lts of the experiment. Suppose one believes in some god and yet no evidence of his existence is revealed in one's experi- ence. James does not entertain the possibility that th is failure would count aga inst the hypothesis that this god exists.' 9

Pascal: Betting on God

Pascal chinks chat reason is impotent in helping us discern whether God exisrs. "If there is a God," he declares, "he is in- finitely beyond our comprehension .... We are therefore incapable of knowing either what he is, or if he is."30 So Pas- cal insists chat ,ve can have only a prag- matic justification for believing in God. We should believe because believing is advantageous; it is our best bee. "Pascal's ,vager" then says chat if ,ve believe in God and he really does exist, we ,vin infinite happiness; if ,ve believe and he doesn't exist, we lose nothing. On the ocher hand, if we don't believe and he exisrs, Figure 2.15 Blaise Pascal (1623-1 662).

Belief Without Reason 107

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Do You Live by Faith? In urging others ro accept rhe existence of God on faith rather than evidence, ,nany contend char all of us-theisrs, atheists, and agnostics-live by faith every day. Here is a rypical state- ment of this view:

In this physical world that we live in, we all li ve by faith, whether we know it or not. For instance, we trust that our cars will start every morning to take

us to work. We trust that we will get paid on payday. Am I right? Well, you know what, on the spiritua l side of things, the Christian SHOULD live by

faith, too! ... [As the scripture says) "Behold, his soul [which] is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith."

Is it accurate to say that we have faith that these everyday events wi ll oc- cur? Or are we merely expecting them to occur based on good evidence- our many previous experiences w ith the events?

we lose the infinite happiness chat believing leads to; if we don't believe and he doesn't exist, we lose nothing. Thus, by believing in God, we have everything co gain and nothing co lose-a bet chat only an irrational person would turn do\vn.

But \vhat if you are an agnostic or atheist \vho wants co go along with chis bet? Can you believe in God simply by deciding co? Not likely. Pascal's answer co chis problem is chat chose who want co believe can develop faith by behaving as if they believe, by caking holy \Yater, having masses said, and undertaking ocher religious practtces.

Here is Pascal laying out the \vagering options:

Blaise Pascal, Pensees and Other Writings

Let us therefore examine this point, and say: God is, or is not. But towards which side will we lean? Reason cannot decide anything. There is an infinite chaos separating us. At the far end of this infinite distance a game is being played and the coin will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose one way or the other, reason cannot make you defend either of the two choices.

So do not accuse those who have made a choice of being wrong, for you know nothing about it! "No, but I will blame them not for having made this choice, but for

31 Is it morally per- missible to believe in God just because it is to your advantage to believe? Why or why not?

108 Chapter 2 God and Religion

32 Is it plausible that God would look kindly on atheists and agnos- tics because they refuse to believe without evi- dence? After all, aren't they simply using God's gift of reason to arrive at their decision?

The reason Pascal's wager

docs nor work is the same reason why you should never plan your retirement

o n w inning the lono. -Massimo Pigliucci

Blaise Pascal,

Pense.es and Other Writings

having made any choice. For, though the one who chooses heads and the other one are equally wrong, they are both wrong. The right th ing is not to wager at all."

Yes, but you have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed. Which then wil l you choose? Let us see. Since you have to choose, let us see which interests you the least. You have two things to lose: the truth and the good, and two th ings to stake: your reason and wi ll, your knowledge and beat itude; and your nature has two th ings to avoid: error and wretched ness. Your reason is not hurt more by choosing one rather than the other, since you do have to make the choice. That is one point disposed of. But your beatitude? Let us weigh up the gain and the loss by cal ling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager that he exists then, without hesitating! "This is wonderful. Yes, I must wager. But perhaps I am betting too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal chance of gain and loss, if you won only two lives instead of one, you could still put on a bet. But if there were three lives to win, you would have to play (s ince you must necessarily play), and you would be unwise, once forced to play, not to chance your l ife to win three in a game where there is an equal chance of losing and winning. But there is an eternity of l ife and happiness. And that being so, even though there were an infinite number of chances of which only one were in your favour, you would still be right to wager one in order to win two, and you would be acting wrongly, since you are obliged to play, by refus ing to stake one life against three in a game where out of an in fin ite number of chances there is one in your favour, if there were an infin itely happy infinity of l ife to be won. But here there is an in fin itely happy infinity of l ife to be won, one chance of winning against a finite number of chances of losing, and what you are staking is fin ite. That removes all choice: wherever there is infinity and where there is no infin ity of chances of losing against one of winning, there is no scope for wavering, you have to chance every- th ing. And thus, as you are forced to gamble, you have to have discarded reason if you cl ing onto your l ife, rather than risk it for the infin i te prize which is j ust as l ikely to happen as the loss of nothingness.3'

Would you take this bet? Many philosophers \vould not. They fault Pascal for as- suming only two alternatives (that his God exists and will besto\v eternal happiness on believers, or that his God does not exist) and ignoring countless other possibili- ties. By his O\vn lighrs, Pascal should take these other possibilities seriously if we are as ignorant of God's nature as he says. Consider: (1) that God ignores or punishes those who believe for self-serving reasons; (2) that God favors honest doubters who use their God-given po\ver of reasoning to bel ieve only according to the evidence; (3) that nothing people do or believe matters because they are predestine.cl by God to go to heaven or hell; (4) that God hares people who gamble; (5) that people are re- \varded for bel ieving not in Pascal's Christian God, but in Yah\veh, Apollo, Krishna, Ammon, Odin, or Shiva; or (6) that God is malicious, withholding eternal happi- ness from both nonbelievers and believers alike. Critics say that if we take such pros- pecrs into account, Pascal's \vager loses its force and cultivating faith for pragmatic reasons seems unreasonable.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 2.5

I. Do you agree with James that faith in the religious hypothesis can bring about a "vital good" in one's life no\v? W hat evidence can you cite to back up your answer? For example, is there evidence sho\ving that those \vho accept the rel igious hypothesis are happier than those \vho don't?

2. Suppose it is true that sometimes, as James says, "faith in a fact can help create the fact." Is the existence of God one of the facts that \Ve can create by believing it?

3. Is evidentialism true? Are \Ve sometimes justified in bel ieving some- thing even if it is unsupported by evidence? If so, in what situations? If not, why not?

4. Suppose God is a vicious deity who inflicts eternal punishment on anyone \vho believes in him and grants eternal bliss to anyone who refuses to believe in him. How \vould Pascal's wager apply to belief regarding such a deity?

5. Evaluate this quotation from Alan Dersho\vitz: "I have always con- sidered 'Pascal's Wager' as a quest ionable bet to place, since any God \VOrth bel ieving in \vould prefer an honest agnostic to a calculating hypocrite."

2.6 EASTERN RELIGIONS

Eastern rel igious traditions-including Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, Jainism, and many others-diverge from Western religions in ways that both shock and intrigue those \vho trace their faith back to Moses, Muhammad, or Christ. But both domains of religious bel ief are rich in philosophical thought. While the West has used reason to defend or critique its religious doctrines, the East has built philosophical systems that try to plumb the depths of physical and spiritual reality. In the expanse of Eastern rel igious thought, Western philosophers see both d rastically different conceptions of the \vorld and many of their own ideas in new form staring back at them.

Buddhism

In its own fashion, Buddhism typifies the ways t hat most Eastern traditions differ from Western ones. Buddhism posits no creator God , no all-po\verful, all-knowing deity who rules t he universe, takes an interest in humans, or answers prayers. It

Eastern Religions 109

110 Chapter 2 God and Religion

' ' I

•

teaches that the Buddha himself was neither God nor the child of a god. He was instead the ultimate teacher and an example for all Buddhists to follo\v. In accordance with the Buddha's wishes, Buddhism has no central religious authority. There is no Buddhist pope; there are only the Buddha's teachings. An individual achieves salvation not through faith in God, but primarily through his or her own efforts, by self-discipline and self-transformation . Buddhists must \vork out thei r own salvation.

The term Buddhism disguises the religion's complexi- ties. Although Buddhists everywhere may hold in com- mon some teachings of the Buddha, these core beliefs are few, allo\ving a great many meandering trails within a broad doctrinal highway. Buddhism therefore has no sin- gle set of authorized practices or a common rulebook or a universal statement of the articles of faith. Instead there are many schools of thought and practice in Buddhism (some would say Buddhisms), Zen Buddhism and T ibetan Buddhism being only the most familiar.

Figure 2.16 Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (C. 563-483 8CE).

During a time of wrenching social change and clash- ing religious viewpoints, Buddhism arose in northern India (no\v southern Nepal) in the sixth century BCE. The spi ritual landscape \vas dotted by religious and phil- osophical \vorldviews of all sorts , with each one com- peting for recognition and the allegiance of devotees.

Karma is the universal

principle chat o ur actions

result in deserved pleasure

or pain in this li fe or the next.

The practices advocated by various groups included meditation, celibacy, animal sacrifices, vegetarianism, nonviolence, worship of numerous gods, and asceticism (the denial of physical comfort or pleasures for religious ends). Some believed in rebirth and karma (the universal principle that our act ions result in deserved plea- sure or pain in this life or the next); some did not. Some accepted the notion of spiritual progress through one's O\vn efforts; others denied it. Some thought that the actions of humans are never done freely but are fated to occur; some insisted that humans have free will. Into this chaos came the man destined to become the Buddha (a title meaning "The Enlightened One"), born a prince in the t iny kingdom of Sakya in northern India and given the name Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563-483 BCE). After many years of reflection and searching for ultimate wis- dom, he attained enlightenment-what he believed was a perfect understanding of the t rue nature of the universe, of life and death, and of suffering and liberation.

The teachings of the Buddha astonished many of his day who \vere used to the doctrines and practices of Indian religions. In contrast to the orthodoxies of the time, the Buddha rejected the caste system, ext reme asceticism, the practice of animal sacrifice, the authority of the Vedas (Hindu scriptures), submiss ion to the Brahmins (members of the Hindu priestly caste), and the existence of the soul (a permanent, unchanging identity). C-ontradicting the Hindu social conventions, he taught that women should not be barred from the spiritual life he proposed-they

too could attain enlightenment. Contrary to doctrines of the major Western reli- gious trad itions, he \vas nontheistic in the sense that he had no use for the idea of a personal creator God. H e believe.cl that gods, goddesses, and demons exist, bu t that they a re-like all other living things-finite, vulnerable, and mortal. They are trapped in the cycle of death and rebirth just as humans are. H e therefore renounced

rel igious devotion to any deity. O n some deep questions about the nature of reality-questions that most reli-

gions try to address-the Buddha \vas s ilent. H e refused to conjecture about what happens after death, \vhether the universe is eternal, whether it is infinite , whether body and soul are the same thing, and what constitutes the d ivine. H e taught that such speculations are pointless, since they overlook \vhat is truly important in exis- tence: the fact of suffering and the path of liberation from it. A person \vho spends his time trying to ans\ver these imponderable questio ns, he said, is like a man struck by an a rro\v who will not pull it out until he has determ ined a ll the mundane facts about the a rro\v, bow, and a rcher-and d ies needlessly while gathering the information.

The Buddha meant h is teachings to be useful-a realistic, accurate appraisal of our burdensome existence and how to rise above it. To an unusual extent, his ap- p roach \vas also rational and empirical. He trie.d to provide a reasonable explanation for the problem of existence and offer a plausible solution. H e thought that people should not accept his vie\vS o n faith but test them out through thei r own experience in everyday life.

The Buddha's system of teach ings abou t the true nature of reality and ho\v to live correctly to transcend it is kno\vn as the dharma, the heart of \vhich is the Four Noble Truths:

1. Life is suffering. 2. Suffering is cause.cl by desi res ("craving" or " thirst").

3. To banish suffering, banish desires. 4. Ban ish desires and end suffering by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

The First Noble Truth is that living brings suffering, or dukkha. In the tradi- tional Buddhist way of putting it, "birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful. C-ontact \Vith unpleasant things is painful, not getting what one \vishes is painful."32

Dukkha comes in small and large doses-from m ild stress and frustration to the agonies of devastating d isease and the heartbreak of over\vhelming loss and g rief. But in any dose, suffering is inheren t to living: an inescapable cost of existence. An- other aspect of dukkha is impermanence (anicca)-the fact that things do not last, that \vhatever pleasures we enjoy soon fade, that whatever we possess we even tually lose, that \vhatever \Ve do wi ll be undone by time. The very trans itory nature of life b rings suffering, d issatisfaction, and pain.

Dukkha a lso a rises because of another fact of li fe: anatta, the impermanence of t he self, or not-self, o r no-soul. A person-the "!" that we each refer to-is merely an ever-changing, fleeting assemblage of menta l states or p rocesses. (The

Western philosopher David Hume argued fo r the same view of the self.) And if there is no permanent self, there is no \vay fo r any " !" to grope for happiness,

Eastern Religions 111

Do not believe in anyth ing simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in

traditions simply because they have been handed down for many genera~ tions . . . . Do not bdicvc in anything simply because it is found wrincn in your religious books . . .. Bur when, after observatio n and analysis, you find anything that agrees with reason, and is conducive

to the good and benefit of o ne and all, then accept it and live up m it. -The Buddha's Kalama Sutra

The dharma is , he Bud- dha's system of teachings about rhc true nature of

reality and how to live cor- rectly to transcend it.

You must be your own lamps, be your own refuges. Take refuge in nothing o utside yourselves. Hold firm to the truth as a lamp and a refuge, and do nor look fo, refuge ro any- thing besides yourselves. -The Buddha

112 Chapter 2 God and Religion

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the fu. rurc, conccnttarc rhc mind on the present moment. -11,e Buddha

3 3 Contrast the Bud- dhist and Christian views of the cause of human suffering. Which seems to you more plausible?

Nirvana, or Enlighren- mcnt} is rhc ultimate aim

of all Buddhist practice and rhe final liberation to which all the Buddha's teachings po int.

sat isfaction, pleasure, contentment, or anything else. The thought of not-self frightens people, but to most Buddhists, anatta is a very soothing doctrine. As one Buddhist monk says,

Ajahn Sumedho, Buddha-Nature

When you open the mind to the truth , then you realize there is noth ing to fear. What arises passes away, what is born dies, and is not self- so that our sense of being caught in an identity with this human body fades out. We don't see ourselves as some isolated, a lienated entity lost in a mysterious and frighten ing universe. We don 't feel overwhelmed by it, trying to find a little piece ofit that we can grasp and feel safe with, because we feel at peace with it. Then we have merged with the Truth.ii

This focus on dukkha may seem like a dreary perspective on life, but it secs the stage for the Buddha's more optimistic views on the ultimate conquest of suffering. His message is not that we are doomed to unremitting suffering, but that there is a ,vay to escape our torment, to attain true and lasting happiness.

The Second Noble T ruth is that the cause of dukkha is selfish desire ("craving" or "thirst")-desire for th ings that we can never obtain, no matter how hard we try. We desire possessions, pleasures, power, money, life, and more. We want things to be different from what they are or to remain the ,vay they are forever. But ,ve can never have any of these for long because everything is ephemeral, constantly changing. We have no distinct, permanent identity; the "self" is no more than a locus of shifting, Rowing energy. Such an insubstantial, transient thing can never acqui re anything permanent, even if permanent objecrs exist. We des ire this or that, but our desires are continually frustrated. The result is discontent, unhappiness, and pain-dukkha.

The Third Noble Truth is that suffering can be extinguished if desire is extin- guished. Dukkha will end if desi re ends. To quench selfish desires and therefore to end dukkha is to attain nirvana, the ultimate aim of a ll Buddhist practice and the final liberation to which all the Buddha's teachings point. It is the extinguishing of the Rames of attachment, delusion, and hatred; it is also the blossoming of content- ment and inner peace, the "quietude of the heart." The Buddhist scholar and monk Walpola Rahula describes it like this:

Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

He who has realized the Truth, Nirvana, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all 'complexes' and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His menta l health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present. Therefo re he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections. He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his

facu lties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful. As he is free from selfish de- sire, hatred, ignorance, conceit, pride, and all such 'defi lements', he is pure and gentle, full of universal love, compassion, kindness, sympathy, understanding and tolerance. His service to others is of the purest, for he has no thought of self. He gains nothing, accumulates nothing, not even anything spiritual, because he is free from the illusion of Self, and the 'thirst' for becoming.i •

Nirvana is manifested both in life and at death. In life, it is-as Rahula suggesrs-a psychological and moral transformation and, ultimately, an enlightened way of living. At death, for an enlightened one, the continuing cycle, or wheel, of death and rebirth ends. Dukkha, the ever-recurring pain of existence, stops. And the controlling force behind the turning ,vheel-karma-ceases. So nirvana's quench- ing of" defilements" not only quenches dukkha in life, but also terminates the repeat- ing pattern of death-rebirth. Beyond this profound release, what nirvana entails at one's death is uncertain. The Buddha insisted that nirvana is beyond description and impossible to imagine, for it is neither annihilation nor survival of a soul. He said that people should devote themselves to attaining it rather than trying to plumb its depths. Buddhist sources, ho,vever, refer to ni rvana ,vith words such as freedom, absolute truth, peace, and bliss.

In Buddhism, one's cycle of repeated deaths and rebirths-called samsara, or "wandering"-is a painful process that can go on for mi llennia unless there is release from it through nirvana. The thing that wanders from one life to the next (,vhat we refer to as "I") is not an eternally existing, permanent soul, self, or atman, but an ever-changing mix of personality fragments that recombine in each ne,v life. The Buddha's classic illustration of th is point is a flame (the "I") that is transferred from one candle to another. Only one flame is passed among multiple candles, so there is some continuity from one candle to the next. But the flame itself is also different from moment to moment.

Karma is the universal principle that governs the character- istics and quality of each rebirth, or future life. In the sense used in Buddhism, karma is not a system of justice decreed by a God; nor is it a cosmic force d riven to,vard some purpose or goal. It is essentially a la,v of nature, a universal fact about the effecrs of a be- ing's past actions. Karma dictates that people's deeds-their acrs of will or intentions-form thei r present character and determine the general nature of their future lives. Good dee.ds (good karma) tend to lead to more pleasant rebirths; bad deeds (bad karma) are likely to yield less pleasant, even horrific, rebirths. Depending on karma, then, a rebirth may occur at any one of several d ifferent levels- from life in va rious hells to existence as an animal, ghost, human, or god. Karma can also affect the quality of life at each level.

Eastern Religions 113

In the Buddha's vie,v of karma, through their o,vn moral choices and acts people are free to try to change their karma and irs associated results, and no one is trapped in a given level of existence

Figure 2.17 Buddhist Temple o f the Dawn in Bangkok, Thailand.

114 Chapter 2 God and Religion

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Buddhism and Science

Does Buddhism conflict with science? For several reasons, ,nany Buddhists believe ir does nor. First, Buddhism is rhoughr ro be empirical, just as science is. The Buddha urged his fol- lowers ro rake nothing on lairh but to test it out in their own experience. The current Dalai Luna has echoed rh is sentiment: "If there's good, strong evidence from science that such and such is rhe case and rhis is contrary to Bud-

Fig. 2.18 A Buddhist monk meditating. dhis,n, then ,ve will change."

In addition, some elements of Buddhist cos,nology seem ro agree, at least superficially, with ideas in 1nodern science: every event has a cause, everything is connected or inrerdependenr in some fundamental way, no eternally immutable objects exist (the whole cosmos is in flux). And of course rhe principles of Buddhist morality do not collide ,virh science, because science is not in that line of work

Bur philosophers of science would say something like this: science's job is ro rest theo- ries, and ir judges the worth of theories according ro certain criteria (includ ing how well the theory firs ,virh existing theories or evidence, ho,v many assumptions ir ,nakes, and ,vherher

I've developed a new phi· losophy . . . . I only dread one day at a time. -Charles M. Schulz

34 The Buddha assumes the doctrine of reincarnation (the transmigrat ion of the sou I at death into a new body). Is this view plausible? Why or why not?

forever. There is always che hope of rising co a higher point through spi ritual effort or of halcing che cycle of rebirths alcogether through nirvana.

The notions of rebirth and karma lead naturally to che Buddhist attitude of compassion, tolerance, and kindness for all living things. After all, every being must follo,v che karmic current, being reborn as many different creatures from che lo,vest

co the highest. Each human being has an implied empathetic connection with all ocher beings (humans, animals, and ochers) because he or she is likely co have been such beings at one time or another and co have endure.cl che same kind of pain and grief they have.

The Fourth Noble T ruth says chat che way co end dukkha and co attain nirvana is co follow che Noble Eightfold Path. The Pach consists of eight factors, or modes of practice, whose purpose is che development, or perfection, of che three fundamental aspects of Buddhist li fe: wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline or focus. The eight factors have been described as "seeps," as if they should be done in order, but

Eastern Religions 115

it has successfully pred icted a ny novel phenon1ena). If a theory is nor needed to explain a phenomenon (because science explains it better), che theory is discredited. Scientists would reject rhe theory rhar Zeus causes lightn ing because rhey have n1uch better theories to ex- plain lightning. By chis measure, scient ists ,vould say, many Buddhist theories would be rejected-for example, hungry ghosts, demons, gods, spiritual realms, karma, and reincar- nation or rebirth . And rhe evidence for such theories provided by che Buddh ist's direct expe- rience (,n editacion or mystica l practice) muse also be rejected. We can accept truths acqui red ch rough meditation or myscicis,n, says rhe scientist, only if they can be corroborated by our usual rests based on reason a nd evidence- and these truths fail che rest.

How can a Buddhist respond ro such allegations? Here are three ,vays: (I) rhe Buddhist can, on various grounds, deny rhe scientific view alrogerher (or large parts of it); (2) che Bud- dh ist can agree ,vich the scientists and reject Budd hisn1 entirely; or (3) che Buddhist can e,n- brace his or her religion bur only after stripping our the scient ifically dubious content. Some who ca ke ch is latter path ,nay end up ,vich a Buddhism that firs better ,virh our scient ific age, and son1e n1ay arrive at a purely secular Buddhis,n , accept ing only ideas that are supported, or ar lease not refuted, by science. The secular Buddhist, for example, may accept medication for its scient ifically proven physiological and psychological benefits ,vhile embracing che ethical content for its ,noral guidance.

Do you believe that Buddhism is in serious conflict with modern science? Why or why not?

they are actually intended to be implemented in concert. Each one complements and enhances the ochers, and a complete life cu ltivates them al l. Together they consti- t ute a way of purposefu l living rhac che Buddha is said co have discovered through his own experience-the "Middle Way" o r "Middle Path" between che extremes of

b rutal asceticism and sensual self-indulgence. (Aristotle a lso taught chat the good life is a virtuous one balance.cl benveen having too much and not having enough.) H ere a re the eight factors sorted into their three basic categories:

For the perfection of ,visdom:

1. Right understanding is a deep understanding of che true nature of reality as revealed in che Four Noble T ruths. This kind of ,visdom refers not just co an

intellect ual grasp of che faces, but, more importantly, co profound ins ig ht that penetrates co how things really are in themselves, insig ht gleaned experien- tially through a tra ined m ind free of spirit ual impediments.

Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward.

-Soren Kierkegaard

116 Chapter 2 God and Religion

2. Right thought refers to the proper motivations underlying our thoughts and ac- tions. Right motivations are selflessness, compassion, nonviolence, gentleness, and love. They are d irected not toward a fe,v, but to,vard all living things. Selfishness, hatred, violence, and malice undermine spiritual progress and impede true wisdom.

For the perfection of moral conduct: 3. Right speech means refrain ing from lying, slander, gossip, unkind or rude

,vords, malicious or abus ive talk, and idle or misleading assertions. Right speech, then, is truthful, kind, and constructive, fostering harmony, trust, and honesty.

4. Right action involves following the Buddha's Five Precepcs: refraining from (1) harming living beings (a principle kno,vn as ahimsa, "non-harm" or "nonviolence"), (2) taking ,vhat is not given (stealing), (3) engaging in miscon- duct regarding sexual or sensual pleasures, (4) lying or speaking falsely, and (5) impairing the mind with intoxicating substances. To the Buddhist, these precepcs are not moral la,vs or commandments that demand strict adherence as if they were laid down by d ivine authority. They are moral ideals to strive for, affirmations to oneself for living a more compassionate, mindful life.

5. Right livelihood means avoiding jobs or professions that involve harming other living beings. These include occupations that traffic in weapons of ,var, intoxicants, and poisons; that entail the buying and selling of human beings; that cause harm or death to animals; and that involve greed, dishonesty, or deception.

For the perfection of mental discipline: 6. Right effort is cultivating wholesome states of mind and el iminating or

minimizing unwholesome ones. It means fostering compassion, sel flessness, empathy, and understanding and banishing selfish desire, hatred, attachment, and self-delusion.

7. Right mindfulness refers to the development through meditation of an extraor- dinary awareness of the functioni ng of one's o,vn body and mind. It yields clear understand ing of, and keen sensitivity to, one's bodily processes, emo- tional states, the attitudes and tendencies of the mind, and mental concepts that may help or hinder spi ritual progress.

8. Right concentration is the development through meditation of a sublime inner peace and profound mental tranquility. Such inner calm is thought to yield insight.

Hinduism

Hinduism can claim to be the ,vorld's oldest living religion (dating back th ree thousand years) and the third largest (with about one bill ion adherencs). Many observers are amazed that it boascs of no common creed, founder, text, or deity. It comprises not one mode of devotion but a confounding diversity of them. Offerings to deity im- ages, the chanting of mantras, temple worship, sensual rites, mystical experiences,

ascetic privations, animal sacri fices-such practices may be embraced by some Hindus and ignored by others, but the broad tent of Hinduism ac- commodates them all. The sacred texts range from hymns to instructions for conducting rituals to philosophical treatises, and these are revered or disregarded to varying degrees by thousands of discrete religious groups. A Hindu may bow to many gods (polytheism), one supreme God (monothe- ism), one god among a whole pantheon (henotheism), or no gods ,vhatso- ever (atheism). And H induism's gods are said to number over a mill ion.

Eastern Religions 117

The Western traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are generally faithful to a core of more or less coherent doctrines. Hinduism is different. It's a large, unwieldy fam ily of beliefs and practices that seem reasonable and practical to Hindus but perplexing and contradictory to outsiders. Yet in the twenty-first century this family thrives both in its mother country (India) and on foreign soil, has devotees in both the East and the West, and influences the worldviews of persons high and lo,v. And among this cacophony of vie,vs, systems of philosophical reflection and even scriptures containing philosophical speculation have thei r say.

Hinduism began in northwest India, emerging from a blend of native rel igions and the religious traditions of an Indo-European people who mi-

Figure 2.19 Stone carving of one of India's more popular deities- Ganesha, the elephant-headed god.

grated there from central Asia. The indigenous populace established an advanced civ- ilization that flou rished in the Indus River region and beyond as early as 2500 BCE. This Indus Valley civilization, as it is called, rivaled in many ways the Roman Em- pire, which ,vas to come later. It devised a writing system, erected planned cities, and built impressive structures small and large-two-story houses, civic centers, porticos, baths, bathrooms, stainvays, drainage systems, and worship halls.

Around 1500 BCE, the migrating Indo-Europeans, called Aryans, moved into northwest India, carrying thei r distinctive cultu re with them. Most importantly, they brought their speech, from ,vhich was derived the ancient language of Sanskrit, the medium of Hindu scripture. They were polytheistic, ,vorshiping gods that ,vere thought to embody powerful elements of nature such as the sun, moon, and fire. And they sacrificed animals (including horses) and proffered animal byproducrs (such as butter and milk) as offerings to these gods.

Aryan culture was partitioned into four social classes called varnas. From these, the hereditary caste system was developed in Hindu society and sti ll holds sway in modern India, although it has been refined into thousands of subdivisions based on social and occupational criteria. Traditionally the dominant class consisted of brah- mins, the priests and teachers who alone could study and teach scripture. Brahmins still play a priestly role and are prevalent among India's professionals and civil servants.

For H induism, the most important result of the melding of the Aryan and Indus Valley cultures ,vas a set of sacred compositions known as the Vedas ("knowledge"), regarded by almost all Hindus as eternal scripture and the essential reference point for all forms of Hinduism. They were produced by the Aryans between 1500 and 600 BCE (what has been called the Vedic era), ,vhich makes these compositions In- dia's oldest existing literature. For thousands of years the Vedas were transmitted orally from brahmin to brahmin until they were finally put into ,vriting. They are

The great secret of true

success, of true happiness,

is this: the man o r woman

who asks for no re turn, the

perfectly un.selfish person, is the most successful.

-Swami Vi\fe.kananda

In ,he morning I bathe my in,cllccr in the stupendous

and cosmogonal philoso- phy of the Bhngnvnd-Gitn, in comparL\on w ith w hich

our modern world and its literature seems puny and

trivial. -Henry David 1horeau

35 What is the caste system? Why is its exist- ence in modern India controversial?

The *das arc early Hindu scriptures, developed between 1500 and 600 sc.

118 Chapter 2 God and Religion

36 What is the difference between sru ti and smriti? Does the difference matter much to Hindus?

The Upanishads arc Vedic literature concerning the self, Brahman, samsara, and libcra, ion.

Samsara is o ne's cycle of repeated dca, hs and

rcbinhs.

Ab11a1t L~ one's soul or self

I must confess to you that when do ubt haunts me,

when d L~appo intmcnts stare me in the face, and

when I sec not one ray of light on , he horizon, I mrn m the Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort me;

and I immcdiardy begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.

-Mahatma Gandhi

said to be sruti ("that which was heard")-reveale.d directly to H indu seers (rishis) and presumed to be of neither human nor divine authorship. Later script ures are thought to be smriti ('\vhat is remembered")-of human authorship. These consist of commentaries and elaborations on the sruti. Hindus revere the Vedas, even though the majority of adherenrs are ignorant of their content, and their meanings are stud- ied mostly by the educated. In fact, most H indu devotional practices are derived not from the Vedas, but from the sacred texts that came later.

The Vedas consist of four collections, or books, of ,vritings, each made up of four sections. The four books are the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. The sections are (1) samhitas: hymns, or chants, of praise or in- vocation to the gods (including many Aryan deities), mostly to be uttered publicly during sacrifices; (2) brahmanas: treatises on, and ho,v-to instructions for, rit uals; (3) Aranyakas: "forest treatises" for those who seek a reclusive religious life; and (4) the Upanishads: philosophical and religious speculations.

The oldest book is the Rig-Veda, which contains a section of over one thousand ancient hymns, each one invoking a particular god or goddess-for example, Ind ra (the ruler of heaven), Agni (the god of fire), and Varuna (the god of moral order in the universe). Most of the hymns in the other books are taken from the Rig-Veda.

There are 123 Upanishads, but only 13 or 14 (calle.d the principal Upanishads) are revere.cl by all H indus. The Upanishads were the latest additions to the Vedas, composed primarily from about 900 to 400 BCE during a time of intellect ual and religious unease. The ancient certainties-the authority of the brahmins, the stat us of the Vedas, the caste system, the sacrificial rites, and the nat ure of the deities-were being called into question. The Upanishads put these issues in a different light and ,vorked out some philosophical doctrines that became fundamental to H induism right up to the twenty-first century.

In the early Vedas, there is an emphasis on improving one's lot in life through religious practice and faith in the gods. But in the Upanishads, the central aim is release from this world. Specifically, the goal is liberation from sanisara, one's re- peating cycle of deaths and rebirths. The essential H indu belief is that at death, one's soul or self (abnan) departs from the li feless body and is reborn into a new body, residing for a time until death, then being reborn in yet another physical form-a dreary sequence that may be repeated for thousands of lifetimes. (Westerners call this the doctrine of reincarnation.) And with each ne,v incarnation comes the pain of living and reliving all the miseries of mortal existence.

The force that regulates samsara is karma, the universal principle that governs the characteristics and quality of each rebirth, or future life. Karma is like a law of nature; it is simply the way the ,vorld works. It dictates that people's actions and intentions form their present character and determine the general nature of their future lives. Good deeds (good karma) lead to more pleasant rebirths; bad deeds (bad karma) beget less pleasant, even appalling, rebirths. Depending on karma, the atman may be reborn into a human, an animal, an insect, or some other lo,vly crea- ture. This repeating pattern of rebirth-death-rebirth continues because humans are ignorant of the true nature of reality, of what is real and what is merely appearance. They are enslaved by illusion (maya) and act accordingly, ,vith predictable results.

According to the Upanishads, this ignorance and its painful consequences can only be ended, and liberation (moksha) from samsara and karma can only be \VOn, th rough the freeing power of an ultimate, transcendent wisdom. This \visdom comes when an atman realizes that the soul is not separate from the world or from other souls but is one \Vith the impersonal, all-pervading Spirit known as Brahman. Brahman is the universe, yet Brahman transcends all space and t ime.

Brahman is eternal and thus so is the atman. Brahman is Absolute Reality, and the atman is Brahman-a fact expressed in the famous adage "You are that [Brahman]," or "You are divine." The essential realization, then, is the oneness of Brahman and atman. Once an individual fully understands this ultimate unity, moksha occurs, samsara stops, and the atman attains full union \Vith Brahman.

Achieving moksha is difficult, requiring great effort and involving many lifetimes th rough long expanses of time. The Upanishads stress that Brahman is ineffable-it cannot be described in words and must therefore be experienced d irectly th rough several means: meditation, various forms of yoga (both mental and physical disci- plines), and asceticism. The aim of these practices is to look inward and discern the true nature of atman and irs unity with Brahman. The rituals and sacrifices of the early Vedas are deemed superfluous.

As noted earlier, the sruti scriptures of the Ve.die period (written roughly 1500 to 600 BCE) are thought to be of divine origin, revealed to the rishis, who received them via an intuitive or mystical experience. Hindus regard the Vedas as authorita- tive, eternal, and fixed. This canon remains as it was written, without further revela- tions or later emendations. But after the Vedic period, the human-authored smriti scriptures appeared. They too are venerated yet are considered less authoritative than the Vedas. They are also open-ended, a sacred work in progress. Over the centu ries revered figures have added to them and continue to do so. But these facts have not d iminished the influence of the smriti scriptures, which have probably had a greater impact on Hindu life than the Vedas have.

In Hindu scripture, newer writings generally do not supersede the old; they are added to the ever-expanding canon. Thus many ideas and practices found in both the Vedas and the post-Vedic scriptures are sti ll relevant to contemporary Hinduism. Likewise, the ancient Vedic gods and goddesses were never entirely replaced by dei- ties that arose later in history. The pantheon was simply enlarged. Today many of the old gods are ignored or deemphasized, while some of them are still revered.

The smriti material is voluminous and wide-ranging. It consists mainly of (1) the epics (the Mahabharata and the Ramayana), (2) myths and legends (the Puranas), and legal and moral codes (the Laws of Manu).

The great epics have served Indian and Hindu civil ization much as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey served the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world: The stories express the culture's virtues, heroes, philosophy, and spirit ual lessons. With eighteen volumi- nous chapters (or books) and 100,000 verses, the Mahabharata is the longest poem in existence, many times more extensive than the Christian Bible. Composed be- nveen 400 BCE and 400 CE, the epic recounts the ancient conflict between two great fam il ies, both of which are descendanrs of the ruler of Bharata (northern India). Their struggle culminates in a fateful battle at Kurukshet ra. Among the warriors

Eastern Religions 119

Brahman is the imper·

sonal, all-pervading spirir that is the universe yet

transcends all space and

time. A brahmin is a pricsr o r teacher; a man of the

priestly casrc.

37 What is the dif· ference between the main goal in life as presented in the early Vedas and life's centra l aim as discussed in the Upanishads?

The apparent multiplica· tion of gods is bewildering

at rhc first glance, but you soon discover that they arc the same GOD. There is

always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes H induism the

most m lcrant religion in

the world, because its o ne

transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fuct H induism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and

crudest idolater, arc equally at home with it. -George Bernard Shaw

38 What is the relation· ship between Brahman and atman? How are moksha and samsara related to Brahman?

120 Chapter 2 God and Religion

PHILOSOPHY NOW

The Caste System

Much of the social and religious landscape of 1nodern India has been shaped by rwo-thousand- year-old Hindu rreatises on religious, legal, and moral ducy (dhormo), the most fa,nous being the Lows of Monu. (According to legend, all hu,nans are descended from Manu, the original man.) Completed by around the first cenrury of the Com,non Era, the Laws provided the basic outlines of India's caste system, laid do,vn a code of conduct for each social class, and

marked out the four stages of life for upper-class Indian men. The Laws, in effect, de- fined the ideal Hindu sociecy, a framework that served as a reference point for modern laws and social rules in India today.

Figure 2.20 Sisters who belong to the da/it caste in India.

India's premodern Aryan culture ,vas d ivided into four hierarchical classes called vornas, which beca,ne the basis of the four main casres of H induism. In later eras these divisions were refi ned into myriad subdivisions and

hardened to forbid social ,novement in one's lifeti1ne from one class ro anorher. In modern India borh rhe four classes and the hundreds of subdivisions are referred ro as castes; rhe sub- divisions are also sometimes called jotis. These subcasres are based on occupation, kinship, geography, and even secrarian affil iarion, and rhey are especially inAuential in rura l areas of India. In general, casre prorocol forbids ,nembers of one caste ro ,narry me,nbers of anorher, and inreracrions ,virh people fro,n a nother caste are ofren restricted.

The Bhagavad-Gita is the most highly venera,ed

and influential scripture in H induism.

,vho are to fight there is the war hero Arjuna, who has serious misgivings about a battle that ,vill pit brothers against brothers and cousins against cousins. Before the fight begins, as Arjuna contemplates the bloody fratricide to come, he thro,vs do,vn his bo,v in anguish and despair. He turns to his charioteer, Krishna-who in fact is God incarnate-and asks whether it is right to fight against his o,vn kin in such a massive bloodletting. The conversation that then takes place between Krishna and Arjuna const itutes the most famous part of the Mahabharata: the Bhagavad-Gita, the most highly venerated and influent ial book in H induism.

The seven-hundred-verse Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord) is no mere war story. In d ramatic fashion, it confronrs the moral and philosophical questions and

Eastern Religions 121

In ancient India the concepts of dharma and karma were central to the caste system, and the same is true today. Each caste is prescribed a dharma, a set of duties mandated for that caste. Theoretically no upward movement is possible during one's lifetime, but d iligently perforrn ing one's dharrna could lead to better karma and a higher-level rebirth in the next life.

Eventually the caste system was ,nodified co include a fifth group-the "untouchables," or do/its ("oppressed ones"), who are thought to be "coo polluting" to be included in any of the higher castes. Th is group co,nprises those ,vho do "polluting" work such as sweeping streets; dean ing toilers; and handling leather, human waste, or dead bodies. The term "untouchables" comes from the traditional H indu idea char upper-class persons who roud1 so,neone from the lowest class will be polluted and must therefore perform rituals co cleanse themselves. For generations do/its have been subjected co violence and discrimination-and they still are even in modern India, even though che untouchable class has been official ly outlawed. Mohandas Gandhi called the do/its the "children of God" and advocated for their rights and their equal status in society.

In recent years the caste sysce,n has drawn fire frmn ,nany critics. The main complaint is that the system is inherently unfair. The plight of che do/its is just one example. The Laws of Mnnu mandate a lower status for the lowest class, and caste h ierarchy itself implies that some people are inherently less worchy than ochers, or char some deserve better rrearmenc under the la,v cha n others, or that che highest classes are privileged and therefore should get special creaunenr. In practice, caste rules are nor as rigid, and adherence to caste ru les is not as w idespread, as their advocates ,n ight prefer. The influence of caste in people's dai ly lives is weak in urban areas and much stronger in che countryside.

What do you think the civil rights leader Martin Luther King would say about India's caste system and the treatment of the dalits? Do you think the caste system is morally wrong? If so, what are your reasons?

confl icrs that arise in Hindu conceprs and practice-in devotion co the gods, the caste system, obligations co family, duties in time of war, the nature of the soul, the concept of Brahman, and the correct paths coward moksha.

In the Gita, we get a ne,v account of the nature of God. In the Upanishads, Brah- man is the impersonal Ultimate Reality, or World-Soul, pervading and const ituting the universe but aloof from humans and thei r concerns. Bue Krishna turns out to be the Supreme Being incarnate, a personal deity ,vho loves and cares for humans and who often cakes human form co help chem.

Throughout history, many H indus have believed there is only one path co liberation-solely through meditation or only th rough asceticism, for example. Bue

In ,he great books of

India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or un~

worthy, but large, serene,

consistent, the voice of an

old intelligence, which in another age and climate

had pondered and thus disposed of rhe questions that exercise us.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

122 Chapter 2 God and Religion

India has rwo million gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries

arc paupers; India is rhc

only mi llionaire. -Mark Twail\

in che Gita, Krishna insists chat several paths (marga) can lead co moksha, a view chat fits well \Vith modern Hinduism. (Since these paths amount co spiritual disciplines, they are also referred co as forms of yoga.) Today there is a general awareness of mul- tiple paths co liberation, each appropriate for a particular kind of person.

The path co liberation chat Krishna speaks of most often is devotion co a personal god (bhakti-marga), che path chosen by most Hindus. Bhakti-marga entails over- \vhelming love and adoration of one's favored manifestation of God. The candidates for adoration are many-Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Varuna, Indra, Ganesha, Kali, and many other deities. The Hindu view of bhakti is chat co love one of these finite manifestations of God is co move closer co the infinite God of everything. Brahman is supreme but impersonal. le is difficulc co adore the all-encompassing essence of all chat is; it is easier co love one of God's incarnations represented in countless earth ly images. Thus a H indu may bring an offering of flowers co a scone image of Krishna and pray for help or healing, expecting that Krishna himself \viii be pleased and perhaps answer che plea. The devotee \viii feel that moksha is a little closer and that Brahman is a little nearer.

Hinduism contains complex systems, or schools (darshana), of philosophical re- flection offered by ancient sages and commentators. To immerse oneself in one of these is co follo\v che path of kno\vledge (jnana-marga), a route taken by only a minority of Hindus. The schools include six major orthodox ones, some of which appeared as far back as 500 BCE: Samkhya (probably the oldest), Yoga, Nyaya, Vais- esika, Mimamsa, and Vedanta. They all differ in important \vays but presuppose che authority of che Vedas; accept the doctrines of reincarnation (the cycle of birch and death) and moksha (liberation); and sec forth their doctrines in discourses, or books (sutras).

The Nyaya school focuses on developing a theory of kno\vledge (epistemol- ogy) and a system of logical proof chat can yield indubitable truths. Some early

Figure 2.21 Reading the Vedic texts.

Nyaya scholars were atheistic (as was Gautama), but later ones added che concept of a supreme d ivinity. The Vedanta school maintains a thor- oughgoing monism (nondualism, advaita), claiming chat reality con- sists not of t\VO kinds of essential stuff (as che dualistic Samkhya school holds), but of only one kind, and chis kind is Brahman, who alone is real. Brahman is all, and the self is identical co Brahman. The most influential proponent of chis vie\v was Shankara (788-820 CE). He ar- gued chat people persist in believing they are separate from Brahman because of maya-illusion. Only by shattering chis ignorance \vith knowledge of t rue reality can they escape che torturous cycle of death and rebirth. The Samkhya school, in contrast, sees t he world as dualiscic- chat is, consisting of two kinds of scuff or essences: spir it and matter. In its earlier forms, che school was atheist ic in that it rejected che notion of a personal god; the istic elemencs were introduced lacer. The central belief of th is vie\v is that myriad souls are lodged in matter, and to be dis lodged is co atta in blissful liberation. The Yoga school accepts che philosophical ouclook of Samkhya regard ing spirit, matter, and

liberation but goes further in emphasizing meditative and physical techniques fo r binding the spirit to Brahman and thus achieving moksha. It also makes room fo r a qualified theism.

Dao ism

For nvo thousand years Daoism (or Taoism) has been molding Chinese culture and changing the character of rel igions in the East. It has both philosoph ical and re- ligious sides, and each of these has many permutations. It gers its name from the impossible-to-define notion of Dao, \vhich has been translated as the "Way" or the "Way of Nature." Daoism is said to have been founded by Lao-Tzu, the supposed author of the classical Daoist text the Tao-te ching (Classic of the Way and Its Power), destined to become, along with C-onfucius's Analects, one of the two most respected books of Chinese writings. Scholars are unsure \vhether Lao-Tzu is a historical figure or a product of legend, but most agree that if Lao-Tzu was real, he probably lived in the sixth century BCE and may have been a contemporary of Confucius. The second most important text in philosophical Daoism is the Chuang Tzu, named after irs presumed author. Regardless of their authorship, these nvo books laid the ground- work for a Daoism philosophy that influenced Chinese thinkers and nobles and has shaped the \vorldviews of the Chinese right up to the present.

The Dao (pronounce.cl dow) is the mysterious first principle of the universe: It is the eternal source of all that is real and the invisible process and underpinning of the world. It is the Way-the impersonal power that gives order and stability to the cosmos. Like the force of gravity, the Dao holds everyth ing together, gives shape and st ructure to \vhat is, and determines the way that everyth ing must go. The Chuang Tzu characterizes the Dao as literally everything-it is the \vhole of all that exists, and we are of th is whole. The Chuang Tzu asserts:

Chuang Tzu, All Things Are One

In the universe, all things are one. For him who can but realize his indissoluble unity with the whole, the parts of his body mean no more than so much dust and dirt, and death and life, end and beginning, are no more to him than the succession of day and night. They are powerless to disturb his tranqu il ity.Ji

When it comes to the concept of the Dao, the West seems to parallel the East. The pre-Socrat ic Greek philosopher H eraclitus declared that there is a source of all that exists, t he fount of rationality, a first principle of the cosmos that he called logos. And there are hints of similar cosmic fo rces elsewhere in Western thought-in Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, fo r example, and in C hrist ianit y's om- nipotent God.

Eastern Religions 123

Knowing others is intd· ligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; master~

ing yourself is true power.

If you realize thar you have enough, you are truly rich. -Lio Tiu

124 Chapter 2 God and Religion

If the descriptions of the Dao seem obscure or perplexing, it cannot be other- \vise, che Daoisc would say. For the Dao is beyond \vords; it is "nameless" (unname- able) and thus can only be hinted at. As che Tao-te ching says,

Lao-Tzu, Tao-te ching

The way that can be spoken of Is not the constant way; The name that can be named Is not the constant name. The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth; The named was the mother of the myriad creatures .... There is a thing confusedly formed , Born before heaven and earth. Silent and void It stands alone and does not change, Goes round and does not weary. It is capable of being the mother of the world. I know not its name So I style it "the way." I give it the makeshift name of "the great."36

A fundamental notion in Daoism is chat since everything and everyone is subject co che power of che Dao, since nothing can withstand irs inexorable Ao\v, the best human life is one lived in harmony \vich it. To live well is co go \vich the current of che Dao; co struggle against che stream is co invite d iscord, strife, and \voe. The good Daoisc, then, discerns che way of nature, the "grain of the universe," and lers che cosmic order guide his or her life.

Living in harmony with che Dao means realizing che virtue of wu-wei-active inaction, or effortless action. This paradoxical attitude does not amount to passivity or apathy. According co some scholars it suggesrs acting effortlessly without straining or struggling and without feverish obsession with che objects of desire. To others it implies acting naturally, spontaneously, \vichouc predetermined ideas of how things should go. Thus che Daoisc does not try co cake charge of a problem, for that often just makes matters worse. She instead acrs instinctively and efficiently, letting the solution unfold naturally, \vaiting for the right moment, harnessing che Ao\v of the Dao by using che natural momentum in che situation, letting change happen by doing nothing. The Daoisc is wise like the fighter who rolls \vich a punch, using its force co come round and retu rn the blow, expending almost no energy of her own. In either interpretation, the point is not co interfere with nature but co let nature follo\v its O\vn path.

Daoiscs differ on exactly what practices wu-ivei implies. To many it suggests a rejection of worldly pleasures or a disregard for society and its conventions and

values (l ike those stressed in Confucianism). The Tao-te ching makes explicit this abhorrence of regimented life:

Exterminate the sage, d iscard the wise, And the people will benefit a hundredfold; Exterminate benevolence, d iscard rectitude, And the people will aga in be filial; Exterminate ingenuity, d iscard profit, And there will be no more thieves and bandits. These three, being false adornments, are not enough

Lao-Tzu, Tao-te ching

And the people must have something to which they can attach themselves: Exhib it the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block, Have little thought of self and as few desires as poss ible.37

To some Daoisrs, zuu-wei implies the opposite: a Daoism consistent with the demands of everyday life and Confucian values.

Lao-Tzu says that even in matters of governance, struggle a nd strain are useless,

but wu-zvei accomplishes much:

Govern the state by being stra ightforward; Wage war by being crafty; But win the empire by not being meddlesome. How do I know that it is like that? By means of this. The more taboos there are in the empire The poorer the people; The more sharpened tools the people have The more benighted the state; The more skill s the people have The further novelties multip ly; The bette r known the laws and edicts The more thieves and robbers there are. Hence the sage says, I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves; I prefer stillness and the people are rectified of themselves; I am not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves;

Lao-Tzu, Tao-te ching

I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.38

Eastern Religions 125

A man w ith o utward

courage dares to die;

a man with inner courage

dares to live.

-l..ao-Tzu

126 Chapter 2 God and Religion

In the T ao-te ching, ivu-wei seems to imply a nearly invisible, hands-off, small-scale government. The job of the wise ruler is to shield the people from excessive regulation, overbearing la\vS and decrees, and unsettling ideas. Such policies may bring people closer to the natural order, but they have also been criticized as a recipe for despotism.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 2.6

1. The central aim of Buddhism is to quench all desire. What \vould be the moral implications of a life in which that goal is successfully achieved?

2. What is your opinion of the Buddhist doctrines of karma and rebirth? Do they seem plausible? What is your judgment based on-personal experience, faith, science, or philosophical or logical considerations?

3. Do you agree with some critics of H induism that the caste sys tem is inherently unjust? W hy or why not?

4. What is the ultimate goal in life according to Daoism?

5. What is the Buddhis t vie\v of the self? How does it differ from the Christian view? What evidence or argument can be used to support each view?

Review Notes

2.1 OVERVIEW: GOD AND PHILOSOPHY

• The impact of religion on the world is reason enough to examine irs claims criti- cally and dispassionately-that is, philosophically. To judge the worth of any reli- gious claims, we nee.cl the objective stance and critical reasoning of philosophical inquiry-to ask whether the claims are supported by good reasons.

2.2 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

• Cosmological arguments begin with the empirical fact that the universe, or one of its essential properties, exists-and end with the conclusion that only God could be responsible for this fact. For example, in his first-cause argument, Aquinas contends that some things in the universe are caused to exist, and that nothing can cause itself to exist or come into being th rough an infinite series of causes. So there must be a first uncaused cause of everything-and this first uncaused cause is God. Using the Big Bang as a starting point, Craig defends the Kalam cosmological argument.

• Teleological, or design, arguments for the existence of God reason that since the \vorld seems to sho\v signs of purposeful design, it most likely was purposefully designed-that is, intentionally made by an intell igen t being, which we call God. Paley articulates the classic design argument, and Hume contends, among other things, that such arguments fail because the analogy is \veak and demonstrates only that the universe has a designer, which may not be the traditional God of theism.

• O ntological argumenrs appeal not to the empirical facrs about the cosmos, but to the concept of God irself. From the defin ition of God, we try to prove with logic alone that a supreme deity is a real ity. Anselm \vas the fi rst to articulate such an argument, and other versions have follo\ve.d, all of \vh ich have been subjected to critical scrutiny.

2.3 GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVI L

• The argument from evil says that if an all-po\verful, all-kno\ving, and all-good God existed, unnecessary evil \vould not exist. An all-powerful and all-knowing God \vould know about, and be able to prevent, evil, and an all-good God would want to prevent it. But there is in fact unnecessary evil in the \vorld. Many have offered counterargumenrs, or theodicies, to the argument from evil, denying that unneces- sary evil exists in the \vorld.

2.4 THEISM AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

• Some put forth an argument from rel igious experience: Religious experiences occur in \vh ich God seems to be sensed; the best explanation fo r these experiences is that God is indeed sensed (God cause.cl the experience); therefore, God probably exists. Richard Swinburne maintains that by applying a basic principle of rationality, we can be justified in believing that our experience reveals God's presence.

2.5 BELi EF WITHOUT REASON

• Some argumenrs are intended to offer pragmatic justi fication for belief-reasons to th ink that believing in God offers practical advantages. Pascal's wager is such an argument, and James offers another one.

2.6 EASTERN RELIGIONS

• Buddhism posits no creator God, no all-powerful, al l-kno\ving deity that rules the universe, takes an interest in humans, or ans\vers prayers. It teaches that the Buddha himself was neither God nor the child of a god. He \vas instead the ultimate teacher and an example fo r all Buddhists to follo\v.

Review Notes 127

128 Chapter 2 God and Religion

• The Buddha's teachings are known as the dharma, the heart of which is the Four Noble Truths: 1. Life is suffering. 2. Suffering is caused by desires. 3. To banish suf- fering, banish des ires. 4. Banish des ires and end suffering by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

• The ultimate aim of all Buddhist practice and the liberation to ,vhich all the

Buddha's teachings point is known as ni rvana. It is the extinguishing of the flames of desire and all that accompanies it-greed, hatred, pride, delusion, and more.

• The vedar are regarded by almost all H indus as eternal scripture and the essential reference point for all forms of Hinduism. They are India's oldest existing literature. Hindus revere the vet&s, even though the majority of adherents are ignorant of their content, and thei r meanings are studied mostly by the educated.

• In the early vet&s, there is an emphasis on improving one's lot in li fe through religious practice and faith in the gods. But in the Upanishads, the central aim is release from th is world. Specifically, the goal is liberation from samsara. The essen- tial Hindu bel ief is that at death, one's soul or self (atman) departs from the lifeless body and is reborn into a new body, residing for a time until death, then being reborn in yet another physical fo rm-a dreary sequence that may be repeated for thousands of lifetimes.

• The Upanishads say that release from samsara can only come through the freeing power of a transcendent wisdom, which is achieved when an atman real izes the soul is not separate from the world or from other souls but is one with the impersonal, al l-pervading Spirit known as Brahman.

• The Bhagavad-Gita confronts the moral and philosophical questions and confl icts that arise in Hindu concepts and practice-in devotion to the gods, the cas te sys- tem, obligations to family, duties in time of ,var, the nature of the soul, the concept of Brahman, and the correct paths toward moksha.

• Daoism gets its name from the impossible-to-define notion of the Dao, which has been translate.cl as the "Way" or the "Way of Nature." Daoism is said to have been founded by Lao-Tzu, the supposed author of the classical Daoist text the Tao-te ching ( Classic of the Way and Its Pozuer), destine.cl to become, along with Confucius's Anal.ects, one of the two most respected books of Chinese writings.

• A fundamental notion in Daoism is that since everything and everyone is subject to the po,ver of the Dao, the best human life is one lived in harmony with it. To live well is to go ,vith the current of the Dao; to struggle against the scream is to invite discord, strife, and ,voe.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 2

1. If you believe in God, why do you believe? Explain your view in detail. Is it based o n one or more of the trad itional a rgumencs for God, your personal experience, faith, o r something else? If your answer is per- sonal experience or faith, explain \vhy you think it is a good basis for bel ieving that God exiscs.

2. If you do not believe in God (if you are either an atheist or an agnos- tic), why not? Explain your view in detail. Is it based on the argument from evil, the failure of theistic arguments, personal experience, or something else? If your answer is personal experience, explain why you think it is a good basis for not believing in God.

3. Critique Aquinas's first-cause argument. Expla in the a rgument, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the reasoning and each premise, and render your own verdict as to the argu ment's soundness.

4 . Critique Paley's design argument. Expla in the a rgument, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the reasoning and each premise, and render your own verdict as to the argu ment's cogency. If you think h is argument fails, can you devise a better design argu ment?

5. What a re some of the practical implications of living according to the Four Noble T ruths? In other words, what would your life be like if you based all your actions on these Truths? Would you prefer a life like this compared to your li fe now? W hy or why not?

Key Terms

atma11 One's soul or self. (118)

Key Terms 129

agnostic Someone who neither accepts nor denies God's existence. (64)

argument from evil An a rgument purporting to show that since there is unnecessary evil, an al l- powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God must not exist. (63)

Bhagavad-Gita The most highly venerated and influen- tial scripture in Hinduism. (120)

argument from religious experience An argument of this form: A person seems to have experienced God; the experience must have actually been a genuine en- counter with God; therefore, God probably exists. (62)

atheism The denial of the existence of God. (64)

atheist Someone \vho denies God's existence. (64)

Brahman The impersonal, al l-pervading Spirit that is the universe yet t ranscends all space and time. (119)

brahmin A priest or teacher; a man of the priestly caste. ( 119)

cosmological arguments Arguments that try to show that from the fact that the un iverse exists, God exists. (61)

130 Chapter 2 God and Religion

deism Belief in one God who created the \vorld but left it unattended to run on ics own. (65)

dharma The Buddha's system of teachings about the true nature of reality and how to live correctly to tran- scend it. (111)

evidentialism The view that we are justified in be- lieving something only if it is supported by sufficient evidence. (99)

karma The universal principle that our actions result in deserved pleasure or pain in this li fe or the next. (11 O)

monotheism Belief in one God. (65)

moral evil Evil that comes from human choices and actions and the bad things that arise from them. (84)

natural evil Evil that resulcs from the \vorkings of na- ture. (84)

nitvana Enlightenment: the ultimate aim of all Bud- dhist practice and the final liberation to which all the Buddha's teachings point. (1 12)

ontological argument An argument that tries to dem- onstrate God's existence by logical analysis of the con- cept of God. ( 62)

panentheism The vie\v that God is in the universe and the universe is in God. (65)

pantheism The vie\v that God and the universe are one and the same thing, a divine Whole. (65)

polytheism Belief in many gods. (65)

sa»isara One's cycle of repeated deaths and rebirths. (1 18)

teleological arguments Arguments that try to sho\v that God must exist because features of the universe sho\v signs of purpose or design. (61)

theism Belief in the existence of God. ( 64)

theist Someone \vho believes in God. (64)

theodicy A defense of the traditional conception of God in light of the existence of evil. (64)

Upanishads Vedic literature concerning the self, Brah- man, samsa,;i, and liberation. (118)

'41das Early Hindu scriptures, developed benveen 1500 and 600 BCE. ( 117)

The Star 131

FICTION

The Star Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917- 2008) was one of the world's great masters of science fiction. He is probably most famous for his novel Childhood's End and his screenplay for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It is three thousand light-years to the Vatican. Once, I be- lieved that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God's handi- work. Now I have seen that handiwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. I stare at the crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall above the Mark VI Computer, and for the first time in my life I wonder if it is no more than an empty symbol.

I have told no one yet, but the truth cannot be con- cealed. The facts are there for all to read, recorded on the countless miles of magnetic tape and the thousands of photographs we are carrying back to Earth. Other scien- tists can interpret them as easily as I can, and I am not one who would condone that tampering with the truth which often gave my order a bad name in the olden days.

The crew were already sufficiently depressed: I won- der how they will take this ult imate irony. Few of them have any religious faith, yet they will not relish using this final weapon in their campaign against me- that private, good-natured, but fundamentally serious war which lasted all the way from Earth. It amused them to have a Jesuit as chief astrophysicist: Dr. Chandler, for instance, could never get over it. (Why are medical men such notorious atheists?) Sometimes he would meet me on the observation deck, where the lights are always low so that the stars shine with undiminished glory. He would come up to me in the gloom and stand staring out of the great oval port, while the heavens crawled slowly around us as the ship turned over and over wi th the residual spin we had never bothered to correct.

"Well, Father," he would say at last, " it goes on for- ever and forever, and perhaps Something made it. But how you can believe that Something has a special inter- est in us and our miserable little world- that just beats me." Then the argument would start, while the stars and

From The Nine Billion Names of God: The Best Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (New York: Signet/NAL, 1974) , 235-240; full text from http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/engl510/star. htm. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, Scovil Galen Ghosh literary Agency, Inc.

nebulae would swing around us in silent, endless arcs be- yond the flawlessly clear plastic of the observation port.

It was, I think, the apparent incongruity of my posi- t ion that caused most amusement among the crew. In va in I pointed to my three papers in the Astrophysical Journal, my five in the Monthly Notices of the Royal As- tronomical Society. I would remind them that my order has long been famous for its scientific works. We may be few now, but ever since the eighteenth century we have made contributions to astronomy and geophysics out of all proportion to our numbers. Will my report on the Phoenix Nebula end our thousand years of history? It will end, I fear, much more than that.

I do not know who gave the nebula its name, which seems to me a very bad one. If it contains a proph- ecy, it is one that cannot be verified fo r several billion years. Even the word "nebula" is misleading; this is a far smaller object than those stupendous clouds of mist- the stuff of unborn stars- that are scattered through- out the length of the Milky Way. On the cosmic scale, indeed, the Phoenix Nebula is a tiny thing- a tenuous shell of gas surrounding a single star.

Or what is left of a star .. . . The Rubens engraving of Loyola seems to mock me

as it hangs there above the spectrophotometer tracings. What would you, Father, have made of this knowledge that has come into my keeping, so far from the little world that was all the Universe you knew? Would your faith have risen to the challenge, as mine has failed to do?

You gaze into the distance, Father, but I have traveled a distance beyond any that you could have imagined when you founded our order a thousand years ago. No other survey ship has been so far from Earth: we are at the very frontiers of the explored Universe. We set out to reach the Phoenix Nebula, we succeeded, and we are homeward bound with our burden of knowledge. I wish I cou ld lift that burden from my shoulders, but I call to you in vain across the centuries and the light-years that lie between us.

On the book you are holding the words are plain to read. AD MAIOREM DEi GLORIAM, the message runs,

132 Chapter 2 God and Religion

but it is a message I can no longer believe. Would you still bel ieve it, if you could see what we have found?

We knew, of course, what the Phoenix Nebula was. Every year, in our Galaxy alone, more than a hundred stars explode, blazing for a few hours or days with hun- dreds of times their normal brilliance until they sink back into death and obscurity. Such are the ordinary novas- the commonplace disasters of the Universe. I have re- corded the spectrograms and light curves of dozens since I started working at the Lunar Observatory.

But three or four times in every thousand years oc- curs something beside which even a nova pales into total insignificance.

When a star becomes a supernova, it may for a li ttle while outshine all the massed suns of the Galaxy. The Chinese astronomers watched this happen in A.O. 1054, not knowing what it was they saw. Five centuries later, in 1572, a supernova blazed in Cassiopeia so brill iantly that it was visible in the daylight sky. There have been three more in the thousand years that have passed since then.

Our mission was to visit the remnants of such a ca- tastrophe, to reconstruct the events that led up to it, and, if possible, to learn its cause. We came slowly in through the concentric shells of gas that had been blasted out six thousand years before, yet were expanding still. They were immensely hot, radiating even now with a fierce vio- let light, but were far too tenuous to do us any damage. When the star had exploded, its outer layers had been driven upward with such speed that they had escaped completely from its gravitational field. Now they formed a hollow shell large enough to engulf a thousand solar systems, and at its center burned the tiny, fantastic ob- ject which the star had now become- a White Dwarf, smaller than earth, yet weighing a mill ion times as much.

The glowing gas shells were all around us, banish- ing the normal night of interstellar space. We were flying into the center of the cosmic bomb that had detonated millennia ago and whose incandescent fragments were still hurtling apart. The immense scale of the explosion, and the fact that the debris already covered a volume of space many millions of miles across, robbed the scene of any visible movement. It would take decades before the unaided eye could detect any motion in these tor- tured wisps and eddies of gas, yet the sense of turbu- lent expansion was overwhelming.

We had checked our primary drive hours before, and were drifting slowly toward the fierce little star ahead. Once it had been a sun li ke our own, but it had squandered in a few hours the energy that should have kept it shining for a mill ion years. Now it was a

shrunken miser, hoarding its resources as if trying to make amends for its prodigal youth.

No one seriously expected to find planets. If there had been any before the explosion, they would have been boiled into puffs of vapor, and their substance lost in the greater wreckage of the star itself. But we made the automatic search, as we always do when approach- ing an unknown sun, and presently we found a single small world circl ing the star at an immense distance. It must have been the Pluto of this vanished Solar Sys- tem, orbiting on the frontiers of the night. Too far from the central sun ever to have known life, its remoteness had saved it from the fate of all its lost companions.

The passing fires had seared its rocks and burned away the mantle of frozen gas that must have covered it in the days before the disaster. We landed, and we found the Vault.

Its bu ilders had made sure that we should. The monolithic marker that stood above the entrance was now a fused stump, but even the first long-range pho- tographs told us that here was the work of intelligence. A li ttle later we detected the continent-wide pattern of radioactivity that had been buried in the rock. Even if the pylon above the Vault had been destroyed, th is would have remained, an immovable and all-but eter- nal beacon calling to the stars. Our ship fell toward th is gigantic bu ll 's eye like an arrow into its target.

The pylon must have been a mile high when it was bu ilt, but now it looked like a candle that had melted down into a puddle of wax. It took us a week to drill through the fused rock, since we did not have the proper tools for a task like th is. We were astronomers, not archaeolo- gists, but we could improvise. Our original purpose was forgotten: th is lonely monument, reared with such labor at the greatest possible distance from the doomed sun, could have only one meaning. A civilization that knew it was about to die had made its last bid for immortality.

It will take us generations to examine all the treasures that were placed in the Vault. They had plenty of time to prepare, for their sun must have given its first warnings many years before the final detonation. Everything that they wished to preserve, all the fruits of their genius, they brought here to th is distant world in the days before the end, hoping that some other race would find it and that they would not be utterly forgotten. Would we have done as well , or would we have been too lost in our own misery to give thought to a future we could never see or share?

If only they had had a little more time! They could travel freely enough between the planets of their own sun, but they had not yet learned to cross the interstell ar

gulfs, and the nearest Solar System was a hundred light- years away. Yet even had they possessed the secret of the Transfinite Drive, no more than a few mill ions could have been saved. Perhaps it was better thus.

Even if they had not been so disturbingly human as their sculpture shows, we could not have helped admir- ing them and grieving for their fate. They left thousands of visual records and the machines for projecting them, together with elaborate pictorial instructions from which it will not be difficult to learn their written language. We have examined many of these records, and brought to life for the first time in six thousand years the warmth and beauty of a civilization that in many ways must have been superior to our own. Perhaps they only showed us the best, and one can hardly blame them. But their worlds were very lovely, and their cities were built with a grace that matches any- thing of man's. We have watched them at work and play, and listened to their musical speech sounding across the centuries. One scene is still before my eyes- a group of children on a beach of strange blue sand, playing in the waves as children play on Earth. Curious whiplike trees line the shore, and some very large animal is wading in the shallows, yet attracting no attention at all.

And sinking into the sea, still warm and friendly and life-giving, is the sun that will soon turn traitor and obliterate all th is innocent happiness.

Perhaps if we had not been so far from home and so vulnerable to loneliness, we should not have been so deeply moved. Many of us had seen the ruins of ancient civil izations on other worlds, but they had never affected us so profoundly. This tragedy was unique. It is one thing for a race to fail and die, as nations and cultures have done on Earth. But to be destroyed so completely in the full flower of its achievement, leaving no survivors- how could that be reconciled with the mercy of God?

My colleagues have asked me that, and I have given what answers I can. Perhaps you could have done bet- ter, Father Loyola, but I have found nothing in the Exer- citia Spiritualia that helps me here. They were not an evil

Probing Questions

The Star 133

people: I do not know what gods they worshiped, if indeed they worshiped any. But I have looked back at them across the centuries, and have watched while the loveliness they used their last strength to preserve was brought forth again into the light of their shrunken sun. They could have taught us much: why were they destroyed?

I know the answers that my colleagues will give when they get back to Earth. They will say that the Universe has no purpose and no plan, that since a hundred suns explode every year in our Galaxy, at this very moment some race is dying in the depths of space. Whether that race has done good or evil during its lifetime will make no difference in the end: there is no divine justice, for there is no God.

Yet, of course, what we have seen proves nothing of the sort. Anyone who argues thus is being swayed by emotion, not logic. God has no need to justify His ac- tions to man. He who built the Universe can destroy it when He chooses. It is arrogance- it is perilously near blasphemy- for us to say what He may or may not do.

This I could have accepted, hard though it is to look upon whole worlds and peoples thrown in to the fur- nace. But there comes a poin t when even the deepest fa ith must fa lter, and now, as I look at the calculations lying before me, I have reached that point at last.

We could not tell, before we reached the nebula, how long ago the explosion took place. Now, from the astronomical evidence and the record in the rocks of that one surviving planet, I have been able to date it very exactly. I know in what year the light of this colossal conflagration reached the Earth. I know how brill iantly the supernova whose corpse now dwindles behind our speeding ship once shone in terrestrial skies. I know how it must have blazed low in the east before sunrise, li ke a beacon in that oriental dawn.

There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mys- tery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?

I. What is che terrible irony revealed in che last sentence of chis story? Could chis irony arise in real life? That is, could che events recounted actually happen?

2. Why is che Jesuit astrophysicist's faith shaken? If you were in his position and kne,v what he did, ,vould your faith falter?

3. What does chis story suggest about the design of the universe? Do che events in che story imply chat there is a designer God-or chat there isn't? Explain.

134 Chapter 2 God and Religion

For Further Read ing

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, revised edition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994). A readable theistic defense of the existence of God.

William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, God? A Debate Between a Chris- tian and an Atheist (Ne\v York: Oxford University Press, 2004). An informative give-and-take about the existence of God between a scholarly Christian and a knowl- edgeable atheist.

Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1991). A sophisticated but readable examination of arguments for the existence of God.

Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

B. C. Johnson, The Atheist Debater's Handbook (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1983). A lucid, concise dismantl ing of major argumenrs for God's existence.

W. J. Johnson, trans., The Bhagavad Gita (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Philip Kitcher, Living with Darwin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). A careful, even-handed examination of evolution and religion.

Kim Knott, Hinduism: A ve,y Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

). L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism, 3rd e.dition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). An atheistic philosopher's classic, readable assessment of arguments fo r God's existence.

Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia: Temple Univer- sity Press, 1990). A scholarly but accessible guide to major argumenrs for and against theism.

Willard G. Oxtoby, ed., World Religiom: Eastern Traditions (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2002).

Michael Peterson, W illiam Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger, Reason and Religious Belief(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). Theistic philosophers assess the case fo r and against God's existence.

Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, Ml: Eerdmans, 1974). A very accessible, theistic rebuttal of the argument from evil.

Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1979).

William L. Ro\ve, Philosophy of Religion (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001). A thor- ough, accessible survey of the main issues in the philosophy of religion.

Richard S\vinburne, The Existence of God, 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). A comprehensive defense of theism by a leading theistic philosopher.

MORALITY AND THE MORAL LIFE

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

3.1 OVERVIEW: ETHICS AND THE MORAL DOMAIN

• Understand the distinction between eth ics and morality, and know the basic elements that make morality a unique normative enterprise.

• Understand the nature of moral theories and explain how the moral criteria of adequacy are used to evaluate them.

• Define consequentialist, deontological, utilitarianism, ethical egoism, Kant's theory, virtue ethics, ethics of care, considered moral judgments, and divine command theory.

• State the divine command theory and explain the arbitrariness argument aga inst it.

3.2 MORAL RELATIVISM

• Define moral objectivism, moral absolutism, moral relativism, subjective relativism, and cultural relativism.

• Exp lain the main objections to subject ive and cultural relat ivism, eva luate the standard argument for cultural relativism, and understand the relationship between cultural relativism and tolerance.

3.3 MORALITY BASED ON CONSEQUENCES

• State t he cent ral features of utilitarianism and describe Bentham's and Mil l's different concept ions of happiness.

• Evaluate utilitarianism's st rengths and weaknesses.

• Explain the dist inct ion between eth ical egoism and psychological egoism, and eva luate eth ical egoism's st rengths and weaknesses.

3.4 MORALITY BASED ON DUTY AND RIGHTS

• Describe the differences between the theories of Mi II and Kant.

• Articulate the main features of Kant 's t heory and of his two versions of the categorical imperative.

• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Kant's theory.

136 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

3.5 MORALITY BASED ON CHARACTER

• State the main features of virtue ethics and of Aristotle 's view of the virtuous life.

• Describe the differences between virtue ethics and most other moral theories .

• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of virtue ethics.

3.6 FEMINIST ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CARE

• Explain how feminist ethics differs from both utilitarianism and Kant's theory.

• Describe the nature of the ethics of care, its most attractive features, and some of the criticisms that have been lodged against it.

• Articulate and defend your own moral theory-that is, your own view of the nature of right and wrong actions.

3.7 ALBERT CAMUS: AN EXISTENTIALIST VOICE

• Exp lain some of the main themes of existential ism.

• Summarize the points that Camus makes in his

interpretation of the myth of Sisyphus

3.8 CONFUCIANISM

• Understand the main aim of Confucius's teach ing.

• Know what Ji and ren mean and how Confucius thought they could be used to help someone become a "superior person."

• Define the obl igation of fi lia l piety and understand why Confucius thought it so important.

3.1 OVERVIEW: ETHICS AND THE MORAL DOMAIN

Ethics is part of philosophy; it is also par t of life-a very large, vital, inevitable part of life. You cannot avoid thinking about right and wrong, judging people to be good or bad, wondering what kind of life is ,vorrhwhile, debating ,vith others about moral issues, accepting or rejecting the moral beliefs of your fam ily or culture, or coming to some general understanding (a moral theory) about the nature of morality itself. When you do these things, you are in the realm of ethics and will need philosophy's resources to sort out good ans,vers from bad, justified beliefs from nonsense.

Ethics and Morality

Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the study of morality using the methods of philoso- phy, and morality consists of our beliefs about right and ,vrong actions and good and bad persons or character. Morality has to do ,vith our moral judgments, prin- ciples, values, and theories; ethics is the careful, philosophical examination of these.

Ethics (moral philosophy) is ,he study of morality using the methods of philosophy.

Morality consists of our beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character.

Overview: Ethics and the Moral Domain 137

Ethics applies critical reasoning to questions about what \Ve should do and \vhat is of value, questions that pervade our lives and demand reasonable answers.

In everyday language, people often blur the distinction between ethics and morality, using the terms as synonyms for moral beliefs or practices generally (as in "Moral ity is the foundation of civilization" or "Ethics cannot be ignored"). Or they may use the

words to refer to the moral beliefs or practices of speci fic groups or persons ("Muslim morality," "Puritan ethics," "the ethics of Gandhi"). Those \vho maintain the distinction that \Ve draw here \vill general ly apply the adjective forms moral and ethical accordingly. But it is also common (including in th is text) to use these \vords as equivalent to right and good ("That was the ethical th ing to do"), and to use immoral or unethical as syn- onyms for wrong or bad ("Abortion is immoral," "Cheating on an exam is unethical").

Morality is a normative enterprise, \vhich means that it provides us \Vith norms, or standards, for judging actions and persons-standards usually in the form of moral principles or theories. With moral standards in hand, \Ve decide whether an action is morally right or \vrong, \vhether a person is morally good or bad, and whether we are living a good or bad life. The main business of morality is therefore not to describe ho\v things are, but to prescribe how things should be. There are, of course, other normative spheres (a rt and law, for example), but these are interested in applying nonmoral norms (aesthetic and legal norms, for instance) to judge the worth or correctness of things. W hen we participate in ethics, we are typically either applying or evaluating moral norms and using the tools of philosophy to do it.

Morality stands out among other normative spheres because of its d istinctive set of properties. One of these is that moral norms have a much st ronger hold on us than nonmoral ones do. The former are thought to dominate the latter, possessing a property that philosophers call overridingness. For example, we would think that a moral norm mandating that everyone be treated fai rly should override a legal norm (a la\v) that enjoined one group to discriminate against another. If a la\v commanded us to commit a seriously immoral act, we would probably think the la\v illegitimate and might even flout it in an act of civil d isobedience. Moral norms are generally stronger and more important than nonmoral norms.

In addition, moral norms have impartiality: they apply to everyone equally. Morality demands that everyone be considered of equal moral \VOrth, and that each person's interests be given equal weight. Morality, in other \vords, says that equals should be treated equally unless there is a morally relevant reason to treat them dif- ferently. We would consider it unjust to apply a moral norm to some people but not to others when there is no morally relevant difference between them.

Moral norms, like nonmoral ones, also possess the property of universality: they apply not just in a single case, but in all cases that are relevantly similar. Logic tells us that we cannot reasonably regard an action performed by one person as morally \vrong while believing that the same action performed in an almost identical situation by another person is morally right. Morality demands consistency among similar cases.

Finally, morality is reason based. To be fully involved in the moral life and to make informed moral judgmenrs is to engage in moral reasoning. To do moral rea- soning is to try to ensure that our moral judgments are not wrought out of thin ai r or concocted from prejud ice or blind emotion-but are supported by good reasons.

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we

may make ourselves

happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of

happiness. - Immanuel Ka.m

1 How is discrimina- t ion against a group of people contrary to morality's demand for impa rtialit y? Can there ever be reasons for t reat ing equals unequally? If so, what kind of reasons?

138 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

2 Can you think of examples in history o r literature in which people let their con - science be their guide and ended up commit- ting immoral acts? Is it possible that Hit ler 's conscience told h im to murder six m illion Jews?

Figure 3.1 Moral issues are forced upon us throughout our lives. When they are, to what sys- tem of morality do you appeal- the one you were taught as a ch ild, a code derived from your preferred religion, or some other moral theory?

We would th ink it preposterous for someone to assert that killing innocent children is morally permissible (or impermiss ible)-and that he has no reasons whatsoever for bel ieving th is. In science, me.dicine, la\v, business, and every other area of intel- lectual life, \Ve want and expect claims to be backed by good reasons. Morality is no different. And ethics-the systematic search for moral understanding-can be suc- cessful only through careful reflection and the sifting of reasons for belief. Crit ical reasoning is the main engine that drives ethical inquiry.

But \vhat about emotions-\vhat role do they play in ethics? Feelings are an essential and inevitable part of the moral life. They can help us empathize with others and en large our understanding of the stakes involved in moral decisions. But they can also blind us. Our feelings are too often the product of our psycho- logical needs, cultural conditioning, and selfish motivations. Critical reasoning is the correct ive, giving us the power to examine and guide our feelings to achieve a more balanced view.

Some people believe that conscience, not ethics, is the best guide to plausible moral judgmenrs. At times, it seems to speak to us in an imaginary though authori- tative voice, telling us to do or not to do something. But conscience is no infallible indicator of moral truth. It is conditioned by our upbringing, cultural background, and other factors and, like our feelings, it may be the result of irrelevant influences. Nevertheless, the voice of conscience should not be ignored; it can often aler t us to

Overview: Ethics and the Moral Domain 139

something of moral importance. But we muse submit its promptings co critical ex- amination before we can have any confidence in chem.

The moral life, then, is about grappling with a distinctive class of norms, which can include moral principles, rules, theories, and judgmencs. We apply these norms co nvo d istinct spheres of our moral experience-co both moral obligatiom and moral values. Moral obligations concern our duty, \vhat we are obligated co do. That is, obligations are about conduct, ho\v \Ve ought or ought not co behave. In chis sphere, we talk primarily about actions. We may look co moral principles or rules co guide our actions, or study a moral theory that purports co explain right actions, or make judgments about right or wrong actions. Moral values, on the ocher hand, generally concern chose things chat we judge co be morally good, bad, praiseworthy, or blame- worthy. Normally we use such words co describe persons (as in "He is a good person" or "She is co blame for hurting them"), their character ("He is virtuous"; "She is hon- est"), or their motives ("She did \vrong but did not mean co"). Note chat we also attri- bute nonmoral value co things. If we say chat a book or bicycle or vacation is good, we mean good in a nonmoral sense. Such things in themselves cannot have moral value.

Strictly speaking, only actions are morally right or wrong, but persons are mor- ally good or bad (or some degree of goodness or badness). With chis d istinction we can ackno\vledge a simple fact of the moral life: a good person can do something wrong, and a bad person can do something right.

Moral Theories

A large part of ethics and the moral life consists of devising and evaluating moral theories. That is, \Ve do moral theorizing. In science, theories help us understand the empirical world by explain ing the causes of events, \vhy things are the way they are. The germ theory of disease explains how particular diseases arise and spread in a human population. The hel iocentric (sun-centered) theory of planetary motion explains \vhy the planets in our solar system behave the way they do. In ethics, moral theories have a similar explanatory role. A moral theory explains not \vhy one event causes another, but why an action is right or \vrong or why a person or a person's character is good or bad. A moral theory cells us \vhac it is about an action chat makes it right, or what it is about a person that makes him or her good. The divine com- mand theory of morality, for example, says chat right actions are chose commanded or willed by God. Traditional utilitarianism says chat right actions are chose chat produce the best balance of happiness over unhappiness for all concerned . These and other moral theories are attempts co define rightness or goodness. In chis way, they are both more general and more basic than moral principles or ocher general norms.

Moral theorizing comes naturally co almost everyone. W henever we try co under- stand what a moral property such as rightness or goodness means, or justify a moral principle or other norm, or resolve a conflict benveen two cred ible principles, or ex- plain why a particular action or practice is right or \vrong, or evaluate the plausibility of specific moral intuitions or assumptions, we do moral theorizing. In fact, we must theorize if \Ve are co make headway in such investigations. We muse stand back from the situation at hand and try co grasp the larger pattern chat only theory can reveal.

A moral theory is a , heory

thar explains why an ac- tion L,;: right or wrong or why a person or a person's character is good or bad.

I say that a man must be ccrrain of his morality for the simple reason that he

has to suffer for it. -G. K. Chestercon

140 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere

illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it

and noth ing true. -Socr.ues

A consequentialJst theory is a moral theory in which the rightness of actions depends solely on their

consequences or resul ts.

A deontological (or non - consequentialist) theory is a moral theory in which

the rightness of actions is derermined not solely by their consequences} but

partly or entirely by their inu insic nature.

Utilitarianism is the view chat right actions arc those chat result in the most

beneficial balance of good over bad consequences for everyone involved.

Ethical egoism is che view that right actions arc those

that further one's own best inrcrr:sts.

Figure 3.2 We all have a moral theory (even the idea that moral theories don't exist is a theor- etical view about ethics). The important question is not whether you have a theory, but whether the theory you have is a good one.

T\vO types of theories have been of the greatest interest to philosophers. Consequentialist theories insist that the rightness of actions depends solely on their consequences or results. The key question is what or ho\v much good the actions pro- duce, however good is defined. Deontological (or nonconsequentialist) theories say that the rightness of actions is determined not solely by their consequences, but partly or entirely by their intrinsic nature. For some or all actions, rightness depends on the kind of actions they are, not on how much good they produce. A consequen- tialist theory, then, may say that stealing is wrong because it causes more harm than good. But a deontological theory may contend that stealing is inherently \vrong regardless of its consequences, good or bad.

The most influential consequent ialist theory is utilitarianism, the vie\v that right actions are those that maximize the overall well-being of everyone involved. Or, to put it another way, \Ve should do \vhat results in the greatest balance of good over bad, everyone considered. Various forms of utilitarianism differ in how they define the good, \vith some equating it with happiness or pleasure (the hedonistic view), others with satisfaction of preferences or desires or some other intrinsically valuable things or states, such as kno\vledge or perfection.

Another consequentialist theory is ethical egoism, the view that right actions are those that further one's O\vn best interests. Your duty is to look out for yourself by doing what yields the most favorable consequences for you, even if the interests of others are ignored or th\varted. Ethical egoists may equate their interescs with pleasure, happiness, self-realization, or other valued states, but they all agree that promoting these things for oneself is the essence of morality. Selfishness and wild abandon, however, are not entailed by ethical egoism, for ignoring the needs of oth- ers or acting without restraint may not be in one's best interescs.

Overview: Ethics and the Moral Domain 141

The most sophisticated and influential deontological theory comes from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant's theory is the very an- t ithesis of utilitarianism, holding that right actions do not depend in the least on consequences, the production of happiness, or the desires and needs of human be- ings. For Kant, the core of morality consists in following a rational and universally applicable moral rule and doing so solely out of a sense of duty. An action is right only if it conforms to such a rule, and we are morally praise\vOrthy only if \Ye per- form it for duty's sake alone.

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Morality and the Law

Kant's theory is che cheory that right actions arc those that accord with the categorical imperative.

Some people confuse moralicy \Yirh rhe law, or identify the one \Yirh rhe other, bur rhe t\YO are distinct though rhey ,nay often coincide. Laws are norms enacted or enforced by rhe scare ro prorecr or promote rhe public good.They specify \Yhich actions are legally righr or \Vrong. Bur these sa,ne actions can also be judged morally righr or \vrong, and these rwo kinds of judgments \Viii nor necessarily agree. Lying ro a friend about a personal matter, deliberately crying ro destroy yourself rhrough reckless living, or failing ro save a drowning chi ld (when you easily could have) ,nay be irnmoral-but nor illegal. Racial bias, discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, slavery, spousal rape, and unequal rrearmenr of minoriry groups are i1n1noral-bur, depending on rhe sociecy, rhey ,nay nor be illegal.

Much of rhe rime, ho\vever, ,norality and rhe la\Y overlap. Often whar is irnmoral also turns out ro be illegal. This is usually rhe case \Yhen irnmoral actions cause subsranria l harm ro ochers, whether physica l or economic. Thus rnurder and e1nbez2lemenr are both irnmoral and illega l, backed by socia l disapprova l and severe sanctions imposed by law. Controversy often arises \Yhen an action is nor obviously or seriously harmful bur is considered irnmoral by some \Yho \Vane rhe practice prohibited by law. The contentious notion ar work is char something may be ,nade illegal solely on rhe grounds char it is irnmoral, regardless of any physical or e.conomic harm involved. This view of rhe la\Y is known as legal moralism, and ir somerirnes underl ies debates about rhe legalization of abortion, euthanasia, reproductive technology, contraception, and ocher practices.

Many issues in ethics have borh a ,noral and legal dimension, and ir is irnportanr nor ro confuse rhe two. Somerirnes rhe question ar hand is a ,noral one (whether, for example, euthanasia is ever ,norally permissible); \Vherher a practice should be lega l or illega l rhen is beside rhe point. Sometimes the question is about lega lity. And sometimes rhe discussion concerns borh. A person may consider physician-assisted suicide morally acceptable bur ar- gue char ir should nevertheless be illega l because allowing rhe practice ro beco,ne widespread wou ld harrn borh patients and rhe ,nedical profession.

Are you a legal moralist? Why or why not?

Copied from Lewis Vaughn, Bioethics, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

142 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

3 Do you genera lly judge the rightness or wrongness of an action by its consequences? By the nature of the action itself ? By some other measure of right ness?

Virtue ethics is a moral theory that focuses on , he

development of virtuous

character.

Ethics of care is a moral perspective ,hat empha-

sizes the unique demands of specific situarions and the virtues and feelings

that arc central m close personal relationships.

The preceding theories are ,vhac philosophers call theories of obligation, ,vhich emphasize the rightness or ,vrongness of actions and che duties of persons. Their main concern is knowing and doing ,vhac's right, and their chief guide co these aims is moral principles. An altogether different kind of moral theory is virtue ethics, ,vhich focuses not on rules and right actions, but on che development of virtuous character. According co vi rtue ethics, character is the key co the moral life, for it is from a vir- tuous character that moral conduce and values naturally arise. Virtues are ingrained dispositions co ace by standards of excellence, so having che proper vi rtues leads as a matter of course co right actions properly mocivace.d. The central cask in morality, then, is not knowing and applying principles, but being and becoming a good person, someone possessing the vi rtues chat define moral excellence. In vi rtue ethics, one determines right action not by consulting rules, but by asking what a truly vi rtuous person ,vould do or ,vhether an action would accord with che relevant virtues.

The ethics of care is a dist inctive moral perspective that arose out of femin ist concerns and gre,v co challenge core elemencs of most ocher moral theories. Gener- ally, chose theories emphasize abst ract principles, general duties, ind ividual righcs, impartial judgments, and deliberative reasoning. Bue che ethics of care shifcs che fo- cus co che unique demands of specific situations and co che virtues and feelings that are cent ral co close personal relationships-empathy, compassion, love, sympathy, and fidelity. The heart of che moral life is feel ing for and caring for chose with whom you have a special, int imate connection.

None of these theories is perfect. Each one is an attempt to identify che true determinants of rightness or goodness, and each has grasped at lease a piece of the truth about morality. But no theory manages co fully account for all our int uitions about che moral life.

That is not co say chat all moral theories are created equal. Some are better than ochers, and a vital cask in ethics is co cry to cell which is which. Moral theories can be useful and valuable co us only if there are criteria for judging their worth-and fortunately there are such standards and st raightforward ways of applying chem.

Recall chat moral theories are analogous to scientific theories. Scientists devise theories co explain che causes of events. For each phenomenon co be explained, sci- enciscs usually have several possible theories co consider, and che challenge is co de- termine which one is best (and is therefore most likely co be correct). The superior theory is che one chat fares best ,vhen judged by generally accepted yardst icks kno,vn as che scientific criteria of adequacy. O ne criterion often invoke.cl is fruitfulness- ,vhecher the theory makes successful predictions of previously unknown phenom- ena. All things being equal, a theory chat makes successful pre.dictions of novel phenomena is more likely co be true than one chat does not . Another important criterion is conservatism-ho,v well a theory fies with established faces, wit h what scientists already know. All things being equal, a theory chat confliccs with what scientists already have good reasons co bel ieve is less likely co be true than a theory chat has no such conflicts. Of course, an unconservat ive theory can turn out co be correct, and a conservative theory ,vrong, but che odds are against this outcome. Analogously, moral theories are meant co explain what makes an action right or a person good. And co cry co determine which moral theory is most likely correct, we

Overview: Ethics and the Moral Domain 143

apply conceptual yardsticks-the moral criteria of adequacy. Any plausible moral theory must measure up to these critical standards.

An important criterion of adequacy for moral theories is consistency with our consid- ered moral judgments. Any plausible scientific theory must be consistent \vith the data that the theory is supposed to explain; there should be no conflicts between the theory and the relevant facts. Like\vise, a moral theory must also be consistent with the data it is supposed to explain: our considered moral judgments, \vhat some call our moral common sense. We arrive at them after careful deliberation that is as free of bias, self.. interest, and other distorting influences as possible. Moral philosophers grant them considerable respect and try to take them into account in their moral theorizing. These judgmentS are fall ible, and they are often revised under pressure from trusnvorthy principles or theories. But \Ve are entitled to t rust them unless we have good reason to doubt them. Therefore, any moral theory that is seriously inconsistent with our most basic considered judgments must generally be regarded as fla\ved, perhaps fatally so, and in need of revision. Our considered judgments, for example, tell us that slavery, murder, rape, and genocide are \vrong. A moral theory that imp lies otherwise fails to meet this criterion and is a candidate for rejection. That equals should be t reated equally, that there must be good reasons to deliberately cause harm to others, that justice is an essential part of the moral life-these and other considered judgments are among the many that good moral theories must account for.

In applying this standard, \Ve must keep in mind that in both science and ethics, there is tension benveen theory and data. A good theory explains the data, which in turn influence the shape of the theory. Particularly strong data can compel scientistS to alter a theory to account for the information, but a good theory can also give sci- entists reasons to question or reject particular data. In the same way, there is a kind of give-and-take between a moral theory and the relevant data. Our considered moral

IMPORTANT MORAL THEORIES

All sects arc different, bccau.,c they come from men; morality is every·

where the same. because it comes from God. -Voltaire

CONSEQUENTIALIST

ut ilitarianism The view that right actions are those that result in t he most beneficia l balance o f good over bad consequences for everyone involved.

DEONTOLOGICAL VIRTUE ORIENTED

ethical egoism The view that right actions are t hose that f urther one's own best interests.

Kant's theory The t heory that right actions are those t hat accord with t he categorical imperative.

virtue ethics A moral theory t hat focuses on the development of virtuous character.

ethics of care A moral perspective that em- phasizes t he unique demands of specific sit uations and the virtues and feelings that are centra l to close personal relationships.

144 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

PHILOSOPHY NOW

The Morality of Human Cloning

Modern technology is conscancly presenting us with moral quandaries chat would have been unthinkable co previous generations. A prirne exa,nple is hu,nan reproductive cloning. Clon- ing is che asexual production of a genetically identical entity from an existing one. Cloning an individual anirnal or hu,nan is a ,naccer of extracting che nucleus from an ordinary body cell, in-

serting che nucleus into a "blank" egg cell (one without a nucleus), and scirnulacing the reconfigured cell co scare cell division and devel- opment into an embryo. To dace, no human has been successfully cloned (though ,nany species of ani,nals have) , and for technical and ,noral reasons none is likely co be cloned any time soon. Bue the prospect of human cloning in the future has jurnp-starced che moral debate over whether it should ever be done, even if feasible.

Figure 3.3 If human reproductive cloning were feasible, should people be permitted to use this technology? Suppose the only way a child less couple could have a baby genetically related to them w as through cloning. Would cloning be a morally permis- sible option for them?

A typica l response co che pros- pect of hu,nan cloning is ,noral outrage, ,vhich coo often is based on rnisunderscandings. Chief among chese is the notion chat a human clone ,vould be identical co an existing person, che clone's "parent." This idea has led co a host of silly fan easies played out in movies, literature, and the popu- lar ,nind: an arn1y of Hitler clones spawned from one of che Fiihrer's

The most important human endeavor is the

striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence

depend on it. Only moral- ity in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. -Albert Einstein

judgments may give us good reasons for alcering or even rejecting our moral theory. Bue if our moral theory is coherent and well supported, it may oblige us co rethink or reject our considered judgments. In both science and ethics, che goal is co ensure chat agreement between theory and data is as close as possible. The agreement is accept- ably close ,vhen no further changes in che theory or che data are necessary-,vhen there is a kind of balance between che two chat moral philosophers call "reflective equil ibrium."

Overview: Ethics and the Moral Domain 145

cells, or a laborarory of Alben Einsreins discovering rhe secrers of rhe universe. The underly- ing fallacy is rhar genes ,nake rhe person, rhar generics ordains all of an ind ividual 's charac- rerisrics. This view is kno,vn as generic derermin ism, and iris a ,nych. Einsrein's clone would have Einstein's genes but would not a nd could not be Einsrein. The clone would be unique and probably nor rnuch like his fa,nous progeniror at all.

Many ,vho favor che use of cloning rest their case on its likely benefits. For some people, their only hope of having a child co whom rhey are generically refaced would be through cloning. Some men have no sperrn; some wo,nen, no eggs; cloning could gee around these problems. For couples ,vho va lue chis genetic connection a nd also wanr co avoid passing on a genetic d isease or health risk ro their ch ild, cloning ,vould be an arcraccive option-perhaps che only option. Parenrs whose only child d ies could have her cloned frorn a cell harvested from her body, ensuring rhar some pare of her would live on.

Some critics of cloning have charged char ir violates che rights of che resulting clone- specifically, rhe righr co a unique idenciry. A clone by definition is not genetically unique; his genome is iterated in his "parent." Aside from doubts about ,vhecher such a righr ex isrs, che srrongesc reply ro chis worry is rhac genetic uniqueness is neither necessary nor sufficient for personal uniqueness.

Many oppose che use of cloning technology because it is unnatura l, a deviant way of bringing children inro che ,vorld. This view is criticized as narro,vly dog,nacic, for some nar- ura l processes are bad (such as bacterial infection), and some unnarural ones are good (such as medica l creaunenc).

A kindred objection holds rhac cloning replaces natural procreation ,vich rhe artificial manufacture of children as produces- a demeaning process char erodes our respect for hu- rna n beings. C loning is thus profoundly dehu,nan izing. Bue son1e rejecr ch is cricicisrn, de- claring that che va lue and worth of a being does nor depend on how it is created, but on what chat being is like (its narure).

Is human reproductive cloning morally permissible? Why or why not? Upon what moral principles do you base your view?

Another cesc of adequacy is consistency ivith the facts of the moral life. In science, good theories are consistent with scientific background knowledge, ,vich ,vhac sci-

entists already have good reasons co believe. Such theories are, as mentioned ear- lier, conservative. This background kno,vledge includes ocher ,veil-founded theories,

highly reliable findings, and scientific (natural) la,vs. Moral theories should also be

cons istent ,vich background kno,vledge-the moral background kno,vledge, the bas ic, inescapable exper iences of the moral life. These experiences include making

146 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

\Xlhcncvcr you arc to do

a thing, though it can

never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the

world looking at you, and act accordingly. -Thomas Jefferson

Divine command theory is the doctrine that God is the creator of morality.

moral judgments, disagreeing with others on moral issues, being mistaken in our moral beliefs, and giving reasons for accepting moral beliefs. That we do in fact experience these things from time to t ime is a matter of moral common sense- seemingly obvious facts of the moral life. Thus, any moral theory that is inconsistent ,vith these aspecrs of the moral life is deeply problematic. If a theory implies that disagreement on a moral issue is impossible, for example, ,ve must suspect that there is something seriously wrong with it. It is possible that we are deluded about the moral life-that we, for example, merely think we are disagreeing ,vith others on moral issues but are actually just venting our feel ings. But our experience gives us good grounds for taking the commonsense view until we are given good reasons to bel ieve othenvise.

Finally, ,ve have this criterion: resourcefulness in moral problem-solving. If a scien- tific theory helps scientisrs answer questions, solve problems, and control events in the natural world, it demonstrates both its plausibility and its usefulness. All things being equal, such a resourceful theory is better than one that has none of these advantages. Much the same is true for moral theories. A resourceful moral theory helps us solve moral problems. It can help us identify morally relevant aspects of conduct, judge the rightness of actions, resolve conflicts among moral principles and judgmenrs, test and correct our moral intuitions, and understand the underlying point of morality itself. Any moral theory that lacks problem-solving resourcefulness is neither useful nor credible.

Evaluating moral theories using these yardsticks is not a rote process. There is no standard procedure for applying the criteria to a theory and no set of instructions for assigning conceptual ,veight to each criterion as we judge a theory's worth. But the criteria do help us make broad judgmenrs on rational grounds about a theory's strengths and weaknesses. We must use them as guides, relying on our best judg- ment in applying them, just as scientisrs must use their own educated judgment in ,vielding thei r kind of criteria of adequacy. In neither case is there a neat algorithm for theory assessment, but nonetheless, in both arenas the process is objective, rea- sonable, and essential.

Later in this chapter, ,ve will look at how philosophers use these criteria to test major moral theories.

Religion and Morality

Morality and rel igion have always been closely intertwined. H istorically, every re- ligion has offered its adherents moral content in the form of commandmenrs or preceprs. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and others all contain normative standards for right conduct. But many think that the connection between moral values and rel igious belief is even closer than these facts suggest: they bel ieve that religion is the source of morality. The idea is that God makes morality; right and ,vrong are constituted by the will of God. Right actions are those commanded by God; wrong actions are those prohibited by God. This doctrine is kno,vn as the divine command theory, a view that has been taken to task in ethics by religious and nonreligious th inkers alike.

Overview: Ethics and the Moral Domain 147

The problem as most philosophers see it is that the doctrine forces a troubling dilemma on us, one outlined by Socrates many centuries ago. In Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates asks, in effect, Are actions right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? To choose the first option is to say that God makes mo- rality and to accept the divine command theory. To choose the second is to say that morality exisrs independently of God's ,vi ll and even he must obey it. For many theisrs, the second option (the denial of the divine command theory) is far more palatable than the first, for the first one implies that morality is completely arbitrary.

These critics argue that if an action is morally right only because God says so, then any action at all could be morally right. If God so wi lled, the torture and slaughter of innocents ,vould be morally right. As the d ivine command theory would have it, there could be no reasons for God's will ing one ,vay or the other. He just commands, and that makes an action right (or ,vrong). But if God has no reasons for his commands, no standards other than his say-so, his commands are ar- bitrary. This arbitrariness makes morality a cruel joke and reveals God as less than perfect.

A divine command theorist might reply that God would never com- mand something as evil as the torture and slaughter of innocents be- cause God is all-good. But this response appears to make the idea of the goodness of God meaningless. Russ Shafer-Landau makes the point like this: Figure 3.4 Is morality constituted by

the w ill of God?

Russ Shafer-Landau, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?

No, you say, such a thing is impossible. A good God would never allow such a thing [wicked deeds]. Right enough. But what does it mean to be good? If the Divine Com· mand Theory is correct, then something is good just in case it is favored by God. But then look what happens: to say that God is good is just to say that God is favored by God. Is that really what we mean when we say that God is good?'

The arbitrariness problem has led both theisrs and nontheists to reject the divine command theory and accept the second option of the dilemma, the view that moral- ity is not dependent on God 's wil l. Right and ,vrong must then exist independently of God and are binding on everyone, including God himsel f. In this way, the notion of God 's goodness has real meaning, and the religious can coherently claim that God is good, that he unerringly observes the moral la,v, and that he urges his chil- dren to strive to do the same.

Some theisrs hold that even if God is not the source of the moral la,v, he provides the motivation to abide by it. The fear of God's disfavor in this life or everlasting tor- ment in the next makes people want to be good. A desi re for his blessings here and

Wh ile moral rules may be propounded by authority

the fact rhat these were so propounded would not validate them.

-Sir Alfred Jules Ayer

148 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

4 If the divine com- mand theory were true, people wou ld need to ident ify a re liable source of pro - nouncements about God's will (scriptures or some re ligious author- ity, for example). But there are many sources purport ing to be the true one. How can be- lievers discover which is the right one? Is it possible to choose in a nonarbitrary way?

All moral obligation re.solves itsd f into the

obligation of conformity to rhe will of God .

- Charles Hodge

The will of God is the refuge of ignorance. -Baruch Spinoza II I II 111111111111111 II 111 I II 111IIIIII1111111111

Moral objectivism is rhe view that there arc moral standards that arc uuc or

correct for everyone.

Moral absolutism is the

belief thar objective moral principles allow no excep· tions or must be applied the same way in all cases and cultures.

now or eternal bliss in the hereafter has the same effect. Thus, believers have reason to be moral, and unbelievers do not.

This contention can be vie,ved as an empirical claim about the psychological tendencies of theists and nontheists. If it's true, ,ve ,vould expect theists generally to be more moral than nontheisrs. But no evidence clearly substantiates this.

Many believers and nonbelievers think they have a deeper reason for rejecting the religious explanation of moral motivation. Suppose you do your best to always act morally-not because acting morally is your duty, but because you ,vant to avoid God's ,vrath and incur his blessings. Your motives for being good then are self. serving and cynical, signs of poor moral character and disrespect for the moral law. People ,vith good moral character do good for the sake of the good; they do their duty for duty's sake. Thus it seems that if the expectation of reward or punishment is ,vhat motivates people to act morally, moral character is undermined and morality irself becomes a hollo,v ideal.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 3.1

1. Where did your moral values come from? Did you arrive at them through critical reasoning-or d id you absorb them from your fam ily, peers, or culture?

2. Of the several moral theories mentioned in this chapter, which one are you most sympathetic to? Why?

3. Ho,v do you think a utilitarian would view the morality of human cloning (discussed in the accompanying box)? A d ivine command theorist?

4. Do you accept or reject the divine command theory? Why?

5. Is the hope for a heavenly reward a good reason to obey the moral la,v? Why or ,vhy not?

3.2 MORAL RELATIVISM

Without th inking much about it, most people accept a view of morality known as moral objectivism, the idea that at least some moral norms or principles are objec- tively valid or true for everyone. In this view, moral standards are valid or t rue regard- less of whether people believe them, ignore them, agree about them, or have never heard of them. Just as some statemenrs about physics or carpentry are objectively true regardless of people's beliefs on the subject, so some moral statemenrs are objectively true no matter what people think. Moral objectivism, ho,vever, is distinct from moral absolutism, the belief that objective moral principles allow no exceptions or must be applied the same ,vay in all cases and cultures. A moral objectivist can be absolutist

about moral principles, or she can avoid absolutism by accepting chat moral principles are prima facie-applicable unless exceptions are warranted (as when nvo principles conflict and one must be given more weight than the ocher). In any case, most people probably assume some form of moral objectivism and \vould not take seriously any claim implying that correct moral norms can be whatever we \vane chem co be.

But some (including many college undergraduates) reject moral objeccivism in favor of a doctrine that they find much more appealing: moral relativism. Accord- ing co chis view, moral standards are not objective, but are relative co what individu- als or cultures believe. There simply are no objective moral truths, only relative ones. An action is morally right if endorsed by a person or cultu re and morally wrong if condemned by a person or culture. Morality is not an objective fact; it's a human invention, dependent entirely on what people bel ieve. So an action is right for Person A if he approves of it but \vrong for Person B if she disapproves of it, and the same would go for cult ures with similarly diverging views. In chis way, moral norms are not d iscovered but made; the individual or culture makes right and wrong. Moral relativism pertaining co individuals is known as subjective relativism, more pre- cisely stated as the view chat right actions are chose sanctioned by a person. Moral relativism regarding cultures is called cultural relativism, the view chat right ac- tions are those sanctioned by one's culture.

Subjective Relativism

In some \vays, subjective relativism is a comforting moral theory. It relieves individuals of the burden of serious critical reasoning about morality. After all, determining right and wrong is a matter of inventorying one's beliefs, and any sincerely held beliefs \vill do. Morality is essentially a matter of personal caste, which is an extremely easy thing co establish. Determining what one's moral vie\vS are may indeed involve deliberation

and analysis-but neither of these is a necessary requirement for the job. Subjective relativism also helps people shore-ci rcuit the unpleasantness of moral debate. The sub- jective relativist's famil iar refrain-"That may be your truth, but it's not my truth"- has a way of stopping conversations and putting an end co reasoned arguments.

But critics of the theory charge that in many ways it runs afoul of the moral criteria of adequacy, especially the one demanding consistency \vith the faces of the moral life. For starters, the doctrine implies chat each person is morally infallible. An action is morally right for someone if he approves of it-if he sincerely believes it co be right. His approval makes the action right, and-if his approval is genuine-he cannot be mistaken. His bel ieving it co be right makes it right, and chat's the end of it. If he endorses infanticide as a method of population control, then infanticide is morally permissible. His sincere approval settles the issue, and he cannot be in error. But our commonsense moral experience suggests chat this relativist account must be mistaken. Our judgments about moral matters-actions, principles, and people- are often wide of the mark. We are morally fallible, and \Ve are rightly suspicious of anyone who claims co be otherwise.

There is a more distu rbing \vay co frame this point. Suppose H itler approved of kill ing mill ions of Je\vS during World War II. Suppose American serial killer and

Moral Relativism 149

What is morality in any

given time o r place? Ir L\

what the majority then and there happen to like,

and immorality is whar they disli ke. -Alfred North Whirehead

Moral relativism is the view that moral standards

do no r have independent status but arc rdarivc to what individuals o r cul-

tures believe.

Subjective relativism is the view that right actions

arc those endorsed by an individual.

Cultural relativism is the view that right actions arc those endorsed by one's

culture .

5 When you discuss moral issues with others, what moral theory do you assume-objectivism or relativism? Why?

There is nothing either good or bad, But thin king makes it so. -William Shakespeare

6 Is moral disagree- ment possible? When you seem to be disagreeing with some- one on a moral issue, what are you really do- ing? Are you disag ree- ing about an objective moral fact, or are you merely expressing your likes and dislikes?

150 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd. -BenraJ\d Russell

7 Do you believe that your culture has made moral progress? Why or w hy not ?

Figure 3.5 Subjective relativism implies that Hitler's slaughter of mill ions of Jews was morally right. Is t his reason enough to reject the doctrine?

cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer approve.cl of his murdering seventeen men and boys. Then by the lights of subjective relativism, all these mass ki ll ings were morally right be- cause their perpetrators sincerely deemed them so. But we \vould find this conclusion almost impossible to swallow. We \vould think these actions morally wrong whether the ki llers approved of their O\vn actions or not.

Subjective relativism also implies that all sincerely held moral opinions are cre- ate.cl equal. If you sincerely approve of equal righrs for women, and someone else sincerely disapproves, your view of the matter is as good or as true as his. If Jeffrey Dahmer honestly thought his vicious murders \vere morally justified, and you sin- cerely bel ieve they were not, his vie\v is no better or worse than yours. This equality of moral judgments seems incredible.

Something that seems an obvious fact of the moral life is that sometimes people have moral disagreemenrs. But subjective relativism implies that moral disagreement is virtually impossible. Suppose a friend tells you that the terrorists \vho perpetrated the September 11 attacks on the United States were morally justified in doing so. And you respond that the terrorists \vere not morally justified. This \vould seem like an obvious example of t\VO people having a disagreement about an important moral matter. But no disagreement at all is taking place, according to subjective relativ- ism. You and your friend are merely expressing your approval and disapproval, your

respective likes and dislikes. And because the two of you are just expressing your personal tastes, you are not really dis- agreeing on an issue-just as you would not be disagreeing if you said you like chocolate ice cream and your friend said she likes vanilla. The two of you are literally discussing different subjects. The notion that we can never have a moral disagree- ment with anyone is d ifficult to take seriously.

Cultural Relativism

These inconsistencies with the facrs of the moral life raise seri- ous doubts about subjective relativism. Many believe cultural relativism is a much more plaus ible view of morality. In fact, many think it obviously true, and they assume it \Vithout question. But the doctrine undermines irself in many of the same ways that subjective relativism does.

Moral Relativism 151

Like subjective relativism, cultural relativism implies moral infallibil ity, a very hard implication to take seriously. As the doctrine would have it, if a culture genuinely approves of an action, then there can be no question about the action's moral rightness: it is right, and that's that. Cultures make moral right- ness, so they cannot be mistaken about it. But is it at al l plausi- ble that cultures cannot be \vrong about morality? Throughout history, cultures have approved of ethnic cleansing, slavery, racism, holocausrs, massacres, mass rape, torture of innocenrs, burning of heretics, and much more. Is it reasonable to con- clude that the cultures that approved of such deeds could not have been mistaken? Is it plausible that such repugnant acts could become moral duties if a culture sees them as such?

Relate.cl to the infallibility problem is th is difficulty: cul- tural relativism implies that we cannot legitimately crit icize

Figure 3.6 The fact that we no longer condone slavery seems like an obvious case of moral pro- gress. But cultural relativism cannot countenance any progress in our moral views. Does this show that the doctrine is false?

other cultures. They are all beyond criticism. If a cultu re approves of its actions, then those actions are morally right-and it does not matter one bit whether another culture disapproves of them. Remember, there is no objective moral code to appeal to. Each society is its own maker of the moral law. It makes no sense for Society X to accuse Society Y of immorality, for what Society Y approves of is moral. Some may be wi lling to accept this consequence of cultural relativism, but look at \vhat it would mean. What if the people of Germany approved of the extermination of mil- lions of Jews, Gypsies, and others during World War II? Then the extermination was morally right. Suppose the people of Libya approved of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, kill ing 270 people (a t ragedy for which the Libyan government eventually took responsibility). Then the bombing \vas morally right, and those who placed the bomb on board did no \vrong. But all th is appears very much at odds with our moral experience. We think it makes perfect sense some- times to condemn other cultu res for morally \vrong actions.

Custom is ,he law of fook -Sir John Vanbrugh

152 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

WHAT DO YOU BELi EVE?

Cultural Relativism and Women's Rights

Debates about cultural relativism are nor just acade,n ic exercises, for they have practical im- pl ications for wo,nen's rights throughout che world. Cultural relativists insist chat cultures should be preserved, and char che 1noral values of specific cultures cake precedence over uni- versal hu,nan rights, including che rights of women. This means respecting che moral bel iefs and practices of all cultures-even chose char sanction abusive creaunenc of ,vomen. Critics find chis vie,v abhorrent because it, in effect, endorses such cultural practices as domestic

Figure 3.7 Are w omen's r ights object ive moral values?

Cult ural relativism also seems to rule out the possibility of moral progress. We sometimes compare our past moral beliefs with those of the present and judge our views to be morally better than they used to be. We no longer countenance such hor- rors as massacres of native peoples, slavery, lynchings, racial discrimination, sexism, and wanton destruction of the environment, and we think these changes are signs of moral progress. But cultural relativism implies that there can be no such thing. To legitimately claim that there has been moral progress, there must be an objective, transcultural standard for comparing cultures of the past and present. But accord- ing to cultural relativism, there are no objective moral standards, just norms relative to each culture. If over time a culture goes from condoning racial d iscrimination to condemning it, that does not represent moral progress. That is just a change from one set of moral attitudes to another, each one just as plausible as the other. The nvo are different, but one is not superior to the other. On the other hand, if there is such a thing as moral progress, then there must be objective moral standards.

Another problem for cultural relativism is that it has a d ifficult time explaining the moral status of social reformers. We tend to bel ieve they are at least sometimes right

Moral Relativism 153

abuse, rape, polygain y, honor killings (the slaying of daughters and ,vives to restore honor to a fainily), and "fe,nale circumcision" (fe,nale genital cutting, the removal of all or pare of the female genitals). They condemn these custo1ns on the grounds that they violate universal, objective moral principles. For example, rights activist and con1menrator Marya,n Namazie vigorously denounces the relativist doctrine:

Let us be clear about what cultural relativism is. It is a profound ly racis t phe- nomenon, which values and respects all cultural and religious practices, irrespective of their consequences for women. It asse rts that the rights of people, women and girls a re re lative to where they are born, " their" cultures and re ligions. The re is no right o r wrong accord ing to cultural relativis ts . As a result, cultural relativism supports and maintains sexual apar theid and violence against women in Islam-stricken societies like Iran because it is "their culture and religion" and it creates ghetto ized, regressive "minority" communities in the West where women and girls continue to face apa rt- heid and Is lamic laws and customs.- Maryam Namazie , speech at a pane l discussio n organ ized by the Action Committee o n Women's Rights in Iran and Amnesty lnternational's Women's Action Network, August 14 , 2001

Are there universal human rights, including women's rights? Is it import-

ant to preserve cultural values, including those that are abhorrent to most

people in the West? Do you agree with Namazie? Why or why not?

and society is ,vrong. When we contemplate social reform, we think of such mora l exemplars as Martin Luther King, J r., Mahatma Gand hi, and Susan B. A nthony, all of whom agitate.cl fo r justice and moral p rogress. But one of the consequences of cultu ra l relativism is that social refo rmers can never be morally right. By definition, what society judges to be morally right is morally right , and s ince social refo rmers disagree with society, they cannot be right-ever. But surely o n occasion it 's the

reformers ,vho are right and society that is ,vrong. Despite irs serious difficulties, cultura l relativism is an attractive moral theory to

m any, partly because it seems ,veil supported by a common argument. The argument goes like this:

I. If people's moral judgments differ from cultu re to culture, mora l standa rds a re relative to culture (there are no objective mora l standa rds).

2 . People's moral judgmenrs do d iffer from culture to culture. 3. Therefore, moral standards a re relative to culture (there a re no objective moral

standards).

154 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

Morality is largely a mancr of geography. -Elbert Hubbard

The argument is valid (the conclusion follows logically from the premises), but are the premises true? Look first at Premise 2. All sorts of empirical evidence-including a trove of anthropological and sociological data-show that the premise is in fact true. Clearly, the moral beliefs of people from diverse cultures often do differ drasti- cally on the same moral issue. Some societies condone infanticide; ochers condemn it. Some approve of the killing of wives and daughters co protect a family's honor; ochers chink chis tradition evil. Some bury their dead; ochers cremate chem. Some consider it a solemn duty co surgically remove the clitorises of young girls; ochers say chis is immoral and cruel. Some commend the killing of people who practice a dif- ferent religion; ochers believe such intolerance is morally rep rehensible. We are forced co conclude chat d iversity of moral judgments among cultures is a reality.

But what of Premise I-is it also true? It says that because cultures have different moral beliefs, they must also have different moral standards, which means morality is relative co cultures. This premise, ho,vever, is false. First, from the fact chat cultures have divergent moral beliefs on an issue, it does not logically follo,v chat there is no objec- tive moral truth co be sought, that there is no opinion chat is objectively correct. People may disagree about the existence of biological life on Mars, but the disagreement does not demonstrate that there is no fact of the matter, or chat no statement on the subject could be objectively true. Disagreements on a moral question may simply indicate that there is an objective fact of the matter but chat someone (or everyone) is wrong about it.

Second, a conflict between moral bel iefs does not necessarily indicate a funda- mental conflict between basic moral norms. Moral d isagreements between cultures can arise not just because thei r basic moral principles clash, but because they have dif- fering nonmoral beliefs chat put chose principles in very different lights. From the an- nals of anthropology, for example, we have the classic story of a culture chat sanctions the killing of parents ,vhen they become elderly but not yet enfeebled. Our society ,vould condemn such a practice, no doubt appealing co moral precepts urging respect for parents and for human life. But consider: This strange (to us) culture believes chat people enter heaven when they die and spend eternity in the same physical condit ion they were in ,vhen they passed a,vay. Those who kill their parents are doing so because they do not ,vane their elders co spend eternity in a state of senility, but rather in good health. This culture's way is not our way; we are unlikely co share these people's non- moral beliefs. But it is probable chat they embrace the same moral principles of respect for parents and life chat we do. According co some anthropologists, diverse cultures often share basic moral standards ,vhile seeming co have little or nothing in common. Thus the argument for cultural relativism founders because its key premise is false.

Many cultural relativists may not be bothered coo much by the fa ilure of this argument and by the doctrine's troubling implications mentioned earlier. That's be- cause they chink chat cultural relativism strongly supports their belief in the im- portant virtue of tolerance coward other cultures, and that moral objeccivism does not. The idea is chat if the values of one cultu re are no better or worse than chose of another, then there is no basis for hatred or hostility coward any culture any,vhere.

Tolerance is, of course, both morally praiseworthy and beneficial co our frac- tured planet of conflicting values. But cultural relativism has no advantage over moral objectivism in promoting tolerance-and may have a critical disadvantage.

Morality Based on Consequences 155

First, note that moral objectivism does not entail intolerance. It says only that some moral bel iefs are better than others; it does not imply anything about how objectivisrs should behave to,vard those they think are in moral error. Some objectivisrs are intol- erant; many are not. But cultural relativism can easily justify intolerance and cannot consistently advocate tolerance. If there are intolerant cultures (and there surely are), then since cultures make rightness, intolerance in those cultures is morally right. For sincerely intolerant societies, the persecution of minorities and the kill ing of dissidenrs may be the height of moral rectitude. In addition, cultural relativists who insist that everyone should embrace tolerance are contradicting themselves. To say that tolerant behavior is right for everyone is to assert an objective moral norm-but cultural rela- tivism says there are no objective moral norms. The moral objectivist, however, can plausibly claim that the moral requirement of tolerance is universal.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 3.2

1. What is the difference benveen moral objectivism and moral relativ- ism? Which vie,v makes the mos t sense to you? Why?

2. Think about an argument that you have made on a moral issue. From ,vhich perspective ,vere you arguing-moral objectivism, moral rela- tivism, or some other theory? W hy?

3. How is disagreement a problem for moral relativism? Is the problem fatal to the theory? Why or \vhy not?

4. How \vould you judge the morality of the September 11 terror- ist attacks on the United States-as a moral objectivist or a moral relativist? Why?

5. Is the oppression of women objectively wrong? Give reasons for your anS\ver.

3.3 MORALITY BASED ON CONSEQUENCES

In deontological theories, the rightness or wrongness of an action is based on irs na- t ure, not on the consequences that follow from it. But consequentialist theories say the effects of an action are all that matter; our only duty is to ensure that the effecrs are a maximization of the good. The good is whatever has intrins ic value-whatever is valuable for irs own sake-which can include such things as pleasure, happiness, vi rtue, knowledge, autonomy, and the satisfaction of desires. In consequentialist eth- ics, then, the ends (the results) justify the means (the actions).

For utilitarianism, the foremost consequentialist theory, the only thing of intrin- sic value is well-being. For ethical egoism, it's self-interest. In either case, the right- ness or wrongness of an action is to be judged by its impact on the people involved.

156 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

Act~utilitarianism is chc idea , hat the righmess of actions depends solely on the overall well-being produced by individual actions.

Rule-utilitarianism is ,he doctrine that a rig ht action

is one that conforms m a rule thar, if followed consistcndy, would create

for everyone involved the most beneficial balance of well-being over suffering.

8 How might a deonto logica l theorist judge a case of eutha- nasia? Do you think this approach is better than the utilitarian's? Why or why not?

Utilitarianism

Utilitarians judge the morality of conduct by a single standard, the principle of util- ity: Right actions are those that result in greater overall ,vell-being (or utility) for the people involve.cl than any other possible actions. We are duty bound to maximize the utility of everyone affected, regardless of the cont rary urgings of moral rules or un- bending moral principles. In some moral theories, moral rules are absolute, allowing no exceptions even in exceptional cases. But in util itarianism, there are no absolute prohibitions or mandates (except for the principle of utility itself). There is only the goal of maximizing ,vell-being. Thus, utilitarianism is not bothered by unusual cir- cumstances, nor is it hobbled by conflicting moral principles or rules that demand a uniform response to extraordinary situations.

In applying the utilitarian moral standard, some moral philosophers concentrate on specific acrs and some on rules covering kinds of acts. The former approach is calle.d act-uti litarianism, the idea that the rightness of actions depends solely on the overall ,veil-being produced by individual actions. An act is right if in a particular situation it produces a greater balance of ,vell-being over suffering than any alterna- tive acts; determining rightness is a matter of weighing the effecrs of each possible act. The latter approach, known as rule-utilitarianism, avoids judging rightness by specific acts and focuses instead on rules governing categories of acts. It says a right action is one that conforms to a ru le that, if followed consistently, would create for everyone involve.cl the most beneficial balance of ,veil-being over suffering. We are to adhere to the rules because, in the long run, they maximize well-being for everyone considered-even though a given act may produce bad effecrs in a particu- lar situation.

Consider how these nvo forms of utilitarianism could apply to the moral issue of euthanasia, or mercy killing, the taking of someone's life for his or her own sake. Suppose a woman is terminally ill and is suffering horrible, inescapable pain, and she asks to be put out of her misery. An act-utilitarian might conclude that euthanasia ,vould be the right course of action because it would result in the least amount of suffering for everyone concerned. Allowing the current situation to continue ,vould cause enormous pain and anguish-the woman's o,vn physical agony, the misery of her distraught family, and the distress and frustration of the physician and nurses ,vho can do little more than stand by as she withers away. Administering a lethal injection to her, ho,vever, ,vould immediately end her pain and prevent future suf- fering. Her family ,vould grieve for her but ,vould at least find some rel ief-and per- haps peace-in knowing that her torture ,vas over. The me.dical staff would probably also be relieved for the same reason. There ,vould, of course, also be possible negative consequences to take into account. In administering the lethal injection, her physi- cian would be risk ing both professional censure and criminal prosecution. If h is actions ,vere to become known publicly, people might begin to mistrust physicians ,vho t reat the terminally ill, undermining the whole medical profession. Perhaps the physician's action ,vould lead to a general devaluing of the lives of disabled or elderly people every,vhere. These dire consequences, however, ,vould probably not be very likely if the physician acted d iscreetly. On balance, the act-utilitarian might

Morality Based on Consequences 157

Figure 3.8 Should the morality of euthanasia depend on the act"s consequences?

say, greater net well-being (positive amounts of \veil-being minus negative influences on well-being) \vould result from the mercy ki lling, which \vould therefore be the morally right course. On the other hand, a rule-utilitarian might ins ist that more net well-being would be produced by consistently following a rule that disallowed eu- thanasia. The argument would be that permitting mercy killings \vould have terrible consequences overall-increases in involuntary euthanasia (mercy killing without the patient's consent), erosion of respect for the medical profession, and a \veakening of society's abhorrence of homicide.

Notice that in either kind of utilitarianism, getting direct answers to a difficult moral problem is straightforward. The facrs of the case may be difficult to ascertain, but the procedure for discerning the morally right course of action is theoretically s imple: Determine which action best maximizes \vell-being. Such simplicity makes utilitarianism an appealing theory, especially \vhen compared to others that require the use of abstract principles or elusive moral concepts.

The classic version of utilitarianism was devised by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and given more detail and plausibility by another English philosopher, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Classic utilitarianism is hedonistic in that the utility to be maximized is pleasure, broadly termed happiness, the only intrinsic good. A right action produces more net happiness (amounts of happiness minus unhappiness) than any alternative action, everyone considered.

Bentham and M ill have d ifferent ideas about what happiness entails, as do many philosophers today. Bentham thinks that happiness is one-dimensional: It is plea- sure, pure and simple, something that va ries only in the amount that an agent can experience. In th is scheme, it seems that the moral ideal would be to experience

There arc in nature neither rewards no r punishments. chcrc arc consequences. -Robert Ingersol

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in at~

tempting m satisfy them. -John Stuart Mill

9 W hich view of the nature of happiness seems more plausib le t o you-Bent ham's or Mill's?

158 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

All action is for the sake of some end; and rules of

action, it seems nacural ro suppose, musr take their

whole character and color from the end to which they arc subservient. -John Stuart Mill

maximum amounts of pleasure, as does the glutton or the debauchee. But Mill thinks that pleasures can vary in quality as well as quantity. For him, there are lower and higher pleasures-the lo\ver and inferior ones indulged in by the glutton and his ilk and the higher and more satisfying ones found in such experiences as the search for knowledge and the appreciation of art and music. Mi ll famously sums up this contrast by saying, "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates d issatisfied than a fool satisfied ."2

Like all forms of utilitarianism, the classic formulation demands a strong sense of impartiality. When promoting happiness, we must not only take into account the happiness of everyone affected, but a lso give everyone's needs or interesrs equal \veight. M ill explains:

[The] happiness which forms the utilita rian standard of what is right conduct, is not the agent's own happiness, but that of a ll concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism re- qu ires him to be as strictly impartial as a dis interested and benevo- lent spectator.1

This moral evenhandedness is an attractive featu re of util itarian ism. As \Ve have seen, impartiality is a fundamental characteristic of morality itself. Despite our d if- ferences in social status, race, gender, religion, and wealth, we are a ll equal before the moral law. Early utilitarians such as Bentham and Mill took moral equality seri- ously, crusading for social changes that were shockingly radical for the times: the abolition of slavery, humane treatment of prisoners, and women's rights.

In classic utilitarianism, the emphasis is on maximizing the total quantity of net happiness, not ensuring that it is rationed in any particular amounts among the people involved. This means that an action resulting in one thousand units of hap- piness for ten people is better than an action yield ing only nine hundred units of happiness for those same ten people-regardless of how the unirs of happiness are distribute.cl among them. C lassic utilitarians do want to allocate t he total amount of happiness among as many people as possible (thus thei r motto, "the greatest happi- ness for the greatest number"). But maximizing total happiness is the fundamental concern, whether everyone gets an equal portion or one person gets the lion's share.

This is how Mill defends his brand of utilita rianism:

John Stuart Mill, "What Utilitarianism Is"

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utili ty, or the Greatest Hap· piness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more re· qu ires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent th is is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded- namely,

Morality Based on Consequences 159

that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only th ings desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utili tari an as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promo- t ion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure-no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit- they designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemptu- ously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally poli te comparisons by its German, French, and English assailants.

When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the ru le of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human be- ing's conception of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of conse- quences from the utilitarian principle. To do th is in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in gen- eral have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former- that is, in their ci rcumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points uti litarians have fu lly proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valu- able than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other th ings, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespec- tive of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a great amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superi- ority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference

160 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Utilitarianism and the Death Penalty

Ucilirarianism is alive and well in conce,nporary debares about personal moraliry, institutional policy, and governmenr programs. Ir plays an especially big role in arguments over capital

punishmenc-officially sanctioned punishment by death for very grievous (capital) crimes. On one side of chis d ispute are che abolitionists, chose who ,vanr ro do a,vay with capital punishmenr, ,vho believe che death penalry is never justified. On the other side are the retentionists, those ,vho ,vane co retain the death penahy as part of asysce,n of legal punish- ment, ,vho believe that sometimes capiral punish- ment is ,varranced. Boch camps in the debare argue their cases on utilitarian grounds (as ,veil as on the basis of deoncological principles).

Figure 3.9 In debates on capital punishment, w hich matters most: util ity or rights?

Many recencioniscs cake the utilitarian parh by arguing chat the death penalry has positive effects on sociery- specifically, char it either prevents crim- inals from harrning ochers again or deters ,vould-be offenders from capital crirnes. Executing hardened murderers, say recencionisrs, is the best ,vay co pre- venr chem from killing ocher inmates or escaping and killing innocenr people. Abolitionists respond char life in prison ,vichout parole (and with appro- priare securiry ,neasures) is as effective as execution in preventing inmates from repeating their crimes. To make rheir arguments stick, both sides in this d ispute have co support their non moral dai,ns ,vich empirical evidence, but definitive evidence for the effectiveness of rhe nvo prevention strategies is hard ro come by. Each side can challenge the ocher ro

John Stuart Mill, "What Utilitarian ism Is"

produce evidence co back their assertions.

to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, fo r a promise of the full· est allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. A being of higher

Morality Based on Consequences 161

Recencioniscs often maintain chat the most powerfu l deterrent against n1urders is the ch rear of the ulri,nace pun ishment, death. Several sociological studies seem co support chis clain1, bur they have been the subject of a good deal of critical scrutiny and debate, a face chat abol it ionists are quick co point our. So,ne rerenrion ists argue chat com,non sense cells us chat the death pena lty is a better deterrent than life in prison. Ir seems obvious, they say, char the more severe the punishment, the more it deters potentia l offenders. Abol itionists reply chat there are reasons co chink rhe com,nonsense view is ,nistaken.

Some recention isrs cake the deoncological path through retributivism, che doctrine chat people should be punished si,nply because they deserve it, and char the punishment should be proportional co the crime. Many abol itionists reject che rerriburivist theory of punish- ment and thus reject the recencionist argument char it supports. Bur some of chem accept it, argu ing char although offenders should gee the punishment they deserve, no one deserves rhe death penalty.

Like rerencionisrs, abol itionists also try co ,nake their case on utilitarian grounds. They may contend char life in prison for 1nurderers results in greater overall happiness or good- ness for society than sentencing chem co death. For one th ing, if human life has great value, then preserving it by forgoing the death pena lty must maxin1ize the good. Abolition ists also insist char the death pena lty brings with it so,ne dra,vbacks char life sentences avoid. They may assert char the ,nonerary coses involved in capital punishment exceed the coses of life sentences without parole, char the chances of unintentionally executing the innocent are great, or chat the execution of offenders may actually provoke 1nurders or have an overall dehu,nan izing effect on society. Rerenrionists ,nay dispute these claims by questioning the evidence for chem, or they may rake a rerriburivist line by arguing char the consequences are beside rhe point.

Do you accept or reject the use of the death penalty? What are your

grounds for doing so? Are your grounds utilitarian, deontological, or both?

faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certain ly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabil ities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give what explanation we please of this unwill ingness; we may at- tribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one

10 Is the utilitarian view of mora lity based on the promot ion of happiness demean- ing? Is there more to life than the pursuit of happiness (as Mill defines it)?

162 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

John Stuart Mill, "What Utilitarian ism Is"

form or another, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher facu lties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which confl icts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness- tha t the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior- confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fu lly satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they wil l not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qua li fy. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satis- fied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides ....

From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no ap- peal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are qua li fied by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And there needs to be the less hes itation to accept this judgment respecting the quali ty of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous wi th pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this subject to the same regard.

I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly just conception of Uti lity or Happiness, considered as the directive rule of human conduct. But it is by no means an indispensable condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; fo r that standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, there- fore, could only attain its end by the general cultiva tion of nobleness of character, even if each ind ividual were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. But the bare enuncia- tion of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation superfluous.

According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained, the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and qua li ty; the test of quality, and the ru le for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added the ir habits of self-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with

Morality Based on Consequences 163

the means of comparison. This, being, according to the uti litarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessa rily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an ex- istence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to a ll mankind; and not to them only, but, so fa r as the nature of things admits , to the whole sen ti en t creation .. . .

We have now, then, an answer to the question, of what sort of proof the principle of utility is susceptible. If the opinion which I have now s tated is psychologically true- if human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of hap- piness or a means of happiness, we can have no other proof, and we require no other, that these are the only things desirable. If so, happiness is the sole end of human ac- tion, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge of all human conduct; from whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of mora lity, since a part is included in the whole.

And now to decide whether this is really so; whether mankind does desire nothing for itself but that which is a pleasure to them, or of which the absence is a pain; we have evidently arrived a t a question of fact and experience, dependen t, like all similar questions, upon evidence. It can only be determined by practised self-consciousness and self-observation, assisted by observa tion of others. I believe that these sources of evidence, impartially consulted, will declare that desi ring a thing and findin g it pleas- ant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painfu l, are phenomena en tirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact: that to think of an object as desirable (unless fo r the sake of its consequences), and to think ofit as pleasant, are one and the same thing; and that to desire anything, except in proportion as the idea of it is pleas- ant, is a physical and metaphysical possibility.•

So there is much to like about utilitarian ism. Its simplicity, its straightfonvard ap- plication to moral problems, and its insistence on moral impartiality have helped to make it one of the most influential moral theories in modern history. Still, it has d rawn many criticisms, the most serious one being that the theory Hies in the face of our con- sidered moral judgments, especial ly regarding issues of duty, rights, and justice.

Suppose you promise a friend that you will help her prepare for a b ig exam. You kno\v the subject inside and out, but she constantly struggles \Vith it. At the last min-

ute, you decide that you \vou ld rather stay home and \Vatch a movie. You calculate that the satisfaction you \vou ld get from \vatch ing the movie outweighs \vhatever dissatisfaction your friend \vould feel because you broke your promise. By utilitar- ian lights, you should stay home and watch the movie, for your only obligation is to maximize utility. But this vie\v of the matter seems mistaken. When we make a promise, we impose a duty on ourselves, and such duties seem to carry weight in our moral deliberations that is independent of considerations of utility. Sometimes, when a large measure o f \vell-being hangs in the balance, breaking a promise o r for- saking some other duty seems justified. But our considered judgments suggest that duties cannot be automatically overridden by calculations of utility.

No\v consider the case of a man arrested for murder \vho is in fact innocent of the crime. Angry citizens demand that he be lynched immediately, and they threaten

11 Does the fact that people desire hap- piness prove that it should be desired, that achieving it should be the ultimate goal of the moral life?

Happiness is a pig's

phi losophy. -Friedrich N iet1.sche

12 Is breaking the promise really w rong in th is case? What wou Id you do? Why?

164 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

The despotism of custom is everywhere the stand·

ing hindrance to human advancement. -John Stuart Mill

PHILOSOPHY LAB .. Imagine char rhe great ocean liner Titanic has sunk after smashing into an iceberg in the cold North Adanric. You are a member of rhe cre,v, no,v commanding a life- boat filled co capacicy ,virh rh ircy of rhe ship's passengers. You know char rhe boar is overloaded ,vich one passenger roo many, and char unless one passenger leaves rhe boar, it ,viii sink within an hour, killing al l aboard. To leave the boar is co die within rwency minures. To push someone into rhe ,varer is co kill her. No passenger will gee our of the boar volunrarily, nor rhe good pasror, rhe elderly women, rhe teenage girls, rhe gambler, the alcoholic, or the chief. So you muse make some decisions: Do you rhro,v one person overboard? Do you refuse co commie such an ace and thus allow everyone ro die? And if you do decide co ross a person into the sea, ,vho ,viii you choose? One of the social outcasts? An elderly person who has already lived a full life? Any random passenger?

This scenario is fiction, but it is based on an actual event. In both cases, the questions are: What is the morally right action? and How do you justify it?

riots and reprisal killings against the man's family. The local police chiefkno,vs chat by lynching the man, the overall happiness of the people would be increased far more than if the man got a fa ir trial-the mob would be satisfied, lives would be saved, and property ,vould be spared destruction. So the chief lees the town sering the man up. Does the chief do right? The utilitarian seems obliged co say yes. Bue our considered judgment ,vould likely be chat the chief did wrong by violating the man's rights and perpetrating an injustice. According co utilitarianism's critics, th is sho,vs chat the theory is inadequate. The requirements of justice and individual rights muse be taken into account; utility is not the only thing chat matters.

Some utilitarians have replied co such criticisms by saying chat scenarios like the one just presented are unrealistic and misleading. In the real world, they say, actions chat seem co conflict with our moral intuitions almost ahvays produce such bad consequences chat the actions cannot be justified even on util itarian grounds. Once all the possible consequences are taken into account, it becomes clear that the propose.cl actions do not maximize happiness, and chat commonsense morality and utilitarianism coincide.

Critics reply chat many times the judgmenrs of commonsense morality and utili- tarianism do in face coincide when all the faces are kno,vn-but not ahvays. They insist that even the utilitarian must admit chat there could be cases in which actions chat maximize util ity do clash with our considered moral judgments, and this pos- sibility raises doubrs about the utilitarian standard.

Morality Based on Consequences 165

Ethical Egoism

Ethical egoism, though consequentialist, is a conceptual mile away from utilitari- anism. The utilitarian says ,ve have a duty to maximize the well-being of everyone within our reach, and that we must treat everyone (including ourselves) impartially and ,vith equal regard. Ethical egoism says that you have a moral obligation to maxi- mize the well-being of just one person-yourself-and that you act morally only

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

John Stuart Mill

John Scuarc Mill (I 806-1873) was one of che ,nose in- fluential m inds of the nineteenth century. He ,vas both an ernpiricist philosopher and a social reforn1er, dedi- cated co seeing char his liberal and ucilicarian ideals ,vere

Human history is the sad

result of each one looking out for himself - Julio Corcaz.ar

used for che betterment of society. He ,vas born in Figure 3.1 o John Stuart Mill London and given a rigorous education by his father, (1806-1873), philosopher, ethicist, James Mill, a philosopher in his own right. James was and reformer. a strong proponent of Jeremy Bentham's utilicarian- isrn, and he was decern1 ined co raise John Scuarc according co ucilicarian principles. John Stuart turned our co be an excre,nely precocious and bright student, beginning the study of Greek at age three and Plato and Larin ac eight. In his teens, he dutifully absorbed his father's philosophical and political views, ,vorked for che Ease India Co,npany, and went abroad co learn French and study chemistry and mathematics.

Ac age C\Vency, his life cook an unexpected turn. He suffered a ,nencal break- down and fell into a dark depression, a condition char he lacer said was due co his strict upbringing and exacting education. After a few months, he recovered, having gained a new perspective on his life and his previous ,vay of th inking. He remained a ucilicarian, but he left behind n1any of che less desirable features of Bentham's theory. He developed a deep friendship ,vich che feminist Mrs. Harrier Taylor, ,vho,n he ,narried years lacer, after her husband d ied. She had a profound effect on his vie,v of the world and was a n1ajor influence on che ideas he expressed in 7he Subjection of Women (1869).

M ill went on co earn a prestigious place in che pantheon of respected philoso- phers for his work in epistemology (che study of knowledge), deductive and induc- tive logic, political choughc, and ethics. Among ocher works, he wrote System of Logic (1843), On Liberty (1860), and Utilitarianism (1861).

M ill is notable nor on ly for his theory of ethics, bur for his efforts co see it put into practice. He chus beca,ne one of the greatest social reforn1ers of his day, advo- cating individual liberty, freedom of expression, social tolerance, aid co the poor, and wo,nen's rights.

166 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Torture and the Ticking Bomb Terrorist

In the fighr against global terrorism, some have argued for rhe use of a controversial and brutal ,veapon: rorrure. Their consequenrialisr argu,nenr goes something like chis: ir could happen char rhe only ,vay co prevent a thousand innocent people fro,n being killed by a rerrorisr- planred nuclear bo,nb is co torture rhe terrorise until he or she reveals the location of rhe bo,nb. Considering rhe many innocent lives char could be saved, ir would be morally pennissible- even morally obligarory-ro torture rhe terrorise. Thus rorrure is so,nerimes ,norally justified. And if rhar's so, legal izing or insrirurionalizing torture is also ,norally justified.

The crux of rhe argument is, of course, char a ricking-bomb scenario could actually oc- cur char would justify rorrure. Many accept chis pre,nise, bur some reject ir, insisting char in rhe real ,vorld such a scare of affairs simply would nor happen or char even if ir could, rorrure is an absolute (nonconsequenria lisr) moral ,vrong. Those who ch ink char a ricking-bomb siruarion could actually happen cry co ,nake their case by providing possible scenarios char seem complerely rea listic.

Critics ,vho reject an absolute prohibition of rorrure may argue char if killing people is nor an absolute ,vrong (since killing someri,nes seems pennissible in, for exa,nple, self- defense and ,var), and if killing people is ,vorse than rorruring rhe,n, then ir ,nakes no sense co maintain char rorrure is an absolute ,noral wrong. If kill ing a person is nor absolurely i1npennissible, rhen neither is torture.

Ir seems dear char whether or nor rhe ricking bomb premise is rrue, rhe conclusion of rhe argument-char legalizing or insrirurionalizing rorrure is ,norally justified-does nor follow fro,n ir. Whether an instance of torture is ,norally justified is a separate question fro,n ,vherher our insrirurions should adopt torture.

Thus ,nany ,vho agree char rorrure is so,nerimes ,norally permissible argue against mak- ing ir an official or unofficial pare of our law or insrirurions. They contend char legaliz- ing or insrirurional izing rorrure would (I) create a "culture of torture" in which torturing people ,vould beco,ne routine, ,norally corrupting, and eradicable; (2) conrradicr and un- dermine democratic insrirurions (as one philosopher observes, " Ir would be equivalent co a liberal democracy legalizing and insrirurional izing slavery on rhe grounds, say, of econo,nic

Psychological egoism is the theory that

people always act out of sdf.-inrcrcst.

,vhen you p lay favorites and g ive spec ial treatment to number one. Whether you help or harm others, cooperate w ith them or oppose them, you must ahvays do what

produces the most favorable consequences for you. Doing what is in you r own best interest is the essence of the moral life.

Ethical egoists have argued that the theory is on solid ground because it reflects ,vhat they bel ieve is an obvious psychological fact about human nature: People always act out of self interest. Altru ism-the unselfish concern for the well-being of others- is never a motive for action. This claim about human motives is an empirical theory called psycholog ical egoism . It is the starting point for the ethical egoist's main argument, which says that (1) we are obligated to act only if we can act; (2) we can act only when motivated by self- interest; (3) therefore, we are obligated to act only

Morality Based on Consequences 167

necessity"); and (3) permit che practice of torture co beco,ne more ,videspread and more brutal.

Alan Dershowirz cakes a different view. He believes chat torture is already being used by che Un iced Scares and ,vould almost certainly be used in any real-life ticking-bomb scenario. If chis is correct, he says,

then it is important to ask the following question: if torture is being or will be practiced, is it worse to close our eyes to it and tolerate its use by low- level law enforcement officials without accountability, or instead to bring it to the surface by requiring that a warrant of some kind be req uired as a pre- condition to the infl iction of any type of torture under any circumstances?>>

Dershowirz therefore favors a fonn of legalization in which agents of che scare may tor- ture soineone if they first obtain judicial pennission in che form of"corture ,varrancs" simi lar co the judicial ,varrancs required for the police co legally rap someone's phone. Such a warrant system, he says, ,vould "decrease che amount of physical violence directed against suspects," and "che rights of che suspect would be beccer protected ,vich a warrant requiremenc."t

What is the nonconsequentialist argument against torture mentioned here?

Do you accept the first premise in the consequentialist argument? Do you

believe it could be morally permissible to torture the ticking bomb terrorist? Why or why not?

• Alan M. Dershowitz, "Tortured Reason ing," in Torture: A Collection, ed. Sanford Levison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 257. t Alan M. Dershowirz, "The Case for Torturing the T icking Bomb Terrorist," in \W,y Terrorism \Vorks: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (New Haven: Yale Un iversity Press, 2002), 61 - 62.

when motivated by self-interest. The argument is based on a simple face about the moral life: We a re not morally obligated co do the impossible. We have no duty co

make our loved ones live nvo hundred years, because chat is beyond our power. We have no obligation co ensure chat everyone is healthy, because chat feat is not pos- s ible. Like,vise, we are not capable of acting a ltruistically, so we have no obligation co do so. We a re duty bound co do only what we can do-,vhich is co ace purely out of self-interest.

Critics have rebutted chis argument by rejecting psychological egoism (Prem- ise 2). They point out chat our experience suggests chat we don't a lways ace out of self-interest. We often look out for number one, but we a lso sometimes choose co inconvenience ourselves, incur ser ious disadvantages, or put ourselves at risk-co

13 Do people always act out of sel f-interest? Do you always act out of self-interest?

168 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

The pursuir of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase;

if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

-C. r. Snow

He who lives only to

benefi t himself confers on the world a benefi t when he d ies.

-Tertullian

14 If you devoted your life solely to the pursuit of happi ness, would you ever obtain it? If you have experienced moments of happiness, what was their cause? Were you trying to ach ieve happiness, or did you experience it because you were pur- suing something else?

Self-interest is but the sur- vival of the anim al in us.

Humani ty only begi ns for man with sclf~surrcndcr.

-Henri Frederic Amyl

help someone else. People rush into burning buildings to save complete strangers. Mothers starve themselves so their children will have food. Husbands and wives sell everything they O\vn to pay for their spouse's urgent medical care.

Ethical egoists are likely to respond to this line by declaring that such experi- ences are deceptive, for actions that seem purely altruistic are in fact done to achieve social advantage, to feel personal satisfaction, or to prevent some future calamity. In fact, for every instance of apparent altru istic behavior, ethical egoists must say that we are seriously mistaken about the motivation behind it.

This reply may save psychological egoism from refutation, but it does so at a cost. It means that the theory is untestable. No evidence could ever count against it; all possible evidence is consistent with it. Psychological egoism is thus completely uninformative and conceptually \VOrthless, so it cannot be used as a premise in the argument for ethical egoism.

On the other hand, if we have no preconceptions about which way the evidence points, and we take it at face value, it seems to count against psychological egoism. The only evidence we have regarding our motivations for acting is people's behavior and their introspective reports about \vhy they behave as they do. And this evi- dence, though not always reliable, suggests that \Ve sometimes do act selAessly and altruistically.

A common form of psychological egoism says that people perform actions solely to obtain satisfaction, happiness, or pleasure-even actions that appear to be altruis- tic or selAess. But this vie\v of the matter, philosophers insist, is muddled. It is much more likely that \Ve act to obtain particular th ings, not satisfaction itself, and that \Ve experience satisfaction as a byproduct of obtaining those things. We don't seek satisfaction; we seek certain things that give us satisfaction \vhen \Ve acquire them. If the th ings themselves were not the object of our desires, it \vould be difficult to see ho\v we could get any satisfaction from our attaining them.

Of all the arguments put forth against ethical egoism, the one that is probably most damaging boils down to this: The theory runs afoul of moral common sense. In judging a moral theory, we have good reason to doubt irs \VOrth ifit conAicts with \vhat we take to be our plausible moral intuitions. As we have seen, our intuitions may be mistaken, but we are entitle.cl to accept them at face value unless \Ve have good reason to mistrust them. Critics maintain that ethical egoism clashes with moral common sense in two important ways.

First, the theory seems to be inconsistent \Vith our considered moral judgmenrs. Ethical egoism implies that if secretly murdering and robbing a rich stranger \vould be in your best interests, then you should do so. The same could be said about your betraying your best friend, or falsely accusing someone of a serious crime, or burning do\vn a factory owne.d by your business competitor. All these actions would be con- demned by our considered moral judgments, but ethical egoism could countenance them. Commonsense morality says they are wrong; ethical egoism says they may be right. This objection to the theory is not undercut by the claim that morally \vrong actions are never in one's best interests, for we can easily imagine counterexamples in \vhich immoral acts are to a person's advantage.

Morality Based on Duty and Rights 169

Second, ethical egoism appears co conflict \vich an essential element of the moral life: impartiality. As \Ve saw earlier, morality entails that equals be created equally unless there is a morally relevant reason co treat chem differencly. Each person's inter- ests muse be given equal \veighc. But, by definition, ethical egoism insists chat some people's interests should be regarded as more worthy of consideration than chose of others-specifically, one's own interests are co be given h igher priority than chose of anyone else in the \vorld. Discrimination against ochers for no good reason is required by the theory.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 3.3

1. How does Mill respond co the charge chat utilitarianism is a pig phil- osophy? W hat is meant by "Better co be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied"? Do you agree with this ordering of values?

2. What is Mill 's "proof" of the truth of utilitarianism? Is it a good argu- ment? Explain.

3. Suppose that by killing one innocent person you could greacly increase the health and \veil-being of a thousand. Would it be morally permis- sible co kill chat person? How might a utilitarian decide chis question?

4. Evaluate chis statement: "Everyone is an egoist, for everyone ahvays tries co do what will bring him or her satisfaction."

5. Suppose you are an ethical egoist. Can you make your view public? Can you teach the theory co your child ren? Can you wish that every- one adopted the theory?

3.4 MORALITY BASED ON DUTY AND RIGHTS

The moral theory of Immanuel Kant is profoundly opposed co consequential ism on numerous counts. Utilita rians ins ist chat the morality of an action depends entirely on its effects-whether it maximizes human \veil-being. No action whatsoever is inherently right or wrong; only irs costs and benefits make it so. Kant wi ll have none of chis. He maintains chat right actions do not depend on their consequences, the production of happiness, people's aims, or their des ires and feelings. Right actions are those chat are right in themselves because they are consistent with universal moral ru les derive.cl from reason, and the actions have moral worth only if we do chem out of a sense of duty, simply because they are our duty. For Kant, the moral law cannot be something contingent, changeable, or relative. The moral law is absolute, un- changeable, and universal, a rock-solid structure builc on eternal reason.

Two rhings fill the mind with ever new and incrcas ..

ing admiration and awe:

the starry heavens above

and the moral law with in . -Immanuel Ka.m

170 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

15 What does Kant mean by his assertion that morality cannot have an empirical basis? Is he right about this?

16 What is Kant 's argu- ment for his view that nothing can be good without qualification except a good will? Is his argument sound?

Here is Kant on the subject:

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

As my concern here is with moral philosophy, I limit the question suggested to th is: Whether it is not of the utmost necessi ty to construct a pure moral philosophy, per- fectly cleared of everything which is only empirical, and which belongs to anthropol- ogy? For that such a philosophy must be possible is evident from the common idea of duty and of the moral laws. Everyone must admit that if a law is to have moral force, i.e., to be the basis of an obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example, the precept, "Thou shall not lie," is not va lid for men alone, as if other ratio- nal beings had no need to observe it; and so with all the other moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the basis of obligation must not be sought in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, but a priori simply in the con- ception of pure reason; and although any other precept which is founded on principles of mere experience may be in certa in respects universal, yet in as far as it rests even in the least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to a motive, such a precept, while it may be a practical ru le, can never be called a moral law ....

Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of i t, which can be called good, without quali fication, except a Good Will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, per- severance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's conditions which is ca lled happiness, inspire pride, and, often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting, and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will , enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.

There are even some quali ties which are of service to this good will itself, and may faci litate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them, and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good. Moderation in the affections and passions, self-control, and calm deliberation are not only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be called good without qualification, although they have been so unconditionally praised by the ancients. For without the principles of a good will , they may become extremely bad; and the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it.

A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition, that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any incl ination, nay, even of the sum-total of

Morality Based on Duty and Rights 171

all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the summon- ing of all means in our power), then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a th ing which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness or fru itlessness can neither add to nor take away anything from this value. It would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it the more conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet connoisseurs, but not to recommend it to true connoisseurs, or to determine its va lue . . .. s

In Kant's system, all our moral duties are expressed in the form of categorical im- peratives. An imperative is a command to do something; it is categorical if it applies without exception and \Vithout regard for particular needs or purposes. A categori- cal imperative says, "Do this-regardless." In contrast, a hypothetical imperative is a command to do something if \Ve want to achieve particular aims, as in "If you want good pay, work hard." The moral la\v, then, rests on absolute directives that do not depend on the contingencies of desire or utility.

Kant says that through reason and reflection \Ve can derive our duties from a single moral principle, \vhat he calls the categorical imperative. He formu lates it in different ways, the first one being: "I am never to act orher\vise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law."6 For Kant, our ac- tions have logical implications-they imply general rules, or maxims, of conduct. If you tell a lie for financial gain, you are in effect acting according to a maxim like "Jr's okay to lie to someone when doing so benefits you financia lly." The question is whether the maxim corresponding to an action is a legitimate moral law. To find out, \Ve must ask if we could consistently will that the maxim become a universal law applicable to everyone-that is, if ev- eryone could consistently act on the maxim and we would be willing to have them do so. If we could do this, then the action described by the maxim is morally permissible; if not, it is pro- h ibited. Thus, moral laws embody t\VO characteristics thought to be essential to morality itself: universality and impartiality.

• •

> -

All that any of us has ro do in this world is his simple duty. -H. C. Trumbull

The categorical imperative is Kant's fundamental

moral principle, which he formulares as (I) " I am never m act otherwise than

so that I could also will that 11ty maxim should become a

universal law"; and (2) "So act as to treat humani ty, whether in th ine own

person o r in that of any o ther, in every case as an end withal, never as a means o nly."

Do not do unto others as you would rhey should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. -George Bernard Shaw

i:::, • t,:j

' c::: - .... ---- ' '

To sho\v us how to apply this formulation of the categori- cal imperative to a specific situation, Kant uses the example of a lying promise. Suppose you need to borrow money from a friend, but you kno\v you could never pay her back. So, to get the loan, you decide to lie, falsely promising to repay the money. To find out if such a lying promise is morally permissible, Kant would have you ask if you could consistently will the maxim of your action to become a universal la\v, to ask, in effect, "What would happen if everyone did this?" The maxim is "Whenever you need to borrow money you cannot pay back, make a lying promise to repay." So what would happen if everyone in need of a loan acted in accordance with this maxim? People \vould make

Figure 3.11 An old canceled German stamp w ith Kant's image.

172 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

17 In Kant's view, is lying to someone to spare her feelings morally permissible? Do you think it is permissible?

Immanuel Kant,

Groundwork of the Mela physic of Morals

18 In these passages, does Kant make clear how we are supposed to apply his principle of respect for persons? For example, how exactly do you show respect for a person who is ter- minally ill and in great pain who begs you to help him end his life?

lying promises to obtain loans, but everyone would a lso know that such promises \vere worthless, and the custom of loaning money on promises would disappear. So \villing the maxim to be a universal law involves a contradiction: If everyone made lying promises, promise-making itself would be no more; you cannot consistently \viii the maxim to become a un iversal la\v. Therefore, your duty is clear: Making a

lying promise to borro\v money is morally wrong. Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative yields several other impor-

tant duties. He a rgues that there is an absolute moral prohibition against killing the innocent, lying, committing suicide, and failing to help others \vhen feas ible.

Perhaps the most reno\vned formulation of the categorical imperative is the prin- cip le of respect for persons (a formulation d istinct from the first one, though Kant thought them equivalent). As he expresses it, "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine O\vn person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only."7 People must never be treated as if they were mere instruments for ach ieving some further end, for people a re ends in themselves, possessors of ultimate inherent worth. People have ultimate value because they are the ultimate source of value for other things. They besto\v value; they do not have it bestowed upon them. So \Ve should treat both ourselves and other persons with the respect that all inherently valuable beings deserve .

. . . Now I say: man and genera lly any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must be always regarded at the same time as an end. All objects of the inclinations have only a conditional worth; for if the incl inations and the wants founded on them d id not exist, then their object would be without value. But the inclinations themselves being sources of want are so far from having an absolute worth for which they should be desired, that, on the contrary, it must be the universa l wish of every rational being to be wholly free from them. Thus the worth of any object which is to be acquired by our action is always conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature's, have nevertheless, if they are non rational beings, only a relative value as means, and are therefore called things; rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons, because their very nature points them out as ends in themselves, that is as something which must not be used merely as means, and so far therefore restricts freedom of action (and is an object of respect). These, therefore, are not merely subjective ends whose existence has a worth for us as an effect of our action, but objective ends, that is things whose existence is an end in itself: an end moreover for which no other can be substituted , which they should subserve merely as means, for otherwise noth ing whatever would possess absolute worth; but if all worth were conditioned and therefore contingent, then there would be no supreme practical principle of reason whatever.

If then there is a supreme practical princip le or, in respect of the human will , a categorical imperative, it must be one which, being drawn from the conception of that which is necessari ly an end for everyone because it is an end in itself. constitutes an objective principle of will, and can therefore serve as a universal practical Jaw. The foundation of th is principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself Man necessa rily conceives his own existence as being so: so far then this is a subjective principle of hu- man actions. But every other rational being regards its existence s imilarly, just on the

Morality Based on Duty and Rights 173

same rational principle that holds for me: so that it is at the same time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical law all laws of the will must be capable of being deduced. Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only . . .. a

According co Kane, the inherent worth of persons derives from their nature as autonomous, rational beings capable of directing their own lives, determining their own ends, and decreeing their own rules by which co live. Thus, the inherent value of persons does not depend in any ,vay on thei r social status, wealth, talent, race, or culture. Moreover, inherent value is something that all persons possess equally. Each person deserves the same measure of respect as any ocher.

Kane explains chat ,ve treat people merely as a means instead of an end-in- chemselves if ,ve disregard these characteristics of person hood-if we thwart people's freely chosen actions by coercing chem, undermine their rational decision-making by lying co them, or discount their equality by d iscriminating against them.

Notice chat chis formulation of the categorical imperative does not actually pro- hibit creating a person as a means but forbids creating a person simply, or merely, as a means-as nothing but a means. Kane recognizes chat in daily life we often muse use people co achieve our various ends. To buy milk we use the cashier; co find books we use the librarian; co gee well ,ve use the doctor. Bue because their actions are freely chosen and ,ve do not undermine their status as persons, we do not use chem solely as instruments of our will.

Kane's principle of respect for persons captures what seems co most people an essential part of morality itself-the notion that some things muse not be done co a person even if they increase the well-being of ochers. People have certain rights, and these rights cannot be violate.cl merely for the sake of an overall increase in util ity. We tend co chink chat there is something terribly wrong wit h jailing an innocent person just because her imprisonment ,vould make a lot of ocher people very happy, or with seizing a person's possessions and giving them co the poor co maximize overall happiness, or with enslaving a race of people so the rest of the ,vorld can have a higher standard of living. Over the principle of respect for persons, Kancians and util itarians part company. Utilitarians reject the concept of rights, or they define rights in terms of utility. Kancians see respect for rights as central co the moral life.

Kane's theory, however, does have its detractors. Many philosophers argue chat it is not consistent with our considered moral judgmenrs. A major cause of the problem, they say, is Kane's ins istence that ,ve have absolute (or "perfect'') ducies- obligacions chat muse be honored ,vichouc exception. Thus, in Kantian ethics, we have an absolute duty not co lie or co break a promise or co kill the innocent , come what may. Imagine chat a band of ki llers wanes co murder an innocent man who has taken refuge in your house, and the killers come co your door and ask you point- blank if he is in your house. To say no is co lie; co answer truthfully is co guarantee the man's death. What should you do? In a case like chis, says Kane, you muse do your duty-you muse cell the truth, though murder ,vi ii be the result and a lie would save a life. Bue in chis case such devotion co moral absolutes seems completely askew,

History is a voice forever

sounding across the

centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions airer, manners change,

creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the

tablets of eternity.

-James A. Froude

19 Is Kant's view clearly superior to utili- tarianism? Or is ut ili- tarianism the superior one? Or does each theory offer something of value that should be part of any adequate system of morality?

Do not be too moral. You

may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above mor ..

aliry. Be not simply good;

be good for something. -Henry David 1horeau

174 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

::, CD ANNE ~ FRANK CD

,---

Figure 3.12 Imagine that in 1944 you own the house where the young Anne Frank and her family are h id ing from the Nazis, and the Nazis ask you if anyone lives there. You can lie and save Anne and her family from death in a concentration camp, or you can tell the truth and doom them. Kant would have you tell the t ruth no matter what. Is he right? (In 1944 in t he Nether· lands, the authorities did in fact d iscover the hid ing place of Anne and the ot her members of her family. They were all shipped off to concentration camps; only Anne's father survived.)

for saving an innocent life seems far more important morally than blindly obeying a rule. Moral common sense suggests that sometimes the consequences of our actions do matter more than adherence to the letter of the law, even if the law is generally \VOrthy of our respect and obedience.

Some have thought that Kant's theory can yield implausible results for another reason. Recall that the first formulation of the categorical imperative says that an action is permissible if persons could consistently act on the relevant maxim, and \Ve \vould be willing to have them do so. This requirement seems to make sense if the maxim in question is something like "Do not kill the innocent" or "Treat equals equally." But \vhat if the maxim is "Enslave all Christians" or "Kill all Ethiopians"? We could-without contradiction-will either one of these precepts to become a universal law. And if \Ve \vere so inclined, \Ve could be \vi lling for everyone to act accordingly, even if we ourselves were Christians or Ethiopians. So, by Kantian lights, these actions could very well be morally permiss ible, and their permissibil- ity \vould depend on \vhether someone was willing to have them apply universally. Critics conclude that because the first formulation of the categorical imperative seems to sanction such obviously immoral acrs, the theory is deeply fla\ve.d. Defend- ers of Kant's theory, on the other hand, view the problems as reparable and have proposed revisions.

This apparent arbitrariness in the first formulation can significantly lessen the theory's usefulness. The categorical imperative is supposed to help us discern moral

Morality Based on Character 175

d irectives that are rational, universal, and objective. But if it is subjective in the way just described, irs helpfulness as a guide for living morally is dubious. There may be remedies for this difficulty, but Kant's theory in irs original form seems problematic.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 3.4

I. Is Kantian ethics too rigid because it fails to take consequences into account? Or is Kant correct that consequences are irrelevant? Explain.

2. Is it possible to universalize any of the following maxims-and if so, does that fact raise doubts about Kant's theory? (1) All senile people (including me, if I should become senile) should be executed by the state; (2) Anyone \vho is not a Christian (including me) should be killed; (3) Anyone (including me) \vho damages my car should be shot.

3. Is Kant right not to make any exceptions in applying categorical imperatives? Are there times when an exception should be made? For example, would you lie to save an innocent person's life?

4. Suppose two people save a friend from dro\vning. The first person acts only because she thinks it is her duty. The second person acts out of sincere compassion for his friend. Is Kant right that the first person \vould be morally superior to the second? W hy or why not?

5. Kant seems to assume that our moral duties cannot confl ict. Is he right?

3.5 MORALITY BASED ON CHARACTER

The moral theories just discussed are theories of obligation. They mainly are con- cerned with providing an ans\ver to this question: What should we do?That is, what is our moral duty? What actions are we morally obligated to perform or not perform? These theories therefore emphasize knowing and doing what's right, and their chief guide to these aims is moral principles or directives.

Virtue ethics, ho\vever, is a different kind of moral theory altogether. It focuses not on duty, but on the development of virtuous character-not on what to do, but on what to be. According to virtue ethics, character is the key to the moral life, for it is from a virtuous character that moral conduct and values natural ly arise. Virtues are ingrained dispositions to act by standards of excellence, so having the proper virtues leads as a matter of course to right actions properly motivated. The central task in mo- rality, then, is not knowing and applying principles, but being and becoming a good person, someone possessing the virtues that define moral excellence. In vi rtue ethics, someone determines right action not by consulting rules, but by asking what a truly virtuous person would do or whether an action would accord with the relevant virtues.

Virtue ethics is a moral

theory that focuses on the dcvdopmcnt of v irtuo us character.

With virtue you can't be enti rely poor; w ithout virtue you can't really be rich. -Chinese Proverb

176 Chapter 3 Morality and the Mora l life

20 To Aristotle, is happiness subjective {something only in one's mind) or objec- tive (someth ing that has characteristics regard less of how one feels)?

Virtue ethicists have a ready answer to the age-old question, Why be moral? We should strive to be moral-to be virtuous persons-because developing virtues is the key to living a good life. Virtues help us fare better in life; they enable us to attain \vhat is truly valuable. Thus, virtues are both the traits that make us good persons and the dispositions that enable us to live good lives.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is the primary inspiration for contemporary versions of virtue ethics. For h im, as for many modern virtue ethicists, the highest goal of humanity is the good life, o r "human flou rishing" (\vhat he calls eudaimonia, or hap- piness), and developing virtues is the way to ach ieve such a rich and satisfying life. The good life is the virtuous life.

Aristotle defends this vie\v in his masterpiece on morality, Nicomachean Ethics (named after h is son N icomachus):

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Every art and every inqu iry, and s imilarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim .... If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this) , and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something e lse (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our des ire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to a im at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outli ne at least, to determine what it is . . ..

Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more complete than that which is worthy of pursu it for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more complete than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other th ing, and therefore we call complete without qua li fication that which is always des irable in itself and never for the sake of something else.

Now such a thing happiness, above a ll else, is held to be; for this we choose a lways for itself and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason , and every excellence we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happi- ness, judging that through them we sha ll be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anyth ing other than itself . . ..

Happiness, then, is something complete and self-sufficient, and is the end of action . .. .

Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude, and a clearer account of what it is is still desired. This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascerta in the function of man. For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or any artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the "well" is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certa in functions or activities, and has man none? Is he naturally functionless? Or as eye, hand, foot, and in general each of the parts evidently has a function, may one lay it down that man s imi larly has a

Morality Based on Character 177

function apart from all these? What then can this be? Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a li fe of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle .... Now if the function of man is an activity of soul in accordance with, or not without, rational principle, and if we say a so-and-so and a good so-and-so have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre-player and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of excellence being added to the function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case, and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if th is is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence . . ..

In everything that is continuous and divisible it is possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes, which is one and the same for all men; by the intermediate relatively to us that which is neither too much nor too li ttle-and th is is not one, nor the same for all. .. .

Thus a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses this- the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us.

If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well- by looking to the intermediate and judging its works by this standard (so that we often say of good works of art that it is not possible either to take away or to add anything, implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say, look to this in their work), and if, further, excellence is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is, then it must have the quality of aiming at the intermedi- ate. I mean moral excellence; for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and in the right way, is what is both in termediate and best, and this is character- istic of excellence. Simi larly with regard to actions also there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now excellence is concerned with passions and actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and both these things are characteristics of excellence. Therefore excellence is a kind of mean, since it aims at what is intermediate ....

We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also apply it to the individual facts .... With regard to feelings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no name), whi le the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains- not all of them, and not so much with regard to the pains- the mean is tem- perance, the excess self-indulgence. Persons deficient with regard to the pleasures are not often found; hence such persons also have received no name. But let us call them " insensible."9

21 What does Aristotle mean by "human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence"?

22 Is Aristotle's notion of virtue (the mean between two extremes) coherent? Can all virtues be considered a mean?

We arc nor concerned to

know whar goodness is, but how we arc to become good men, for this alone gives the study (of ethics) its practical value. -Aristotle

178 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few vi rtucs. -Abraham Lincoln

23 Do statements about virtues really give us adequate guid- ance in deciding what actions to perform ?

Figure 3.13 Raphael's renowned painting The School of Athens shows an array of great moral exemplars, including Ari stotle (center, in blue robe), Plato (conversing with Arist otle), Socrates, Epicurus, Hypatia, and Pythagoras. Who is your moral exemplar?

Aristotle argues chat che good life is one of happiness-a li fe not merely of plea- sure, but of optimal well-being. Happiness is the one thing chat is good in itself and not, like wealth or power, just instrumentally good (good as a means co something else). Happiness is about doing what is inherently valuable, which means fulfi lling che function unique co human beings: acting through reason. To excel in the use of reason in all of life's endeavors is co possess che virtues in full, and the virtues are the key co a flourishing, happy life. For Aristotle, a virtue is che midpoint (the "golden mean") between che extremes of excess and deficit, and the extremes are the vices. Courage, for example, is the virtue chat comes midway benveen the vices of CO\vard- ice (coo much fea r) and rashness (coo liccle fear).

Unlike theories of obligation, virtue ethics asks us co do much more than just observe minimal moral rules-it insists chat we aspire to moral excellence, chat we cultivate che virtues chat wi ll make us better persons. In chis sense, virtue ethics is goal-directed, not rule-guided. The moral virtues-benevolence, honesty, loyalty, compassion, fairness, and the like-are ideals chat we muse ever strive co atta in. By the lighrs of both Aristotle and modern virt ue ethicists, character is not static. We can become more virtuous by reflect ing on our lives and chose of ochers, practicing virtuous behavior, or imitating moral exemplars such as Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Hypacia, and Socrates. We can-and should-be better than we are.

To the virtue ethicist, possessing the right virtues means having the proper mo- tivations chat nat urally accompany chose virtues. To ace morally, we muse ace from virtue, and acting from virtue means acting with che appropriate motives. Jc is not

Morality Based on Character 179

enough to do right; we must do right for the right motivating reasons. If \Ve save a drowning friend, \Ve should do so out of genuine feel ings of compassion, kindness, or loyalty-not merely because of the prodding of moral rules or social expectations. In contrast, some moral theories (notably Kant's) maintain that acting morally is solely a matter of acting for duty's sake-performing an action simply because duty requires it. Virtuous motives are irrelevant; we act morally if \Ve do our duty regard- less of our motivations. But this notion seems to many to offer a barren picture of the moral life. Surely, they say, motivations for acting are often relevant to our evalu- ations of people's character and actions. The friend we save from drowning \vould probably be appalled if \Ve declared that we save.cl her out of duty, even though \Ve did not really care whether she lived or d ied. Many moral philosophers agree that motivations are indeed important considerations in moral judgments, and they have incorporated virtues into their theories of obligation.

Little \Yonder, then, that virtue ethics has been lauded for emphasizing what duty-based theories neglect. Many theorists say it deserves a great deal of credit for containing a more plausible conception of motivation in moral conduct, for doing a better job of explaining the role of virtue in the moral life, and for focusing on the goal of living a good life.

But philosophers have also accuse.cl virtue ethics of harboring defects that limit irs usefulness. For one th ing, some critics argue that the theory doesn't give us nearly enough help in deciding \vhat to do. They say, for example, that a woman may possess all the right virtues-and still not kno\v whether to try in vitro fertil ization, or help an illegal immigrant hide from the authorities, or be tested for a genetic defect.

On the contrary, virtue ethicists contend, the theory gives much more guidance to moral decision-making than critics assume. Embedded in statemenrs about vir- tues and vices are d irectives about performing or refraining from certain actions. As the virtue ethicist Rosalind Hursthouse says, "[A) great deal of specific action guid- ance could be found in rules employing the virtue and vice terms ('v-rules') such as 'Do what is honest/charitable; do not do \vhat is dishonest /uncharitable."' 10

A related d ifficulty is that virtue ethics seems to be hobbled by conflicts that arise among vi rtues. Suppose you see a coworker, a good friend, steal money from your com- pany. You know that he desperately needs money to pay for medicine for his daughter, and you are sure that if his theft is discovered, he will be fired and likely prosecuted. Your employer asks you point-blank if your friend is guilty of theft, and your answer will determine his fate. Should you tell the truth or lie? To tell the truth is to be honest yet d isloyal (to your friend); to lie is to be dishonest yet loyal. Vi rtue ethics expects you to be both honest and loyal, but you cannot be both in th is situation-and the theory gives very little guidance in resolving the conflict.

But, the virtue ethicist says, every theory is confronted with such conflicts. Duty- based theories must deal \Vith confl icrs among rules or principles, but the existence of such clashes does not show the theories to be defective beyond repair.

Another kind of confl ict appears when virtuous people-those moral exemplars after \vhom we are to model ourselves-disagree about the correct action in the same circumstances. Virtue ethics says that right actions are those that virtuous people would do. But even moral exemplars sometimes differ on \vhat to do in the

Vices arc sometimes only

virtues carried to excess!

-Charles Dickens

180 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

same situation. When that happens, how are we to decide which model of virtue \Ve are to follo\v? Even more worrisome is that such a difference of opinion among moral exemplars seems to reveal a logical contradiction \vith in the theory. If in the same situation one virtuous person would perform a particu lar action while an- other virtuous person \vould not perform it, then the same behavior would seem to be simultaneously right and wrong. After all, right actions are by definition what moral exemplars do. But if virtuous people \vould do different things in the same circumstances, the action would appear to be both permissible and not permissible. Detractors say that the possibility of such contradictions casts serious doubt on the coherence of the theory. If so, it's open to virtue ethicists to somehow modify the theory to avoid the problem.

As critics see it, the most serious weakness in virtue ethics is that it cannot help us decide what to do because it focuses exclusively on virtues and leaves notions of duty out of account. We can see the difficulty by fi rst noting that the theory claims both that right actions are those done by virtuous persons and that virtuous persons are those who do right actions. If we ask what is the right thing to do, the answer is that it is \vhatever the virtuous person does. And if \Ve ask who the virtuous person is, the answer is that she's the one who does right actions. But th is is circular reason- ing. If virtue is defined in terms of action, we cannot then define action in terms of virtue. The result, theorists say, is that virtue ethics cannot tell us which actions are right or \vrong. To avoid such circular reasoning, \Ve have to introduce some inde- pendent moral standards of conduct.

Russ Shafer-Landau thinks this problem is similar to the one faced by the divine command theory (Section 3.1):

Russ Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics

Virtue ethics and the divine command theory share a basic structure. And they share a basic weakness. We can see this by posing a familiar dilemma. Virtuous people either have, or don't have, good reasons for their actions. (1) If they lack good reasons, then their actions are arbitrary, and can't possibly serve as the standard of mora lity. (2) If they do have good reasons to support their actions, then these reasons, and not the actions themselves, determine what is right and wrong.

The second option is the better one. We must suppose that virtuous people act on good reasons, or else they wouldn't really be virtuous. Consider again the immorality of rape, and the many reasons why it is wrong. A virtuous person is one who is aware of these reasons and takes them to heart. Rape is not wrong because good people oppose it. They oppose it because it is wrong.

This approach preserves the integrity, the wisdom, and the goodness of the virtu- ous person. But there is naturall y a cost. And it is steep. The cost is that the virtue ethi- cist's account of right action is directly threatened. That account tell s us that acts are mora lly right just because all virtuous people would perform them in the circumstances, and wrong just because such people would refra in. But as we have seen, the choices of virtuous people do not make actions right or wrong."

Feminist Ethics and the Ethics of Care 181

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 3.5

I. Aristotle argues that because every action aims at some end, there must be an end to which all actions aim. Is this a good argument? Why or why not?

2. Is virtue ethics sufficiently action guid ing? Explain.

3. Do you think that morality is a matter of both duty and vir tues? Why or why not?

4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of virtue ethics? Could virtue ethics be integrated into a duty-based theory like Kant's to produce a more plausible theory? If so, how \vould you merge the two?

5. Can virtue ethics be used to guide your actions? If so, how?

3.6 FEMINIST ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CARE

In recent decades, an important development has challenged the traditional theo- ries and concepts of moral philosophy: the rise of feminist ethics. Feminist ethics is an approach to morality aimed at advancing \vomen's interesrs, underscoring their distinctive experiences and characteristics, and advancing the obvious truth that women and men are morally equal. It is defined by a d istinctive focus on these issues, rather than by a set of doctrines or common ideology among femi- nisrs, many of whom may disagree on the nature of feminist ethics or on particular moral issues.

Feminist ethics generally downplays the role of moral principles and tradi- t ional ethical concepts, insisting instead that moral reflection must take into ac- count the social realities-the relevant social practices, relationships, institutions, and power arrangements. Many feminists think that the familiar principles of Western ethics-autonomy, utility, freedom, equality, and the like-are too broad and abstract to help us make moral judgments about specific persons who are enmeshed in concrete social situations. It is not enough, for example, to respect a woman's decision to have an abortion if she is too poor to have one, or if her culture is so oppressive (or oppressed) as to make abortion impossible to obtain, or if social conditioning leads her to believe that she has no choice or her views don't count. Theoretical autonomy does not mean much if it is so t horoughly un- dermined in rea lity.

Many feminist \vriters maintain that the values and virtues inherent in most t raditional moral theories reflect a typically masculine perspective-and thus offer a one-sided (or wrong-sided) view of the moral life. What's needed, they say, is a moral outlook that takes into account values and experiences that usually have been

Feminist ethics is an ap .. proach to morality aimed at advanci ng women's

intcrr:sts, underscoring their distinctive experi- ences and characteristics,

and advancing the obvious truth that women and men arc morally equal.

All virtue is sum med up in dealing justly. -Aristotle

24 Is there such a thing as "the fema le perspec- t ive"? That is, do all women have the same basic outlook or style of reasoning?

182 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

Ethics of care is a moral

perspective chat empha- sizes the unique demands of specific situarions and

the virtues and feelings that arc central m close personal relationships.

identified with women. According to Alison Jaggar, a feminist philosopher, femi- nists claim that trad itional ethics favors the

Alison Jaggar, " Feminist Ethics"

supposedly masculine or male-associated values of independence, autonomy, intellect, will , wariness, hiera rchy, domination, culture, transcendence, product, asceticism, war and death over the supposedly feminine or female-associated values of interdependence, community, connection, sharing, emotion, body, trust, absence of hierarchy, nature, im- manence, process, joy, peace and li fe.'2

Some proponents of feminist ethics a lso reject the trad itional concept of the moral agent. Jan C rosthwaite says that the old notion is that of "abstract ind ividuals as fundamentally autonomous agents, a,vare of their own preferences and values, and motivated by rational self-interest (though not necessarily selfish)."13 But, she says, many feminists

Jan Crosthwaite, "Gender and Bioethics"

present a richer conception of persons as historically and cultura lly located, socially related and essentially embodied. Individuals are located in and formed by specific relationships (chosen and unchosen) and ties of affection and respons ibility .. . . Such a conception of socially embedded selves refocuses th inking about autonomy, shifting the emphasis from independent self-determ ination towards ideals of integrity within relatedness .... Respecting au tonomy becomes less a matter of protecting individua ls from "coercive" influences than one of positive empowerment, recognizing people's interdependence and supporting individua ls' development of their own understanding of their situation and options.'•

Many of these themes run th rough the et h ics of care, a moral perspective that a rose out of feminist concerns and grew to challenge core elemenrs of most other moral theories. Generally, those theories emphasize abstract principles, gen- eral duties, individual rights, justice, utility, impartial judgments, and delibera- tive reasoning. But the ethics of care shifrs the focus to the unique demands of specific situations and to the virtues and feelings that are central to close personal

relationships-empathy, compassion, love, sympathy, and fidelity. The heart of the moral life is feeling for and caring for those ,vith whom you have a special, . . . 1nttmate connection.

Feminist Ethics and the Ethics of Care 183

Early on, the ethics of care dre\v inspi ra- t ion from the notion that men and \vomen have d ramatically different styles of moral decision- making, with men seizing on principles, duties, and righrs, and women homing in on personal relationships, caring, and empathy. This differ- ence was highlighted in research done by psy- chologist Carol Gilligan and published in her 1982 book In a Different Voice. 15 Typically, men recognize an ethic of justice and rights, she says, and \vomen are guided by an ethic of compas- sion and care. In her view, the latter is as legiti- mate as the former, and both have their place in ethics.

Other research has suggested that the d iffer- ences between men and women in styles of moral thinking may not be as great as Gilligan suggesrs. But the credibility of the empirical claim does not affect the larger insight that t he research seems to some writers to suggest: Caring is an essential part of morality, and the most influential theories have not fully taken it into account.

These points get support along several lines. First, virtue ethics reminds us that virtues are part of the moral life. If caring is viewed as a

Figure 3.14 Virginia Held, feminist, author, and distinguished professor of philosophy at City University of New York Graduate School.

virtue-in the form of compassion, empathy, or kindness-then caring too must be an element of morality. A moral theory then would be deficient if it made no room for care.

Moreover, many argue that unlike the ethics of care, most moral theories push the principle of impartiality too far. Recall that impartiality in morality requires us to consider everyone as equal, counting everyone's interesrs the same. The prin- ciple applies \videly, especially in matters of public justice, but less so in personal relationships of love, fam ily, friendship, and the like. We seem to have special obli- gations (partiality) to close friends, family members, and others we care for, duties that \Ve do not have to strangers or to universal humanity.

Most moral theories emphasize duties and downplay the role of emotions, at- t itudes, and motivations. Kant, for example, \vould have us do our duty for duty's sake, \vhatever our feelings. For him, to be a morally good parent, we need only act from duty. But taking care of our children as a matter of moral obligation alone seems an empty exercise. Surely, being a morally good parent also involves having feelings of love and attitudes of caring. The ethics of care eagerly takes these emo- tional elements into account.

The crhics of care confirms the prioriry that we nacur~

ally give to our family and friends, and so it seems a

more plausible conception.

- James Rachels

184 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

25 Does Held suggest a way to decide which emotions to heed and which to ignore? If the eth ics of ca re can- not help us sort out our emotions, should we consider it a bad theory?

A man's ethical behavior should be based effccti vcly on sympathy, education,

and social relationships; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishmenr and hope of reward after death. -Albert Einstein II I II I 11111111111111111 Ill II I II I II 111 Ill 1111111

The feminist philosopher Virgin ia Held offers this synopsis of the main elements of the ethics of care:

Vi rginia Held, The Ethics of Care

I think one can discern among various versions of the ethics of care a number of major features.

Fi rst, the central focus of the ethics of care is on the compelling moral salience of attending to and meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take respons i- bility. Caring for one's child, for instance, may well and defensibly be at the forefront of a person's moral concerns. The ethics of care recognizes that human beings are depen- dent for many years of their lives, that the moral claim of those dependent on us for the care they need is pressing, and that there are highly important moral aspects in develop- ing the relations of caring that enable human beings to live and progress. All persons need care for at least their early years. Prospects for human progress and flourishing hinge fundamentally on the care that those needing it receive, and the ethics of care stresses the moral force of the responsibili ty to respond to the needs of the dependent. Many persons will become ill and dependent for some periods of their later lives, includ- ing in frail old age, and some who are permanently disabled will need care the whole of their lives. Mora li ties built on the image of the independent, autonomous, rational individual largely overlook the reali ty of human dependence and the morality for which it call s. The ethics of care attends to this central concern of human li fe and delineates the moral values involved. It refuses to relegate care to a realm "outside morality." ...

Second, in the epistemological process of trying to understand what morality would recommend and what it would be morally best for us to do and to be, the ethics of care va lues emotion rather than rejects it. Not all emotion is valued, of course, but in contrast with the dominant rationalist approaches, such emotions as sympathy, empa- thy, sensitivity, and responsiveness are seen as the kind of moral emotions that need to be cultivated not only to help in the implementation of the dictates of reason but to bet- ter ascertain what morality recommends. Even anger may be a component of the moral indignation that should be felt when people are treated unjustly or inhumanely, and it may contribute to (rather than interfere with) an appropriate interpretation of the moral wrong. This is not to say that raw emotion can be a guide to morality; feelings need to be reflected on and educated. But from the care perspective, moral inquiries that rely entirely on reason and rationalistic deductions or calculations are seen as deficient ....

Third, the ethics of care rejects the view of the dominant moral theories that the more abstract the reasoning about a moral problem the better because the more li kely to avoid bias and arbitrariness, the more nearly to achieve impartiality. The ethics of care respects rather than removes itself from the claims of particular others with whom we share actual relationships. It ca ll s in to question the universalistic and abstract rules of the dominant theories. When the latter consider such actual relations as between a parent and child, if they say anything about them at all , they may see them as permit- ted and cultivating them a preference that a person may have. Or they may recognize a universal obligation for all parents to care for their ch ildren. But they do not permit actual relations ever to take priority over the requirements of impartiali ty . . ..

To most advocates of the ethics of care, the compell ing moral claim of the par- ticular other may be valid even when it conflicts with the requirement usually made by

Feminist Ethics and the Ethics of Care 185

moral theories that moral judgments be universalizeable, and this is of fundamental moral importance.

Dominant moral theories tend to interpret moral problems as if they were confl icts between egoistic individual interests on the one hand, and universal moral principles on the other. The extremes of"selfish individual" and "humanity" are recognized, but what lies between these is often overlooked. The ethics of care, in contrast, focuses especially on the area between these extremes. Those who conscientiously care for others are not seeki ng primarily to further their own individual interests; their interests are intertwined with the persons they care for. Neither are they acting for the sake of all others or hu- manity in general; they seek instead to preserve or promote an actual human relation between themselves and particular others. Persons in caring relations are acting for self- and-other together. Their characteristic stance is ne ither egoistic nor altruistic; these are the options in a conflictual situation, but the well-being of a caring relation involves the cooperative well-being of those in the relation and the well-being of the relation itself. . . .

A fourth characteristic of the ethics of care is that like much feminist thought in many areas, it reconceptualizes traditional notions about the public and the private. The traditional view, built into the dominant moral theories, is that the household is a priva te sphere beyond politics into which government, based on consent, should not intrude ....

Dominant moral theories have seen "public" life as relevant to morality whi le miss- ing the moral significance of the "private" domains of fami ly and friendship. Thus the dominant theories have assumed that morality should be sought for unrelated, inde- pendent, and mutuall y indifferent individuals assumed to be equal. They have posited an abstract, fu lly rational "agent as such" from which to construct morali ty, while miss- ing the moral issues that arise between interconnected persons in the contexts of family, friendship, and social groups. In the context of the fami ly, it is typical for relations to be between persons with highly unequal power who did not choose the ties and obligations in which they find themselves enmeshed. For instance, no child can choose her parents yet she may well have obligations to care for them. Relations of this kind are standardly noncontractual, and conceptualizing them as contractual would often undermine or at least obscure the trust on which their worth depends. The ethics of care addresses rather than neglects moral issues aris ing in relations among the unequal and depen- dent, relations that are often laden with emotion and involuntary, and then notices how often these attributes apply not only in the household but in the wider society as well. . . .

A fifth characteristic of the ethics of care is the conception of persons with which it begins . . .. The ethics of care usually works with a conception of persons as rela- tional, rather than as the self-sufficient independent ind ividuals of the dominant moral theories. '6

Many philosophers, including some who favor traditional theories, think the eth- ics of care is surely right about certain aspects of the moral life. Caring, they say, is indeed a vital part of morality. Sometimes the most important factor in moral decision-making is not justice, utility, or righrs, but compassionate consideration. Impartiality is a basic requirement of morality, an ideal that guides us to fairness and justice and away from prejudice and inequality. But it often does not apply in our relationships ,vith friends and loved ones, for to those close to us we may have special obligations that we do not have to,vard others. And, contrary to Kant, feelings do matter. They can alert us to important moral issues and give us a deeper understand- ing of morality's point and purpose. True, reason must hold the reins of our emotions, but there can be no denying that emotions have a legitimate place in the moral life.

I reject the notion of universal caring- that is, caring for everyone-on the grounds that it is impossible to actualize and leads us to substitute

abstract problem solving and mere talk for genuine carmg. - Ne) Noddings

186 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

PH I LOSO PH ERS AT WORK

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759- 1797) ,vas a political radical, a social critic with a strong egalitarian bent, a distin- guished novelist, and one of the great forebears of fem i- nise thought. What she wrote then about WOJnen's rights and ,vomen's situation in so- ciery is still relevant coday- and still considered radical by ,nany. By law and by cusco,n, 1niddle-dass English women in her day ,vere thought co be subordinate to 1nen in count- less ,vays. They lived under the ,veight of a damaging presumption: W0mm exist for the sake of mm. Wo,nen were denied properry o,vnership,

Fig. 3.15 Mary Wollstonecraft (1759- 1797). expected co defer to men in important ,naccers, barred from almost all professions,

excluded from voting and govern,nenc poses, deprived of higher education, and judged by different 1noral standards than those applied to men. Fe,v societies in che rest of che ,vorld created women any beccer.

Wollstonecraft studied the conditions chat women found themselves in, and she read ,vhat prominent 1nen had co say about the character, duties, and education of ,vOJnen. Thus much of her literary output ,vas in response co che views of che famous Edmund Burke, who ,vroce in support of aristocratic rights and privileges, and co Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered ,vo,nen inferior to men.

Her greatest works are A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindica- tion of the Rights of Woman (1792). In che laccer, she envisions a society of e.quals freed from the tyranny of unreason and spurious authority. Such a society requires che full develop1nent of the moral and rational faculties of both 1nen and women. For coo long, she says, ,vomen have had their powers of reason obstructed by men

Feminist Eth ics and the Ethics of Care 187

,vho believe char reason is the do,nain of ,nales and ,vho define women in ,vays that serve men. Men have ensured chat women are uneducated, molded by male expectations, judged by appearances instead of incellecc, and obl iged to submit to the preferences of men instead of the dictates of reason. As Wollsconecrafc puts it:

I have turned over various books written on the subject of educa- t ion, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the man- agement of schools; but what has been the result?- a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in par-

t icu lar, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a hea lthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil , strength and usefu lness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the sta lk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.- One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled [deluded] by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.*

Wollsconecrafc argues that hu,nan icy's true happiness and ultimate perfection lie in the develop,nenc of reason, virtue, and knowledge. Yet in women, these hu- man capacities have been deliberately stunted, and che resu lt is a deform icy of che soul char society muse correct. If women have souls just as men do, they can- and should- aspire co possess these sa,ne qual ities and in the sa,ne measure.

• Mary Wollst onecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of \'(/0111011, ed. Deidre Shauna Lynch (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 8- 9.

' . •: ,,

188 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

To these concessions many moral philosophers would add a cautionary note: The ethics of care is not the whole of morality, and to view it that ,vay is a mistake. To decide on the right action, we often cannot avoid applying the concepts of justice and rights. Sometimes impartiality is the best (or only) policy, ,vithout which our moral decisions would be misguided, even tragic. And abstract principles or rules, though un,vieldy in many cases, may be essential to reconciling confl icting obliga- . .

ttons or 1ntu1t1ons. So should plausible moral theories try to accommodate both an ethic of obliga-

tion and an ethic of care? Many theorists, including several writing from a femin ist perspective, th ink so. Annette Baier, for example, says:

Annette C. Baier, "The Need for More Than Justice"

The best moral theory has to be a cooperative product of women and men, has to ha r- monize justice and care. The morality it theorizes about is after all for all persons, fo r men and for women, and will need their combined insights. As Gill igan said, what we need now is a "marriage" of the old male and the newly articulated female insights.'7

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHI LOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 3.6

1. Is it possible to combine Kant's theory with the ethics of care? If so, how?

2. Do you think there are innate differences benveen men and women in the ways they think about morality or moral issues? Are there cultur- ally ingrained differences in moral thinking?

3. Do you think it possible to arrive at plausible moral judgments based entirely on emotion and personal experience? Explain.

4. What features of the ethics of care do you find plausible? Are there any important elements missing? If so, what elements?

5. What role do you think emotions play in the moral li fe and moral thinking?

3.7 ALBERT CAMUS: AN EXISTENTIALIST VOICE

Long before the ethics of care and feminist ethics began to strongly challenge tradi- tional moral theories, an even more influential and revolutionary moral outlook arose in post-World War II Europe. This vie,v came to be known as existentialism, a per- spective that quickly spread throughout the intellectual world and is still compelling

Albert Camus: An Existentialist Voice 189

to many thoughtful people in the nventy-first century. Several noted thinkers have been ident ified as existentialist, including Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), S0ren Ki- erkegaard (1813-1855), Albert Camus (1913-1960), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844- 1900), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). These and other existentialist writers differ dramatically on some major issues (for example, some are atheists, like Sartre, Camus, and Nietzsche; and some, like Kierkegaard, are Christians). But most of them also address common themes that are characteristic of existentialism, ,vhich itself is difficult to straightforwardly define.

Unlike deontological and consequentialist theories, existentialism does not offer ru les or principles to guide moral action. Instead it provides a broad analysis of the ind ividual's predicament in an uncaring universe and explains ho,v to find meaning in such a forlorn world. Thus, a central existentialist theme is that our existence is absurd: There is an unbearable conflict between our need for meaning and purpose in life and the meaningless, indifferent universe. Our situation is impossible, and there is no higher po,ver or governing principle to help us make sense of it. There is just us and the cold, silent universe, ,vhich cares nothing about our needs and de- sires. Moreover, our condition is terminal; our death is guaranteed. So ,ve must live an absurd existence, and at the last we get no answers, just an ending. What makes this predicament even more intolerable is brought out by another theme-existence precedes essence. The traditional view is that we come into existence with an essence, a human nature, that is in a sense already set before ,ve come into the world. And we

have no say in this; what we are as ind ividuals is predetermined. But existentialists argue that reality is the other ,vay around. We first come into existence, and then ,ve define ourselves (establish our essence) through the choices ,ve make. It is we who are totally responsible for what ,ve become. We are totally responsible because ,ve have absolute freedom to do as we ,viii. We are radically and painfully free to choose what we ,viii be and how ,ve will respond to the absurdity of living. As Sartre says, "We are condemned to be free." The responsibility of self-definition rests heavily upon us. To many, the weight is terrifying. But those who accept their responsibility and free- dom, who recognize that they alone are the ultimate designers of their lives, ,vho are brave enough to make the best of an absurd existence-they are living authentically. Those ,vho allow society, religion, history, mass culture, or their own fear to define them are living inauthentically.

In his famous essay "The Myth of Sisyphus," Camus dramatizes the absurdity of human existence by liken ing it to that of the mythical Sisyphus, ,vho is fo rced by the gods to repeat a pointless task for all eternity: to push a boulder to t he top of a mountain only to have it tumble do,vn again to the bottom. Yet Sisyphus fi nds meaning in th is seemingly meaningless burden by courageously embracing it and refusing to be over,vhelmed by despai r. The implicat ion fo r humans is that we too can live meaningfully and bravely by accepting our freedom and shaping our own lives through free choices. To Camus, Sisyphus is a hero because he accepts his fate and valiantly pushes on anyway. Likewise, humans too can be heroic by carrying on with life even though it has no inherent meaning and will soon be over.

190 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

26 Does Camus's perspective leave open the possibil ity of mora l relativism? If we have absolute freedom of choice, does that mean we can make any moral choice at all? Does Camus set any limits on moral decisions?

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly roll ing a rock to the top of a moun- tain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. Ac- cording to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of high- wayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in re- gard to the gods. He stole their secrets. fEgina, the daughter of )Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that )Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

It is said also that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avai l. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, led him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for th is myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight agains t the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward tha t lower world whence he wi ll have to push it up again towards the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward tha t torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of conscious- ness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

Albert Camus: An Existentialist Voice 191

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cl ing too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, CEdipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobili ty of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' CEdipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

O ne does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of hap- piness. "What! by such narrow ways- ?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mis- take to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says CEdipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is conta ined therein. H is fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his li fe, Sisyphus return ing toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-fi lled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fi ll

a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. '8

192 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 3.7

1. What are some of the main themes of existentialism? Are they an accurate depiction of the human predicament? Why or \vhy not?

2. Can li fe have meaning even if there is no God? Support your anS\ver.

3. Are we absolutely free to live our lives according to our own prefer- ences? Are we "condemned to be free"? Explain.

4. Ho\v does the myth of Sisyphus dramatize the absurdity of the human condition? Do you agree \vith Camus's assessment of human existence?

5. According to Camus, how can life be lived meaningfully in a mean- ingless world? Can your life be lived meaningfully? If so, how?

3.8 CONFUCIANISM

Confucianism is a school of thought that arose out of ancient China and, along \vith Daoism, has been a dominant philosophical system there for hundreds of years. Its effect on Chinese and East Asian life, culture, and government has been enormous- comparable to the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in the West. Until the early nventieth century, C-onfucian virtues and training were requi red of anyone entering Chinese civil service, and even now under Communist rule China holds to ics Confucian roocs in everyday life. Elsewhere in the East (especially in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam), C-onfucian ethics and ideals have remodeled society, provid ing moral underpinning and guidance to social relationships at all levels.

Figure 3.16 Confucius (551~ 79 ea).

Part of the appeal of Confucianism is that in times of ideological con- fusion it has offered plausible answers to essential philosophical questions: What kind of person should I be? What kind of society is best? What are my moral obligations to my family, those who rule, and the rest of hu- manity? In the twenty-first century, mi llions of people are attracted to the answers supplied by this two-thousand-year-old tradition.

Many of the elemencs of Confucianism were part of Chinese culture long before Confucius arrived on the scene. In fact, he claimed merely to transmit the wisdom of the anciencs to new generations, but what he transmitted plus what he added became the distinctive Confucian world- view. From early Chinese civilization came the C-onfucian emphas is on rituals and their correct performance; the veneration of ancestors; social and cosmic harmony; virtuous behavior and ideals; and the \viii of Heaven (or Tian), the ultimate power and organizing principle in the universe.

Into this mix of characteristically Eastern ideas and practices there appeared in 551 BCE the renowned thinker \Ve call C-onfucius (the Western- ized spelling), othenvise known as K'ung Ch 'iu or as K'ung Fu-tzu (Master K'ung). According to legend and very sketchy information about his life,

he \vas born to a poor family in the tiny Chinese state of Lu. He served briefly at age fifty in the Lu government as police commissioner, and during the next thirteen years he visited other Chinese states trying to persuade their rulers to implement his philosophy of \vise government. One leader after another turned him down. He spent the rest of his life teaching his philosophy and contributing to the Confucian \vorks known as the Five Classics. He died in 479 BCE \Vithout his ideas having achieved wide acceptance. Only later did his vie\vS become a major influence.

C-onfucianism, especially later forms of it, has ahvays feature.cl some rel igious or d ivine aspecrs. C-onfucius himself believed in the supreme deity Heaven, assert- ing that we should align ourselves with its \vill. But in general he veered away from the supernatural bel iefs of the past, for his main interest was teaching a humanistic doctrine centered on social relationships. H is aim was the creation of harmony and virtue in the world-specifically in individuals, in the \vay they interacted with one another, and in how they were treated by the state. He sa\v his teachings as a remedy for the social d isorder, corruption, and inhumanity existing all a round him, from the lowest levels of society to the highest.

ln Confucianism, the ideal world is generated through the practice of Ii and ren. Li has several meanings, including ritual, etiquette, principle, and propriety, but its essence is conscientious behavior and right action. To follow Ii is to conduct yourself in your dealings with others according to moral and customary norms, and to act in this \vay is to contribute to social stability and harmony. Ren is about social vi rtues; it encompasses benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, respect for others, and human-heartedness. At its core is the imperative to \vork for the common good and to recognize the essential worth of others regardless of their social Status. The expression of these virtues is governed by the notion of reciprocity (shu), what has been called Confucius's (negative) golden rule: "Never do to others what you \vould not like them to do to you." (The Christian golden rule is stated positively: "Do unto others as you \vould have them do unto you.")

C-onfucius urges people not merely to try to live according to Ii and ren but to excel at such a life, to become a "superior person" (a junzi), a noble. C-ontrary to his- tory and custom, Confucius's idea of nobility has nothing to do with noble blood; true nobility, he says, comes from noble virtues and \visdom, and these anyone can acquire. He refers to a man who embodies th is kind of nobility as a gentleman. We get a glimpse of the gentleman in the Analects, the main Confucian text:

Confucius, Analects

Tzu-kung asked about the true gentleman. The Master [Confucius] said, He does not preach what he practises till he has practised what he preaches . ...

The Master said, A gentleman can see a question from all s ides without bias. The small man is biased and can see a question only from one side.

The Master said, the Ways of the true gentleman are three. I myself have met with success in none of them. For he that is really Good is never unhappy, he that is really wise is never perplexed, he that is really brave is never afraid. Tzu-kung said, That, Master, is your own Way!

Confucianism 193

By three methods we may learn w isdom: First, by rc.Acctio n, w hich is no ..

blcst; second, by imitation, which is eas iest; and third,

by experience, which is the bitterest.

-Confucius

27 Consider the Confucian emphasis on the noble or superior person. Do you think striving to become such a person is a laudable goa l? Would it de- crease or increase the enjoyment of life?

Li In early Confucianism, ritual, etiquette, principle,

and propriety; conscicn ..

tious behavior and right action.

Ren The essential Confu- cian virtues, including benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity,

respect for o the rs, and human .. hcarrcdncss.

To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society L\ a disgrace. -Confucius

194 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

Ar fifteen I scr my heart upon learning.

Ar rhirry, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground.

Ar forry, I no longer suf- fered from perplexities.

Ar fifty, I knew whar were the biddings of Heaven.

Ar sixry, I heard them with docile car.

Ar seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped rhc boundaries of right. -Con(udus

28 Is the Confucian prescription for har- mony li kely to be fully implemented in West- ern countries? That is, could there ever be a democratic, capitalist, consumer society that was also strictly Confucian?

The noble-minded arc calm and steady. Lirtlc people arc forever fussing and frcrting. -Confucius

Confucius, Analects

Tzu-kung asked about the qualities of a true gentleman. The Master said, He cultivates in himself the capacity to be di ligent in his tasks .... The Master said, He cultivates in himself the capacity to ease the lot of other people .... The Master said, He cultivates in himself the capacity to ease the lot of the whole populace.•9

So living by Ii and ren requires self-cultivation and action-learning the moral norms, understanding the vi rtues, and acting to apply these to the real world. Being a superior person, then, demands kno\vledge and judgment as well as devotion to the noblest values and virtues.

In Confucianism, individuals are not like atoms: They are not discrete, iso- lated units of stuff defined only by \vhat they're made of. Individuals are part of a complex lattice of social relationships that must be taken into account. So in Confucian ethics, ren tells us what virtues apply to social relationships generally, and the text called the "Five Relat ionships" details the most important connec- tions and the specific duties and virtues associated with particular relationships. These relationships are bet\veen parent and child, elder brother and younger brother, husband and wife, elder and junior, and ruler and subject. Harmony \viii pervade society, says Confucius, \vhen (1) parents provide fo r their children, and children respect and obey their parents and care for them in their old age; (2) elder brothers look after younger brothers, and the younger show deference to the elder; (3) husbands support and protect wives, and wives obey husbands and tend to children and the household; (4) elders sho\v consideration for the younger, and the younger respect and heed elders; and (5) ru lers care for and protect subjects, and subjects are loyal to rulers.

The relationship on \vhich all others are based is that of parent and child, or, as Confucius would have it, father and son. The son O\ves the father respect, obedi- ence, and support-an obligation that Confucianism calls "filial piety." The central feature of this relationship is that it is hierarchical. Father and son are not equal part- ners; the son is subordinate. The other four relationships are also hierarchical, with the wife subordinate to the husband, the younger brother to the older, the junior to the elder, and the subject to the ruler. And as in fi lial piety, the subordinates have a duty of obedience and respect, and the superiors are obligated to treat the subor- dinates with kindness and authority, as a father would. C-onfucius believes that if everyone conscientiously assumes his or her proper role, harmony, happiness, and goodness wi ll reign in the land.

Confucius, Analects

On fi lial piety, Confucius had this to say: Meng I Tzu asked about the treatment of parents. The Master said, Never dis-

obey! When Ch' ih was driving his carriage for him, the Master said, Meng asked me about the treatment of parents and I said, Never disobey! Fan Ch' ih said, In what sense did you mean it? The Master said, While they are alive, serve them according to ritual. When they die, bury them according to ritual and sacrifice to them according to ritual. ...

Tzu-yu asked about the trea tment of parents. The Master said, "Filial sons" nowa- days are people who see to it that their parents get enough to eat. But even dogs and ho rses are cared for to that extent. If there is no feeling of respect, wherein lies the difference?•0

The virtue of filial p iety is sti ll a strong force in China today, as this schola r explains:

John B. Noss, A History of the World's Religions

In China, loyalty to the fam ily has been one's first loyalty. No lad in China ever comes of age, in the Western sense. It is still true that his whole service is expected to be devoted to the family unti l death, and he is expected to obey his fathe r and, when his father d ies, his e ldest brother, wi th a perfect compliance. This has meant in the past that ev- ery father has a great and grave responsibili ty to fulfill toward his fam ily. He must seek to produce virtue in his sons by being himself the best example of it. The fact that the present communist government speaks of making itself "father and elde r brother" and claims for itself the first loyalty of every citizen has not totally inva lidated the personal virtue of fi lial piety in the context of fam il y life."

Today the influence of the Confucian virtue of filial p iety helps co explain \vhy there is in much of Asia a g reater emphasis on meeting obligatio ns co family, com- munity, and state than on ensuring individual r ights and personal freedom.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 3.8

1. What a re Ii and ren? How would society change if everyone acted according co these two virtues?

2. If you ahvays strived co become a superior person, would your life be better than it is now or worse?

3. Confucianism downplays ind ividual liberty and emphasizes the im- portance of yielding co the group in many matters. Is chis an attractive aspect of Confucianism? W hy or why not?

4. Does Confucianism fit easily \vich a Western society chat has a strong respect for individual righrs? Expla in.

5. Would you prefer to live in a strict Confucian culture rather than the culcure you live in now? Why or why not?

Confucianism 195

196 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

Review Notes

3.1 OVERVIEW: ETHICS AND THE MORAL DOMAIN

• Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the study of morality using the methods of philoso- phy, and morality consists of our beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character. Morality has to do with our moral judgments, prin- ciples, values, and theories; ethics is the careful, philosophical examination of these.

• Morality is a normative enterprise \vith a distinctive set of properties: overriding- ness, impartiality, universal ity, and reasonableness.

• A moral theory explains not \vhy one event causes another, but why an action is right or \vrong or why a person or a person's character is good or bad. Some theories are consequentialist (like utilitarianism and ethical egoism), and some theories are deontological (like Kant's theory) .

• We can evaluate the worth of moral theories by applying the moral criteria of adequacy-<:onsistency \vith our considered moral judgments, consis tency \Vith the faces of the moral li fe, and resourcefulness in moral problem-solving.

• The doctrine that right and wrong are constituted by God's will is known as the divine command theory. It raises the specter of the Euthyphro dilemma and implies that the doctrine is guilty of arbitrariness.

3.2 MORAL RELATIVISM

• Moral objectivism is the view that at least some moral norms or principles are objectively valid or true fo r everyone. Moral relativism says that moral standards are not objective but are relative to \vhat individuals or cultures believe. Moral rela- tivism pertaining to individuals is known as subjective relativism, more precisely stated as the view that right actions are those sanctioned by a person. Moral relativ- ism regarding cultures is called cultu ral relativism, the view that right actions are those sanctioned by one's culture. Both forms of relativism face serious difficulties.

3.3 MORALITY BASED ON CONSEQUENCES

• Utilitarianism judges the morality of conduct by a single standard, the principle of utility-right actions are those that result in greater overall \veil-being (or util- ity) fo r the people involved than any other possible actions. The theory has many attractive features but also some problems, the most serious being that it seems to conflict with our considered moral judgments.

• Ethical egoism says that right actions are those that maximize one's own well-being. It is thought to be supported by the empirical theory cal led psychological egoism. Both theories have been subjected to intense criticism.

3.4 MORALITY BASED ON DUTY AND RIGHTS

• Kant's theory says that right actions are those that are right in themselves because they are consistent with universal moral rules derived from reason, and the actions have moral \vorth only if we do them out of a sense of duty. Kant's central moral tenet is the categorical imperative. Like utilitarianism, the theory has been accused of flying in the face of our considered moral judgmenrs.

3.5 MORALITY BASED ON CHARACTER

• Virtue ethics focuses not on duty but on the development of virtuous character-not on \vhat to do but on \vhat to be. According to virtue ethics, character is the key to the moral life, for it is from a virtuous character that moral conduct and values naturally arise.

3.6 FEM INIST ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF CARE

• The ethics of care is a moral perspective that arose out of femin ist concerns and grew to challenge core elements of most other moral theories. This approach shifts the focus from abstract principles and rules to the unique demands of specific situ- ations and to the virtues and feeli ngs that are central to close personal relationships. The heart of the moral life is feeli ng fo r and caring for those with whom you have a special, intimate connection.

3.7 ALBERT CAMUS: AN EXISTENTIALIST VOICE

• Several themes are prominent in existential ism, including the absurdity of human existence, the idea that existence precedes essence, and the beliefs that we are to- tal ly responsible for how we live our lives and we are radically and painfully free to choose what we will be and how we will respond to the absurdity of living.

3.8 CONFUCIANISM

• Confucianism is a school of thought that arose out of ancient China and, along \vith Daoism, has been a dominant philosophical system there for hundreds of years. !rs effect on Chinese and East Asian li fe, culture, and government has been enormous- comparable to the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in the West.

• Confucius veered away from the supernatural beliefs of the past, for his main inter- est \vas teaching a humanistic doctrine centered on social relationships. His aim \vas the creation of harmony and vi rtue in the world-speci fically in individuals, in the way they interact with one another, and in how they are treated by the state.

Review Notes 197

198 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

Key Terms

• Li has several meanings, including ritual, etiquette, principle, and propriety, but its essence is conscientious behavior and right action. To follow li is co conduce yourself in your dealings \vich ochers according co moral and customary norms. Ren is about social virtues; it encompasses benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, respect for ochers, and human-heartedness. Ac its core is che imperative co work for the common good and co recognize che essential worth of ochers regardless of their social status.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 3

1. According co Kane, right actions do not depend on consequences. He says, for example, chat celling a lie is \vrong even if it will save some- one's life. Bue many people think that in this case not lying is wrong, because it's more important co preserve life than co blindly follo\v a moral rule. Do you agree with this assessment or \vich Kane? Give reasons for your answer.

2. Does it make sense co use utilitarian reasoning in decid ing how co fight a war? Ho\v might a deoncologisc and a utilitarian differ in decid- ing on che morality of dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima during World War II? Which approach seems more plausible? Why?

3. Is Aristotle's ethics sufficiently action guiding? Does it help us make decisions? If \Ve ask \vhac we should do in situation X, Aristotle would seem co say, "Do what che virtuous person would do." Bue if I ask how I am co recognize the virtuous person, he would seem co say, "He is one who acts justly." Is there something circular about chis reasoning? Does virtue ethics need supplementation from other ethical sys tems, or can it solve chis problem?

4. Is it plausible chat we have duties only co chose we care about? Don't \Ve have duties co some people we don't care about? Don't we have obliga- tions co deal justly with others and respect thei r rights, even if they are not pare of our family or community? Give reasons for your answers.

5. What is your O\vn vie\v of what makes actions right or wrong? What reasons support chis position?

act-utilitarianism The idea chat the rightness of ac- tions depends solely on che overall well-being pro- duced by individual actions. (156)

categorical imperative Kant's fundamental moral principle, which he formulates as (1) "I am never to ace ochenvise than so that I could also ivill that my maxim should become a universal law"; and (2) "So ace as co treat humanity, \vhether in thine O\vn person or

Analects Confucian text contain ing the conversations of Confuci us and his follo\vers. (193)

in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only." (17 1)

consequentialist theory A moral theory in \vhich the rightness of actions depends solely on their conse- quences or results. (140)

cultural relativism The view that right actions are those endorsed by one's culture. (149)

deontological (nonconsequentialist) theory A moral theory in which the rightness of actions is determined not solely by their consequences, but partly or enti rely by their intrinsic nature. (140)

divine command theory The doctrine chat God is che creator of morality. ( 146)

ethical egoism The vie\v chat right actions are chose that further one's O\vn best interests. (140)

ethics (moral philosophy) The study of morality us- ing the methods of philosophy. (136)

ethics of care A moral perspective that emphasizes che unique demands of specific situations and the virtues and feelings that are central co dose personal relation- ships. (142, 182)

feminist ethics An approach co morality aimed at ad- vancing women's interests, underscoring thei r distinc- tive experiences and characteristics, and advancing che obvious truth that women and men are morally equal. (181)

Kant's theory The theory that right actions are chose that accord with the categorical imperative. (14 1)

Ii In early Confucianism, ritual, etiquette, princi- ple, and propriety; conscientious behavior and right action. ( 193)

Key Terms 199

moral absolutism The belief that objective moral principles al low no exceptions or must be applied the same way in al l cases and cultures. ( 148)

moral objectivism The view that there are moral standards that are true or correct for everyone. (148)

moral relativism The view that moral standards do not have independent status but are relative to \vhat individuals or cultures believe. (149)

moral theory A theory chat explains why an action is right or wrong or why a person or a person's character is good or bad. (139)

morality Beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character. ( 136)

psychological egoism The theory that people always act out of self-interest. ( 166)

ren The essential Confucian virtues, including be- nevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, respect for others, and human-heartedness. (193)

rule-utilitarianism The doctrine that a right action is one that conforms to a rule that, if follo\ve.d con- siscencly, \vould create for everyone involved che most beneficial balance of well-being over suffering. (156)

subjective relativism The view that right actions are those endorsed by an individual. (149)

utilitarianism The view that right actions are those that result in che most beneficial balance of good over bad consequences for everyone involved. (140)

virtue ethics A moral theory chat focuses on the de- velopment of virtuous character. (142, 175)

200 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

FICTIO N

The Ones Who Walk Away from Ornelas

Ursula K. Le Guin

Born in 1929, Ursula K. Le Guin is an award-winning author of several genres, most notably realistic fiction, science fiction, and fantasy. Her best-known works include the six Books of Earthsea, the science fiction masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness, and the novels The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home.

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Ornelas, bright- towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with Aags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master work-men, quiet, merry women car- rying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the pro- cession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows' crossing Aights over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and an- kles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a hal- ter without bit. Their manes were braided with stream- ers of silver, gold, and green. They Aared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircl ing Ornelas on her bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and Autter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever

Copyright© 1973 by Ursula K. le Guin Fi rst appeared in "New Dimension 3'' in 1973, and then in THE WIND'S TWELVE QUARTERS, published by HarperCollins in 1975. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.

Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Ornelas?

They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smi les have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to make certa in as- sumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stal- lion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singu- larly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the adver- tisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They were not less com- plex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of consider- ing happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evi l and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. lfit hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to con- demn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Ornelas? They were not naive and happy children- though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intell i- gent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Ornelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy ta le, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your

own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or he- licopters in and above the streets; th is follows from the fact that the people of O rnelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destruc- t ive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however- that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc.- they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, fl oating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn't matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming in to Ornelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double- decked trams, and that the train station of Ornelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers' Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Ornelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, blah. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautifu l nude priests and priestesses al- ready half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger, who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Ornelas- at least, not manned temples. Rel igion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautifu l nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine scuf- fl es to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the fl esh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimport- ant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One th ing I know there is none ofin Ornelas is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is pu- ritanical. For those who like it, the fa int insistent sweet- ness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and bril liance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not habit- forming. For more modest tastes I th ink there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in the joyous city?

The Ones Who Walk Away from Ornelas 201

The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnani- mous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world's summer: this is what swells the hearts of the people of Ornelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I really don't think many of them need to take drooz.

Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laugh- ing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men wear her flowers in their sh ining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, play- ing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.

He fin ishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.

As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the start- ing line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders stroke the horses' necks and soothe them, whispering, "Quiet, quiet, there my beauty, my hope .. . . " They begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more th ing.

In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Ornelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A li ttle light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the li ttle room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smell ing heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a li ttle damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long

202 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or per- haps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes- the child has no understanding of time or interval- sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the wa- ter jug are hastily filled, the door is locked, the eyes dis- appear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh- haa," and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a ha lf-bowl of cornmeal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.

They all know it is there, all the people of Ornelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know tha t it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friend- ships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skil l of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.

This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capa- ble of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger,

outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of tha t vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the pros- perity and beauty and delight of Ornelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Ornelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happi- ness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.

Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on they begin to rea lize that even if the chi ld could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the accep- tance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, li ke the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the exis- tence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobi lity of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their sci- ence. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there snivell ing in the dark, the other one, the Aute- player, could make no joyful music as the young riders li ne up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.

Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell , and this is quite incredible.

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older fall s silent for a day or

For Further Reading 203

two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk s traight out of the city of O rnelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Ornelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man o r woman. Night fall s; the traveler mus t pass down vill age streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out in to the darkness of the

fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave O rnelas , they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imagin- ab le to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from O rnelas.

Probing Questions

I. Ho,v does chis story apply ro utilitarian ,noral theories? Does it put these theories in a good light or bad-or son1ething in benveen?

2. Does our happiness in a relatively prosperous nation depend on the suffering of the poorer people of the ,vorld who work for low wages co support our consu,ner society?

3. If you were a citizen of Ornelas, ,vould you walk away from ic as a few have done? Would you chink char che suffering of one child, though regreccable, was justified ro create a utopia for so many ro enjoy? Explain.

For Further Reading

Robert Audi, Moral Knoiuledge and Ethical Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) . A carefully argued defense of a moral theory that integrates natural ist and rationalistic elemencs.

Steven M . Cilin and Joram G . Haber, 1iuentieth Century Ethical Theory (Upper Sad- dle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995). A comprehensive an thology of some of the most influential moral theorizing of the twentieth century.

William K. Frankena, Ethics, 2nd e.dition (Englewood Cliffi, NJ: Pren tice-H all, 1973). A h ighly regarded concise introduction to eth ics.

C. E. H arris, Applying Moral Theories (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1997). An intro- duction to ethics that covers moral theories and how they can be applied to real issues.

Kai Nielsen, Ethics Without God (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1973). A concise, read- able defense of the proposition that ethics does not require theism.

Jennifer O ldstone-Moore, Confucianism: Origins, Beliefi, Practices, Holy Texts, and Sacred Places (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Onora O'Neill, "Kantian Ethics," in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer (Cambridge: Black,vell , 1993), 175-185. An informative perspective o n Kants ethical theory.

Louis P. Pojman, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 4th edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002). An introduction to ethics that lays out a case for objective morality.

204 Chapter 3 Morality and the Moral life

James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th edition (Ne\v York: McGra\v- H ill , 2003). A concise guide co ethics and eth ical theories.

Russ Shafer-Landau, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2004). A readable, carefully crafted defense of objective ethics.

Peter Singer, ed., A Companion to Ethics (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993). A topical anthology covering many issues, including moral theory, theory applications, and challenges co commonsense ethics.

Lewis Vaughn, Contemporary Moral Arguments: Readings in Ethical Issues (New York: Oxford University Press, 20 10). A moral- issues anthology organized by topic and by influential, classic arguments.

Lewis Vaughn, Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues, 4th edition (Ne\v York: W. W Norton, 20 10). An introduction co ethical issues featuring a wide range of readings and thorough coverage of moral reasoning and ethical theory.

MIND AND BODY

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

4.1 OVERVIEW: THE MIND- BODY PROBLEM

• Understand the nature and importance of the mind-body problem.

• Deline substance dualism, Cartesian dualism, materialism, logical behaviorism, identity theory, multiple realizability, functionalism, epiphenomena/ism, and property dualism.

4.2 SUBSTANCE DUALISM

• Articu late Descartes' conceivability and divisibility arguments and the main objections to them.

• Explain why the issue of mind- body interaction is a problem for Cartesian dualism.

• Understand why Descartes' theory seems to violate the principle of the causal closure of

the physical and the law of the conservation of mass-energy and be ab le to explain why such violations would render the theory implausible.

4.3 M IND-BODY IDENTITY

• Articulate the advantages of the identity theory over Cartesian dua lism.

• Understand Chalmers's zombie argument and why it seems to pose a threat to the identity theory.

• Understand Nagel's bat argument and how it seems to undermine materialist theories.

4.4 THE MIND AS SOFTWARE

• Explain functionalism and how the theory differs from substance dualism and the identity theory.

• Describe Ned Block's absent qualia argument, explain how it is

supposed to show functionalism to be false, and articulate possible responses to the argument from functionalists.

• Deline strong Al and explain how functiona lism is supposed to make it possible.

• Understand Searle's Chi nese room thought experiment, his distinction between syntax and semantics, and how his argument is supposed to show that strong Al is not possib le.

4.5 THE MIND AS PROPERTIES

• Understand how philosophers have reasoned from the failure of prominent mind-body theories to the plausibility of property dualism.

• Explain the main philosophica l chall enge to property dualism.

206 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

T is true, tis certain; man though dead retains, Part of himself: the immortal mind remains. -Alexander rope

The mind- body problem is the issue of what mental phenomena arc and how they rdarc m the physical world .

Substance dualism is the norion that mind and body consist of rwo funda- mentally diffcrcnr kinds of stuff, or substances.

Cartesian d ualism is the view thar mind (or soul) and body arc completely independent of one an~ o ther and interact causally.

Materialism (or physical- ism) is the doctrine that

every object and event in the world is physical.

4.1 OVERVIEW: THE MIND- BODY PROBLEM

Philosophy is notorious for intruding into facets of life that seem at fi rst glance to get along just fine without philosophical inquiry. People may very well ,vonder, Why do we need philosophy to help us understand what already seems obvious? Why does philosophy see problems where nothing seems problematic? A prime example of a subject matter that may appear to many not to need any philosophical help (but gets it anyway) is mind and body. After all, if there is anything that ,ve seem directly and intimately acquainted with, it's our own minds and our own bodies. And our commonplace theory about these things (usually derived from our culture or religion) seems to be perfectly consistent with our personal experience. So what's the problem?

Well, several hundred years of philosophical work have shown that many of our commonplace notions about mind and body are suspect or wrong, and that, for many reasons, we very much need to get them right. The commonplace view goes like this: You have a physical body, a thing that has shape, size, and ,veight, an entity ,vith a physical structure running physical processes subject to physical laws like any rock, tree, or star. You also have a nonphysical mind (or soul), a mental thing that cannot be ,veighed, measured, or dissected, an entity that thinks, feels, and senses. Your body (brain) is nothing like your mind; your mind is nothing like your body. Yet somehow your physical body affects your nonphysical mind, as when your drop- ping a brick on your foot causes you to feel a sharp pain and to ask yourself how you could be so clumsy. And your mind affects your body, as when you experience th irst and then decide to ,valk to the kitchen for a drink of water. Moreover, according to this view, your mind and body are independent of one another, so it's possible for your mind or soul to continue existing after your body dies.

But how are interactions between body and mind (or soul) possible? Ho,v can our physical brains cause something to happen in our seemingly nonphysical minds and vice versa? Ho,v can something enti rely physical have anything to do with an entity without any physical characteristics? This is like asking how smoke could interact ,vith a rock-except that the problem is ,vorse than that, because, unlike smoke, the mind is supposed to have no physical properties at all. Has the nature of mind been entirely misconceived? Are the ,videly accepted ideas about the relation- ship benveen mind and body d rastically mistaken?

These are the central concerns in what is called the m ind- body problem- the issue of what mental phenomena really are and how they relate to the physical ,vorld. The most important responses to it constitute the foremost theories of mind in West- ern thought.

The commonplace theory-the one that you likely hold and may never have doubted-is known as substance dualism. It says that mind and body consist of two fundamentally different kinds of stuff, or substances-the mind being of non- physical stuff, and the body of physical stuff. The mind's mental states-desires, sensations, emotions, and thoughts-are states of nonphysical (or immaterial) stuff. The body's physical states-electrochemical and biomechanical-are states of physi- cal (material) stuff. Together these two substances-this dualism of stuff-make

Overview: The Mind- Body Problem 207

up a person. In fact, for substance dualiscs, the enti re universe is constituted by just these nvo substances.

Beginning ,vich Plato, many great thinkers have been substance dualiscs, but the most influential proponent of the theory in the modern period (beginning in the seventeenth century) is Rene Descartes (1596-1650). He argues not only chat the body and soul are composed of nvo distinct and independent substances (mental and physical), but chat these two pares of a person interact causally. (Like many ocher substance dualisrs, Descartes uses the ,vord soul instead of mind, but both terms refer roughly co the nonphysical, mental aspect of a person.) The mind, though immaterial, can in- fluence the material body, and the body can affect the mind. This doctrine of distinct but interact ing substances is known, for obvi- ous reasons, as Cartesian dualism or inceractionism. It underpins belief in an immortal soul chat lives on after death.

Among contemporary philosophers, however, Descartes' dual- ism has very little credibility (for reasons discussed in the next sec- tion). Mose of chem hold instead co various forms of materialism (or physicalism), the doctrine chat every object and event in the world is physical. So mental states must be physical states or some- how reducible co physical states.

Figure 4.1 Is the mind identical to the brain? Or are they two entirely different things, as Descartes thought? If so, how do they interact?

One materialise theory is logical b ehaviorism, the idea chat mental states are dispositions co behave in particular ways in certain circumstances. To be in a mental state is just co be disposed co certain kinds of behavior. So co have a headache is co be disposed co wincing and caking an aspirin. To be afraid of thun- der is to be disposed co crying out and covering your head with a blanket when the sky rumbles. The central claim is not that we come co know about a person's mental states by caking note of her behavior, but chat her mental states are d ispositions co behavior.

To its credit, logical behaviorism avoids Cartesian dualism's problem of explain- ing mind-body interaction. But co critics, the theory seems co be in denial about the nature of our mental states, for many of our mental states have a particular subjective feel or quality to chem (what philosophers call qualitative content or qualia). It feels a certain way co us co be in pain, to be thi rsty, co want a chocolate sundae, co see and smell a rose, or co experience happiness. Logical behaviorism, however, says chat mental states have nothing co do ,vich our interior feelings; dispositions co behave are all that matter. But chis seems co many people co deny the obvious.

Similarly, logical behaviorism is at odds with our commonsense intuition chat mental states often cause behavior. We feel hungry, so we eat lunch. We fantasize about a d ream vacation in Aruba, so ,ve look up Aruba on a map. But because the logical behaviorist recognizes only behavior and essentially discounts the existence of subjective mental states, he cannot countenance any cause-and-effect relationship between our inner life and our outer behavior.

A more widely accepted materialist approach co the mind-body problem is the identity theory, the view that mental states are identical co physical brain states. The

Consciousness L\ the g lo ry

of creation.

- James Broughton

Logical behaviorism is the idea that mental states

arc d L\posicions m behave

in particular ways in ccr ..

rain circumstances.

Identity theory is , he view that mental states arc

identical to physical brain

stares.

1 At this point in your read ing, does Carte- sian dualism strike you as a plausible theory of mind? Is it obvious to you that people have both a physical body and a nonphysical mind? What reasons do you have for your views?

208 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

Consciousness is what makes the mind- body problem really intractable. -11,omas Nagel

2 Do you think it is possible to know everything about a person's mental states just by knowing all the facts regarding his physical states? Do physical states and mental states amount to the same thing?

Brain: an apparatus w ith

which we think we think. -Ambrose Bierce

central claim is not that the meaning of mental terms can be expressed or defined in physical (brain) terms, but rather that it is an empirical fact that mental states are nothing but brain states. The mind and body (brain) are not distinct substances as substance dualism holds; the mind is the brain.

Thus the identity theory offers a better explanation of mind-body interaction than Cartesian dualism does because the mind is the body. It provides a better ac- count of mental causation than logical behaviorism does, because mental states are brain states and brain states cause behavior. It also fits well with a massive amount of scientific evidence showing correlations benveen brain states and mental func- tion. Brain research has sho,vn in countless ways that if a person's brain is damaged or physically stimulated, there are corresponding changes in psychological activity. And ,vhen a person engages in some psychological activity (remembering or imagin- ing, for example), there are predictable alterations in brain activity.

But several arguments have been lodged against the identity theory, most of them being attempts to show that mental states cannot possibly be brain states. The common argument pattern is this: If the identity theory is true, then we can know or explain everything about a person's mental states by kno,ving or explaining everything about the person's brain states. But it is not poss ible to know or explain mental states by knowing or explaining brain states. Therefore, the identity theory is false.

Another kind of argument appeals to our intuitions about the possibility of non- humans having minds. The identity theory claims that since the mind is identical to

Figure 4.2 Could a space alien have a mind without having a brain like ours?

Overview: The Mind- Body Problem 209

the brain, no being can have a mind unless it has a brain. Bue co some critics, chis conclusion is implausible. Jc seems possible, they argue, chat a being (an alien life- form, for example) could possess a mind (have desires, ideas, emotions, sensations, etc.) without having a brain (the human organ). Consider che fictional alien E.T. or Star Treks android Mr. Data. Jc is conceivable chat such creatures could have minds but be made of an entirely different kind of scuff than \Ve are. If so, there muse be something wrong \vich che identity theory.

The assumption behind chis argument is chat mental scares have what philoso- phers call multiple realizability, the capacity co be realized or instantiated in a variety of fo rms and materials. In che theory of mind kno\vn as functionalism, mulciple realizability is a core doctrine. Logical behaviorism claims that che mind is behavioral dispositions, che identity theory holds chat the mind is che brain, but functionalism asserts chat che mind is che functions that the brain performs. The theory maintains chat a mental state is defined by its causal role-by che stimuli that initiate it, che resulting interactions \vich ocher mental states, and che behav- ior chat is subsequently produced. A mental state, then, is just a d istinctive sec of inputs and outputs. Thus functionalism says chat che material or substance chat gives rise co a mind is unimportant; che scuff chat produces a mind can be almost anything. What matters are the functional relations embodied in che scuff. So func- t ionalism can be case as a materialise view (and usually is) or given a nonmacerialisc . . 1ncerprecat1on.

Inspire.cl by the insight behind functionalism, some theorists have come co chink of che mind as a sophisticated computer chat's running some sore of soft- ware. Functionalism holds chat che mind is the performance of functions, the processing of in- puts and oucpucs-\vhich is what any computer does. A computer runs software chat determines what and how che inputs and outputs are pro- cessed. So some functionalists claim that co have a mind is just co run che appropriate type of soft- ware. The brain is hardware; the mind software. If so, it is possible for computers co have minds as long as they process inputs and outputs in che right way.

Multiple realizabili ty is the capacity to be realized or instantiated in a variety

of forms and materials.

Functionalism is the view that the mi nd is the functions that the brain

performs.

3 Is it conceivable that a space a lien could have a mind (feel pa in, perceive colors, etc.) despite h is being made out o f stuff t hat is nothing like our brain stuff? Suppose, for example, he is not a ca rbon-based life-form like us, but a silicon- based creature.

This vie\v has come co be known as strong ar- tificial intelligence, or strong AI. (Weak artificial intelligence refers not co che making of a mind but co che use of computer simulations co study the mind.) Many assume that it is only a mat- ter of time before scientists develop a computer so sophisticated chat it will be able co think on its O\vn, co have \vhac \Ve would describe as a mind. After all, don't we already have computers that can do astounding calculations, simulations, and problem solving? Hasn't an IBM computer called

Figure 4.3 World chess champion Garry Kasparov playing Deep Blue. The computer beat him. Does this show that Deep Blue has a mind or that it could eventually become conscious?

210 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

C uriously enough man's body and his mind appear to differ in the ir climatic

adaprations. -Ellsworth Humington

Property dualism is the view that mental pro per .. tics arc nonphysical propcrrics arising from,

bur not reducible to , physical properties.

Minds arc simply what brains do. -Marvin Minsky

Epiphenomenalism is the no rio n that mental proper- ties do not cause anything,

but merely accompany physical processes.

Deep Blue already defeated the ,vorld 's best chess player, Garry Kasparov? And hasn't a computer calle.d Watson beaten nvo human opponents in a game of Jeopardy? But although such fears are indeed impressive, many philosophers remain unconvinced that a computer mind is possible.

These theorists take issue with functionalism on the grounds that it does not do justice to the subjective, qualitative nature of our experience-to what is called phenomenal consciousness. They argue that it is possible to be in a mental state that does not correspond at all with a specific functional state. For example, consider the mental state of being in pain. It has a certain qualitative feel to be sure, but it does not seem to be equivalent to any part icular functional situation. Many times pain doesn't seem to have a causal role at all; it just hurrs.

Some critics put forth what are called absent qualia objections to functionalism. These arguments try to demonstrate that it is possible for a system to be in a par- ticular functional state and yet be in no mental, qualitative state at all. The system has the right inpurs and outpurs, but no mental state seems to be present. If such arguments are correct, then the notion that an appropriately programmed computer is a mind (the central claim of strong AI) is mistaken.

Many philosophers dra,v a similar conclusion about all materialist theo- ries: Materialism is fa lse. If that is the case, they contend, the ,vorld must have both physical and nonphysical featu res, and the latter cannot be reduced to the former.

But if the world contains both physical and nonphysical things, aren't we led back to Cartesian dualism, a reality consisting of two substances that may or may not interact? Not necessarily. Some theorisrs defend a different kind of dualism- not Descartes' dualism but property dualism, the view that mental properties, or features, are nonphysical properties arising from, but not reducible to, physical properties. The idea is that there are properties of individuals-mental, experiential properties-that do not constitute an independent substance and that cannot be reduced to physical properties, even though they may somehow depend on physical properties. We may see the color red, feel a pain, or remember our first kiss, and none of these is the same thing as a physical process, although the latter may give rise to the former.

Property dualism, ho,vever, has been accused of having some of the same weak- nesses as substance dualism and raising some of the same questions. How can a physical property give rise to a mental property? How can mental events interact ,vith physical events? If mental events produce physical evenrs, doesn't this fly in the face of the laws of physics? Modern physics says that physical matter/energy in the universe cannot be added to or subtracted from. But this seems to rule out any addi- tion of nonphysical energy. If mental evenrs do not cause physical events, we are left ,vith epiphenomenalism, the notion that mental properties do not cause anything, but merely accompany physical processes. This theory suggesrs, for instance, that thinking about being late for an appointment is not what causes you to run. But epiphenomenalism seems to conflict with our commonsense intuitions about ho,v our minds and bodies are related.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 4.1

I. Is Cartesian dualism plausible? Can you chink of a \vay chat a non- physical mind and physical body could influence each ocher-chat is, interact causally?

2. How do you chink scientists view che notion of mind-body interac- tion? Are they likely co be skeptical of physical things causally interact- ing with nonphysical entities? If so, \vhy?

3. Is multiple realizability a genuine proper ty of minds? That is, do you chink it plausible chat a mind can be realized in a variety of physical systems?

4. Do you chink che mind is essen tially sofnvare running on a physical system like che human brain? Why or why not?

5. Is epiphenomenalism a credible theory of mind? Does it make sense, for example, chat every time you decide co cross che screec, your body \valks across che street-and yet your deciding co walk has nothing co do with your act ually walking?

4.2 SUBSTANCE DUALISM

For Descartes, che universe consists not merely of che kind of scuff chat science studies, che physical, but also of che nonphysical. The chief characteristic of physical things, he says, is chat they have extemion-chey have length, width, and height and are located in physical space. They are things like pebbles, molecules, water, desks, and scars. Bue nonphysical entities have no molecules, no physical dimensions, and no lo- cation in space. Our bodies are physical chin gs, matter extended in space. O ur minds are nonphysical, mental things-consciousness. O ur true selves consist enti rely of chis mental scuff; our bodies are adjuncts. Despite che profound difference between che mental and physical, they interact causally. The body collects sensory data, which cause che mind co experience sighcs, sounds, textures, and odors; and che choices, be- liefs, and desires of che mind cause che body co respond co che world. A human being, then, is a fusion of body and mind, but che essential person, che self, is pure mind, an immortal soul. You are, in che famous phrase, a "ghost in che machine."

Descartes formulated his type of dualism in che seventeenth century \vhen che find ings of science and che doctrines of traditional religion seeme.d co be in conflict. H is dualism helped co ease che tens ion benveen chem by placing science and rel igion in different, noncompeting realms. Science could concern itself with che physical- wich biology, physics, astronomy, and che like. Religion could focus on che mental, on che domain of immor tal souls and religious morality.

Substance Dualism 211

You don't have a soul.

You arc a Soul. You have a body. - C. S. Lewis

212 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

4 Is your existing with· out a body really con· ceivable? That is, can you conceive of your mind existing without any physical properties at al I, without even a ghostlike quasi· physical presence?

D escartes offers several a rg umenrs to support his theory of m ind, including \vhat philosophers call his conceivability argument. In it Descartes contends that \Ve cannot be just physical bodies, as the materialists believe. We must be distinct from our bodies-we must be nonphysical m inds. This is ho\v D escartes lays out the argument:

Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason

And then, examining attentively that which I was, I saw that I could conceive that I had no body, and that there was no world nor place where I might be; but yet that I could not for all that conceive that I was not. On the contrary, I saw from the very fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other th ings, it very evidently and certain ly followed that I was; on the other hand if I had only ceased from th inking, even if all the rest of wha t I had ever imagined had really existed, I should have no reason for th inking that I had existed. From that I knew that I was a substance the whole essence or nature of which is to th ink, and that for its existence there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material th ing; so that this 'me,' that is to say, the soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from body, and is even more easy to know than is the latter; and even if body were not, the soul would not cease to be what it is.'

Descartes reasons that it is conceivable that he could exist without his body, and that whatever is conceivable is logically possible. (For example, s ilver unicorns are conceivable and thus logically possible; square circles are inconceivable and therefore logically impossible.) So it is logically possible that he cou ld exist without h is body. If it is logically possible that he could exist \Vithout his body, then he is not identical to his body. His nonphysical mind and his physical body are distinct; he is therefore an immaterial, th inking thing. Dualism is true.

Philosophers have taken issue w ith th is argument. Their main criticism is that Descartes' first premise (that it is conceivable that he could exist without h is body) is dubious. Theodore Schick, Jr., states the complaint like this:

Theodore Schick, Jr., Doing Philosophy

The crucial premise here is that d isembodied existence is conceivable. Is it? Try the thought experiment yourself. Imagine you have no body- no arms, no legs, no hands, no eyes, no ears, and so on. Can you do it? If so, are you really imagining existing with- out a body, or are you imagining existing in a ghostlike quasi -physical body? Remem- ber, Cartesian minds have no physical attributes, not even a location in space. You wouldn't be able to do anyth ing (besides th ink) or feel anything because you wouldn't have a body. You wouldn't be able to communicate with others unless you were given

Substance Dualism 213

some sort of telepathic ability. But, even then, it's unclear how you would identify () . . . f h c h Id h · h b d I · · My m md 1s incapable o t em, ,or t ey, too, wou ave ne1t er a o y nor a ocat1on in space! . . h h.

If disembodied existence is not conceivable, then it is not logically possible and Descartes' argument fa ils.

Descartes also cries co prove his dualist theory us ing che divisibility argument. The crux of chis reasoning is chat bodies and minds muse be different things (and thus dualism is true) because bodies can be divided into pares but minds cannot. As Descartes says,

Rene Descartes, Meditations on Fir,t Philosophy

In order to begin th is examination, then, 1 here say, in the fi rst place, that there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by natu re a lways d i- vis ible, and the mind is entirely ind ivisible. For, as a matter of fact, when I consider the mind, that is to say, myself inasmuch as I am only a th inking th ing, 1 cannot distinguish in myself any parts, but apprehend myself to be clearly one and entire; and a lthough the whole mind seems to be un ited to the whole body, yet if a foot, or an arm, or some other part, is separated from my body, I am aware that nothing has been taken away from my mind. And the faculties of willing, feeling, conceiving, etc. cannot be properly speaking said to be its parts, for it is one and the same mind which employs itself in wi lli ng and in feeling and understanding. But it is qu ite oth- erwise with corporeal or extended objects, for there is not one of these imaginable by me which my mind cannot eas ily divide into parts, and which consequently I do not recognise as being divisible; this would be sufficient to teach me that the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body, if I had not already learned it from other sources.1

H ere Descartes uses che logical principle chat if two chin gs are one and che same, then they muse have exactly che same properties; conversely, if they have different properties, they muse not be one and che same. So he argues chat if minds are not divisible into pares, and if bodies are divis ible into parts (since they a re spatially ex- tended), then minds and bodies do not have che same properties. They are therefore distinct, and dualism is true.

Bodies are divis ible, but is it really true chat minds are indivisible? Two faces give critics reason co chink chat minds are actually div isible. First, psychiatrists have idencifie.d a form of mental illness known as multiple personality disorder in \vhich a person has at lease one a lternate personality that can direct behavior. Those \vho have this disorder a re said to lack the normal unity of consciousness; their m inds appear co be divided. Second, a person's consciousness can apparently be divided through a kind of brain surgery known as cerebral commissurocomy. The procedure, often performed co treat epilepsy, severs che cord of nerves linking the bra in's two hemispheres. The result is a breakdown in communication between che hemispheres,

concc1vmg sue a c mg as a soul. I may be in e rro r, and man may have a soul; bur I

simply do not believe ir. -Thomas A. Edison

Thought is a secretion of the brain.

-Pierre-Jean Georges

Caban is

5 Is Descartes cor- rect that the mind is ind ivisible? Do the counterexamples of multiple personalities and cerebral commis- surotomy show that the mind can in fact be divided?

214 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

The Immortal Soul

Notions about che soul and its possible i1n1nortalicy have changed through che centuries and have been subject ro intense debate and philosophical inquiry. Many ancient Greeks thought chat the soul is a mate- rial thing char animates bodies and is dispersed (and thus destroyed) like s,noke after che body d ies. Plato taught chat che soul is an essential, nonphysical part of an organism and, unlike 1narerial things, is not subject co dissolution. The soul then is immortal, although it is fused with the body for awh ile. Bue souls are nor restricted co persons; living things of all kinds can also have souls.

Aristotle had very different ideas about souls. To him, che soul is the form of che body- that is, che abil it ies or capacit ies 1nanifesred through che living body. And since che soul requires a body to ,nanifest itself, rhe soul perishes when che body dies. Aristotle therefore rejects che possibility of i,nmorcaliry, che trans,n igracion of souls, and disembodied existence.

The biblical account of che soul is ar odds with che soul- body dual ism of 1nuch contemporary choughc. Biblical scholars generally agree that che scriptural view of body and soul is monisric, not dual istic. The

Figure 4.4 A depiction of the soul leaving the body- a dualism at odds with the biblical account of the soul.

person is a single, undivided entity- a un ity of soul and body. Ir is nor che case chat che soul takes up residence in the body then departs at death co live a separate, im,norca l existence. Body and soul are one, both therefore being subject co disintegration ,vhen a person d ies.

The prevai ling Christian view closely follows Plato's and Descartes' dual istic notion: The soul is che essentia l component of a hu,nan being, a substance both im,nacerial and immor- tal, ,vhile che body is ,nacerial and inessential.

Most contemporary philosophers are materia lises regarding ,n ind and body and there- fore reject che substance dualism of Descartes and Western religion. They are also skeptica l of any claims of im,norcalicy.

Do you believe that you have an immortal soul? If so, on what grounds? If you do not, why not? Of the theories of soul just mentioned, which do you think is most plausible? Why?

third ventric.:_:le>,r;:----

optic chiasm

hypophysis (pituitary gland)

cerebral cortex

pineal gland

hypothalamus

optic chiasm \ Ii,..,,;.~"'' hypothalamus

Figure 4.5 Descartes t hought that the material and immaterial substances came together in the pineal g land. Does this notion remove the mystery of how interaction happens?

which in tu rn leaves the patient with nvo d istinct domains of consciousness. This seems to sho\v that the mind is indeed divisible.

In addition to trying to undermine Descartes' arguments for his theory of mind, philosophers have also launched some strong arguments against it. The primary at- tack of th is kind concerns the problem of mind-body interaction. In Cartesian du- alism, mind and body are thought to be two radically different kinds of substances that someho\v interact causally. But ho\v is such interaction possible? Ho\v can an object with physical properties affect something \vith no physical properties what- soever? Ho\v can a mysterious, nonphysical reality influence any event involving atoms, cells, blood, and bone? Descartes' theory doesn't explain how mind-body interaction occurs and is therefore regarded by many philosophers as inadequate. He does posit a weak explanation of the causal connection benveen mind and body by claiming that the nvo substances intermingle in a small appendage of the brain kno\vn as the pineal gland. But many find this incredible. Whatever the gland's function (which was unknown in Descartes' day), it still is a physical thing, and pro- posing it as the site of physical/nonphysical interaction does not banish the mystery of ho\v the material can affect the immaterial.

Another common charge against Cartesian dualism (or any kind of dualism in which the physical and nonphys ical affect each other) is that it is incompatible with science. For example, the theory is said to violate the scientific pr inciple of the causal closure of the physical, \vhich affirms a physical cause for every physical

Substance Dualism 215

6 Is it possib le that nonphysica l (mental) causes do not exist, t hat the world conta ins on ly physical causes and physica l effects?

Causal closure of the physical is the principle that , he world is a closed

sysrem of physical cause., and effecLs.

216 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

Among the facts of the universe to be accoun ted for, it may be said, is Mind; and it is self evident that nothing can have pro· duced M ind but M ind . -John SLuart Mill

John R. Searle, Mind

effect. The world is a closed system of physical causes and effects; nonphysical (mental) causes are superfluous. It seems that \Ve can explain every event without reference to the immaterial. For any physical effect, scientists can in principle map out a detailed series of physical causes leading up to that effect. If so, there seems to be no need for mental causes.

In addition, substance dualism, with its insistence on nonphysical causes of phys- ical even rs, seems to conflict with a basic law of science-the law of the conservation of mass-energy. John Searle explains the problem like this:

John R. Searle, Mind

All forms of substance dualism inherit Descartes' problem of how to give a coherent account of the causal relations between the soul and the body, but recent versions have an additional problem. It seems impossible to make substance duali sm consistent with modern physics. Physics says that the amount of matter/energy in the universe is constant; but substance dua lism seems to imply that there is another kind of energy, mental energy or spiritual energy, that is not fixed by physics. So if substance duali sm is true then it seems that one of the most fundamental laws of physics, the law of con- servation, must be false.•

One way that dualists of any stripe can respond to criticisms concerning mind- body interaction and incompatibility \vith science is to embrace epiphenomenalism, the view that mental properties do not affect physical properties. If the body impacts the mind, but the mind does not impact the body, then there is no problem with ho\v the m ind and body interact, and the principle of the causal closure of the physi- cal is not violated.

But epiphenomenalism seems to many theorisrs to be a denial of common sense.

Searle is one of them:

On this view [epiphenomenalism] consciousness exists alright, but it is like the froth on the wave or the flash of sunlight reflected off the surface of the water. It is there but it does not rea lly matter. It is an epiphenomenon. But th is seems too counter intuitive. Every time I decide to raise my arm, it goes up. I do not say, "Well , that's the th ing about the old arm. Some days she goes up and some days she doesn't." s

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 4 .2

I. What is Descartes' conceivability argument? Do you think it is successful in showing that some form of dualism must be true? Why or why not?

2. Evaluate Descartes' divisibility argument. Are its premises true? Does it show that bodies are divisible but minds are not?

3. What is Descartes' explanation of ho\v mind and body interact? Is it plausible?

4. Suppose Descartes is right that bodies are divisible and minds are not. Would this sho\v that minds can exist independently from bodies? Why or why not?

5. What is epiphenomenalism? Is it an adequate explanation of the rela- tionship between mind and body? Is it a better or \vorse explanation than Cartesian dualism?

4.3 MIND- BODY IDENTITY

The favorite view among materialists is the identity theory, \vhich says that mind states are brain states. Our apparent sensations, thoughts, perceptions, and emotions (so-called phenomenal consciousness) are not immaterial phenomena d istinct from the material brain. These mental states are identical to physical brain states, just as lightning is identical to an electrical discharge. A pain or a perception is nothing more than a certain process going on in the brain's neurons. J. J.C. Smart, one of the first philosophers to articulate the identity theory, explains it like th is:

J. J. C. Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes"

Let me first try to state more accurately the thesis that sensations are brain processes. It is not the thesis that, for example, "after-image" or "ache" means the same as "brain process of sort X" (where "X" is replaced by a description of a certain sort of brain process). It is that, in so far as "afterimage" or "ache" is a report of a process, it is a report of a process that happens to be a brain process. It follows that the thesis does not claim that sensation statements can be translated into statements about brain processes. Nor does it claim that the logic of a sensation statement is the same as that of a brain-process statement. All it claims is that in so far as a sensation statement is a report of something, that something is in fact a brain process. Sensations are noth- ing over and above brain processes. Nations are nothing "over and above" citizens, but this does not prevent the logic of nation statements being very different from the

Mind- Body Identity 217

218 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

7 It seems that thoughts and mental images are not located in physical space. Does this show that Smart is mistaken about thoughts and mental images being bra in processes?

logic of citizen statements, nor does it insure the translatability of nation statements into citizen statements. (I do not, however, wish to asser t that the relation of sensation statements to brain-process statements is very like that of nation sta tements to citizen statements. Nations do not just happen to be nothing over and above citizens, for ex- ample. I bring in the "nations" example merely to make a negative point: that the fac t that the logic of A-statements is different from that of B-statements does not insure that A's are anything over and a bove B's .)

When I say that a sensa tion is a brain process or that lightning is an e lectric dis- charge, I am using "is" in the sense of strict identity. Oust as in the- in this case necessary- proposition "7 is identical with the smallest prime number greater than 5.") When I say that a sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an e lectric discharge I do not mean just that the sensation is somehow spatia lly or tempo rally continuous with the brain process or that the lightn ing is just spa tiall y o r temporall y continuous with the discharge.6

The identity theory avoids some of the cr iticisms directed at Cartesian dualism (that m ind-body interaction is mysterious and that the causal closure principle is violated) and at logical behaviorism (that mental causation is ignored or denied). And it explains how mental states affect behavior, ho\v mental states can cause other

mental states, and \vhy many mental states are known to be correlated with b ra in processes.

But some philosophers reject the theory using conceivability arguments (a la Des- cartes) to t ry to show that the theory is deeply fla\ved. A well-known vers ion of such an argument comes from David Chalmers, who wields it against all materialist views, not just the identity theory. His argument is based o n, strangely enough, the poss ibil ity of zombies:

David J. Chalmers , The Conscious Mind

.. . [C]onsider the logical possibility of a zombie: someone or something physically identical to me (or to any other conscious being), but lacking conscious experiences altogether. At the global level, we can consider the logical possib il ity of a zombie world: a world physically identical to ours, but in which there are no conscious experiences a t all. In such a world, everybody is a zombie.

So let us consider my zombie twin. This creature is molecule for molecule identical to me, and identical in all the low-level properties postulated by a completed physics, but he lacks conscious experience en tirely. (Some might prefer to call a zombie "it," but I use the personal pronoun; I have grown qui te fond of my zombie twin.) To fix ideas, we can imagine that right now I am gazing out the window, experiencing some nice green sensa tions from seeing the trees outside, hav ing pleasant taste experiences through munching on a chocolate bar, and feeling a du ll ach ing sensa tion in my righ t shoulder.

What is going on in my zombie twin ? He is physica lly identical to me, and we may as well suppose that he is embedded in an identical environment. He will certainly be identica l to me functionally: he will be processing the same sort of information, reacting

in a simi lar way to inputs, with his in ternal configurations being modified appropriately and with indistinguishable behavior resulting. He will be psychologically identical to me .. .. He will be perceiving the trees outside, in the functional sense, and tasting the chocolate, in the psychological sense. All of this follows logically from the fact that he is physically identical to me, by virtue of the functional analyses of psychological no- t ions. He will even be "conscious" in the functional senses described earlier- he will be awake, able to report the contents of his internal states, able to focus attention in various places, and so on. It is just that none of this functioning will be accompanied by any real conscious experience. There wil l be no phenomenal feel. There is nothing it is like to be a zombie.7

Chalmers asserts chat it is conceivable chat such a zombie could exist. That is, it is conceivable chat there could be a creature physically identical co him in every \vay but lacking the mental states that constitute conscious experience. If chis zombie is conceivable, he says, then it is logically possible that the zombie could exist. If it is logically possible chat the zombie could exist, then physical states muse not be es- sential co conscious experience. Materialism, therefore, must be false.

This is how Chalmers outlines the argument:

1. It is conceivable that there be zombies. 2. If it is conceivable that there be zombies, it is metaphysically possible that

there be zombies. 3. If it is metaphysically possible that there be zombies, then consciousness is

nonphysical. 4 . Consciousness is nonphysical.8

How might a materialise respond co this argument? One way is co charge chat Chalmers is mistaken, that his zom- bies are actually inconceivable and therefore not logically possible. Many people, ho\vever, \vould probably disagree. Can you imagine an android like Star Trek's Mr. Data chat is physically identical co you but lacking any trace of inter- nal conscious experience?

Another kind of attack against the identity theory (as \vell as ocher materialise vie\vs) comes in t he form of knowledge arguments. The basic line is chat brains have t he property of being known t hrough empirical investi- gation, but mental states cannot be known chis way. The qualitative content of mental states has co be experienced subjectively, from the inside. And since brain states and mental states have different properties in th is way, brain states and mental states are not identical. So the identity theory is fa lse.

M ind- Body Identity 219

8 Can you conceive of your zombie twin? If so, what does that prove?

If the human mind was simple enough to under- stand, we'd be too simple

to understand it. -Emerson Pugh

Thomas Nagel makes such an argument using a pro- vocat ive thought experiment about bats. Presumably bats have experience (some level of consciousness), he says, al- though it is radically diffe rent from our own. To say chat bats have experience is co say chat "there is something

Figure 4.6 David Chalmers, d istinguished profes- sor of philosophy and d irector of the Centre for Con- sciousness at the Australian National University.

220 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught ,hat the brain cxisL< merely to cool ,he blood and is not involved in the

process of thinking. This is ttuc only of certain per.sons. -Will Cuppy

Figure 4 .7 Ho llywood zombies like these a re a far cry from Chalmers's kind of zombies, which are physically ide nt ical to normal people. Does the possib ility of such zombies show that mate· rialism is false?

that it is like to be a bat." Through scientific study, we could come to know everything there is to know about bat neurophysiology and all the other facts of bat biology. Nevertheless, there would still be something that ,ve ,vould not

and could not know: what it feels like to be a bat. The bat's conscious experience ,vould be beyond our ken. We could say the same about humans. If we knew all the facts about thei r physical states we still would not know all there is to kno,v about their m ental states. Therefore, it cannot be the case that physical states and mental states a re identical. Nagel decla res,

Thomas Nagel, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

Whatever may be the status of facts about what it is like to be a human being, o r a bat, or a Martian, these appear to be facts that embody a particular point of view ....

This bears directly on the mind- body problem. For if the facts of experience-facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism- are accessible only from one point of view, then it is a myste ry how the true character of experiences could be revealed in the physical operation of that organism. The latter is a domain of objective facts par excellence- the kind that can be observed and understood from many points of view and by individuals with diffe ring perceptual systems. There are no comparable imagi· native obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge about bat neurophysiology by human

scientists, and inte lligent bats or Martians might learn more about the human brain than we ever will. .. .

In the case of experience, on the other hand , the connexion with a particular point of view seems much closer. It is difficu lt to understand what could be meant by the objective character of an experience, apart from the particular point of view from which its subject apprehends it. After all, what would be left of what it was like to be a bat if one removed the viewpoint of the bat? But if experience does not have, in additio n to its subjective character, an objective nature that can be apprehended from many differ- ent points of view, then how can it be supposed that a Martian investigating my brain might be observing physical processes which were my mental processes (as he might observe physica l processes which were bolts of lightn ing) , only from a different point of view? How, for that matter, could a human physiologist observe them from another point of view?9

Some mater ialises rebut this kind of argument by insisting chat, contrary co

Nagel and ochers, consciousness is not a k ind of experience (qualia) that is over and above the b ra in's cognitive or behavioral functions. Consciousness just is che b ra in's cognit ive or behavioral functions. Once we k now a ll about the brain's basic

functions-how it accesses information, d iscriminates stimuli, controls behavior, monitors its internal states, and the like-\ve k no\v all there is co know about con-

sciousness. And we can know about these things th rough objective, third-person . . . 1nvest1gat1ons.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 4.3

1. If Nagel chinks chat bats have minds (chat is, conscious experience), \vhac ocher creatures muse he admit have m inds? Do wrens have minds? Grasshoppers? Lobsters?

2. M use humans have immaterial m inds in o rde r co fa ll in love, \vrice

a song, o r remember smelling a rose? Smart chinks not. Do you agree?

3. Imagine a space alien coming co earth and scientists being able co

examine its internal organs. And suppose nothing resembling che human b ra in could be found. Accord ing co che identity theory, \vou ld chis being have a mind? Imagine that its behavior was in most ways indistinguishable from human behavior. Would you conclude chat it had a mind?

4. Brain phenomena have a location in space, but thoughts and percep- tions seem not co have a location in space. Does th is show chat the identity theory is false? W hy or why not?

5. When your body dies, w ill you r mind sti ll exist? H ow would identity theorises answer chis? Is their answer plausible?

Mind- Body Identity 221

9 Do bats have con- scious experience? Why o r why not?

Figure 4.8 Is there something that it is like to be a bat ? If there is and we nonbats could never know what it feels like to be a bat despite our expert knowledge of objective bat facts, what does that prove about t he plausibi lity of materialism?

222 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the

. . organism, a pensioner, as

it were, w ho dwells with the body. -Arthur Schopenhauer

4.4 THE MIND AS SOFTWARE

Functionalism says that mental states are neither brain states nor behavioral states. They are states that have causal functions, and it's possible for these functions to play out in just about any kind of stuff, physical or nonphysical (although contemporary functionalists say the stuff is physical). That is, a mind is the functions that the brain carries out, a system of causal relationships that is multiply realizable. A mental state is therefore a causal sequence of inputs and outputs-initial stimuli that cause certain internal events or states (such as beliefs or des ires) that in turn cause external behavior. For example, pain is what is caused by some kind of unpleasant stimuli (such as a burn to Rosa's hand), which causes other mental states (such as Rosa's be-

lieving that she should put ice on the burn), which causes external behavior (as when she reaches for ice in the freezer). Pain is whatever manifests such typical functional roles in an organism, and anything that exhibits these kinds of functions is a mind. Here is Jerry Fodor explaining the theory and the reasons why he thinks it is superior to both logical behaviorism and the identity theory:

Jerry A. Fodor, "The M ind-Body Problem"

In the past fifteen years a philosophy of mind called functionalism that is nei ther du- alist nor materialist has emerged from philosophical reflection on developments in artifi cial intell igence, computational theory, linguistics, cybernetics and psychology. All these fields, which are collectively known as the cognitive sciences, have in common a certain level of abstraction and a concern with systems that process information. Functionalism, which seeks to provide a philosophical account of this level of abstrac- tion, recognizes the possibi lity that systems as diverse as human beings, calculating machines and disembodied spiri ts could all have mental states. In the funct ionalist view the psychology of a system depends not on the stuff it is made of (living cells, mental or spiritual energy) but on how the stuff is put together ....

All of this emerged ten or fifteen years ago as a nasty dilemma for the materialist program in the phi losophy of mind. On the one hand the identity theorist (and not the logical behaviorist) had got right the causal character of the interactions of mind and body. On the other the logical behaviorist (and not the identity theorist) had got right the relational character of mental properties. Functionalism has apparently been able to resolve the dilemma. By stressing the distinction computer science draws between hardware and software the functional ist can make sense of both the causal and the relational character of the mental.

The intu ition underlying functionalism is that what determines the psychologi- cal type to which a mental particular belongs is the causal role of the particu lar in the mental life of the organism. Functional individuation is differentiation with respect to causal role. A headache, fo r example, is identified with the type of mental state that among other things causes a disposition for taking aspirin in people who believe aspi· rin relieves a headache, causes a desire to rid oneself of the pain one is feeling, often causes someone who speaks English to say such things as " I have a headache" and is brought on by overwork, eyestrain, and tension. This list is presumably not complete.

The Mind as Software 223

More will be known about the nature of a headache as psychological and physiological research discover more about its causal role.

Functionalism construes the concept of causal role in such a way that a mental state can be defined by its causal relations to other mental states. In th is respect functiona lism is completely d ifferent from logical behaviorism. Another major dif- ference is that functiona lism is not a reductionist thesis . It does not foresee, even in principle, the elimination of mental istic concepts from the explanatory apparatus of psycho logical theories.'0

Despite these advantages of functionalism, critics claim that it has a fatal flaw: It fails to account for the subjective, qualitative feel of consciousness. Thus, the most

common arguments against it (absent qualia a rgumenrs) try to show that the theory leaves out conscious experience, or qualia, the seemingly obvious, essential feature of mind. The gist of these arguments is that functionalism must be false because it is possible to introduce an appropriate functional organization into some system and yet, contrary to functionalist claims, no mental states are brought into existence. Consider Ned Block's absent qualia argument in the form of a famous thought experiment:

Ned Block, "Troubles with Functional ism"

Suppose we convert the government of China to functionalism, and we convince its of- ficials that it would enormously enhance their international prestige to realize a human mind for an hour. We provide each of the bill ion people in China (I chose China be- cause it has a bill ion inhabitants) with a specially designed two-way radio that connects them in the appropriate way to other persons and to [an] artificial body .... [W]e ... arrange to have letters displayed on a series of satellites placed so that they can be seen from anywhere in China. Surely such a system is not physically impossible. It could be functionally equivalent to you for a short time, say an hour ....

What makes the homunculi-headed [many-headed] system ... just described a prima facie counter example to (machine) functional ism is that there is prima facie doubt whether it has any mental states at all-especially whether it has what philosophers have variously call ed "qualitative states," "raw feels," or "immediate phenomenological quali- ties." (You ask: What is it that philosophers have called qua litative states? I answer, only half in jest. As Louis Armstrong said when asked what jazz is, "If you got to ask, you ain't never gonna get to know.") In Nagel's terms, there is a prima facie doubt whether there is anyth ing which it is like to be the homunculi-headed system."

If functionalism is true, the proper arrangement of inputs and outputs among the billion people should produce a mind having qualitative mental states. That is, from the one billion Chinese people there should arise one more person-the one brought forth by the ,vhole system's functional organization. But, says Block, what

makes the Chinese brain a counterexample to functionalism is that it is logically

possible that th is "brain" has no qualitative mental states at a ll. If th is is the case, then merely being in certain functional states does not guarantee being in any quali- tative mental states, and functionalism is false.

10 Is functiona lism really a better theory of mind than logical behaviorism and the identity theory, as Fodor says?

11 Does it seem to you that the Chinese brain lacks qualitative states? If not, why not?

I have a theory about the human mind . A brain is a lot like a computer. Ir will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up. -Erma Bombeck

224 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

WHAT DO YOU BELi EVE?

Al and Human Rights

Should machines with very advanced artificial intelligence be granted the same rights as hu- 1nan persons? Should conscious robots be created with the sa1ne respect char we ,vould give an adult human? In che Al ,vorld, such questions are being taken seriously right now-and the answers are, as you 1nighr expect, varied. Here's a story about a knowledgeable Oxford 1nache1nacician who has so,ne answers of his o,vn:

With huge leaps taking place in the world of artificia l intell igence (Al) , right

now, experts have started asking questions about the new forms of protec- tion we might need against the formidable smarts and potential dangers of computers and robots of the near future.

But do robots need protection from us too? As the "minds" of machines evolve ever closer to something that's hard to tell apart from human intel-

ligence, new generations of technology may need to be afforded the kinds of moral and legal protections we usually think of as "human" rights, says mathematician Marcus du Sau toy from the University of Oxford in the UK.

Du Sautoy thinks that once the sophistication of computer th inking reaches a level basically akin to human consciousness, it's our duty to look after the welfare of machines, much as we do that of people.

Figure 4.9 The intell igent humanlike machine Sonny from the movie I, Robot.

The Mind as Software 225

"It's getting to a point where we might be able to say this thing has a sense of itself, and maybe there is a threshold moment where suddenly this consciousness emerges," du Sautoy told media ... this week. "And if we understand these things are having a level of consciousness, we might well have to in troduce rights. It's an exciting time."

Du Sautoy thinks the conversation about Al rights is now necessary due to recent advancements made in fields such as neuroscience. The mathema- tician, who appeared at the literature festival to promote his new book, What We Cannot Know, says new techniques have given us a clearer understand- ing than ever before of the nature of mental processes such as thought and consciousness- meaning they're no longer reserved solely for philosophers.

"The fascinating thing is that consciousness for a decade has been something that nobody has gone anywhere near because we didn't know how to measure it," he said. " But we're in a golden age. It's a bit like Galileo with a telescope. We now have a telescope into the brain and it's given us an opportunity to see things that we've never been able to see before."

That greater insight in to what consciousness is means we should re- spect it in all its forms, du Sautoy argues, regardless of whether its basis for being is organic or synthetic.

While the notion of a machine being protected by human rights sounds

like something out of science fiction, it's actually a fast-approach ing pos- sibil ity that scientists have speculated about for decades. The big question remains, when will computer systems become so advanced that their artifi- cial consciousness ought to be recognised and respected?

Various commentators put the timeframe from 2020 through to

some time in the next 50 years, although the rapid pace with which Al is progressing- be that playing games, learning to communicate, or operat- ing among us undetected- means that nobody really knows for sure.*

In the 2004 movie/, Robot, the robot called Sonny seems to be both con- scious and intelligent. lf that's so, is he a person with full moral rights, and should any human regard him as such? Can an intelligent machine be right·

fully regarded as a person even though it is made of metal and plastic, not biological tissue? If in the future, you meet a superintell igent, conscious ro- bot, would you regard her as a person-or treat her as you would a personal

computer or cell phone? If you owned such a robot, would it be morally

right for you to, say, dismantle her to use her parts for some other purpose?

*Peter Dockrill, "Artificial Intelligence Should Be Protected by Human Rights, Says Oxford Mathcmaticiant Science Alert, May 31, 2016, hnps://www.scicncc-alcrt.com/artificial· intdligcncc· should-be-protected-by-human· rights·says·oxford·mathematician.

226 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

John R. Searle, Mind

It is open to opponenrs of th is argument to show that it is somehow incoherent, harboring a crippling contradiction. They would need to establish that the condi- tions set forth in the Chinese brain scenario (and similar thought experiments) are not possible. They can also allege bias: They can claim that the intuition behind Block's thought experiment seems strong only because we are prejudiced in favor of

minds like ours that arise naturally from human brains. The doctrine of functionalism has led many philosophers and researchers to see

the mind as computer software. John Searle describes the early days of heady specu- lation about this ne,v perspective:

John R. Sea rle, Mind

It seemed that we knew the answer to the question that faced us: the way the system works is that the brain is a digital computer and what we call the "mind" is a digital computer program or set of programs ... . [MJental states are computational states of the brain . ... A principle that formed the foundation for any number of textbooks was this: the mind is to the brain as the program is to the hardware."

Searle dubbed this vie,v of the mind strong artificial intelligence (strong AI). "On the strong AI vie,v," he says, "the appropriately programmed digital computer does not just simulate having a mind; it literally has a mind."13 The appropriately pro- grammed computer can demonstrate genuine intelligence, achieving any cognitive capacity such as understanding and believing. It ,vas this astonishing possibility that

engendered the field of cognitive science. Many in the discipline also believed there was a way to test ,vhether a p rogrammed

computer had attained true intelligence. This test is derived from the work of Alan Turing (1912-1954), the father of contemporary computer science and the genius be- hind today's computers. He invented the Turing machine, a theoretical model that became the blueprint for modern digital computers (,vhich are al l basically Turing machines), and then he devised the Turing test, a method that he thought could deter- mine ,vhether the machines are intelligent. Searle expla ins:

There are different versions of [the test], but the basic idea is this: we can side-step all the great debates about the other minds problem, about whether or not there really is any thinking going on in the machine, whether the machine is really intelligent, by simply asking ourselves , Can the machine perform in such a way that an expert cannot distingu ish its performance from a human performance? If the machine responds to questions put to it in Chinese as well as a native Chinese speaker, so that other native Chinese speakers could not tell the difference between the machine and a native Chi- nese speaker, then we would have to say that the machine understood Chinese.'•

Those who took the strong AI position bel ieved that eventually a digital com- puter would be able to pass the Turing test and thus prove that it had a mind. Searle, ho,vever, rejects strong AI and tries to refute it with his classic thought experiment

The Mind as Software 227

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Alan Turing

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was the father of che 1nod- ern con1pucer, inventor of che Turing ,nachine, and breaker of che "unbreakable" codes produced by che Gennan Enigma cipher machine in World \Xfar II. Long before his forn1al education at King's College, Cambridge, he ,vas chinking about difficult ques- t ions in philosophy, logic, machen1acics, and science.

Figure 4.10 Alan Turing (19 12- 1954).

Some say his greatest criu1nph was the invention of the Turing ,nachine, a theorized device (nor actually in existence ar che rime) char could compute the answers co any co1npucable problem. Today's computers are essentially Turing n1achines ,vith universal application.

In World War II, Turing ,vorked for che British government deciphering codes. Germany was using a code 1nechanism, che Enigma ,nachine, char could create advanced codes for ,vartime messages. The Enigma codes were thought co be unbreakable-bur Turing broke che,n anY'vay. By doing so, he ,nay have helped co shorten the war.

In 1950 Turing publ ished a groundbreaking paper in a major philosophy jour- nal. In it he details che Turing rest, a procedure for discovering ,vhecher machines can ,nake a believable simulation of rhe human 1nind. The Turing rest (also known as the imitation game) had a powerful influence on che field of AI and ,vas even featured in che 2014 1novie about Turing called (what else?) 1he Imitation Game.

Despite his genius and his contributions ro che ,var effort, Turing ,vas arrested and stripped of his security clearance by the British government for his homosexu- al icy (then a crime in che UK). He ,vas jai led and subjected co chemical castration through huge doses of estrogen. After che authorities released him from jail, he cook his own life. In 2013 he ,vas given a posthumous royal pardon.

kno,vn as che "Chinese room." The idea is chat if strong AI is true, then a person

should be able co attain a cognit ive capacity (chinking, understanding, believing,

ecc.) simply by implementing an appropriate computer p rogram. Searle chinks che

thought experiment shows chat no such capacities are achieved. C-onsider:

I do not, as a matter of fact, understand any Chinese at all. I cannot even tell Chi· nese writing from Japanese wri ting. But, we imagine that I am locked in a room with boxes fu ll of Chinese symbols , and I have a ru le book, in effect, a computer program, that enables me to answer questions put to me in Chinese. I receive symbols that, unknown to me, are questions; I look up in the rule book what I am supposed to do; I pick up symbols from the boxes, manipulate them according to the ru les in the pro· gram, and hand out the requ ired symbols, which are interpreted as answers. We can

John R. Searle, Mind

228 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

John R. Searle, Mind

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

John R. Searle

John Searle (b. 1932), an American philosopher, has had an extraordinary influence on che ph ilosophy of language, che philosophy of mind, and philosophical ideas about social reality. He was born in Denver, Colo- rado, but was educated moscly at the Universicy of Oxford, where he obtained his first teaching position

Figure 4.11 John Searle (b. 1932), professor of the philosophy of mind and language at the University of California, Berkeley.

at Christ Church. For over forty years he has been a philosophy professor at che University of Cal ifornia, Berkeley, ,vhile occasionally serving as a visiting pro- fessor at ,nany ocher universities both in che United Scares and abroad.

In che philosophy of mind, Searle has ,nade his mark by offering a widely read and debated criticism of strong AI and by developing innovative theories of consciousness and incencionalicy. Against strong Al , he launched his most fa,nous salvo- the Chinese room argument. Through it, he argues chat an appropriately program,ned computer cannot acquire a cognitive capacity such as understanding and believing. That is, strong AI is fa lse. A progra,nmed co,npurer, he says, works by manipulating che syntax of formal symbols, but char is a far cry fro,n semantics, which concerns che ,neaning of che sy,nbols.

His vie,v of consciousness is chat it cannot be reduced co che physica l (brains or neurons). Ir is a pheno,nenon chat can only be observed fro,n a subjective, first- person perspective. Ir has a qualitative feel to it chat ,nay e,nerge fro,n che physical bur cannot be reduced to it.

Searle is the author of Mind: A Brief Introduction (2004); 7he Rediscovery of the Mind (1994); 7he Mystery of Consciousness (2002); Mind, language, and Society: Philosophy in the Real World (1998); and Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983).

suppose that I pass the Turing test for understanding Chinese, but, all the same, I do not understand a word of Chinese. And if I do not understand Chinese on the basis of implementing the right computer program, then neither does any other computer just on the basis of implementing the program, because no computer has anything tha t I do not have.

You can see the difference between computation and real understanding if you imagine what it is like for me also to answer questions in English. Imagine that in the same room I am given questions in English, which I then answer. From the outside my answers to the Engl ish and the Chinese questions are equally good. I pass the Turing test for both. But from the inside, there is a tremendous difference. What is the differ- ence exactly? In English, I understand what the words mean; in Chinese, I understand nothing. In Chinese, I am just a computer. •s

The Mind as Software 229

For Searle, the reason a computer cannot think or understand (and \vhy people can) is that a computer processes symbols by their physical properties (like shape, size, and order), and people process symbols by their meaning. That is, computers manipulate symbols syntactically, according to what they look like or where they are positioned; people use symbols semantically, according to \vhat they mean. "Having the symbols by themselves-just having the syntax-is not sufficient for having the semantics," Searle says. "Merely manipulating symbols is not enough to guarantee kno\vledge of \vhat they mean."16

Searle's influential thought experiment has drawn both praise and censure. The objections are many, and he has responded to several of them. Some say that the man in the room doesn't understand Chinese, but he \vould if the system \vere connected appropriately to the rest of the \vorld. Many others argue that the pro- gram \vould understand Chinese if it simulated the brain processes of a Chinese speaker. Probably the most common counterargument is this: In the scenario, the man doesn't understand Chinese, but the \vhole room (the entire computational system) does. In other words, the man is merely part of the whole system made up of the man, the room, the boxes of Chinese symbols, the ru le book, and everything else. The man doesn't understand Chinese, but the iuhole system does understand. Searle replies that \vhether we consider just the man in the room or the \vhole sys- tem, the result is the same: The man doesn't have access to semantics (the meaning of symbols), just syntax (the physical form of symbols). And if the man doesn't have any semantics, neither does the whole room. Without semantics, the system doesn't understand anything.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 4.4

1. Does the Chinese brain thought experiment sho\v that functionalism is false? If so, how? If not, \vhere does it go wrong?

2. Searle t hinks that even if a computer passed the Turing test, that \vouldn't prove that the machine had cognitive capacities. W hy does he think this? Do you agree with his reasoning?

3. Is it possible for a computer to process symbols semantically the way people do? Why or why not?

4. Does Searle claim that no machine of any kind can think? Is it physically possible to build a machine that is so advanced that it has conscious experience?

5. Suppose that instead of hand ling symbols, the man in the Chinese room somehow simulated nerve firings like the kind in the human brain. Would the man then understand Chinese?

12 If a computer passed the Turing test, wou Id that demonstrate that the computer had genui ne intell igence? If not, would passing the test be evidence that t he computer might have genuine intelligence?

13 Does this thought experiment show that functionalism is fa lse?

230 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Al, Ethics, and War

Wherher strong AI (artificial intelligence) is true, and wherher advanced AI sysce,ns ,viii prove it true, is an open quesrion. But autorwmous AI sysrems- chose char can decide and act on their own-are already close at hand. They are expected co prolif- erare rapidly in rhe future, especially for milirary purposes. Patrick Lin, an expert on rhe milirary uses of aucono,nous robors, declares, "Robors are now replacing human soldiers in dull, d irry and dangerous missions, like searching runnels and caves for rerrorists, rescuing ,vounded soldiers, spy- ing on ene,nies and even killing hu,nans. In Iraq, ' •

robors have defused over 10,000 roadside bombs, Figure 4.12 An Explosive ordnance Disposal Robot ,vhich are responsible for 40% of U.S. casualties gripping a mortar round. there. In 2003, rhe U.S. had no ground robots in Iraq or Afghanisran; no,v we have over 12,000 robots on the ground and 7,000 in the air in chose conAicr areas. By all accounrs, the Robotic Revolution is here."

And ,vich the revolution, Lin says, comes a host of erhical questions char were almost unrhinkable a few years ago17:

• Who should be blamed and punished for improper robotic conduct, such as illegal or accidental killings, if a robot can make its own attack decisions?

• Does the option of military robots make it easier for one nation to wage war, since they help reduce risk and friendly casualties , which both bear a heavy poli tica l cost? Just-war theory, which dates back to Aristotle and

4.5 THE MIND AS PROPERTIES

After pondering the full range of mind-body theories (including chose covered in the p rece.ding sections), some philosophers reason like chis: Whatever che m ind is, it cannot be a Cartesian immaterial s ubstance that interacts causally w ith the physi- cal world. For it seems p rofoundly puzzling (not co mention highly improbable) that these two could affect one another. In addition, Descartes' dualism violates

the principle of che causal closure of the physical and the law of the conservation of

mass-energy. The main a lternative co Descartes' view is che identity theory, which

The Mind as Properties 2 31

other ancient philosophers, requ ires war to be the very last option, since it is so terrible.

• Should we allow robots to make some attack decisions by themselves- choices that would lead to human deaths?

• If we seek to guide robots in an ethical framework, which ethical theory should we use? The obvious choices have both advantages and serious li - abilities. Should we let a robot decide that it is permissible to sacrifice one innocent person (for instance, a child) to save ten or a hundred others?

• If robots advance to the point of having animal-level intelligence, or can mimic human decision-making capabilities, or perhaps satisfy condi- tions for personhood, would we be morally requ ired to give rights to these th inking machines? After all, we already count as legal persons,

and give rights to, such things as corporations and ships. And some animals, such as dolphins and chimpanzees, arguably deserve rights, especially since they may be more capable than some rights-endowed humans who are born with or suffer severe cognitive impairments.

Patrick Lin, "The Ethical War Machine, • Forbes.com, June 29, 2009, hrtp:!/1uww.forbes.

com/2009!06/J8/milirary-robors-ethics-opinio11s-contrib11tors-artificial-intellige11ce-09-patrick-li11.hrml.

Do you think autonomous robots should be trusted to make life-and-death decisions on the battlefield without human supervision? Is it possible to build good moral decision-making into them?

tells us that mental states are identical to physical brain states. But thought experi- ments featuring Chalmers's zombie and Nagel's bat suggest that mind-brain iden- t ity is implausible. Likewise, arguments using scenarios like Ned Block's Chinese brain and John Searle's Chinese room show that functionalism is also dubious, for it seems possible to introduce an appropriate functional organization into a system and still not attain conscious experience or a cognitive capacity. According to these philosophers, the failure of these views suggests an alternative theory of mind, one that posits no mysterious immaterial substance, denies no scientific principles, and is neither materialist nor functionalist. We are driven, they say, to the hypothesis that

It seems impossible to make substance dualism

consistent w ith modern

ph)"'iCS.

-John R. Searle

232 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

14 Do you agree that there is no room for a '"ghost in the machine' to do any extra causal work"? Why or why not?

No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the

emergence of conscious cxpcncncc. -David J. Chalmers

the mind is an arrangement of nonphysical properties arising from-yet dependent on-physical properties. We are led, in other words, to property dualism (or nonre- ductive materialism). As Chalmers says,

David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind

The best evidence of contemporary science tells us that the physical world is more or less causally closed: for every physical event, there is a physical sufficient cause. If so, there is no room for a mental "ghost in the machine" to do any extra causal work .... In any case ... it remains plausible that physical events can be explained in physical terms, so a move to a Cartesian dualism would be a stronger reaction than is warranted.

The dualism implied here is instead a kind of property dual ism: conscious experi- ence involves properties of an ind ividual that are not entailed by the physical properties of that individua l, although they may depend lawfu lly on those properties. Conscious- ness is a feature of the world over and above the physical features of the world. This is not to say it is a separate "substance"; the issue of what it would take to constitute a dualism of substances seems quite unclear to me. All we know is that there are proper- ties of individua ls in this world- the phenomenal properties- that are ontologically independent of physical properties.'8

The biggest challenge facing property dual ism is ho\v to explain the relationship benveen the mental and the physical. The main worry is that how mental properties could ever cause any changes in the physical \vorld is extremely puzzling. If the mind is entirely physical (that is, if the mind is the brain), ho\v it causes physical move- ments of the body is no mystery: The physical brain causes effects in the physical body. But how are nerves, blood, and bone supposed to be altered by nonphys ical properties of the mind? (This problem is essentially the same one that Descartes faced in explain ing ho\v a nonphys ical, spiritual substance could affect a physical, extended substance.)

Some property dualisrs avoid these difficulties by accepting epiphenomenalism, the doctrine that the mental does not influence the physical. But others reject epi- phenomenali.sm because it conRicrs with commonsense intuitions about the nature of human actions. It seems obvious to them that the mind does indeed bring about changes in the body-that, for example, thinking about a friend causes you to call her on the phone, or that having a headache leads you to reach for aspirin. So these theorisrs usually embrace \vhat is called downward causation, the vie\v that causal sequences can run from mind to body (from higher levels do\vn to lower ones) as \veil as from body to mind (from lower levels up to higher ones). Their task, then, is to explain ho\v do\vnward causation can occur without running afoul of the causal closure of the physical or the conservation of mass-energy.

Much is riding on the outcome of the debate between materialists and property dualists. If the materialists are right, human beings are physical through and through; there is no immaterial essence or soul or self Survival after death is impossible. If

The Mind as Properties 233

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Imagine chat all che critics have been ,vrong, and Bigfoot lives! One specimen- which appears co be che only one on the planet- is locked away in a government laboratory. You, however, have full access ro Bigfoot because you are che scientist who muse decide how the world is supposed co creac the creature. If he has roughly the same physical and mental makeup as an ape, you ,viii recommend chat we creac him accordingly- keep him in captivity, perhaps in a zoo, and maybe do some experiments on him. He would have the same righrs char an ape does. Bue if he is obviously inrelligenr (even able ro reason) , self-conscious, self-aware, and self- mocivaced, you ,viii recommend- what? He has all the high-level characcerisrics chat we see in humans, che same rraics chat oblige us ro crear humans ,vich respect, co grant chem full moral righcs- ro call chem perJons. Bue Bigfoot is not a human, though he seems co be a person.

You are faced with deep philosophical questions: Can a nonhuman be a person? Do only humans have full moral rights? To answer no to the first question and yes to the second is to take the traditional

view embraced by many cultures and religions. To answer yes to the first question and no to the second is to say that personhood does not depend on what species a creature is. So what are you going to

do with Bigfoot?

epipheno menalism is true, then our mental states can cause nothing; our choughcs have no effect on our behavior. If property dualism is true, then the world is more com- plicated than most scientists believe. In addition co physical objects, the universe con- tains nonphysica l consciousness, a mysterious something chat we barely understand.

And how this immaterial reality relates co material things such as human bodies and the external world is almost as baffling as Descartes' interacting substances.

234 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 4.5

1. Which is the better theory of mind-proper ty dualism or substance dualism? Why?

2. Is property dualism a better theory than identity theory? Why or why not?

3. Is epiphenomenalism an adequate theory of mind? What considera- tions count against it?

4. Is downward causation possible? Can you think of a way that the mind could affect behavior without violating the causal closure of the physical or the conservation of mass-energy?

5. What \vould be the religious or scientific implications of the identity theory?

Review Notes

4.1 OVERVIEW: THE MIND- BODY PROBLEM

• The mind-body problem is the issue of what mental phenomena really are and how they relate to the physical world. The most important responses to it constitute the foremost theories of mind in Western thought.

• Substance dualism is the doctrine that mind and body consist of nvo fundamen- tally different kinds of stuff, or substances. The most influential form of this view is Cartesian dualism, \vhich says that the separate substances interact. Most philoso- phers hold to various forms of materialism (or physical ism), the vie\v that every ob- ject and event in the \vorld is physical. Major materialistic theories include logical behaviorism (the idea that mental states are dispositions to behave in a particular way in certain circumstances) and identity theory (the view that mental states are identical to physical brain states). Functionalism (the doctrine that the mind is the functions that the brain performs) is usual ly interpreted as a materialist theory. Property dualism is the vie\v that mental properties, or features, are nonphysical properties arising from, but not reducible to, physical properties.

4.2 SUBSTANCE DUALISM

• To defend his brand of substance dualism, Descartes offers argumenrs based on conceivability and divis ibility. Critics have found fault \Vith both of these and charge that Cartes ian dualism violates the principle of the causal closure of the physical and the law of conservation of mass-energy.

4.3 M IND- BODY IDENTITY

• The identity theory avoids some of the problems that beset Cartesian dualism, but theorists have rejected it using conceivabil ity argumenrs (such as Chalmers's zombie thought experiment) and kno,vledge argumenrs (such as Nagel's bat scenario).

4.4 THE M IND AS SOFTWARE

• Functionalism has been accused of faili ng to account for the subjective, qual itative feel of consciousness. Absent qualia argumenrs (such as Ned Block's Chinese brain thought argument) try to demonstrate th is. Searle's Chinese room argument tries to debunk the functional ist view that the mind is essentially software.

4.5 THE MIND AS PROPERTIES

• For some philosophers, property dualism is the most plausible theory of mind, in light of the failures of substance dualism, identity theory, and functionalism. !rs big- ges t challenge is explaining the relationship between the mental and the physical.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 4

1. Critique Descartes' substance dualism. Explain the t heory, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Descartes' conceivability and divisibil ity arguments, and defend your verdict regarding the theory's adequacy.

2. Examine Chalmers's zombie argument against the identity theory. Do you think t he argument is successful? Why or ,vhy not?

3. Do you think the brain is a computer running some sort of sofnvare? Defend your view by evaluating the standard argumenrs for and against functionalism.

4. Do you think epiphenomenalism is true? Evaluate what you take to be the strongest argu ments for and against it and then render your verdict.

5. Do you believe that you have an immortal soul? Explain and defend your view, taking into account the principle of the causal closure of the physical, the la,v of conservation of mass-energy, and the brain research sho,ving countless correlations between mental properties (bel iefs, perceptions, etc.) and physiological activity.

Review Notes 235

236 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

Key Terms

Cartesian dualism The view that mind (or soul) and body are completely in- dependent of one another and interact causally. (206)

causal closure of the physical The prin- ciple that the ,vorld is a closed system of physical causes and effeccs. (215)

epiphenomenalism The notion that mental properties do not cause anything, but merely accompany physical pro- cesses. (21 O)

functionalism The view that the mind is the functions that the brain performs. (209)

identity theory The view that men- tal states are identical to physical brain states. (207)

logical behaviorism The idea that men- tal states are dispositions to behave in

particular ways in certain ci rcumstances. (207)

materialism (or physicalism) The doc- trine that every object and event in the ,vorld is physical. (206)

mind- body problem The issue of what mental phenomena are and how they re- late to the physical world. (206)

multiple realizability The capacity to be realized or instantiate.cl in a variety of forms and materials. (209)

property dualism The view that men- tal properties are nonphysical properties arising from, but not reducible to, physi- cal properties. (210)

substance dualism The notion that mind and body consist of two funda- mentally different kinds of stuff, or sub- stances. (206)

They're Made out of Meat 237

FICTION

They're Made out of Meat Terry Bisson

Terry Bisson is a much-lauded science fiction writer, author of seven novels (includ- ing Talking Man, Fire on the Mountain, and Voyage to the Red Planet) and numerous short stories (including "Bears Discover Fire" and the following selection).

"They're made out of meat." 0 Meat?" "Meat. They're made out of meat." 0 Meat?" "There's no doubt about it. We picked up several

from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the sig- nals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon- based intell igence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

Terry Bisson, Omni, 1990. From http://www.terrybisson .com/page6/page6.html.

"No brain?" "Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain

is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing

to deal with what I'm tell ing you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole dea l! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?" "First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants

to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat." "That's the idea. That 's the message they're send-

ing out by rad io. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actual ly do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat." "I thought you just told me they used radio." "They do, but what do you think is on the rad io?

Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

238 Chapter 4 Mind and Body

"Both." "Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and

log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in th is quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or fa. vor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that." "It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really

want to make contact with meat?" "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?

'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will th is work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only t ravel through C space. Which lim· its them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

Probing Questions

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our ves- sels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied." "Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case

closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around." "And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how un-

utterably cold the Universe would be if one were all I .. a one . ..

I. Why is chis srory cold from rhe perspective of inrelligenr bur alien (co us) beings? Whar can you learn about minds from ch is way of looking ar realiry?

2. What point does chis srory make about the relationship between menral scuff and physical scuff?

3. Are alien bur inrelligenr beings ,virhour brains conceivable? Thar is, is ir logically possible char such creatures exist?

For Further Reading

David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (Ne,v York: Oxford University Press, 1996). A clear introduction to issues regarding consciousness by one of the leading thinkers in the field. Offers a sustained critique of physicalism.

David J. Chalmers, ed., Phiwsophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Ne,v York: Oxford University Press, 2002). A comprehensive collection of readings covering all the key issues.

James Cornman and Keith Lehrer, "The Mind-Body Problem," in Philosophical Problems and Arguments (New York: Macmillan, 1982). A straightforward examina- tion of many of the main arguments in philosophy of mind.

Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Bro,vn, and Company, 1991). A plainspoken discussion of consciousness as a physicalist phenomenon.

Brian P. McLaughlin, with Ansgar Beckermann and Sven Walter, The Oxford Hand- book of Philosophy of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). A large, com- prehensive set of readings.

Ian Ravenscroft, Philosophy of Mind· A Beginner's Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). A clear and concise introduction to the central theo ries in the philoso- phy of mind.

John R. Searle, Mind: A Brief Introduction (Ne,v York: Oxford University Press, 2004). A fine introduction for beginners to al l the leading theories of mind.

For Further Reading 239

CHAPTER

FREE WILLAND DETERMINISM

CHAPTER OBJ ECTIVES

5.1 OVERVIEW: THE FREE WILL PROBLEM

• Understand the nature and im portance of the free will problem.

• Define determinism, hard determinism, incompatibilism, indeterminism, compatibilism, and libertarianism.

• Give an overview of the three major philosophical responses to the free wil l problem.

• Understand the main reasons why people think the issue of free wil l matters.

5.2 DETERMINISM AND INDETERMINISM

• Understand d'Holbach's position on free will and the main reason he takes it.

• Explain how science is used to argue for determin ism.

• Understand how quantum physics seems to provide a counterexample to determinism.

• Summarize James's indeterminist view and why some philosophers have rejected it.

5.3 COMPATIBILISM

• Explain the compatibil ist position on free wil l.

• Understand how compatibilists define "could do otherwise."

• Summarize Rowe's object ion to compatibilism.

• Critically examine Stace's compatibilism.

5.4 LIBERTARIAN ISM

• Understand the three types of arguments that libertarians have put forth to support their view.

• Understand the Consequence Argument .

• State and evaluate the libertarian's argument from experience.

• Explain agent causation and know the main arguments for and against it.

5.5 SARTRE'S PROFOUND FREEDOM

• Understand Sartre's existentialist freedom.

• Explain his notion of "existence precedes essence."

• Evaluate his idea of radical freedom.

Overview: The Free Will Problem 241

5.1 OVERVIEW: THE FREE WILL PROBLEM

Few th ings in life are more valuable co us than freedom. We ,vane it, we demand it, we say we cannot live without it. We yearn for and expect social or political freedom, the freedom co go where we wane, say what we please, and do as we may with in broad legal and social limits. Bue we also want-and usually assume ,ve have-a more profound kind of freedom, ,vhac philosophers call free wil l. This type of freedom is the power of self- decerminacion: If we possess it, then at lease some of our choices are not decided for us or forced upon us but are up to us. If we don't possess it, our social and political freedoms would seem co be considerably less valuable. If our actions are not our own because, say, someone has brain,vashed or d rugged us co control how ,ve vote, then being free co vote would seem co be an empty liberty. So the central question in free will debates is whether we in face have chis more fundamental form of freedom.

The question arises because, as in many ocher issues in philosophy, nvo of our basic beliefs about ourselves and the ,vorld seem co conflict. On one hand, ,ve tend co chink we have free wi ll

in the sense just described. On the ocher, we also usually assume chat every event has a cause. Or, as philosophers would say, we accept determinism,

Figure 5.1 Are all of our actions produced by a chain of events that stretches back into t he indefinite past?

the doctrine chat every event is determined or necessitated by preceding events and the laws of nature. Determinism says chat all events-including our choices and actions-are produced inexorably by previous events, ,vhich are cause.cl by sti ll ear- lier events, which are caused by still ochers, the chain of causes leading back into the indefinite past. Since every cause always results in the same effect, the future can unfold in only one ,vay. Everyth ing chat happens must happen in an unalterable, preset fashion. Bue if determinism is true, ho,v can any choices we make or any ac- tions we perform be up co us? How can we do anything "of our own free will"? If determinism is true, your reading chis book right now was caused by prior events such as certain states in your brain, body, and environment, and these events were in turn caused by sti ll ochers, and the causal sequence muse screech back councless years co a time before you existed. You had no say in the movement or d irection of chis causal t rain, no control over how it went. Your reading chis book right no,v could not have tu rned out any ocher way. You could not have done otherwise. How, then, could your actions be free?

D eterminism is the doctrine that every cvcnr is de,ermined by preceding even rs and , he laws of nature .

242 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

You must believe in free

will~ there is no choice. -Isaac Bashevis Singer

The problem of free will is the challenge of reconcil· ing determi nism w ith o ur

intuitions o r ideas about

personal freedom.

1 Are yo u bothered by the thought of a rigidly determined existence? Does the idea that all yo ur actions are deter- mined disturb you- or reassu re you?

Men arc deceived if rhcy think themselves free, an opinion which consists only in this, that they arc conscious of their ac~ tions and ignorant of the cau.<cs by which they arc determined.

-Baruch Spinoza

From chis conflict comes che problem of free will- the challenge of reconcil- ing determinism \vich our intuitions or ideas about personal freedom. The problem seems all the sharper because both horns of chis apparent d ilemma are endorsed by common sense. In our lives we recognize che work of deterministic forces: Every cause does seem co regularly and lawfully produce an effect, and every effect seems co have a cause. Baseballs obey gravity, bread nourishes, fire burns, electronics \vork, human bodies are shaped by genetics, and human personalities are molded by expe- rience. All this is reinforced by science, \vhich tirelessly traces che universe's myriad links benveen cause and effect. Our everyday experience also suggests that some- times it is indeed up co us how we choose and ace, and that we could have chosen and acted ochenvise than we d id .

Bue \vho cares \vhecher all our actions are determined by forces beyond our con- trol? Well, we do. Mose of us are unseeded by the thought chat our choices and ac- tions may not be our own, chat everything we do is inevitable, preset, or necessary. This fear of a predetermined existence is reflected in movies, books, and popular culcure. In the fi lms Gatta.ca, A Clockwork Orange, and The Truman Show, determin- istic forces in various guises are part of what makes these movies so disturbing. The novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley shows us a futuristic society of contented citizens who are happy with their lot in life-but only because social engineers ma- nipulate and dampen che people's des ires with a mind-numbing d rug called soma. B. F. Skinner's novel Walden II depicts another community of happy folk who want only what they can readily acqui re or achieve. They are perfeccly satisfied \vich their lives because they have been programmed through lifelong behavioral conditioning (the kind chat Skinner himself advocate.cl) co desire only what is attainable. Skinner portrays his vision as a utopia, but many think it is a dystopia in \vhich social free- dom is a reality but free will is nonexistent.

People also care about che issue of free will because upon it hang momentous questions about moral responsibility, legal punishment, praise and blame, and social and political control. If our actions are not free in any important sense, it is d ifficulc co see how \Ve could be held morally responsible for what we do. If our actions are fully determined, how could we be legitimately subjected co punishment, praise, or blame for our actions? Punishing us for something \Ve did would be like penalizing us for having red hair or brown eyes. As you might expect, many who reject che notion of free wi ll think that punishing people for crimes makes no sense. Instead of punishing criminals, they say, \Ve should try co modify their behavior. Instead of imprisoning or executing chem, we should train them ch rough behavioral cond ition- ing and other techniques co be la\v-abiding.

The issues of determinism and free wi ll often come up in court \vhen someone is being cried for a serious crime such as rape or murder. The defense attorney argues chat che defendant is not responsible for his actions, for his character \vas warped by abusive parents, an impoverished or brutal environment, or bad genes. His life was programmed-determined-co turn out a certain \vay, and he had no say in any of it. The prosecutor insists that despite che influence of these factors, che defendant deserves most of che blame for his crime because ultimately he acted freely. The jury then must decide where determinism ends and free \vi ii begins.

Overview: The Free Will Problem 243

Philosophers both ancient and modern have proposed three solutions co the free wi ll problem. The first is known as hard determinism, the vie\v that no one has free will . Hard decerminists ac- cept these three propositions: (1) Determinism is true, (2) determinism and free will are incompat- ible, and (3) we never ace freely. Proposition 2 is a statement of che doctrine of incompatibilism : Determinism and free will are incompatible doc- trines; they both cannot be true. That is, if every event is determined, there can be no free will; if free \vill exists, determinism cannot be actual. Hard decerminiscs argue chat given che truth of determinism and che truth of incompacibil ism, the assertion of free will muse be false.

To support Proposition l, decerminiscs typi- cally appeal co che deliverances of science. They point out that scientific research in many fields, from astrophysics co zoology, is forever uncover- ing causal connections, seeming co confirm a de- terministic picture of che world . Scienciscs no\v kno\v chat human behavior is shaped co a remark- able degree by hered ity, che brain's biochemis- try, behavioral conditioning, and evolution. All

Fig u re 5.2 A t eenager on death row, 1986. To many, if deter- minism is true, criminals should not be pu nished, just tra ined. Does t his w ay of dealing with criminals make sense to you?

these faces reinforce the notion chat human choices and actions are brought about deterministically.

Strangely enough, science-specifically quantum physics-has also provided evidence chat determinism is false. Or, co put it another \vay, some scientific evidence supports indeterminism, the vie\v chat not every event is determined by preceding events and the laws of nature. The standard view among quantum physiciscs is chat many events on the quantum level (the domain of subatomic particles) are uncaused. Among philosophers, ho\vever, debate still continues over \vhac chis quantum inde- terminacy means for che problem of free will.

The second proposed solution co che free will problem is compat ibilism, or soft determinism. Compacibil iscs bel ieve that (I) determinism is true, (2) determinism and free will are compatible, and (3) we sometimes ace freely. So compacibilism claims chat although determinism is true, our actions can sti ll be free because deter- minism and free \vill are not in conflict (incompatibil ism is false). le is possible for every event co be caused by preceding events plus the laws of nature-and for us co still ace freely. Bue how is such a thing possible?

Traditional compacibilism holds chat your action is free if (I) it is caused by your own choices or desires and (2) it is not impeded or constra ined by anything. You ace in complete freedom when you give money co a charity-if you really do wane co give your money and if nothing prevents you from doing so (for example, no phys ical obstacles stand in your way, no one is coercing you, and no inner

Hard determinism is ,he view thar free will docs not exist, that no one acts freely.

Incompatibilism is the view that if dctcrminL~m is t rue, no one can act freely.

Indeterminism is the view that not every event is

dc,crmincd by preceding events and ,he laws of nature.

Compatibilism is the view that although de,crminism is true} our actions can st ill

be free.

244 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you arc dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will. -Jawaharlal Nehru

2 How would a personal belief in det erm inism affect your view of crime and punishment ? Do you think that people are generally responsible f or their crimes, or are they not responsib le due to deterministic f orces beyond their contro l?

O ne of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual re· sponsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns

up on your driver's license. -P. J. O' Rourke

L ibertarianism (not polir- ical) is the view that some actions arc free, for they arc caused or controlled by the person or agent.

3 At th is point in yo ur reading, which doct r ine are you more sympat hetic t o-hard det ermin- ism, compatibilism, or libertarian ism?

Figure 5.3 Physicist s th ink t hat some events on t he quantum level are uncaused. Does t his mean t hat some events on the macro level (t he level inhabit ed by rocks, stars, and people) are also uncaused? If so, would th is indeterminism give us free w ill?

compulsion restrains you). You act freely when you are able to do what you desire to do; you do not act freely \vhen you are not able to do \vhat you des ire to do. This \vould be t rue, accord ing to traditional compatibil ism, even if your desires \vere themselves determined by fo rces beyond your control. Your \viii irself may be de- te rmined by preceding events and the laws of nature, but if you are able to do \vhat you will, you act freely. In this way, says the compatibilist, free will is compat ible \vith determinism.

But some critics reject the compatibilist's notion of freedom. They maintain that merely being able to act according to your desires \vithout constraints is not real free.dom if your desires are determined far you in the first place.

The third answer to the problem of free \vill is libertarianism (not to be con- fused with the political doctrine of the same name). It asserts that some actions are free, for they are ultimately caused, or controlled, by the person, or agent. So liber- tarians believe that (1) determinism is false (indeterminism is true), (2) determinism and free wi ll are incompatible, and (3) we sometimes act freely. They hold that inde- terminism is necessary for free \vill, that free actions can occur only in a \vorld where not all evenrs are determined by prior events and natural laws. Note how libertari- anism differs from the other two positions on free wil l. Both libertarians and hard determinists accept incompatibilism, but they take opposing views on determinism and free action. And, contrary to compatibilisrs, liber tarians reject determinism and embrace incompatibilism.

Overview: The Free Wi ll Problem 245

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Fate

Are you a fatalist? Do you believe chat face rules your life so that your future will unfold in a certain ,vay regardless of what you do? Soldiers in baccle so1neci1nes cake a fatalistic attitude. They say, "If a bullet is meant co kill you, you ,vill die, and there's nothing you can do about it. If a bullet is meant co spare you, you ,vill live no matter ,vhac you do. Eicher ,vay, whatever happens, face will decide, and there's no point in worrying about it or crying co avoid your destiny." Have you ever had similar choughcs about death, failure, love relationships, or- heaven forbid-final exams?

Fatal ism is che vie,v chat ,vhac ,viii be, ,viii be, and no human actions can change it. le says chat any actions you ,night cake co a leer your face are futi le. Determinism is different. le says chat events happen because of preced ing events, but these preceding events can include things that we do.

So is fatalism true? Apparently not. le seems obvious chat 1nany events happen because our actions help bring the,n about. Sometimes events occur because of what we do, not re- gardless of ,vhat we do. Whether che soldier is killed by the bullet 1nay depend on ,vhecher he cries co avoid getting hie.

Do you believe in fate? If so, why? What evidence supports your belief? Why do you t hink some people take a fatalistic view of life?

Like the other free wi ll theories, libertarianism has its detractors. For example, some have objected that it is incoherent, mysterious, or both. They ask, Ho,v can an agent cause event A ,vhen there is no previous event B in the agent that causes event A, and no prior event C that causes event B, and so on? Because libertarians accept indeterminism, they are committed to denying such a causal sequence. But explain- ing ho,v free will is possible while rejecting determinist ic causal chains has been a challenge for libertarians, and some of their solutions have provoked considerable skepticism.

246 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 5.1

1. Does science really show that determinism is true? Why o r \vhy not?

2. Does quantum indeterminacy prove that determinism is false (that indeterminism is t rue)? Some philosophers say that the breakdown of determinism on the quantum level isn't relevant to the free \vill issue,

because the indeterminacy is confined mostly to subatomic particles and generally doesn't affect human actions. Do you agree? Explain.

3. Do you believe that the compatibilist 's concept of free will is plausible? If you were free to act on any of your desi res but your des ires \vere controlled by God, would you have free will?

4 . Suppose hard determinism \vere true. Would that mean \Ve are not responsible fo r our actions? If hard determinism did make responsibil- ity impossible, would that fact sho\v that the theory is false?

5. Which theory of free \viii seems to agree best with your own experi- ence of making choices and taking action?

5.2 DETERMINISM AND INDETERMINISM

The hard determinist bel ieves that determinism is a fact abo ut the universe and that

incompatibilism is true (that no o ne can act freely if determinism is true). From these nvo claims it is a short step to the conclusion that no o ne acts freely (that liber tarian ism is false). This line of reasoning (or someth ing close to it) has been around since ancient times, but since the r ise of modern science in the seventeenth century it has seemed to some to be much more credible because determinism itself has seeme.d more credible. Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), a p rominent philosopher of the French Enlightenment, has given us one of the clearest and boldest statemenrs of the hard determ inist position:

Baron d'Holbach, "Of the System of Man's Free Agency"

It has been already sufficiently proved that the soul is noth ing more than the body con· sidered relatively to some of its functions more concealed than others: it has been shown that th is soul, even when it shall be supposed immaterial, is continually modified con- jointly with the body, is submitted to all its motion, and that without this it would remain inert and dead; that, consequently, it is subjected to the influence of those material and physical causes which give impulse to the body; of which the mode of exis tence, whether habitual or transitory, depends upon the material elements by which it is surrounded,

Determinism and Indeterminism 247

that form its texture, constitute its temperament, enter into it by means of the aliments, and penetrate it by their subtility. The facu lties which are called intellectual, and those qualities which are styled moral, have been explained in a manner purely physical and natural. In the last place it has been demonstrated that all the ideas, all the systems, all the affections, all the opinions, whether true or false, which man forms to himself, are to be attributed to his physical and material senses. Thus man is a being purely physical; in whatever manner he is considered, he is connected to universal nature, and submitted to the necessary and immutable laws that she imposes on all the beings she contains, according to their peculiar essences or to the respective properties with which, without consulting them, she endows each particular species. Man's life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regu late his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thi nking, and determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for any thing in these various states. Nevertheless, in despite of the shackles by which he is bound, it is pretended he is a free agent, or that independent of the causes by which he is moved, he determines his own will, and regu- lates his own condition.'

To d'Holbach and other Enlightenment thinkers, the theories and

discoveries of science were robust proof that every event ,vas determined by preceding events and natural laws. They saw the universe as a grand, intricate, physical machine, ,vith every part-including human beings- predeterm ined to operate in foreordained fashion. In such a universe, they insisted, free actions a re impossible. Free wi ll is an illusion. We think ,ve are free only because we are ignorant of the forces that bind us.

A man is the origin of his action.

-Aristotle

Since d'Holbach's day, many others have taken the fi nd ings of sci-

ence to be undeniable evidence for un iversal determinism. After a ll, sci- ence has had-and continues to have-remarkable success in explaining and predicting all sorrs of natural phenomena, including the choices and

actions of human beings. In light of this success, many people believe that the truth of determinism is s imply obvious. Nowadays, most who accept determinism are compatibilisrs, but a few of them see no reason to th ink free ,vill is compatible with determinism, so they take the hard determinist vie,v.

Figure 5.4 Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789).

Yet in an ironic turn of scientific histo ry, reasons to doubt determinism have come from science itself. Quantum physics provides a surprising counterexample to the notion that every event has a cause. The most widely accepted vie,v among quantum physicists is that at the subatomic level, some events (such as the decay of radioactive particles) a re random and therefore uncaused. If so, it is not the case that every event is determine.cl by preceding events and the la,vs of nature, and the central premise in the argument for hard determinism is unfounded.

Some hard determinists maintain that these uncaused evenrs are mostly con- fined to the subatomic realm and do not significantly affect the larger ,vorld of

4 Do you believe both that every event has a cause and t hat free act ions are possible? If so, are these beliefs compatible?

248 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

A man can do what he wants. but not want what he wanes. -Arthur Schopenhauer

PH I LOSO PH ERS AT WORK

William James

Willian1 James ( 1842-19 10) is one of A,nerica's most influential philosophers, leaving a lasting impression on debates in epistemology, philosophy of religion, eth- ics, and free ,viii. He ,vas born in New York City and gre,v

up in an incelleccually scimulacing fa,nily. His father Figure 5.5 William James (1842- was a philosopher of religion, and his brother Henry 1910), philosopher, psychologist, was the fan1ous novelise. He studied abroad, earned pragmatist. and believer in free will. a Harvard degree in medicine, and spent most of his career lecturing and writing in psychology and philosophy.

His reputation as the greatest psychologist of A,nerica and Europe was assured by che publ ication of his voluminous work The Principles of Psychology (1890). After chat came nu,nerous philosophical essays and books, including The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897); The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); Pragmatism: A New Name far Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907); and The Meaning ofTn1th (1909).

James is one of che founders of che phi losophy of prag,nacism, a doctrine about ,neaning and cruch . James is famous for articulating a pragmatic theory of truth, which says chat che cruch of a scacemenc is a matter of its util ity. For James, ucilicy ,nay mean either success in predicting events or pro,nocion of beneficial feel ings and actions. Through pragmacis,n, James can1e co che conclusion chat religion is a legicimace and i1nportanc aspect of life because we can plausibly accept rel igious clai,ns on grounds of their utility, regardless of their lack of evidence.

Ironically, James, the famous psychologist, was given co psychosomatic illness and cl inica l depression. Once while ,vrescl ing ,vich che problem of free ,viii, he fell into a devastatingly dark n1ood and did not recover until he had found a solu- tion. He concluded chat despite determin isn1, ,ve can have free ,viii because chance events make room for free actions.

human actions. This suggests, they say, chat for all practical purposes, determinism is true. Bue ochers reject this view, contending that quantum indeterminism isn't as restricted co the quantum level as some assume, and that therefore causal indeter- minism could arise anywhere.

Mose indecerminisrs do not deny that many, perhaps most, of our actions are cause.cl by prior events; they concede that much of human behavior may be causally determined. Bue they reject the notion that previous events cause all our actions; they think that claim is a sweeping generalization chat science has yet co demonstrate.

Long before the advent of quantum physics, there were thinkers who posited indeterminism in the ,vorld and argue.cl that it opened the ,vay for humans co have

Determinism and Indeterminism 249

free ,viii. The "atomist" philosophers of ancient Greece theorized that the world was

composed of bits of matter called atoms moving in rigidly determined fashion- except that these objects sometimes "s,verved" randomly to allow for undetermined,

free actions in humans. Centuries later the distinguished American philosopher Wil- liam James (1842-1910) argued that indeterminism is a featu re of the universe that

permits "alternative futures" and the possibility of freedom. It allows some th ings to happen by chance. Most importantly, James says, it allows free actions, for free actions are chance happenings. He explains his view like this:

William James, "The Dilemma of Determinism"

What does determinism profess? ... It professes that those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no ambiguous poss ibilities hidden in its womb: the part we call the present is compatible with only one totality. Any other future complement than the one fixed from eternity is impossible. The whole is in each and every part, and welds it with the rest into an absolute un ity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning . . ..

Indeterminism, on the contrary, says that the parts have a certa in amount of loose play on one another, so that the laying down of one of them does not necessarily de- termine what the others shall be. It admits that poss ibilities may be in excess of actu- alities, and that things not yet revea led to our knowledge may really in themselves be ambiguous. Of two alternative futures which we conceive, both may now be rea lly pos- s ible; and the one become impossible only at the very moment when the other excludes it by becoming real itself. Indeterminism thus denies the world to be one unbending unit of fact. It says there is a certain ultimate plural ism in it; and, so saying, it cor- roborates our ordinary unsophisticated view of things. To that view, actualities seem to float in a wider sea of poss ibili ties from out of which they are chosen; and, somewhere, indeterminism says, such possibili ties exist, and form a part of truth ....

Do not all the motives that assail us, all the futures that offer themselves to our cho ice, spring equa lly from the so il of the past; and would not e ither one of them, whether realized through chance or through necessity, the moment it was rea lized, seem to us to fi t that past, and in the completest and most continuous manner to in terdigitate with the phenomena already there?•

James holds that a free choice is not determined by previous evenrs; it is un- caused. There is more than one way that the choice can go, and how it goes is a matter of chance. But even though the choice comes about by chance, it ,viii seem to follow from previous events just as a determ ined choice ,vould.

Many have rejected this kind of argument, including those who believe that in- determinism is a prerequisite for free w ill. The difficulty, they say, is that indetermin- ism alone does not make for free and respons ible actions. Libertarians, for example, agree that indeterminism is necessary for free w ill, that free actions can occur only in a world where not all actions are determined by prior events and natural laws. But they also point out that if ,vhat an agent does happens by chance (that is, randomly),

5 How does James's indeterminist view fit with our commonsense notions about punish· ment and reward?

My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will. -William James

250 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

You say: I am not free. Bu t I have raised and lowered

my arm. Everyone under~ stands that this illogical

answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.

-Leo Tolscoy

then she is not free to act o r not act. W hat she does just happens, and she has noth- ing to do with it. H er actions a re not under her control and therefore a re not really her actio ns. In fact, they would not be actions at all . An actio n is an event intended to happen by the agent, but if her intentions have nothing to do w ith it (because it is random), it is not really an action and is definitely not free. So for libertarians,

indeterminism by itself is not enough for free wi ll, which is why they take pains to explain the role of the agent in free actions.

The conclusion liberta rians draw from all this is that both determ inism and indeterminism can be enemies of free wi ll. Determinism coupled with incompati- bilism yields hard determinism-no free wil l. And indeterm inism that amounts to randomness does not give us free will ei ther.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 5.2

1. Suppose hard determinism is true. Would punishment for offenses ever be justified ? Would praise for making good choices be appropri- ate? If the answer is no, would that constitute an a rg ument against hard determinism?

2. If hard determinism \vere \videly recognized as true, how \vould that consensus likely affect our judicial system?

3. D o you agree with the criticism of James's indeterminism? Are chance actions really free actio ns? Explain .

4 . Must at leas t some indetermin ism exist in the universe to make free w ill possible? W hy or why not?

5. Suppose James's indeterminist view of free will is correct. W hat \vould

be the implications for our social practice of rewarding and punish ing behavior?

5.3 COMPATIBILISM

The great appeal of traditional compatibilism is that it provides a plausible way to reconcile free \vill and determinism. It says that determinism is true and so is the commonsense belief that we have free \viii. Science is squared with our presumption

of freedom, and incompatibilism is unfounded. This reconciliatio n project has been-and sti ll is-attractive to many serious

thinkers, including the ancient Greek Sto ics, some English-speak ing philosophers of previous cen turies, and numerous contemporary p roponents. Among the greatest of these a re Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), David H ume

(1711-1776), and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Locke sums up trad itional com- pacibilism like this:

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

But though the preference of the Mind be always determined . . . yet the Person who has the power, in which alone consists the liberty to act, or not to act, accord ing to such preference, is nevertheless free; such determination abridges not that Power.1

Compacibilises do not deny chat all our \vanes or des ires are caused by preceding events. In face, they hold chat determinism is necessary for free wi ll; an undeter- mined choice, they say, would be random and uncontrolled by the agent. They insist that even though our desires are determined, \Ve can sti ll ace freely as long as (1) we have the power co do \vhac we wane, and (2) nothing is preventing us from doing it (for example, no one is restrain ing or coercing us).

Boch compacibiliscs and most of their critics agree chat free actions (and moral responsibility) requi re alternative possibil ities, or a "could do ochenvise" sort of free- dom. If we are free-if our actions are truly up co us-\ve muse be able co ace in one of several different \vays, co have more than one option co choose from. We muse have the wherewithal co do otherwise than what \Ve actually do. Bue if we have only one choice open co us, if all ocher possibilities are closed, then our actions are not up co us. lncompatibil ises say chat chis is precisely what would happen if determinism were true. Bue compacibiliscs assert chat \Ve can still do otherwise even if determin- ism reigns in the \vorld.

Bue ho\v? C-ompacibiliscs can make chis claim by assigning a conditional, or hypothetical, meaning co the notion of "could do otherwise." To chem, "could do otherwise" means chat you \vould have been able co do something different if you had zuanted to. You are free in the sense chat if you had desired co do something dif- ferent than what you act ually did, nothing would have prevented you from doing it. If you had wanted a piece of cake instead of the slice of pie chat you actually got, and nothing would have prevence.d you from getting cake, then your action was free. Whatever you finally choose is, of course, determined by previous events. Bue you would have been able co choose differently if history had been different.

Here is Walter Scace (1886-1967), a nvencieth-cencury compacibilisc, arguing the compacibilisc's case by trying co ascertain \vhac we ordina rily mean by "free aces":

W. T. Stace, Religion and the Modern Mind

The only reasonable view is that all human actions, both those which are freely done and those which are not, are ei ther wholly determined by causes, or at least as much determined as other events in nature. It may be true, as the physicists tell us, that

Compatibilism 251

6 Is the compatibilist's definit ion of "could do otherwise" plau- sible? Or is it, as James called it, a "wretched subterfuge"?

7 Does it mat ter to you whether you have free will? Would your behavior change if you believed (or didn't be- lieve) that all your ac- t ions were determined by forces beyond your control?

252 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

W. T. Stace, Religion and the Modern Mind

nature is not as deterministic as was once thought. But whatever degree of determin- ism prevails in the world, human actions appear to be as much determined as anything else. And if this is so, it cannot be the case that what distinguishes actions freely cho- sen from those which are not free is that the lat ter are determined by causes while the former are not. Therefore, being uncaused or being undetermined by causes, must be an incorrect definit ion of free will.

What, then, is the difference between acts which are freely done and those which are not? What is the characteristic which is present [in all free actions] and absent from [all unfree actions]? Is it not obvious that, although both sets of actions have causes, the causes of [free actions] are of a different kind from the causes of [unfree acts]? The free acts are all caused by desires, or motives, or by some sort of internal psychologi- cal states of the agent's mind. The unfree acts, on the other hand, are all caused by

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Does Belief in Free Will Matter?

Your belief or non belief in free ,viii doesn't affect your behavior; your acceptance or rejection of che doctrine doesn't maccer co how you live your life. Is chis true? Is it true chat your belief in free ,viii is inconsequential? Some philosophers, as well as many non philosophers, chink so. But so,ne scientific research suggests ochenvise.

In studies conducted by Kath leen D. Vohs and Jonathan W. Schooler, college students who were encouraged co doubt free will were more likely to cheat than students ,vho were not given chat encourage,nenc. This is ho,v the researchers su,n up the results:

In Experiment 1, participants read either text that encouraged a belief in determinism (i.e., that portrayed behavior as the consequence of environ- mental and genetic factors) or neutral text. Exposure to the deterministic

Figure 5.6 Are those who don't believe in free will more likely to cheat? If so, why?

message increased cheating on a task in which participants could passively allow a flawed

computer program to reveal answers to mathematical prob- lems that they had been in- structed to solve themselves. Moreover, increased cheat-

ing behavior was mediated by decreased belief in free will. In Experiment 2 , participants who read deterministic state-

ments cheated by overpaying

physical forces or physical conditions, outs ide the agent. Police arrest means physical force exerted from the outside; the absence of food in the desert is a physical condition of the outside world. We may therefore frame the following rough defini tions. Acts freely done are those whose immediate causes are psychological states in the agent. Acts not freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to the agent.

It is plain that if we define free will in this way, then free wi ll certainly exists, and the philosopher's denial of its existence is seen to be what it is- nonsense. For it is obvi- ous that all those actions of men which we should ordinarily attribute to the exercise of their free will , or of which we should say that they freely chose to do them, are in fact actions which have been caused by their own desires, wishes, thoughts, emotions, impulses, or other psychological states.•

Compatibilism 253

8 Are free acts, as Stace says, "those whose immediate causes are psycho- logical states in the agent"? Would such acts st ill be free if the "psychological states" were secretly controll ed by someone else through hypnosis?

themselves for performance on a cognitive task; participants who read statements endorsing free will did not.

Kathleen D. Vohs and Jonathan W'. Schooler, "The Value of Believing in Free \'(!;//, •Psychologica l

Science 19, 110. 1 (2008) 49- 54.

Studies conducted by Roy F. Bau,neiscer and his colleagues reseed the hypothesis char a lack of bel ief in free ,viii is linked co greater selfishness and increased aggression. The resu lts:

In Experiment , , induced belief in free will reduced willingness to help oth- ers. Experiment 2 showed that chronic disbelief in free will was associated

with reduced helping behavior. In Experiment 3, par ticipants' induced dis- belief in free will caused par ticipants to act more aggressively than others.

Baumeister, Roy F., E.J. Masicampo, and C. Nathan DeWall. 2009. "Prosocial benefits of feel ing

free: Disbel ief in free will increases aggression a nd reduces helpfulness." Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin 35(2):260- 268.

Some researchers have hinted that if belief in determinism leads to antiso- cial behavior, perhaps any research findings supporting determinism should be hidden from the public. Do you think that such a policy would be mor- ally permissible? Would you want to be told the truth about free will and

determinism, come what may?

254 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man

is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he

wants to be.

-Ayn Rand

For Stace and other compatibil ists, all our actions are caused, but free ones are caused by internal psychological factors, and unfree ones are caused by external fac- tors. When your internal states cause your actions and external forces do not impede or constrain you, you are free to do otherwise.

lncompatibilists, however, insist that this compatibilist freedom is not real free- dom at all. They argue that the compatibilist conception of freedom must be mis- taken because an agent can do what she wants without external constraints and still not act freely. Real freedom, they contend, is not just the power to act if we will to act, but power over the wi ll itself. This is how William L. Ro,ve makes this argu- ment, d irecting it specifically against Locke's compatibilism:

Will iam L. Rowe, "Two Concepts of Freedom"

Locke distinguished between a free action and a voluntary action. For your action to be voluntary all that is required is that you wil l to do that action and perform it , presumably as a resu lt of your willing to do it. Suppose you are sitting in your chair and someone invites you to go for a walk. You reject the idea, choosing instead to remain just where you. Your so remaining, Locke would say, is a voluntary act. But was it a free act? This is a further question for Locke, and it depends on whether you could have done otherwise had you so wil led. If I had injected you with a powerful drug, so that at the t ime- perhaps without your being aware of it- your legs were paralyzed, then your act of remaining in the chair was voluntary but not free, for you could not have got up and walked had you willed to do so. A free act, says Locke, is not just a voluntary act. An act is free if it is voluntary and i t is true that had you wil led to do otherwise you would have been able to do otherwise. For Locke, then, we can say that you are free with respect to a certain action provided it is in your power to do it if you will to do it and in your power to refrain from doing it if you should wi ll to refrain. Locke tel ls us that a man who is chained in pr ison does not stay in prison freely- even if that is what he wants to do- because it is not in his power to leave if he should will to leave. But if the prison doors are thrown open, and his chains are removed, he is free to leave and free to stay- for he can do either, depending on his will ... .

Lockean freedom ... exists solely at the level of action: you are free with respect to some action provided that you have the power to do the act if you will to do it, and have the power not to do it if you wil l not to do it. But what about the will? What if you don't have the power to wi ll the action, or don't have the power not to will it? To see the difficulty here, let's return to our example where you are sitting down, someone asks you to get up and walk over to the window to see what is happening outside, but you are quite satisfied where you are and choose to remain sitting. We earlier supposed that I had injected you with a powerful drug so that you can't move your legs. Here Locke would say that you don't sit freely, since it was not in your power to do otherwise if you had wil led otherwise-say, to get up and walk to the window. But let's now suppose that instead of paralyzing your legs I had hooked up a machine to your brain so that I can and do cause you to will to sit, thus depriving you of the capacity to wil l to do otherwise. It's still true that you have the power to get up and walk if you should will to do so- I haven't taken away your physica l capacity to walk,

as I did when I paralyzed your legs. Here the problem is that you can't wil l to do any- thing other than sit. In this case, it seems clear that you sit of necessity, not freely. You can't do otherwise than sit, not because you lack the power to get up and walk if you should manage to choose to do that, but because you lack the power to choose to get up and walk. On Locke's account of freedom , however, it remains true that you s it freely and not of necessity. And th is being so, we must conclude that Locke's account of freedom is simply inadequate. It is not sufficient that you have the power to do otherwise if you so will; it must a lso be true that you have the power to will to do otherwise. Freedom that is worth the name, therefore, must include power to will, not simply power to do if we will.I

In response to criticism, t raditional compatibilisrs sometimes say that how- ever one feels about the compatibilist conception of freedom, it is at least clear and coherent. The alternat ive is libertarianism, \vhich they claim is obscure and unintelligible.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 5.3

1. Suppose traditional compatibilism is true. Would punishment, re\vard, blame, or praise ever be justified?

2. Assuming a dog has desires and often behaves accordingly, \vou ld he

have free wi ll, according to compatibilism? Why or why not?

3. Does Stace's d istinction between free acts and unfree acts make sense? Do you think that an agent's actions can be unimpeded and caused by her psychological states yet still not be free?

4. Does Stace's vie\v of free actions coincide \vith \vhat most people or- dinarily think about such matters? Explain.

5. Which do you think is a more plausible theory of free will-hard determinism o r compatibilism? Why?

5.4 LIBERTARIANISM

To be taken seriously by the free wi ll skeptic, libertarians must argue their case on three fronts. Against the compatibilist, they must show that determinism and free wi ll are incompatible (t hat incompat ibilism is true). Agains t the determinist, they must show that there is good reason to bel ieve that we sometimes act freely. And

against all free \viii skept ics, they must demonstrate that the libertarian concept of free wi ll is coherent and plausible.

Libertarianism 255

9 What is Rowe's argument against tra- ditiona l compat ibilism? Is it sound? Why or why not?

He sat a long ti me and he thought about his life and

how lin le of it he could ever have foreseen and he

wondered for all his will

and all his intent how much of it was his doing. -Cormac McCarthy

10 Is our experience good evidence that we have li bertarian free will ?

11 Do you think the hypothet ical interpre- tation of "could do otherwise" captures our commonsense experience better than the libertarian interpretat ion? Why or why not?

256 Chapter 5 Free Wi ll and Determinism

PH I LOSO PHY NOW

Science and Free Will

Is ir possible rhar your actions are predetermined unconsciously before you are consciously a,vare of intending ro perform those actions? To che consternation of many libertarians, sOJne scientific research seems co suggest just thar- and thus ro raise doubts about the existence of free ,viii.

The experi,nencs that caused all rhe fuss (and inspired many related scientific studies) were conducted by che University of Cal iforn ia researcher Benjamin Libet. He recorded che brain activity of subjects as they rando,n ly flexed their index fingers, and he ,nonicored the accompanying muscle movements. He found chat che subjects became aware of their inten- tion ro move their fingers about 200 1nillise.conds before che actua l move,nenc occurred- an unsurprising resu lt.. The astonishing finding ,vas rhar che subjects became a,vare of their in- tention 350 co 400 milliseconds after che brain activity chat initiates muscle move,nenc had already happened. This see,ns co suggest chat rhe decision ro move ,vas an unconscious event, chat consciousness ca,ne along after che unconscious decision ,vas already made. If so, ,vhere does free ,viii enter che picture?

Liber thought his research showed chat there could be at least a li,niced kind of free will in human actions. The conscious mind may nor be involved in initiating actions, but ir ,night be able co veto actions before they happen.

Liber's studies and simi lar ones by ocher invescigacors have been criticized on severa l counts. For one, che results of the experi,nencs may apply only to simple movements (such as finger flexing). As one critic says, "Will ing a srereoryped, well-rehearsed finger movement is coo si,nple co have 1nuch bearing on such conscious processes as che decisions made ch rough planning a course of action rhar spans past and future, or analysis of co,nplex events." Also, some invesrigacors seem ro assu,ne char decisions are insrancaneous, but chis may nor be che case. "Why do we ch ink char a decision is instantaneous?" ch is critic observes. "What we consciously chink could ,veil be spread out over time. The process can be on-going bur our rea lization captures rhe process only as a snap shoe in time that suffices co label che decision bur not the process." (W. R. Kle,nm, "Free Will Debates: Simple Experiments Are Nor So Simple," Advances in Cognitive Psychology 6 (2010): 47-65.) Finally, some detractors accuse Libec and ochers of failing ro distinguish between conscious awareness (the intention co do son1eching) and ",neca-conscious a,vareness" (the awareness that you are intending co do something). The charge is rhar Libec's subjects are reporting chat rhey are aware chat they are consciously intending something (,neca-conscious awareness), and chis kind of awareness naturally comes after che conscious intention itself is fonned (after conscious awareness). So Libec's findings may nor be che threat ro free will chat some researchers assu,ne.

Suppose all our decisions are made for us on an unconscious level so that we do not have conscious control of our actions. How would this fact

change your thinking about your actions and about moral responsibility?

Often libertarians try to establish incompatibilism by putting forth \vhat is kno\vn as the Consequence Argument. Peter van lnwagen crafted the most inAuen- tial form of it, which he summarizes like this:

Peter van lnwagen, An Essay on Free Will

If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefo re the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us.6

Van ln\vagen contends that if determinism is true, then every event-including our every action-is the result of (1) evenrs in the distant past and (2) the laws of nature that rule those evenrs . But we have no po\ver over past events and the laws of nature; we can change neither the evenrs nor the laws. These things are not up to us, and if they are not up to us, their consequences (including our current actions) are not up to us either. We are left \Vith no alternative possibilities. So if determinism is true, we cannot do otherwise: There are no free actions. Therefore, compatibilism is false; incompatibil ism is true.

C,ompatibilists often reject the Consequence Argu ment on the grounds that it assumes a faulty interpretation of "could do otherwise." They say that the Conse- quence Argument works only if "could do othen vise" is given an incompatibilist meaning, \vhich is that you have the power to wi ll to do otherwise (that your wi ll is

Libertarianism 257

12 What are the prem- ises of van lnwagen's argument ? Are t hey plausible?

Man was predestined ro have free will. -Hal lee luyah

up to you). But if you give "could do otherwise" a hypothetical mean- ing (\vhich compatibilists prefer), the C,onsequence Argument doesn't go through. Recall that the hypothetical meaning is that you \vould have been able to do something if you had desi red to (i f you desired to and nothing prevented you from doing it). This "could do otherwise" issue, then, is at the heart of the debate benveen compatibilists and incompatibilists.

CHAPTER 5 PHILOSOPHERS

But showing incompatibilism to be true is not the only hurdle fac- ing libertarians, for they must also provide good reasons to think that libertarian free \vi ii actually exisrs. On this score they often contend that the best evidence for the existence of free will comes from our own experience. W hen making a choice, we often sense that we have genuine options, that \Ve have the power to choose (or not choose) among alternative courses of action, and that what we finally choose and do is genuinely and ult imately up to us. Proponen ts of free will say that this experience is as persistent and reliable as any \Ve could have, and it provides strong evidence for libertarian freedom. Judg- ing from our perceptions, for example, we think we have good evi- dence for the existence of physical objects. Like\vise, ou r experience of choosing and acting seems to give us evidence for free will that is at least as strong as that for physical objecrs.

Baron d'Holbach (1723- 1789)

William James (1842- 1910)

Thomas Hobbes (1588- 1679)

John Locke (1632- 1704)

David Hume (1711- 1776)

John Stuart Mill (1806- 1873)

Walter Stace (1886- 1967)

William L. Rowe (b. 1931)

Peter van lnwagen (b. 1942)

Roderick Chisholm (1916- 1999)

Randolph Clarke (b. 1953)

Richard Taylor (1919- 2003)

Timot hy O'Connor (b. 1965)

Robert Kane (b. 1938)

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905- 1980)

258 Chapter 5 Free Wi ll and Determinism

Agent causation is the view that a free action is

caused by an agent (per- son) and is not wholly determined by previous

even rs.

13 Does Taylor's con- cept of agent causation accurately reflect what people take themselves to be doing when they perform actions? Why or why not?

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Imagine char your friend says he knows you so well rhar he can predict everything you ,viii do in any given rime period. So you tesr him. For an hour you cry co ace normally, and he observes you. Afrer the hour is up, he hands you his notes char he ,vrore an hour ago, before rhe experiment began. You are shocked co see char he has accurarely predicted your every action.

Then you begin to worry. Does the fact that everything you did

was predictable mean that your whole life is determined by forces beyond your control? In other words, is your life predictable because it is determined?

Hard determinists and compatibilisrs typically reply that this experiential sense of freedom is illusory. Our experience is not good evidence for free will, and we believe in free will only because we are ignorant of all the factors (genes and envi- ronment, for example) that determine us. Libertarians reply that we can indeed be mistaken about ,vhether our actions are free, for our experience could mislead us. But we are entitled to trust our experience unless evidence gives us good reasons to doubt it. And so far, they say, there are no good reasons to do so.

Can libertarians provide an intelligible and credible explanation of how free ,vi ii is possible? If not, libertarianism will be regarded as a problematic theory-even if incompatibilism and the existence of free ,vi ii are assumed. The main difficulty is explaining ho,v actions can be free if indeterminism is true-that is, if actions are not caused by prior events. How can an action be uncaused? And if it is uncaused by previous events, wouldn't it be simply random? A random action is not a free action.

Several philosophers have responded to these ,vorries, most notably Thomas Reid in the eighteenth century and in recent years Roderick Chisholm, Randolph Clarke, Richard Taylor, T imothy O 'C,onnor, and Robert Kane. O ne proposed solution fa- vored by most of these is agent causation, the vie,v that a free action is caused by an agent (person) and is not wholly determined by previous events. Here is Taylor making a case for one version of this theory:

Richard Taylor, Metaphysics

The only conception of action that accords with our data is one according to which people- and perhaps some other things too- are sometimes, but of course not

always, self-determining beings; that is, beings that are sometimes the causes of their own behavior. In the case of an action that is free, it must not only be such that it is caused by the agent who performs it, but also such that no antecedent conditions were sufficient for his performing just that action. In the case of an action that is both free and rational, it must be such that the agent who performed it did so for some reason, but th is reason cannot have been the cause of it.

Now this conception fits what people take themselves to be; namely, beings who act, or who are agents, rather than things that are merely acted upon, and whose behavior is simply the causal consequence of conditions that they have not wrought. When I believe that I have done something, I do bel ieve that it was I who caused it to be done, I who made something happen, and not merely something within me, such as one of my own subjective states, which is not identical with myself. If I be- lieve that something not identical with myself was the cause of my behavior- some event wholly external to myself, for instance, or even one internal to myself, such as a nerve impulse, volition, or whatnot- then I cannot regard that behavior as being an act of mine, unless I further believe that I was the cause of that external or internal event. My pulse, for example, is caused and regulated by certain conditions existing with in me, and not by myself. I do not, accordingly, regard this activity of my body as my action, and would be no more tempted to do so if I became suddenly conscious with in myself of those conditions or impulses that produce it. This is behavior with which I have nothing to do, behavior that is not only not free activity, but not even the activity of an agent to begin with; it is nothing but a mechanica l reflex. Had I never learned that my very life depends on this pulse beat, I would regard it with complete indifference, as something foreign to me, like the osci llations of a clock pendulum that I idly contemplate.

Now this conception of activity, and of an agent who is the cause of it, involves two rather strange metaphysical notions that are never applied elsewhere in nature. The first is that of a self or person- for example, a man- who is not merely a collec- tion of things or events, but a self-moving being. For on this view it is a person, and not merely some part of him or something with in him, that is the cause of his own activity. Now, we certa inly do not know that a human being is anything more than an assemblage of physica l things and processes that act in accordance with those laws that describe the behavior of al l other physica l things and processes. Even though he is a living being, of enormous complexity, there is nothing, apart from the require- ments of this theory, to suggest that his behavior is so radically different in its origin from that of other physica l objects, or that an understanding of it must be sought in some metaphysical realm wholly different from that appropriate to the understand- ing of nonliving things.

Second, th is conception of activity involves an extraordinary conception of cau- sation according to which an agent, which is a substance and not an event, can nev- ertheless be the cause of an event. Indeed, if he is a free agent then he can, on this conception, cause an event to occur- namely, some act of his own- without anything else causing him to do so. This means that an agent is sometimes a cause, without being an antecedent sufficient condition; for if I affirm that I am the cause of some act of mine, then I am plainly not saying that my very existence is sufficient for its occur- rence, which would be absurd. If I say that my hand causes my penci l to move, then I am saying that the motion of my hand is, under the other conditions then prevailing, sufficient for the motion of the pencil. But if I then say that I cause my hand to move, I am not saying anything remotely like this, and surely not that the motion of my self

Libertarianism 259

14 How might a determinist or inde- terminist respond to Taylor's notion of agent causat ion?

Free will is an illusion. People alv.,ays choose che perceived path of greatest pleasure.

-Scott Adams

2 60 Chapter 5

Richard Taylor, Metaphysics

Free Will and Determinism

is sufficient for the motion of my arm and hand, since these are the only th ings about me that are moving.

This conception of the causation of events by things that are not events is, in fact, so d ifferent from the usua l phi losophical conception of a cause that it should not even bear the same name, for "being a cause" ordinari ly just means "being an antecedent sufficient condition or set of conditions." Instead, then, of speaking of agents as causing their own acts , it would perhaps be better to use another word entirely, and say, for instance, that they originate them, initiate them, or simply that they perform them.

Now this is, on the face of it, a dubious conception of what a person is. Yet it is consistent with our data , reflecting the presuppositions of deliberation, and appears to be the only conception that is consistent with them, as determinism and simple indeterminism are not. The theory of agency avoids the absurdities of simple indeter- minism by conceding that human behavior is caused, while at the same time avoiding the difficulties of determinism by denying that every chain of causes and effects is infi nite. Some such causal chains, on this view, have beginnings, and they begin with agents themselves. Moreover, if we are to suppose that it is sometimes up to me what I do, and understand this in a sense that is not consistent with determinism, we must suppose that I am an agent or a being who initiates his own actions, sometimes under conditions that do not determine what action I shall perform. Deliberation becomes, on this view, something that is not only possible but qu ite rational, for it does make sense to deliberate about activity that is tru ly my own and that depends in its outcome upon me as its author, and not merely upon something more or less esoteric that is supposed to be intimately associated with me, such as my thoughts, volitions, choices or whatnot.7

Taylor ackno\vledges chat chis cake on free will may at first glance seem implau- sible, but he thinks che theory is che only one that fies \vich our common experience of actions and choices.

O'Connor also subscribes co agent causation, and like everyone \vho cakes this view he holds that free actions a re caused by the agent. Bue in expla ining chis, he suggests chat all events in the universe a re p roduced in virtue of the properties that objects possess. Ordinary events are produced chis \vay; likewise, an agent may pro- duce an event in virtue of the unique properties chat she possesses. When she makes a free choice, she does so via \vhac O 'Connor calls "volition-enabling properties."

Thus her choice is not determ ined by previous evencs; it is produced by her. Specifi- cally, she makes her choice base.cl on the reasons she has, and che reasons influence che production of che decision without causally determining it. The choice is not random because it is p roduced by her; she is the author and cause of it.

As you m ight expect, agent causation perspectives a re d isputed at many poincs,

\vich opponents contending chat che theories are incoherent o r otherwise inadequate and proponents denying che charge. Bue as such debates unfold, libertarians insist chat, despite cla ims co the contra ry, p lausible theories of libertarian free will a re on che cable.

Sartre's Profound Freedom 2 61

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 5.4

I. What is the libertarian argument for the existence of free will? Is the argument convincing? Is the argument's premise true?

2. Is the hypothetical interpretation of "could do otherwise" plausible? Is it what we usually mean when we say \Ve could have done otherwise? Explain.

3. Is our experience of choosing and acting good evidence for free will? Is it at least as strong as the evidence for physical objects? Explain.

4. What is Taylor's argument for agent causation? Is it cogent? Why or \vhy not?

5. What are the three claims that libertarians must advance to make thei r theory believable? Do you accept each of these? Explain why you do or do not accept them.

5.5 SARTRE'S PROFOUND FREEDOM

The foregoing doctrines-hard determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism- are the major philosophical stances on free \vill and determinism, each with a long history and articulate proponents. But they are not the only views on the subject. Other thinkers, both contemporary and influential, have advanced unique perspec- t ives on human freedom or have taken issue with the standard viewpoints. Among the most interesting and influential of these voices is that of the existentialist philosopher and novelist Jean- Paul Sartre (1905-1980).

Sartre is one of the modern founders of the philosophical per- spective known as existentialism, a central tenet of \vhich is that humans are profoundly free to create their O\vn lives and thus are entirely responsible for defin ing the meaning and moral relevance of thei r existence. From reflections on his own lived experience, Sartre arrives at what he takes to be some basic truths about hu- man beings and their existential predicament. Unlike almost every philosopher before him, he not only believes that we are free, but also insists that \Ve are radically free. We may be influenced by the factors of nature and nurtu re (heredity and environment), but ultimately we are not determined by them. We are totally free- free to define ourselves by our own lights and capable of resisting the physical, psychological, and social forces that will thoroughly shape us if we let them. We are determined only if \Ve allow our- selves to be determined. Figure 5.7 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980).

2 62 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and m build houses, noth-

ing more.

-Martin Luther

Man is condemned m be free. -Jean-Paul Sartre

15 Sartre reasons from his lived experience to his theory of free will. Does his experience provide adequate sup- port for his assertions?

One of Sartre's core ideas is that "existence precedes essence." Most people as- sume, he says, that "essence precedes existence"-that before we come into exis- tence, our fundamental characteristics (our essence) as humans are already set. They think that our psychological makeup, choices, desires, and ideas are in a sense locked in before we can say our fi rst words. Our destiny is mapped out beforehand through the workings of a creator God or a universal human nature or some unalterable social structure. But, according to Sartre, this kind of "essence precedes existence" thinking is tragically mistaken. It prevenrs us from seeing a future of open possi- bilities, saps our creativity, limits our freedom, and weakens our sense of our moral responsibility. The truth, says Sartre, is the opposite of the received view: "Existence precedes essence"-we fi rst come into being and then ,ve define ourselves. He de- clares, "Man is nothing else but ,vhat he makes of himself."

And what is this radical freedom that we all possess? It is both a blessing and a curse. As Sartre says, "We are condemned to be free." The blessing is that as free persons, we have the power to set our own goals, live our own lives, and create our- selves as we go. The curse is that as free beings, we can look to no one but ourselves to decide ho,v we should live. We carry this burden alone. We must bear the awesome moral responsibility of deciding how ,ve should live, ho,v we should t reat others, and ,vhat values we should prescribe for the rest of the world through our actions. We can celebrate our capacity to create our essence and live by our own rules, but because we are utterly alone in bearing this monumental burden, we are also con- demned to experience great anguish, despair, and a sense of abandonment.

This is how Sartre explained th is existentialist freedom in a famous lecture titled "Existentialism Is a Humanism":

Jean-Paul Sartre, " Existentialism Is a Humanism"

What [existentialists] have in common is that they think that existence precedes es- sence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the starting point.

Just what does that mean? Let us consider some object that is manufactured, for example, a book or a paper-cutter: here is an object which has been made by an artisan whose inspira tion came from a concept. He referred to the concept of what a paper-cutter is and likewise to a known method of production, which is part of the concept, something which is, by and large, a routine. Thus, the paper-cutter is at once an object produced in a certain way and, on the other hand, o ne having a specific use; and one cannot postulate a man who produces a paper-cutter but does not know what it is used fo r. Therefore, let us say that, for the paper-cutter, essence-that is, the e n- semble of both the prod uction routines and the properties which enable it to be both produced and defined- precedes existe nce. Thus, the presence of the paper-cutte r o r book in front of me is determined. Therefore, we have here a technical view of the world whereby it can be said that production precedes existence.

When we conceive God as the Creator, He is genera lly thought of as a superior sort of artisan. Whatever doctrine we may be considering, whether one like that of

Sartre's Profound Freedom 263

Descartes or that of Leibnitz, we always grant that will more or less follows understand- ing or, at the very least, accompanies it, and that when God creates He knows exactly what He is creating. Thus, the concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of paper-cutter in the mind of the manufacturer, and, following certain tech- niques and a conception, God produces man, just as the artisan, following a definition and a technique, makes a paper-cutter. Thus, the individual man is the realization of a certain concept in the divine in tell igence.

In the eighteenth century, the atheism of the phi/osophes discarded the idea of God, but not so much for the notion that essence precedes existence. To a certain extent, this idea is found everywhere; we find it in Diderot, in Voltaire, and even in Kant. Man has a human nature; this human nature, which is the concept of the human, is found in all men, which means that each man is a particu lar example of a universal concept, man. In Kant, the result of this universality is that the wild-man, the natura l man, as well as the bourgeois, are circumscribed by the same definition and have the same basic qual- ities. Thus, here too the essence of man precedes the historical existence that we find in nature.

Atheistic existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and that this being is man, or, as Heidegger says, human reality. What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefin- able, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward wi ll he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after th is thrust toward existence.

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism. It is also what is ca lled subjectivity, the name we are labeled with when charges are brought against us. But what do we mean by this, if not that man has a greater dignity than a stone or table? For we mean that man fi rst exists, that is, that man first of all is the being in the future. Man is at the start a plan which is aware of itself, rather than a patch of moss, a piece of garbage, or a cau liflower; nothing exists prior to this plan; there is nothing in heaven; man will be what he will have planned to be. Not what he wi ll want to be. Because by the word "wi ll" we generally mean a con- scious decision, which is subsequent to what we have already made of ourselves. I may want to belong to a political party, write a book, get married; but all that is only a mani- festation of an earlier, more spontaneous choice that is ca lled "will." But if existence rea lly does precede essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the fu ll responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is re- sponsible for all men ....

When we say that man chooses his own self, we mean that every one of us does likewise; but we also mean by that that in making this choice he also chooses all men. In fact, in creating the man that we want to be, there is not a single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be. To choose to be th is or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all.

16 Is Sartre exaggerat· ing the extent to which people can define themselves when he says "existence pre- cedes essence"?

264 Chapter 5

Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism Is a H umanism"

Free Will and Determinism

If, on the other hand, existence precedes essence, and if we grant that we exist and fashion our image at one and the same time, the image is valid for everybody and for our whole age. Thus, our respons ibi lity is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind . . .. Therefore, I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating a certa in image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose man.

This helps us understand what the actual content is of such rather grandiloquent words as anguish, forlornness, despair. As you will see, it's all quite simple.

Fi rst, what is meant by anguish? The existentialists say at once that man is anguish. What that means is this: the man who involves himself and who realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a law-maker who is, at the same time, choos- ing all mankind as well as himself, cannot help escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibility. Of course, there are many people who are not anxious; but we claim that they are hiding their anxiety, that they are fleeing from it. Certainly, many people believe that when they do something, they themselves are the only ones involved, and when someone says to them, "What if everyone acted that way?" they shrug their shoulders and answer, " Everyone doesn't act that way." But rea lly, one should always ask himself, "What would happen if everybody looked at things that way?" There is no escaping this disturbing thought except by a kind of double-dealing . . ..

There is no question here of the kind of anguish which would lead to quietism, to inaction. It is a matter of a simple sort of anguish that anybody who has had respon- sibi lities is familiar with. For example, when a military officer takes the responsibility for an attack and sends a certain number of men to death, he chooses to do so, and in the main he alone makes the choice. Doubtless, orders come from above, but they are too broad; he interprets them, and on this interpretation depend the lives often or fourteen or twenty men. In making a decision he cannot help having a certain anguish. All lead- ers know this anguish. That doesn't keep them from acting; on the contrary, it is the very condition of their action. For it implies that they envisage a number of possibili- ties, and when they choose one, they realize that it has value only because it is chosen. We shall see that this kind of anguish, which is the kind that existentialism describes, is explained, in addition, by a direct responsibility to the other men whom it involves. It is not a curtain separating us from action, but is part of action itself.

When we speak of forlornness, a term Heidegger was fond of, we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this. The existen- tialist is strongly opposed to a certa in kind of secular ethics which would like to abolish God with the least possible expense .. . .

The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibili ty of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can be no longer an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to th ink it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoievsky said, " If God didn't exist, everything would be possible." That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a resu lt man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can't start making excuses for himself.

If existence really does precede essence, there is no explaining things away by reference to a fixed and given human nature. In other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom. On the other hand, if God does not exist, we find no val- ues or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. So, in the bright realm of

Sartre's Profound Freedom 2 65

values, we have no excuse behind us, no justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses.

That is the idea I shall try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does ....

As for despair, the term has a very simple meaning. It means that we shall confine ourselves to reckoning only with what depends upon our wi ll , or on the ensemble of probabilities which make our action possible. When we want something, we always have to reckon with probabili ties. I may be counting on the arriva l of a friend. The friend is coming by ra il or street-car; th is supposes that the tra in will arrive on schedule, or that the street-car will not jump the track. I am left in the realm of possibility; but possibilities are to be reckoned with only to the point where my action comports with the ensemble of these possibilities, and no further. The moment the possibilities I am considering are not rigorously involved by my action, I ought to disengage myself from them, because no God, no scheme, can adapt the world and its possibilities to my will. When Descartes said, "Conquer yourself rather than the world," he meant essentially the same thing ... .

Actually, th ings will be as man wil l have decided they are to be. Does that mean that I should abandon myself to quietism? No. First, I should involve myself; then, act on the old saw, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Nor does it mean that I shouldn't belong to a party, but rather that I shall have no ill usions and shall do what I can. For example, suppose I ask myself, "Will socia lization, as such, ever come about?" I know nothing about it. All I know is that I'm going to do everything in my power to bring it about. Beyond that, I can't count on anything. Quietism is the attitude of people who say, "Let others do what I can't do." The doctrine I am presenting is the very opposite of quietism, since it declares, "There is no reality except in action." Moreover, it goes further, since it adds, "Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfi ll s himself; he is, therefore, nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life."&

The hard determinisrs would, of course, reject Sartre's brand of free wil l. For them, everything \Ve know about science suggesrs that such unfettered freedom is impossible. For much the same reason, compatibil isrs would find Sartre's vie\v d iffi- cult to accept, for they too believe in determinism. Even the libertarians would insist that our experience shows that at least some of our actions are determined, and they would likely agree that not all of science's evidence for determinism can be as easily d ismissed as Sartre assumes.

17 Are people wholly responsible for the ki nd of persons they become?

18 Is it t rue that if God does not exist, there are no objective moral standards? What would utilitarians and others who prefer secular theories of morality have to say about this claim?

You may fetter my leg, bur Zeus himself cannor get

rhe better of my free will. -Epictetus

266 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 5.5

1. Which seems most likely co you: chat your path in life is determined before you are born, or chat you are born and then you determine how your life wi ll go? W hy? Is there a middle ground on chis issue?

2. Is Sartre right about free will being che main factor chat determines who you are-or do such things as genet ics and society have the great- est impact on how you turn out?

3. What is your reaction co Sartre's perspective on freedom? Do you fi nd his vie\v liberating and inspiring, or do you chink it is d isheartening and forlorn?

4. In ocher \vricings, Sartre says chat it is impossible for self-conscious beings like us not co have free \viii. Why do you chink Sartre \vould believe chis? Is he right?

5. Ho\v would a compacibil isc respond co Sartre's ideas? How would a libertarian respond?

Review Notes

5.1 OVERVIEW: THE FREE WILL PROBLEM

• The problem of free will is the challenge of reconciling determinism \vich our intu- itions or ideas about personal freedom.

• The main ideas concerning free will are determinism, hard determinism, incom- pacibilism, indeterminism, compacibilism, and libertarianism.

• The th ree major responses co the free will problem are hard determinism, compati- bilism, and libertarianism. Hard determinism is the view chat no one has free will. Compatibilism claims chat although determinism is true, our actions can still be free because determinism and free will are not in conflict. Libertarianism says chat some actions are free, for they are ultimately caused, or controlled, by the person, or agent.

• For many people, free will matters because it relates co crucial questions about moral responsibili ty, legal punishment, praise and blame, and social and political control.

5.2 DETERMINISM AND INDETERMINISM

• D'Holbach asserts chat no one has free will , and chat the theories and discoveries of science are robust proof chat every event is determined by preceding events and natural laws.

• Many point to science as proof of determinism, for it has had remarkable success in explaining and predicting all sorts of natu ral phenomena.

• Q uantum physics seems to undermine belief in determinism because the standard view among quantum physicists is that at the subatomic level, some events are uncaused.

• James argues that indeterminism is a feature of the universe that permits "alterna- tive futures" and the possibility of freedom. It allows free actions because free ac- tions are chance happenings.

5.3 COM PATI Bl LISM

• Compatibilism says that determinism is true (incompatibil ism is false), and so is the commonsense belief that we have free \viii.

• To compatibilists, "could do othenvise" means that you would have been able to do something different if you had wanted to. You are free in the sense that if you had desi red to do someth ing different than \vhat you actually did, noth ing would have prevented you from doing it.

• Rowe's objection to compatibil ism is that the compatibilist conception of freedom must be mistaken because an agent can do what she \vanes \vithout external con- straints and still not act freely.

• Stace argues that "acts freely done are those whose immediate causes are psycho- logical states in the agent. Acts not freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affai rs external to the agent." His view seems to be vulnerable to the kind of anti-compatibilist argument that Rowe puts fo rth.

5.4 LIBERTARIAN ISM

• Against the compatibilist, libertarians must show that determinism and free will are incompatible (that incompatibilism is true). Against the determinist, they must sho\v that there is good reason to bel ieve that we sometimes act freely. And against all free will skeptics, they must demonstrate that the libertarian concept of free will is coheren t and plausible.

• The Consequence Argument says that if determinism is true, then every event is the result of (1) events in the distant past and (2) the laws of nature that rule those events. But we have no power over past events and the la\vS of nature. They are not up to us, and neither are their consequences, including our current actions. So if determinism is true, there are no free actions, and compatibilism is false.

• Libertarians say that when making a choice, \Ve often sense that we have genu- ine options, that we have the power to choose (or not choose) among alterna- tive courses of action, and that what we finally choose and do is genuinely and ultimately up to us. Libertarians contend that this experience constitutes strong evidence for libertarian freedom.

Review Notes 2 67

268 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

• Agent causation is the view that a free action is caused by an agent (person) and is not \vholly determined by previous evencs. Taylor argues that the theory is the only one that fits with our common experience of actions and choices. O'Connor makes a case for it by trying to show that the notion of agent causation is coherent and plausible.

5.5 SARTRE'S PROFOUND FREEDOM

• Sartre says that \Ve are radically free; \Ve may be influenced by the facto rs of nature and nurture, but ultimately we are not determined by them.

• "Existence precedes essence" refers to the idea that we first come into being and then \Ve define ourselves; we are only what we make of ourselves.

• Sartre paints a compelling picture of radical freedom, but given our experience and the evidence of science, many find it implausible.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 5

1. Evaluate the case for hard determinism, including in your evaluation an assessment of both determinism and incompatibilism.

2. Explain why chance does (or does not) make room for free will.

3. Assess the compatibilist's interpretation of"could do othenvise." Devise an argu ment showing \vhy the interpretation should be accepted (or rejected).

4. Evaluate the C-onsequence Argument. Examine itS premises, determine if they are true, and assess whether the conclusion follows from them.

5. Does science show that free wi ll does not exist? Examine both pro and con arguments and back your verdict with reasons.

Key Terms

agent causation The view that a free ac- tion is caused by an agent (person) and is not wholly determined by previous events. (258)

compatibilism The view that although determinism is true, our actions can still be free. (243)

determinism The doctrine that every event is determined by preceding evencs and the laws of nature. (241)

hard determinism The view that free \viii does not exist, that no one aces freely. (243)

incompatibilism The view that if de- terminism is true, no one can act freely. (243)

indeterminism The view that not every event is determine.cl by preceding events and the laws of nature. (243)

libertarianism (metaphysical) The view that some actions are free, fo r they are

caused, or controlled, by the person, or agent. (244)

problem of free will The chal lenge of reconciling determinism with our intu- itions or ideas about personal free.dam. (242)

Key Terms 269

2 70 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

FICTION

A Little Omniscience Goes a Long Way Thomas D. Davis

Thomas D. Davis is a philosopher, textbook writer, and author of three novels- Suffer Little Children, Murdered Sleep, and Consuming Fire.

Satan, with a flutter of his mighty wings, descends upon a cloud where God is reclining.

SATAN: How's it going? GOD: (He yawns.) Perfectly, as usual. SATAN: And your new creatures on earth- how are

they? GOD: Just fine. Eve's asleep under the apple tree,

curled up on her right side, dreaming of flowers. Adam is sitting up, squinting at the sun, scratching his nose with his left index finger, trying to decide what he wants to do this morning. What he wants to do is take a walk in the garden. In a moment he will.

SATAN: And you know all that without looking. GOD: Of course. I arranged it all to happen that

way. SATAN: Isn't it boring to know everything that will

ever happen? This morning I saw two solar systems collide and explode in a tremendous cataclysm. The ex- plosion must have lasted, oh, ten minutes. It was lovely and, for me, quite unexpected. I can't imagine life with- out surprises. It's surprises that keep me going. In a manner of speaking, of course.

GOD: Foreknowledge is the price you pay for cre- ation and control. You can't have everything.

SATAN: Boredom is the secret sadness of God. An interesting thought.

GOD: To you, maybe. SATAN: Your only sadness, I hope. GOD: Not the only one. For instance, I've often

thought it would be fun to make a rock so big I couldn't lift it. But that would be a contradiction. And having proclaimed all contradictions impossible, I have to make do without them. The laws of logic are for the best, of course. There would be chaos without them.

Thomas D. Davis, "A little Omniscience Goes a Long Way," in Philosophy: An Introduction Through Original Fiction, Dis- cussion, and a Multi-Media CD-ROM (New York: McGraw- Hill , 2004), 11-17.

Still , a few round squares now and then would help break the monotony.

SATAN: I could tell you about some of my adven- tures today. But you know about them already.

GOD: Of course. I know what you did because I de- creed that you would do it.

SATAN: That is exactly what I want to talk with you about.

GOD: I know. SATAN: You don't mind? GOD: If I minded, I wouldn't have decided to make

you initiate th is conversation. SATAN: That's reasonab le.

GOD: Of course it's reasonable. Everything I do or say is reasonable. Which is to say that I have a reason for doing or saying it.

SATAN: To get to the point: A few of the angels and I have been discussing this whole matter of your control- ling everything we do.

GOD: I know. SATAN: I wish you wouldn't keep saying that. GOD: As you wish. SATAN: Look here. If you have decreed this whole

conversation and know how it is going to turn out, why don't you just give me your answer and save us both a lot of talk?

GOD: Don't be absurd. I know what's going to hap- pen because I decreed that it would happen. If it weren't going to happen, I wouldn't know how it was going to turn out. If I told you now how it will turn out, then it wouldn't happen and so it wouldn't turn out that way.

SATAN: Come again? GOD: Just trust me. SATAN: Then we have to go through this whole con-

versation to get the answer, though you know all the while what the answer will be?

GOD: It's not quite that cut and dried.

SATAN: You mean you don't know exactly what your answer will be?

GOD: Not with absolute certainty. SATAN: Oh, I see. You're saying that your actions

are not inevitable. GOD: No. Probably what I do is inevitable. The un-

certainty is rather a matter of my knowing what inevitable thing I am going to do. You see, when I create a world, I know what will inevitably happen in that world because I created it so that such things would be inevitable. But of course, I did not create myself, being eternal, and I don't have quite the same vantage point on myself.

SATAN: You mean to say that you don't know what you are going to do before you do it?

GOD: Oh, I generally have a pretty good idea. At fi rst, so to speak, I had no idea at all. But I have lived an infin ite length of time, I have come to know myself pretty well, and I have found that I have a relatively unchanging character. It was when I rea lized how un- changing I am that I began to get bored. Still, I do sur- prise myself occasionally.

SATAN: Just a minute. You are perfectly good- yes? GOD: Perfectly. SATAN: And everything you do is for the best? GOD: Yes. SATAN: Then it follows that you must know what

you are going to do. GOD: No. I mean superficially your logic is sound,

but you are read ing too much into it. I don't do things because they're best. Rather, they're best because I do them. Therefore, knowing that I'll do what's for the best amounts to nothing more than knowing that I'll do what I do. Not a very helpful bit of information, you must admit.

SATAN: I suppose not. But, in any case, as to this conversation, you don't know for certa in what answer you're going to give me.

GOD: Not for certain. There's a bit of gray area here. Possibly I am in for a bit of a change.

SATAN: Ah, you don't know how encouraged that makes me feel.

GOD: Of course I know how encouraged that makes you feel. I made it make you feel encouraged.

SATAN: Can we get on with it? GOD: Go ahead. SATAN: We do everything we do because you make

us do it. That makes us feel like puppets. It's undigni- fi ed. We're not responsible for anything we do. We do good things all the time, but we don't get any credit because it's really you doing them.

A Little Omniscience Goes a Long Way 271

GOD: Surely you don't want me to make you do evil?

SATAN: No. GOD: That wouldn't make any sense. I can't make

you do evil. Whatever I made you do would be good, because I made you do it.

SATAN: What I am ta lking about is control. Right now you have complete control over everything we do. We would like to have some control over our lives.

GOD: But you do have control. No one is shoving you around or chaining you down. You do whatever you want to do. How could anyone be more in control than that? As a matter of fact, that is exactly as much control as I have over my li fe.

SATAN: But what we want, you make us want. No one makes you want what you want. We don't want you to control everything we want and think. We don't want everything to be inevitable.

GOD: In other words, you want a privilege that probably not even God enjoys.

SATAN: I didn't think of it that way. I suppose I've made you angry.

GOD: No. I'm directing this conversation. So you don't want your thoughts and emotions ru led by my decrees? Nor any other decrees or laws, I suppose?

SATAN: No. GOD: Then aren't you saying that you want your

lives to be ru led by chance? SATAN: No. We don't want them to be ruled by

anything- except ourselves. We want control over our lives. GOD: I'm afraid you'll have to give me a better idea

of what it is you're after. SATAN: Look here. You're omniscient. Can't you at

least help us see what it is we're after, even if you de- cide not to grant it?

GOD: Even omniscience can't see clarity in a vague idea. The opposite of inevitability is chance. It seems to me that you have to pick one or the other.

SATAN: Chance, then. GOD: If I grant you this chance you want, then that

means I'll have to be watching all the time to see what happens, constantly guarding against the unexpected. That is quite a bit to ask of me, don't you think?

SATAN: You mean you can't foresee what happens by chance?

GOD: Of course not. SATAN: But you're omniscient. You can see the

future.

2 72 Chapter 5 Free Will and Determinism

GOD: Not the future proper. The future is what is not yet. If I could see it, it would be now, and hence not the future. As things stand, I know what will happen because I have made th ings so that they must happen that way.

SATAN: Well, suppose you did have to keep on guard. You're omnipotent. It wouldn't cost you much effort.

GOD: It is more a question of elegance than of effort.

SATAN: I'm only making the suggestion you made me make.

GOD: Fair enough. So you say you want chance. Or at least that you prefer it to inevitabili ty. I don't believe you have thought it out, but let's discuss it. You want a world in which nothing is predictable, solar systems spinning wildly all over the place, that sort of thing?

SATAN: No, not at all. Let the planets and the plants and the animals remain under your control. Just give independence- chance, if you will- to the thinking creatures.

GOD: Let's experiment a bit , shall we? Come over here. You see Adam and Eve down there in the garden. I'll toss some chance into them. There. Watch and tell me what you see.

SATAN: Adam's stroll ing through the garden. He's looking to his right toward a berry bush. Uh-oh. Now his arms are fl ailing about. Now he's rolling on the ground, drooling. It looks as if he's having a fit.

GOD: A chance event. SATAN: But Eve looks quite normal. She's just

awakened, and she's yawning. GOD: Anyth ing can happen by chance, even the

normal things. SATAN: Obviously there's a problem with Adam,

and I think I see what it is. You have allowed chance to affect his mind and body. But the body is not the real Adam, it is merely an appendage. So when chance operates in his body, it does indeed control Adam. Confine the chance to his m ind, and then Adam will be tru ly independent. Would you do so? And with Eve as well.

GOD: As you say. Let's watch again. SATAN: Adam's getting up now. He's walking over

to a bush and picking some berries. You're not making him do that?

GOD: No. SATAN: This looks like it then. Adam in control . ..

oops! Now his arms are flailing. He's having that fit again. What happened?

GOD: First, by chance, he wanted to eat the berries. Now, by chance, he wants to roll on the ground and drool. The desires are happening by chance instead of my causing them. I can't tell what he's going to want next. Neither can he.

SATAN: And look at Eve. Good grief, she's talking to a snake. Weird.

GOD: Apparently she just got the urge. Are you ready?

SATAN: For what? GOD: You said you wanted me to give you chance. SATAN : No! Please don't! GOD: Why not? SATAN: That's horrible, having things happen to

you like that. There's no dignity there. I want to stay as I am.

GOD: That's wise, I think. You may not have the kind of control you want. But then that kind of control is impossible. Inevitability or chance- those are the only options. And neither constitutes ultimate control over one's life. But at least this way what happens to you will be orderly.

SATAN: I feel better now that we've talked this out. GOD: Actually, I'm sorry nothing came of our talk-

sorry the way I am about square circles. I could use a little excitement.

SATAN: I won't take any more of your time to- day. Oh, but there is one other thing. Please take that chance out of Adam and Eve. I wouldn't want that on my conscience.

Satan exits with a flutter of his mighty wings. GOD: As you say ... I suppose. On the other hand,

it would be nice to have a part of the universe where there are surprises. It could prove interesting.

Probing Questions

I. Whar theory of free will (hard determinism, co1npacibilis1n, or libertarianism) best de- scribes how the world is for Saran? Do you accept ch is theory? Why or why noc?

2. In ch is srory does God have free ,viii? Explain.

3. If you had ro decide between inevicabil iry and chance, as Saran does, wh ich would you choose? Is there a third alcernacive? Whar ,vould a libertarian say about Saran's either/or h . ) c 01ce.

For Further Reading

Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1976). Chisholms defense of a libertarian free will.

Randolph Clarke, Libertarian Accounts of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). A lucid examination of various libertarian approaches co free will.

Daniel Dennett, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984). A clear and lively defense of compatibilism.

Ted Honderich, How Free Are You?: The Determinism Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). An introduction to, and a novel view of, the determinism problem.

Robert Kane, The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Ne,v York: Oxford University Press, 2002). An anthology covering more recent work on free will , focusing on ne,v ap- proaches to the traditional theories.

Timothy O'Connor, Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). An innovative defense of libertarianism and an ex- ceptionally clear critique of the most prominent versions of the theory.

Richard Taylor, Metaphysics, 4th edition (Engle,vood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992). Contains a very straightfonvard defense of libertarianism.

Peter van In,vagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). An influential argument for incompatibili.sm.

Gary Watson, ed., Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). A collection of some of the most influential discussions of free will from the last fifty years.

For Further Reading 273

CHAP TER

KNOWLEDGE AND SKEPTICISM

CHAPTER OBJ ECTIVES

6.1 OVERVIEW: THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE

• Understand the nature of epistemology and the necessary and sufficient conditions for proposit ional knowledge.

• Define skepticism, cognitive relativism, subjective relativism, cultural relativism , a priori, a posteriori, rationalism, empiricism , skepticism, and subjective idealism.

6.2 THE RATIONALIST ROAD

• Understand the nature of Plato's rationalism, his not ion of the Forms, and his belief about innate knowledge.

• Explain the point t hat Socrates wanted to prove by his conversation with the slave boy.

• Explain how Descartes arrived at his skepticism and how he

later came to the conclusion that he did possess knowledge.

• Show how Descartes argues for his principle of clear and distinct ideas.

6.3 THE EMPIRICIST TURN

• Summarize Locke's critique of innate ideas.

• Define primary and secondary qualities.

• Summarize Locke's attempt to show that sense data are proof of the existence of an external world.

• Explain what Berkeley means by "to be is to be perceived."

• Understand how Berkeley argues for his t heory that material objects do not exist.

• State t he main differences between Locke's and Hume's emp1nc1sm.

• Explain why Hume believes t hat all theological and metaphysica l propositions are worthless.

• State Hume's argument against the principle of induction.

6.4 THE KANTIAN COMPROMISE

• Understand why Kant believes that his t heory of knowledge is like the Copernican revolut ion.

• Define analytic statement, synthetic statement, and synthetic a priori knowledge.

• Explain how Kant 's t heory has both empiricist and rationa list elements.

• Summarize Kant's explanation of how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible.

Overview: The Problem of Knowledge 2 75

6.5 A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON KNOWLEDGE

• List some ways that, accord ing to feminists, "dominant knowledge practices" di sadvantage women.

standpoint theory, and fem inist postmodernism.

• State the cent ra l aim of feminist philosophy and of fem inist epistemology. • Summarize the principal claims

of fem inist empiricism, feminist

• Understand some of the criticisms that feminists have lodged against feminist postmodernism.

6.1 OVERVIEW: THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE

This is a serious question: Do you know anything? In other words, do you possess any knowledge? And here are some equally serious questions: If you do have kno,vl- edge, how did you attain it? And if you possess it, how much do you possess-that is, what is the extent of your kno,vledge? Do you kno,v only the contents of your own mind or only mathematical or logical truths? Do you know that there is a God, that ordinary physical objects exist, that there is an external world (one existing indepen- dently of your mind), that unobservable entities such as electrons are real, that other minds besides your own exist, that events have occurred before the present moment?

These questions probably seem odd to you, perhaps even absurd. But among serious thinkers, they are neither. Trying to find good answers to these is the main business of epistemology, the philosophical st udy of knowledge. It is the branch of philosophy that systematically investigates whether, how, and to what extent we kno,v things. For well over nvo thousand years, philosophers have been searching for answers to these questions because, contrary to what most people believe, the answers are not obvious, and both the asking and the answering have theoretical and practical value. We value knowledge for its own sake, regardless of what we can do ,vith it. When we are at our best, we crave the light simply because it is the light. But we also value knowledge because it can guide us to our goals, steer us away from error, and help us succeed in life, however we define success. Knowledge is po,ver. Whatever our reply to the epistemological questions, if ,ve take them seriously, they surely will affect how ,ve see the ,vorld and ,vhat we do in it.

Kno,vledge comes in different forms, and philosophy is usually concerned with only one of them. Knowing what something feels like (for example, ,vhat influ- enza feels like) const itutes one form of knowledge. Knowing how to do something

The only good is know- ledge and the only evi l is ignorance. -Socrates

Epistemology is the study of knowledge.

276 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Propositional knowledge is knowledge of a propos1no n.

\Vhcn you know a th ing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it- this is knowledge. -Confucius

1 Do questions-such as "Is it raining?"- count as proposit ions?

SkepticJSm is the view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way.

(for example, ho\v to throw a ball) constitutes another. Knowing that something is the case (such as knowing that an elm t ree gro\vS in the quad) is propositional knowledge- kno\vledge of a proposition. A proposition is a statement that is ei- ther true or false, an assertion that something is or is not a fact. This kind of kno\vledge has been the main focus of philosophers and is our primary concern in this chapter.

Philosophers going back as far as Plato have said that propositional kno\vledge has three necessary and sufficient conditions: to know a proposition, (I) you must believe it, (2) it must be true, and (3) you must have good reasons for-be justified in-believing it true. On this traditional account, merely believing something is not enough; \vhat you believe must be true. A belief does not count as knowledge un- less it is true. But a mere true belief is not knowledge either, because you can have a true belief and yet not genuinely know. Let's say you believe for no reason that th ree ducks are now S\vimming on Walden Pond, and suppose your belief is true-there really are three ducks S\vimming on Walden Pond. Does your true belief count as knowle.dge? According to the traditional view, no-because you have no reason to think that three ducks are now swimming on Walden Pond. You have only a true belief by accident, a lucky guess, and that's not kno\vledge. To have kno\vledge, your belief must be t rue, and you must have good reasons to believe it true. Knowledge, then, is true belief that is justified. Philosophers disagree about the exact nature of the required justification, but most accept that knowledge is true belief that is in some sense backed by good reasons.

Much of the work in epistemology centers around the questions of \vhether we have kno\vledge and, if so, how much we have. Most philosophers believe we have some knowledge but differ on its extent. They may insist that we possess kno\vledge of the existence of an external world, other minds, physical objecrs, the past and

future, or self-evident truths. But some philosophers embrace skepticism, the view that \Ve lack knowledge in some fun- damental \vay. Skeptics may deny that we have kno\vledge in all of the areas just mentioned or maintain that \Ve lack kno\vledge in only some of them. In any case, they hold that many or all of our beliefs are false or unfounded.

Some skeptics argue that we lack knowledge because we have no \vay of d istinguishing benveen beliefs that we take to be instances of kno\vledge from beliefs that are clearly not instances of knowledge. For all we know, we could be halluci- nating, dreaming, in the grips of an illusion, or mistaken for some other reason. How do we kno\v that we are not hallu- cinating or dreaming right now? Hallucinations and dreams can seem as real as our "normal" experience. If we cannot distinguish these nvo, the skeptic says, then we cannot have kno\vledge.

Figure 6.1 Are you dreaming now? How can you tell?

Other skeptics raise doubts about the reliability of what we take to be our normal sources of knowledge-perception, memory, introspection, and reasoning. We realize that all

Overview: The Problem of Knowledge 2 77

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Cognitive Relativism Undone

Are you a cognitive relativist? Do you bel ieve chat truth is relative co persons or cul cures- char the truth about something depends on ,vhat persons or cultures believe? If so, consider chis common-and potent-cricicis,n of che doctrine:

The most se rious flaw of relativism in all its forms is a purely logical one: It's self-refuting because its truth implies its fa ls ity.

According to the relativist . .. everyth ing is relative. To say that every- th ing is relative is to say that no unrestricted universal generalizations are true (an unrestricted universal generalization is a statement to the effect that something holds for all individuals, societies, or conceptual schemes). But the statement "No unrestricted un iversal generalizations are true" is itse lf an unrestricted universal generalization. So if relativism in any of its fo rms is true, it's false. As a result, it cannot possibly be true.

Theodore Schick, Jr .• and Lewis Vaughn, How to Th ink About \Vcird Things (2011), 3 11.

Are you sti ll a cognitive relativist?

these sources are fallible, that they sometimes lead us into error. Bue skeptics ask how we kno,v chat these sources are not always in error. If a ll these sources are suspect, ,ve cannot use one co check another. We cannot, for example, use our sense of sight co check the reliability of our sense of couch. And if ,ve chink one mode of perception is more trusnvorchy than the ochers, how do ,ve know that? We seem forced once again into skepticism.

Another view chat challenges our commonplace ideas about kno,vledge is cognitive relativism, the doctrine chat the truth about something depends on what persons or cultures believe. The notion that truth depends on what a person believes is known as subjective relativism, and the idea chat truth depends on what a culture bel ieves is called cultural relativism. We normally assume that truth is object ive-chat it depends on the way the world is. W hen ,ve assert a proposition, ,ve generally believe chat the proposition is true if and only if it says the ,vay things are in reality. Bue the relativ ist rejects chis vie,v, believing instead chat truth is relative co ,vhac a person or culcure accepts as true. Truth is a mat- ter of what a person or culcure believes-not a matter of ho,v the world is. This means chat a proposition can be true for one person, but not fo r another. If you believe chat sheep can fly, then it is true (for you) chat sheep can fly. If someone else

Cognitive relativism is the doctrine that , he rruth abour somcrhing depends on what persons or cul~ turcs: believe.

Subjective relativism is the view that right actions arc , hose endorsed by an individual.

Cultural relativism is , he view that right actions arc those endorsed by one's cul ture.

278 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be saris ..

fied with your opinions and content w ith your knowledge. -Elbert Hubbard

2 Are you a cultural relat ivist? Is the point about personal fallib il - ity a va lid crit icism of the doctrine?

A p riori knowledge is knowledge gained in- dependendy of or prior to sense cxpcncncc.

A poste.riori know~ ledge is knowledge thar depends entirely on sense cxpcncncc.

True knowledge exists in

knowing that you know nothing. -Socr.ues

Rationalism is the view thar through unaided rea- son we can come to know

what the world is like.

Empiricism L~ the view thar our knowledge of the empirical world comes solely from sense cxpcncncc.

believes that sheep cannot Hy, then it is true (for him) that sheep cannot Hy. You thereby can make something true by believing it to be true. Likewise, if a culture believes that the earth is Hat and that adulterers should be beheaded, then it is true (for irs people) that the earth is Hat and that adulterers should be beheaded.

If relativism in either form is correct, then kno,vledge would be easy to attain- perhaps a great deal easier than acquiring objective truth, which demands that our bel iefs somehow link up to the objective ,vorld. But for a variety of reasons, most philosophers have rejected relativism. For one thing, they say, the doctrine implies several absurdities that render it implausible. They point out, for example, that if we could make a statement true just by believing it to be true, we ,vould be infall ible. We could not possibly be in error about anything that we sincerely believed. We could never be mistaken about what time it is or when the French Revolution took place or whether breaking a promise is morally permissible. Personal infallibility is, of course, absurd, and this possibil ity seems to count heavily against subjective rela- tivism. The same point can be made about cultural relativism.

Philosophers distinguish two ways to acquire knowledge: through reason and through sense experience. The former is called a priori; it yields knowledge gained independently of or prior to sense experience. The latter is known as a posteriori; it gives us knowledge that depends entirely on sense experience. We can come to kno,v many propositions a priori-for example, that all bachelors are unmarried, that all triangles have three sides, that 2 + 3 = 5, and that something is either a cat or not a cat. We need not do a survey of bachelors to see if they really are all unmarried; we can kno,v this just by thinking about it. And we know that "Something is either a cat or not a cat" is true; it is a simple logical truth-and we know it ,vithout having to observe any cars. It seems that we can also come to kno,v many propositions a posteriori-for instance, that John the bachelor has red hair, that he just d re,v a tri- angle on paper, that he is holding five pencils, and that Tabby the cat is on the mat. To know these things, we must rely on our senses.

Through the centuries, philosophers have debate.cl whether our kno,vledge of the world is fundamentally a priori or a posteriori (if indeed we have kno,vledge), and these argumenrs continue today in many forms in both philosophy and science. On one side of this d ivide are the rationalists, ,vho bel ieve that through unaided reason we can come to know what the ,vorld is like. They maintain that some or all knowledge of the empirical ,vorld is a priori, discoverable simply through the ,vorkings of our minds. O n the other side are the empiricists, who contend that our knowledge of the empirical world comes solely from sense experience. We acquire knowledge entirely a posteriori. We may come to know logical and mathematical truths through reason, but ,ve can kno,v nothing of empirical reality except through our senses.

At this point, you may find yourself being more sympathetic to the empiricists than to the rationalisrs. After all, you seem to acquire an enormous amount of information via your five senses. Through them, you grasp that the grass is green, the stove is hot, the music is loud, the lime is tart, and the rose is sweet. But what can you know through reason alone? Rationalists would say that you can know a great deal. Without making any empirical observations, mathematicians can not

Overview: The Problem of Knowledge 2 79

only discover ne\v mathematical truths, but also develop mathematical models chat can accurately describe the empirical \vorld. They can, for example, accurately pre- d ict the existence of astronomical objecrs and their movements without once looking through a telescope. Likewise, we know the fundamental truths of logic, \vichouc which reasoning itself would be impossible. We know, for example, chat nothing can both have a property and lack it at the same time, and chat for any particular property, everything either has it or lacks it. Thus we know without looking chat nothing can both be a dog and not be a dog at the same time, there are no square circles, and married bachelors don't exist. Some rationalises have gone further and asserted that reason alone can reveal the most important, basic truths about the world-such as "Every event has a cause" and "The shortest d istance between two points is a straight line."

Many of the greatest thinkers in history have taken the rationalist approach co kno\vledge. Among these \Ve can count Plato (c. 427-347 BCE), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677), and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716). The most influential rationalise theory comes from Descartes, the inventor of ana- lytic geometry and founder of modern philosophy. He chinks sense experience is an unreliable source of kno\vledge, so he looks co reason co give all our kno\vl- edge a foundation as firm as chat \vhich supports unshakeable mathematical truths. Through reason he hopes co defeat skepticism. H is method is first co doubt ev- erything that he cannot be cer tain of, a process chat leaves him kno\ving hardly anything. Bue through reason alone he soon uncovers what he considers co be self- evidenc, certain truths from which he derives ocher indubitable propositions. In chis way he tries co build an edifice of knowledge that, like an inverted pyramid, rests on one or nvo rock-solid foundation scones chat support all the others.

The empiricist view of knowledge has been advanced most famously by the British empiricists John Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685-1753), and David Hume (1711-1776). They want co turn Descartes' pyramid righcside up, rest- ing all knowledge on a vase foundation of sense data (the content of our experience) chat supports the upper stones. Among these th inkers, Hume probably has been the most influential, arguing for an uncompromising empiricism chat leads to a far-reaching skepticism chat not all empiricists have shared. He holds chat all our kno\vledge (aside from purely logical truths) is derived from sense perceptions or ideas about chose perceptions. Like other empiricisrs, he believes chat the mind is empty-a blank slate-until experience gives it content. We can have kno\vledge of something only if it can be sensed, and any proposition chat does not refer co what can be sensed is meaningless. Guided by chis latter empiricist principle, Hume is d riven to skepticism about many things chat ochers have taken for granted, including the existence of the external world, causation, a continuing self, rel igious doctrines, and inductive reasoning. H is skepticism arises because he thinks that even though all our knowledge is based on sense experience, \Ve cannot know how the objecrs of our sense experience are related. We cannot know, for example, chat there is a cause-and-effect relationship between associated objects. To infer such a connection is co go beyond what our senses tell us. Our notions of causal connections are merely matters of custom and habit.

To be conscious that you

arc ignorant is a great step to knowledge. -Benjamin Disraeli

3 What facts about the world can we know based solely on our reasoning?

280 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish

people dogmatically ro believe any philosophy, nor even mmc. -Bertrand Russell

Subjective idealism is the doctrine that all that exist arc m inds and their ideas.

Applying his own theory of knowledge, John Locke rejeccs skepticism about external objects. Like a good empiricist, he believes chat all \Ve are di reccly a\vare of is sense data. Our sense experience is caused by external objects, and we can have knowledge of chose objects because our sense data resemble or represent chem.

Berkeley, like Locke, also thinks his brand of empiricism can defeat che skeptic, but he differs \vich Locke and ocher empiricists on how sense data rel ace co the ex- ternal \vorld. He accepts che empiricist notion of our being a\vare only of sense data but rejeccs Locke's belief in che existence of material objects. He argues chat not only do we know just our own ideas, but there is no reason co suppose that they resemble or are cause.cl by material objects. Locke, like most people, presumes chat material objects exist independencly of our sense experience, chat they are, even when we do not perceive chem. Bue Berkeley denies this, insisting that it is logically impossible for physical objects co exist, for we cannot "conceive chem existing unconceived." All chat exist, he says, are minds and their ideas, a vie\v kno\vn as subjective idealism.

Immanuel Kane (1724-1804) was shocked by the skepticism that seeme.d co be lurking in empiricism in general and in che thoroughgoing empiricism of Hume in particular. Hume's view is chat we conscancly experience councless sensations associ- ace.d in various ways, but \Ve cannot know about any necessary connections between chem, che kind of connections that are che central focus of science. Kane agrees that all our kno\vledge begins \vich che ra\v data of sense experience, but he argues that our minds impose order on it. Like a cookie cutter scamping out shapes in dough, our minds mold our sensations into conceptual patterns chat determine how we see che \vorld. Thus our minds impress che concepcs of cause and effect, space, and time onto our experience. Therefore \Ve can know-a priori-chat there are necessary connections benveen causes and effeccs and chat space and time have definite char- acteristics, because our mental po\vers impose chis structure on our perceptions. In chis way, Kant cries co save science and our everyday experience from Hume's rad ical skepticism. In che process he initiates two hundred years of critical scrutiny of his ideas by generations of philosophers.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 6.1

I. Consider che skeptic's charge chat we can never be confident about che reliability of our normal sources of knowledge (perception, memory, introspection, and reasoning). Does it follow from the face that we are sometimes mistaken when we rely on these sources chat \Ve are always mistaken? How \vould you respond co che skeptic?

2. Does cognitive relativism really imply that persons or cultures are infallible? If so, \vhy \vould chis be a problem for che cognitive relativist? Do you agree with the doctrine's critics on chis point? Why or \vhy not? (c,int.)

The Rationa I ist Road 281

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS cont. SECTION 6.1

3. Suppose a rationalist declares that scientists can know (\vithout once looking through a telescope) about the physical characteristics of planets in our solar system. Would this be a plausible claim? Why or \vhy not?

4. Suppose Locke is right that all we are ever directly aware of is sense data. Would th is fact make it impossible to know about external objects? How could \Ve ever know that there is something on the other side of our sense data? Explain how Locke's view can lead to skepticism.

5. Berkeley denies the existence of material objects. How would you argue that he is mistaken about this? Hint: Why do you normally assume that material objects exist and are not merely creations of your mind? Why do you assume that the \vorld exists \vh ile you are sleeping?

6.2 THE RATIONALIST ROAD

So rationalists hold that \Ve have kno\vledge, that skepticism is false, and that through reason we can come to know the most important t ruths of reality. They differ, ho\vever, on ho\v such knowledge is pos- sible and how they arrive at their rationalist conclusions. Historically, two giants stand on the long road of rationalist thought: Plato at the beginning in ancient Greece and Descartes in Europe at the intersec- tion of modern philosophy and science.

Plato's Rationalism

Plato maintained that sense experience alone could not be the source of kno\vledge, although many of his contemporaries claimed other\vise. Some of them assumed that since knowledge must be based on sense experience, and since sense experience can vary from person to person

Figure 6.2 Plato (c. 429-347 see).

or culture to culture, cognitive relativism must be true. If one person says a grape is sour and another says it's sweet, there must be no objective fact of the matter, just truth relative to different persons. Other thinkers thought that since our perceptions are often illusory, distorted, or otherwise mistaken, sense experience is not a reliable source of kno\vledge. And since our perceptions are the only possible route to kno\vledge, we must not kno\v anything. Thus skepticism, they said, is the proper epistemological attitude. Plato thought that our perceptions \Vere just as unreliable a guide to genuine kno\vledge as the relativists and skeptics assumed. But he argued that since we clearly do have kno\vledge, we must derive it from a reliable source-and that source has to be reason.

Every great advance in

natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejec- tion of authoriry. -Thomas H. Huxley

282 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

4 Is the number five an object ive entity? Is the preposition over ob- jectively real? Explain your reasons. Do your answers to these ques- tions give any support to Plato's notion of the Forms?

All men by nature desire knowledge. -Aristotle

Plato deduced that ,ve must be able to acqui re knowledge because we can identify false beliefs, and ,ve obviously possess kno,vledge because we can grasp, through reason, mathematical, concept ual, and logical truths. We kno,v that 2 + 5 = 7; that a triangle has three sides; and that if A is larger than B and B is larger than C, then A is larger than C. Plato pointed out that these truths are objective: They are true regardless of what ,ve think. We do not invent them out of our imaginations; we discover them. No matter ho,v hard we try, ,ve cannot make 2 + 5 equal 9. Plato reasoned that if such truths are object ive, they must also be about real th ings. They must refer to an independently existing, immaterial reality that is beyond sense experience. In addition, he insisted, these truths must also be immutable and eternal, existing in the immaterial realm unchanged fo r all time. Only through our powers of reason can we reach beyond the physical world to take hold of real knowledge of fundamental truths. Sense experience, in contrast, can yield only trans ito ry, ever-changing information-mere opinion that is vastly inferior to everlasting truths.

So for Plato, reality comprises two worlds: the fleeting world of the physical ac- cessed through sense experience and the eternal, nonphysical, changeless world of genuine knowledge accessed only th rough reason. In spelling out the contencs of t he latter, Plato articulates the central notion of his philosophy: the Forms. The Forms (also called Ideas) are perfect conceptual models for every existing thing, residing only in the eternal world penetrated by reason alone. They are the ideals, or stan- dards, that ,ve can first come to know and then use to assess the notions and objects ,ve encounter in our lives. Through reason, we can access the Form of "table" and thus know the ideal template of"table." With this kno,vledge ,ve can understand the essence of a table and use th is understanding to make judgments about all physical tables. Like,vise, when ,ve access the Form "courage," we know ,vhat the ideal of courage is and can use this knowledge to appraise a particular instance of courage. As Plato sees it, the truly real ,vorld is the world of the Forms-the domain of the perfect and everlasting. With knowledge of the really real, we can understand the "less real" realm of the imperfect and t ransitory.

In Plato's account, the Forms are universals-properties that can be had by sev- eral particular things. Every blue thing is a particular instance of the universal prop- erty of blueness. Every triangular thing is a particular example of the universal of triangularity. Particulars reside in the temporary, imperfect world of the material; universals are found in the eternal, perfect world of the really real. We can rise above mere opinion and attain knowledge only by reasoning our way to the Forms. To do this is to travel down the rationalist road marked by Plato, the greatest rationalist of all time.

Ho,v is it that we seem to have kno,vledge of the Forms, however dimly, even though our senses can tell us nothing about them? Our sense experience can ac- quaint us only ,vith material objeccs, but the Forms are not material. It's as if these universals were already in our minds ,vaiting to be uncovered. Plato's answer- and the ans,ver of most other rationalises-is the doctrine of innate knowledge. He thinks that knowledge of these immaterial ideals is already present at birth, in- scribed in our minds (our immortal souls) in a previous existence. We are born with

The Rationa I ist Road 283

this knowledge, and we somehow acquired it before our present lives. Accessing this kno\vledge, then, is a matter of using reason to recall what we previously knew in another life.

To many ears, this recall theory may sound preposterous. But in Meno, Plato attempts a brilliant demonstration of it. In the dialogue, he depicrs the character of

Socrates discussing innate kno\vledge with Meno. To prove his point, Socrates calls over an unschooled slave boy and asks him a series of questions about a geometry problem. Socrates dra\vS a nvo-foot-by-two-foot square (four square feet) and then tells the boy to dra\v another one that is twice the size of the first. Initially the boy thinks that doubling the length of each side of the square \viii produce a square twice as large as the first. So he draws a four-foot-by-four-foot square (sixteen square feet) but sees right away that that ans\ver cannot be correct. As Socrates asks fur- ther questions, the boy comes to the right answer on his own. Socrates says that he merely helped the boy recollect knowledge that he already possessed, bringing innate kno\vledge to consciousness.

Plato, Meno

Soc. What do you say of him [the s lave boy], Meno? Were not all these answers given out of his own head?

Men. Yes, they were all his own. Soc. And yet, as we were just now saying, he did not know? Men. True. Soc. And yet he had those notions in him? Men. Yes. Soc. Then he who does not know still has true notions of that which he does not

know? Men. He has. Soc. And at present these notions are just wakening up in him, as in a dream; but

if he were frequently asked the same questions, in different forms, he would know as well as any one at last?

Men. I dare say. Soc. Without any one teaching him he will recover his knowledge for himself, if he

is only asked questions? Men. Yes. Soc. And this spontaneous recovery in him is recollection? Men. True. Soc. And this knowledge which he now has must he not either have acquired or

always possessed? Men. Yes. Soc. But if he always possessed this knowledge he would always have known; or if

he has acquired the knowledge, he could not have acquired it in this life, un less he has been taught geometry; for he may be made to do the same with a ll geometry and every other branch of knowledge. Now, has any one ever taught him? You must know that, if, as you say, he was born and bred in your house.

5 Socrates explains the boy's understanding of geometry by insisting that the boy was recol- lecting knowledge ga ined in another life. What is a plausible alternative exp lanat ion for the phenomenon? Which explanation seems closer to the truth?

284 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Men. And I am certain that no one ever did teach him. Plato, Meno Soc. And yet has he not the knowledge?

Men. That, Socrates, is most certa in. Soc. But if he did not acquire this knowledge in this life, then clearly he must have

had and learned it at some other time? Men. That is evident. Soc. And that must have been the time when he was not

a man? Men. Yes. Soc. And if there have been always true thoughts in him,

both at the time when he was and was not a man, which only need to be awakened into knowledge by putting questions to him, his soul must have always possessed this knowledge, for he a lways either was or was not a man?

Men. That is clear. Soc. And if the truth of a ll things a lways existed in the soul,

then the soul is immortal. Wherefore be of good cheer, and try to recollect what you do not know, or rather do not remember.

Men. I feel, somehow, that I like what you are saying. Soc. And I, Meno, like what I am saying. Some th ings I have

said of which I am not altogether confident. But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we th ink that we ought to inquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the id le fancy that there was no knowing and no use in searching after what we know not; - that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.'

Figure 6.3 Roman fresco painting of Socrates.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

-Plato

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. -Albert Einstein

Many thinkers reject Plato's notion of a preexisting state in which we acquire knowledge, and they are skeptical of che claim chat we are born ,vich knowledge. Bue che idea of innate knowledge in some form is still attractive co rationalise philosophers, for it would expla in ho,v we could possess knowledge ,vich- ouc relying on sense experience. In any case, both rationalists and empiricists muse provide an explanation of ho,v ,ve seem co know logical and mathematical truths (and perhaps scientific truths) chat we do not arrive at through our senses.

Descartes' Doubt

In Descartes' time, che ,vorld muse have seemed co many co be tu rning upside down.

Time-honored ideas, established religious doctrines, and traditional attitudes were being called into question by both new discoveries in science and radically different religious outlooks on che Continent. This ,vas che era of Galileo, C-opernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, and Marcin Luther-thinkers ,vho ,vere dismantling che old ideo-

logical structures piece by piece. Into chis ,vorld of upheaval and change came che brilliant Descartes, determined co see if there could be any epistemological certain- ties in an age of doubt. He hoped chat kno,vledge could be given a foundation as sturdy as chat ,vhich buttressed mathematics. If only kno,vledge of che ,vorld could

be as certain as knowledge of geometry!

Oddly enough, Descartes begins his quest for kno\vledge by first plunging into skepticism. He sees that a great many things he thought he knew appear now to be false. So he decides to "raze everything to the g round and begin again" from a firm foundation, doubting all beliefs except those that are "certain and indubitable," be-

liefs that cannot possibly be false. Only bel iefs that are certain can count as kno\vl-

edge, he says. If he has reason to doubt any of them, they are not knowledge. Here he is at the start of his quest:

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

The Rationa I ist Road 285

It is now some years s ince I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since con- structed on this basis; and from that t ime I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences. But as th is enterprise appeared to be a very great one, I waited until I had attained an age so mature that I could not hope that at any later date I should be better fitted to execute my design. This reason caused me to delay so long that I should feel that I was doing wrong were I to occupy in deliberation the time that yet remains to me for action. To-day, then, since very opportunely for the plan I have in view I have delivered my mind from every care [and am happily agitated by no passions] and since I have procured for myself an assu red leisure in a peaceable retirement, I shall at last seriously and freely address myself to the general upheaval of all my former opinions.

Now for th is object it is not necessary that I should show that all of these are false-I shall perhaps never arrive at this end. But inasmuch as reason already per- suades me that I ought no less carefu ll y to withhold my assent from matters which are not entirely certain and indubitable than from those which appear to me manifestly to be false, if I am able to find in each one some reason to doubt, this will suffice to justify my rejecting the whole . And for that end it will not be requ isite that I should examine each in particular, which would be an endless undertaking; for owing to the fact that the destruction of the foundations of necessity brings with it the downfall of the rest of the edifice, I shall only in the first place attack those principles upon which all my former opinions rested.•

Descartes soon finds reason to doubt all beliefs base.cl on sense experience, arriv- ing at th is conclusion via h is famous dream argument. He notes that " there are no certain indications by which \Ve may clearly distinguish \vakefulness from asleep."3

Our d reams can seem like reality, and in d reams we often don't know we are dream-

ing. So it is possible that we are dreaming now, he says, and that what we take to be the real world is in fact not real at al l. More to the point, it is possible that our sense experience-by \vhich \Ve presume to know material reality-is just a dream. If so, we can't be certain about anything we think \Ve know through our senses. Therefore, sense experience can yield no knowledge.

286 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

6 Is there any way you can tell whether you are awake or dream- ing? Is Descart es right that he cannot tell the difference? Explain.

7 Is there any way you can determine whether you are living in the Matrix? Can you tell whether an evil genius is systematica lly deceiv- ing you? Why or why not?

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

All that up to the present time I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or thro ugh the senses; but it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived.

But it may be that although the senses sometimes deceive us concerning things which a re hardly perceptible, or very far away, there are yet many others to be met with as to which we cannot reasonably have any doubt, although we recognise them by their means. For example, there is the fact that I am here, seated by the fire, attired in a dressing gown, having this paper in my hands and other similar matters . ...

At the same time I mus t remember that I am a man, and tha t consequently I am in the habit of sleeping, and in my dreams representing to myself the same things or sometimes even less probable things, than do those who are insane in their waking moments. How often has it happened to me that in the night I dreamt that I found my- self in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated nea r the fire, whilst in reality I was lying undressed in bed! At this moment it does indeed seem to me that it is with eyes awake that I am looking at this paper; that this head which I move is not asleep, that it is deli berately and of set purpose that I extend my hand and perceive it; wha t happens in sleep does not appea r so clear nor so distinct as does all this. But in think- ing over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar ill usions, and in dwelling carefu lly on this reflection I see so manifes tly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from s leep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now dream.•

After chis insight, Descartes d iscovers chat his skepticism goes even deeper. Sup- pose, he says, chat an evil genius o r god has sec out co systematically deceive me. This being could delude me about every k ind of thought I could possibly have. I can't be sure chat ch is is not che case. I can't be certain chat a ll my thoughts are not che work of an evil entity chat infuses my mind with false sensations and ideas, making an external reality appear co exist. And if I am not certa in of chis, I can't k now a nything chat I previously choughc I kne\v, including such seemingly o bvious th ings as che truths of mathematics.

Nevertheless I have long had fixed in my mind the belief that an all-powerful God ex- isted by whom I have been crea ted such as I am. But how do I know tha t He has not brought it to pass that there is no earth, no heaven, no extended body, no magni tude, no place, and that nevertheless [I possess the perceptions of all these things and tha t] they seem to me to exist just exac tly as I now see them? And, besides, as I sometimes imagine that others deceive themselves in the things which they think they know best, how do I know that I am not deceived every time that I add two and three, or count the sides of a square, or judge of things yet simple r can be imagined?I

As we have seen, D escartes' assumption is chat knowle.dge requires certa inty.

He holds chat for beliefs co count as kno\vledge, we muse be certain of chem-they muse be so \vell supported as co be beyond all possible doubt. Bue some philoso- phers claim chat chis requ irement for knowle.dge secs che bar coo h ig h. They reject Descartes' skeptical a rgumencs because they are convinced chat knowledge demands not beyond-all-doubt certainty, but only reasonable g rounds for believing. After all,

The Rationa I ist Road 2 87

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Living in the Matrix

Descartes' evil genius scenario is the forerunner of some similar what-if tales cold by philoso- phers and ochers in our o,vn rimes. In one of chem, you are not ac che ,nercy of a ,nalicious demon; you are instead a brain in a var of chemicals in a laboratory. Your brain is hard-,vired co a computer, which a brilliant (hue probably crazy) scientist is using co give you experiences char are indistinguishable from chose you ,night have if you ,vere not a ,vired-up marinating brain. The question is, How could you ever be certain d1ac you are not such a brain in a var?

The same sort of question arises about che predicament of humans in che movie The Matrix. Intelligent computers have enslaved che human race, encasing everyone in pods and eleccronically feeding simulations of the rea l world into their brains. As Christopher Grau says,

These creatures have fed Neo [the movie's protag- onist] a s imulation that he couldn't possibly help but take as the real thing. What's worse, it isn't clear how any of us can know with certainty that we are not in a position similar to Neo before his "rebirth." ... A viewer of The Matrix is naturally led to wonder: how do I know I am not in the Matrix?

Christopher Grau, "Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience

Machine: Philosophy and The Matrix," in Ph ilosophers Explore the Matrix, ed. Christopher Grau (New York: Oxford University Press,

2005), /0- 23.

Figure 6.4 The Matrix, l ike a lot of other movies, raises philosophical questions- specifically, epistemological questions.

Some philosophers think the skeptical implications of Matrix-type scenar- ios can be countered through an argument based on inference to the best explanation. What would such an argument look like? Do you agree that it can successfully counter the skeptical scenarios?

they say, ,ve often claim co kno,v many propositions that are not certain. We insist that ,ve kno,v chat grass grows, chat some dogs have fleas, that Africa exists, and

that Abraham Lincoln lived and died in America-yet none of these statements is beyond a ll possible doubt.

Information L\ not

knowledge. -Albert Einscein

288 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Imagine char you and a friend are looking ar an especially bright light in rhe night sky. You chink rhe light is an aircraft; your friend believes it is a twinkl ing star. To you, rhe light seems to move; to your friend, it seems srationary. When you view it from rhe ground, it looks ell iptical, bur from your second-story windo,v, it looks circular. You judge ir robe close, perhaps only a couple of miles away. You can make our the craft's nose and rail, the outl ine of rhe ,vings, and tiny dors char must be the windows. You may even hear rhe drone of its engines. After a half hour, the light has remained in exactly the same position in the sky. On your radio, you hear a newscast about ho,v bright and beautiful the planer Venus is ronighr- posirioned as it is in rhe very same portion of the sky char you have been observing. You have been ,vrong about everything, your m ind has shaped your perceptions, your perceptions of rhe same objecr have been differenr from different angles, and your friend's observations and your o,vn have differed dramatically.

If your senses can be this fraught with inconsistencies, discrepancies,

and errors (and they often are), how can you ever be sure that the

world is as it appears to be? Can you rea lly know anything? How

would you answer these skeptical concerns?

Descartes' Certainty

Ad ri ft in doubt, Descartes ,vonders whether there is anything at all he can know. Bue just ,vhen it seems that he can kno,v nothing, he comes upon a truth that he cannot possibly doubt: He exisrs:

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

The Meditatio n of yesterday fi lled my mind wi th so many doubts that it is no longe r in my power to forget them. And yet I do not see in what manner I can resolve them; and, just as if I had all of a sudden fallen into very deep wate r, I am so disconcerted that I can neithe r make certa in of setting my feet o n the bottom, nor can I swim and so support myself on the surface. I shall nevertheless make an effort and follow anew the same path as that on which I yesterday ente red, i.e. I shall proceed by setting aside all that in which the least doubt could be supposed to exist, just as if I had discove red

290 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

PH I LOSO PH ERS AT WORK

Rene Descartes

Descartes (I 59~ J 650) d id his philosophical ,vork in a time of incelleccual, scientific, and religious change, an era of revolutionary new chinking char would eventu- ally transform the Western world. He ,vas a conce,nporary

of Gal ileo and Kepler, con1ing along afi:er Copernicus Figure 6.5 Rene Descartes (1596- did his work and before Ne,vcon did his. While trying 1650), philosopher, mathematician, co reconcile che old ideas with che new, he sparked a and eminent rational ist. quiet revolution of his own and became che father of ,nodern philosophy.

He ,vas born in La Haye, France, educated in phi losophy and mathe,nacics ar che Jesuit College of La Fleche in Anjou, and trained in che law ar Poiciers. He served for a whi le in che Dutch army, where he did much of his early phi losophical chinking, supposedly inspired by drea,ns he had while sleeping in a "srove-heared room."

He ,vas such a bright student char he easily advanced beyond his teachers, and he qu ickly realized chat their arguments and reasoning were defective. Knowl- edge in general, he thought, is on very shaky ground, and char scare of affairs is

But after I have recognised that there is a God- because at the same time I have also recognised that all things depend upon Him, and that He is not a deceiver, and from that have inferred that what I perceive clearly and distinctly cannot fail to be true- although I no longer pay attention to the reasons for which I have judged this to be true, provided that I recollect having clearly and distinctly perceived it no contrary reason can be brought forward which could ever cause me to doubt of its truth; and thus I have a true and cer- tain knowledge ofit. And this same knowledge extends likewise to all other things which I recollect having formerly demonstrated, such as the truths of geometry and the like; for what can be alleged against them to cause me to place them in doubt? Will it be said that my nature is such as to cause me to be frequently deceived? But I already know that I cannot be deceived in the judgment whose grounds I know clearly. Will it be said that I formerly held many things to be true and certain which I have afterwards recognised to be false? But I had not had any clear and distinct knowledge of these things, and not as yet knowing the ru le whereby I assure myself of the truth, I had been impelled to give my assent from reasons which I have since recognised to be less strong than I had at the time imagined them to be. What further objection can then be raised? That possibly I am dreaming (an objection I myself made a little while ago), or that all the thoughts which I now have are no more true than the phantasies of my dreams? But even though I slept the case would be the same, for all that is clearly present to my mind is absolutely true.8

Being a thoroughgoing rationalist, Descartes believes that he apprehends substan- tial truths about the ,vorld through reason. He would admit that th rough perception

The Rationalist Road 291

intolerable. So he sec our on his long quest for knowledge char ,vas as logical and certain as a marhemarical proof. Along rhe ,vay, he reshaped n1arhe1narics by in- venting coordinate geometry. (Re,nember "Carresian coordinates"?)

He developed a rarional isric theory of knowledge ,vhose scarring point was a recognition of personal existence ("I ch ink therefore I a,n"). Reason is rhe source of subscanrial kno,vledge, and sense experience has only a subordinate role. H is episten1ology ,vould be influentia l and controversia l for centuries co come. H is metaphysics has also affected succeeding generations. He posited a stark division bet\veen ,nind and marrer, wirh rhe £\VO somehow inreracring (an inreracrion char he could nor adequately explain). His Discourse on the Method was published in 1637, Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641, Principles of Philosophy in 1644, and The Passions of the Sou/in 1649.

In 1649 he agreed co ruror rhe phi losophically minded Queen Kristina of S,veden. Bur rhe work de,nanded an unpleasant departure fro,n his usua l routine of sleeping in: He was asked co begin lessons ar 5:00 a.m.! The change allegedly caused his de,nise; he conrracred pneun1onia and died. (Another notable ph iloso- pher, Grotius, had visited Kristina in 1644 and suffered an identical fare. Kristina seems co have been very rough on famous phi losophers.)

he learns simple facts such as the color of a Ro,ver and the position of the sun in the sky. But in many other cases, he says, kno,vledge of the external world is obtained through an "intuition of the mind," not sense data. H ere is Descartes explaining this point:

Let us begin by considering the commonest matters, those which we believe to be the most distinctly comprehended, to wit, the bodies which we touch and see; not indeed bodies in general, for these general ideas are usually a little more confused, but let us consider one body in particular. Let us take, for example, this piece of wax: it has been taken quite freshly from the hive, and it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey which it contains; it still retains somewhat of the odour of the flowers from which it has been culled; its colour, its figure, its size are apparent; it is hard, cold, easily handled, and if you strike it with the finger, it will emit a sound. Finally all the things which are requisite to cause us distinctly to recognise a body, are met with in it. But notice that while I speak and approach the fire what remained of the taste is exhaled, the smell evaporates, the co- lour alters, the figure is destroyed, the size increases, it becomes liquid, it heats, scarcely can one handle it, and when one strikes it, no sound is emitted. Does the same wax remain after this change? We must confess that it remains; none would judge otherwise. What then did I know so distinctly in this piece of wax? It could certainly be nothing of all that the senses brought to my notice, since all these things which fall under taste, smell, sight , touch, and hearing, are found to be changed, and yet the same wax remains ....

We must then grant that . . . it is my mind alone which perceives . . . this piece of wax .. .. But what is this piece of wax which cannot be understood excepting by the

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

9 Does Descartes succeed in showing that knowledge of the external world is ga ined by an intuition of the mind? Does his argument show that empiricism is fa lse? Why or why not?

6.3 THE EMPIRICIST TURN

Mose empiricists have rejected skepticism while denying ra- tionalise claims (such as the doctrine of innate ideas), building their theories of kno\vledge on the supposed firmer ground of sense experience. Bue the differences among the greatest empiricists are stark. Locke argues chat we can know much about things external co our minds; Berkeley agrees chat we can have knowledge but denies the reality of material objects; and Hume insists chat the scope of our knowledge is much narro\ver than most people realize, raising skeptical doubts about the existence of the external world and the inductive methodology of science.

Locke

The Empiricist Turn 293

In Locke's philosophical masterwork, An Essay Concern- ing Human Understanding (1689), he builds a case against rationalism and for a thoroughgoing empiricism. First, he contends chat the rationalise notion chat \Ve are born with kno\vledge ("innate principles," as he says) already imprinted on our minds is unfounded. The rationalise argues, says Locke, chat since all people seem co possess knowledge of cer- Figure 6.7 John Locke (1632-1704).

cain universal principles (s uch as truths of logic), chis knowl- edge muse be inborn. Ho\v else could everyone have come by chis kno\vledge? Locke replies chat there are no such universal principles, and even if there \vere, they could have easily arisen through sense experience. They need not be present at birch. Here is Locke's critique of innate ideas:

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

1. The way shown how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove it not innate. It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the unders tanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being; and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the fa lseness of this supposition, if I should only shew (as I hope I shall in the fol lowing parts of this discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natura l faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or princip les. For I imagine any one will easily grant, that it would be impertinen t to suppose, the ideas of colours innate in a creature, to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes, from external objects: And no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several t ruths to the impress ions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves

294 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

John Locke,

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

10 Locke says that universal agreement on principles does not prove that they are in- nate. Why does he say this? Is he right?

11 In response to Locke's point about ch ildren, suppose a rationalist insists that ch ildren's minds are not fully developed and so cannot yet have knowledge of innate principles-therefore, their lack of innate knowledge does not prove anything. Is th is a good argument?

faculties, fit to attain as easy and cer tain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind.

But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so li ttle out of the common road; I shall set down the reasons that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excuse for my mistake, if I be in one; which I leave to be considered by those who, with me, dispose themselves to embrace truth, wherever they find it.

2. General assent, the great argument. There is nothing more commonly taken for granted, than that there are certa in principles, both speculative and practical, (for they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all mankind: Which therefore, they argue, must needs be the constant impressions, which the souls of men receive in their fi rst beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as necessarily and rea lly as they do any of their inherent faculties.

3. Universal consent proves nothing. This argument, drawn from universal con- sent, has this misfo rtune in it, that if it were true in matter of fact, that there were certain truths wherein all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way shewn how men may come to that universal agreement, in the th ings they do consent in, which I presume may be done.

4. What is, is; and it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be; not universally assented to. But, which is worse, this argument of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate principles, seems to me a demonstration that there are none such; because there are none to which all mankind give an universal assent. I shall begin with the speculative, and instance in those magnified principles of dem- onstration; "Whatsoever is, is;" and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be;" which, of all others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have so settled a reputation of maxims universally received, that it wi ll , no doubt, be thought strange, if any one should seem to question it. But yet I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from having an universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom they are not so much as known.

5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to children, idiots, etc. For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them; and the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent, which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: It seeming to me near a contradiction, to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it perceives or understands not; imprinting if it signify any thing, being nothing else, but the making certain truths to be perceived. For to imprint any th ing on the mind, without the mind's perceiving it seems to me hardly intell igible. If therefore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know and assent to these truths: Which since they do not, it is evident that there are no such impressions. For if they are not notions naturally imprinted, how can they be innate? and if they are notions imprinted, how can they be unknown? To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression nothing. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. For if any one may, then, by the same reason, all propositions that are true, and the mind is capable ever of assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to be imprinted: Since, if any one can be said to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only, because it is capable of knowing it, and so the mind is of all truths it ever shall know. Nay, thus truths may be imprinted on the mind, which it never did, nor ever

shall know: For a man may live long, and d ie at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. So that if the capacity of know- ing, be the natural impress ion contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know, will, by this account, be every one of them innate; and this great point wil l amount to no more, but only to a very improper way of speaking; which, whil st it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing d ifferent from those, who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever den ied that the mind was capable of knowing several truths. The capac- ity, they say, is innate, the knowledge acquired. But then to what end such contest for certain innate maxims? If truths can be imprinted on the understanding without being perceived, I can see no d ifference there can be, between any truths the mind is capable of knowing in respect of their original: They must all be innate, or all adventitious: In vain shall a man go about to distinguish them. He therefore that talks of innate notions in the understanding, cannot (ifhe intend thereby any distinct sort of truths) mean such truths to be in the understanding as it never perceived, and is yet wholly ignorant of. For if these words (to be in the understanding) have any propriety, they signify to be understood: So that to be in the understanding, and not to be understood; to be in the mind, and never to be perceived; is all one, as to say any thing is, and is not in the mind or understand- ing. If therefore these two propositions, "Whatsoever is, is," and "I t is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be," are by nature imprinted, ch ildren cannot be ignorant of them; infants, and all that have souls, must necessarily have them in their understand- ings, know the truth of them, and assent to it.'0

For Locke, the mind does not come into the world already inscribed \Vith ideas or knowledge. O n the contrary, he says, the mind is unmarked "white paper" void of any ideas until sense experience gives it content. From where does the mind obtain "all the materials of reason and kno\vledge"? he asks. "To this I answer, in one word, from experience. In that all our knowledge is founded." 11

Rationalists like D escartes would say that our most important items ofknowle.dge must be innate because they could not possibly have come from sense experience. They \vould maintain, for example, that our kno\vledge of the concept " infinity" and of the proposition "Every event has a cause" must be prenatally imprinted on our minds because we can never observe instances of these in reality. Through sense ex- perience \Ve can become acquainted only with finite things, not an infinity of things; and we can observe only a limited number of evenrs, not a ll events. Locke, ho\vever,

holds that we can grasp such ideas by first having sense experience related to them and then extrapolating the ideas from the sense data. We can, for example, have the concept of infinity by experiencing finite things and multiplying and extending them in our imagination until we approach the idea of the infinite.

Locke tries to defeat the skeptic by showing how our sense experience can reveal the existence of an external world. H e says we must d istinguish between the objecrs of our experience (external objecrs) and the experience of those objects (sensations, or sense data). Physical objecrs cause sensations in us, and we are directly aware only of those sensations (or ideas, as Locke calls them). So we have di rect kno\vledge not of external objects, but of the sense data related to those objecrs. But if all \Ve ever really kno\v a re sense data, ho\v can we be sure they give us an accurate picture of the external \vorld?

The Empiricist Turn 295

No man's knowledge

here can go beyond his cxpcncncc. -John Locke

12 Eva luate Locke's point about extrapolat- ing ideas from sense data. Is it plausible? Is it a good response to the rationalist?

296 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

All our knowledge has its . .

ongms m our pcrccpnons. -Leonardo da Vinci

John Locke, An Essay Conuming Human Understanding

Locke's ans\ver is chat sensations caused by external objeccs somehow represent chose objects and thereby g ive us knowle.dge of chem. Sensations a re, Locke says, "resemblances" of external things. Bue he poincs out chat not all of our sensations faithfully reflect reality. He d istinguishes between two kinds of properties that ex- ternal objects can have. Primary qualities are objective properties such as size, solid-

ity, and mobil ity. They a re in material objects, independent of our senses, and \vould be possessed by che objeccs even if no one was around co sense anything. Secondary qualities a re subjective p roperties such as che color re.cl or che smell of roses. They are in the mind, in chat they depend on che operation of che senses. They exist only when someone experiences them. For Locke, \Ve can have objective knowle.dge of mate- rial objects because some of our sense data represent the objects' primary qualities, \vhich are objective characteristics of chem.

Locke's theory of knowle.dge, however, has been sharply criticized by both ratio- nalises and empiriciscs. The main criticism is that Locke has not given us any good reason co think chat our sense data are proof of the existence of an external reality. After all, according co Locke, \Ve directly experience only our sensations, or ideas; \Ve only indirectly perceive external objects. We have no \vay of jumping out of our subjective point of view to compare our sense experience \vich che objective \vorld . For all we know, our sense data present a radically distorted or thoroughly false picture of reality.

Here is Locke's answer co chis charge:

1. Is to be had only by sensation. The knowledge of our own being we have by intu ition. The existence of a God reason clearly makes known to us, as has been shown.

The knowledge of the existence of any other thing, we can have only by sensation: For there being no necessary connexion of real existence with any idea a man hath in his memory, nor of any other existence but that of God, with the existence of any par- ticu lar man; no particular man can know the existence of any other being, but only when by actual operating upon him, it makes itself perceived by him.

For the having the idea of any th ing in our mind, no more proves the existence of that thing, than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world, or the visions of a dream make thereby a true history.

2 . Instance, whiteness of t his paper. It is therefore the actua l receiving of ideas from without [outside), that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know that something doth exist at that time without us, which causes that idea in us, though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does it. For it takes not from the certa inty of our senses, the ideas we receive by them, that we know not the man- ner wherein they are produced: V. g. whilst I write this, I have, by the paper affecting my eyes, that idea produced in my m ind, which whatever object causes, I call white; by which I know that that quality or accident (i.e. whose appearance before my eyes always causes that idea) doth reall y exist, and hath a being without me. And of th is, the greatest assurance I can possibly have, and to which my facu lties can attain, is the testi- mony of my eyes, which are the proper and sole judges of this thing, whose testimony I have reason to rely on as so certain, that I can no more doubt, whilst I write this, that I see white and black, and that something really exists, that causes that sensation in me, than that I write or move my hand; which is a certainty as great as human nature is capable of, concerning the existence of any thing, but a man's self alone, and of God.

3. This, though not so certain as demonstration, yet may be called knowledge, and proves t he existence of things without us. The notice we have by our senses, of the existing of things without us, though it be not altogether so certain as our in tu itive knowledge, or the deductions of our reason employed about the clear abstract ideas of our own minds; yet it is an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge. If we persuade ourselves, that our facu lt ies act and inform us right, concerning the existence of those objects that affect them, it cannot pass for an ill -grounded confidence: For I th ink nobody can, in earnest, be so sceptical, as to be uncertain of the existence of those th ings which he sees and feels . At least, he that can doubt so far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts) will never have any controversy with me; since he can never be sure I say any th ing contrary to his own opinion. As to myself, I th ink God has given me assurance enough of the existence of th ings without me; since by their dif· ferent application I can produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great concernment of my present state. This is certain; the confidence that our facu lties do not herein deceive us is the greatest assurance we are capable of, concern ing the ex- istence of material beings. For we cannot act any thing but by our facu lties; nor talk of knowledge itself, but by the help of those faculties, which are fitted to apprehend even what knowledge is. But besides the assurance we have from our senses themselves, that they do not err in the information they give us, of the existence of things without us, when they are affected by them, we are farther confirmed in th is assurance by other concurrent reasons.

4. Because we cannot have them but by t he inlets of the senses. First, it is plain those perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses; because those that want [l ack] the organs of any sense, never can have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in their minds. This is too evident to be doubted: And therefore we cannot but be assured, that they come in by the organs of that sense, and no other way. The organs themselves, it is plain, do not produce them, for then the eyes of a man in the dark would produce colors, and his nose smell roses in the winter: But we see no· body gets the relish of a pine-apple, ti ll he goes to the Indies, where it is, and tastes it.

5. Because an idea from actual sensation, and another from memory, are very dis- tinct perceptions. Secondly, because sometimes I find, that I cannot avoid the having those ideas produced in my mind. For though when my eyes are shut, or windows fast, I can at pleasure recall to my mind the ideas of light, or the sun, which former sensa- t ions had lodged in my memory; so I can at pleasure lay by that idea, and take into my view that of the smell of a rose, or taste of sugar. But, if I turn my eyes at noon towards the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas, which the light, or sun, then produces in me. So that there is a manifest difference between the ideas laid up in my memory, (over which, if they were there only, I should have constantly the same power to dispose of them, and lay them by at pleasure) and those which force themselves upon me, and I cannot avoid having. And therefore it must needs be some exterior cause, and the brisk acting of some objects without me, whose efficacy I cannot resis t, that produces those ideas in my mind, whether I will or no. Besides, there is nobody who doth not perceive the difference in himself between contemplating the sun, as he hath the idea of it in his memory, and actually looking upon it: Of which two, his perception is so distinct, that few of his ideas are more distinguishable one from another. And therefore he hath cer- tain knowledge that they are not both memory, or the actions of his mind, and fancies only within him; but that actual seeing hath a cause without.

6. Pleasure and Pain, which accompanies actual sensation, accompanies not the return ing of those ideas, without the external objects. Thirdly, add to this, that many of

The Empiricist Turn 297

13 Has Locke provided good reasons to think that our sense data prove the existence of an external world? Evaluate his attempt to answer his critics on t his point.

298 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

John Locke,

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

those ideas are produced in us with pain, which afterwards we remember without the least offence. Thus the pain of heat or cold, when the idea of it is revived in our minds, gives us no disturbance; which, when felt, was very t roublesome, and is again, when actually repeated; which is occasioned by the disorder the external object causes in our bodies when applied to it. And we remember the pains of hunger, thi rst, or the head- ache, without any pain at all ; which would either never disturb us, or else constantly do it, as often as we thought of it, were there nothing more but ideas floating in our minds, and appearances entertaining our fancies, without the real exis tence of things affecting us from abroad. The same may be said of pleasure, accompanying several actual sensations: And though mathematical demonstra tion depends not upon sense, yet the examining them by diagrams gives great credit to the evidence of our sight, and seems to give it a certainty approaching to that of demonstration itself. For it would be very strange, that a man should allow it for an undeniable truth, that two angles of a figure, which he measures by lines and angles of a diagram, should be bigger one than the other; and yet doubt of the existence of those lines and angles, which by looking on he makes use ofto measure that by.

7. Our senses assist one another's test imony of the existence of outward things. Fourthly, our senses in many cases bear witness to the truth of each other's report, concerning the existence of sensible things without us. He that sees a fire, may, if he doubt whether it be any th ing more than a bare fancy, feel it too; and be convinced by putting his hand in it. Which certa inly could never be put into such exquisite pain, by a bare idea or phantom, unless that the pain be a fancy too: Which yet he cannot, when the burn is well, by raising the idea of it, bring upon himself again.

Thus I see, whilst I write this, I can change the appearance of the paper: And by de- signing the letters tell before-hand what new idea it shall exhibit the very next moment, by barely drawing my pen over it: Which will neither appear (let me fancy as much as I will) if my hands stand sti ll; or though I move my pen, if my eyes be shut: Nor when those characters are once made on the paper, can I choose afterwards but see them as they are; that is, have the ideas of such letters as I have made. Whence it is manifest, that they are not barely the sport and play of my own imagination, when I find that the characters, that were made at the pleasure of my own thoughts, do not obey them; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall fancy it; but continue to affect my senses constantly and regu larly, according to the figures I made them. To which if we will add, that the sight of those shall, from another man, draw such sounds, as I beforehand design they shall stand for; there will be little reason left to doubt, that those words I write do really exist without me, when they cause a Jong series of regular sounds to affect my ears, which could not be the effect of my imagination, nor could my memory retain them in that order.

8. This certainty is as great as our condition needs. But yet, if after all this any one will be so sceptical, as to distrust his senses, and to affirm that all we see and hear, feel and taste, think and do, during our whole being, is but the series and deluding appear- ances of a Jong dream, whereof there is rea lity; and therefore will question the existence of all things, or our knowledge of any thing; I must desire him to consider, that if all be a dream, then he doth but dream, that he makes the question; and so it is not much matter, that a waking man should answer him. But yet, if he pleases, he may dream that I make him this answer, that the certainty of things existing in rerum natura, when we have the testimony of our senses fo r it, is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but as our condition needs. For our faculties being suited not to the fu ll extent of being, nor to a perfect, clear, comprehensive knowledge of things free from all doubt

and scruple; but to the preservation of us, in whom they are; and accommodated to the use of life; they serve to our purpose well enough, if they will but give us certain notice of those th ings, which are convenient or inconvenient to us. For he that sees a candle burning, and hath experimented the force of its fl ame, by putting his finger in it, will li ttle doubt that this is something existing without him, which does him harm, and puts him to great pain: Which is assurance enough, when no man requires greater certa inty to govern his actions by, than what is as certa in as his actions themselves. And if our dreamer pleases to try, whether the glowing heat of a glass furnace be barely a wandering imagination in a drowsy man's fancy; by putting his hand into it, he may perhaps be wakened into a certa inty greater than he could wish, that it is something more than bare imagination. So that th is ev idence is as great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our pleasure or pain, i.e. happiness or misery; beyond which we have no concernment, either of knowing or being. Such an assurance of the existence of things without us is sufficient to direct us in the attaining the good, and avoiding the evi l, which is caused by them; which is the important concernment we have of being made acquainted with them.

9. But reaches no farther than actual sensation. In fine then, when our senses do actually convey in to our understandings any idea, we cannot but be satisfied that there doth something at that time rea lly exist without us, which doth affect our senses, and by them give notice of itself to our apprehens ive facu lties , and actuall y produce that idea which we then perceive: And we cannot so far distrust their testimony, as to doubt, that such collections of simple ideas, as we have observed by our senses to be united together, do really exist together."

Locke asks, in effect, what could possibly cause our sense experience if not ex- ternal objects? His answer is that \Ve kno\v that external objects a re real (and not a dream or delus ion) because the theory that they exist is the best explanation for the sensations we have. External objects cause our sensations, and this is a much better explanation for our experience than that an evil genius o r our own minds create a fantasy world that we take to be real.

Berkeley

Like Locke, George Berkeley is an empiricist who rejects skepticism. He be- lieves that we can indeed acquire knowledge, and that the only path to it is through sense experience. But beyond these points of agreement, Berkeley veers sharply a\vay from Locke's view and from the theories of most other empiricists. (Caution: At fi rst glance, you may th ink Berkeley's theory of knowledge is both b izarre and wrong. But he p rovides plausible, and unsettling, arguments for his

view, and generations of philosophers-whether they have agreed with Berkeley or not-have been fo rced to take his theory seriously.)

The Empiricist Turn 299

14 Is Locke's argu- ment (an inference to the best explanation) successful? Evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.

We arc drowning in in~

formation and starved for

knowledge. -Unknown

For Berkeley, there are no material objects, no things that exist in the external world. There are objects to be sure, but they exist only as sensations (what Berkeley calls ideas) in some mind. They are real only because they are perceived by some- one. Thus he declares in his famous phrase, esse est percipi, "to be is to be perceived." What we usually call physical objects, then, are simply compilations of sense data,

Figure 6.8 George Berkeley (1685-1753).

300 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

and reality consists only of ideas and the minds that perceive them. Our sense experi- ence does not represent an external reality as Locke thought; our sense experience is real ity. Locke's view is vulnerable to skeptical criticism because he admits that there is a gap between our sensations and reality. Berkeley, ho\vever, tries to defeat skepticism by doing away with the gap entirely. He contends that there is no gap because material objects do not exist; only ideas exist along with the minds that perceive them.

Let's a llow Berkeley to make his case:

George Berkeley, Of the Principles of Human Knowledge

I. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive, for example, hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smell ing furn ishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one th ing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which, as they are pleasing or dis- agreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.

II. But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

Ill. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow. And (to me) it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose) , cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exist, when applied to sens- ible things. The table I write on, I say, exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelled; there was a sound, that is to say, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things with- out any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds or th inking things which perceive them.

IV. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevai ling amongst men, that houses, moun· tains, rivers, and in a word sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world; yet whoever sha ll find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations; and is it not plain ly repugnant that any one of these or any combination of them should exist unperceived? .. .

VI. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take th is important one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furn iture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence wi thout a mind, that their being (esse) is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actua lly perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all , or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible and invol ving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attri· bute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived .. . .

VIII. But say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet the re may be things like them whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind, in an un thinki ng substance. I answer, an idea can be like noth· ing but an idea; a colour or figure can be li ke noth ing but another colour or figure. If we look but ever so little in to our thoughts, we sha ll find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be them· selves perceivable or no? if they are, then they are ideas, and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense, to assert a colour is like something which is invis ible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest.'l

To provide further support for his theory, Berkeley takes aim at Locke's distinc- tion between primary and secondary qualities. He claims that primary qualities are just as mind-dependent as secondary qualities are, for primary qualities can also vary according to the state of our senses, and primary qualities are inseparable from secondary qualities.

IX. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities: by the fo rmer, they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number: by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes , and so forth. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resem· blances of any thing existing without the mind or unperceived; but they will have our ideas of the primary quali ties to be patterns or images of th ings which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they ca ll matter. By matter therefore we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure and motion, do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion, are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can

The Empiricist Turn 301

15 Is Berkeley right t hat belief in mate- rial objects involves a log ical contradiction? Explain.

George Berkeley, OJ the Principles of Human Knowledge

302 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

George Berlceley, OJ the Principles of Human Knowledge

16 Do you think there is no substantial differ- ence between pri mary and secondary quali- ties? Why or why not?

exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence it is plain, that the very notion of what is called matte r, or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it.

X. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qua li ties, do exist without the mind, in un thinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat, cold, and such like secondary qualities, do not, which they tell us are sensations existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can demonstrate beyond all exception. Now if it be certain, that those original qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the mind. But I desire any one to reflect and try, whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and mo- tion of a body, without all other sensible qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea of a body extended and moved, but I must withal give it some colour or other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere else .. . .

XIV. I shall further add, that after the same manner as modern philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence in matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all other sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for in- stance, it is said that heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all pat- terns of real beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them, for that the same body which appears cold to one hand, seems warm to another. Now why may we not as well argue that figure and extension are not patterns or resemblances of qua li ties existing in matter, because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of any thing settled and determinate without the mind? Aga in, it is proved that sweetness is not rea lly in the said th ing, because, the thing remain ing unaltered, the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say, that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any alteration in any external object.

XV. In short, let any one consider those arguments which are thought manifestly to prove that colours and tastes exist only in the mind, and he shall find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of extension, figure, and motion. Though it must be confessed, this method of arguing doth not so much prove that there is no extension or colour in an outward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true extension or colour of the object. But the arguments foregoing plainly show it to be impossible that any colour or extension at all or other sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an un thinking subject without the mind, or in truth, that there should be any such thing as an outward object.••

Berkeley's most interesting argument against the existence of material objecrs is a purely logical one: He contends that they cannot exist because their existence would be logically absurd. The commonsense vie\v is that material objects continue to be even when no one has them in mind. But, says Berkeley, this would mean that they can be conceived of as existing unconceived, that we can th ink about things that no

one is thinking about-a logical contradiction. Therefore, Berkeley concludes, the claim that material objects exist is false.

Crit ics have taken issue with this argument. They agree that in one sense it is impossible to conceive of something unconceived: It is impossible to contemplate a thing that is at the same time not being contemplated. But they maintain that there is no incoherence in believing the assertion that an entity exists unconceived. No contradiction lurks here. If so, the concept of a material object is not, as Berkeley charges, "a manifest repugnancy."

Some have faulted Berkeley's theory in another way. They ask, Why do pat- terns of sensations present themselves to us as if they \vere entirely independent of our minds? That is, \vhy do the configurations of sense data behave like material objects, seemingly existing unperceived and beyond our control? Berkeley's ans\ver is that things are never unperceived, for God continually perceives them and thus causes them to be as they are. God inserts a grand, intricate panoply of ideas into our minds-sensations that constitute for us a real world of God 's making. What we think of as material objects are instead repeating patterns of sense experience caused by God.

Like the rationalist Descartes, Berkeley the empiricist ultimately brings in God to explain ho\v knowledge is possible. But to many, his explanation of the peculiar nature of our sense experience is not as good by far as the commonsense explanation: Material objects exist independently of us and cause the patterns of our sensations. They think the God theory leaves too much unexplained; to them, the material- object theory seems simpler and more consistent \Vith scientific understanding of perception. As Bertrand Russell says,

Hume

[E]every principle of simplicity urges us to adopt the natural view, that there really are objects other than ourselves and our sense-data which have an existence not dependent upon our perceiving them. •s

So, in thei r own ways, Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley wrestled with the great epistemological questions: Do \Ve have knowledge? And if so, \vhat exactly do we know? In the end they all concluded that we do indeed have kno\vledge, but they d iffered on its extent. In contrast, David Hume-the renowned Enlightenment th inker and preeminent British philosopher-argued fo r a thoroughly consistent empiricism that led him to a skept icism so extensive that few others dared follo\v h is lead.

Hume insists that whatever knowledge we have is of two kinds: "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact." The forme r include truths of mathematics and truths of logic (such as "Either it's ra ining or it's not raining" and "No bachelors are marr ied "); they are derived from reason. The latter consist of information about t he world and are based entirely on sense experience. We can come to kno\v relations of ideas with certainty, but they are not informative about reality. We know that "Either it's rain ing or it's not raining" is true, but the proposition tells

The Empiricist Turn 303

The posscs..'iion of know· ledge docs not kill the sense of wonder and mys ..

tcry. There is always more mystery. -Ana'is Nin

17 How does Hume's empiricism d iffer from Locke's and Berkeley's?

304 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

\Y/e have limited know· ledge, or else science and philosophy would not be necessary.

-h-a.n Urlaub

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

David Hume

D uri ng his lifetime, David H un1e (171 1- 1776) earned a reputation as one of Britain's pre,nier ,nen of letters and garnered fa,ne as che author of the six- volu,ne H istory of England. In our o,vn rime, he is regarded

as a key figure in the Enl ightenment, the most inAu- Figure 6.9 David Hume (1711- ential of the British e1npiriciscs, and possibly Britain's 1776), philosopher, historian, and, greatest philosopher. reportedly, "a perfectly wise and

He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, ,vas edu- virtuous man."

caced at its un iversity, and spent most of his literary career in the city of his birth. By age sixteen he ,vas already well versed in classical literature, logic, metaphysics, philosophy, and eth ics. Lacer, in a three-year period, he read, in his words, ",n ose of che celebrated Books in Latin, French & English."

He wrote essays on politics, eth ics, and economics, as well as ,najor philosophical treatises. The first (and some say the greatest) of the latter ,vas A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), followed by An Enquiry Concerning H uman Understanding (1748) and An Enquiry Concerning rhe Principles of Morals (1751). In An Enquiry Concern· ing Human Understanding, his ,nasterpiece in episte1nology, he argued for a stronger and ,nore encompassing skepticis,n than any ocher major philosopher dared e,n- brace. H is skepticis,n extended co induction, causation, the external world, che self, 1niracles, and che existence of God. (His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ,vas such a scorching attack on rel igious bel ief that he delayed its publication unti l after

us not hing about whether it is actually raining. It simply states an obvious logi· cal t ruth. Matters of fact , on the other hand, are informat ive about the world, but they cannot be known with certainty. So contrary to the rationalists, Hume maintains t hat reason is not a source of knowledge about the world. In line ,vit h the empiricists, he holds that kno,vledge about the world can be acqui red only th rough experience.

But how much can we really know through experience alone? That is, what can ,ve know about matters of fact? Hume's answer: very little. He says that the infor- mation derived from experience-what he calls perceptions-consists of sense data (such as sighrs, odors, and sounds) and inner psychological states (such as hate, fea r, love, and desire) . Perceptions are of two types: impressions and ideas. Impressions are ,vhat ,ve d irectly and vividly experience, the raw sense data and psychological states. Ideas are our less vivid thoughrs and reflections about impressions. The experience of a bright red color ,vhen you look at a rose is an impression. Your thoughrs or imag· inings about the original rose experience is an idea. Hume uses this terminology

his death.) His doubts about all these ideas sprang naturally from his consistent and thoroughgoing e1npiricis1n, in which assertions can count as knowledge only if they can be traced back co experience. He boldly declared, "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these [e,npiricist] principles, ,vhat havoc must we ,nake? If we cake in our hand any volume; of divinicy or school metaphysics, for instance, lee us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experim~ntal reasoning concerning matter of focr and existence? No. Commie it then co the Rames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Despite his cough-,ninded phi losophy, Hurne ,vas blessed with a cheerful disposition, ,vhich probably helped him cope with the gloomy skepticism of his studies. He said chat reason could not cure his ,nelancholy, but d istraction and rec- reation could. As he put it, "I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am ,nerry,vich ,ny friends; and ,vhen after three or four hours' amusement, I ,vould return co these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart co enter into chem any farther." Bue he d id enter into the,n again many times- and so laid down a challenge co future ch inkers co cry co answer his philosophica l doubts.

By all accounts, Hume ,vas a decent, generous, and honorable person, ad,nired and liked by everyone who knew hi,n. A contemporary of Hume's, Ada,n S,nith, the renowned philosopher and economise, said of Hume chat "upon che ,vhole, I have always considered him, boch in his life-ci,ne and since his death, as approach- ing as nearly co the idea of a perfeccly ,vise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty ,viii ad mit."

to make his central point: For something to count as knowledge, it must be based on impressions or on ideas derived from impressions. And for a statement to be meaningful, it must ultimately refer to impressions. Here is Hume outl ining these distinctions:

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Every one will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference between the per- ceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original senti- ment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigor, is, that

The Empiricist Turn 305

306 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

18 Hume thinks that all knowledge must be traced back to percep- tions; otherwise, asser- tions of knowledge are meaningless. From this he concludes that all theological and meta- physical speculat ions are worthless. Do you agree with him? Why or why not?

they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a man- ner as to make the description be taken for a rea l landscape. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.

We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A man in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the rea l disorders and agitations of the passion. When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithfu l mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed. It requires no nice discernment or meta- physical head to mark the distinction between them.

Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts or Ideas. The other spe- cies want a name in our language, and in most others; I suppose, because it was not requisite fo r any, but philosophical purposes, to rank them under a general term or ap- pellation. Let us, therefore, use a little freedom, and call them Impressions; employing that word in a sense somewhat different from the usual. By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned . ...

All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either in- tuitively or demonstratively certa in. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the two sides, is a proposition, which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of th is kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is any where existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths, demonstrated by Eucl id, would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.

Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is sti ll possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same faci lity and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun wi ll not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affir- mation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its false- hood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind.'6

Hume argues not only that whatever we know about the world must be grounded

in our perceptions, but also that we can be sure only of those perceptions. We kno,v just our exper ience and can only guess what lies beyond it. It's as if ,ve are locke.d in

a windo\vless room and must speculate about \vhat it's like outside based on a video we can \Vatch indoors. The video may o r may not resemble the ourside world, but it's the only information \Ve have.

Hume's strict empiricism leads naturally to skepticism about a notion that \Ve usually assume without question: causality. We believe the world is filled \vith causes

and effects; \Ve th ink one thing causes another, and the two are somehow physically linked. Every day of our lives we d raw countless conclusions based on our assump- tions about cause-and-effect relationships. But Hume argues that we have no good grounds for believing that causes and effects are related the \vay we think they are.

To be fully acquainted, therefore, with the idea of power or necessary connexio n, let us examine its impression; and in order to find the impression with greater certainty, let us search for it in all the sources, from which it may possibly be derived.

When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary con- nexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infa ll ible consequence of the other. We only fi nd , that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the who le that appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects: Consequently, there is not, in any s ingle, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion.

Figure 6.10 The movement of one billiard ball may accompany that of another- but where is the evidence of a causal connection?

The Empiricist Turn 307

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. -Alfred lord Tennyson

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

19 Why does Hume conclude that we have no evidence for causa l relationships between events? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?

308 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

The principle of induction is the presumption that evenrs , hat followed one ano, her in the pas, will

do the same in the future, thar the future will be like the past.

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

From the first appearance of an object, we never can conjecture what effect will resu lt from it. But were the power or energy of any cause discoverable by the mind, we could foresee the effect, even without experience; and might, at fi rst, pronounce with certainty concerning it, by the mere dint of thought and reasoning . . ..

But to hasten to a conclus ion of this argument, which is already drawn out to too great a length: We have sought in va in for an idea of power or necessary connexion, in all the sources from which we could suppose it to be derived. It appears, that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another; without being able to comprehend any force or power, by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect. The same difficu lty occurs in contemplating the operations of mind on body; where we observe the motion of the latter to follow upon the voli tion of the former; but are not able to observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and volition, or the energy by which the mind produces th is effect. The authority of the will over its own facu lties and ideas is not a whit more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion, which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any t ie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any th ing, which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings, or common life.•7

Hume asserts chat neither reason nor experience can provide us with evidence chat causal relationships exist. We can observe no power or force chat enables causes co produce events. Our perceptions do not give us any reason co bel ieve chat one thing makes another thing happen. All ,ve observe, says Hume, is one event as- sociated with another, and when ,ve repeatedly see such a pairing, we jump co che conclusion chat the events are causally connected. We make these inferences out of habit, not logic or empirical evidence.

In making judgmencs about causes and effects, we reason inductively. That is, we assume chat events that follo,ved one another in che past ,vill do the same in che future, chat che future will be like the past. We presuppose, in ocher words, the principle of induction. Because of previous experience, ,ve expect night co follo,v day, fire co burn, bread co nourish, and dogs co bark. Like,vise, the ,vhole scientific enterprise runs on chis principle, with scientists making inferences from empirical regularities co predic- tions about evencs co come. At first glance, it might seem that no one ,vould seriously question the legitimacy of inductive reasoning. But Hume does:

As to past Experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance: But why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar; this is the main question on which I would insist. The bread, which I formerly ate, nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities, was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: But does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary. At least , it must be acknowledged, that there is here a consequence

drawn by the mind; that the re is a certain step taken; a process of thought, and an inference, which wants to be explained. These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such an object has a lways been attended with such an effect, and I fo resee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other: I know in fact, that it always is inferred. But if you insist, that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning. The connexion between these propositions is not intuitive. The re is required a me- dium, which may enable the mind to d raw such an infe rence, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that med ium is, I mus t confess, passes my comprehen- s ion; and it is incumbent on those to produce it, who assert, that it reall y exists, and is the origin of all our conclus ions concerning matter of fact ....

For all inferences from experience suppose, as the ir foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined wi th s imilar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion, that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no ru le for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is imposs ible, therefore, that any arguments from experi- ence can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are fou nded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be a llowed hithe rto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not, that, for the future, it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently, all the ir effects and influence, may change, without any change in the ir sensible quali ties. This happens sometimes, and with rega rd to some objects: Why may it not happen always , and with rega rd to a ll objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition?'8

Hume asks, Do we have any grounds \vhatsoever for believing the principle of induction? What justifies our assumption that the future \vill be like the past? H e a rgues that the principle cannot be an a p riori truth, and it cannot be an a posteriori fact. It cannot be the former because the denial of an a priori truth (s uch as "All

bachelors are unmarried") is self-contradicto ry, and the den ial of the principle of induction is not like that. It cannot be the latter because no amount of empi rical evidence can show it to be true. Why? As Hume observes, to maintain that the prin- ciple of induction is an a posteriori fact is to say that it can be established by experi- ence (that is, inductively). That is equiva lent to saying that the p rincip le of induction can be proved by the principle of induction-which is to beg the questio n. A rguing in a circle like this offers no support to the principle at a ll.

This difficulty of justifying the assumption that the future will be like the past is known as the problem of induction, and it has incite.cl generations of thinkers to try to solve it. They have explo red whether there are grounds for believing that the inductive princip le-so indispensible in science and daily life-is true. All the \vhile \Ve use the

princip le to make all k inds of inferences and predictio ns, which usually serve us \vell. Hume, for his part, holds that \Ve rely on the principle of inductio n not because it

is an established truth, but because it is a habit of mind. Because of our lo ng experi- ence of seeing one event repeatedly follo\v another, we develop a feeling of expecta- tio n that they \viii ahvays follo\v o ne another.

The Empiricist Turn 309

20 What is Hume's argument against the principle of induction? Does his view imply that we must discard all inductive reasoning or scientific research? Why or why not?

Science L'i organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. -Immanuel Kant

310 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

David Hume, An Enquiry Conuming Human Understanding

By no\v you probably know that Hume's skepticism extends beyond causality and induction to the existence of the external world. He reasons that because all we can d irectly know is our experience, \Ve can never be sure that an external world ex- ists beyond our internal perceptions:

By what argument can it be proved, that the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects, entirely d ifferent from them, though resembli ng them (if that be possible) and could not arise either from the energy of the mind itself. or from the suggestion of some invisible and unknown spirit, or from some other cause still more unknown to us? It is acknowledged, that, in fact, many of these perceptions arise not from any thing external, as in dreams, madness, and other d iseases. And noth ing can be more inexplicable than the manner, in which body should so operate upon mind as ever to convey an image of itself to a substance, supposed of so different, and even contrary a nature.

It is a question of fact, whether the perceptions of the senses be produced by ex- terna l objects, resembling them: how shall th is question be determined? By experience surely; as a ll other questions of a like nature. But here experience is, and must be en- tirely s ilent. The mind has never any thing present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connexion with objects. The supposition of such a connexion is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning.'9

Provoked by Hume's radical skepticism, philosophers have expended a great deal of energy trying to show that his vie\vS on causality, induction, and the external \vorld a re partly or wholly unfounded. But the bri lliant Hume has put forward some compelling arguments, and they have proven hard to counter.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 6.3

I. Summarize and evaluate Locke's case against innate ideas. Does he

successfully sho\v that innate ideas do not exist?

2. Assess Locke's a rgument that \Ve can have knowledge of an external

world desp ite our being d irectly aware only of sense data. Do you agree \vith him, o r do you side \vith his critics who say that \Ve can know only the contents of our minds?

3. Evaluate a rguments for and against Berkeley's subjective idealism. Do you accept or reject his theory? Why or why not?

4. Suppose someone claims that he can easily refute Berkeley's idealism by simply kicking a rock or eating an apple. Does this demonstration show that Berkeley's vie\v is false? Explain.

5. Do you agree with H ume that any belief not based on perceptions (\vhich includes all theological and metaphysical bel iefs) cannot be knowledge and is completely meaningless? Give reasons for your vie\v.

The Kantian Compromise 311

6.4 THE KANTIAN COMPROMISE

Immanuel Kant \vas sure that kno\vledge was possible, that we can know many things about the \vorld, most notably countless propositions in mathematics and sci- ence. But Hume had raised serious doubts about the possibility of this knowledge, and his extreme skepticism shocked Kant into trying to show that Hume \vas \vrong. Kant declares,

I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very th ing, which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative ph ilosophy a quite new direction. I was far from following him in the conclusions at which he arrived.'0

Hume had maintained that knowledge of the world comes entirely from ex- perience; we know nothing unless our kno\vledge can be traced back to perceptions (sense data and internal states). Moreover, he had insisted that \Ve have access only to

these inner experiences. We have direct awareness of our own perceptions, but not of the world beyond them. This means that the empirical la\vS and principles of science, which scientists regard as universal and changeless, cannot be known. They cannot be known because they assert more than experience is capable of establishing. This skeptical conclusion, Hume had argued, applies even to the principle at the heart of the scientific enterprise-the law of cause and effect. He had maintained that our experience cannot reveal to us any causal connections, for all we can actually per- ceive is some events following other events. And even if we could repeatedly observe a particular sequence of cause and effect, \Ve still could not conclude that the se- quence would happen the same way in the future. We may drop a baseball from the roof of a house and \Vatch it fall do\vn\vard, and we may repeat this little experiment a hundred times with the same result. But according to Hume, \Ve have no basis for inferring-and therefore do not kno\v-that exactly the same thing \vi ii happen on the hundred-first try. So Hume's view meant that scientists could never legitimately conclude that they had discovered a universal, changeless law of nature. They could not know \vhat they thought they kne\v. This was the conclusion that so exasperated Kant-and that set him on his quest to disprove it.

To map out the epistemological differences between Hume and Kant, \Ve can apply some terms that Kant himself used.Two of these terms \Ve have already met: a priori statements (statements known independently of or prior to experience) and a posteriori statements (statements that depend entirely on sense experience). Two ne\v terms are analytic and synthetic. An analyt ic statement is a logical truth whose denial resu lts in a contradiction. For example, "All brothers are male" is analytic. To deny it-to say that " it is not the case that all brothers are male"-is to say that some males are not males, which is a contradiction. Or consider, "All bodies are extended (occupying space)." To deny this is to say that something ex- tended is not extended-another contradiction. Analytic statements are necessar- ily true (cannot be fa lse), but trivially so. They are true but tell us nothing about the world. The statement about brothers is obviously t rue but does not tell us \vhether

And seeing ignorance is the curse of God, Know· ledge the wing wherewith we Ay to heaven. -William Shakespeare

An analytic statement is a logical truth whose denial rcsulrs in a contradiction.

312 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

A synthetic statement is a scatcmcnt chat is not analytic.

21 Contemporary scientists assert that in the realm of subatomic particles, some events are not caused. Does this fact prove false Kant's claim that the law of cause and effect is a synthetic a priori truth?

any brothers exist. A synt hetic statement is one that is not analytic. It does tell us something about the world, and den ying it does not yield a contradiction. Science specializes in synthet ic statements, and so do \Ve in ou r everyday lives. Examples include "Every event has a cause," "The planets orbit around the sun," "From noth- ing comes noth ing," "Water boils at 100 degrees C at sea level," and "Abraham Lincoln \Vas born in the United States."

Both Hume and Kant agree that we can know analyt ic statements \Vithout appealing to experience (that is, a priori). (Remember, Hume refers to such state- ments as "relations of ideas.") Th rough reason alone we can come to kno\v such analytic a priori propositions as "All brothers are male" and "All bodies are ex- tended." But Hume also holds t hat we can kno\v synthet ic propositions (t hose that are informative about the \vorld) only a posteriori (only through experi- ence). And this synthet ic a posterior i knowledge ("matters of fact") is limited: We cannot kno\v what ou r percept ions cannot detect. According to Hume, we are not able to directly observe causality at \vork, and \Ve cannot infer universal proposit ions or la\vS base.cl on limited , local observations. The empiricist path to knowledge, then, is detoured by skept icism. Kant, on t he other hand, ins ists that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. We can indeed kno\v things about the world, and \Ve can kno\v t hem independently or prior to experience. Because th is kno\vledge is a prior i, it is both necessarily t rue and universally applicable, a far cry from Hume's extensive skepticism. Kant says we can kno\v that every event has a cause (a synthet ic truth), and \Ve can acqui re this knowledge a priori, th rough our powers of reason:

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

... if we seek an example from the understanding in its quite ordinary employment, the proposition, "every alteration must have a cause," will se rve our purpose. In the latter case, indeed, the very concept of a cause so manifestly contains the concept of a necessity of connection with an effect and of the strict universality of the rule, that the concept would be altogether lost if we attempted to derive it, as Hume has done, from a repeated association of that which happens with that which precedes, and from a custom of connec ting representations, a custom originating in this repeated associa- tion, and constituting therefore a merely subjective necess ity."

So Kant's epistemology is neither enti rely empiricist nor fu lly rat ionalist. He depar ts radically from trad ition by find ing a thi rd \vay-one that sees merit and error in both theories of knowledge. In line with the empiricists, he holds that a ll knowledge has its origins in experience, but that doesn't mean experience alone is the source of all our knowledge. With a nod to the rationalisrs, he maintains that experience by itself is blind, but that doesn't mean \Ve can acquire knowledge of the \vorld through reason alone. Kant says that Plato took this latter route and, like a

The Kantian Compromise 313

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Immanuel Kant

l1n1nanuel Kane (1724-1804), a s,nall-co,vn n1an of conventional living, started a revolution in philosophy and earned the cicle of che greacesc philosopher of che lase three hundred years. A superficial look ac his life would lead ,nany co chink he ,vas about as dull and as uni,nagi- nacive as one could gee. He was born, lived all his life, and

Figure 6.11 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), quiet

died in Konigsberg, Ease Prussia (now Kal iningrad). His revolutionary. habits ,vere so regi,nented chat che good folk of his to,vn could set their watches to his punctual daily stroll.

Bue appearances can be deceiving. Kant had ,nany friends, ,vas charrning and interesting in conversation, participated in n1any of che scholarly debates of his time, and ,nade exciting discoveries in both science and philosophy. Early in his career he ,vrote about physics and ascrono,ny and predicted the existence of che planet Uranus, which was found three-quarters of a century after his death.

Kane studied ac che University of Konigsberg for six years, lacer served as a pri- vate cucor, and then in 1755 began lecturing at the un iversity, an appointment that lasted over forty years. He caught physics, mathematics, geography, philosophy (all che main areas of study), and ,nore. Mose of his ,vritings reflected his relentless search for the proper philosophical foundations or ,nechods in science, metaphys- ics, and eth ics. In epistemology, he effected his Copernican revolution by turn ing the conventional assurnptions about knowledge upside down. To acquire knowl- edge, he said, che mind does not conforrn to real ity- rather, rea lity conforms to the mind. Thus, he found what he thought was a chi rd path co knowledge benveen e1npiricisn1 and rational ism, excraccing fro,n each their grains of cruch and chang- ing episternology forever.

He published his greatest work, The Critique of Pure Reason, in 1781. After that came an extraordinary procession of other influential writings, including Pro- legomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793).

dove crying co fly in empty space ,vich no air resistance, found himsel f trying co rea-

son about reality with no raw material (experience) co reason about:

There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our facu lty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of

Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Pure Reason

314 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Pure Reason

The wish to ralk to God is absurd. We canno t talk to one we cannot comprehend- and we can- no t comprehend God; we can only believe in H im.

-Immanuel Kant

22 What is the point Kant is making with the example of a dove flying in empty space? Who do you think is closer to the truth regard ing the nature of a priori truth-Plato or Kant?

\Vhcrc is the Life we have lost in living' W here is rhc w isdom we have lost in

knowledge' Where is rhc

knowledge we have lost in informatio n? -T. S. Eliot

our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separat- ing them, work up the raw material of the sensib le impressions into that knowledge of o bjects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins.

But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience. For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impress ions and of what our own facu lty of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself. If our fac- ulty of knowledge makes any such addition, it may be that we are not in a position to d istinguish it from the raw material, unti l with long practice of attention we have become skill ed in separating it.

This, then, is a question which at least ca ll s for closer examination, and does not al- low of any off-hand answer:- whether there is any knowledge that is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the senses. Such knowledge is entitled a priori, and distinguished from the empirical, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience .. . . Mathematics gives us a shining example of how far, independently of experience, we can progress in a priori knowledge . .. . Misled by such a proof of the power of reason, the demand for the extension of knowledge recognises no limits. The light dove, cleaving the a ir in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its fl ight would be still easier in empty space. It was thus that Plato left the world of the senses, as setting too narrow limits to the understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of the pure understanding. He did not observe that with all his efforts he made no advance-meeting no resistance that might, as it were, serve as a support upon which he could take a stand; to which he could apply his powers, and so set his understanding in motion."

Bue Kane cannot simply assert chat synthetic a p riori knowledge is poss ible and leave it at chat. He muse show how it's possible. His starting point is che prem- ise (which he thought o bvious) chat science and mathematics do give us necessary, universal knowledge about che world. From there he argues chat something muse therefore be fundamentally wrong with both empiricism and rationalism, because these theories fail co explain ho\v chis kind of kno\vledge is possible. In H ume's em- piricism, he says, sense experience can shine no light on che outer world, leaving in

profound doubt che existence of external objeccs, causality, and scientific laws. And rationalism promises access co synthetic knowledge while ignoring sense experience, \vhere such knowledge begins. To Kane, only a drastically different approach could demonstrate ho\v synthetic a p riori kno\vledge could be juscifie.d.

Actually, co call Kane's approach drastically different is an underscacemenc, for \vhac he proposed was a full-Hedged revolution in epistemology chat he thought \vas comparable co che Copernican revolution in science. Ac a time when che prevail- ing (and Church-sanctioned) belief was chat che sun orbited che earth, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) thought che better theory was chat che earth orbited che sun. Copernicus curne.d out co be right, and he arrived at h is answer through a stunning reversal of che received view. In similar fashion, Kane thought he had in- scigaced his own revolution by turning che traditional perspective on kno\vledge upside down. For centuries che conventional view was chat knowledge is acquired \vhen che mind conforms to objects-chat is, when che mind cracks che external \vorld.

The Kantian Compromise 315

Figure 6.12 Copernican sun-centered (heliocentric) system of planetary motion. Copernicus proposed a reversal of t he old earth-centered theory. How was Kant's epistemological system just as revolutionary?

But Kant proposed the opposite: objects conform to the mind. He argued that sense experience can match reality because the mind stamps a structure and organization on sense experience. Synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, he said, because the

mind's conceprs force an (a priori) order onto (synthetic) experience. The idea is not that our minds literally create the world, but that our m inds organize our experience so ,ve perceive it as recognizable objects. The empiricisrs see the m ind as a passive absorber of sense information, but Kant says the mind is an active shaper of experi- ence into objecrs that ,ve can know a priori. As he says,

Hitherto it has been assumed that al l our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in fa il ure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of meta- physics , if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge. This would agree better with what is desired , namely, that it should be possible to have knowledge of objects a priori, determining something in regard to them prior to their being given .. .. If intuition must conform to the constitution of the objects, I do not see how we could know anything of the latter a priori; but if the object (as object of the senses) must conform to the constitution of our facu lty of intuition, I have no difficulty in conceiving such a possib il ity.'!

23 W hat is Kant's Copernican revolution? Is his theory of know-

ledge more plausible t han rat ionalism or empiricism? Expla in.

Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Pure Reason

316 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

The learning and know- ledge that we have, is, at the most, but little com~ pared with that of which we arc ignorant.

-Plato

According co Kane, the mind shapes ra,v experience by organizing it in accord- ance with certain fundamental concepts such as time, space, and causality. All our experience is sifted and sorted through the mind's "conceptual processor," without ,vhich we could make no sense of the be,vildering flow of sighcs, sounds, smells, and other perceptions. Our raw sense data may consist of a blur of red, for example, but by interpreting chis information in light of basic concepcs (roundness, space, time, past experience, etc.), our minds perceive a red rose. We therefore kno,v the ,vorld only as

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Conceptualizing the World

Kan r's view of rhe 1nind as an actively consrrucrive faculry is echoed in conremporary psychological research, which shows rhar our minds consranrly consrrucr and inrerprer our perceptions. Thar is, our senses are nor ,nere recorders

Figure 6.13 What do you see here-a duck or a rabbit? Although the image does not change, your interpretation can vary so you see either a duck or a rabbit (but not bot h at the same time). If you change your interpretation of the image, you see somet hing different.

Figure 6.14 Depending on how you conceptualize this figure, you w ill see a young woman or an old woman.

The Kantian Compromise 317

conceptualize.cl sense data, a world chat Ka ne calls phenomena. What the world is in itself outside our experience Kane cal ls noumena, a reality forever beyond our ken.

Kane's insight about conceptualized exper ience m ight sound odd, but he \Vas o n t he r ight crack, a nticipating fi ndings in modern science by two cen tu ries . Re- search in developmental and cognitive psychology shows chat our perceptions are

not the res ult of the mind's passive reco rd ing of sensations. O u r perceptions a re, co a la rge degree, constructed; they o riginate with our unfi lte red sense experience a nd

of perceptual information; instead, our minds cake the ra\V daca of experience and rework them in light of the concepts and beliefs already in our heads. Our minds 1nust "conceptualize" the ta\V sen- sory input so \Ve can understand it. We do this so often and so extensively that we are hardly a\vare of the process. Con- sider these three exainples of "ambiguous figures." In each case, it's possible co see the figure in rwo \vays-even though the visual input is the saine in both.

None of chis is controversial. It be- con1es so \Vhen \Ve claim chat our im- med iate, ra\v sense data are determined entirely by our concepts or theories. This would mean that we experience only whar our concepts allow us co see and chat we never see the world objectively. Many philosophers reject chis view be- cause, among ocher things, it i1nplies chat \Ve \Vould never be able co experi- ence anything ne\v or surprising. But chis result see,ns highly i1n plausible. Figure 6.15 Do you see a w oman's face here-or the silhouette

of a saxophone player?

Do these examples prove Kant's constructivist theory of knowledge? Or do they just show that much of our sensory input is conceptualized? Do they show that our conceptualized experience is nothing like what is actually "out there"?

318 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

24 What does Kant mean by "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind"? Do you agree that at least some of your perceptions are conceptualized?

Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Pure Reason

It is therefore correct to say rhat the senses do not err- not because they always judge rightly, but because they do not judge at all. -Immanuel Kant

then are interpreted by the mind according to our preexisting ideas. For example, our experience may consist only of red sensat ions in d im light, but because \Ve have reason to bel ieve we are looking at a red rose and already have in mind the relevant concepts, we perceive a red rose. We hear only a muffled sound in the next room, but because of our expectations, \Ve perceive the sound as a telephone ring. W hen \Ve look at a car in the far distance, the image we see is tiny. But because of previ- ous experience and our understanding of how the size of objects stays constant , \Ve perceive the car as having normal dimensions and being act ually much larger than we are.

This is how Kant explains the role of sense experience and concepts in our per- ception of reality:

Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the ca- pacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object th rough these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts) . Through the firs t an object is given to us, through the second the object is thought in relation to that [given] representation (which is a mere determination of the mind). Intuition [raw sense data] and concepts constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way correspond ing to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge . . . . Our nature is so consti- tuted that our intuition can never be other than sensible; that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. The faculty, on the other hand, which enables us to think the object of sensible intuition is the understanding. To neither of these powers may a preference be given over the other. Without sensibi lity no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add the object to them in intuition, as to make our intu- itions intell igible, that is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers or capacities cannot exchange their functions. The unders tanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise.'•

Kant thought his theory of knowledge corrected the errors of rationalism and empiricism and expelled the skepticism that these views engendered. In their theo- ries the rationalists had bet heavily on reason as the key to knowledge; the empiri- cists had bet everything on experience. Kant tried to show that genuine knowledge is a synthesis of both reason and experience. He argued that we can know many things about the world-cause-and-effect relationships, the truths of mathematics, the laws of science-and we can kno\v they are necessarily, universally, and a priori true. We can, in other \vords, take hold of synthetic a priori knowledge. We can obtain it because our thinking is framed by fundamental concepts that guarantee our experi- ence \vi ll take a predetermine.cl form. And we can be sure the truths we discover are universal because all our minds possess the same cognitive struct ure determined by the same set of innate concepts. In short, Kant's answer to the rationalists, empiri- cists, and skeptics is that we kno\v the \vorld because we, in effect, constitute it.

After Kant, epistemology was never the same. Anyone who has seriously tried to fathom the nature and extent of our kno\vledge has had to contend \vith his insights and arguments. That is not to say that everyone \vho has delved deeply into Kant has

A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge 319

agree.cl with him. Some philosophers doubt that everyone uses the same set of basic concepts to make sense of the empirical world. They point to anthropological and psychological research sho,ving that not every culture uses t he same set of conceprs (the same conceptual scheme) to interpret and organize their experience. Other crit- ics have argued that Kant's theory does not adequately explain our certainty that facts about t he world must be consistent with logic and mathematics. We think that truths of logic and mathematics are true necessarily and universally regardless of the stntcture of our minds. But Kant wants us to believe that logical and mathematical concepts do depend on the innate structure of our minds. This implies that the structure of our minds could possibly change to make 5 + 12 = 13, or make the statement "All brothers are male" false.

These and many other criticisms of Kant's work ,viii be debate.cl for generations to come-,vhich is proof of his lasting influence.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 6.4

1. How is Kant's theory of knowledge di fferent from rationalism, empiri- cism, and skepticism?

2. In what ,vay is Kant's vie,v a "Copernican revolution"?

3. Explain ho,v Hume and Kant differ on knowledge of the law of cause and effect. Which view seems more plausible to you? Why?

4. Explain Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena. What ,vould a skeptic say about this distinction? W hat would Hume say? Which of these three views is most plausible?

5. Kant assumes that our experience wi ll ahvays be shaped by a fixed set of fundamental concepts. But it seems possible that human nature and irs innate conceprs (if there are any) could change radically over time through evolution. What are the implications of this for Kant's notion of conceptualized experience?

6.5 A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON KNOWLEDGE

Feminism, as both a movement and an approach to social and intellectual issues, is concerned with identifying and remedying harm and disadvantage aris ing from biases against women. Feminists argue that such prejudices are common throughout society and academia, and that they lead to the ,videspread d iscrediting of women's ideas and experiences and the relegating of women to subordinate roles. Feminist philosophy is an attempt to address the disparagement or subordination of women in philosophy and related fields, and feminist epistemology tries to do the same in theories of knowledge.

Doubt is not a very agree·

able state} but certainty is a ridiculo us one. -Voltaire

320 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

25 Does t he fact that some famous phi- losophers held nega- tive views of women impugn the nature of the phil osophical enter- prise? Why or why not?

In philosophy, there is no single outlook that can be called feminist; rather, there are several different viewpoints and approaches that deserve the name. The common thread is an emphasis on gender and on ho\v it shapes the issues at hand. Alison Ainley, a feminist philosopher, notes the diversity of the philosophical projects:

Alison Ainley, " Feminist Philosophy"

Feminist approaches to philosophy can take place at a number of levels and from different perspectives, and indeed th is has been identified as a notab le strength. For example, fem inists have presented philosophical critiques of philosophers' images of women, poli tica l critiques of the organization of the discipline of phi losophy, critiques of philosophy as masculine , historical research into the work of past women ph iloso- phers whose work may have been unjustly disregarded, and positive contributions to philosophy from a feminist perspective. Feminist philosophers may take some or all of these approaches to be important, but, genera lly speaking, feminist phi losophy will assume the question of sexual difference to be a phi losophical issue at some level and, depending on the point of departure, produce very different ways of theorizing about this question. Although women tend to work in this area, not all women ph ilosophers are necessarily feminist phi losophers (although there may be feminist implications in their work).'S

Feminist thinkers have had good reason to suspect bias in the philosophical en-

terprise. It is easy in philosophy's history to find eminent male philosophers dismiss- ing, devalu ing, or ignoring the female intellect-even though women philosophers have been present in every age, from the classical period to modern t imes. (Some im- portant male philosophers have afforded \vomen more respect-for example, Plato and John Stuart Mill-and some have developed ideas that have been put to use in fem inist \vritings-for example, David Hume and John Dewey.) Louise M. Antony points out some of the more notorious examples of bias:

Louise M. Antony, "Embodiment and Epistemology"

Although women were largely ignored by the major ph ilosophers, whenever we were discussed, we were denigrated. Strikingly, the insult often involved a philosopher's ex- plicitly denying to women some characteristic that that ph ilosopher had elsewhere held to be essential to full personhood, making us, by defin ition, less than human. Thus Aristotle, who defined "man" as a rational animal, claimed that women's reason was defective in that it was "without the power to be effective." Locke, who thought that "man" could transcend natural power relations by means of civ il agreement, still found it obvious that in case of confl ict between husband and wife, "the ru le .. . natu- ra lly falls to the man's share, as the abler and the stronger." Rousseau, who took free- dom to be the distinguishing mark of humanity, held that it followed from the different

A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge 321

natures of men ("active and strong") and women ("passive and weak") that "woman is made to please and be dominated" by man. Perhaps most notoriously of all, Kant, who made acting from apprehens ion of the categorical imperative the essence of moral agency, averred that " I hard ly bel ieve that the fair sex is capable of principles."26

Fem inist epistemology focuses most of its attention on the "situated knower" and "situated knowle.dge"-that is, on ho\v knowledge a rises from the unique perspec- t ives and practices of those involved in knowing. The basic claim is that gender has skewed trad itional epistemology tO\vard the dominant male perspective and has thus adversely affected women and other disadvantage.cl groups. Feminist philosophers say the remedy is to develop theories of knowledge based on a lternative conceptions of gender and power, banishing the ill effecrs of the traditional view in the process. According to Elizabeth Anderson,

Elizabeth Anderson, "Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science"

Various practitioners of fem inist epistemology and philosophy of science argue that dominant knowledge practices disadvantage women by (1) excluding them from in- quiry, (2) denying them epistemic authority, (3) denigrating their "feminine" cognitive s tyles and modes of knowledge, (4) producing theories of women that represent them as inferior, dev iant, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests, (5) pro- ducing theories of social phenomena that render women's activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible, and (6) producing knowledge (science and tech- nology) that is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or that reinforces gender and other social hierarchies.21

Eve Bro\vning C-ole, another feminist philosopher, characterizes t raditional epis- temology like this:

Eve Browning Cole , Philosophy and Feminist Criticism

[T]here is widespread agreement that the dominant theories of knowledge provided by the Western ph ilosophical trad ition have focused on a specific kind of knowledge which is, as Lorra ine Code has described it, "a commodity of privilege." Asking such ques- t ions as "How do I know that there is a cat on the mat?" assumes that any "I" might be substituted for any other, that conditions of knowing are homogeneous and can be generally specifi ed. All potentia l knowers have a presumed equal access to the view of the cat, and the epistemologist's job is to explain what is going on in their viewing and whether it amounts to knowledge or something else. But the fact of the matter is that ideal viewing conditions simply do not obta in for all potential viewers; in our society, knowledge conditions are vastly d ifferent for members of groups d ifferentiated by gen- der, race, class, age, economic status, and so forth. An aged woman who cannot get

If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fal lible being, and submit, rig ht o r w ro ng, to power, w here arc we to

stop? -Mary \Xfollstonecraft

322 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism

26 What is Cole's main point in the preceding passage? Do you agree with her?

Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism

Nothing can be more ab-

surd than the practice rhat prevails in our country of men and women not fo( .. lowing the same pursui ts with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus,

the state instead of being whole is reduced to half -Plato

out to see her social worker, or who fears going downtown on the bus alone, will be ignorant of important benefits to which she may be entitled; in this sense, she will not be in a position to view that particular cat on its mat. Traditional epistemologies have not regarded such situations as problematic or interesting; they have not regarded them at all. Yet surely these are situations in which the social and situational differ- ences among knowers are crucial for determining the kind of knowing that can take place. Epistemologies that do not have room for these differences doom themselves to irrelevance at best, and at worst they perpetuate injustice- for, as we have already stressed, knowledge is power.'8

To develop alternatives co traditional theories of knowledge, feminise philoso- phers have explored three epistemological paths: feminist empiricism, feminist stand- point theory, and feminist postmodernism. Feminise empiricism is probably che lease controversial. Jc doesn't wane co abolish established theories; instead, it calls for a deeper, more rigorous application of empiricism, a t heory \vich a long history. As Cole says:

One way to react to all this is that prescribed by the femin ist empiricist, who suggests that philosophy's shortcomings with regard to white women, to women and men of color, to lesbians, and to all the nonprivileged, can be remedied by a more careful adherence to what is after all philosophy's stated mission: the pursuit of wisdom, the search for truth. What has produced the lamentably Aawed history of philosophy has been a pattern of failures to live up to the basic scenario of empiricist knowing: the unbiased observation of the face of the universe. Prejudice and bias have been all too clearly present, clouding the judgment of the philosopher and skewing the resultant description.

To give just one famous example: Aristotle, whose allegiance to careful empirical observation is stated and evinced everywhere in his work, is incorrect about the num- ber of teeth women have. He asserts that the adult man has thirty-two teeth but the adult woman only twenty-eight. Now, this cannot have been a function of the difficulty of observation, as women with countable teeth existed in plenty then as now. Rather, scholars have hypothesized that Aristotle counted the teeth in the male jaw and, in the grip of a powerful prejudice, subtracted four to arrive at the number in a woman's (smaller} jaw. Another possibility is that he observed the dentition of a woman who had no wisdom teeth. In either case, Aristotle's mistake is a result of failing to be a good enough empiricist rather than something endemic to the method of observation itself.

The feminist empiricist maintains that phi losophers and scientists need to be told to "Look again!" rather than to fi nd a wholly new way of looking. The prospects for a better philosophical understanding of human existence and its surroundings will im- prove as larger numbers of women enter the domains in which "received knowledge" is processed: universities, laboratories, publishing houses, journal editorial boards, and fund ing agencies. These women will be placed well to point out mistakes in the observations of their colleagues and to set up research agendas that promise to avoid the mistakes of the past.'9

Feminise standpoint theory says chat different social groups have distinctive kinds of kno\vledge acquired through unique experiences, and chat some of these groups may enjoy epistemological advantages over ochers. In particular, che type of knowledge derived from women's experiences may be just as good as or better than

A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge 323

kno\vledge acqui red by the dominant kno\vledge-producing group-that is, white, middle-class men of science. Cole explains:

We noted ... that ph ilosophy's history has issued predominantly from the minds of privileged white males. It was suggested that their position, their standpoint, has had a decisive influence on the shape history has taken. Though many philosophers have presumed to speak for all "mankind ," for "Reason itself," or even for "Absolute Spirit," and to be discussing the general "Nature of Mind," "conditions for knowledge," and "the human good," fem inist critics have shown and continue to show the limitations of such spuriously universa l discourse, and to point out large portions of human experi- ence as yet undreamt of in their philosophy.

This specificity of the traditional standpoint has led some feminist ph ilosophers to explore the potential of basing an epistemology in a femin ist (sometimes in a women's) standpoint. The basic assumption, originating in a Hegelian or Marxian view that the human self is essentially shaped by its material activities and situation, is that women's lives have d iffered from men's lives in ways that would construct clear differences in their respective world views and self-concepts. Since the making and transmitting of knowledge are crucially important human activities, women's "ways of knowing" may be expected to be no less rea l than men's, but they are also qu ite likely to be very d iffer- ent from what traditional epistemology has supplied from the white men's standpoint.

Feminist-standpoint epistemologies seek to uncover and describe women's knowledge-making activities as these have originated in and been shaped by women's daily work and women's values ....

Now, standpoint theorists in feminist epistemology look at how these different work s ituations (women's dual-sphere work responsibilities, men's s ingle-sphere work responsibili ties) shape personali ty and character a long gender-specific li nes. Women, to be proficient workers in both their domains, must become conversant with two d if- ferent sets of behavior prescriptions: those appropriate to the domestic, personal situ- ations in which they are caregivers and maintainers of li fe, and those appropriate to the more public and male-dominated locations in which they a lso labor. Behaviorally, then, and epistemically, they must be able to speak two languages, avail themselves of two different repertoires of ru les dictating appropriate activity ....

This brings out an important point concerning standpoint theories. Those who ad- vocate the construction of a feminist-standpoint epistemology do not merely maintain that "adding in" this standpoint, derived from women's experiences and practices tra- ditiona lly excluded from philosophy's purview, will produce better philosophy, science, politics, etc.; they go further and argue that the fem inist standpoint has certain inherent epistemic advantages over androcentric [male-centered] epistemologies which make it a better place to stand, so to speak, when engaged in the making ofknowledge.3°

Critics, ho\vever, have argued that standpoint theory undermines itself. The theory says chat the feminise perspective is privileged (for example, better than tradi- tional theories), and that every perspective is both limice.d and validated by a g roup's experiences. Bue there a re many different groups and perspectives-ho\v then can the feminise view be better or less limited than any ocher?

In philosophy, poscmodernism is a distrust or rejection of some of the most influential epistemological ideas of modernity: objective or scientific truth, objec- t ive reality o r face, universal propositions, foundational knowle.dge, u ltimate jus- t ification, and traditional conceptions of rationality. Feminist poscmodernism is

Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism

I myself have never been able m find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a fem inist whenever

I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

-Rebecca \'qes,

2 7 Which view strikes you as more plausible- feminist empiricism or feminist standpoint theory? Explain.

324 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism

28 Do you think fem- inist postmodernism undermines itself in the ways that Cole suggests?

similarly skeptical of these notions and sets about systematically "deconstructing" them (critically analyzing and debunking them). Feminist postmodernists refuse to accept a basic tenet of fem inist standpoint theory: that there can be a single privileged perspective from \vhich to acquire knowledge. Instead they insist on the existence of countless perspectives, a plurality of vie\vpoints, with none able to claim any epistemological advantage over the others. None can be called objectively true, because there is no perspective-neutral standard by \vhich to judge objective truth. Cole characterizes feminist postmodernism like this:

Feminist postmodern epistemologies are thus essentially critica l. Only through a thor- oughgoing deconstruction of "our intellectual heritage" (every word of which phrase should be questioned), an abjuring of privi leged standpoints and claims to objective truth, and a relentless critique of the relation between knowledge-making and power- guarding can a liberatory feminist thinking and practice proceed.

In the absence of objective truth, epistemically privileged standpoints, method- ologies legitimated by experts, and all the other apparatus of traditional knowledge- seeking, what will make any knowledge claim more reliable than any other? Is this epistemic anarchism, a situation in which all claims, no matter how bizarre or contra- dictory, are equally va lid? Postmodern feminist epistemologies maintain that know- ledge claims will find all the legitimation they need in "localized practices," in the application they find in contexts socially and historicall y specific, for which they were designed. Thus what will emerge is a kind of epistemic pluralism, similar to that seen in [lesbian epistemologies]; the knowledge I need will be made by me, and those im- mediately surrounding me, in the work we do; it will be circulated to the extent that others' practices encourage such interaction, and will grow or change in this interactive process. What I must not do is dictate in advance the shape this knowledge must take (rational, empirical, justifi able under counterfactual test, etc.) or impose th is know- ledge on anyone else in some kind of intellectual imperiali st frenzy.3'

Cole also notes the criticisms that have been lodged against the theory by fem- inists themselves:

Some feminist philosophers express serious concerns about postmodernism as a viable basis for epistemology or for feminist politics in general. If a radical deconstruction of gender categories is carried out, where is the basis for the claim that women as such have anything in common? If gender identity is revealed to be an entirely social con- struct, a myth told to serve the interests of the lords of culture, where is the basis for feminist thinking? Sisterhood is not powerful ifit is merely a bad dream caused by some foul cognitive substance we ingested last millennium.

Sandra Harding has expressed concern that the willingness to resign objectivity and individual autonomy to the dustbin of outmoded obsessions is perhaps a luxury many fem inists would not afford. Western academic women have "had access to the benefits of the Enlightenment" and thus might give them up more easi ly than other women, especially th ird-world women, who have yet to achieve the political autonomy, suffrage and legal rights, and degree of access to the benefits of science their Western sisters enjoy. Thus it is all too easy for Western feminists to criticize the philosophical foundations on which liberalism and modern science rest; such critical latitude is born of privilege.

There are also good reasons for caution a bo ut the relinqu ishing of the concept of objectivi ty as understood by Western science. Many of the most s ignifi cant advances in women's politica l history have been achieved through successful ly putting across the a rgument that barriers to women's freedom are based only on prejudice, a mis- taken and subjective attitude. Appeals to fairness, justice, and d ispassionate objec- tivity have been powerful e lements in this argument. Most of us believe that sexism, racism, heterosexism, and othe r pern icious attitudes are not objectively defens ible, are based in part on false beliefs and bad faith or moral incons istency. If we no lo nger have a standpoint from which to make these claims, with what justification can we continue to decry the attitudes? We ought rather to seek to reco nceive the notions of o bjectivi ty, justice, and truth than to discard them and leave ourselves rhetorically helpless.1•

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 6.5

1. Some notable male philosophers have assumed that women's reasoning ability is inferior to men's. What conclusion about the philosophical enterprise do you d ra\v from this? Should the theories of these philoso- phers be rejected out of hand?

2. Is there such a thing as a female nature (a nature whose essence is female)? O r (aside from basic biological factors) is female or woman defined variously by society o r culture?

3. Kant said that women are not capable of grasping p rinciples, thus ex- cluding \vomen from mora l reason ing. Should his theory of knowledge then be d iscounte.d, d iscarded, or ig no red? Why o r \vhy not?

4 . Are all universal statements in science and ethics suspect, as fem inist postmodernists believe? Explain.

5. Feminist postmodernism has been accused of being a form of cogni- tive relativism. Is th is cha rge valid? W hy o r \vhy not?

Review Notes

6.1 OVERVIEW: THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE

• Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge. Propositional knowledge is

kno\vledge of a p roposition; a proposition is a statement that is either t rue or false, an assertion that something is or is not a fact.

• Skepticism is the vie\v that we lack kno\vledge in some fundamental \vay; cognitive relativism is the doctrine that the truth about something depends on what a person or cultu re bel ieves; subjective relativism is the notion that truth depends on what a

Review Notes 325

326 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

person believes; cultural relativism is the idea that truth depends on \vhat a culture believes; a priori knowledge is gained independently of or prior to sense experience; a posteriori kno\vledge depends entirely on sense experience; rationalism is the vie\v that through unaided reason we can come to know what the world is like; empiri- cism says knowledge of the empirical world comes solely from sense experience; and subjective idealism is the vie\v that all that exist are minds and their ideas.

6.2 THE RATIONALIST ROAD

• Plato believes that the source of our knowledge is reason. He says that we must be able to acquire knowledge because \Ve can identify false beliefs, and \Ve obviously possess kno\vledge because we can grasp, through reason, mathematical, concep- tual, and logical truths. For Plato, real ity comprises two worlds: the fleeting \vorld of the physical accessed through sense experience, and the eternal, nonphysical, changeless world of genuine knowledge accessed only through reason. This non- physical world contains the Forms, which are perfect conceptual models for every existing th ing, res iding only in the eternal \vorld penetrated by reason alone. Plato believes in innate knowledge-the idea that knowledge of the Forms is already present at birth, inscribed in our minds in a previous existence.

• In Meno, Socrates attempts to give a proof of the existence of innate ideas by asking an unschooled boy about a geometry problem. As Socrates asks questions, the boy comes to the right ans\ver on his own. Socrates claims to have merely helped the boy recollect knowledge that he already possessed, bringing innate knowledge to consciousness.

• Descartes initial ly finds reason to doubt all beliefs based on sense experience, arriving at th is conclusion via his d ream and evil genius argumenrs. Then he pulls himself out of skepticism by realizing that he cannot possibly doubt that he exists-for ifhe can have thoughts, he must exist ("I think, therefore I am"). From this basic idea, he goes on to di.scover another principle of knowledge acquisition: If he perceives something clearly and distinctly, he must know it with certainty. He must know it with certainty because a perfect God would not allow him to be deceived.

6.3 THE EMPIR ICIST TURN

• Locke argues that there is no such thing as innate ideas; universal principles arise from sense experience.

• Locke says that physical objecrs cause sensations in us, and \Ve are di rectly aware only of those sensations. But the sensations caused by external objects somehow represent those objects and thereby give us kno\vledge of them.

• For Locke, primary qualities are objective properties such as size, solidity, and mobility; they are in material objecrs, independent of our senses. Secondary

qual ities are subjective properties such as the color red or the smell of a rose; they are in the mind.

• For Berkeley, no material things exist in the external world. There are objects, but they exist only as sensations in some mind. They are real only because they are per- ceived by someone. He rejeccs the notion of material objeccs because, he says, belief in chem involves a logical contradiction.

• Locke and Hume are both empiriciscs. Locke says that we can have kno\vledge of external objects; Hume asserts chat s ince all we are directly aware of is sense experi- ence, we have no evidence that external objects exis t.

• Hume argues chat since all claims about the world muse be traced back co sense experience, and since theological and metaphysical propositions are not linked co sense experience, such propositions are meaningless.

• Hume contends chat \Ve are not justified in believing the principle of induction, because co be justified it has co be either an a priori truth or an a posteriori facc- and it is neither.

6.4 THE KANTIAN COMPROMISE

• Kane brought about a Copernican revolution in epistemology. Just as Copernicus revolutionize.cl astronomy by reversing the traditional theory, so Kane brought forth a radically different theory of knowledge by arguing fo r an analogous reversal. In- stead of accepting the conventional view that knowledge is acquired \vhen the mind conforms co objects, he argues that objects confo rm co the mind.

• An analytic statement is a logical truth \vhose denial resulcs in a contradiction. A syn- thetic statement is one chat is not analytic. A synthetic a priori truth assercs something about the \vorld that we can know independently of or prior co experience.

• Kane argues that sense experience can match reality because the mind stamps a struc- ture and organization on sense experience. Synthetic a priori knowledge is possible because the mind's concepts force an (a priori) order onto (synthetic) experience.

6.5 A FEMINIST PERS PECTIVE ON KNOWLEDGE

• Feminise philosophy is an attempt co address the disparagement or subordination of \vomen in philosophy and related fields, and femin ise epistemology cries co do the same in theories of kno\vledge.

• According co Eve Browning Cole, femi nises believe chat dominant knowledge prac- tices disadvantage women by (1) excluding them from inquiry; (2) denying chem epistemic authority; (3) denigrating their "fem inine" cognitive styles; ( 4) produc- ing theories of women chat represent chem as inferior, deviant, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests; (5) producing theories of social phenomena chat render \vomen's activities and incerescs invis ible; and (6) producing knowledge

Review Notes 327

328 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

(science and technology) chat is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or chat reinforces gender and ocher social hierarchies.

• Feminise empiricism cal ls for a deeper, more rigorous application of empiricism. Feminise standpoint theory says chat different social groups have distinctive kinds of kno,vledge acquired through unique experiences and some of chese groups may enjoy epistemological advantages over ochers. Feminise poscmodernism is skepti- cal of such notions as objective or scien tific truth, objective reality or face, un i- versal propositions, foundational kno,vledge, ultimate justification, and traditional conceptions of rationality. Feminise poscmoderniscs are devoted co deconscruccing these ideas.

• Some femi nises ,vorry chat a deconstruction of traditional assumptions about kno,vledge and truth could undermine femin ise philosophy itself and cake a,vay an important cool for dismantling barriers co women's freedom.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 6

1. This chapter covers the theories of kno,vledge produced by Plato, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kane. W hich one of these do you chink is most plausible, and ,vhy?

2. Which theory do you chink is lease plausible? Why?

3. Evaluate Locke's empiricist theory. What is the strongest argument in its favor? What is che ,veakesc?

4. Evaluate Berkeley's main reason for rejecting the existence of material objects. Does he successfully prove his case? Do you believe chat ma- terial objeccs exist? Why or ,vhy not?

5. Explain Hume's argument against the principal of induction. Is his argument sound? In light of che argument, what attitude co,vard sci- ence do you chink is most reasonable?

Key Terms

analytic statement A logical truth whose denial resulcs in a contradiction. (3 11)

a posteriori knowledge Knowledge that depends entirely on sense experience. (278)

a priori knowledge Kno\vledge gained independently of or prior to sense expe- rience. (278)

cognitive relativism The doctrine that the truth about something depends on what persons or cultures believe. (277)

cultural relativism The view that right actions are those endorse.cl by one's cul- ture. (277)

empiricism The view that our kno\vl- edge of the empirical world comes solely from sense experience. (278)

epistemology The study of kno\vledge. (275)

principle of induction The presumption that evencs that followed one another in the past will do the same in the future, that the future \viii be like the past. (308)

propositional knowledge Knowledge of a proposition. (276)

rationalism The view that through un- aided reason we can come to kno\v what the world is like. (278)

skepticism The vie\v that we lack knowl- edge in some fundamental way. (276)

subjective idealism The doctrine that all that exist are minds and thei r ideas. (280)

subjective relativism The view that right actions are those endorsed by an individ- ual . (277)

synthetic statement A statement that is not analytic. (312)

Key Terms 329

330 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism

FIC TION

Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll (1832- 1898), born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, is most famous for au- thoring Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, two literary classics. But his in terests and talents spread far beyond these books. He also wrote poems and articles, was an innovative photographer, lectured in mathematics at Oxford University, and invented an impressive assortment of games and puzzles.

After a pause, Alice began, "Well - they were both very unpleasant characters- "

Here she checked herself in some alarm, at hear- ing something that sounded to her like the puffing of a large steam-engine in the wood near them, though she feared it was more likely to be a wild beast. "Are there any lions or tigers about here?" she asked t imidly.

"It's only the Red King snoring," said Tweedledee. "Come and look at him!" the brothers cried, and

they each took one of Alice's hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping.

"Isn't he a lovely sight?" said Tweedledum. Alice couldn't say honestly that he was. He had a tall

red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crum- pled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud- "fit to snore his head off!" as Tweedledum remarked.

"I'm afraid he'll ca tch cold with lying on the damp grass," said Alice, who was a very thoughtful li ttle girl.

"He's dreaming now;" said Tweedledee: "and what do you th ink he's dreaming about?"

Alice said "Nobody can guess that." "Why, about you!" Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping

his hands triumphantly. "And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?"

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (New York: Oxford University Press , 2009).

Probing Questions

"Where I am now of course," said Alice. "Not you!" Tweedledee retorted contemptuously.

"You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of th ing in his dream!"

"If that there King was to wake" added Tweedle- dum, "You'd go out- bang!- just like a candle!"

"I shouldn't!" Alice exclaimed indignantly. "Be- sides, if I'm only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know?"

"Dit to," said Tweedledum. "Ditto, ditto!" cried Tweedledee. He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn't help

saying " Hush! You'll be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise."

"Well, it's no use your talking about waking him," said Tweedledum, "when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."

"I am rea l!" said Alice, and began to cry. "You won't make yourself a bit realer by cry-

ing," Tweedledee remarked: " there's nothing to cry about."

"If I wasn't rea l," Alice said- half- laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous- "! shouldn't be able to cry."

"I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?" Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great con- tempt.

I. This exchange berween Alice and Tweedledu,n and T,veedledee can seem unnerving ro

some readers. Why do you rhink rhar is?

2. Whar is rhe relarionship berween rhis lirrle srory and Descarres' dream argumenr?

3. Suppose Descarres plays rhe parr of Al ice in rhis srory. Whar ,vould he be likely ro say abour rhe dain1 rhar he is part of the Red Ki ng's drean1?

For Further Reading

Robert Audi, Belief, Justification, and Krwwledge (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1988). A student-friendly introduction co epistemology.

Paul Boghossian, Fear of Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Con- cise and po,verful critique of relativism and conscruccionism.

Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism: An Introduction (New York: Paragon House, 1993). A readable introduction co feminise criticism of traditional philosophy.

Christopher Grau, ed., Philosophers Explore the Matrix (Ne,v York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2005). An anthology of philosophical examinations of The Matrix. Of special interest is Christopher Grau's article chat dra,vs interesting paral lels beC\veen Descartes' dream and evil genius scenarios and che story chat unfolds in The Matrix.

Keith Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edition (Boulder, CO: Wescview Press, 2000). A useful introduction co che traditional and contemporary approaches co knowledge. Includes discussion of the author's own coherence theory of undefeated justification.

Paul K. Moser, Kno1uledge and Evidence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). A robust defense of a foundacional isc account of knowledge and justification.

Paul K. Moser, Dwayne H. Mulder, and J. D. Trout, The Theory of Knowledge: A The- matic Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). A clear and accessible discussion of the main problems and concepcs in contemporary epistemology.

Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1912, 1959). A very readable classic work by an eminent philosopher. Focuses moscly on issues in epistemology.

Roger Trigg, Reason and Commitment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). A defense of che possibil ity of knowledge and justification, and a strong cri- tique of various forms of cognitive relativism.

For Further Reading 331

CHAPTER

AESTHETICS

CHAPTER OBJ ECTIVES

7.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY OF BEAUTY

• Define aesthetics.

• Understand the difference between moral and aesthetic values.

• Know the questions that aesthetics tries to answer.

7.2 WHAT IS ART?

• Explain the formalist view of art.

• Understand the four ways of characterizing art.

• Explain the difference between art as representation and art as

expression.

• Understand Clive Bell's notion

of significant form.

7.3 AESTHETIC VALUE

• Define subjectivism and objectivism.

• Distinguish between a functional view and a formal view of aesthetic value.

7.4 PLATO, ARISTOTLE, ANO HUME

• Contrast Hume's view of art with Aristotle's.

• Explain Plato's concept of beauty as a Platonic Form.

• Explain Aristotle's concept of catharsis.

7.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY OF BEAUTY

Let's review. Philosophy concerns itself with \vhat is t rue, what is real, and what is good. The latter area is the domain of values (also called axiology), which includes both moral values and aesthetic values. As we've seen, moral values and the concepts and experiences that accompany them are the subject matter of ethics. Aesthetic values are examined in the field of philosophy known as aesthetics, the study of the feelings, judgments, and vie\vS involved in our appreciation and experience of the arts or other objects deemed beautiful. So one part of aesthetics focuses on the aesthetic value and experience of the arts (the philosophy of art), while the other part investigates aesthetic value in beautiful things outside that category (the philosophy of the aesthetic).

Aesthetics deals with works of art: objects that are important to almost everyone, that give us pleasure, that sometimes favor us \Vith a glimpse of the transcendent, but that are neither useful nor essential to our existence. Instead we value them for what they are in themselves, or for thei r O\vn sake. As the Roman poet Ovid once said, "Nothing is more useful than the arts, which have no utility."

Aesthetics addresses questions that interest not only philosophers but also plenty of nonphilosophers who are affected by what they call beauty in the arts as well as in the natural \vorld. What, if anything, gives an object aesthetic value? Is there such a thing as an aesthetic experience, and if so, how does it d iffer from other kinds of ex- periences? Can art be a source of truth or kno\vledge? Does the perception of beauty have anything to do \vith moral concerns? Can an art object be beautiful yet express a moral perspective that is despicable? Can some art objects be reasonably judged to be better than others-or are there no standards at all for judging one object supe- rior to another? That is, can anything be objectively beautiful?

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 7.1

1. How are works of art valued in today's society? How do you know if a \vork of art is "beautiful"?

7.2 WHAT IS ART?

Sometimes the simplest terms are the hardest to define. That is the case with art, even though it may seem that any fifth grader would know exactly what the word means. But \vhy do we want a definition of art in the first place? For one thing, we would like to be able to tell "art" from "non-ar t." We may readily call the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, Hamlet, or the Eiffel Tower art, but would we also \Vant to give the label of art to cars, tools, clothes, store \vindows, rustic barns, interior decoration, how-to books about d iesel engines, sculptures formed out of excrement, or paintings

What Is Art? 333

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. -Michelangelo

Aesthetics is the study of the feelings and judgmenLs involved in experiencing the arts o r o ther o bjects

deemed bcauriful.

The purpose of an is washing the dust of daily li fe off our souls. -Pablo Picasso

334 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

PH I LOSO PHY NOW

Is It Art? New ,vays of viewing and creating art (and new technology for transmitting ic to che world) have raised the ph ilosophical question chat never seems co go away: What is and is not art? Consider, for exa,nple, chese Instagram images.

The aim of arr is m represent nor the outward appearance of ,hings, bu, their inward significance. -Aristotle

#instaarl

•

Figure 7 .1 lnstagram, a photo-sharing applicat ion that allows users to share pictures and videos either publ icly or privately, amasses search· able posts that users label with hashtags, such as #instart. In the age of social media, filters, and limitless potential followers, has lnstagram made "maki ng art" more accessible? Have mill ions of posts tagged as "art" worked to reshape the very definition of the word?

created ,vich the paint-soaked tail of a dog? H o,v d o we d istinguish artifacts chat we

consider a rc from objects chat we ch ink a re definitely not a rc? T raditionally art has been cha racterized in four ways. The fi rst is the easiest co

grasp: Arc is representation. In this theory, co create a rc objects is co depict o r imi- tate objects in the ,vorld-in paint, clay, scone, poetry, or ocher media. Represen- tatio nal arc has been with us for a very long time, from the earliest cave drawings co Plato's notion of art as imitation co the p resent day. Modern theorises point out

that representation in a rt does not mean making an exact copy of an object. Every attempt to depict reality is necessarily shaped by the artist's own perspective. D a Vinci's Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David, Rodin's The Thinker, Vermeer's Girl with a

Pearl Earring, the Venus de Milo, Van Gogh's Irises-these and councless other works are representational yet reflective of the artist's interpretation.

Another definition says chat art is expression. This view holds that arc is a ,vay of communicating the anise's feelings and prompt ing ochers co experience chose same feelings. The great Russian novelise Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) declared, "Arc is a human activity consisting in this, chat one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on co ochers feelings he has lived through, and chat ochers are infec ted by these feelings and a lso experience chem."'

By the twentieth century, arcisrs and critics were defining arc by its farm-by the structure or organization of its parrs and such qualities as the unity or harmony of the whole. The content ,vas inessential. This form alist view came along as the

abstract movement in arc ,vas blossoming, and the two seemed made for each ocher. The arc theorise C live Bell explained arc formalism like chis:

Clive Bell, Art

What quali ty is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? Only one answer seems possible- s ignificant form. In each, lines and colors combined in a par- ticular way; certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. These relations and combinations oflines and colors , these aestheticall y moving forms, I call "Significant Form"; and "Significant Form" is the one quality common to all works of visual art.2

The fourth ,vay co characterize arc is (paradoxica lly) chat it cannot be charac- terized. In the lacer half of the twentieth century, the very possibility of devising a plausible definition of art was calle.d into question. To some art theorises, there is no

good reason (aside from tradition and convenience) co lump novels, films, dance, operas, songs, and ocher such things into a single category called art.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 7.2

1. Arc has been defined as representation, expression, and formalism. Is it a plausible theory chat arc is correccly characterized by just one of these three? Why or why not?

What Is Art? 335

1 Do you agree with the expression theory of art? Is art simply an expression of feelings? Is abstract art an ex- pression of feeli ngs?

Formalism is chc view chat art is defined by its form, the structure o r o rganiza ..

tion of ics pan s.

If art is to nourish , he roots of our culture, society m ust set chc artist free to follow his vision

wherever it takes h im.

- John F. Kennedy I II I II I II I II 111 Ill 11111111111111111111111 I II I II

336 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Controversial Art

Ir see,ns chat there is always a quarrel bre,ving somewhere about the aesthetic value or social relevance of a piece of art. The disputes often concern the medium used, the objects depicted or suggested, the ideas evoked, or the supposed 1nessages conveyed-any of which are liable to offend or dis,nay.

Figure 7 .2 A diamond-encrusted skull by Damien Hirst titled For the Love of God. Price: $1.8 million.

Figure 7 .3 Fearless Girl, a bronze sculpture by Kris· ten Visbal, was installed in March of 2017 at Bowling Green in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The statue was erected as an advertisement for an index fund with companies that have a higher percentage of women among their senior leadership and has been both praised and criticized by feminists across the country and around the world as a symbol of both resistance and corporate greed.

Figure 7 .4 This bronze sculpture, Homeless Jesus, sits outside the Catholic Charities building in Washington, D.C. While some have criticized the statue as an insu lting depiction of Jesus, others praise it for its commentary on how society treats its most vulnerable.

What Is Art? 337

Do you think any of these works has aesthetic value? If so, which one(s) and why?

If not, why not? They each have a political or philosophical message. Does the

message add to, detract from, or have no effect on the piece's aesthetic value?

338 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

2 Does an art object have to serve a f unc- tion to be art? Would art that serves a racist or criminal f unction count as art ?

Objectivism (in arr) is chc view that works of art

have o bjective properties

by which we can judge chcir aesthetic goodness or

badness.

Subjectivism (in arr) cs tho view that aesthetic criteria

arc purely subjective; the goodness or badness of a work of arr depends on how rhc audience responds to it.

I like ro prorond thar my art has nothing to do with me. -Roy Lichtenstein

7_3AESTHETIC VALUE

Assuming that art, however defined, is a genuine constituent of human experience, ,ve can ask ,vhat gives it aesthetic value. Over the centuries, two broad categories of ans,vers have arisen among philosophers and other art theorists. First, there is the notion that art has aesthetic value if it Mes something, that is, if it serves some im- portant function-if it inspi res exalted or edifying emotions, serves a moral or social purpose, conveys social truths or values, effecrs change in social o r political systems, or rouses sensations of pleasure in the audience. The second category is the idea that art has aesthetic value if it has particular formal characteristics. The candidates for these characteristics include unity, coherence, intensity, radiance, and complexity. Bell 's "significant form" is a well-known example.

If such criteria exist, then we must be able to distinguish good art from bad art, between War and Peace and yesterday's ne,vspaper. But there is considerable debate about whether we can actually do this. Some critics, the objectivists, insist that works of art have objective properties by ,vhich we can judge thei r aesthetic goodness or bad- ness. The properties, objectivists argue, exist in the art object. The Mona Lisa is good art because its objective properties-its unity and coherence, for example-make it so. Other theorists, the subjectivists, deny this and argue instead that ,vhatever aesthetic criteria we have are purely subjective; the apparent aesthetic properties of the art object are in the eye of the beholder. The goodness or badness of a work of art depends on the response of its audience. One person can hold that the Mona Lisa is bad art, while another can maintain that it is good art-and they both would be right.

Here is the author and critic Martin Gardner advocating the objectivist view:

I believe there are standards of excellence in all the arts, fine or not fine, that transcend both individual tastes and cultural norms .... In spite of the many ways tastes can vary, I remain convinced that there are some universal standards in art even though we can specify them only in misty ways. Consider again the chair. There may be wide variations in personal taste about how comfortable it is, but because human bodies have roughly the same size and shape, we can say dogmatically that it is a poor chair in any country if it collapses under a weight of twenty pounds, or if its seat is covered with sharp spikes. It is in this trivial sense that we can speak of universal standards con- cerning the chair's value as a seat.

The aesthetic values of a painting are more difficu lt to evaluate, but the situation is similar. Those who view the picture do indeed dif- fer more in their tastes than in the sizes and shapes of their bodies. But if they share a common human nature, with common needs, and if they can be ranked (a lbeit crudely) in their capacity for responding to art, we have a basis for beli eving in some universal standards even though we may not agree on exactly what they are .

. . . We can, for example, say dogmatically that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is greater, in a sense that transcends individual or group tastes, than an oil painting produced in ten minu tes by a street-corner lightning artist who sells it with the paint still wet.3

And here is the philosopher Curr John Ducasse expounding on the subjectiv- . . 1st view:

There is, then, no such thing as authoritative opinion concerning the beauty of a given object. There is only the opinion of th is person or that; or the opinion of persons of some specified sort. When one has stated the

opinion and mentioned the person or class of persons who hold it, one has gone as far as it is possible to go in the direction of a scien-

tifically objective statement relating to the beauty of the object. When some matter (as that of beauty) is not of the sort which "is so" or "not so," in an absolute sense, the nearest approach that one can make to the wished-for absoluteness lies in furnishing, as fully as possible, the data to which the matter in question is relative; and this is what one does in the case of beauty when one indicates just who happens to be that judges the given object beautiful or the reverse.•

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Arthur C. Danto

Arthur Danco (1924-2013) was a philosopher of arc and one of the most ,videly read arc crit- ics of che rwenciech century. He ,vas a professor of philosophy ac Columbia Universicy, an arc critic for

24 GIANT SIZE Pfi

The Nati.on ,nagazine, and a promoter of Pop artists Figure 7 .S such as Andy Warhol.

He is probably best known in aeschecics for his concept of che "artworld." He argues chat ,vhac distinguishes art fron1 non-art is not something chat can be perceived in che arnvork itself. Objects are identified as ,vorks of art if they are situated in a particular arcworld-a social-historical context that includes such things as che ,vorks of artists, che conventions of art, che history of arc, and che practices of arciscs and critics. Arc, in ocher ,vords, exists in "an atmosphere of arc theory."

In 1964 Danco saw Andy Warhol's sculpture citied Brillo Box, a sirnple imita- tion of a lowly consu,ner item, a box of Brillo soap-pads. Danco asked what che dif- ference was between che Brillo Box object and the score-bought item. What made the forrner arc and che laccer not arc? His answer ,vas chat Brillo Box was recognized and understood in an arnvorld.

Danco is che author of Nietzsche as Philosopher (1965), The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981), Beyond the Brillo Box (1992), After the End of Arr (1997), The Abuse of Beauty (2003), and What Arr Is (2013).

Aesthetic Value 339

340 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled ro the urterly bewildered. -Al Capp

Catharsis is rhe purging of the emotions of pity and fear by experiencing them vicariously in a theatrical context.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 7.3

1. Does an object have aesthetic value only if it serves some function? Are art objects valuable in themselves, without any functions? Explain.

7.4 PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND HUME

Plato and Aristotle have had enormous influence on aesthetics, shaping thought and debate about beauty general ly (not just in art), representation in art creation, and aes- thetic vi rtues. Plato is an objectivist, but in a unique way. His view is that true beauty is not of th is world. Beauty is a Platonic Form, an ideal entity existing in a perfect, non- physical, unchanging realm apart from the ephemeral, physical \vorld we inhabit. The sphere of the Forms is the really real \vorld, the place where the perfect models of reality reside. The world we live in is less real. Something is beautiful in th is less real world if it participates in, or imitates, the Form of Beauty, and through reason we can sometimes glimpse true Beauty if \Ve manage to look beyond the dim, earthly objects that \Ve deem beautiful. So there is an objective standard by which \Ve can judge beauty in nature and in works of art. The challenge is to access this standard-the ideal of Beauty-so \Ve can see more clearly where beauty resides (or does not reside) in the objecrs of this world.

Aristotle is also an objectivist, but not in the sense that Plato is. For Aristotle, beauty is a property of objects in the everyday world, and through knowledge and skill we can create beautiful things. The arcs need not fulfill a function to be valuable-they are to be cherished for thei r own sakes; that is, art for art's sake. To have aesthetic value, a sculpture needs only to be beautiful.

Aristotle, like many theorists of modern times, characterizes art as expression. In The Poetics, his treatise on tragedies, he emphasizes the concept of catharsis, the purging of the emotions of pity and fea r by experiencing them vicariously in a the- atrical context.

As an objectivist, he believes there are objective standards by which we may judge art and beauty generally. In the Poetics he first d istinguishes tragedy from other art forms and then explores the features that make for good and bad tragedies. Here is an excerpt:

Aristotle, The Poetics

CHAPTER 7

Now, we have settled that a tragedy is a mimesis [imitation, representation] of a com- plete, that is, of a whole action, "whole" here implying some amplitude (there can be a whole without ampl itude).

Plato, Aristotle, and Hume 341

By "whole" I mean "with a beginning, a middle, and an end." By "beginning" (in th is context[ I mean "that which is not necessarily the consequent of something else, but has some state or happening naturally consequent on it," by "end" "a state that is the necessary or usual consequent of something else, but has itself no such consequent," by "middle"" that which is consequent and has consequents." Well-ordered plots, then, will exhibit these characteristics, and will not begin or end just anywhere.

It is not enough for beauty that a thing, whether an animal or anything else com- posed of parts, should have those parts well ordered; since beauty consists in amplitude as well as in order, the thing must also have amplitude-and not just any amplitude. Though a very small creature could not be beautifu l, since our view loses a ll distinct- ness when it comes near to taking no perceptib le time, an enormously ample one could not be beautifu l either, since our view of it is not simultaneous, so that we lose the sense of its unity and wholeness as we look it over; imagine, for instance, an animal a thousand miles long. Animate and inanimate bodies, then, must have ampli tude, but no more than can be taken in at one view; and similarly a plot must have extension, but no more than can be easily remembered. What is, for the poetic art, the limit of th is extension? Certainly not that imposed by the contests and by perception .. . . As the limit imposed by the actual nature of the thing, one may suggest "the ampler the bet- ter, provided it remains clear as a whole," or, to give a rough specification, "sufficient amplitude to allow a probable or necessary succession of particular actions to produce a change from bad to good or from good to bad fortune."

CHAPTER 9

What I have said also makes plain that the poet's job is saying not what did happen but the sort of thing that would happen, that is, what can happen in a strictly probable or necessary sequence. The difference between the historian and the poet is not merely that one writes verse and the other prose- one could turn Herodotus' work into verse

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Suppose you are the curator of a world-class arr museum, and you have the job of selecting new pieces for the summer exhibition. You must now justify your decision to exhibit or not exhibit two pieces chat have received ,vide international acclaim. One is an eight-foot-high marble sculpture depicting a nude man and woman in a passionate embrace, and the other is a five-foot-diameter black metal sphere resting on a sheet of glass.

On what grounds can you justify showing these sculptures? How can

you justify not showing them? You may appeal to the definition of art, aesthetic values, the reaction of the local community, and the apparent aesthetic function of each piece.

3 What is Arist otle's idea of amplitude? How does he define proper amplitude?

342 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

and it would be just as much history as before; the essential difference is that the one Aristotle, The Poetics tells us what happened and the other the sort of th ing that would happen. That is why

poetry is at once more like philosophy and more worth while than history, since poetry tends to make general statements, while those of history are particular. A "general statement" means [in th is context] one that tells us what sort of man would, probably or necessarily, say or do what sort of things, and this is what poetry aims at, though it attaches proper names; a particular statement on the other hand tells us what Alcibi- ades, for instance, did or what happened to him .. . .

4 According to Aristotle, what emo· tions should a tragedy evoke? What is the point of evoking them?

The artist belongs to his

work. not rhc work m the arr Lu. -No\-a.lis

It is obvious from all th is that the poet should be considered a maker of plots, not of verses, since he is a poet qua maker of mimesis and the objects of his mimesis are actions. Even if it is incidentally true that the plot he makes actually happened, that does not mean he is not its maker; for there is no reason why some things that actually happen should not be the sort of thing that would probably happen, and it is in virtue of that aspect of them that he is their maker.

Of defective plots or actions the worst are the episodic, those, I mean, in which the suc- cession of the episodes is neither probable nor necessary; bad poets make these on their own account, good ones because of the judges; for in aiming at success in the competition and stretching the plot more than it can bear they often have to distort the natural order.

Tragedy is a mimesis not only of a complete action, but also of things arousing pity and fear, emotions most likely to be stirred when things happen unexpectedly but because of each other (th is arouses more surprise than mere chance events, since even chance events seem more marvellous when they look as if they were meant to happen- take the case of the statue ofMitys in Argos ki ll ing Mitys' murderer by falling on him as he looked at it; for we do not th ink that things like this are merely random) ; so such plots will necessarily be the best. . . .

CHAPTER 13

What ought one to aim at and beware of in composing plots? And what is the source of the tragic effect? These are the questions that naturally follow from what I have now dealt with.

Well, the arrangement of tragedy at its best should be complex, not simple, and it should also present a mimesis of things that arouse fear and pity, as this is what is peculiar to the tragic mimesis.

So it is clear that one should not show virtuous men passing from good to bad fortune, since this does not arouse fear or pity, but only a sense of outrage. Nor should one show bad men passing from bad to good fortune, as this is less tragic than any- thing, since it has none of the necessary requ irements; it neither satisfies our human feeling nor arouses pity and fear. Nor should one show a quite wicked man passing from good to bad fortune; it is true that such an arrangement would satisfy our hu- man feeling, but it would not arouse pity or fear, since the one is felt for someone who comes to grief without deserving it, and the other for someone like us (pity, that is, for the man who does not deserve his fate, and fear for someone like us); so th is event will not arouse pity or fear. So we have left the man between these. He is one who is not pre-eminent in moral virtue, who passes to bad fortune not through vice or wick- edness, but because of some piece of ignorance, and who is of high repute and great good fortune, like Oedipus and Thyestes and the splendid men of such families.

So the good plot must have a single line of development, not a double one as some people say; that line should go from good fortune to bad and not the other way round; the change should be produced not through wickedness, but through some

Plato, Aristotle, and Hume 343

large-scale piece of ignorance; the person ignorant should be the sort of man I have described-certainly not a worse man, though perhaps a better one . . ..

Well then, the best tragedy, judged from the standpoint of the tragic art, comes from this sort of arrangement. That is why those who censure Euripides for doing this in his tragedies and making many of them end with disaster are making just the same mistake. For this is correct in the way I said. The greatest proof of this is that on the stage and in the contests such plays are felt to be the most properly tragic, if they are well managed, and Euripides, even if he is a bad manager in the other points, is at any rate the most tragic of the poets.

Second comes the sort of arrangement that some people say is the best: this is the one that has a double arrangement of the action like the Odyssey, and ends with opposite fortunes for the good and bad people. It is thought to be the best because of the weakness of the audiences; for the poets follow the lead of the spectators and make plays to their specifications. But this is not the pleasure proper to tragedy, but rather belongs to comedy; for in comedy those who are most bitter enemies throughout the plot, as it might be Orestes and Aegisthus, are reconci led at the end and go off and nobody is killed by anybody.s

David Hume's vie,v of aesthetic judgment and value diverges radically from Aris- totle's. Hume contends that aesthetic judgments (,vhat he calls "judgments of taste") are ultimately based on the sensibilities of the individual. The standard of aesthetic taste is to be found not in the art object irselfbut in subjective experience. "Beauty," he says, "is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which con- templates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty." But for Hume, this subjectivism need not lead to wholesale relativism, in which any aesthetic judg- ment is as good as any other. He argues that there are stable relationships between objects in the world and the particular responses they elicit in us. "Some par ticular forms or qualities [in objects]." he says, "are calculated to please [aesthetically), and others to displease [aesthetically]." Some individuals are more keenly attuned to these relationships than others; their aesthetic sensibil ities are more "delicate."

With practice in cultivating aesthetic taste, these people become superior judges of aesthetic value. They, in other words, become critics.

Hume's aesthetic theory thus explains the commonsense vie,v that a rt objects can vary radically in aesthetic value: C learly a Mona Lisa is aesthetically superior to a stick figure on a cave wall. The theory also explains why some observers are better judges of the aesthetic quality of art than others.

David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste

It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a ru le, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconci led; at least, a decision afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another.

There is a species of phi losophy, which cuts off all hopes of success in such an attempt, and represents the impossibi lity of ever attain ing any standard of taste.

344 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

PH I LOSO PHY NOW

Feminist Art

Aesrherics, rhe arr world, and arc itself in their many forms are nor ,vhar they used to be-and much of rhe credit for the changes muse go ro the feminist art movement. Consider chis bit of history:

The Feminist art movement emerged in the late 1960s amidst the fervor of anti-war demonstrations and civil and queer rights movements. Hear- ken ing back to the utopian idea ls of early twentieth-century modernist movements, Feminist artists sought to rewrite a falsely male-dominated art history as well as change the contemporary world around them through their art, focus ing on intervening in the estab li shed art world and the art canon's legacy, as well as in everyday socia l interactions. As artist Suzanne Lacy declared, the goal of Feminist art was to " influ- ence cultural attitudes and transform stereotypes." Feminist art created opportunities and spaces that previously did not exist for women and minority artists, as well as paved the path for the Identity art and Activist

art of the 1980s.

Figure 7 .6 In Judy Chicago's art installation The Dinner Party, there are thirty-nine place set- tings for thirty-nine famous women. Each place setting, except Sojourner Truth's, evokes an image of a vulva.

Plato, Aristotle, and Hume 345

Figure 7 .7 Feminist art asks the viewer to question the norms of his or her social or political spheres in hopes of provoking action or inspi ring change. Nan Goldi n's The Ballad of Sexual De- pendency is a series of photographs taken in New York during the 1970s and 1980s. They address AIDS, drug addiction, and abuse.

Key Ideas

• Feminist artists sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the inclusion of women's perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration, but could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and through this

questioning, possibly affect the world and bring change toward equality. • Before feminism, the majority of women artists were invisible to the

public eye. They were oftentimes denied exhibitions and gallery rep· resentation based on the sole fact of their gender. The art world was largely known, or promoted as, a boys' club, of which sects like the hard

drinking, womanizing members of Abstract Expressionism were glam· orized. To combat this, Feminist artists created alternative venues as well as worked to change established institutions' policies to promote women artists' visibi lity with in the market.

346 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

PHILOSOPHY NOW (continued)

Figure 7 .8 Feminist art such as Faith Ringgold's The American People Series #18: The Flag Is Bleeding can act as a vehicle to create awareness around different social or po· litical issues. What problems might Ringgold be addressing with this painting?

• Feminist artists often embraced alternative materials that were con· nected to the female gender to create their work, such as textiles, or other media previously little used by men such as performance and video, which did not have the same historically male-dominated precedent that

painting and sculpture carried. By expressing themselves through these non-traditional means, women sought to expand the definition of fine

art, and to incorporate a wider variety of artistic perspectives.*

Which example of feminist art shown here impresses you the most? Why?

• "Fem inist Art;" 17u Art Story, http://www.thc-artstory.org/movcmcnt .. fcmin ist .. art.htm, accessed October 26, 2017.

Plato, Aristotle, and Hume 347

The difference, it is said, is very wide between judgment and sentiment. All sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right; because they have a reference to something beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conformable to that standard. Among a thousand different opinions which different men may entertain of the same subject, there is one, and but one, that is just and true; and the only difficulty is to fix and ascertain it. On the contrary, a thousand different sentiments, exci ted by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment represents what is rea lly in the object. It only marks a certain conformity or relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not rea lly exist, the sentiment could never possibly have being. Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regu late those of others. To seek the rea l beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter. According to the disposition of the organs, the same object may be both sweet and bitter; and the proverb has justly determined it to be fruitless to dispute concerning tastes. It is very natural, and even quite necessary, to extend this axiom to mental, as well as bodily taste; and thus common sense, which is so often at variance with philosophy, especially with the sceptical kind, is found, in one instance at least, to agree in pronouncing the same decision.

But though this axiom, by passing into a proverb, seems to have attained the sanc- t ion of common sense; there is certainly a species of common sense which opposes it, at least serves to modify and restra in it. Whoever would assert an equali ty of genius and elegance between OG ILBY and MILTON, or BUNYAN and ADDISON, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as TENERIFFE, or a pond as extensive as the ocean. Though there may be found persons, who give the preference to the former authors; no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce without scruple the sentiment of these pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occasions, where the objects seem near an equali ty, it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together.

It is evident that none of the rules of composition are fixed by reasonings a priori, or can be esteemed abstract conclusions of the understanding, from comparing those habitudes and relations of ideas, which are eternal and immutable. Their foundation is the same with that of all the practical sciences, experience; nor are they any thing but general observations, concerning what has been universally found to please in all coun- tries and in all ages. Many of the beauties of poetry and even of eloquence are founded on falsehood and fiction, on hyperboles, metaphors, and an abuse or perversion of terms from their natural meaning. To check the sall ies of the imagination, and to re- duce every expression to geometrical truth and exactness, would be the most contrary to the laws of criticism; because it would produce a work, which, by universal experi- ence, has been found the most insipid and disagreeable. But though poetry can never submit to exact truth, it must be confined by ru les of art, discovered to the author either by genius or observation. If some negligent or irregular writers have pleased, they have not pleased by their transgressions of rule or order, but in spite of these transgressions: They have possessed other beauties, which were conformable to just criticism; and the

David Hume, Of the Standard of Toste

5 Hume says that the attributes of a piece of art are not in the object it self but in the mind. What does he mean by th is?

Art for art's sake L\ a

philosophy of the well-fed. -Fr,nk Lloyd \'qrigh1

348 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

force of these beauties has been able to overpower censure, and give the mind a satis- faction superior to the disgust arising from the blemishes . ...

But though a ll the genera l ru les of art are founded only on experience and on the observation of the common sentiments of hu man nature, we must not imag- ine, that, on every occasion, the feel ings of men will be conformable to these ru les. Those finer emotions of the mind are of a very tende r and delicate nature, and re- quire the concurrence of many favourable circumstances to make them play with fa- ci lity and exactness, according to their general and establ ished principles. The least exterior hind rance to such small springs , or the least interna l d isorder, d isturbs their motion, and confounds the operation of the whole mach ine. When we would make an experiment of th is nature, and would try the force of any beauty or deformity, we must choose with care a proper time and place, and bring the fancy to a suitable situation and disposition. A perfect serenity of mind, a recollection of thought, a due attention to the object; if any of these circumstances be wanting, our experiment will be fal lacious, and we shall be unable to judge of the catholic and universal beauty. The relation, which nature has placed between the form and the sentiment, wil l at least be more obscure; and it wi ll req uire greater accuracy to t race and discern it. We sha ll be ab le to ascertain its influe nce not so much from the operation of each particular beauty, as from the durable admiration, which attends those works , tha t have survived a ll the caprices of mode and fash ion, all the mistakes of ignorance and envy ....

It appears then, that, amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain genera l principles of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in a ll operations of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities, from the original structure of the internal fabric, are calculated to please, and others to displease; and if they fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparent defect or imperfection in the organ. A man in a fever would not ins ist on his palate as able to decide concerning flavours; nor would one, affected with the jaundice, pretend to give a verdict with regard to colours. In each creature, there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment. If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an entire or a considerable uni- formity of sentiment among men, we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in like manner as the appearance of objects in day-light, to the eye of a man in health, is denominated their true and rea l colour, even while colour is allowed to be merely a phantasm of the senses.6

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 7.4

1. What is David Hume's view of art? Is h is subjectivist view of art plausible? Can it really be the case that p ieces of art have no objective qualities that make them good?

2. Which theory of art makes the mos t sense to you-Plato's o r Aristotle's? Why?

Review Notes

7.1 OVERVIEW: PH ILOSOPHY OF BEAUTY

• Aesthetics is the study of the feelings and judgmencs involved in experiencing the arcs or ocher objects deemed beautiful.

• Moral values have co do with right and \vrong acts and good and bad persons. Aeschecic values have co do \vith good and bad \vorks of art and ocher objects chat could be judged beautiful.

• Aesthetics asks: What, if anything, gives an object aesthetic value? Can art be a source of cruch or kno\vledge? Does the perception of beauty have anything co do \vich moral concerns? Can some art objeccs be reasonably judged co be better chan ochers-or are there no standards at all for judging one object superior co another? That is, can anything be objectively beautiful?

7.2 WHAT IS ART?

• Formalism is the vie\v chat art is defined by its form, the structure or organization of ics parts. Representation is the notion chat creating art objects is depicting or imitat- ing objects in the world. Expression assercs chat art is a way of communicating the artist's feelings and prompting ochers co experience chose same feelings.

7.3 AESTHETIC VALUE

• Objectivism is the vie\v chat \Yorks of arc have objective properties by \vh ich we can judge their aesthetic goodness or badness. Subjectivism says chat aeschecic criteria are purely subjective; the goodness or badness of a work of art depends on how the audience responds co it.

• Functionalism is che idea chat art muse serve some important function-engendering exalted or edifying emotions, serving a moral or social purpose, conveying social truchs or values, effecting change in social or political systems, or arous ing sensa- tions of pleasure in the audience.

7.4 PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND HUME

• Plato is an objeccivisc. His vie\v is chat Beauty is a Platonic Form, an ideal entity existing in a perfect, nonphysical, unchanging realm apart from the ephemeral, physical world we inhabit.

• Ariscocle is also an objeccivisc. For him, beauty is a property of objects in che ev- eryday world. The arts need not fulfill a function co be valuable-chey are co be cherished for their O\vn sakes. For him, an essential part of tragedy is catharsis,

Review Notes 349

350 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

the purging of the emotions of pity and fear by experiencing them vicariously in a theatrical context.

• Hume contends that aesthetic judgments are ultimately based on the sensibilities of the individual. The standard of aesthetic taste is to be found not in the art object itself but in subjective experience. But this subjectivism need not lead to wholesale relativism in which any aesthetic judgment is as good as any other.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 7

1. Are you an objectivist or subjectivist about art? Why?

2. Critique Arthur Danto's institutional theory of art. One criticism of it is that if people in the arnvorld define what is and is not ar t, then there seems to be no way for the decision-makers to decide among themselves what art is. Is this a fair criticism? Why or why not?

3. Is the Mona Lisa art? W hy or \vhy not?

4. What \vould Martin Gardner think of the sculpture Brillo Box? Would he consider it art? Why or why not?

5. Do you agree with Danco that an object is art only if museums and art shows exhibit it? Explain.

Key Terms

aesthetics The study of the fee Ii ngs and judgmenrs involved in experiencing the arts or other objeccs deeme.d beautiful. (333)

cath arsis The purging of the emotions of pity and fear by experiencing them vicariously in a theatrical context. (340)

formalism The view that art is defined by its form, the structure or organization of its parts. (335)

objectivism (in art) The view that works of art have objective properties by \vhich \Ve can judge their aesthetic goodness or badness. (338)

subjectivism (in art) The view that aes- thetic criteria are purely subjective; the goodness or badness of a \vork of art depends on how the audience responds to it. (338)

The Oval Portrait 351

FICTION

The Oval Portrait Edgar Allan Poe

While Edgar Allan Poe (1809- 1849) is perhaps best known to modern readers for his horror stories, he was also an accomplished poet and critic. "The Oval Portrait," first published in 1842, includes a theme that recurs in several stories as well as in his later critical essay "The Philosophy of Composition": that "the most poetical topic in the world" is "the death . .. of a beautiful woman."

The chateau into which my va let had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desper- ately wounded condition, to pass a nigh t in the open air, was one of those pi les of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Apen- nines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Rad- cliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apart- ments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its dec- orations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an un- usually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these pain tings, which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks which the bizarre ar- chitecture of the chateau rendered necessa ry- in these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room- since it was already night- to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed- and to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which en- veloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to sleep, at least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been fou nd upon the pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe them.

Long- long I read- and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight. The position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty, rather than

Edgar Alan Poe, "The Oval Portrait," 1842, Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenbe rg.o rg/fi les/2147 /2147-h/2147-h. ht m#li nk 2H_4_0014 (31 December 2014) .

disturb my slumbering valet, I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.

But the action produced an effect altogether unan- ticipated. The rays of the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unno- ticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl just ripen- ing into womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at first apparent even to my own perception. But while my lids remained thus shut, I ran over in my mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for thought- to make sure that my vision had not deceived me- to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a very few mo- ments I again looked fixed ly at the painting.

That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first fl ashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at once into waking life.

The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant ha ir melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the back- ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itse lf. But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living per- son. I saw at once that the peculiarities of the design,

352 Chapter 7 Aesthetics

of the vignetting, and of the frame, must have instantly dispelled such idea- must have prevented even its mo- mentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting, half recl ining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait. At length, satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute li fe-likeliness of expression, which, at first startling, finally confounded, subdued, and appalled me. With deep and reverent awe I rep laced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my deep agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly the volume which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turn- ing to the number which designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and quaint words which follow:

"She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than fu ll of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passion- ate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than fu ll of glee; a ll light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pal- let and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her oft he countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for th is lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour

Probing Questions

to hour, and from day to day. And he was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in rever- ies; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak. And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for he r whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him. And when many weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame with in the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pall id, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, 'This is indeed Life itself!' turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead!"

I. The central contrast here is between the lifeless bur beautiful painting and the living and beautiful ,von1an. What does chis contrast suggest about arr and life?

2. The painrer is so passionate about his painting char he fails co notice char his wife is dying. What does this suggesr about the fervent pursuir of beaury in arr?

3. Why did rhe painrer's ,vife dread sining for the porrrair? Why did rhe painter fail co notice char his wife was fading a,vay even as his arr ,vas becoming ,nore lifelike?

For Further Reading

Aristotle, Poetics, trans. M. E. Hubbard, in Classical Literary Criticism, ed. D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, 2008).

Clive Bell, Art (London: Chacco and Windus, 1914).

Arthur Danco, Transfiguration of the Commonplace (Cambridge, MA: H arvard Uni- versity Press, 1981).

Susan L. Feagin and Patr ick Maynard, Aesthetics (London: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Cynthia Freeland, But ls It Art? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Marcin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener (New York: Sc. Mart in's G riffin, 1999).

G. Graham, Philosophy of the Arts: An Introduction to Aesthetics (London: Routledge, 1997).

Kathleen M. Higgins, Aesthetics in Perspective (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1996).

David Hume, "Of che Standard of Taste," from Four Dissertations (London: A. Miller, 1777).

M. Kelly, ed., Encyclopedia of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Leo Tolstoy, What ls Art? (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960).

For Further Reading 353

CHAPTER

THE JUST SOCIETY

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

8.1 OVERVIEW: JUSTICE AND POLITICAL PH ILOSOPHY

• Understand the nature of polit ical philosophy and why the issues it deals with are important.

• Define distributive justice and explain the purpose of devising theories of justice.

8.2 PLATO'S THEORY: JUSTICE AS MERIT

• Explain the main elements of Plato's theory of justice.

• Be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Plato's theory.

• Define democracy, meritocracy, and aristocracy.

8.3 SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORIES

• Compare and evaluate the social contract theories of Hobbes and Locke.

• Explain Hobbes's notions of "the state of nature" and Leviathan.

• Explain Rawls's t heory of justice.

• Define liberalism, classical liberalism, libertarianism , and welfare liberalism.

8.4 SOCIALIST THEORIES

• Understand the ma in features of Marx's pol itical theory.

• Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of socialism.

8.5 FEMINISM AND SOCIAL

JUSTICE

• Understand Okin's critique of traditional theories of justice.

• Explain Mi ller's view of feminist critiques of traditional theories.

Overview: Justice and Political Philosophy 355

8.1 OVERVIEW: JUSTICE AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Political philosophy is the study of political societies using the methods of philosophy-namely, critical reasoning and careful analysis. It is essentially moral philosophy applied to government and polit ical life. Like moral philosophy, it is a normative endeavor, concerned with standards or principles for determining how polit ical systems ought to be structured. To do irs work properly, polit ical philosophy must also take into account ho\v political systems are in fact structured, but this is a descriptive task that is secondary to the normative one. Political science, on the other hand, is mostly a descriptive enterprise dedicated to uncovering the empirical facrs of political systems past or present.

The issues of political philosophy are large, important, and personal. They ra ise questions about the moral and non moral goodness of whole societies, which largely determine the moral and nonmoral goodness of our lives. We can, of course, try to ignore these issues, but that is like a fish trying to ignore the water. The questions press us from all sides. W hat is justice, and \vhat constitutes just and unjust treat- ment of the members of society? How should the political and material goods of society (\vealth, property, liberties, righrs) be d istributed among its citizens? Should these goods be allotted according to need, utility, merit, desert, equality, or some other principle? What theory of political society should rule the distribution? Is de- mocracy really the best form of governmen t? Is socialism? Libertarianism? Do \vell- off citizens have a duty to provide goods to the less well-off? What is the morally right (just) balance between the state's control of its people and the people's liberty and rights? What is the moral justification for the state's exercise of po\ver and au- thority over individuals? Is the state necessary at all-or is it better to live in small communities without state authority?

Suppose someone fails to see the need to study political philosophy or even to think much about the government under which she lives. Political philosophers can make several replies to this attitude, but let us focus on just two. First, whether you are just beginning to form your ideas about politics and government or you are al- ready a veteran of many political discussions (and proudly call yourself a Democrat, Republican, socialist, libertarian, or something else), political philosophy can help you more than you may realize. A good dose of political philosophy can clarify your thinking, introduce you to ne\v perspectives, acquaint you \vith arguments for and against political theories (including your O\vn), and help you arrive at informed opinions. The result is greater understanding acqui red through critical thinking and reflection-not through prejudice or unsupported presumption.

Consider, for example, this issue: the pervasiveness of government. The state's fingers are every\vhere, revealed through levie.d taxes, a welfare system, the con- struction of roads and dams, the treatment of prisoners and patients, vast armies of government employees, decla rations of peace and war, subsidies for homeo\vners and corporations, and the regulation of everything from hamburger to baby cribs. How do you feel about such omnipresent governance? Would you like to see more of the same, much less, or some other political system altogether? Such questions are flashpoints in contemporary debates about the proper role of government in our

Political philosophy is the study of political soci- eties using che mechods of philosophy.

lnj ustice anywhere is a threat to j ustice

everywhere.

-Martin Luther Klng. Jr.

356 Chapter 8 The Just Society

In the absence of justice,

what is sovereignty but organiu:d robbery? -Saint Augustine

Figure 8.1 Signing o f the Declaration of Independence: ·we hold these t ruths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.• What philosopher inspired these words?

lives. How would you go about getting some answers? An offhand, party-line reac- tion to these questions may provide some temporary satisfaction or assurance. But if you ,vant better understanding and well-supported vie,vs, your best bet is to take the philosophical approach.

Second, political philosophy may not bake bread or sell widgets, but it does sometimes change the world. You ,viii see several examples in this chapter of po- litical theories that affected history, but for no,v let's ponder this one. John Locke (1632-1704) argued that through a social contract between government and the governed, the authority of the state could be justifie.d. The state exisrs by the consent of the governed and is the guarantor of the people's inalienable rights of" life, liberty, and estate." The state serves the people, and the people have the right to challenge it through revolution if it violates the terms of the contract. Locke's ideas (shockingly rad ical when first introduced) ,vere familiar to American colonisrs, and they heavily influenced the framers of the Declaration of Independence, the Const itution, and the Bill of Rights. (Other nations took notice of Locke's thinking as ,veil.) Even the language in these documenrs reflects Locke's thinking. This famous sentence in the Declaration, for example, is almost pure Locke: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator ,vith certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Political theory in the seventeenth century thus affects twenty-first- century Americans (and the rest of the ,vorld).

Overview: Justice and Pol itical Phi losophy 357

The topic that gets most attention in political philosophy is justice. In its broad- est sense,justice refers to people getting what is fa ir or \vhat is their due, and the core principle that defines a person's due is equals should be treated equally. The idea is that people should be treated the same unless there is a morally relevant reason for t reating them differently. Justice by this definition comes in two forms, and each is profoundly important in a society. Retributive justice has to do with the fair meting out of punishment to cit izens for wrongdoing. D istributive justice, or social jus- tice, is about the fa ir distribut ion of society's benefits and burdens (its material and nonmaterial goods)-such things as jobs, income, property, liberties, rights, welfare aid, taxes, and public service. Ho\v these goods are distributed among the citizens of a state is a function of ho\v the state is structured, how its social and political institu- tions are arranged. It's this kind of justice that is the focus of polit ical philosophers and their theories of justice.

Theories of justice embody principles that define fair distributions, that explain what people are due and why. A utilitarian theory of justice, for example, says that the distribution of goods should be base.cl on the principle of utility. Society's insti- tut ions must be arranged so that its benefits and burdens are allocated to maximize some measure of society's welfare (total happiness, for example). This is a popular scheme of distribut ion, although some think it is inconsistent with our common- sense notions of justice and equality. As you might guess, the utilita rian philosopher John Stuart Mill favors the vie\v.

Some theories of justice insist on distribut ions according to merit, or desert (what people deserve). Plato (c. 427-347 BCE) took this tack, arguing that because people differ in their talencs and achievements, they should be given a station in li fe that reflects this difference. Some people have superior capacities and therefore should receive a superior share of society's goods; some possess few capacit ies and should get a smaller share. As you can see, Plato's vie\v is strongly antidemocratic.

In other theories, merit and utility mean little, while equality means (almost) everything. The thoroughgoing egalitarian maintains that, contrary to Plato, there are no morally relevant d ifferences among persons, so everyone should be appor- t ioned an equal share of society's benefits. After all, don't we believe that all persons are created equal? John Rawls (1921-2002) argues for this kind of rigorous equality in his theory of justice. He contends that since people's character and behavior are accidents of nature, no one really deserves any particular allotment of benefics or burdens-and so equality is the most reasonable basis for distribut ion of goods. A staunch egalitarianism demands that the supposedly deserving, undeserving, needy, and self-sufficient receive the same size slice of society's pie and the portions cannot be adjusted on grounds of utility.

An important theme of some theories is that society's wealth should be allocated according to need. Allotmencs of goods based on people's hardship or indigence are common elements in many societ ies, often combined with other d istribution prin- ciples. Welfare programs, lo\ver tax rates for people with low incomes, disaster re- lief, low-interest loans to the disadvantaged-such programs are strictly need-base.cl. Some thinkers hold that meeting the needs of society's worst off should be a major concern of the state. But others argue that assisting the needy is not a requirement of

Justice is the idea that people should get what is lair or whar is their due.

Distributive j ustice (or social justice) is the lair distributio n of society's

benefirs and burdens- such chings as jobs, incom e, property, libcrrics,

rights, welfare aid, taxc.'i, and public service.

1 Would a society structured ent irely on the principle of utility be just?

The vin uc of justice consists in moderatio n, as

rcgulaccd by wisdom. -Aristotle

2 Are the principles of desert and equa lity in confl ict? That is, is it possible to have a society that treats everyone with strict equa lity while ensur- ing that everyone gets w hat they deserve?

358 Chapter 8 The Just Society

WHAT DO YOU BELi EVE?

Figure 8.2 More Americans are shunning political parties and migrating to the polit- ical center.

Mostly Rep11bUcan

Staunch Conservatives

Political Views in Flux

The Pe,v Research Center, which conduces opinion surveys co gauge political attitudes, reports chat, "With the economy still struggl ing and the nation involved in multiple 1nil icary operations overseas, che public's political 1nood is fractious. In chis environ,nent, many political attitudes have beco,ne ,nore doctrinaire at both ends of che ideological spectrum, a polarization chat reAecrs the current atmosphere in Washing- ton. Yee ac the sa,ne time, a gro,ving number of Americans are choosing not co identify with either political party, and the center of the political spectrum is increasingly diverse." Here are che results fro,n a recent Pew survey of Americans.

Percentage of ...

General PtlbUc Registered Voters

9 I I (Highly engaged Tea Party supporters}

Main Strecr Republicans I I 14 (Con1ervative 011 most issues)

Mostly Independent

Libertarians (Free market, small government seculars)

Disaffccreds (Downscale and cynical}

Post-Moderns (Moderates but liberal 011 social issues)

Mostly Democratic

New Coalition Dcmocrars (Upbeat, 111ajority-mi11oriry)

Hard-Pressed Democrats (Religious, fi11a11cially struggling)

Solid Liberals (Across-rJ1e-board liberal positions)

Bystanders

Young, politically disengaged

Total

9 JO

I I I I

13 14

JO 9

13 15

14 16

JO 0

JOO JOO

·Beyond Red vs. Blue: 71,e Political Typology'" Pew Research Center, Washington, DC (May, 2011) http:!/

www.people-press.org/20J J/05!04/beyo11d-red-vs-blue-rhe-polirical-typologyl.

Do you see yourself in these numbers? If not, how would you characterize your political views?

Overview: Justice and Political Philosophy 359

justice; helping unfortunates is a job best left to voluntary charity, not government.

Many who resist the idea of distributions based on equality or desert do so by appealing to a principle of entitlement. They argue that even if people don't deserve the goods they have, they nevertheless may be entitled to them. We are entitled, for example, to self-ownership of our O\vn bodies even though \Ve have done nothing to de- serve having them. Perhaps the most famous entitlement theory of justice is that of Robert Nozick (1938-2002). He argues that if \Ve rightfully possess any goods, they are ours only because we are entitled to them-entitled because we acquired them legitimately, not because we got them through appeals to equality or desert.

The most influential theories of justice have incorpo- rated some or all of these principles, emphas izing some of them, downplaying others, and arriving at distinc- tive sociopolitica l models that we can use to judge the worthiness of real-\vorld systems. It is difficult-perhaps impossible-to fully fathom our own political system without knowing something about the theories of justice that preceded it . The following sections should help you understand what those predecessors are like.

Figure 8.3 Is the state obligated to help t he poor? Is it morally permissible for the government t o tax the rich to guarantee the poor a basic minimum of w elfare assistance?

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 8.1

1. Imagine you are convinced that the way your own society is structured is better than that of other societies. Ho\v could you argue for such a position?

2. Suppose you think your country's form of distributive justice is ser- iously Aa\ved. Ho\v could you argue for your view? What principle of justice is at fault?

3. Do you think a society based entirely on equality would be just? Why or why not?

4. Do you think, as Ra\vls does, that no one really deserves any particu- lar distribution of benefits or burdens? Explain.

5. In your view, \vhat would be some of the beneficial or harmful effects of a society based solely on merit, as Plato proposed?

Where justice is denied,

where poverty is enforced,

where ignorance prevails,

and where any one class is

made to fed that society is an organized conspiracy to

oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor

property will be safe. -Frederick Douglass

360 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Meritocracy is a system of rule by rhosc mosr qualified to govern.

Democracy is rule by the people as a whole.

3 How w ould yo u defend democ- racy against Plato 's criticism s?

\Vhat do I care about

Jupiter> Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a

god to teach it to me. -Jean-Paul Sartre

8.2 PLATO'S THEORY: JUSTICE AS MERIT

About nventy-five centuries ago, Plato proposed in his masterwork The Republic a theory of justice that has challenged thinkers and stimulated debate ever since. He argues that the only kind of society that can ensure people get their due is a meritocracy, a system of rule by those most qualified to govern. He contrascs meri- tocracy with a form of government he strongly opposes: democracy, rule by the people as a whole. In his view, democratic rule is mob rule, the reign of a rabble too easily swayed by emotional appeals and bad arguments. Plato had plenty of experience with democratic rule, for in his day Athens was a democracy in which governmental decisions were made by d irect vote of adult male Athenians. (Greek democracy was fa r from rule by all the people, for only free men \vere full citizens, and \vomen and slaves were excluded.) He never forgot that it \vas a democratic vote of his fello\v citizens that committed the ultimate injustice by condemning to death his teacher and role model, the venerable Socrates.

Plato's theory of justice dovetails with his theory of mind, as \vell as with his epis- temology and ethics. He argues that the makeup and functioni ng of society is directly analogous to the makeup and functioni ng of the person (or soul). In his philosophy of mind, every person is composed of three fundamental componencs: (1) appetite, or desires; (2) spirit, or d rives (includ ing motivations and emotions); and (3) reason (the intellect). The just, or vi rtuous, person will be a \vell-balance.d composite of these, each

•

. '

performing its own distinctive function in harmony \Vith the others, \vith the appetites and spirit ruled and coordinated by reason. In simila r fashion, Plato says, a society consiscs of three types of people, each one identified according to \vhich of the soul 's componencs predominates:

1. Those who are moved by their appetites (producers- laborers, carpenters, artisans, farmers)

2. Those who are moved by spirit (auxiliaries-soldiers, \varriors, police)

3. Those who are moved by reason (guardians-leaders, rul- ers, philosopher-kings)

In a just society, these three perform their proper func- tions \vhile the producers and auxiliaries are led and controlled by the guardians. The just state is a harmonious community governed by reason, just as a virtuous person is a tripartite be- ing presided over by the rational faculty of the soul.

Figure 8.4 Plato's Academy at Athens. In Plato's republic, all people are not created equal. Does th is f act invalidate his t heory of justice?

Plato says citizens are assigned to one of the three func- tions base.cl on their aptitude and performance, and once ap- pointed, they are expected to remain in that class and not try to cross over to another. This scheme reflects his theory of ethics. To be virtuous and happy, he says, we must act ac- cording to our talencs and aptitude, striving for excellence in the endeavors nat ure has chosen for us.

Plato's Theory: Justice as Merit 361

Plato, then, envisions an aristocracy (a society ruled by the best cit izens)- not an aristocracy of the rich, landed, or well-born, but of the intellectual. The guardians are true philosopher-kings. They wield all the political power by virtue of their greater talents and intelligence. In the ideal republic, the guard ians- contrary to the usual custom-cannot own property, for O\vning property might tempt them to govern for personal gain rather than for the good of societ y. This po\verful elite can include women and anyone from the lower classes, because the only qualification for becoming a ru ler is simply to be of superior intelligence and character.

To modern minds, some of the elements of Plato's society may sound both wrong and alien. H is ideal state rests on massive inequality among citizens who are sorted into three classes marked by unequal shares of power and privilege. Granted, people are assigned to different classes according to merit, but inequality is still the rule. Plato maintains that equals should be treated equally, but to him the classes deserve different treatment because they are different. All men are not created equal . Then there is the authoritarianism of Plato's republic, in which no one gets to choose his or her own role in life. In general, once assigned to a social role, citizens cannot jump to another. There is no social mobility, except within a class and in the case of guardians being chosen from lower classes.

In the follo\ving selection from The Republic, Plato (through the character of Socrates) is explaining his concept of justice to companions. The discuss ion is nar- rated by Socrates.

Plato, The Republic

Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original prin- ciple which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one th ing only, the th ing to which his nature was best adapted;- now justice is this principle or a part of it.

Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a

busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Yes, we said so. Then to do one's own business in a certa in way may be assumed to be justice. Can

you tell me whence I derive th is inference? I can not, but I should like to be told. Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the

other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that th is is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one.

That follows of necessity.

Aristocracy is a socicry ruled by the best citizens.

4 To determine cit- izens' aptitudes and talents (and thus their place in society), Plato favored testing them while they are young. Is it possible to discover the best career for someone this way? What about people who discover or de- velop their true talents late in life-those, for example, who are poor students but turn out to be geniuses in adult- hood like Einstein? Is Plato too optimist ic about the ease of discovering a person's t rue ca lling?

Justice in the li fe and con- duct of the State is pos.sible

o nly as first it resides in the hearts and souls of rhe citizens. -Pla,o

5 Don't we reward ath- letes, doctors, lawyers, and business executives according to their merit and not by democratic vote? Should our lead- ers be chosen the same way, as Plato suggests? Why or why not?

362 Chapter 8 The Just Society

6 Do you th ink Plato exaggerates the conse- quences of allowing a person to abandon his own career path and do another person's job? Explain.

If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contrib- utes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the ru lers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in ch ildren and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,- the quali ty, I mean, of every one doing his own work and not being a busybody, would claim the palm- the question is not so easily answered.

Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficu lty in saying which. Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to com-

pete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Yes, he said. And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice? Exactly. Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State

those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Certainly. And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what

is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Yes; that is their principle. Which is a just principle? Yes. Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is

a man's own, and belongs to him? Very true. Think, now, and say whether you agree wi th me or not. Suppose a cobbler to be

doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to ex- change their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State?

Not much. But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, hav-

ing his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfi tted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State.

Most true. Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with

another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing?

Precisely. And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by you

injustice? Certainly. This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the

guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the ci ty just. I agree with you.•

Plato's Theory: Justice as Merit 363

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Merit or Equality: Who Gets to Live?

Organ transplant operations are incredibly expensive, organs are in very short supply, and transplants are desperately needed by far ,nore people than can be acco1n1nodared. The ,vaic- ing list for transplants is long, and thousands die every year for their lack. Screening commit- tees at transplan t centers decide whether someone should be placed on the ,vairing list and ,vhac ranking he or she should receive. They use various criteria to make these decisions, some explicit, so,ne inforrnal or unspoken, some plausible (such as che patient's need and likel i- hood of benefit), and so,ne controversial (such as abil ity co pay, social ,vorthiness, and health habits).

A,nong these, social or ,noral ,vorthiness-,nerit-is probably rhe ,nose contentious. Here the questions are: Which potential recipients-if given che chance co live-are expected co contribute most co the good of society? Or ,vhich possible recipients do nor deserve transplants, because they have indulged in habits (like excessive alcohol use or dangerous activities) char contributed to their irnpend ing organ fai lure? To scare che is- sue concretely: All th ings being equal, should rhe medical student or priest gee che transplant instead of che prostitute or alcohol ic?

Figure 8.5 Who should get the only available l iver or heart- t he person chosen by lottery, the upright citizen, the man who donates thousands of dollars to the hospital, the priest, or the homeless child?

Many reject such appeals co merit and insist char the proper criteria are egalitarian- a matter of justice and che moral equality of persons. They argue char all persons have equal ,vorth. Morally, che medica l student is nor worth ,nore than the prostitute or alcohol ic, and vice versa. Education, achievement, occupation, and the like are nor ,norally relevant.

Nevertheless, ,vhile generally taking the egalitarian approach, son1e ph ilosophers ,nain- rain char in very rare cases, social worth can outweigh egalitarian concerns. It seems reason- able that in a natural d isaster involving ,nass casualties, injured physicians or nurses should be created first if they can aid the ocher survivors.

Should social or moral worth ever be taken into account in deciding who should get a transplant? Suppose the question is whether to give a transplant to a Nobel laureate or to a hard-working, honest truck driver. Assuming that all other factors are equal, which one should get the transplant? Why?

364 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Social contract theory

is the view that justice is

secured, and the stare is made legi, imate, through

an agreement amo ng

citizens of the state or

between rhc cirizcns and

the rulers of ,he sratc.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 8.2

1. Plato thinks democracy is no better than mob rule. Do you agree? What are your reasons?

2. Plato believes that it's possible for a society to be just without equality among irs citizens. Do you agree? W hy or why not?

3. Plato believes his just society to be well ordered, rational, and harmo- nious. But are these trairs sufficient to ensure justice in a society? Can we plausibly call such a society just \vhen the state decides what kinds of lives its citizens must live? Give reasons for your view.

4. In Plato's republic, the guardians deserve to be rulers because they are the most intelligent and intellectually gifted. But do such attributes guarantee \visdom? Are intellectually superior people ahvays good leaders?

5. Would you want to live in a state patterned after Plato's just society? Why or why not?

8.3 SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORIES

In the seventeenth century, philosophers defied tradition by defending a new kind of theory of justice and a novel way of justifying the existence of the state: social contract theory. This vie\v says that justice is secured, and the state is made legiti- mate, through an agreement among citizens of the state or between the citizens and the rulers of the state. The people consent explicitly or implicitly to be governed-to be subject to the d ictates and the power of the state-in exchange for the state's providing security, righrs, and liberties. The state's exi.stence is justified by the bind- ing contract that all parties accept. This understand ing of the role and justification of the state was incorporated into the Constitut ion of the United States, and in the twenty-first century, th is idea of a social contract is now taken for granted by much of the world.

Nevertheless, when fully formed social contract theories were first introduced, they \Vere thought by many to be radical, scandalous, and wrong. In medieval Europe, the prevailing vie\v had been that states are supposed to be dominated by monarchs \vho rule by the" divine right of kings." God sanctions the monarch's authority and

ordains that society be ranked in a hierarchy of positions, from the king or queen do\vn to the poorest serfs, with each perform ing his or her preordained function. As in Plato's republic, people have their proper place in society, and no one is permitted or expected to deviate from it. The governed cannot consent to anything, and monarchs have absolute power over all their subjects.

Social Contract Theories 365

Among the most influential social contract theorists are Thomas H obbes (1588- 1679), Joh n Locke (1632-1704), a nd John Rawls (1921-2002). We take up thei r views in the following pages.

Hobbes

Hobbes \vas the fi rst p h ilosopher in mod ern t imes to systematically articulate a social contract theory. It was a major departure from received vie\vS about society, and that fact alo ne \vas enough to infuriate many. It a lso conta ined a rejection of both the divine right of k ings a nd the notion of a divinely established moral la\v-points that gave his critics even more reasons to attack him.

In his famous Leviathan, H obbes contends that a social cont ract is necessary

in human affa irs because living w ithout one wou ld be a horrific nightmare of ex- istence. H e begins by assuming a pessimistic view of human beings: At their core, he says, they a re sel fish , t reacherous, dishonest , a nd violent. H e argues that when

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

Thomas Hobbes

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next

door. - Charles Dickens

7 Hobbes is a pessimist about human nature; he thinks people are basically greedy and treachero us. Do you think he's right about this? Or are people f undame ntally sociable, cooperative, and benign? Explain your reasonrng.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) ,vas more than an em- inent English philosopher whose cheories inAuenced future generations. He ,vas also a li nguist, poet, classical scholar, cranslacor, logician, critic, and 1nache1nacical cucor co Charles II. Figure 8.6 Thomas

(1588-1 679), polit ical and polymath.

Hobbes He ,vas born into a poor rel igious fa,nily and

liked co say char when his ,nocher was pregnant ,vich hi,n, she went into labor on hearing char che Span-

theorist

ish Armada was chreacening England. He joked char "fear and I ,vere born nvins cogecher." He was educated at Oxford and spent most of his years as secretary and tutor co che fami ly of che ch i rd earl of Devonshire. During chis employment, he mer che fore,nosc European thinkers (Gal ileo and Francis Bacon a,nong chem) and ,vroce on a wide range of issues, both scientific and philosophical. Many of these ,vorks were extremely controversia l. H is pol itica l phi losophy ,vas offensive co boch sides in che English Civil War; che Ron1an Catholic Church and Oxford Univer- sity forbade che reading of his books; and he went against che gra in of his era by advancing macerialis,n, egoism, and (\vhac some considered) heresy.

H is most fa,nous creation is leviathan (1651), ,vhich has had an enorn1ous in- Auence on English ,noral and pol itica l chinking. His ocher ,vricings include Philo- sophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society (1651), On the Body (1655), and On Man (1658).

366 Chapter 8 The Just Society

8 Do you think Hobbes is right about humans being rough ly equal physica lly a nd men- tally? Why or why not?

Ir is better to lose every ..

thing you have to keep the balance of justice level, than to live a life of petty privi lege devoid of true freedom. -Bryant H. McGill

these tendencies are left unchecked by enforced laws or agreements, humans sink into a "state of nature"-a "war of every man against every man." In the state of nature, there is no code, culture, or comfort. There is no justice. There is only "continual fea r, and danger of violent death; and the life of man [is) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and shor t."2

But, Hobbes says, humankind also has a st rong instinct for self-interest and self-preservation, and fortunately th is impulse is coupled with the power of reason. Through reason, he says, people see that the only ,vay to escape this "war of all against all" is to enter into a social contract ,vith one another. In the name of self- interest, they agree to turn over much of their autonomy, freedom, and power to an absolute sovereign that will forcibly keep the peace, restrain antisocial actions, and compel people to keep their agreements. Hobbes calls this sovereign the Leviathan (the name of a sea monster mentioned in the Bible), which symbolizes great power and evil. Its authority over those bound by the social contract is absolute, its po,ver is fearsome (enough to deter any tendency to disorder), and irs contractual agreement ,vith irs subjects is irrevocable. Once po,ver is given up to th is despot, there is no going back, and there is ahvays the chance that the sovereign will create an environ- ment worse than the state of nature. But that is the chance people must take.

So the state's authority is justified by a social contract, and justice comes into be- ing as the Leviathan assumes power. For Hobbes, justice is a matter of the keeping of covenanrs (contracrs), and the only ,vay to ensure that covenants are kept is to let the Leviathan reign. Without the Leviathan to enforce covenants, there is no justice. As Hobbes says, "Where there is no common power, there is no la,v; where no law no injustice." 3

Here is Hobbes arguing for his theory in Leviathan:

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

CHAPTER 13. OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND AS CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY, AND M ISERY

Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself.

And as to the facu lties of the mind (setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general, and infall ible rules, called sci- ence; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native facu lty, born with us; nor attained, [as prudence], while we look after somewhat else), I find yet a greater equality amongst men, than that of strength. For prudence, is but experience;

Social Contract Theories 367

which equal t ime, equally bestows on all men, in those th ings they equally apply them- selves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible, is but a vain con- ceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves, and a few others, whom by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they wil l hard ly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. But this proves rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of any th ing, than that every man is contented with his share.

From this equali ty of ability, arises equality of hope in the atta ining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only), endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass, that where an invader hath no more to fear, than another man's single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossess, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of another.

And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way fo r any man to secure himself, so reasonable, as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so Jong, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own conservation requi res, and is generally allowed. Also because there be some, that taking plea- sure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires; if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invas ion increase their power, they would not be able, long t ime, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men, be- ing necessary to a man's conservation, it ought to be allowed him.

Again, men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all. For every man looks that his companion should va lue him, at the same rate he sets upon himself: and upon all signs of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavors, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet, is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his condemners, by damage; and from others, by the example.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.

9 Does the existence of stable democracies in the twenty-fi rst century show that Hobbes is wrong about human nature?

The fi rst, maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make them- selves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second to defend them; the third, for t rifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

Figure 8. 7 Frontispiece to Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical/ and Civil, 1651, by Thomas Hobbes.

368 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

10 Suppose the world is suddenly left w ith no governmental au- thority anywhere; no formal restraints on human behavior exist. Speculate on how you think people would act. Would chaos and sav- agery ensue, or would people more or less live in peace and harmony?

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man. For WAR, consists not in battle only, or the act of fight- ing; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time, is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of fou l weather, lies not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war, consists not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a t ime of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time; wherein men live without other security, than what thei r own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fru it thereof is uncertain: and consequently no cu lture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as requi re much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of t ime; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the l ife of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short . .. .

To th is war of every man against every man, th is also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injust ice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice are none of the fac- ulties neither of the body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses, and passions. They are qualities, that relate to men in society, not in soli tude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and th ine distinct; but only that to be every man's, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition, which man by mere nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason.

The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious l iving; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggests convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles, are they, which otherwise are called the Laws of Nature ... .

CHAPTER 14. OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS

The RIGHT OF NATURE, which writers commonly call jus natura/e, is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any th ing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.

By LIBERTY, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments: which impediments, may oft take away part of a man's power to do what he would; but cannot hinder him from using the power left him, according as his judgment, and reason shall dictate to him.

A LAW OF NATURE (lex naturalis), is a precept, or general ru le, found out by rea- son, by which a man is forbidden to do that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh

Social Contract Theories 369

away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that, by which he th inks it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound jus, and lex, right and law; yet they ought to be distinguished; because RIGHT, consists in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas LAW, determines, and binds to one of them: so that law, and right, differ as much, as obligation, and liberty; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.

And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the precedent chap- ter) is a condition of war of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own reason; and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a right to every thing; even to one another's body. And there- fore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endures, there can be no security to any man (how strong or wise soever he be) of living out the time, which nature ordinarily allows men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general ru le of reason, that every man, ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war. The first branch of which ru le, containeth the first, and fundamental law of nature; which is, to seek peace, and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves.

From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavor peace, is derived this second law; that a man be will ing, when others are so too, as far-forth, as for peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself. For as long as every man holds this right, of doing any thing he likes; so long are all men in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay down their right, as well as he; then there is no reason for any one, to divest himself of his: for that were to expose himself to prey (which no man is bound to) rather than to dispose himself to peace. This is that law of the Gospel; wha tsoever you requi re that others should do to you, that do ye to them. And that law of all men, [what you would not have done to you, do not do to others) . . ..

CHAPTER 15. OF OTHER LAWS OF NATURE

From that law of nature, by which we are obliged to transfer to another, such rights, as being retained, hinder the peace of mankind, there followeth a third; which is this, that men per form their covenants made: without which, covenants are in vain, and but empty words; and the right of all men to all th ings remaining, we are still in the condi- t ion of war.

And in this law of nature, consists the fountain and original of JUSTICE. For where no covenant hath proceeded, there hath no right been transferred, and every man has right to every thing; and consequently, no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust: and the definition of INJUSTICE, is no other than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just.

But because covenants of mutual trust, where there is a fear of not performance on either part (as hath been said in the former chapter), are invalid; though the ori- ginal of j ustice be the making of covenants; yet injustice actually there can be none, ti ll the cause of such fear be taken away; which while men are in the natural condition of war, cannot be done. Therefore before the names of just, and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power, to compel men equally to the performance of their

11 Is ceding all power to a leviathan the only way for people to achieve peace, security, and cooperation in a society? Expla in.

370 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

\Vhy has government been instituted at all? Because

the passions of man will not conform to the die~ tares of reason and j ustice

w ithout constraint.

-Alexander Hamilton

covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant; and to make good that propriety, which by mutual con- tract men acquire, in recompense of the universal right they abandon: and such power there is none before the erection of a commonwealth. And this is also to be gathered out of the ordinary definition of justice in the Schools: for they say, that justice is the constant will of giving to every man his own. And therefore where there is no own, that is, no propriety, there is no injustice; and where there is no coercive power erected, that is, where there is no commonwealth, there is no propriety; all men having right to all things: therefore where there is no commonwealth, there nothing is unjust. So that the nature of justice, consists in keeping of valid covenants: but the va lidity of covenants begins not but with the constitution of a civil power, sufficient to compel men to keep them: and then it is also that propriety begins.•

Locke

Locke's social contract theory has some points in common \Vith Hobbes's-but also much that Hobbes would have rejected outright. Both Hobbes and Locke assert that (I) reason enables people to see the wisdom of forming a state th rough a social con- tract, (2) people must freely consent to be bound by the contract (not be coerce.cl into accepting it), and (3) the state's authority is justified by this consent of the governed. Beyond these matters, Hobbes and Locke part company.

For one thing, they have very d ifferent ideas about the "state of nature," the \vorld in \vhich no civil society exisrs. For Hobbes, to be in the state of nature is to be in a "war of all against all," where morality is nonexistent, and the only la\vS are commonsense rules for survival and self-interest. For Locke, on the other hand, the state of nature is considerably less nasty and brutish, for even there, natural moral la\vS apply and help to regulate people's behavior. Those living in the state of nature are free, sociable, equal, and (mostly) at peace.

Hobbes contends that, generally, justice and rights do not come into being until the state is established. People surrender thei r lives and liberties to the Leviathan in exchange for security and peace, and he can do \vhat he wants \Vith his subjects. But Locke argues that humans have inherent, God-given rights \vhether or not a govern- ment is around to guarantee them. Chief among these is the right to property-not just land but your own body and any object that you change th rough work (\vith \vhich you "mix your labor"). These rights are inalienable: They cannot be trans- ferred to the government or any other entity. Humans create the government and cede some power to it; in return it protects their righrs and liberties. The state serves the people (not the other way round), di recting all its power "to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people."

But \vhat exactly does the state do to preserve liberties and promote the com- mon good? Locke identifies three functions that people need the state to perform. First, citizens need the natural moral la\v to be set out in clearly expressed laws of the land. Un\vritten natural laws are clear to humans, but people are apt to mis- construe them in line with their biases. Second, there need to be impartial judges \vho can settle disputes concerning the application of the laws. Third, there nee.ds

Social Contract Theories 371

to be po,ver in the state to enforce the laws. Otherwise, people will be able to take justice into their o,vn hands.

Suppose, however, that the state abuses its power by repeat- edly and arbitrarily trampling on the people's rights and liberties. Hobbes says that once you cede po,ver to the Leviathan, he is free

to treat you as he wil l. But Locke says if the government violates the righrs of citizens, it is no longer legitimate, obligations to it are voided, and the people have a right to dissolve it-to initiate rebellion. Locke's ins istence on the right to rebel aga inst a govern- ment that misuses its po,ver is echoed clearly in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre- ated equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- tain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government. .. . s

TWO '

TREATISES '

Government: In ,he former,

17,efalfePrinciples a11d Foundation OF ,

SirROBERT FILMER, And hisFoLLOW £Rs,

The latter is :m .

E s s A CONCERNING

y The True Original, Extent, a.nd End

O F

Civil - Government. 11!.:bt ~,,unb e ,'l,io:~ ; ;crctri:J. ----

WND0,'1, Printed to) A11'11;'li•• an4' 1,t..Chnr#18 ~ 1bc a/,.,P $>P,,,., i.n Ptf•tr~~r,,,..11..,.,, 1&94,

The following passages are from Locke's landmark Second Trea- tise of Government:

Figure 8.8 Title page of Two Treatises of Government by John Locke, second edition, 1694.

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

CHAPTER VIII

Of the Beginning of Political Societies

95. Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way, whereby any one divests himself of his natura l liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to jo in and unite into a community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst an- other, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not ofit. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby pres- ently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.

96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as

372 Chapter 8 The Just Society

John Locke,

Second Treatise of Government

12 Locke believes in an objective mora l law. Do you also believe in it? Do you believe that there are objective moral principles that are binding on every- one? Why or why not?

one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. For that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being neces- sary to that which greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or con tinue one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see, that in assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of nature and reason, the power of the whole.

97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obliga tion, to every one of that society, to sub- mit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporate into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any compact? What new engagement if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit.

98. For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of the whole: But such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in a number, though much less than that of a commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly. To which if we add the variety of opinions, and contrari- ety of interests, which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, the coming into so- ciety upon such terms would be only like Cato's coming into the thea tre, only to go out again. Such a constitution as this would make the mighty leviathan of a shorter duration than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in: which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational creatures should desire and constitute so- cieties only to be dissolved. For where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again.

99. Whosoever therefore out of a sta te of nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing, but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority, to uni te and incorporate in to such a society. And th is is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world ... .

CHAPTER IX

Of the Ends of Polit ical Society and Government

123. If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he par t with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the

Social Contract Theories 373

dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment ofit is very uncerta in, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others. For all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoy- ment of the property he has in th is state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him will ing to quit this condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is will ing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

124 . The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.

First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all controversies between them. For though the law of nature be plain and intell igible to all ra tional creatures; yet men being biassed by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of studying it, are not apt to allow ofit as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases.

125. Secondly, In the state of nature there wants a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according to the established law. For every one in that state being both judge and executioner of the law of nature, men being partial to themselves, passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far, and with too much heat, in their own cases; as well as negligence, and unconcernedness, to make them too remiss in other men's.

126. Thirdly, In the state of nature, there often wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution. They who by any injustice of- fended, will seldom fail, where they are able, by force to make good their injust ice; such resistance many times makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destructive, to those who attempt it.

127. Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of nature, being but in an ill condition, while they remain in it, are quickly driven into society. Hence it comes to pass that we seldom find any number of men live any time together in this state. The inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to, by the irregular and un- certain exercise of the power every man has of punishing the transgressions of others, make them take sanctuary under the established laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of their property. It is this makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of punishing, to be exercised by such alone, as shall be appointed to it amongst them; and by such ru les as the community, or those authorized by them to that purpose, shall agree on. And in this we have the original right and rise of both the leg- islative and executive power, as well as of the governments and societies themselves ....

CHAPTER XIX

Of the Dissolution of Government

222. The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property, and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and ru les set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the soci- ety. For since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative

13 Do you agree with Locke that the main reason for people to establish a government is to protect property? Explain.

374 Chapter 8 The Just Society

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

14 Do citizens of a state ever have the right to overthrow their government? How would a util itarian answer this question? How does Locke an- swer it? Which view is closer to your beliefs? Why?

Government docs not solve problems; it subsi ..

dizcs them. -Ronald Reagan

L iberalism is the political doctrine thar puts primary emphasis on ,he libcny

and rights of individuals against encroachment.~ by the state.

should have a power to destroy that, which every one designs to secure, by enteri ng into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making, whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God ha th provided for all men, agains t force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative sha ll transgress this fundamen tal ru le of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an absolute power over the lives, li berties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power, the people had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fi t) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society. What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will, as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes; or openly pre-engages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such, whom he has by solici tations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs: and employs them to bring in such, who have promised before-hand, what to vote, and what to enact. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new model the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security? for the people having reserved to themselves the choice of their representatives, as the fence to their properties, could do it for no other end, but that they might always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act, and advise, as the necessity of the commonwealth, and the public good should, upon examination and mature debate, be judged to require. This, those who give their votes before they hear the debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared abettors of his own will , for the true representatives of the people, and the law-makers of the society, is cer tainly as great a breach of trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is possib le to be met with. To which if one shall add rewards and punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of perver ted Jaw made use of, to take off and destroy all tha t stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to betray the liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what is doing. What power they ought to have in the society, who thus employ it contrary to the trust that went along with it in its first institution, is easy to determine; and one cannot but see, that he, who has once attempted any such thing as this, cannot any longer be trusted.6

Liberalism is the political doctrine chat purs primary emphasis on the liberty and rights of individuals against encroachments by che scace. le is at the heart of po- litical outlooks chat today are given the vague labels of liberalism and conservatism, for both ideologies cake for granted chat basic individual liber ties and rights should be protected against unacceptable government intrusion. They d iffer in ho,v they de- fine unacceptable involvement of the government. Locke's theory of justice is a form

Social Contract Theories 375

of liberalism-classical liberalism, che view chat che scace should protect personal

freedoms as well as che r ight co pursue one's O\vn social and economic \veil-being in

a free market \vichouc interference from ochers. In contempora ry polit ics, classical

liberalism most resembles what is known as (polit ical) libertarianism. Libertarians

insist chat government should be small and limited co night-watchman funccions-

the protectio n of society and free economic systems from coercion a nd fraud. All

ocher social or economic benefits a re che respo nsibil ity of individu als.

Rawls

David H ume, \vhom \Ve met in earl ier chapters, \vas a severe critic of social con-

t ract theory as offered up by H obbes a nd Locke. H e declared chat social contracts

a re h istorical fictions-no such concraccs have existed in reality. Govern ments have

been established by conquest and force, not by agreements among equals in a state

of natu re. This criticism did not matter much to many lacer theorises because they

viewed che theories of Locke, H obbes, a nd ochers not as historical faces, but moscly

PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

John Locke

The philosopher John Locke (1632- 1704) is the senior theorise among the British empiricists and per- haps, as so,ne say, the grearesr English philosopher in rhe early modern period (rhe first decades after Descartes) .

Classical liberalism is , he view thar , he srare should pm,ec, personal freedoms

as wdl as the right m pursue o ne's own social and economic wdJ.bcing in a free market w ithout interference from o thers.

Libertarianism (political) is the view that govern· men, should be small and

limited to night-watchman functio ns.

Eventually he became the ,nose renowned inrellecrual Figure 8.9 John Locke (i 632- in England and possibly throughout the Conrinenr. 1704), empiricist philosopher and

He ,vas born into a Puritan fam ily, stud ied political theorist. moral phi losophy and logic ar Oxford, and rhen sec his sighrs on a career in medi- cine. Like his fellow empiricist Thomas Hobbes, he rubbed elbo,vs with many of rhe great ch inkers of rhe day. He knew rhe famous chemise Robert Boyle as well as rhe physicist Isaac Newton and encountered ocher notables ar rhe Royal Society.

For a ,vhile he was secretary ro rhe earl of Shaftesbury, ,vho beca,ne his patron. This relationship involved hi,n in Protesranr policies and in ta lk of resistance ro Charles II, rhe Catholic king. Consequenrly, Shaftesbury had ro Aee ro Holland, and Locke followed him in 1683, returning ro England in 1689.

Locke ,vas nor an academic who directed his ,vrirings ar ocher philosophers. He preferred instead ro address imporcanr issues in conre,nporaty society, aiming his ,vriring ar an educated public. His besr-kno,vn works include the Essay Concerning Hu.man Understanding, Second Treatise of Government, and Leuer on Toleration, all published in t 689.

376 Chapter 8 The Just Society

John Rawls, A Theo,y of Justice

as explanations of how states could be formed and just ified. Nevertheless, Hume's attack dampened interest in social contract theories of justice for two centuries- until the \vork of John Ra\vls (1921-2002).

Ra\vls also thinks of social contracrs as fictions-but very useful fictions. He believes they give us a way to explore the requirements of distributive justice. He asks, in effect, What kind of social contract would best ensure a fair distribution of rights, duties, and the advantages of social cooperation? To ans\ver th is question, he proposes an ingenious thought experiment. Imagine we are living in a state of nature and want to devise a social contract that ensures that everyone is treated fairly. What kind of state \vould we all agree to? Specifically, by what principles should our just society structure itself? His response is that the required principles are those that people \vould agree to under hypothetical conditions that ensure fair and unbiased choices. He holds that if the starting point for the social contract is fair-if the initial conditions and bargain- ing process for producing the principles are fair-then the principles themselves will be just and will define the essential makeup of a just society. As Rawls says,

John Rawls, A Theory of justice

[The] guiding idea is that the princip les of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the princip les that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association. These principles are to regu late all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established.7

At the hypothetical starting point-what Rawls calls the "original position"-a group of normal, self-interested, rational individuals come together to choose the principles that will determine their basic rights and duties and their share of society's benefits and burdens. But to ensure that their decisions are as fa ir and impartial as possible, they must meet behind a metaphorical "veil of ignorance." Behind the veil, no one knows his or her own social or economic status, class, race, sex, abil ities, talents, level of intelligence, or psychological makeup. Rawls thinks that since the participanrs are rational and self-interested but ignorant of their situation in society, they \vi ll not agree to principles that will put any particular group at a disadvantage, because they might very \veil be members of that group. They wi ll choose principles that are unbiased and nondiscriminatory. The assumption is that since the negotiat- ing conditions in the original position are fai r, the agreements reached will a lso be fair-the principles wi ll be just.

Rawls contends that given the original position, the participants would agree to arrange thei r social relationships according to these fundamental principles:

FIRST PRINCIPLE

Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.

Social Contract Theories 377

SECOND PRINCIPLE

Social and economic inequa lities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, ... and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality

of opportuni ty.a

The first principle-the equal liberty principle-says that everyone is entitle.cl to the most political freedom possible in exercising basic rights and duties (for example, the right to vote and hold office and freedom of speech, assembly, and thought). Each person should get a maximum degree of basic liberties, but no more than anyone else. This principle takes precedence over all other considerations (including the second principle), so that basic political liberties cannot be reduced or cancelled just to improve economic well-being. This stipulation, of course, di rectly contradicts utilitarian views of the matter.

The second principle concerns social and economic goods such as income, wealth, opportunities, and positions of authority. Ra,vls recognizes that some social and economic inequalities in society are unavoidable as well as beneficial. Those who ,vork harder or devise a better mousetrap deserve to reap greater benefirs for their efforts. Such inequality provides incentives for extraordinary productivity, ,vhich in turn will be to the good of society as a whole. (This kind of unequal social arrangement contrasrs ,vith systems that aim at a much greater degree of equality, as in socialist societies.) So Rawls asserrs in part (a) that social and economic inequalities are not unjust if they work to everyone's benefit, especially to the benefit of the least well-off in society. "[There) is no injustice," he says, " in the greater benefirs earne.d by a few provided that the situation of persons not so fortunate is thereby improved." 9 For Rawls, such a policy is far more just than one in which some people are made to suffer for the greater good of others: "It is not just that some should have less in order that others may prosper."

But Ra,vls also maintains that although eco- nomic inequalities are allowed, and not everyone wi ll obtain the greater rewards, everyone should at least have an equal opportunity to acquire them. This is the message of part (b). Every person is en- t itled to an equal chance to try to acquire basic goods. No one is guaranteed an equal share of them, but opportunities to obtain these benefits must be open to all, regardless of social standing.

Givi ng money and power to government is like

giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -P. J. 0 . Rourke

15 Are you more sympathetic to liber- t arianism or welfare liberalism? Why?

In Rawls's program, the demands of the first principle must be satisfied before satisfying the Figure 8.10 John Raw ls (1921-2002).

378 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Wdfare liberalism is a form ofliberalism, ,he

aim of which is m preserve individual libcnies while

ensuring the general wel- fare of ,he ci,iu:nry.

second, and the requirements of part (b) must be met before those of part (a). In any just distribution of benefits and burdens, then, the first priority is to ensure equal basic politi· cal liberties for all concerned, then equality of social and economic opportunity, then the arrangement of any inequalities to the benefit of the least advantaged.

Rawls's theory of justice has significant implications for the allocation of society's resources. C,onsider, for example, the hotly debated resource of health care. O ne prominent line of argument goes like this: As Rawls claims, everyone is entitled to fa ir equality of opportunity, and adequate (basic) health care enables fair equality of opportunity (by ensuring "normal species functioning"). Therefore, everyone is ent itled to adequate health care, \vhich includes all appropriate measures for elim· inating or compensating for the disadvantages of disease and impairment. 10 In such a system, there would be universal access to a basic level of health care, while more elaborate or elective services would be available to anyone who could afford them.

Rawls's proposal is a form of liberalism, \vhat has been called welfare liberalism. Its aim is to preserve individual liberties while ensuring the general welfare of the citizenry. It requires the redistribution of resources (for example, taxing the better off to provide benefits to the less well-off)-a scheme that libertarians \vould never countenance. The libertarian says that government should not be in the business of helping the socially or economically d isadvantaged, for that would require violating people's liberty by taking resources from the haves to give to the have-noes.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 8.3

1. Hobbes says that once people cede power to a strong governmental authority, the authority wields total authority over them; the govern· ment's power is unalterable and absolute. Do you think such a govern· ment is necessary for people to live in peace? W hy or why not? What states in the world today fit Hobbes's description of the Leviathan?

2. Hobbes believes that there is no such thing as justice until the Levia- than is established . This means that justice does not exist independ- ently of an authority to define and enforce it. Explain \vhy you agree or disagree \vith this vie\v.

3. Locke thinks that people have a right to rebel against a government that abuses ics po\ver. Do you agree? If so, under what conditions would you think rebellion is justified?

4. Was the United States founded according to the principles of classi- cal liberalism, \velfare liberalism, or something else? Has the country stayed true to its origins? Explain.

5. Is classical liberalism a better theory of justice than welfare liberalism? Support your answer with reasons.

8.4 SOCIALIST THEORIES

The prevailing theories of justice throughout the ,vorld are liberalism and social- ism. Socialism is the political and economic doctrine that the means of production (property, factories, businesses) should be owned or controlled by the people, either communally or through the state. Socialism can accommodate liberal democratic forms of government and can even retain some elements of market capitalism. Communism usually implies socialism within a totalitarian system.

The guiding principle of the socialist vie,v is equality: The ,vealth of society should be shared by all. The ideal distribution of goods usually follows the classic formula laid do,vn by Karl Marx (1818-1883), the father of modern socialism: "From each ac-

cording to his ability, to each according to his needs." People should do work that fits their abilities, and they should reap rewards that match their nee.ds. Generally, liberal societies let the means of production accrue to fewer people through the ,vorkings of a free market-that is, through capitalism. In such a system, wealth goes to anyone who can acqui re it in the marketplace, but in a socialist system, ,vealth is controlled by the state, ,vhich allocates it for the good of the people generally.

Few philosophers have had as much influence on the world as Marx has-,vho, ironically, did not consider himself a philosopher and d id not believe that ideas alone could have much of an impact on history. He thinks that ,vhat d rives philosophy, history, society, law, government, and morality is economics. It is the dominant system of economics in every age, he says, that determines how society is structured and ho,v history will go. A society's system of economics is defined by its means of production-by irs economic and technological ways of meeting people's physical and social needs. The means of production, Marx says, shape social relationships, class structure, technological tools, and political and philosophical ideas. Those ,vho o,vn and control t he means of production make up the dominant class, possess most of t he ,vealth, wield most of the political power, and exploit the lower class. Their ideas-political, philosophical, or social-are the ruling ideas. The rest of the people own no property and occupy the lowest rungs of society, selling their labor to the ruling class, the property o,vners. The nvo camps, then, are forever at odds.

Marx maintains that this pattern of opposition-this class struggle-repeats irself th roughout history. It is inevitable and unalter- able. In it he sees a dialectic process unfold again and again in society:

Socialist Theories 379

I am convinced that the

path to a new, better

and pos.<ible world is no t capitalism, the path is socialism.

-Hugo Chavez

Socialism is the doctrine that the means of produc·

tion (proper[)', factories, businesses) should Ix: owned or controlled by the

people, either communally or through the state.

Communism usually implies socialism w ithin a totalitarian system .

Capitalism is a polit ical econo mic system that lets

the means of production accrue m fewer people th rough the workings of a

free market. In such a sys· rem, wealth goes to anyone who can acquire it in rhc marketplace.

Fi rst there is a historical starting point (the thesis), ,vhich eventually produces a state of affai rs di rectly opposed to it (the antithesis), the con- flict being resolved by a ne,v situation (the synthesis). Marx thinks the dialectic struggle in modern times is between those who o,vn the means of production (the bourgeoisie, or capitalists) and those who do not (the proletariat). The bourgeoisie are few but own all the factories and other means of production (thesis); the proletariat are many but o,vn noth- ing, serving only as workers in the capitalist system (antithesis). To in- crease thei r profits, the bourgeoisie hire more and more workers but pay them less and less, replacing workers ,vith machines ,vhenever possible. Figure 8.11 Karl Marx (1818-1883).

380 Chapter 8 The Just Society

16 Is Marx correct in saying that a society's means of production shape its political and phil osophical ideas? What about religion, cu lture, social reformers-<an any of these influence a society's thinking?

Capitalism is war; social-

ism ts peace.

-Karl liebknecht

17 Do ideas affect his- tory? Marx says no. But his socialist ideas seem to have affected history profoundly. Does th is fact disprove Marx's claim?

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Imagine char rhe United Scares has evolved into a liberrarian paradise. The govern- menr is small, charged only ,virh the limited functions of protecting society and economic systems from coercion and fraud. All other social and economic benefits are the responsibility of individuals. People have maximum freedom ro pursue their economic goals without interference from the government. Taxes are extremely lo,v, raised only to fund the military and whatever forces are needed ro secure people's social and economic rights. There are no entitlement programs-no Social Secur- ity, no Medicare, no health care programs, no studenr loans, no welfure systems of any kind. Government regulation of business is minimal, as is consumer prorec- tion. There are no minimum-wage la,vs and no government attempts ro redistribute wealth or to help rhe poor, disabled, disadvantaged, or elderly.

Would you want to live in such a society? Would your life be better or worse in it? What would you like or dislike most about this social

system? Overal l, would people be better or worse off in a thor- oughly libertarian America?

The workers' ,vages decline, more become unemployed, and their exploitation by the capitalists continues. As their situation worsens, Marx observes, they have an increased sense of alienation: They are no longer valued as persons, for they have become mere cogs in the capitalist machinery, and they can no longer take pride in their work, for it has been downgraded into mindless assembly-line motions. But ultimately the success of the bourgeoisie proves to be their undoing. They produce, as Marx says, their o,vn gravediggers. They un,vittingly create a large, poor, angry proletarian class that has had enough of capitalism and the woes that come ,vith it. A proletarian revolution sweeps the old order a,vay and eventually ushers in a classless society (synthesis) in which the means of production belong to everyone and ,vealth is shared equally among equals.

A frequent criticism of socialism is that a distribution of goods according to needs and abilities would require coercion by the state. For socialism to ,vork, people must be forced to do the jobs that match their skills, not the jobs they prefer. And they must be compelled to accept the benefits (monetary or otherwise) that match their needs, not the benefits they most desire.

Critics also accuse socialist systems of providing no incentive for people to excel at their jobs. Under socialism, people are rewarded according to their needs, not by ho,v well or how hard they work. So what inducement is there to be more ambitious or efficient?

Socialist Theories 381

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Is the United States a Socialist Country?

To 1nany Americans, socialism is a d irry,vord. Former President Obama ,vas accused of crying co rurn rhe United Scares into a socialise country like chose in Europe. To score points ,virh rhe elecrorare, politicians label their opponents socialises. So,ne political rheorisrs say char a lirrle socialism won't hurr and mighr help, and a few declare char rhe debate is silly because rhe United Scares is already a socialise country. ls ir?

Ir depends on your definition of socialism. So,ne people (including a few television co,n- menrarors) say char a govern,nenr is socialise if ir runs social progra,ns char orhenvise could be left co rhe markerplace-progra,ns like publ ic education, prisons, aid co rhe poor, and Medicare. By chis standard, rhe Un ited Scares is indeed socia lise. Bur rhe rradirional defini- tion is ,nore like rhe one given ar rhe beginning of chis section: Social ism is rhe doctrine char rhe means ofprod11ction (property, factories, businesses) should be owned or controlled by rhe people, either communally or through rhe scare. The programs just mentioned are generally nor considered means of production. Neither are such th ings as police and fire prorecrion, national defense, and income redisrriburion. Welfare progra,ns are examples nor of socialism bur of ,velfare liberalis1n. So even though rhe Un ired Scares may have some socialise elements (such as partial ownersh ip and control of rhe banking industry), ir's nor predo,ninanrly socia lise-and calling ir char would be an exaggeration.

Suppose the government owns and runs al l technology companies, half the farms, and the entire steel industry. Would t he United States then be properly called socialist? What would be the advantages or d isadvantages of such a scheme?

Marx conveyed his views over many years and in several ,vritings, the most well kno,vn being the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), which he coauthored with his colleague Friedrich Engels:

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

A specter is haunting Europe- the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise th is specter: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police spies.

382 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

Democracy and socialism

have nothing in common

but one word, equality.

Bur notice the differ·

cncc: w hile democracy

seeks equality in liberty, socia)ism seeks equality in

restraint and servitude.

-Alexis de Tocquev ille

As with the C hristian religion, the worst advcr ..

tiscmcnt for Socialism L'i

i ts adherents.

- George Orwell

18 Many count ries have developed a large middle class t hat doesn't seem to fi t into Marx's two-class scheme. Is this fact a counterexample to his theory?

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from th is fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that communists should openly, in the face of the whole world,

publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet th is nursery tale of the spec- ter of communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.

To this end, communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following Manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Ita l- ian, Flemish, and Danish languages.

The history of all hitherto exist ing society is the history of class struggles. Free man and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and jour-

neyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one an- other, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history we find almost everywhere a com plicated arrange- ment of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the M iddle Ages, feuda l lords, vassals, guild masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois [capitalist] society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive fea - ture: it has simplified the class an tagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more split- ting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat . . . .

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of product ion, and wi th them the whole rela- tions of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form was, on the contrary, the fi rst condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Con- stant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relat ions, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all newformed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last com pelled to face with sober senses his real condit ions of li fe and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market fo r its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, es- tablish connections everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitat ion of the world market given a cosmo- poli tan character to product ion and consumption in every country. To the grea t cha- grin of reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-establ ished nat ional industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction

becomes a life and death question for all civil ized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfi ed by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requ iring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become com- mon property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local l iteratures there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitu late. It compels all nations, on pain of extinc- t ion, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production: it compels them to introduce what it ca lls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the ru le of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the ru- ral, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centra lized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of th is was pol it ica l central ization. Inde- pendent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, gov- ernments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, w ith one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier, and one customs tariff.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations to- gether. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, ra ilways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cu ltivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground- what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? ...

But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons- the modern working class- the proletarians.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class developed- a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the Auctuations of the market.

Socialist Theories 383

19 Marx lists the many technological and civic innovations brought about by capitalism, things that seem bene- f icial to society. Do they counterbalance the many bad things about capitalism t hat Marx detail s?

384 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

20 For capitalist societies, Marx predicts worker alienation, oppression and exploit- ation of workers, and general misery among those who do not control the means of production. Many so- cieties today, including the United States, are capitalist, but they do not seem to be following Marx's pattern. Does th is show that Marx's views are wrong?

Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character and, consequently, all charm for the work- man. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the simplest, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack that is requ ired of him. Hence the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal to its cost of production. In pro- portion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay, more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labor increases, in the same proportion the burden of toi l also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by increased speed of the machinery, etc.

Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capita list. Masses of laborers, crowded into the fac- tory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufac- turer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful, and the more embittering it is .. . .

The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual laborers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of pro- duction themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages . . ..

But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in num- ber; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labor and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois and the resulting commercial crises make the wages of the workers ever more Auctuating. The unceasing improvement of ma- chinery, ever more rapid ly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precari- ous; the coll isions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collis ions between two classes. Thereupon the workers begin to form combinations (trade unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there the contest breaks out in to riots.

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fru it of their battles lies not in the immediate resu lt, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry and that place the workers of different locali ties in contact with one another .. . .

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a pol- itical party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers

themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself . . ..

H itherto every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class cer- tain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, ra ised himself to membership in the commune just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapid ly than popu- lation and wealth. And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ru ling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an overriding law. It is unfit to ru le because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed him instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie: in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage labor res ts exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of in- dustry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foun- dation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bour- geoisie, therefore, produces, above all , is its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable . . ..

All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.

The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favor of bour- geois property.

The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abol ition of property generally, but the abol ition of bourgeoisie property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense the theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sen- tence: Abolition of private property ... .

We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletaria t to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use i ts political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capita l from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ru ling class, and to increase the total of produc- t ive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolu- t ionizing the mode of production.

Socialist Theories 385

21 Many Western countries have been strongly committed t o private property for decades, yet no proletarian revolution has erupted or is likely to erupt. Why is this? Does it show t hat Marx's socialist ideol- ogy is mistaken?

386 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

These measures will of course be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally

applicable:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2 . A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. 4. Confi scation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a nat ional bank

with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of

the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the

bringing into cu ltivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil gener- ally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liabi lity of all labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual aboli tion of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Aboli tion of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial produc- tion, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared and all pro- duction has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its con- test with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. ...

The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social condi- tions. Let the ru ling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!"

Feminism and Social Justice 387

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS SECTION 8.4

I. A classical liberal might say to a Marxist that liberty and rights are the most important values in a society, and Marxist societies have fe\v, if any, liberties. The Marxist might reply that liberties and righcs don't mean much if people are too poor and oppressed to enjoy them. Which view seems more reasonable to you? Which society would you be \villing to live in-classical liberal or Marxist? Why?

2. Does alienation as described by Marx exist today in modern capitalist societies? Explain.

3. Suppose all resources in the United States were distributed accord ing to Marx's dict um: from each according to his abil ity, to each according to his need. What \vould such a society look like? Would it be better than the system that exists now? Why or why not?

4. Suppose the state compelled you to \vork in a factory for the rest of your life, and it arranged for your salary to be based solely on \vhat the state thinks you need . Would these actions be a violation of your autonomy? If they \vould improve the general welfare, would they be morally justified?

5. Assess socialism: Is it a good theory of justice? Is it better than liberal- ism? Explain your answer.

8.5 FEMINISM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Many feminists assert that the t raditional theories of justice (as developed by their theorists) have a fatal weakness: They are blind to injustice. Specifically, the theories are blind to the injustice that befalls \vomen. The problem arises, these critics say, because the theories are based on a false assumption about society, one that most of us simply take for granted. Most people-including Locke, Hobbes, and other tra- ditional theorists-have assumed there is a strong \vall of separation benveen private and public life, and that only public life is the proper concern of political theory. Private li fe is about personal and family life, about raising child ren and shouldering other domestic responsibil ities. Public life is the realm of politics, careers, econom- ics, and law. Throughout history, women have largely been relegated to the private sphere, where issues of righcs and equality are not supposed to apply. C,onsequently, feminist philosophers contend, women have been left out of trad itional theories of justice, an omission that ensured women would not be treated as the moral equals of men. The result has been unjust treatment of half the population-mill ions of women \vho have historically been denied the polit ical, economic, and social power that men have enjoyed.

Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women's lib-

eration . . . none was more

alarming. from a feminist point of view, than the

suggestion that women would eventually become jusr like men. -Barbara Ehrenreic:h

388 Chapter 8 The Just Society

22 Why does the unequal treatment of women seem to contra- dict principles laid out in the U.S. Constitu- tion? Is the problem with the principles or w ith society?

This vie\v has been argued vigorously by che philosopher and femin ise Susan

Moller Okin (1946-2004) in her book justice, Gende,; and the Family:

Susan Moller Okin,Justice, Gender, and the Family

We as a society pride ourselves on our democratic values. We don't believe people should be constrained by innate differences from being able to achieve desired posi- tions of influence or to improve their well -being; equali ty of opportunity is our pro- fessed aim. The Preamble to our Constitution stresses the importance of justice, as well as the general welfare and the blessings ofl iberty. The Pledge of Allegiance asserts that our republic preserves " liberty and justice for all."

Yet substantial inequalities between the sexes still exist in our society. In economic terms, fu ll -time working women (after some very recent improvement) earn on average 71 percent of the earnings of full-time working men. One-half of poor and three-fifths of chronically poor households with dependent children are maintained by a single fe. male parent. The poverty rate for elderly women is nearly twice that for elderly men. On the political front, two out of a hundred U.S. senators are women, one out of nine j us- tices seems to be considered sufficient female representation on the Supreme Court, and the number of men chosen in each congressional election far exceeds the number of women elected in the entire history of the country. Underlying and intertwined with all these inequalities is the unequal distribution of the unpaid labor of the family.

An equal sharing between the sexes of family responsibilities, especially child care, is "the great revolution that has not happened." Women, including mothers of young children, are, of course, working outside the household far more than their mothers did. And the small proportion of women who reach high-level positions in politics, business, and the professions command a vastly disproportionate amount of space in the media, compared with the millions of women who work at low-paying, dead-end jobs, the mill ions who do part-time work with its lack of benefits, and the mill ions of others who stay home performing for no pay what is frequently not even acknowledged as work. Certainly, the fact that women are doing more paid work does not imply that they are more equal. It is often said that we are living in a postfeminist era. This claim, due in part to the distorted emphasis on women who have "made it," is false, no mat- ter which of its meanings is intended. It is certa inly not true that feminism has been vanquished, and equally untrue that it is no longer needed because its aims have been fulfi lled. Until there is justice within the family, women will not be able to gain equality in poli tics, at work, or in any other sphere ....

[T]he typical current practices of family life, structured to a large extent by gender, are not just. Both the expectation and the experience of the division of labor by sex make women vulnerable. As I shall show, a cycle of power relations and decisions per- vades both family and workplace, each reinforcing the inequalities between the sexes that already exist within the other. Not only women, but children of both sexes, too, are often made vu lnerable by gender-structured marriage. One-quarter of chi ldren in the United States now live in families with only one parent- in almost 90 percent of cases, the mother. Contrary to common perceptions- in which the situation of never-married mothers looms largest- 65 percent of single-parent families are a resu lt of marital separation or divorce. Recent research in a number of states has shown that, in the

Feminism and Social Justice 389

average case, the standard of living of divorced women and the children who live with them plummets after divorce, whereas the economic situation of divorced men tends to be better than when they were married.

A central source of injustice for women these days is that the law, most notice- ably in the event of divorce, treats more or less as equals those whom custom, workplace discrimination, and the still conventional division of labor within the family have made very unequal. Central to this socially created inequality are two commonly made but inconsistent presumptions: that women are primari ly responsible for the rearing of children; and that serious and committed members of the work force (regardless of class) do not have primary responsibility, or even shared responsibility, for the rearing of children. The old assumption of the workplace, still implicit, is that work· ers have wives at home. It is bui lt not only into the structure and expectations of the workplace but into other crucia l SO· cial institutions, such as schools, which make no attempt to take account, in their scheduled hours or vacations, of the fact that parents are likely to hold jobs.

Now, of course, many wage workers do not have wives at home. Often, they are wives and mothers, or single, sep· arated, or divorced mothers of small ch ildren. But neither the family nor the workplace has taken much account of this fact. Employed wives sti ll do by far the greatest proportion of unpaid family work, such as child care and housework. Women are far more likely to take time out of the workplace or to work part-time because of family responsibil ities than are their husbands or male partners. And they are much more l ikely to move because of their husbands' employ· ment needs or opportunities than their own. All these ten· dencies, which are due to a number of factors, including the

Figure 8.12 Susan Moller Okin (1946-2004).

sex segregation and discrimination of the workplace itself, tend to be cyclica l in their effects: wives advance more slowly than their husbands at work and thus gain less seniority, and the discrepancy between their wages increases over time. Then, because both the power structure of the fami ly and what is regarded as consensual "rational" fami ly decision making refl ect the fact that the husband usually earns more, it will be- come even less likely as time goes on that the unpaid work of the family will be shared between the spouses. Thus the cycle of inequality is perpetuated. Often hidden from view within a marriage, it is in the increasingly likely event of marital breakdown that the socially constructed inequality of married women is at its most visible.

This is what I mean when I say that gender-structured marriage makes women vu lnerable. These are not matters of natural necessity, as some people would believe. Surely nothing in our natures dictates that men should not be equal participants in the rearing of their chi ldren. Nothing in the nature of work makes it impossible to adjust it to the fact that people are parents as well as workers. That these things have not hap- pened is part of the historically, socially constructed differentiation between the sexes that feminists have come to ca ll gender. We live in a society that has over the years regarded the innate characteristic of sex as one of the clearest legitimizers of different rights and restrictions, both formal and in formal. While the legal sanctions that uphold

23 Do you agree that typica l family practices are largely structured according to gender? If so, are these practices unjust? Why?

390 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Susan Moller Okin,

Justice, Gender, and the Family

male dominance have begun to be eroded in the past century, and more rapidly in the last twenty years, the heavy weight of tradition, combined with the effects of socializa- tion, still works powerfully to reinforce sex roles that are commonly regarded as of un- equal prestige and worth. The sexual division of labor has not only been a fundamental part of the marriage contract, but so deeply influences us in our formative years that feminists of both sexes who try to reject it can find themselves struggling against it with varying degrees of ambivalence. Based on this linchpin, "gender"- by which I mean the deeply entrenched institutionalization of sexual difference-still permeates our society.

"The personal is poli tical" is the central message of feminist critiques of the public/ domestic dichotomy. It is the core idea of most contemporary feminism. Though many of those who fought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for suffrage and for the abolition of the oppressive legal status of wives were well aware of the connec- tions between women's political and personal dominations by men, few pre-196os feminists questioned women's special role in the family. While arguing for equal rights, such as the vote or access to education, most accepted the prevailing assumption that women's close association with and responsibili ty for the care of the family was natural and inevitab le ....

Thus feminists have turned their attention to the politics of what had previously been regarded- and, as I have shown, still is seen by most political theorists- as para- digmatically nonpolitical. That the personal sphere of sexuality, of housework, of child care and fami ly li fe is political became the underpinning of most feminist thought. Feminists of different political leanings and in a variety of academic disciplines have revea led and analyzed the multiple interconnections between women's domestic roles and their inequality and segregation in the workplace, and between their socialization in gendered families and the psychological aspects of their oppression. We have strongly

Figure 8.13 Are the power relationships and decisions w ithin typical families political?

Femin ism and Social Justice 391

and persistently chall enged the long-stand ing underlying assumption of almost a ll po- litical theories: that the sphere of fam ily and personal life is so separate a nd distinct from the rest of socia l life that such theories can justifiably assume but ignore it. . . .

The interconnections between the domestic a nd the nondomestic aspects of o ur lives are deep and pervasive. Given the power structures of both, wome n's lives are far more detrimentally affected by these interconnections than are me n's. Consider two recent front-page stories that appeared on subsequent days in the New York Times. The first was a bout a tiny elite among women: those who work as lawyers for the country's top law firms. If these women have children with whom they want to spend any time, they find themselves off the partnership track and instead, with no prospects of ad- vancement, o n the "mommy track." "Nine-to-five" is considered part-time work in the ethos of such fi rms, and one mother reports that, in spite of her twelve-hour workdays and freq uent work on weekends, she has "no chance" of making partner. The article fails to mentio n that these women's children have fathers, o r that most of the men who work for the same prestigio us law fi rms also have children, except to report that male lawyers who take parental leave are seen as "wimp-like." The sexual d ivision of labor in the family, even in these cases where the women a re extremely well qualified, success- fu l, and potentia lly inAuential, is simply assumed.

The next day's Times reported on a case of major significance for abortio n rights, decided by a Federal Ap peals Court in Minnesota. The all -male panel of judges ru led 7 to 3 that the state may require a woman under eighteen years who wishes to ob- tain an abortion to notify both her parents- even in cases of divorce, separation, or desertion-or to get special approval from a s tate judge. The significance of this article is amplified when it is juxtaposed with the previous o ne. For it shows us how it is that those who rise to the top in the highly politicall y inAuential profession of law are among those who have had the least experience of all in raising children. There is a high inci - dence of recruitment of judges from those who have risen to partnership in the most prestigious law firms. Other judges are often d rawn from the equall y highly competi· t ive field of academic law, which also places its greatest demands (those of the tenure hurd le) on lawyers d uring the child-rea ring years, and therefore discriminates against those who participate in parenting. Those who a re chosen, therefore, would seem to be those least well informed to make decisions about abortion, especia lly in cases in- volving relations between teenage girls and their parents. Here we find a systematica lly built-in absence of mothers (and presumably of "wimp-like" participating fathers, too) from high-level po litical decisions concerning some of the most vu lnerable persons in society- women, d isproportionately poor and black, who become pregnant in their teens, and their future children. It is no t hard to see here the t ies between the suppos- edly distinct public and domestic s pheres."

Few thoughtful people would argue that \vomen have achieved equality in every aspect of their lives. In fact, it seems clear that in politics, the \vorkp lace, and the household, women do not have equal free.dom, r ights, a nd oppor tunities. On this score, O kin is surely right. But some philosophers have d rawn d ifferent conclusions from these facts. They insist that the femin ist critique of these inequalities does not show that the "personal is political" o r that the t raditional theories of justice a re seriously defective. The crit ique suggests that the p rinciples embodied in these theories-liberty, equality, a nd righrs-are as relevant as ever but have yet to be fully applied to private life. This is how David M iller expla ins the point:

[T]he Rule . . . naturally fal ls m the man's share, as

abler and stronger r than the \Vomanl. -John Locke

392 Chapter 8 The Just Society

24 Do you agree with Miller's assessment of the fem inist view of the tradit ional theories of justice? Why or why not?

David Miller, Political Philosophy

[W]e live in societies that are founded on commitments to freedom and equality but that have failed so far to live up to these commitments in the case of women and people from minority cultures. It is one of our deepest bel iefs that each person should be able to live life in the way that he or she chooses, subject to certain limits . ... [l]t is another deep bel ief that each person is entitled to be treated as an equal, either by being given equal rights, or by being given equal opportunities. Given these bel iefs, it becomes a matter of great political concern if one section of society enjoys only a smaller area of personal freedom, or receives less than equal treatment at the hands of existing social and political institutions. So, for instance, when women are denied the option available to men of ha rmoniously combining a career with fami ly life, or when members of ethnic minorities have fewer opportunities in the job market than others, this means that they are not being treated as fully free and equal members of their society .. ..

What feminists are pointing out about relationships between men and women is not so much their inherently political nature as the failure of politics to address them. Political authority, in the form which it has been constituted up to now, has not set adequate par- ameters for the peculiarly intimate relations that exist between the sexes. It has failed in a number of ways: it has not given women adequate physical security, especially protection against domestic violence, it has not ensured that women enjoy equal rights with men in a number of important areas of li fe, and it has not provided women with sufficient per- sonal freedom ... . It is these pol itical fa ilures that have allowed men to exercise power over women in their personal lives, and one obvious reason is that women have for cen- turies been almost entirely excluded from politics in the conventional sense.•1

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

CRITIQUING PHILOSOPHICAL V IEWS SECTION 8.5

I. Does Okin's claim about the injustice of current practices offumily life coincide \vith your own observations of family life in our culture? Explain.

2. Okin says that the gender roles of American men and women are not the way they are by necessity but are "socially constructed" (based on variable social conventions). Do you agree? Are gender roles established by natural or divine la\v?

3 . Shou ld the laws of a society reinforce currently accepted fam ily practices-or should la\vS set the standard for just fam ily practices?

4. Are the tradit ional theories of justice (social contract theories, for example) irredeemably flawed because they \vere devised by white men who thoug ht of women as second-class citizens?

5. Mi ller says that what fem inists are pointing out about relationships be- nveen men a nd women is not so much their inheren tly political nature as the failure of politics to address them. Do you agree? Why?

Review Notes

8.1 OVERVIEW: JUSTICE AND POLITICAL PH ILOSOPHY

• Political philosophy is the study of political societies using the methods of philosophy-critical reasoning and careful analysis.

• The issues of political philosophy raise questions about the moral and nonmoral goodness of whole societies, which largely determine the moral and nonmoral goodness of our lives.

• Distributive justice is about the fair distribution of society's benefits and burdens (its material and nonmaterial goods). Ho\v these goods are distributed among the citizens of a state is a function of how the state is structured, ho\v its social and political institutions are arranged.

8.2 PLATO'S THEORY: JUSTICE AS MERIT

• In The Republic, Plato argues that the only kind of society that can ensure that people get thei r due is a meritocracy. In a just society, the producers and auxiliaries perform their proper functions while being led and controlled by the guardians. The just state is a harmonious community governed by reason, just as a virtuous person is a tripartite being presided over by the rational facul ty of the soul.

• Plato's ideal state rests on inequality among citizens \vho are sorte.d into three classes marke.d by unequal shares of power and privilege. People are assigned to different classes according to merit, but inequality is still the rule. Plato maintains that equals should be treated equally, but to him the classes deserve different treat- ment because they are different. In Plato's republic, no one gets to choose his or her own role in life.

• Meritocracy is a system of rule by those most qual ified to govern, democracy is rule by the people as a whole, and aristocracy is a society ruled by the best citizens.

8.3 SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORIES

• In Leviathan, Hobbes contends that a social contract is necessary in human affairs because living without one would be a horrific nightmare of existence. Through reason, people see that the only way to escape this "war of all against all" is to enter into a social contract \vith one another. In the name of self- inte rest, they agree to turn over much of their autonomy, freedom, and po\ver to an absolute sovereign-the Leviathan. Locke argues that humans have inherent, God-given rights whether or not a government is around to guarantee them. These rights are inalien able: They cannot be transferred to the government or any other ent ity. Humans create the government and cede some po\ver to it; in return, it protects their rights and liberties. The state serves the people (not the other \vay round),

Review Notes 393

394 Chapter 8 The Just Society

directing all its po,ver "to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of che people."

• For Hobbes, in the state of nature, there is no code, culcure, or comfort. There is only "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man [is) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The Leviathan is an absolute ruler ,vhose authority

over chose bound by the social contract is absolute. Its po,ver is fearsome (enough co deter any tendency co disorder), and ics contractual agreement with its subjeccs is irrevocable.

• Ra,vls says the just state is based on principles chat people would agree co under hypothetical conditions chat ensure fai r and unbiased choices. He holds chat if the starting point fo r the social contract is fair-if the initial conditions and bargaining process for producing the principles are fair-then the principles themselves ,viii be just and will define the essential makeup of a just society.

• Liberalism is the political doctrine chat puts primary emphasis on the liberty and rights of individuals against encroachments by the state. Classical liberalism is the view chat the State should protect personal freedoms as well as the right co pursue one's o,vn social and economic ,veil-being in a free market without interference from ochers. Libertarianism and classical liberal ism are essential ly the same. Welfare liberal ism is the vie,v chat a just society aims co preserve individual liberties ,vhile ensuring the general welfare of the citizenry.

8.4 SOCIALIST THEORIES

• Marx's political theory is a form of socialism, the political and economic doctrine chat the means of production (property, factories, businesses) should be owned or concrolle.d by the people, either communally or through the state. The guiding principle is equality: The ,veal ch of society should be share.cl by all. The ideal distri- bution of goods follo,vs the classic formula: "From each according co his ability, co each according co his needs."

• Socialism emphas izes equality and the distribution of goods according co need and ability. A frequent criticism of socialism is chat such a distribution would require coercion by the state. Critics also accuse socialise systems of providing no incentive for people co excel at their jobs.

8.5 FEMINISM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

• Susan Moller Okin says traditional theories are based on the assumption chat there is a wall of separation between private and public life and chat only public life is the proper concern of political theory. Bue women have largely been relegace.d co the private sphere, ,vhere issues of righcs and equality are not supposed co apply. Con- sequently, women have been left out of traditional theories of justice, an omission chat ensured women would not be created as the moral equals of men.

• David M iller argues that the femi nist critique of inequalities in private life does not sho\v that the "personal is political" or that the traditional theories of justice are seriously defective. The critique suggests that the principles embodied in these theories a re relevant but have yet to be fully applied to private li fe.

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 8

1. Which theory of justice do you think is more plausible-Ra\vls's \vel- fa re liberalism or Nozick's classical liberalism (l ibertarian ism)? G ive

reasons for your choice.

2. Would you prefer to live in a state like Plato's meritocracy o r in a democratic capitalist society like the United States? Why?

3. What a re the \veaknesses and strengths of Hobbes's social contract theory? Would H obbes's state protect your rights? Under what cir- cumstances would you consent to live in h is state and be ruled by the Leviathan?

4 . Compare Locke's social contract state \vith a modern socialis t society. Which one does a better job of protecting individual rig hts? Ensuring equality among citizens? Providing for the needs of every citizen? In your opinion, \vhich theory of justice is better? Why?

5. Have women in this country been systematically treated unfairly or unequally? Are they currently being treated unfairly o r unequally? If so, how? W hat do you think are the chief causes of such treatment?

Key Terms

aristocracy A society ruled by the best citizens. (361)

capitalism A political economic system that lets the means of production accrue to fewer people th rough the \vorkings of a free market. In such a system, \vealth goes to anyone \vho can acquire it in the

marketplace. (379)

classical liberalism . The view that the state should protect personal freedoms as well as the right to pursue one's own social and economic \veil-being in a free

market without interference from others. (375)

communism Commonly, social ism with in a totalitarian system. (379)

democracy Rule by the people as a whole. (360)

distributive justice (or social justice) The fair distr ibution of society's benefits

and burdens-such things as jobs, in- come, p roperty, li berties, rights, welfare aid, taices, and public service. (357)

Key Terms 395

396 Chapter 8 The Just Society

justice The idea that people should get \vhat is fair or \vhat is thei r due. (357)

liberalism The political theory that pucs primary emphasis on the liberty and rights of individuals against encroach- ments by the state. (374)

libertarianism (political) The doctrine that emphasizes personal freedoms and the right to pursue one's own social and economic \veil-being in a free market \vithout interference from others. (375)

meritocracy A system of rule by those most qualified to govern. (360)

political philosophy The study of po- litical societies using the methods of phi- losophy. (355)

social contract theory The view that justice is secured, and the state is made legitimate, through an agreement among citizens of the state or between the citi- zens and the rulers of the state. (364)

socialism The doctrine that the means of production (property, factories, busi- nesses) should be owned or controlled by the people, either communally or through the state. (379)

welfare liberalism A form of liberalism, the aim of which is to preserve individual liberties while ensuring the general wel- fare of the citizenry. (378)

Lord of the Flies 397

FICTION

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

Sir Will iam Golding (1911- 1993) was a Nobel Prize- winning writer of over a dozen novels and numerous short stories and essays.

In rhis famo11J novel, William Golding describes a situati.on in which rhe orderliness and moral stability of civilization dissolves and human savagery emerges- a state of affeirs that resembles Hobbes's "state of nature." Several boys, ages six to twelve, are strand£d on a d£serted island in the Pa- cific. At the outset, they institute a rudimentary social sys- tem. Rules and procedures are agreed on, and Ralph is voted leamr and is therefore allowed to carry rhe white conch, the symbol of authority. Only a boy holding the conch is permit- ted to speak at an assembly. 7he bo)~ erect she/rm and build a fire atop a mountain to a/err passing ships of their presence.

For a while rhe aura of civilization deters anarchy and moral chaos, but as days go by, the boys' little soci- ety begins to deteriorate. 1hey are soon living in squalor, comperiti.on for power sets in, marry neglect their duties, and violence escalates. Ralph and jack become fierce rivals as rhey compete for leadership. 7he bespectacled Piggy plays rhe role of the voice of reason, and Simon is thought to possess a kind of spiritual imight. But rhe boys'predicamenr strains their rationality and spiritual- ity to the limit. As we enter the story, the fire has been ne- glected, causing it ro go out. j ack and his band of hunters are returning from killing a pig, and Ralph scolds them for not seeing ro rhe fire.

The hunters were more silent now, but at this they buzzed again. Ra lph Aung back his hair. One arm poin ted at the empty horizon. His voice was loud and savage, and struck them in to silence.

"There was a ship." Jack, faced at once with too many awfu l implica-

tions, ducked away from them. He laid a hand on the pig and drew his knife. Ralph brought his arm down, fi st clenched, and his voice shook.

From LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding, copyright 1954, renewed © 1982 by W illiam Gerald Golding. Used by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

"There was a ship. Out there. Yo u said you'd keep the fi re going and you let it out!" He took a step to- wards Jack who turned and faced him.

"They might have seen us. We might have gone home- "

This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly:

"You and your blood, Jack Merridew! you and your hunting! We might have gone home"-

Ra lph pushed Piggy on one side. "I was chief; and you were going to do what I said.

You talk. But you can't even build hu ts- then you go off hunting and let out the fire- "

He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling.

"There was a ship- " One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dis-

mal truth was filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pu lled at the pig.

"The job was too much. We needed everyone." Ra lph turned. "You could have had everyone when the shelters

were finished. But you had to hunt- " "We needed meat." Jack stood up as he said th is, the bloodied knife in

his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilara- tion, skill; and there was the world of longing and baf- Aed common-sense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.

Piggy began again. "You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said

you'd keep the smoke going- " This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from

some of the hunters drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came in to his blue eyes. He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stom- ach. Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with humiliation.

398 Chapter 8 The Just Society

"You would, would you? Fatty!" Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Pig-

gy's head. Piggy's glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror:

"My specs!" He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Si-

mon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top with awful wings.

"One side's broken." Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked

malevolently at Jack. "I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye.

Jus' you wait- " Jack made a move towards Piggy who scrambled

away till a great rock lay between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his one flashing glass.

"Now I only got one eye. Just you wait- " Jack mimicked the whine and scramble. "Jus' you wait- yah!" Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunt-

ers began to laugh. Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laughter rose to a gale of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with himself for giving way.

He muttered. "That was a dirty trick." Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing

Ralph. His words came in a shout. "All right, all right!" He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph. "I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. 1- " He drew himself up. "- I apologize." The buzz from the hunters was one of admiration

at this handsome behaviour. Clearly they were of the opinion that Jack had done the decent thing, had put himself in the right by his generous apology and Ralph, obscurely, in the wrong. They waited for an appropri- ately decent answer.

Yet Ralph's throat refused to pass one. He resented, as an addition to Jack's misbehaviour, this verbal trick. The fi re was dead, the ship was gone. Could they not see? Anger instead of decency passed his throat.

"That was a dirty trick." They were silent on the mountain-top while the

opaque look appeared in Jack's eyes and passed away. Ralph's final word was an ungracious mutter. "All right. Light the fi re."

With some positive action before them, a little of the tension died. Ralph said no more, did nothing, stood looking down at the ashes round his feet. Jack was loud and active. He gave orders, sang, whistled, threw remarks at the silent Ralph- remarks that did not need an answer, and therefore could not invite a snub; and still Ralph was si lent. No one, not even Jack, would ask him to move and in the end they had to bui ld the fire three yards away and in a place not really as con- venient. So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way ifhe had thought for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was bui lt, they were on different sides of a high barrier.

When they had dealt with the fire another crisis arose. Jack had no means of lighting it. Then to his sur- prise, Ralph went to Piggy and took the glasses from him. Not even Ralph knew how a link between him and Jack had been snapped and fastened elsewhere.

"I'll bring 'em back." "I'll come too." Piggy stood behind him, islanded in a sea of mean-

ingless colour, while Ralph knelt and focused the glossy spot. Instantly the fire was alight. Piggy held out his hands and grabbed the glasses back.

Before these fantastically attractive flowers of vio- let and red and yellow, unkindness melted away. They became a circle of boys round a camp fire and even Piggy and Ra lph were half-drawn in. Soon some of the boys were rushing down the slope fo r more wood while Jack hacked the pig. They tried holding the whole car- cass on a stake over the fire, but the stake burnt more quickly than the pig roasted. In the end they skewered bits of meat on branches and held them in the flames: and even then almost as much boy was roasted as meat.

Ra lph dribbled. He meant to refuse meat but his past diet of fruit and nu ts, with an odd crab or fish, gave him too little resistance. He accepted a piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf.

Piggy spoke, also dribbling. "Aren't I having none?" Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an asser-

tion of power; but Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessa ry.

"You didn't hunt." "No more did Ralph," said Piggy wetly, "nor Si-

mon." He amplified. "There isn't more than a ha'porth of meat in a crab."

Ralph stirred uneasily. Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon lowered his face in shame.

Then Jack leapt to his feet, slashed off a great hunk of meat, and flung it down at Simon's feet.

"Eat! Damn You!" He glared at Simon. "Take it!" He spun on his heel, centre of a bewildered circle

of boys. "I got you meat!" Numberless and inexpress ible frustrations com-

bined to make his rage elemental and awe-inspiring. "I painted my face- I stole up. Now you eat- all of

you- and 1- " Slowly the silence on the mountain-top deepened

till the cl ick of the fire and the soft hiss of roasting meat could be heard clearly. Jack looked round for under- standing but fo und only respect. Ralph stood among the ashes of the signal fire, his hands fu ll of meat, say- ing nothing.

Then at last Maurice broke the silence. He changed the subject to the only one that could bring the majority of them together.

"Where did you find the pig?" Roger pointed down the unfriendly side. "They were there- by the sea." Jack, recovering, could not bear to have his story

told. He broke in quickly. "We spread round. I crept, on hands and knees.

The spears fell out because they hadn' t barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise- "

"It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding- " All the boys were talking at once, relieved and ex-

ci ted. "We closed in- " "The first blow had paralysed its hind quarters, so

then the circle could close in and beat and beat- " "I cut the pig's throat- " The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped

up and ran round each other. Then the rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting.

"One fo r his nob!" "Give him a fourpenny one!" Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran

squealing into the centre, and the hunters, circling still, pretended to beat him. As they danced, they sang.

"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in."

Lord of the Files 399

Ralph watched them, envious and resent ful. Not ti ll they fl agged and the chant died away, did he speak.

"I'm calling an assembly." One by one, they halted, and stood watching him. "With the conch. I'm calling a meeting even if we

have to go on into the dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now."

He turned away and walked off, down the moun- tain .. . .

Soon jack wins nil but five of the boys to his side. Simon, Piggy, and the twins, Sam and Eric ("Samneric"), stick with Ralph to support the rule of law. To light a fire for the pig roast, jack's hunters need n magnifying glass, so jack and two of his band attack Ralph and Piggy and take Piggy's glasses by force. We mter the scene where Ralph and his friends are smarting over the loss of the glasses and the ability to make a fire. Piggy addresses them:

"I got the conch. I'm going to that Jack Merridew an' tel l him, I am."

"You'll get hurt." "What can he do more than he has? I'll tell him

what's what. You let me carry the conch, Ra lph. I'll show him the one thing he hasn't got."

Piggy paused for a moment and peered round at the dim figures. The shape of the old assembly, trodden in the grass, listened to him.

"I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it out. Look, I'm goin' to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favour. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses, I'm going to say- you got to!"

Piggy ended, flushed and trembling. He pushed the conch quickly into Ralph's hands as though in a hurry to be rid of it and wiped the tears from his eyes. The green light was gentle about them and the conch lay at Ra lph's feet, fragile and white. A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star.

At last Ralph sat up straight and drew back his hair. "All right. I mean- you can try if you like. We'll go

with you." "He'll be painted," sa id Sam, timidly. "You know

how he'll be- "

400 Chapter 8 The Just Society

"- he won't think much of us- " "- if he gets waxy we've had it- " Ralph scowled at Sam. Dimly he remembered

something that Simon had said to him once, by the rocks.

"Don't be silly," he said. And then he added quickly, "Let's go."

He held out the conch to Piggy who flushed, this time with pride.

"You must carry it- " "When we're ready I'll carry it- " Piggy sought in his mind for words to convey his

passionate willingness to carry the conch against all odds. "- 1 don't mind. I'll be glad, Ralph, only I'll have to

be led." Ralph put the conch back on the shining log. "We better eat and then get ready." They made their way to the devastated fruit trees.

Piggy was helped to his food and found some by touch. While they ate, Ralph thought of the afternoon.

"We'll be like we were. We'll wash- " Sam gulped down a mouthful and protested. "But we bathe every day!" Ralph looked at the fi lthy objects before him and

sighed. "We ought to comb our hair. Only it's too long." "I've got both socks left in the shelter," said Eric,

"so we could pull them over our heads like caps, sort of." "We could find some stuff," said Piggy, "and tie

your hair back." "Like a girl!" "No. 'Course not." "Then we must go as we are," said Ralph, "and they

won't be any better." Eric made a detaining gesture. "But they'll be painted! You know how it is- " The others nodded. They understood only too well

the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.

"Well, we won't be painted," said Ralph, "because we aren't savages."

Samneric looked at each other. "All the same- " Ralph shouted. "No paint" ... They set off along the beach in formation. Ra lph

went first, limping a little, his spear carried over one shoulder. He saw things partiall y through the tremble of the heat haze over the flashing sands, and his own

long hair and injuries. Behind him came the twins, wor- ried now for a whi le but full of unquenchable vitality. They said li ttle but tra iled the butts of their wooden spears; for Piggy had found, that looking down, shield- ing his tired sight from the sun, he could just see these moving along the sand. He walked between the trailing butts, therefore, the conch held carefu lly between his two hands. The boys made a compact little group that moved over the beach, four plate- like shadows dancing and mingling beneath them. There was no sign left of the storm, and the beach was swept clean like a blade that has been scoured. The sky and the mountain were at an immense distance, shimmering in the heat; and the reef was lifted by mirage, floating in a kind of silver pool half-way up the sky.

They passed the place where the tribe had danced. The charred sticks still lay on the rocks where the rain had quenched them but the sand by the water was smooth again. They passed th is in silence. No one doubted that the tribe would be found at the Castle Rock and when they came in sight of it they stopped with one accord. The densest tangle on the island, a mass of twisted stems, black and green and impenetra- ble, lay on their left and tall grass swayed before them. Now Ralph went forward.

Here was the crushed grass where they had all lain when he had gone to prospect. There was the neck of land, the ledge skirting the rock, up there were the red pinnacles.

Sam touched his arm. 0 Smoke." There was a tiny smudge of smoke wavering into

the air on the other side of the rock. "Some fire- I don't think." Ralph turned. "What are we hiding for?" He stepped through the screen of grass on to the

little open space that led to the narrow neck. "You two follow behind. I'll go first, then Piggy a

pace behind me. Keep your spears ready." Piggy peered anxiously into the luminous veil that

hung between him and the world. "Is it safe? Ain't there a cl iff? I can hear the sea." "You keep right close to me." Ralph moved forward on to the neck. He kicked

a stone and it bounded into the water. Then the sea sucked down, revealing a red, weedy square forty feet beneath Ralph's left arm.

"Am I safe?" quavered Piggy. "I feel awful- "

High above them from the pinnacles came a sud- den shout and then an imitation war-cry that was an- swered by a dozen voices from behind the rock.

"Give me the conch and stay still." "Halt! Who goes there?" Ralph bent back his head and glimpsed Roger's

dark face at the top. "You can see who I am!" he shouted. "Stop being

silly!" He put the conch to his lips and began to blow.

Savages appeared, painted out of recognition, edging round the ledge towards the neck. They carried spears and disposed themselves to defend the entrance. Ralph went on blowing and ignored Piggy's terrors.

Roger was shouting. "You mind out- see?" At length Ra lph took his lips away and paused to get

his breath back. His first words were a gasp, but audible. "- call ing an assembly." The savages guarding the neck muttered among

themselves but made no motion. Ra lph walked for- wards a couple of steps. A voice whispered urgently behind him.

"Don't leave me, Ralph." "You kneel down," said Ra lph sideways, "and wait

till I come back." He stood half-way along the neck and gazed at the

savages intently. Freed by the paint, they had tied their hair back and were more comfortable than he was. Ra lph made a resolution to tie his own back afterwards. Indeed he felt like telling them to wait and doing it the re and then; but that was impossible. The savages sniggered a bit and one gestured at Ralph with his spear. High above, Roger took his hands off the lever and leaned out to see what was going on. The boys on the neck stood in a pool of their own shadow, diminished to shaggy heads. Piggy crouched, his back shapeless as a sack.

"I'm call ing an assembly." Silence. Roger took up a small stone and flung it between

the twins, aiming to miss. They started and Sam only just kept his footing. Some source of power began to pulse in Roger's body.

Ralph spoke again, loudly. "I'm call ing an assembly." He ran his eye over them. "Where's Jack?" The group of boys stirred and consulted. A painted

face spoke with the voice of Robert.

Lord of the Files 40 1

"He's hunting. And he said we weren't to let you in." "I've come to see about the fire," said Ra lph, "and

about Piggy's specs." The group in front of him shifted and laughter shiv-

ered outwards from among them, light, excited laugh- ter that went echoing among the ta ll rocks.

A voice spoke from behind Ra lph. "What do you want?" The twins made a bolt past Ra lph and got between

him and the entry. He turned quickly. Jack, identifiable by personality and red ha ir, was advancing from the for- es t. A hunter crouched on either side. All three were masked in black and green. Behind them on the grass the headless and paunched body of a sow lay where they had dropped it.

Piggy wailed. "Ralph! Don't leave me!" With ludicrous care he embraced the rock, pressing

himself to it above the sucking sea. The sniggering of the savages became a loud derisive jeer.

Jack shouted above the noise. "You go away, Ralph. You keep to your end. This is

my end and my tribe. You leave me alone." The jeering died away. "You pinched Piggy's specs," said Ralph, breath-

lessly. "You've got to give them back." "Got to? Who says?" Ralph's temper blazed out. "I say! You voted fo r me for Chief. Didn't you hear

the conch? You played a dirty trick- we'd have given you fire if you'd asked for it- "

The blood was flowing in his cheeks and the bunged-up eye throbbed.

"You could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you didn't. You came sneaking up like a thief and stole Piggy's glasses!"

"Say that again!" "Thief! Thief!" Piggy screamed. "Ralph! Mind me!" Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph's chest wi th

his spear. Ralph sensed the position of the weapon from the glimpse he caught of Jack's arm and put the thrust aside with his own butt. Then he brought the end round and caught Jack a stinger across the ear. They were chest to chest, breathing fiercely, pushing and glaring.

"Who's a thief?" uvou are!"

402 Chapter 8 The Just Society

Jack wrenched free and swung at Ralph with his spear. By common consent they were using the spears as sabres now, no longer daring the lethal points. The blow struck Ralph's spear and slid down, to fall agoniz- ingly on his fi ngers. Then they were apart once more, their positions reversed, Jack towards the Castle Rock and Ralph on the outside towards the island.

Both boys were breathing very heavil y. "Come on then- " "Come on- " Truculently they squared up to each other but kept

just out of fighting distance. "You come on and see what you get!" "You come on- " Piggy clutching the ground was trying to attract

Ralph's attention. Ralph moved, bent down, kept a wary eye on Jack.

"Ralph- remember what we came for. The fi re. My specs."

Ralph nodded. He relaxed his fighting muscles, stood easily and grounded the butt of his spear. Jack watched him inscrutably through his paint. Ralph glanced up at the pinnacles, then towards the group of savages.

"Listen. We've come to say this . First you've got to give back Piggy's specs. If he hasn 't got them he can't see. You aren't playing the game- "

The tribe of painted savages giggled and Ralph's mind faltered. He pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before him, trying to remember what Jack looked like.

Piggy whispered. "And the fire." "Oh yes. Then about the fire. I say this again. I've

been saying it ever since we dropped in." He held out his spear and pointed at the savages. "Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going as long

as there's light to see. Then maybe a ship'II notice the smoke and come and rescue us and take us home. But without that smoke we've got to wait till some ship comes by accident. We might wait years; till we were old- "

The shivering, silvery, unreal laughter of the sav- ages sprayed out and echoed away. A gust of rage shook Ralph. His voice cracked.

"Don't you understand, you painted fools? Sam, Eric, Piggy and me- we aren't enough. We tried to keep the fire going, but we couldn't. And then you, play- ing at hunting .... "

He pointed past them to where the trickle of smoke dispersed in the pearly air.

"Look at that! Call that a signal fire? That's a cook- ing fire. Now you'll eat and there' ll be no smoke. Don't you understand? There may be a ship out there- "

He paused, defeated by the silence and the painted anonymity of the group guarding the entry. The chief opened a pink mouth and addressed Samneric who were between him and his tribe.

"You two. Get back." No one answered him. The twins, puzzled, looked

at each other; wh ile Piggy, reassured by the cessation of violence, stood up carefully. Jack glanced back at Ra lph and then at the twins.

"Grab them!" No one moved. Jack shouted angrily. "I said 'grab them'!" The pain ted group moved round Samneric ner-

vously and unhandily. Once more the silvery laughter scattered.

Samneric protested out of the heart of civilization. "Oh, I say!" "- honestly!" Their spears were taken from them. "Tie them up!" Ra lph cried out hopelessly against the black and

green mask. "Jack!" "Go on. Tie them." Now the painted group felt the otherness of Sam-

neric, felt the power in their own hands. They felled the twins clumsily and excitedly. Jack was inspired. He knew that Ralph would attempt a rescue. He struck in a humming ci rcle behind him and Ra lph only just parried the blow. Beyond them the tribe and the twins were a loud and writhing heap. Piggy crouched again. Then the twins lay, astonished, and the tribe stood round them. Jack turned to Ralph and spoke between his teeth.

"See? They do what I want." There was silence again. The twins lay, inexpertly

tied up, and the tribe watched Ralph to see what he would do. He numbered them th rough his fringe, glimpsed the ineffectual smoke.

His temper broke. He screamed at Jack. "You're a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody

thief!" He charged. Jack, knowing this was the crisis, charged too. They

met with a jolt and bounced apart, Jack swung with his fist at Ra lph and caught him on the ear. Ralph hit Jack in the stomach and made him grunt. Then they were

facing each other again, panting and furious, but un- nerved by each other's ferocity. They became aware of the noise that was the background to this fight, the steady shrill cheering of the tribe behind them.

Piggy's voice penetrated to Ralph. "Let me speak." He was standing in the dust of the fight, and as the

tribe saw his intention the shrill cheer changed to a steady booing.

Piggy held up the conch and the booing sagged a li ttle, then came up again to strength.

"I got the conch!" He shouted. "I tell you, I got the conch!" Surprisingly, there was silence now; the tribe were

curious to hear what amusing thing he might have to say.

Si lence and pause; but in the silence a curious air-noise, close by Ralph's head. He gave it half his attention- and there it was again; a faint "Zup!" Some- one was throwing stones: Roger was dropping them, his one hand still on the lever. Below him, Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat.

"I got this to say. You're acting li ke a crowd of kids." The booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the

white, magic shell. "Which is better- to be a pack of pain ted niggers

like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?" A great clamour rose among the savages. Piggy

shouted again. "Which is better- to have rules and agree, or to

hunt and kill?" Again the clamour and again- "Zup!" Ralph shouted against the noise. "Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and

breaking things up?" Now Jack was yell ing too and Ralph could no longer

make himself heard. Jack had backed right against the tribe and they were a solid mass of menace that bris- tled with spears. The intention of a charge was forming among them; they were working up to it and the neck would be swept clear. Ra lph stood facing them, a little to one side, his spear ready. By him stood Piggy still hold- ing out the talisman, the fragile, shining beauty of the shell. The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.

Ralph hea rd the great rock long before he saw it. He was aware of a jolt in the earth that came to him

Lord of the Files 403

through the soles of his feet, and the breaking sound of stones at the top of the cliff. Then the monstrous red thing bounded across the neck and he flung himself fl at while the tribe shrieked.

The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee: the conch exploded in to a thousand white frag- ments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, travelled through the air side- ways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that square, red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back aga in, the body of Piggy was gone.

This time the silence was complete. Ralph's lips formed a word but no sound came.

Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and be- gan screaming wildly.

"See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe for you any more! The conch is gone- "

He ran forward , stooping. "I'm Chief! " Viciously, with full in tention, he hurled his spear at

Ralph. The point tore the skin and flesh over Ralph's ribs , then sheared off and fell in the water. Ra lph stum- bled, feeling not pain but panic, and the tribe, scream- ing now like the Chief, began to advance. Another spear, a bent one that would not fly straight, went past his face and one fell from on high where Roger was. The twins lay hidden behind the tribe and the anonymous devils' faces swarmed across the neck. Ra lph turned and ran. A great noise as of sea-gulls rose behind him. He obeyed an instinct that he did not know he pos- sessed and swerved over the open space so that the spears went wide. He saw the headless body of the sow and jumped in time. Then he was crashing through foli- age and small boughs and was hidden by the forest ....

Ralph runs into the forest to hide, and Jack begins a vicious search for him. Soon Ralph realizes that jack has started a forest fire to force him out into the open. The trick works, for Ralph soon stumbles onto the beach, terrified- and is stunned to find a naval officer greeting him. The turvy had seen the smoke risingfrom the island and had come to investigate.

404 Chapter 8 The Just Society

[Ralph] staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors , and looked up at a huge peaked cap. It was a white- topped cap, and above the green shade of the peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage. He saw white drill , ep- aulettes, a revolver, a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform.

A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment. On the beach behind him was a cutter, her bows hauled up and held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub- machine gun.

The ululation faltered and died away. The officer looked at Ralph doubtfully for a moment,

then took his hand away from the butt of the revolver. "Hullo." Squirming a little, conscious of his filthy appear-

ance, Ralph answered shyly. "Hullo." The officer nodded, as if a question had been an-

swered. "Are there any adults- any grown-ups with you?" Dumbly, Ralph shook his head. He turned a ha lf.

pace on the sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bod- ies streaked with coloured clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all.

"Fun and games," said the officer. The fire reached the coco-nut palms by the beach

and swallowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly de- tached, swung like an acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platform. The sky was black.

The officer grinned cheerfu lly at Ralph. "We saw your smoke. What have you been doing?

Having a war or something?" Ralph nodded. The officer inspected the li ttle scarecrow in front of

him. The kid needed a bath, a hair-cut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment.

"Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?" "Only two. And they've gone." The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph. "Two? Killed?" Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island

was shuddering with fl ame. The officer knew, as a ru le, when people were tell ing the truth. He whistled softly.

Other boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the distended bellies of small savages. One of them came close to the officer and looked up.

11 l'm I'm- " • But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys

Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away.

The officer turned back to Ralph. "We'll take you off. How many of you are there?" Ralph shook his head. The officer looked past him

to the group of painted boys. "Who's boss here?" "I am," said Ra lph loudly. A little boy who wore the remains of an extraor-

dinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started for- ward, then changed his mind and stood still.

"We saw your smoke. And you don't know how many of you there are?"

0 No, sir." "I should have thought," said the officer as he visu-

alized the search before him, "I should have thought that a pack of British boys- you're all British aren't you?- would have been able to put up a better show than that- I mean- "

"It was like that at first," said Ralph, "before things- "

He stopped. "We were together then- " The officer nodded helpfu ll y. "I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island." Ra lph looked at him dumbly. For a moment he

had a fleeting picture of the strange glamour that had once invested the beaches. But the island was scorched up like dead wood- Simon was dead- and Jack had .. . . The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emo- tion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with fi lthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ra lph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fa ll through the air of the true, wise friend ca lled Piggy.

The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.

Probing Questio ns

I. Whar does 7he Lord of the Flies say about ,noralicy? Does ir suggest rhar hun1ans don't need moral icy? Thar ,noralicy has no hold on hu,nans? Whar is Piggy's notion of moralicy? What is Jack's?

2. Whar does che story say about hu,nan nature? Are humans inherendy savage and bloodchirscy?

3. Imagine char Tho,nas Hobbes reads 7he Lord of the Flies. If he interprets che story in light of his moral theory, ,vhar do you suppose he would say? Would Hobbes regard che story as reinforcing his views or contradicting che,n?

For Further Reading

John Arthur and W illian1 Shaw, eds.,Justice and Economic Distribution (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice H all, 1991). A collection of writings on justice.

Steven M. Cahn, e.d., Political Philosophy: The Essentials (New York: Oxford Univer- s ity Press, 2011). A collection of the most important readings.

Samuel Fleishacker, A Short History of Distributive Justice (Boston: H arvard Univer- s ity Press, 2005). An overview of the development of major perspectives on justice.

David Miller, Political Philosophy: A very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2003). A concise introduction to the concepcs and issues of political philosophy.

Robert Nozick, Anarch;1 State, and Utopia (Ne,v York: Basic Books, 1974). A classic work of political philosophy defending a form of libertarianism.

Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989). A femi nist view of distributive justice, arguing that gender inequal ities preclude any

form of social justice.

Louis P. Pojman and Owen McLeod, eds., What Do We Deserve: A Reader of Justice and Desert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). An anthology of articles on social justice as it relates to what people do and don't deserve. Special attention given to Rawls's concept of desert.

John Ra,vls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: H arvard University Press, 1999). A classic-and very influential-examination of the fundan1ental requirements of social justice.

Michael J. Sandel, ed.,Justice: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). A comprehensive anthology of the most significant a rticles on social and political justice, ed ited by one of America's favo rite college professors.

Lord of the Files 405

CHAPTER

THE MEANING OF LIFE

CHAPTER O BJECTIVES

9.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

• Understand why people t hink questions concerning the meaning of human existence are extremely important and relevant.

• Understand why and how examining the question of life 's meaning is personal.

• Explain the difference between external and interna l meaning.

9.2 PESSIMISM: LIFE HAS NO MEANING

• Summarize the pessimistic views of Tolstoy, Schopenhauer, and Darrow.

• Critically examine the case for pessimism and that for optimism.

• Assess Baggini's charge that pessim ists confuse external and internal meani ng.

9.3 OPTIMISM: LIFE CAN HAVE MEANING

• Explain the rel igious externalist approach to life 's meaning.

• Critically examine Tolstoy's view and his just ification for it .

• Explain why some philosophers th ink the notion of a God assigning a purpose to humans should be objectiona ble to believers and nonbelievers alike.

• Summarize the internalist's position on life 's meaning and produce an argument for or against it.

• Devise an argument for t he idea that death and the ephemeral natu re of human endeavors are irrelevant to the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of a person's existence.

Overview: Phi losophy and the Meaning of Life 407

9.1 OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

Enter: a contented man. He makes his living crafting ornate clay pors, ,vhich he sells to the people in h is village. He loves his ,vork and is mostly satisfied with h is li fe. But one day a friend gives him a philosophy textbook, which he begins to read, starting ,vith the last chapter entitled "The Meaning of Life." A question in the first paragraph jumps out at him: "Does life have meaning?" He has never thought seriously about the meaning of life, and as he ponders the question, he realizes he has no answer. And he does not have an answer even after frett ing over the question for several days. For most of his life, he has made pots, day after day, all of them the same shape and size, all of them produced in exactly the same way-and he seems destined to endure th is monotony into old age. What is the point? he thinks. What does it matter ,vhether I make a mi ll ion pars or none? What has my life been about? What meaning or purpose does my li fe have? Is life meaningless? He has no idea. And the thought of a meaningless existence brings on a crushing despair that cannot be eased by drink, or d rugs, or d istracting ac- t ivity. As his misery deepens, the potter stops making pots, and he ,vonders why he ever started.

Figure 9.1 People often begin their search for meaning by asking, "What is the meaning of life?" But the f irst step in finding answers is to understand the question.

For ,he meaning of life differs from man to man, from day ,o day and from hour ,o hour. \Vhar mar- tcrs, therefore, is nor the

meaning of life in general bu, rarher ,he specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

-Viktor E. Frankl

408 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

Life has no meaning the

moment you lose the illu- sion of being eternal. -Jean-Paul Sartre

Do you see any resemblance bet\veen the potter and yourself in this little tale? It would not be surp rising or unusual if you d id. At one time or another, in one \vay or another, most people ask themselves if life has any meaning, any point. Like our potter, many of them seem satisfied with t heir lives-until they begin to \vonder \vhether it is a meaningless charade. Then "the meaning of life"-a phrase often tossed around in mock seriousness or fo r comedic effect-is infused with a more somber tone. A few insist that ques tions about t he meaning of existence are themselves meaningless. But most who have contemplated such things take t hem to be extremely important and relevant to their lives. Many philosophers have tried to clarify the concepts involved and to give discussions of li fe's meaning more precision, but they too think the questions about meaningful or meaningless lives are worth asking and anS\vering. The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, for one, declares that "judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to an- swering the fundamental quest ion of philosophy. All the rest-whether the \vorld has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or n velve categories-comes afterwards."'

Some people, including a fa ir number of students, think philosophy is mostly about the question of life's meaning. In a sense, they are not far wrong. Most of the topics covered in the preceding chapters-God, free will, kno\vledge, ethics, and justice-can inform your thinking about this important sort of meaning. And your conclusions about the meaningfulness of life are directly or indirectly related to your actions and beliefs regarding lifestyle, work, morality, political involve- ment, free will, God, and other issues. lfby thinking carefully about li fe's meaning (or lack thereof) you decide to dramat ically change your career choice, you would not be t he first.

What, besides a course in philosophy, can push someone into this kind of serious reflection? Often the tripwire is a d isturbing thought-the inevitabil ity of death, the brevity of life, the smallness and triviality of our lives compared with the unimagin- ably vast universe, the shortness of our lives in the context of eternity, or the eventual obliteration of everything \Ve have cared for or created.

Consider this odd fa irytale based very loosely on a real event. A graduate st udent \vith a master's degree in business pays a visit to a philosophy professor. The st udent has come seeking something that she has so far failed to acquire in her studies: the ultimate secret, the meaning of life. The professor pauses, then answers in his best guru-like voice, "The meaning of life is . .. a big purple thing." Silence. The professor chuckles; the student doesn't know \vhether to laugh or sigh.

With his absurd answer the professor means to make a point, or several. There is no great secret concerning the meaning of life, no cryptic bit of knowledge that, once known, \viii reveal all . There is no slogan or incantation or parable that wi ll ensure your life is worth living. Moreover, no one can simply hand you the meaning of life as if it were a gift basket. The process of examining the question of life's meaning or purpose is personal. You have to make that journey yourself. No one can bestow upon you what you must fi nd for yourself, no more than a friend can tell you what your favorite foods are supposed to be.

Overview: Phi losophy and the Meaning of Life 409

Probably most philosophers \vould agree \Vith all th is. Many \vould also add that although there is no straight road to understanding the "big question," there are guideposts here and there that can help you find your \vay, some of \vhich we d iscuss in the following pages.

Many people think they have an intuitive grasp of what is meant by "the meaning of life." But the concept in common usage is actually vague and slippery. So, for purposes of this discussion, \Ve can say that to ask whether your life has meaning is to ask whether it has significant value or purpose over time beyond t he good of merely being alive. Through the centuries, people have claimed that such significant value is derived from being part of God's plan, serving the greater good of humankind, helping others, caring for and protecting fam ily, giving and receiving love, creating art, searching for kno\vledge, and many other activ ities and states.

Philosophers have gone further and distinguished life's value or meaning from happiness and moral rightness. Someone might be continually and bl issfully happy because she is, for example, tak ing psychotropic drugs, but few would call such a life meaningful. And some people can lead meaningful lives while being miserable because their meaningful activities are arduous or dangerous. Physicians working in a war zone treating wounded children may be sad because of the suffering they witness-and still feel their lives have meaning. Moreover, many things that people do to add meaning to their lives are also morally right, but moral rightness and meaningfulness need not go together. Wh ile creating a beautiful painting, an artist might add meaning to his life, but the act of creation seems to be morally neutral. Morality and meaningfulness are not synonymous.

Perhaps the main impediment to clear thinking about life's meaning is confu- sion about \vhat meaning refers to. Consider the phrase "the meaning of life." For most people, these words refer to external meaning-meaning or purpose that comes

Figure 9.2 Is a meaningful life possible only when lived in accordance with God's plan?

My li fe has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning. and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. \Vhat am I doing right? -Charles M. Schulz

410 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

1 When you t alk about the meaning of life, wh ich sense of the term do you use- externa l meaning or internal meaning?

Life takes on meaning when you become motiv· ared, set goals and charge after them in an unstop· pable manner. -Les Brown

PHILOSOPHY LAB - Imagine char you are a devour person who feels chat your life can be meaningful only if you ace according to God's plan. Forrunarely, an oracle can tell you exacdy what God has in store. He wanes you (and everyone else on rhe planet) co ... serve as food for beings on anorher planer, who happen to be God's favorite people. You and all other humans, on the ocher hand, are co be mear for aliens.

Now that you know God's plan, is your life f inally meaningful? That is, if you know only that God has a plan for you but know nothing

about it, would that fact alone make your life meaningful?

from outside humanity. Whatever meaning people have in their lives is besto\ved or assigned by God, by some metaphysical o rder, or by the workings of some universal principle. For Christians, co have a meaningful life is co be part of God's plan for all of humankind. But many people also speak of a different kind of meaning-what some refer co as "meaning in life." This is internal meaning-meaning or purpose that comes from inside people, that humans can give co themselves. In this vie\v, life can be meaningful for persons if they come co see their goals or purposes as inher- ently valuable or worthwhile.

Many people, including those \vho accept a religious worldview, assume chat if life has no external meaning, it has no meaning period. They believe humans can have a purposeful life only if God created them \vith a purpose. The opposing vie\v is that even if there is no external meaning, people's lives can still be meaningful because meaning and purpose come from within. Because of these different senses of meaning, a person who states that life is meaningless may actually be asserting only chat life has no external meaning but sti ll has internal meaning. Someone who declares that life has meaning may reject the notion that humans a re given a purpose by a higher po\ver, claiming chat lives are made meaningful only by human choices. Unfortunately, the phrase "the meaning of life" is frequently used co refer co both external and internal meaning.

To the question of whether life holds any meaning for us, there are t\VO prin- cipal answers: (I) Life has no meaning (the pessimist's view) and (2) life in some sense does have meaning (the optimist's view). The optimise's answer can be fur- ther divided: Either (1) life's meaning is external (the common religious perspec- tive) or (2) life's meaning is internal (the view held mostly by the nonreligious or nontheiscic).

Pessimism: Life Has No Meaning 411

9.2 PESSIMISM: LIFE HAS NO MEANING

The pessimists (also called nihilists) have something in common ,vich the religious optimises: They both believe chat unless a divine entity or transcendent reality has provided the world ,vich ultimate purpose or value, life is meaningless. In ocher words, life can have no meaning if external meaning is nonexistent.

Among famous pessimists we can count the renowned Russian novelise Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). Before undergoing a Christian conversion (and becoming an optimise), he found himself at age fifty doubting the existence of God and being tortured by the thought chat life was entirely ,vichouc meaning or purpose. Here ,ve can see chat his agony at the loss of meaning ,vas extreme:

Leo Tolstoy, My Confession

[F]ive years ago something very strange began to happen with me: I was overcome by minutes at fi rst of perplexity and then of an arrest of life, as though I did not know how to live or what to do, and I lost myself and was dejected. But that passed, and I continued to live as before. Then those minutes of perplexity were repeated oftener and oftener, and always in one and the same form. These arrests of life found their expression in ever the same questions: "Why? Well, and then?"

At fi rst I thought that those were simply aimless, inappropriate questions. It seemed to me that that was all well known and that if I ever wanted to busy myself with their solution, it would not cost me much labour,- that now I had no time to attend to them, but that if I wanted to I should find the proper answers. But the questions began to repeat themselves oftener and oftener, answers were de- manded more and more persistently, and, like dots that fall on the same spot, these questions, wi thout any answers, thickened into one black blotch.

There happened what happens with any person who falls ill with a mortal internal disease. At first there appear insignificant symptoms of indisposition, to which the pa· tient pays no attention; then these symptoms are repeated more and more frequently and blend into one temporally indivisible suffering. The suffering keeps growing, and be- fore the patient has had time to look around, he becomes conscious that what he took for an indisposition is the most significant th ing in the world to him,- his death.

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is rhc meaning.

-Joseph Campbell

The same happened with me. I understood that it was not a passing indisposition, but something very important, and that, if the questions were going to repeat themselves, it would be necessary to find an answer for them. And I tried to answer them. The questions seemed to be so foolish, simple, and childish. But the moment I touched them and tried to solve them, I became convinced, in the first place, Figure 9.3 Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910).

412 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

Leo Tolstoy, My Confession

2 Is Tolstoy's pessimism about life's meaning a resu lt of his object- ive assessment of his life, o r is it merely a product of his unique personality traits?

that they were not ch ildish and foolish, but very important and profound questions in life, and, in the second, that, no matter how much I might try, I should not be able to answer them. Before attending to my Samara estate, to my son's education, or to the writing of a book, I ought to know why I should do that. So long as I did not know why, I could not do anything. I could not live. Amidst my thoughts of farming, which inter- ested me very much during that t ime, there would suddenly pass through my head a question like this: "All right, you are going to have six thousand desyatfnas of land in the Government of Samara, and three hundred horses,- and then?" And I completely lost my senses and did not know what to th ink farther. Or, when I thought of the educa- tion of my ch ildren, I said to myself. "Why?" Or, reflecting on the manner in which the masses might obtain their welfare, I suddenly said to myself: "What is that to me?" Or, thinking of the fame which my works would get me, I said to myself: "All right, you will be more famous than G6gol, Pushkin; Shakespeare, Moliere, and all the writers in the world,- what ofit?" And I was absolutely unable to make any reply. The questions were not waiting, and I had to answer them at once; ifl did not answer them, I could not live.

I felt that what I was standing on had given way, that I had no foundation to stand on, that that which I lived by no longer existed, and that I had nothing to live by . .. .

All that happened with me when I was on every side surrounded by what is consid- ered to be complete happiness. I had a good, loving, and beloved wife, good children, and a large estate, which grew and increased without any labour on my part. I was respected by my neighbours and friends, more than ever before, was praised by strang- ers, and, without any self-deception, could consider my name famous. With all that, I was not deranged or mentally unsound,-on the contrary, I was in full command of my mental and physical powers, such as I had ra rely met with in people of my age: physically I could work in a field, mowing, without fa ll ing behind a peasant; mentally

Figure 9.4 Is life any less meaningful because it is short?

Pessimism: Life Has No Meaning 413

I could work from eight to ten hours in succession, without experiencing any conse- quences from the strain. And while in such condition I arrived at the conclusion that I could not live, and, fearing death, I had to use cunning against myself, in order that I might not take my life.

This mental condi tion expressed itself to me in this form: my life is a stupid, mean t rick played on me by somebody. Although I did not recognize that "somebody" as hav- ing created me, the form of the conception that some one had played a mean, stupid t rick on me by bringing me into the world was the most natura l one that presented itself to me.

Involuntari ly I imagined that there, somewhere, there was somebody who was now having fun as he looked down upon me and saw me, who had lived for thirty or forty years, learning, developing, growing in body and mind, now that I had become strengthened in mind and had reached that summit of life from which it lay all before me, standing as a complete fool on that summit and seeing clearly that there was noth- ing in life and never would be. And that was fun to him-

But whether there was or was not that somebody who made fun of me, did not make i t easier for me. I could not ascribe any sensible meaning to a single act, or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I had not understood that from the start. All that had long ago been known to everybody. Sooner or later there would come diseases and death (they had come already) to my dear ones and to me, and there would be nothing left but stench and worms. All my affairs, no matter what they might be, would sooner or later be forgotten, and I myself should not exist. So why should I worry about all these things? How could a man fail to see that and live,-that was surprising! A person could live only so long as he was drunk; but the moment he sobered up, he could not help seeing that all that was only a deception, and a stupid deception at that! Really, there was nothing funny and ingenious about it, but only something cruel and stupid.'

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), anot her famous pessimist, argues that life is so bereft of meaning and so fraught with misery that the nonexistence of the world is preferable to its existence.

Arthur Schopenhauer, " On the Sufferings of the World"

Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our exis tence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessi ties inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate mis- fortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but mis fo rtune in general is the ru le ... .

The best consolation in misfo rtune or affl iction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consola- t ion open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole!

We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all unconscious of the evil Fate may have presently in store for us- sickness, poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or reason.

3 What bearing, if any, does the ephemeral nature of our existence have on the quest ion of whether life has meaning? Does the fact that we will die negate the possibil ity of meaning in life?

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

-Leo Tolstoy

4 Is Schopenhauer right about the mean- inglessness of life? Does the w retchedness of our existence show that life has no meaning?

414 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

No li ttle part of the torment of existence lies in th is, that Time is con· tinually press ing upon us, never letting us take breath, but a lways coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom ....

Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form the lot of almost all men their whole life long. But if a ll wishes were fu lfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives? what would they do with their time? If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either d ie of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature . .. .

Again, you may look upon life as an unprofi tab le episode, d isturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though th ings have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat . .. .

Figure 9.5 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

If ch ildren were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood.l

Arthur Schopenhauer,

"On the Sufferings of the World"

5 What is Schopen- hauer's argument for the meaninglessness of life? Is his assess- ment of life based on object ive facts or on his distinctive frame of mind?

I have always believed, and I still believe, that what· ever good or bad forcune may come o ur way we can

always give it meaning and transform it inm some· thing of value. -Hermann Hesse II 111111111111111111111II111111 I II I II Ill 1111111

The distinguished atheist la\vyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), defense attorney in the famous Scopes "monkey trial," came to the same conclusion that Tolstoy and

Schopenhauer d id: Life is not worthwhile. "Life is like a ship on the sea," he says, "tossed by every wave and by every wind; a ship headed for no port and no harbor, \vith no rudder, no compass, no p ilot; simply Aoacing for a time, then lose in the waves." 4

Against the pessimists, it has been argued chat most of them have been guilty of

perpetrating the confusion mentioned earlier-mixing up the two senses of mean- ing. Contemporary philosopher Jul ian Baggini explains:

Julian Baggini , What's It All About?

It seems to me that when most people say that life is meaningless, they are talking about meaning in one or both of these senses. They are saying- rightly, in my view- that our lives were not created with any purpose or goal in mind and that there is noth· ing beyond or after life that can provide a purpose for what we do in this life. But to conclude that "therefore life is meaningless" is simply to ignore the many other ways in which life can be meaningfu l. ...

What is missing is the recognition that life can be meaningful if we find it worth living for its own sake, without recourse to further aims, goals or purposes ....

The same kinds of consideration apply when dealing with [existentialist Albert] Camus's question about how we can live life if it is absurd and meaningless. Aga in it is only "meaningless" in certain particular senses of the word ....

Pessimism: Life Has No Meaning 415

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Nietzsche: Reflections on Meaning

Friedrich Wilhelm Nieczsche (1844-1900) lived in the nineteenth century, bur his ideas echoed loudest rhroughour rhe rwencieth, and they resound still, over one hundred years after his passing. Today he is borh reviled and embraced, and he has outraged ,nany-including exponents of Christianity, conce,nporary culture, cradicional morality, democratic socialis,n, and Western philosophy. Among chose who have claimed ro be inspired by his ,vords are Marx- ists, poscmoderniscs, acheiscs, anarchists, fem inises, reactionaries, vegetarians, and Nazis. Sorne have claimed him as one of their own even d1ough he has given chem no explicit reason co (as in the case of che Nazis). The divergent perspectives on his work are due in pare co his writing style, which is mosdy brilliant bur by turns opaque, poetic, aphoristic, vague, and ironic. Bur most debate is over che substance of his views, of which che ,nosr famous (or notorious) are his doctrine of the will co po,ver, his notion of d1e rnighty human being known as che Ubemumch (Overman or Superman), and his claim char "God is dead." On d1ese copies sorne philosophers con- sider hi,n a nihilist, but od1ers reject d1ac characrerizacion, arguing that Nierzsche ,vas concerned about ulcimace meaning and che incellecrual and spiritual vicalizacion ofhurnanity.

Figure 9.6 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900).

Fro,n 1873 ro 1876 Nietzsche produced Untimely Meditations (actually four essays un- der che single tide). In 1879 he resigned his university post because of his fai ling hea lth and spent che following decade ,vricing and ,vandering about lca ly and Switzerland, lonely and in great physica l pain. Our of ch is period came such ,vorks as 1he Wonderer and His Shadow (1880), Daybreak (1881), 1he Gay Science or Joyful Wisdom (1882), Beyond Good and Evil (1887), and 1he Genealogy of Morals (1887). 7hus Spoke Zarathustro, his well-known ,nascer- piece, appeared in che years 1883 co 1885. In 1889, on a street in Turin, he collapsed after seeing a horse being whipped. He spent che remain ing cen years of his life insane, dying in August 1900. By che rime of his death, he was world-reno,vned, and his ,vrirings were the subject of extensive scholarship and controversy.

A central concept of Nietzsche's is rhe will to power, rhe fundamenta l nature of existence as a drive ro control and dominate. The ,viii ro po,ver is nor che rea l world behind appear- ances (as in Descartes), nor ideas in che universa l mind (as in Hegel), nor che w ill ro live, nor the conscious will of God or hu,nans. Jc is life, striving co overco,ne, ro ru le, co break our. All human struggles and striving are manifestations of the will ro power.

To Nietzsche, che will co power is evident in hu,nank ind 's search for kno,vledge, es- pecially in science, ph ilosophy, and religion. "Knowledge," he says, "is an instrument of power." The will ro kno,v arises from che ,viii co power-from che desire co master and control a particular domain of real ity. Rea lity is in Aux, a kaleidoscope of sense data and concepts, and on rh is chaos we cry co irnpose order, theory, and parcern so we can rurn rea lity co our advantage. We do nor seek truth for rruch 's sake. There is only che ,viii ro power char impels us co cry ro ,nake sense of rhe muddle.

416 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

6 Do you th ink many people who say that life is meaning less are assuming that mean- ing refers to external meaning?

7 If we reject the reli - gious view of meaning in life, are we forced to conclude that life is meaning less?

Fairh consists in bei ng virally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name

of God. Whoever rcAccts earnestly on chc meaning ofl ifc is on the verge of an

act of faith. -Paul Tillich

Almost all deniers of meaning in life really seem to be rejecting only the idea that life has a s pecific kind of meaning: one determined by agen ts, purposes or principles somehow external to this world . This does not justify the conclusion that life has no meaning at all. Their pronouncement that "life is meaningless" thus just appears to be a ki nd of hyperbole.s

9.3 OPTIMISM: LIFE CAN HAVE MEANING

Optimises say human existence can be meaningful but are divided on how chis meaning is poss ible. As noted earlier, some bel ieve life's meaning has an external source, and some think it arises internally.

Meaning from Above

Mose of those who cake che externalise approach view che matter from a religious standpoint. Typically, che central doctrine is that a human life has meaning only be- cause it is pare of God's p lan, a grand cosmic o rder that encompasses every entity in che universe. As participants in chis plan, people have a p reeminent role co play a nd a purpose preordained by God. To have a meaningful existence is co align your life ,vich God's plan, either by performing certain duties or by being a particular k ind of person. To live contrary co God's plan is co live a meaningless life. A nd, of cou rse, if there is no God, there is no point co living.

Tolstoy not o nly gave us a glimpse of his fall into pess imism, he also w rote about his gradual acceptance of a deeply religious understanding of life's meaning:

Leo Tolstoy, My Confession

Long ago has been told the Eastern story about the traveller who in the steppe is over- taken by an infuriated beast. Trying to save himself from the animal, the traveller jumps into a waterless well , but at its bottom he sees a dragon who opens his jaws in order to swallow him. And the unfortunate man does not dare cl imb out, lest he perish from the infuriated beast, and does not dare jump down to the bottom of the well , lest he be devoured by the dragon, and so clutches the twig of a wild bush growing in a cleft of the well and ho lds on to it. His hands grow weak and he feels that soon he shall have to surrender to the peri l which awaits him at e ither s ide; but he sti ll ho lds on and sees two mice, one white, the other black, in even measure making a circle around the main trunk of the bush to which he is cl inging, and nibbling at it on all sides. Now, at any moment, the bush will break and tear off, and he will fa ll into the dragon's jaws. The travell er sees that and knows that he will inevitab ly perish; but while he is stil l clinging, he sees some drops of honey hanging on the leaves of the bush, and so reaches out for them with his tongue and licks the leaves. Just so I hold on to the branch of life, know- ing that the dragon of death is waiting inevitably for me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand why I have fallen on such suffe ring. And I try to lick that honey which used to give me pleasure; but now it no longer gives me joy, and the white and

Optimism: life Can Have Meaning 417

the black mouse day and night nibble at the branch to which I am holding on. I clearly see the dragon, and the honey is no longer sweet to me. I see only the inevitable dragon and the mice, and am unable to turn my glance away from them. That is not a fable, but a veritable, indisputable, comprehensible t ruth.

The former deception of the pleasures of life, which stiffed the terror of the dragon, no longer deceives me. No matter how much one should say to me, "You cannot under- stand the meaning of li fe, do not think, live!" I am unable to do so, because I have been doing it too long before. Now I cannot help seeing day and night, which run and lead me up to death. I see that alone, because that alone is the truth. Everything else is a lie.

The two drops of honey that have longest turned my eyes away from the cruel t ruth, the love of family and of authorship, which I have ca lled an art, are no longer sweet to me ....

I lived for a long time in th is madness, which, not in words, but in deeds, is par- t icu larly characteristic of us, the most liberal and learned of men. But, thanks either to my strange, physical love for the real working class, which made me understand it and to see that it is not so stupid as we suppose, or to the sincerity of my conviction which was that I cou ld know nothing and that the best that I cou ld do was to hang myself,- I felt that if I wanted to live and understand the meaning of life, I ought naturally to look for it, not among those who had lost the meaning of li fe and wanted to kill themselves, but among those bill ions departed and living men who had been carrying their own lives and ours upon their shoulders. And I looked around at the enormous masses of deceased and living men,- not learned and wealthy, but simple men,- and I saw something quite different. I saw that all these billions of men that lived or had lived, all, with rare exceptions, d id not fit into my subdivisions, and that I could not recognize them as not understanding the question, because they themselves put it and answered it with surprising clearness. Nor could I recognize them as Epicureans, because their lives were composed rather of privations and suffering than of enjoyment. St ill less could I recognize them as senselessly living out their meaningless lives, because every act of theirs and death itself was explained by them. They regarded it as the greatest evil to kill themselves. It appeared, then, that all humanity was in possession of a knowledge of the meaning of life, which I did not recognize and which I condemned. It turned out that rational knowledge did not give any meaning to life, excluded life, whi le the meaning which by billions of people, by all humanity, was ascribed to life was based on some despised, false knowledge .. . .

Thus, outside the rational knowledge, which had to me appeared as the only one, I was inevitably led to recognize that all living humani ty had a certa in other irrational knowl- edge, faith, which made it possible to live .. . .

8 How do you think Tolstoy would respond to the claim that many people appear to have very meaningful lives? What would he say, for example, about meaning in the life of Mahatma Gandhi or Albert Einstein?

The rational knowledge brought me to the recognition that life was meaningless,-my life stopped, and I wanted to de- stroy myself. When I looked around at people, at all humanity, I saw that people lived and asserted that they knew the mean- ing of life. I looked back at myself: I lived so long as I knew the meaning oflife. As to other people, so even to me, did faith give the meaning of life and the possibility ofl iving .. . .

Then I began to cultivate the acquaintance of the believ- ers from among the poor, the simple and unlettered folk, of

Figure 9.7 Gandhi was not a Christian. Did he never- theless lead a meaningful life? What about Socrates? Einstein?

418 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

Leo Tolstoy, My Confession

Ever more people today have the means to live, but

no meaning to live for. -Viktor E. Fr,nkl

pi lgrims, monks, dissenters, peasants. The doctrine of these people from among the masses was also the Christian doctrine that the quasi-believers of our circle professed. With the Christian truths were also mixed in very many superstitions, but there was this difference: the superstitions of our circle were quite unnecessary to them, had no connection with their lives, were only a kind of an Epicurean amusement, while the superstitions of the believers from among the laboring classes were to such an extent blended with their life that it would have been impossible to imagine it without these superstitions,-it was a necessary condition of that life. I began to examine closely the lives and beliefs of these people, and the more I examined them, the more did I become convinced that they had the real faith, that their faith was necessary for them, and that it alone gave them a meaning and possibili ty of li fe. In contradistinction to what I saw in our circle, where life without faith was poss ible, and where hardly one in a thousand pro- fessed to be a bel iever, among them there was hardly one in a thousand who was not a believer. In contradistinction to what I saw in our circle, where all life passed in idleness, amusements, and tedium of life, I saw that the whole life of these people was passed in hard work, and that they were satisfied with life. In contradistinction to the people of our circle, who struggled and murmured against fate because of their privations and their suffering, these people accepted diseases and sorrows without any perplexity or opposi- tion, but with the calm and firm conviction that it was all for good. In contradistinction to the fact that the more intell igent we are, the less do we understand the meaning of life and the more do we see a ki nd of a bad joke in our suffering and death, these people live, suffer, and approach death, and suffer in peace and more often in joy .... I cast a broader glance about me. I examined the life of past and present vast masses of men, and I saw people who in like manner had understood the meaning of life, who had known how to live and die, not two, not three, not ten, but hundreds, thousands, mil - lions. All of them, infinitely diversified as to habits, intellect, culture, situation, all equally and quite contrary to my ignorance knew the meaning of life and of death, worked calmly, bore privations and suffering, lived and died, seeing in that not vanity, but good.

I began to love those people. The more I penetrated into the ir life, the life of the men now living, and the life of men departed, of whom I had read and heard, the more did I love them, and the easier it became fo r me to live. Thus I lived for about two years, and within me took place a transformation, which had long been working with in me, and the germ of which had always been in me. What happened with me was that the life of our circle,-of the rich and the learned,-not only disgusted me, but even lost all its meaning. All our acts, reAections, sciences, arts ,- all that appeared to me in a new light. I saw that all that was mere pampering of the appetites, and that no mean- ing could be found in it; but the life of all the working masses, of all humanity, which created life, presented itself to me in its rea l significance. I saw that that was li fe itself and that the meaning given to this life was truth, and I accepted it.6

So Tolstoy says he found the true meaning of life through a leap of faith, not through the rational knowledge of his circle of sophisticates. He chose the religious path trod by mi ll ions of the poor and unlearne.d.

Critics of such externalise views argue that the notion of God creating people to be part of his plan is an affront to human dignity, that it's difficult or impossible to kno\v \vhat God's plan is, that his plan may not be as benign and agreeable as bel ievers assume, and that a plan from God imposed on our lives undermines free \viii. They typically deny that death renders life meaningless or that a life can be

Optimism: life Can Have Meaning 419

PHILOSOPHY NOW

Is Religion Necessary for a Meaningful Life?

Rick Warren, author of The Purpo1e-Driven Life and the pastor who delivered the in- vocation at Barack Obaina's 2009 inaugu- ration cere,nony, maintains char religion is required if your life is ro have meaning. "You were made by God and for God," he says, "and unril you understand char, life ,viii never ,nake sense." Is that true?

The results of a Gallup poll ra ise doubts about it. The pollsters surveyed thousands of people in eighry-four countries. They concluded chat "there is some support in Gallup's data for War- ren's premise char rel igious involvement makes devotees rnore likely co feel their lives have a purpose. On the orher hand, the results also suggest chat rel igious in- volvement is nor neceSJary for ,nose people co feel char way." Here are some of the results.

Figure 9.8 Suppose you are not relig ious, yet you have always felt t hat your life has meaning Gust as many atheists believe their lives have meaning). Then someone tells you t hat your l ife cannot possibly have meaning because you are not relig ious. Would you think t he person w as denying t he obvious or speaking t ruth? Why?

Do you feel your life has an imp or tan t mean ing or purpose? A,nong those cla iming any religious affi liation: 92o/o yes; 6% no. A,nong those cla iming co be secular, nonrel igious, atheist, or agnostic: 83% yes; 14% no.

Do you feel your life has an imp or tan t mean ing or purpose? Percentage anS\veringyes: Christian: 93%; Hindu: 92%; Muslim: 91%; Buddhist: 90%; ocher: 89%; Jewish: 88%; secular/acheisc/agnoscic: 83%.

Do you feel your life has an imp or tan t mean ing or purpose? Percentage answering yes: ele,nencary education or less: 88%; secondary education up co three years of tertiary education : 91%; ar least four years of tertiary education: 91%; have a job: 92%; do not have a job: 89%.

Gallup survey, 2007, data from one thousand adults per country across eighryfour popularions; ±4 percentage points sampling error.

Do these results surprise you, or are they what you would expect? Do they

corroborate the idea that people can have a meaningful life without reli- gion? Do they show that meaning in life can arise internally? Explain.

420 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

9 According to Bag- gini, how is God's creating us for his purposes supposed to denigrate human life? Do you agree?

meaningful only if it is immortal. Moreover, some critiques of Tolstoy's view do not depend on a denial of God's existence. Several philosophers have argued that the notion of a God assigning a purpose to humans should be objectionable to believers and no nbelievers a like. This is how Baggini expresses the point:

Julian Baggini, What's It All About?

It is often said that we are here to do God's will. If this were true ... [o]ur lives would have a purpose for the being that created us but not a purpose for us. We would each be li ke Sartre's being-in-itself- an object to be used for the ends of others and not a being-for-itself- a conscious being making choices meaningful for itself. If we found that our sole purpose was to serve God then we might think that was a worse fate than to have no predetermined purpose at all. Is it better to be slaves with a role in the uni- verse or to be free people left to create a role for ourselves?

This view that we are created to serve God is not only objectionable on the grounds that it robs humanity of its d ignity. It also has to be seen as extremely implausible within the world-view of the religions that sometimes propound it. After all , what could seem more unlikely than that the supreme being would feel the need to create human beings, with all the ir complexity, and with a ll the suffering and toil that human li fe entails, solely so that it can have creatures to serve it? This is an image of God as an egotistical tyrant, determined to use its power to surround itself with acolytes and have pra ise heaped upon it. This is not the God which most reli gious bel ievers worship, and so the idea that we are here just to serve such a God is not one that should be seriously countenanced e ither ....

I think that most refl ective reli gious bel ievers would agree that saying God's pur- pose for us is to serve it or live full lives is not adequate. They might prefer to say that the existence of God shows that there must be a purpose, s ince God wouldn't have

Figure 9.9 Baggini asks, "Is it better to be slaves with a role in the universe or to be free people left to create a role for ourselves?"

Optimism: life Can Have Meaning 421

created us without one, but that we do not know what that purpose is. Fa ith requires us to trust God and its purposes for us. As Jesus is reported in John's Gospel to have sa id, "Trust in God; trust a lso in me. In my Father's house are many rooms" (14:1- 2). This is a perfectly coherent pos ition and probably the one most sensible religious bel ievers occupy. But doing so requires an honest acceptance that they have no more idea as to what the purpose of life is than the atheist has.

The leap of faith required to adopt such a pos ition also needs to be clearly under- stood. This is fa ith that a God we cannot know to exist has a purpose we cannot discern for an afterl ife we have no evidence is to come. Further, we would also be trusting that this purpose is one we would be pleased with. If it turned out that our purpose was to fight Satan's hordes for eternity or just to have lived as a beacon of fortitude under duress on earth before dying, we might not be too pleased that God had a purpose for us after all.

A bel ief that we were created by God for a purpose does not then provide us with the kind of adequate account of life's meaning we might expect. Religions are not clear about what th is purpose is. The idea that it is to serve God seems deeply implausible and contrary to most conceptions of God's nature. The idea that it is to live life to the fu ll is a platitude, only turned in to something more by a belief in an afterlife. The idea that God's purpose is something we just have to trust is an admission that we have no answer to the question of why we are here and must leave everything to the unknown .7

Meaning from Below

lncernalists believe they can have meaningful lives without relying on che concepts of God or transcendent realms. They hold chat they can confer meaning on thei r O\vn lives. The proof of chis, they might say, is all a round us. There are many people who seem co lead meaningful lives, and we would judge this co be the case even if we thought no external being or force existed co confer meaning. Consider Socrates, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King., Jr., Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

Marie Curie, George Washington, Confucius, Thomas Aquinas-these men and women, by all accounts, were d riven by a sense of purpose and led lives full of meaning.

Bue exactly what property or state of affairs is che conveyor of meaning? lncernal- ists differ on that score. Here is Paul Ed\vards's view:

Paul Edwards, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy

When we ask whether a particular person's life has or had any meaning, we are usually concerned not with cosmic issues but with the question of whether certain purposes are to be found in his life. Thus, most of us would say without hesitation that a person's life had meaning ifwe knew that he devoted himself to a cause (such as the spread of Chris- tianity or communism or the reform of mental institutions), or we would at least be ready to say that it "acquired meaning" once he became sufficiently attached to his cause. Whether we approve of what they d id or not, most of us would be ready to admit- to take some random examples- that Dorothea Dix, Pasteur, Lenin, Margaret Sanger, An- thony Comstock, and Winston Churchill led meaningful lives. We seem to mean two things in characterizing such lives as meaningful: we assert, first, that the life in question

Religion is the state of be- ing gra.,ped by an ultimate concern, a concern which

qualifies all other concerns a.s preliminary and which itself contains the an\wcr

to rhc qucscio n of a mean~

ing of our life. -Paul Tillich

422 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

Paul Edwards, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find our there isn't} than live my life as if there isn't

and die to find out there is. -Albert Camus

10 Do you agree with Edwards that the length of one's life does not by itself determine whether life is meaningful?

had some dominant, over-all goal or goals which gave direction to a great many of the individual's actions and, second, that these actions and possibly others not immediately related to the overrid ing goal were performed with a special zest that was not present before the person became attached to his goal or that would not have been present if there had been no such goal in his life. It is not necessary, however, that a person should be devoted to a cause, in the sense just indicated, before we call his life meaningful. It is sufficient that he should have some attachments that are not too shallow.'

A common reply to any internalise view is that the prospect of death and the eventual obliteration of a ll human creations rob our lives of meaning. Ho\v can our lives be meaningful, they ask, when life is so short and death is certain? What's the

point of living if everyth ing we a re and do \vill soon sink into nothingness? Many philosophers reject th is d ismal outlook, arguing that the fact of death and

the ephemeral natu re of human endeavors are irrelevant to the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of a person's existence. If life is meaningful, then it is meaningful no

matter ho\v long or short it is. Edwards is one of the philosophers \vho make this point:

Let us consider some everyday occurrences: A man with a toothache goes to a dentist, and the dentist he lps him so that the toothache disappears. A man is fa lsely accused of a crime and is faced with the possibility of a severe sentence as well as with the loss of his reputation; with the help of a devoted attorney his innocence is establ ished, and he is acquitted. It is true that a hundred years later all of the participants in these events will be dead and none of them will then be able to enjoy the fruits of any of the efforts involved. But this most emphaticall y does not imply that the dentist's efforts were not worthwhile or that the attorney's work was not worth doing. To bring in considerations of what will or will not happen in the remote future is, in [this and other] human s itua- tions , totally irrelevant. Not only is the finality of death irrelevant here; equally irrelevant are the facts, if they are facts, that life is an endless cycle of the same kind of activities and that the history of the universe is not a drama with a happy ending.9

Internalises can be divided into two camps: those \vho bel ieve that meaning is something they create (subjectivists) and those who think meaning is something they discover (objectivists).

Among the subjectivists, \Ve can count not only Baggini and Edwards, but also the philosophers R. M. Hare (1919-2002), Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), R ichard Taylor (1919-2003), Kai Nielsen, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Robert Solomon (1942-2007), E. D. Klemke (1926-2000), and Lucretius (c. 100-55 BC).

For subjectivists, meaning is relative to each person and depends on his or her attitudes, desires, and goals. So subjectivists m ight say their lives are meaningful if they do \vhat they deem most important or satisfy thei r strongest desires or act out of love or concern. A common criticism of subjectivist views is that it's intuitively obvious that sometimes objective standards apply. If satisfying our strongest desires leads to obviously immoral or t rivial acts, subjectivism is implausible. Things aren't meaningful just because we say they are.

The classic example of a subjectivist is Sartre. As one of the modern founders of existentialism, he argues that humans are profoundly free to create their O\vn lives and thus are entirely responsible for defining the meaning and moral relevance of

Optimism: life Can Have Meaning 423

their existence. There are no objective standards to define what is and is not mean- ingful for them. "Man," he says, "is noth ing else but what he makes of himself."

Consider these two subjectivists who lived two mi llennia apart but came to much the same conclusion about meaning in life. E. D. Klemke, editor of the highly regarded anthology The Meaning of Life, was an astute subjectivist philosopher. In a well-kno\vn essay, "Living Without Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life," he responded to those who claim that (1) there exists a "transcendent ultimate" (a deity, for example) with which we can have a relationship through faith; (2) \Vithout such an entity and faith in it, life is meaningless; and (3) without such meaning, life is not worth\vhile.

Regarding the fi rst claim, he asks what evidence supports it. The assertions of some sacred text prove nothing, he says, since they prove only that "someone believed that a t ranscendent ultimate exists." Like\vise the testimony of large numbers of be- lievers proves noth ing. The traditional arguments for the existence of a god all fail to provide reasons for believing, and arguments from rel igious experience can prove no more than that "someone has had an unusual experience." He concludes that there is zero evidence for the existence of a transcendent anything.

As to the second claim-that without faith in the transcendent, human existence is without meaning-Klemke anS\vers by distinguishing benveen objective meaning and subjective meaning. An objective meaning is one that is either structurally part of the universe (apart from human evaluation) or dependent on some nonhuman external agency. If there is objective meaning, he says, there is no reason why it must be linked to a transcendent being. But even more important, "I find the notion of an objective meaning as difficult to accept as I do the notion of a t ranscendent being. It seems to me that there is no shred of evidence for the existence of an objective mean- ing in the universe .... From the standpoint of present evidence, evaluational com- ponents such as meaning or purpose are not to be found in the universe as objective aspects of it."1° Klemke also rejects the related claims that subjective meaning is pos- sible but only through the transcendent, or that even subjective meaning is impossible without fa ith in the transcendent. He says of the latter assertion, "I know of many humans \vho have found a meaningful existence without faith in the transcendent.""

In response to the th ird claim-that without meaning, life is not worth\vhile- Klemke says that it confuses objective and subjective meaning. He says that indeed life has no objective meaning, "but from th is it does not follow that life is not worth- while, for it can still be subjectively meaningful. ... I, for one, am glad that the uni- verse has no meaning, for thereby is man all the more glorious. I will ingly accept the fact that external meaning is non-existent (or if existent, cer tainly not apparent), for this leaves me free to forge my own meaning."'2 He declares that he has found subjec- t ive meaning th rough knowledge, art, love, and work, for \Vith his consciousness, he can endow events, objects, and persons \Vith value.

Lucretius, a Roman poet and philosopher, believes that life can be meaningful even in a completely materialistic universe bereft of the supernatural. He is best kno\vn for a seven-thousand-line poem on science and philosophy called The Nature of Things, or De rerum natura, a masterpiece that has influenced many th inkers throughout the centuries as \veil as in modern life.

424 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

Lucretius was an atomist. Two mi llennia ago some philosophers argued that the \vorld consists entirely of atoms moving in space, just as modern science has sho\vn us. He decla res that everything-humans, animals, the earth, the stars, the sun-is made of atoms. The universe is infinite and entirely material. There is no des igner \vho created everything. The universe is eternal; it has always been here. Things have come about through t he laws of nature and chance. The soul is also material, which means that it d ies just as the body does. There is no afte.rlife; the present world is all \Ve have.

This view may seem d reary, but Lucretius thinks the opposite. Because death is final, we nee.d not fear it, because we wi ll not be present to confront it. As he says, "Death is nothing to us." There wi ll be no pain, anguish, or torment after death.

Religion causes pain, Lucretius says, because it instills a fear of everlasting tor- ment or some other uncertain fate after death. Religion causes anxiety because it teaches superstitions about mischief or terror caused by demons, angels, or ghosts. Religion d iscourages the pursuit of happiness and pleasure, when these things should be central to our lives. Religion causes ruin when it holds out the false hope of mi- raculously transcend ing our finite lives. The most famous line of Lucretius's poem refers to a particularly evil act performed in the name of religion. He says, "So potent \vas religion in persuading to do wrong."

Lucretius \vasn't an atheist exactly, for he bel ieved there \vere gods, but he thought the gods had no interest in, and nothing to do \Vith, humans. To be truly happy, he says, we must dispel illusions about our ability to live forever, find perfect satisfac- tion, control events, and be the center of the universe's attention. By avoid ing these delusions, we can attain a realistic measure of happiness, even joy.

Lucretius decla res that we can experience a sense of awe, gratit ude, and rever- ence when \Ve see that the universe is beautiful and boundlessly complex. We are made of the same st uff as stars and seas and trees and clouds. We humans are all connected-to each other and to every part of t he cosmos. We also experience a\ve \vhen \Ve contemplate the mysteries that science reveals, and we feel the del ight of discovery \vhen \Ve solve those mysteries.

Lucretius bel ieves that the meaning of li fe can be found in pleasure-seeking that is rational and realistic. O ne of his disciples said that it is not possible to live a life of pleasure '\vithout living prudently and honorably and justly, and also \vithout living courageously and temperately and magnanimously, and without making friends, and without being philanthropic."

For objectivists, meaning is mind-independent. Objectively \VOrthwhile activi- ties or states convey objective meaning that everyone can recognize as such. If a li fe is meaningful, it is so because it has objective value, not because of someone's subjec- tive preferences or desi res. An objectivist might say that helping others and creating art are generally believe.cl to give meaning to life, and the best explanation for such bel iefs is objectivism-some things are inherently \VOrthwhile.

Notable objectivisrs include James Rachels (1941-2003), Susan Wolf, Terry Eagleton, John G. Messerly, Christopher Belshaw, Thaddeus Metz, Victor Frankl (1905-1997), and Moritz Schlick (1882-1936).

Optimism: life Can Have Meaning 425

Susan Wolf, philosopher and author of Meaning in Life and Why ft Matters, argues chat meaning in life muse consist of both subjective and objective elements. As she says, "Meaningful lives are lives of active engagement in projects of \vorch."13

Active engagement is involvement in something that grips or excites a person, some- thing that arouses passion. Bue chis subjective response alone is not enough co add significant meaning co someone's life. Mere passion about an activity is, in itself, insufficient co contribute meaningfulness co a life. The passion muse be directed at projeccs that are in themselves worth\vhile. "What is clear co me," she says, "is chat there can be no sense co che idea of meaningfulness without a distinction benveen more and less \vorchwhile ways co spend one's time, \vhere che cesc of \vorch is at lease parcly independent of a subject's ungrounded preferences or enjoymenc."14

This vie\v belies che often-expressed notion chat what someone does doesn't mat- ter as long as che person enjoys it or prefers it or gees satisfaction out of it. Coun- terexamples abound. People do wonder sometimes if an activity they enjoy is in face worth\vhile. Some people \vich satisfying lives do feel that their existence is meaningless.

Wolf lists some of che activities chat seem objectively \vorchwhile: "Moral and incelleccual accomplishmencs and che ongoing activities chat lead co chem. Re- lationships \vich fr iends and relatives are perhaps even more important for most of us. Aesthetic enterprises (both creative and appreciative), the cult ivation of personal virtues, and religious practices frequencly loom large." She sums up her vie\v in a slogan: "Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective att ract iveness. "15

The contemporary philosopher Christopher Belsha\v, another objeccivisc, exam- ines some of che reasons chat lead people co think life may be meaningless. Perhaps life is meaningless because it is so brief, because we and our world are so minuscule compare.cl co the inconceivably vase cosmos, because life for us is so filled \vich misery and loss, and because there is no god or creator co give us a purpose or plan for living. Bue, Belshaw says, none of these reasons shows chat life is meaningless. Why should the brevity of life or our relative size matter? These faces seem irrelevant. Yes, life is fraught with suffering, but it also contains moments of joy and satisfaction. And as for being pare of God's plan, Belshaw wonders if our worries about the meaningless- ness or pointlessness of our lives are really going co be put co rest because God has a scheme into which \Ve fie. "Are we really going co be satisfied by finding that \Ve fie into someone else's grand scheme?" Belshaw asks. "There's some sore of meaning and purpose in chis, but is it che sore \Ve wanc?"16

He suggests that \vhac we really \vane is our O\vn meaning that we find for our- selves. Bue the meaning can't be completely subjective; meaning cannot be \vhacever we chink it is. "Whether or not your life is successful depends on ho\v it matches up against certain external criteria," Belsha\v says. "le doesn't depend simply on how you feel about it. And I think it's the same for \vhecher your life is meaningful. Here, coo, thinking doesn't make it so."17

What are some of che things chat objectively matter? "Relationships," he says, "pursuing some plan or project, living a good life."18

426 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

Review Notes

9.1 OVERVIEW: PH ILOSOPHY AND THE MEAN ING OF LIFE

• Mose \vho have thought about it believe chat questions concerning the meaning of human existence are extremely important and relevant.

• The process of examining the question of life's meaning is personal-no one can do it for you.

• The main impediment co clear chinking about life's meaning is confusion about \vhac meaning refers co. The word can refer co external meaning or internal meaning.

9.2 PESSIMISM: LIFE HAS NO MEANING

• Pessimists believe chat life has no meaning; optimists believe chat it does. Some optimises bel ieve that life's meaning is external; other optimists chink it's internal.

• Tolstoy (at one point in his life), Schopenhauer, and Darro\v are pessimists. Baggini thinks they mix up the two senses of meaning, so when they say, "Life is meaning- less," they likely mean only chat life has no meaning in the external sense.

9.3 OPTIM ISM: LIFE CAN HAVE MEANING

• Mose of those \vho cake the externalise approach view the matter from a rel igious standpoint. Typically, they believe that a human life has meaning only because it is part of God's plan. Tolstoy cook chis view and maintained that finding meaning in life requi res a leap of faith.

• Unbel ievers \vould insist the religious vie\v of meaning be backe.d by reasons and argumen ts. Several philosophers have argued chat the notion of a God assigning a purpose co humans should be objectionable co believers and nonbelievers alike. They maintain chat chis idea of God creating people for a purpose is an affront co human dignity.

• lncernalists believe they can have meaningful lives without relying on the concepts of God or transcendent realms. They hold chat they can confer meaning on their own lives. lncernalists can be subjectivists or objecciviscs.

• Many philosophers reject the notion that death robs people of meaning in life. They argue that the fact of death and the ephemeral nature of human endeavors are irrelevant co the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of a person's existence. If li fe is meaningful, then it is meaningful no matter ho\v long or short it is.

Review Notes 427

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

What Can and Cannot Give Life Meaning?

Here is a quiz co help you assess your views on life's ,neaning. For each scacemenc below, indi- cate whether you agree or disagree ,vich it (or have no opinion on it). This is che easy pare. The 1nore d ifficult cask is to support your beliefs with good arguments or evidence. This exercise asks you co specify not what has caused your beliefs, but what justifies chem.

I. Unless there is an eternal afterlife, hu,nan life can have no meaning. 2. Life has 1neaning only if there is a God ,vho has created us for a purpose. 3. Life has 1neaning if you are happy. 4. Life has no meaning and no purpose. 5. Having a ,neaningful or purposefu l life does not maccer; ,vhac maccers is the next life

of everlasting bliss. 6. People cannot give 1neaning co their o,vn lives; life's meaning is derived from God or

some ocher transcendental reality. 7. A study of people past and present would show chat some of che1n live or have lived

meaningful lives, and ch is sense of ,neaning does not depend on their bel ief in God. 8. Death has no bearing on ,vhecher ,ve can live meaningful lives. 9. The eventua l obliteration of everything ,ve have created or strived for is irrelevant co

,vhecher our lives can be ,neaningfu l. JO. The notion chat God has assigned co humans a purpose or plan co live by is an affront

to human dignity. 11. Without a cranscendencal reality and hu,naniry's relationship co it through faith, hu-

man life is meaningless. 12. Some ,noral, aeschecic, or intellectual goa ls or endeavors are enough co confer ,neaning

on one's life. 13. As Tolstoy says, a ,neaningful life requires a leap of faith. 14. People ,vho cruse chat God has a plan for their lives have no understanding of ,vhar the

purpose of their lives is. 15. Socrates, Mahanna Gandhi, Marie Curie, and Confucius led mean ingful lives.

Figure 9.10 Det ermining w hether your life has meaning usually requires a broad, encompassing view of t hings.

428 Chapter 9 The Meaning of life

WRITING TO UNDERSTAND:

ARGUING YOUR OWN VIEWS CHAPTER 9

1. Devise an argument for the proposition that life is (or is not) meaningful.

2. Explain Tolstoy's case for bel ieving that life can have meaning through a leap of faith-then sho\v how skeptics have argued against Tolstoy's vie\v. C-onclude by stating which side in th is cont roversy you think is stronger.

3. Some maintain that \Ve are here to do God's will . Lay out an argu- ment showing that such a purpose would or would not make life meaningful.

4. State \vhether you believe that Socrates and Marie Curie led meaning- ful lives. Give reasons for your asser tion.

5. Does the prospect of death undermine life's meaningfulness? Give reasons for your answer.

The Good Brahmin 429

FICTION

The Good Brahmin

Voltaire

Voltaire (1694- 1778), a French philosopher and writer, was one of the most impor- tant thinkers of his day. He was the author of both fiction and nonfiction, including Candide, Treatise on Tolerance, and Philosophical Dictionary.

On my travels I met an old Brahmin, a very wise man, of marked intellect and great learning. Furthermore, he was rich and, consequently, all the wiser, because, lacking nothing, he needed to deceive nobody. His household was very well managed by three handsome women who set themselves out to please him. When he was not amusing himself with his women, he passed the time in philosophizing. Near his house, which was beautifu lly decorated and had charming gardens at- tached, there lived a narrow-minded old Indian woman: she was a simpleton, and rather poor.

Said the Brahmin to me one day: "I wish I had never been born!" On my asking why, he answered: "I have been studying forty years, and that is forty years wasted. I teach others and myself am ignorant of every- thing. Such a state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust that my life is intolerable. I was born in Time, I li ve in Time, and yet I do not know what Time is. I am at a point between two eternities, as our wise men say, and I have no conception of eternity. I am composed of matter: I th ink, but I have never been able to learn what produces my thought. I do not know whether or not my understanding is a simple faculty inside me, such as those of walking and digesting, and whether or not I think with my head as I grip with my hands. Not only is the cause of my thought unknown to me; the cause of my actions is equally a mystery. I do not know why I exist, and yet every day people ask me questions on all these points. I have to reply, and as I have nothing really worth saying I talk a great deal, and am ashamed of myself afterward for having talked.

"It is worse still when I am asked if Brahma was born of Vishnu or if they are both eternal. God is my witness that I have not the remotest idea, and my igno- rance shows itself in my replies. 'Ah, Holy One,' people say to me, 'tell us why evil pervades the earth.' I am in

Voltaire, "The Good Brahmin," from The Portable Voltaire, ed. Ben Ray Redman (New York: Viking Penguin, 1949, 1977).

as great a difficulty as those who ask me this question. Sometimes I tell them that everything is as well as can be, but those who have been ruined and broken in the wars do not believe a word of it- and no more do I. I retire to my home stricken at my own curiosity and ignorance. I read our ancient books, and they double my darkness. I talk to my companions: some answer me that we must enjoy li fe and make game of mankind; others think they know a lot and lose themselves in a maze of wild ideas. Everything increases my anguish. I am ready sometimes to despair when I th ink that after all my seeking I do not know whence I came, whither I go, what I am nor what I shall become."

The good man's condition really worried me. No- body was more rational or more sincere than he. I per- ceived that his unhappiness increased in proportion as his understanding developed and his insight grew.

The same day I saw the old woman who lived near him. I asked her if she had ever been troubled by the thought that she was ignorant of the nature of her soul. She did not even understand my question. Never in all her li fe had she reflected for one single moment on one single poin t of all those which tormented the Brahmin. She believed with all her heart in the metamorphoses of Vishnu and, provided she could obtain a little Gan- ges water wherewith to wash hersel f, thought herself the happiest of women.

Struck with this mean creature's happiness, I re- turned to my wretched philosopher. "Are you not ashamed," said I, "to be unhappy when at your very door there lives an old automaton who th inks about nothing, and yet lives contentedly?"

"You are right," he replied. "I have told myself a hundred times that I should be happy if I were as brainless as my neighbor, and yet I do not desire such happiness."

My Brahmin's answer impressed me more than all the rest. I set to examining myself, and I saw that in truth I would not care to be happy at the price of being a simpleton.

430 Chapter 9 The Meaning of Life

I put the matter before some philosophers, and they were of my opinion. "Nevertheless," said I, "there is a tremendous contradiction in this mode of thought, for, after all , the problem is- how to be happy. What does it matter whether one has brains or not? Further those who are contented with their lot are certain of their con- tentment, whereas those who reason are not certain that they reason correctly. It is quite clear, therefore," I continued, "that we must choose not to have common sense, however li ttle common sense may contribute to

Probing Questions

our discomfort." Everyone agreed with me, but I found nobody, notwithstanding, who was willing to accept the bargain of becoming a simpleton in order to become contented. From which I conclude that if we consider the question of happiness we must consider still more the question of reason.

But on reflection it seems that to prefer reason to felicity is to be very senseless. How can this contradic- t ion be explained? Like all the other contradictions. It is matter for much talk.

I. The concemplacive Brahm in is unhappy and haunted by the question of the ,neaning of life. The old ,voman is unreflective and contented. Which person ,vould you rather be? Why?

2. Does chis story suggest chat happiness is essential if you ,vane your life co be meaningful? Are happiness and meaningfulness che sa,ne thing?

3. Can a person be miserable and still live a ,neaningful life? If so, how? Can a person be happy and live a life ,vichouc meaning?

For Further Read ing

Julian Baggini, What's ft All About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). An excellent p rimer on meaning in life; argues chat meaning can have an internal source.

Kurt Baier, "The Meaning of Life," in The Meaning of Life: A Reader, E. D. Klemke and Steven M. Cahn, eds. (New York: Oxford Univers ity Press, 2008), 82-113. A classic essay on che basic issues.

E. D. Klemke and Steven M. Cahn, eds., The Meaning of Life: A Reader (New York: Oxford Univers ity Press, 2008). A good anthology featuring most of the muse-read ar ticles.

John E. Messerly, The Meaning of Life (Washington Scace: Durant & Russell, 2012). A su rvey of religious, philosophical, and scienti fic perspectives.

Bertrand Russell, "A Free Man's Worsh ip," in Wiry I Am Not a Christian (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957). A much-anthologized essay by che famous cwenciech- cencury philosopher; d iscusses how life can have meaning in a godless ,vorld.

APPENDIX A: THE TRUTH ABOUT PHILOSOPHY MAJORS

................................................................................ ._ ......... . .... ._ ............... __. .................. .._ ................ __. ................................. __. ...... __. ............ __. ..................... .......... . ....... ._ .................. ............. ...... ..... .. .

Here's the inaccurate, old-school way of thinking: • Philosophy majors have no marketable skills; they are unemployable. • They are unprepared for professional careers in anything but teaching

philosophy. • They are useless in an economy built on exploding tech, speed-of-light

innovation, and market· \vrenching globalization. • They are destined co earn low salaries.

Here's the new reality: All these assumptions are FALSE.

CAREERS

A wide range of data suggest chat philosophy majors are not just highly employable; they are thriving in many careers chat used co be considered unsuitable for chose holding " impractical" philosophy degrees. The unemployment race for recent BA philosophy graduates is 4.3 percent, lower than the national average and lower than that for majors in biology, chemical engineering, graphic des ign, mathematics, and economics.'

Nowadays most philosophy majors don't gee PhDs in philosophy; they instead land jobs in many fields outside academia. They \vork in business consulting firms, guide investors on Wall Street, lead teams of innovators in Silicon Valley, do hu· manicarian work for nongovernmenc organizations, go into policies, and cover the world as journalises. They teach, \vrice, design, publish, create. They go co medical school, la\v school, and graduate school in everything from arc and architecture co education, business, and computer science. (Of course, besides majoring in phil- osophy, scudenrs can also minor in it, combining a philosophy BA with ocher BA programs, or cake philosophy courses co round out other majors or minors.)

Many successful companies-especially those in the tech \vorld-don'c see a philosophy degree as impractical at all. To be competitive, they wane more than just engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. They also \vane people with broader, big-picture skills-people who can think cricically, question assumptions, formulate and defend ideas, develop unique perspectives, devise and evaluate arguments, write effectively, and analyze and simplify complicated problems. And these competencies are abundant in people \vich a philosophy background.

Plenty of successful business and tech leaders say so. Speaking of her under· graduate studies, Carly Fiorina, philosophy major and eventual chief executive of

431

432 Appendix A: The Truth about Ph ilosophy Majors

Photo 1: Carly Fiorina, businessperson and po li t ical figure Photo 2: St ewart Butter field, cofounder of Flickr and Slack Photo 3: Sheila Bair, ninet eent h chair of t he FDIC Photo 4: Katy Tu r, author and broadcast journalist for NBC News Photo S: Damon Horowit z, ent repreneur and in -house ph ilosopher at Google

He\vlett-Packard, says, "I learned how to separate the \vheat from the chaff, essential from just interesting, and I think that's a particularly critical skill now when there is a ton of interesting but ultimately irrelevant information floating around."2

Flickr and Slack cofounder Stewart Butterfield, who has both bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy, says, "I think if you have a good background in \vhat it is to be human, an understanding of li fe, culture and society, it gives you a good perspective on starting a business, instead of an education purely in business. You can always pick up ho\v to read a balance sheet and ho\v to figure out profit and loss, but it's harder to pick up the other stuff on the Ry."3

Sheila Bair got her philosophy degree from the University of Kansas and went on to become chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 2006 to 2011. She says that philosophy "helps you break things do\vn to their simplest elements. My philosophy training really helps me with that intellectual rigor of simplifying things and find ing out what's important.'"

Philosophy: A Natural Segue to Law and Medicine La\v schools \vi ii tell you that a major in philosophy provides excellent preparation for law school and a career in law. Philosophy excels as a pre-law major because it teaches you the very proficiencies that la\v schools require: developing and evaluating arguments, writing carefully and clearly, applying principles and rules to specific cases, sorting out evidence, and understanding ethical and political norms. Philosophy majors do very \vell on the LSAT (Law School Admission Test), typi- cally scoring higher than the vast majority of other majors.

Philosophy has also proven itself to be good preparation for medical school. Critical reasoning is as important in medicine as it is in law, but the study and practice of medicine requires something else-expertise in grappling \Vith the vast array of moral questions that now confront doctors, nurses, medical scientists, administrators, and government of- ficials. These are, at their core, philosophy questions.

David Silbersweig, a Harvard Medical School professor, makes a good case for philosophy (and all the liberal arts) as an essential part of a \vell-rounded medical education. As he says,

If you can get through a one-sentence paragraph of Kant, hold ing all of

irs ideas and clauses in juxtaposition in your mind, you can think through

,nost anything .... I discovered that a philosophic.a l seance and approach could identify and inform core issues associated ,vich everything from sci-

entific advances to hea ling and biomedica l ethics.5

Appendix A: The Truth about Philosophy Majors 433

Philosophy major and NBC journalist Katy Tur says, "I would argue that for the vast majority of people, an education of teaching you to th ink critically about the world you are in and what you know and what you don't know is useful for absolutely ev- erything that you could possibly do in the future.'>6

It's little wonder, then, that the top ranks of leaders and innovators in business

and technology have their share of philosophy majors, a fair number of whom credit their success to their philosophy background. The list is long, and it includes7:

Patrick Byrne, entrepreneur, e-commerce pioneer, founder and CEO of Overstock.com

Damon Horowitz, entrepreneur, in-house philosopher at Google Carl Icahn, businessman, investor, philanthropist Larry Sanger, Internet project developer, cofounder of Wikipedia George Soros, investor, business magnate, philanthropist Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, cofounder of Pay Pal Jeff Weiner, CEO of Linkedln

Of course, there are also many \vith a philosophy background who are famous for their achievements outside the business world. This list is even longer and includes:

Wes Anderson, filmmaker, screenwriter (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court justice Mary H iggins Clark, novel ist (All By Myself, Awne) Ethan Coen, filmmaker, d irector Stephen Colbert, comedian, TV host Angela Davis, social activist Lana Del Rey, singer, songwriter Dessa, rapper, singer, poet Ken Follett, author (Eye of the Needle, Pillars of the Earth) Harrison Ford, actor Ricky Gervais, comedian, creator of The Office Philip Glass, composer Rebecca Ne\vberger Goldstein, author (Plato at the Googleplex) Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama Chris Hayes, MSNBC host Kazuo Ishiguro, Nobel Prize-winning author (The Remains of the Day) Phil Jackson, NBA coach Thomas Jefferson, U.S. president Charles R. Johnson, novelist (Middle Passage) Rashida Jones, actor Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader John Le\vis, civil rights activist, congressman Terrence Malick, fi lmmaker, director (The Thin Red Line) Yann Martel, author (Lift of Pi)

Photo 6: Larry Sanger, Internet p roject developer, cofounder of Wikipedia Photo 7: Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court justice Photo 8: Stephen Colbert, comedian, TV host Photo 9: Angela Davis, social activist Photo 10: Lana Del Rey, singer and songwriter Photo 11: Chris Hayes, MSNBC host Photo 12: Rashida Jones, actor

434 Appendix A: The Truth about Phi losophy Majors

Photo 13: Martin Luther King Jr., civil r ights leader Photo 14: John Lewis, civil rights act ivist, congressman Photo 15: Terrence Malick, f ilmmaker, di rector Photo 16: Yann Mart el, aut hor (Life of P11 Photo 17: Deepa Mehta, d irector, screenwriter (Fire) Photo 18: Susan Sont ag, aut hor, MacArthur Fellow

Deepa Mehta, director, screenwriter (Fire, Water) Iris Murdoch, author (Under the Net) Robert Parris Moses, e.ducacor, civil righcs leader Scone Phillips, broadcaster Susan Sarandon, actor Susan Sontag, author (Against Interpretation), MacArthur Fello\v David Souter, Supreme Court justice Alex Trebek, hose of jeopardy! George F. Will, journalise, author (Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball) Juan Will iams, journalise

Philosophy Majors and the GRE Philosophy majors score higher than all other majors on the Verbal Rea- soning and Analytical Writing sections of che GRE (Graduate Record Examinations).

Verbal Quan titative Analytic Reasoning Reasoning Writing

Phi losophy 160 154 4 .3

Average 149.97 152.57 3.48

Educational Testing Service, 2017 GRE Scores, between July 1, 2013 and June 30. 2016.

SALARIES

According co recent surveys by PayScale, a major source of college salary informa- tion, philosophy majors can expect co earn a median starting salary of $44,800 and a median mid-career salary of $85, I 00. As you might expect, most of che higher sala- ries go co STEM graduates (those with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics). Bue in a surprising number of cases, salaries for philosophy majors are comparable co chose of STEM graduates. For example, while che philosophy graduate earns $85, 100 at mid-career, che mid-career salary for biotechnology is $82,500; for civil engineering, $83,700; for chemistry, $88,000; for industrial tech- nology, $86,600; and for applied computer science, $88,800. Median end-of-career salaries for philosophy majors (ten co nineteen years' experience) is $92,665-noc che highest pay among college graduates, but far h igher than many philosophy-is- useless critics \vould expecc.8

Another factor co consider is the increase in salaries over time. O n this score, philosophy majors rank in the cop ten of all majors with che highest salary increase from scare co mid-career, at JOI percent. The major with che highest increase: gov- ernment, at 118 percent. Molecular biology is che fifth highest, at 105 percenc.9

Appendix A: The Truth about Philosophy Majors 435

Salary Potential for Bachelor's Degrees Median Median

Major Early Pay Mid-Career Pay

{0-5 yrs. (10+ yrs. work experience) work experience)

Mechanical Engineering $58,000 $90,000

Applied Computer Science $53,100 $88,800

Information Technology $52,300 $86,300

Civil Engineering $51,300 $83,700

Business and Finance $48,800 $91, 100

Biotechnology $46,100 $82,500

Business Marketing $45,700 $78,700

Philosophy $44,800 $85,100 History $42,200 $75,700

Advertising $41,800 $84,200

General Science $41,600 $75,200

Telecommunications $41,500 $83,700

English Literature $41,400 $76,300

Marine Biology $37,200 $76,000

PayScale. "H ighest Paying Bachelor Degree, by Salary Potential," 2017-2018 CollrgrSala7 Report, h ct ps://w ww. pay sc.a le .com/ col lege-sa la ry-report/majors-that-pay-you-ba:c k/bache lo rs.

And among liberal arrs majors, philosophy salaries are near the cop of the list. All liberal arcs majors except economics earn lower starting and mid-career pay than philosophy does.

Salary Potential for Liberal Arts Bachelor Degrees

Major

Economics

Philosophy Political Science

Modern Languages

Median Early Pay

{0-5 yrs. work experience)

$54, 100

$44,800

$44,600

$43,900

Median Mid-Career Pay

(10+ yrs. work experience)

$103,200

$85,100

$82,000

$77,400

436 Appendix A: The Truth about Philosophy Majors

Salary Potential for Liberal Arts Bachelor Degrees (continued)

(0-5 yrs. (IO+ yrs. work experience) work experience)

Geography $43,600 $72,700

History $42,200 $75,700

English literature $41,400 $76,300

Anthropology $40,500 $63,200

Creative Writ ing $40,200 $68,500

Theatre $39,700 $63,500

Psychology $38,700 $65,300

Fine Art $38,200 $62,200

PayScale, "Highest Paying Bachelor Degree, by Salary Potential." 2017-2018 Coll,g, Sala,, &port, ht t ps:// www. pa ysc.a le .com/ college-sa I a ry-repo r t1 majors-that-pay-you-back/bachelors.

MEANING

In all this talk about careers, salaries, and superior test scores, we should not forget that for many students, the most important reason for majoring in philosophy is the meaning it can add to thei r lives. They know that philosophy, after two-and-one-half mi llennia, is still alive and relevant and influential. It is not only for studying but also for living-for guiding our lives toward what's true and real and valuable. They ,vould insist that philosophy, even with irs ancient lineage and seemingly remote concerns, applies to your life and your times and your world. The ,vorld is full of students and teachers ,vho can attest to these claims. Perhaps you wi ll eventually decide to join them.

RESOURCES

American Philosophic.al Association, "Who Studies Philosophy?" http://www.apaonline.org/?whostudies philosophy.

BestColleges.com. "'Best Careers for Philosophy Majors," 2017, http://www.besccolleges.com/careers/ ph ilosophy-majo,s/.

George Anders, "That 'Useless' liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hotcest T icket," ForbN, July 29, 2015, h ttps:// w ww. fo rbes. co mis i tes/ georgea nders/2 0 I 5/07 /2 91 Ii be ral-arts-degree-tee h/ #5 fb6d7 4 07 4 5d.

Laura Tucker. '"\'7hac Can I Do with a Philosophy Degree?" TopUni\fersities.com. March 2, 2015. h ttps:// w ww. copu n i ve rsi c ies. com /st uden t-i n fo/ ca reers-ad vice! wha L- ca n-you-do-ph i losoph y-degree.

University of Cali fornia, Sal\ Diego. Department of Philosophy. "What Can I Do with a Philosophy Degree?" h tcps:// philosophy. ucsd .edu/ undergrad ua ce/caree rs. hem I.

University of Maryland, Department of Philosophy. '"Careers for Philosophy Majors," http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/undergraduate/careers.

Universicy ofNonh Carolina ac Chapel Hill, Department of Philosophy, · why Major in Philosophy?" http:// ph i Josoph y .u nc .ed u1 u nde rg rad ua tel the-major/ wh y-major-i n-ph i Josoph y/.

APPENDIX B: ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

................................. --........... ._ ............................... ._ ......... . .............. . ....................... __. .......................... __. ......... __.__. ........ __.__. ......... __. ................ __. .......... __._ ........ __._ ........ ·-----· ... __._. .... __. . .._ ...... ......... .

EXERCISE 1.1

1. Argument. Conclusion: Faster-than-light t ravel is not possible. Premise: Faster-than-light travel ,vould violate a law of nature.

2. Argument.

Conclusion: Therefore, you are not fit to serve in your current capacity. Premise: You have neglected your du ty on several occasions. Premise: You have been absent from work too many times.

3. No argument.

4 . Argument. Conclusion: The Au epidemic o n the East Coast is real. Premise: Government health officials say so. Premise: And I personally have read at least a dozen ne,vs stories that charac-

terize the situatio n as a "Au epidemic."

5. No argument.

6. Argument. Conclusion: Current-day Christians use violence to spread their right-to-life

message. Premise: These Christians, often referred to as the religious r ight, a re well

known for violent demonstrations against Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics.

Premise: Doctors and other personnel are threatened w ith death. Premise: Clinics have been bombed.

Premise: There have even been cases of doctors being murdered.

7. No argument.

8. No argument.

9. Argument. Conclusion: Witches are real. Premise: They are ment ioned in the Bible. Premise: There are many people today who claim to be witches. Premise: Histo rical records reveal that there were w itches in Salem.

10. No argument.

437

438 Appendix B: Answers to Exercises

EXE RC I SE 1.2

1. C,onclusion: The idea that God is required to be the enfo rcer of the mora l law

is not p lausible. Premises: (4) In the fi rst p lace, as an empirical hypothesis about the psychol-

ogy of human beings, it is questionable. (5) There is no unambig uous evidence that theists a re more moral than nontheists. (6) Not o nly have psychological studies failed to find a significant correlation between fre- quency of religious worship and mo ral conduct, but convicted criminals are much more likely to be theists than atheists. (7) Second, the threat of divine punishment cannot impose a mora l obligation. (8) Might does not

make right.

2. Conclusion: (I) When [Gillespie) refers to [President Bush) as "the mi ll ion-

aire president who waited out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National G uard," it reminds me of the garbage rhetoric that I might see if I ,vere reading Ted Rall, or Susan Sontag, or one of the other hate-mongering, America-bashing, leftist whiners. [Paraphrase: Gillespie's rhetoric is inappropriate.]

Premises: (2) That k ind of ad hominem attack [is) dis respectful to a man ,vho

is doing a damned good job as commander-in-ch ief. (3) [The rhetoric) detracts fro m the whole point of the article.

3. C,onclusion: (I) Therefore some intelligent being exists by ,vhom all natu ra l

things are di rected to thei r end; and t h is being we call God. Premises: (2) We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natu ral bodies,

act fo r an end, and this is evident from thei r acting ahvays, o r nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. (3) H ence it is plain that they ach ieve thei r end, not fo rtu itously, but designedly. (4) Now ,vhat- ever lacks kno,vledge cannot move to,vards an end, unless it be directed

by some being endowed ,vith knowledge and intell igence; as the a rrow is directed by the archer.

4 . Conclusion: (I) [The) position is certainly untenable. Premises: (2) The first thing t hat must occur to anyone studying moral sub-

jectivism [the view that the r ig htness or wrongness of an action depends on the beliefs of an individual or group) seriously is that the view allows the poss ibil ity that an action can be both right and not r ight, o r ,vrong and not wrong, etc. (3) This poss ibil ity exists because, as we have seen,

the subjectivist cla ims that the mora l character of an action is determined by individual subjective states; and these states can vary from person to person, even when directed to,vard the same action on the same occasion.

(4) H ence one and the same action can evidently be determined to have-simultaneously-radically different mo ra l characters . ...

Appendix B: Answers to Exercises 439

5. Conclusion: (1) I submit that the dismissal was proper and ethical considering the community stature and function of priesrs and the benefits that accrue to society in the aftermath of the decision.

Premises: Let's consider community stature fi rst. The community stature of p riests must always be taken into account in these abuse cases. (2) A priest

is not just anybody; he performs a special role in society-namely, to p rovide spiritual guidance and to remind people that there is both a mora l order and a divine order in the world. The priest's role is special because it helps to underpin and secure society itself. (3) Anything that could under- mine this role must be neutralized as soon as possible. (4) Among those things that can weaken the p riestly role a re publicity, public debate, and legal actions. Abuse cases are better handled in p rivate by those who are keen ly a,vare of the importance of a positive public image of p riests. And what of the benefits of curta iling the legal proceedings? (5) The benefirs to society of dismissing the legal case ounveigh all the alleged disadvantages of continuing with public hea rings. (6) The primary benefit is the contin- ued nurturing of the community's fa ith, ,vithout ,vhich the community

would cease to function effectively.

EXERCISE 1.3

1. Genetic fallacy

2. Stra,v man

3. Division

4. Appeal to the person

5. Genetic fallacy

6. Equivocation

7. Appeal to ignorance

8. Appeal to the person

9. Appeal to ignorance

10. Equivocation

APPENDIX C: HOW TO WRITE A PH I LOSO PHY PAPER

In conversations, letters to the editor, or online d iscussions, have you ever taken a position on an issue and offered reasons why your view is correct? If so, then you have defended a thesis. You have presented an argument, giving reasons for accept- ing a particular thesis, or conclusion. If you elaborate on your argument in a \vritten paper, you create something even more valuable-a thesis defense (or argumentative) essay. In a thes is defense essay, you t ry to sho\v the reader that your view is worthy of acceptance by offering reasons that support it. Your thes is may assert your position on a philosophical, social, or political issue; on the arguments or claims of other writers (including some famous or not-so-famous philosophers); or on the interpret- ation of a single work or several \vorks. In every case, you affirm a thesis and give reasons for your affirmation.

This type of essay is not merely an analysis of claims, a summary of poinrs made by someone else, or a reiteration of \vhat other people believe or say-though a good thesis defense essay may contain some of these elements. A thesis defense essay is supposed to be a demonstration of what you believe and why you believe it. What other people think is, ultimately, beside the point.

BAS IC ESSAY STRUCTURE

Thesis defense essays usually contain the following elements, though not necessarily in th is order:

I. Introduction (or opening)

A. Thesis statement (the claim to be supported)

B. Plan for the paper

C. Background for the thesis

II. Argument supporting the thesis

III. Assessment of objections

IV. Conclusion

Introduction

The introduction often consists of the paper's fi rst paragraph, sometimes just a sen- tence or nvo. Occasionally it is longer, perhaps several paragraphs. The length de- pends on how much ground you must cover to introduce the argument. Whatever

441

442 Appendix C: How to Write a Phi losophy Paper

the length, the introduction should be no longer than necessary. In most cases the best introductions are short.

If there is a rule of thumb for what the introduction must conta in, it is this: The introduction should set forth the thesis statement. The thesis statement usually appears in the first paragraph. It is the claim that you hope to support or prove in your essay, the conclusion of the argument that you intend to present. You may want to pose the thes is statement as the answer to a question that you raise, or as the solution to a problem that you wish to discuss. Ho,vever presented, your thesis statement is the assertion you must support with reasons. It is like a compass to your readers, guiding them from paragraph to paragraph, premise to premise, sho,ving them a clear pat h from introduction to conclusion. It also helps you stay on course. It reminds you to relate every sentence and paragraph to your one controlling idea.

Your thesis statement should be restricted to a claim that you can defend in the space allowed. You want to state it in a single sentence and do so as early as possible. You may need to add a few ,vords to explain or elaborate on the statement if you think irs meaning or implications unclear.

The other two parts of an introduction-the plan for the paper (B) and back- ground information for the thesis (C)-may or may not be necessary, depending on your thesis and your intent. In more formal essays, you ,viii nee.cl not only to state your thes is, but also to spell out ho,v you intend to argue for it. You wi ll have to summarize your whole argument-each of your premises and conclusion-or, if your argument is long or complex, at least the most important points. Providing background information for your thesis is a matter of explaining ,vhat your thesis means (which includes defining terms and clarifying conceprs), what its implications are, why the issue is so important or pressing, or ,vhy you have decided to address it. Sometimes the nee.ded background information is so extensive that you must supply much of it after the introduction. At any rate, by adding the right kind of background information, you give your readers good reason to care about what you are saying and to continue reading.

In many philosophy papers, the background information includes a summary or sketch of the views of other philosophers-what they have said that is relevant to the issue or to your thesis. Providing this kind of material can help the reader under- stand ,vhy your topic is ,vorth exploring and why your argument is relevant.

Argument Supporting the Thesis

Benveen your paper's introduction and conclusion is the body of the essay. The basic componenrs of the body are (1) the premises of your argument plus the material that supporrs or explains them and (2) an evaluation of objections to your thesis. Each premise must be clearly stated, carefully explained and illustrated, and prop- erly backed up by examples, statistics, expert opinion, argument, or other reasons or evidence. You may be able to adequately develop the essay by devoting a single paragraph to each premise, or you may have to use several paragraphs per premise.

Whatever tack you take, you must stick to the central ru le of paragraph de- velopment: Develop just one main point in each paragraph, embodying that point

Appendix C: How to Write a Philosophy Paper 443

in a topic sentence. Make sure chat each paragraph in turn relates co your thesis statement.

If your essay is a critique of someone else's arguments, you should examine chem in che body, explaining ho\v they work and laying out the author's response co any major criticisms of chem. Your account of the argumencs should be accurate and complete, putting forth che author's best case and providing enough detail for your readers co understand che import of your own argument. After the presentation of che author's side of th ings, you can then bring in your critique, asserting and ex- plaining each premise.

Some premises, of course, may be so obvious that they do not require support. The determining factor is \vhecher your readers \vould be likely co question chem. If your readers are likely co accept a premise as it is, no backup is required. If they are not, you need co support che premise. A common mistake is co assume chat a premise would be accepted by everyone when in face it is controversial.

Recall chat in a good argument che conclusion logically follows from che prem- ises, and che premises are true. Your cask in che body of your essay is co put forth such an argument and co do so plainly-co demonstrate clearly co your readers chat your premises are properly related co your conclusion and that they are true. You should leave no doubt about \vhac you are crying co prove and how you are crying co prove it. In longer papers, you may \vane co back up your thesis \vich more than one argument. This is an acceptable way co proceed, provide.cl you make che relationships between the separate argumencs and your thesis clear.

Assessment of Objections

Very often an argumentative essay includes an assessment of objections-a sincere effort co cake into account any objections or doubts chat readers are likely co have about poincs in your essay. (In some cases, however, there may be no significant ob- jections co assess.) You muse show your readers chat the objections are unfounded, chat your argument is not fatally wounded by likely criticisms. Contrary co what some may chink, when you deal effectively \vich objections in your essay, you do not weaken it-you strengthen it. You lend credibility co it by making an attempt co be fair and thorough. You make your position stronger by removing doubts from your readers' minds. If you don't confront likely objections, your readers may conclude chat either you are ignorant of che objections or you don't have a good reply co chem. An extra benefit is chat in dealing with objections, you may see \vays co make your argument stronger.

On the ocher hand, you may discover chat you do not have an adequate ans\ver co the objections. Then what? Then you look for \vays co change your arguments or thesis co overcome che criticisms. You can weaken your thesis by making it less S\veeping or less probable. Or you may need co abandon your thesis alcogether in favor of one that is stronger. Discovering chat your beloved thesis is full of holes is not necessarily a setback. You have increased your understanding by find ing out \vhich boats will float and \vhich will not.

444 Appendix C: How to Write a Philosophy Paper

Conclusion

Unless your essay is very short, it should have a conclusion. The conclusion usually appears in the last paragraph. Many conclusions simply reiterate the thesis state- ment and then go on to emphasize ho,v important it is. Others issue a call to action, present a compell ing perspective on the issue, or d iscuss further implications of the thesis statement. Some conclusions contain a summary of the essay's argument. A summary is ahvays a good idea if the argument is complex, long, or formal.

WRITING THE ESSAY: STEP BY STEP

No,v we examine the steps involved in crafting a good thesis defense essay. You have the best chance of ,vriting a good essay if you try to follow these steps. Just remember that the process is not linear. You may not be able to follow the steps in the sequence suggested. You may have to backtrack or rearrange the order of the steps. This kind of improvis ing on the Hy is normal-and often necessary. At any stage in the pro- cess, you may discover that your argument is not as good as you thought, or that you did not take an important fact into account, or that there is a way that you can alter the essay to make it stronger. You may then ,vant to go back and rework your outl ine or tinker with the draft you are working on-and your essay wi ll be better for it. Rethinking and revis ing are normal procedures for even the best writers.

Here are the steps:

I. Select a topic and narrow it to a specific issue.

2. Research the issue.

3. Write a thesis statemen t.

4. Create an outline.

5. Write a first draft.

6. Study and revise your first draft.

7. Produce a final d raft.

Step 1. Select a topic and narrow it to a specific issue.

This step is first for a reason. It is here to help inexperience.cl writers avoid a tempt- ing but nasty trap: picking a thesis out of the air and ,vriting their paper on it. Caution: Any thesis that you dream up ivithout knowing anything about it is likely to be unusable-and a waste of time. It is better to begin by selecting a topic or issue and narrowing it through research and hard thinking to a manageable thesis.

A topic is simply a broad category of subject matter, such as human cloning, the mind, capital punishment, and God. Within topics there lurk an infinite number of issues-that is, questions that are in dispute. From the topic of capital punishment,

Appendix C: How to Write a Philosophy Paper 445

for example, countless issues arise: whether executing criminals deters crime, whether executing a human being is ever morally permissible, whether it is ethical to execute people who are insane or mentally impaired, \vhether the system of capital punish- ment in the United States is unfair, \vhether the death penalty should be mandatory for serial killers, \vhether executing juveniles is immoral ... the list could go on and on. The basic idea is to select from the roster of possibilities an issue that (1) you are interested in and (2) you can adequately address in the space allowed.

Step 2. Research the issue.

The main reason for researching an issue is to find out \vhat viewpoints and argu- menrs are involved. Often your instructor will suggest good sources to research for a particular \vriting assignment. Your assigned reading may be the only source you need to check. Otherwise, you can read articles and books, talk to people who have studied the issue or at least thought about it carefully, or go online to revie\v topical or philosophical sites.

Step 3. Write a thesis statement.

The conclusion of your selected argument will serve as the basis for your thesis state- ment. Often the conclusion is your thesis statement. Writing a good thesis statement is an essential step, because the entire essay is built on it. An imprecise or clumsy thesis statement can lead to an imprecise or clumsy argument, which can wreck any argumentative essay.

At this stage, you should try to get the wording of your statement just right, even though you may revise it later on. !rs scope should be restricted to \vhat you can handle in the space you have. It should also be focused on just one idea, not several. A good thes is statement must be clear. No one should have to guess about the mean- ing of your thesis. The thesis "Same-sex marriages are intolerable," for example, is intolerably vague, since there are many ways that something can be intolerable. It gives us very little information about \vhat \vill be discussed in the essay.

It is possible to devise a thesis statement that is restricted, focused, clear-and trivial. A t rivial thesis statement is one that either concerns an insignificant issue or makes an insignificant claim. People generally don't care about insignificant issues, and few would bother to disagree \Vith an insignificant claim. Who cares whether pens are better than pencils, or whether gambling is more fun than beachcombing? And who would care to contest the claim that pleasure is better than pain? An essay built on a trivial thesis statement wastes your readers' time (if they bother to read it at all), and you learn nothing and change nothing by writing it. Thesis statemenrs should be worthy.

Here are some thesis statements that meet the preceding criteria: • Jeremy Bentham's moral theory known as act-utilitarianism conflicts with

our commonsense ideas about human rights. • The U.S. government should be al lowed to arrest and indefinitely imprison

without trial any American citizen who is suspected of terrorism.

446 Appendix C: How to Write a Phi losophy Paper

• Subjective relativism-the view that truth depends on what someone believes-is self-refuting.

• Racial profiling should not be used to do security screening of airl ine pas- sengers.

Step 4. Create an outline of the whole essay.

If you can write out your thesis statement and outline the argument used to defend it, you have already come far. Your argument and thesis statement will const itute the skeleton of your essay. The next step is to Resh out the bones \vith introductory or explanatory material, responses to objections, and support for the premises (\vhich may consist of subordinate argumencs, examples, explanations, analogies, statistics, scientific research, expert opinion, or other evidence). Producing a detailed, coherent outline of the \vhole essay is the best way to manage this task, and if you already have an outline of your argument, creating an outline for the whole essay will be easy. An outline helps you fill out your argument in an orderly fashion, showing you how the pieces fit together, and whether any parts are missing or misaligned. This fi lling-out process wi ll probably require you to research your thesis further-to check the truth of premises, examine alternative arguments, look for additional evidence, or assess the strength of objections to your argument.

Do not be afraid to alter your outline at any stage. As you write, you may realize that your thesis is weak, your argument Hawed, or your premises vague. If so, you should go back and adjust the outline before writing any further. Writing is an act of exploration, and good writers are not afraid to revise when they find something amiss.

When you outline your essay, include your full thesis statement in the introduc- tion. Then, as you work on the outline, you can refer to the statement for guidance. The major points of your outl ine wi ll include the premises, conclusion, objections, and responses to objections.

You \vill find that as you nveak the outline, you may need to adjust the thesis statement. And as you perfect the thesis statement, you may need to adjust the out- line. In the end, you \Vant to satisfy yourself that the outl ine is complete, accurate, and structurally sound, tracing a clear and logical progression of points.

Step 5. Write a first draft.

Good \vriters revise ... and revise and revise. They either write multiple d rafcs, revis- ing in successive passes, or revise continuously as they write. They know that their first tries \vi ll always be in need of improvement. Inexperienced \vriters, on the other hand, too often dash off a first draft without a second look-then turn it in! A much more reasonable approach (and the best one for most studencs) is to at least write a first draft and a final draft or-better-several drafts and a final one.

In argumentative essays, because of the importance of articulating an argument carefully, and the difficulty of writing later drafts of the essay unless the first one is in reasonable shape, the first draft should be fairly solid. That is, in your first draft,

Appendix C: How to Write a Philosophy Paper 447

you should write a tentative version of each paragraph and the wording of your thesis statement, and all premises should be at least close to final form.

Give your draft a good introduction that lays out your thesis statement, provides background information on the issue, and d raws your readers into the essay. Make it interesting, informative, and pertinent to the question at hand. Do not assume that your readers will automatically see that your paper is \VOrth reading.

Every paragraph in your paper should relate to the thes is; every sentence in each paragraph should relate to a topic sentence. Delete any sentence that does not serve the essay's purpose. Ensure that paragraphs appear in a logical sequence and are clearly linked by transitional \vords and phrases or references to material in preced- ing paragraphs. Your readers should never have to wonder what the connection is between parts of your paper.

Step 6. Study and revise your first draft.

Your first draft is likely to have problems, both big and small. At this stage, though, you should scrutin ize mostly the big ones. This is no time for proofreading (correct- ing spelling, fixing punctuation, repairing typos, and the like). This is the time to make substantive changes.

Step 7. Produce a final draft.

After completing all substantive changes, you should generate a final draft, the one you \viii turn in. The final draft should reflect not only the big changes, but the cor- rections of all minor errors as well-misspellings, typos, grammatical errors, mis- placed words, faulty punctuation, and documentation mis takes. This task should be primarily a proofreading job. At this stage, you should also format the manuscript according to your instructor's requirements.

The key to producing a clean fi nal draft is down time-an interim in which you leave the last draft alone and focus on something else. C,oming back to your paper after a day or so away from it can help you see errors that passed right by you before. You may be surprised how many mistakes this fresh look can reveal. If you cannot set the essay aside, ask a friend to read it and give you some constructive criticism.

448 Appendix C: How to Write a Phi losophy Paper

Further explains the divine command theory.

A SAMP LE PHIWSOPHY PAPER

The Dilemma of the Divine Command Theory

by Jane Doc

Phi losophy IO I

What is the connection between God and morality? In the past, many people would

take this question to be about whether someone can behave morally even if they arc

atheists. But nowadays most people in the \Vest would probably answer yes to this

question. If there arc moral standards o f behavior, then it seems that anyone can

live by them. A more important question (for both the religious and nonreligious)

is not whether someone can be moral without belief in God, but whether morality

itseJ/ is possible without God. The answer that many give to this question is the divine

command theory, the view that morality absolutely requires God.

Ir says that an action is right if God commands or wills it. In other words, certain

actions arc right or wrong only because God says they arc, for he is the author of the

moral law. God's commanding an action is what makes it right; God 's forbidding it is

what makes it forbidden.

Those who accept the d ivine command theory could consistently think that they

sho uld perform actions that promo te the common gooct as an act-utilitarian would.

O r they could believe that they sho uld always act to serve their own interests} as an

eth ical egoist docs. O r they could assume that their duty is ro act according to a set

of dcontological principles. But no matter what approach they take, they would still

maintain that ultimately an action is right because God commands it.

Introduces topic.

Defines key term.

Provides background for the issue.

Appendix C: How to Write a Philosophy Paper 449

But is the divine command theory plausible? Docs God make right? I intend to

argue that the theory is untenable-and for reasons that both theists and nonthcisL<

can appreciate. I will show that there is a crucial difficul ty for the theory that would

come to fore even if God's existence and our knowledge of his wiJI arc assured. The

source of the problem is that the divi ne command theory forces a dilemma on us

that can be satisfactorily resolved only by abandoning the theory.

Plato lays out the dilemma in his dialogue Eurhyphro. In it Socrates asks, in

effect} Arc actio ns right because God commands them, o r docs God command them

because they arc right> The fi rst option says that God creates morality, and the divine

command theory is true. The second option says that the divin e command theory is

false: morality exists independently of God's will, and even he must obey it.

If one acccpL< the theory, unpalatable implications arise. If an action is morally

right only because God says so, then any action at all could be morally right. If God

so ,villcd, the torture of children or the murder of innocents would be morally right.

A, the divine command theory would have it, there could be no reasons for God's

willing one "'"'Y or the other. He just commands, and that makes an action right (or wrong). But if God has no reasons for his commands, no standards other than his

say~so, his commands arc arbitrary. If the theory is correct, then God doesn't have

reasons-and doesn't need reasons- to make the moral rules. But in chat case, God's

dccL'iions would amo unt to no mo re than a throw of the dice. If rape and murder arc

morally wrong (or morally right), they arc arbitrarily so. This result is implausible,

and both theists and nonthcists agree. In fact, most C hristian philosophers reject the

divine command theory.

To reject the theory is to give up the idea that God is the maker of the moral law

and to acknowledge that morality is independent of God's will. Actions arc right

or wrong for reasons that do not depend on God. We try to do right because it's

right, not because a divine power has made an arbitrary decisio n. Theist~ w ho reject

the divine command theory believe that God commands humans to obey moral

standards that exist regardless of what God commands. God is perfect. He obeys the

moral law and expects his children to obey it also.

Thesis statement.

The main argument for the thesis.

450 Appendix C: How to Write a Phi losophy Paper

Writer explains and rebuts the chief argument against the thesis.

The chief argumcnr againsr the charge of arbitrariness is this: God would never

command the murder of one's neighbors, the torture of children} or any o ther evil

acL< because God is all-good. And because God is all-good, his commands would

not be arbitrary- they would be good. But to say this is to argue in a circle and

undermine-not strengthen- the d ivine command theory. The theory is supposed

to tell us what moraliry is, or what makes something good. But if goodness is a

defining propcrry of God, then God cannot be used to define goodncs.s. Such a tack

would rc.sult in an empry definition of the divi ne command theory: Good actions

arc those commanded by an all-good God. When theists say that God is good, they

surely mean more than thL'i.

In conclusion, the divine command theory is unfounded. To avoid the

arbitrariness problem, and to preserve a credible idea of goodm:s..'it the theory must

be rejected. The much more plausible view is located on the other side of Socrates'

dilemma: The moral law is independent of God and applies to both God and man.

Conclusion and brief re- iteration of the argument in its favor.

NOTES

............................................ · ----· -------- .. .._ ....................................... ._ .................... --... ·-------· ................. __. ......... __. .......... __. ..... __. ............ _. ...... __. ....................... ........... __._ ..... __.____. ..................... _. ........ .

CHAPTER 1

1. Plato, lhe Republic, in The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hea rst's Inter· national Library, 1914), 18- 20.

CHAPTER 2

1. Thomas Aquinas, Stunma 17uoiogica, Question 2, ''Whether God Ex isrst in Basic \Y/rirings of St. Thomas Aquinas, tra ns. Anton C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1944), 22.

2. Will iam Lane Cra ig, Reasonable Faith: Christia11 Tntth and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 92.

3. Will iam Lane Cra ig, God? A Debate Benueen a Christian and a11 Atheist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4.

4. Craig, God> A Debate Betwee11 a Christian and an Atheist, 7. 5. Will iam Paley, Natural 77,eology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802). 6. David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). 7. Hume, Dialogues. 8. Richard Swinburne, Is lhere a God> (New York: Oxford Un iversity Press, 1996), 2 . 9. Swinburne, ls 77,erea God>41- 42.

10. Anselm, Proslogium, ch. 11- 111 (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1962), 53- 55. 11. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (London: Macmillan & Compa ny and St. Martin's

Press, 1929), 504- 505. 12. Will iam L. Rowe, Philosophy ofReligio11: A11 !11troductio11 (Bel mont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993),

80- 82. 13. Will iam L. Rowe, "The Empirical Argument from Evil," in Rationality, Religious Belief,

and Moral Commitme11t, ed . Robert Aud i and Wi lliam). Wai nwright (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 227- 247.

14. J. L. Mackie, 17,e Miracle of17,eism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 156. 15. Swinburne, Is 77,ere a God> 98. 16. Mackie, Miracle of171eis111, 164. 17. John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (New York: HarpcrCollins, 1966, 1977), 253- 259. 18. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion, 85- 86. 19. St. Teresa, 77,e Lift of Teresa of Jesus, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (Garden City, NY:

Image Books, 1960), 249. Quoted in Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical justification (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 156.

20. Quoted in \Villiam James, 77,e Varieties of Religious Experie11ce (New York: New American Library, 1958), 68- 69.

21. Mackie, Miracle of171eis111, 179- 181. 22. Richard Swinburne, 77,e Existence of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 204), 304. 23. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion, 60- 61. 24. Swinburne, Existence of God, 316- 317. 25. W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief," in Lectures and Essays (London: Macmillan, 1886).

451

452 Notes

26. \"1illiam James, "The \"1ill to Believe," in 71,e \Vil! to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896), 11.

27. James, "W ill to Believe," 26. 28. James, "W ill to Believe," 2- 30. 29. Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical justification (Ph iladelphia: Temple University Press,

1990), 246. 30. Blaise Pasca l, Pensees and Other W'ritings, trans. Honor Levi (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1995). 31. Pascal, Pensees and Other W'ritings. 32. Buddhist Surtas, trans. T. \"1. Rhys Davids (New York: Dover, 1976), 148. 33. Ajahn Sumedho, cited in Satnacirro Bhikku, ed., Buddha-Nature (London: World Wide Fund

for Nature, 1989). 34. \"1alpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1974), 43. 35. Chuang Tzu, trans. Richard Welhelm and Dschuang Dsi (Jena, Germany: Diederichs, 1912),

158, 7.18b. 36. Tao-te chingby Lao Tzu, translated with an introduction by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963).

CHAPTER 3

1. Russ Shafer-Landau, \'(lhatever Happened to Good and EuiJ> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 81- 82.

2. John Stuart Mill, "\"1hat Utilitarianism Is," in Utilitarianism (1861). 3. Mill, "What Utilitarianism Is." 4. Mill, "What Utilitarianism Is."

5. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. T. K. Abbott (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909, 1873), 3- 4, 9- 10.

6. Kant, Groundwork, 18. 7. Kant, Groundwork, 47. 8. Kant, Groundwork, 46- 47. 9. Aristorle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford Un iversity Press, 1980), bk.

I, chs. 1, 2, 7; bk. 2, chs. 6 -7. 10. Rosal ind Hursthouse, "Virtue Ethics," in 71,e Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2003

edition, ed. Edward N. Zalta, hrrp://plato.Stanford.edu/archives/fu ll2003/entries/ethics-virtue/. 11. Russ Shafer-Landau, 71,e Fundamentals of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press,

2010), 257. 12. Alison Jaggar, "Feminist Ethics," in Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Lawrence Becker and Charlotte

Becker (New York: Garland, 1992), 364. 13. Jan Crosthwaite, "Gender and Bioethics," in A Companion to Bioethics, ed. Helga Kuhse and

Peter Singer (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 32- 40. 14. Crosthwaite, "Gender and Bioeth ics," 37. 15. Carol G illigan, In a Different Voice: Psychological 7beory and \\7omen'.r Development

(Cambridge: Harva rd University Press, 1982). 16. Virginia Held, 71,e Ethics of Care (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 10- 13. 17. Annette C. Baier, "The Need for More Than Justice," Canadian journal of Philosophy, suppl. 13

(1988): 56. 18. "The Myth of Sisyphus" from 71,e Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, translated byJustin

O 'Brien, translation copyright © 1955, copyright renewed 1983 by Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

19. Analects, trans. Arthur Waley, 2:13- 14, 14:30, 14:45. 20. Analects, trans. Arthur Waley, 2:5, 7. 21. John B. Noss, A History of the Worlds Religions (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 323.

CHAPTER 4

I. Rene: Descartes, Discourse 011 the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, in Philosophical \fforks of Descartes, ed. Elizaberh Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Universiry Press, 191 1), 101.

2 . Theodore Schick, Jr., and Lewis Vaughn, Doing Philosophy: A11 !11trodttctio11 Through Thought Experiments (New York: McG raw-Hill, 2010), 88.

3. Rene: Descarres, Meditations 011 First Philosophy, Med itation VI, in Philosophical \fforks of Descartes, ed . Elizabeth Ha ldane and G. R. T. Ross (Ca mbridge, England: Cambridge Universiry Press, 191 1), 196.

4. John R. Searle, Mind· A Brief !11troductio11 (New York: O xford University Press, 2004), 29- 30. 5. Searle, Mind, 21. 6. J. J.C. Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes," Philosophical Review 68 (1959): 144- 145. 7. David J. Cha lmers, 17,e Conscious Mind: !11 Search ofa Fundamental 7heory (New York: O xford

Universiry Press, 1996), 94- 95. 8. David J. Cha lmers, Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2002), 249. 9. Thomas Nagel, "W hat Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435- 500.

11. Ned Block, "Troubles with Functionalism," in Readings i11 the Philosophy of Psychology, ed. Ned Block (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 276, 278.

12. Searle, Mind, 45. 13. Searle, Mind, 46. 14. Searle, Mind, 48- 49. 15. Searle, Mind, 62- 63. 16. John Searle, "Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Progra m?" Scientific American 262 (January 1990). 17. From Forbes.com, June 29, 2009 © 2009 Forbes LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission

and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United Srates. The printing, copying. redistribution, or retransmission ofrhis Content without express written permission is prohibited.

18. Chalmers, Conscious Mind, 125.

CHAPTERS

I. Baron d 'Holbach, "Of the System of Man's Free Agency," in 7he System of Nature, trans. H. D. Robinson (1770), chap. 11.

2 . Wi lliam James, "The Dilemma of Determinism," in The Will to Believe and Other Essays i11 Popular Philosophy (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), 145- 183.

3. John Locke, A11 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed . Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), bk. II, sec. 33.

4. W. T. Stace, Religion and the Modern Mind (New York: Ha rperCollins, 1952), 254- 255. Copyright 1952 by W.T. Stace, renewed © 1980 by Blanche Stace. Reprinted by Permi ssion of HarperCollins Publishers

5. Wi ll iam L. Rowe, ..:Two Concepts of Frccdomt in Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays 011 Indeterminism and Free \'(!jl/, ed. Timorhy O 'Connor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 154- 155.

Notes 453

454 Notes

6. Peter van lnwagen, AJ1 &say on Free \'(!j/1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 16. 7. Richard Taylor, Metaphysic, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice HaJI, 1992), 51 - 53. 8. Jca n~Paul Sartre, ('Existentialism Is a H uman ism," in E.xisre11tiaiism, trans. Bernard Frcchtman

(New York: Ph ilosophica l Library, 1947) 524- 533.

CHAPTER 6

I. Plato, Meno, in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hearst's International Library, 1914), 24- 36.

2. RcnC Descartes, ''Meditation Onct in Meditations on First Philosophy, volume 1, 7he Philosoph~ ical \Vorks of Descartes, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 144- 145.

3. Rene Descartes, "Med itation One," in MeditarioJ1s on First Philosophy, 146. 4. Descartes, "Meditation One," in Meditatiom OJI First Philosophy, 145- 146. 5. Descartes, "Meditation One," in Meditatiom OJI First Philosophy, 147. 6. Descartes, "Meditation Two," in Meditatiom 011 First Philosophy, 149- 150. 7. Descartes, "Meditation Two," in Meditatiom 011 First Philosophy, 158. 8. Descartes, "Meditation Five," in MeditatioJ1s 011 First Philosophy, 184- 185. 9. Descartes, "Meditation Two," in Meditation, 011 First Philosophy, 154- 155.

10. John Locke, An Essay Concerning HumaJI Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidd itch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), bk. I, ch. 2, and bk. IV, ch. 11, parts 1- 9.

11. Locke, Essay ConcerJ1i11g Human Understanding. 12. Locke, Essay ConcerJ1i11g Human Understanding 13. George Berkeley, Of the Principles of H11man KJ1owledge in Principles of Huma11 Knowledge and

Three Dialogues, Part I, sec. 1- 4, 6, 8 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 14. Berkeley, Part I, sec. 9- 10, 14- 15. 15. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1912 , 1959), 24. 16 . David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandi11g, sec. 2 and 4, parts 1- 11, ed. Peter

Millica n (New York: Oxford Un iversity Press, 2008). 17. Hume, Enquiry Concerning HumaJI Understanding. 18. Hume, Enquiry Concerning HumaJI U11dersta11ding. 19. Hume, Enquiry Concerning HumaJI U11dersta11ding. 20. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. Paul Carus (New York: Open

Court Publishing, 1912). 21. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: Humanities

Press, 1929), 44. 22. Kant, Critique of Pure Reaso11, 41- 42, 46- 47. 23. Kant, Critique of Pure Reaso11, 22. 24. Kant, Critique of Pure Reaso11, 92- 93. 25. Alison Ainley, "Femin ist Philosophy," in The Oxford Compa11io11 to Philosophy, ed. Ted

Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 273. 26. Louise M. Antony, "Embodiment and Epistemology," in The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 465. 27. Elizabeth Anderson, "Feminist Epistemology and Ph ilosophy of Science," in The St01,fard

Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2011 edition, ed. Edward N. Zalra, http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/spr201 1/entries/fcminism-epistemology.

28. Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy a11d Feminist Criticism (New York: Paragon House, 1993), 83- 84. 29. Cole, Philosophy a11d Feminist Criticism, 84- 85. 30. Cole, Philosophy a11d Feminist Criticism, 88- 90. 31. Cole, Philosophy a11d Feminist Criticism, 94- 95. 32. Cole, Philosophy a11d Feminist Criticism, 95- 96.

CHAPTER 7

I . Leo Tolstoy, \'((hat Is Art? ( Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960). 2 . Clive Bell, A rt (London: C hatto and W indus, 1914). 3. Ma rtin Ga rd ner, lhe \'(fhys of a Philosophical Scrivener (New York: St. Martin's G riffin, 1983),

77-78. 4. Curt J. Ducasse, 7be Philosophy of Art (New York: Dover Publications, 1929). 5. Aristotle, Poerio, trans. M. E. Hubbard, in Classical Literary Criticism, ed. D. A. Russell and

M. \"1interborrom (Oxford: C larendon, 1972, 2008) 60- 66. 6 . David Hume, "Of the Standard of Taste," from Fot1r Dissertations (London: A. M iller, 1777),

davidhume.org.

CHAPTER 8

I. Plato, lhe Republic, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hearst's International Library, 1914), I 53-155. 2 . Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651. 3. Hobbes, Leviathan. 4. Hobbes, Leviathan. 5. Declararion of Independence, July 4, 1776. 6 . Joh n Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chaps. 8, 9, 19 (1690) . 7. Joh n Rawls, A 7heory of justice, rev. ed . (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press,

1999), I 0, 266. 8. Rawls, 7beory of justice, 266. 9. Rawls, 7beory of justice, 13.

JO. Norman Daniels, "Health Ca re Needs and Distributive Justice," in justice and justification (Cambridge: C ambridge Universiry Press, 1996).

11. Karl Marx and Fried rich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, trans. Samuel Moore (1888). 12. Susan Moller O kin,justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 3- 5,

124- 127. 13. David M iller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short lntroducrion (Oxford: O xford University Press,

CHAPTER 9

I . Albert Ca mus, 7he Myth of Sisyphus, trans. J. O 'Brien (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), i. 2 . Leo Tolstoy, My Confession, rrans. Leo W iemer (New York: J. M. Dent a nd Sons, 1905). 3. Arthur Schopen hauer, "On the Sufferings of the World," in Parerga and Paralipomena, trans.

T . Bailey Saunders (1851). 4. C larence Darrow, "Is Life Worth Livi ng?" (debate), Ma rch 28, 1920.

5. Julian Baggini, Whats It All About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life (Oxford: O xford University Press, 2005), 160- 161.

6 . Tolstoy, My Confession. 7. Baggini, Whats !tAl!About? 17, 19- 20. 8. Paul Edwards, 7he Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4, ed. Paul Edwards (New York:

Macm illan, 1967). 9. Edwards, 17,e Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

JO. E. D. Klemke, "Living W ithout Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life," in lhe Meaning of Life: A Render, ed. E. D. Klemke and Steven M. Cahn (New York: O xford University Press, 2008), I 90.

Notes 455

456 Notes

11. Klemke, "Living Withou, Appeal," 191. 12. Klemke, "Living Withou, Appeal," 193. 13. Susa n Wolf, "Meaning in Life," in 71,e Meaning of Lift: A Reader, ed. E. D. Klemke a nd Steven

M. Cahn (New Yo,k: Oxford University Press, 2008), 232. 14. \Volf, "Mean ing in Life," 233. 15. \Volf, "Mean ing in Life," 234. 16. Christophe, Belshaw, JO Good Questio11s about Lift and Death (Oxford: Blackwel l, 2005), 113. 17. Belshaw, JO Good Quesrio11s, 115. 18. Belshaw, JO Good Quesrio11s, 116.

APPENDIX A

I. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, "The Labor Market for Rcccn, College Graduates," January 11, 2017, https:/lwww.ncwyorkfed.org/rcscarch lcollcgc-labor-markc,/collcgc-labor- markct_ comparc .. majors. htm I.

2. T. Recs Shapiro, "For Ph ilosophy Majors, the Q ucsrion after Graduation Is: W har Next?" Washington Post, June 20, 2017.

3. Carolyn G regoire, "The Unexpected Way Philosophy Majors Arc Cha nging the \Vorld of Business," Huffingto11 Post, March 5, 2014, https:/lwww.huffingtonposr.com/2014103105/why -phi losophy-majors-ru lc_n_ 4891404. h tm I.

4. Shapiro, "For Ph ilosophy Majors." 5. David Silbcrswcig, "A Harvard Medical School Professor Makes a Case for , he Liberal Arts

and Ph ilosophy," \'(fashington Post, December 24, 2015. 6. Shapiro, "For Ph ilosophy Majors." 7. American Philosophical Association, "Who S,udics Philosophy>" http:/lwww.apaon linc.org/>

whosmd icsphilosophy. 8. PayScalc, "H ighest Paying Bachelor Degrees by Sa lary Po,cntial," 2017-2018 College Salary

Report, htrps:/lwww.payscalc.com/collcgc·salary· rcport/majors-that· pay-you-back/bachclors. 9. PayScalc; reported by Rachel G illert and Jacquelyn Smith, "People with These College Majors

Get the Biggest Raises," Business Insider, January 6, 2016, http://www.busincssinsidcr.com/ college-majors-that· lcad-ro-,hc-bi ggcst-pay-ra iscs-20 J 6 -J /#20-physics-1.

GLOSSARY

............................................ · ----·-------- .. .._ ....................................... ._ .................... --... ·-------· ................. __. ......... __. .......... __. ..... __. ............ _. ...... __. ....................... ........... __._ ..... __.____. ..................... _. ........ .

aesthetics 1he study of the feelings and judg- ments involved in experiencing the arts or other object.~ deemed beautiful.

a posteriori knowledge Knowledge that de- pends entirely on sense experience

a priori knowledge Knowledge ga ined inde- pendently of or prior to sense experience.

act-utilitarianism The idea that the rightness of actions depends solely on the overall well- being produced by individual actions.

agent causation The view that a free action is caused by an agent (person) and is not whol- ly determined by previous events.

agnostic Someone who neither accepts nor de- nies God 's existence.

analytic statement A logical truth whose de- nial results in a contradiction.

appeal to ignoran ce The fallacy of argui ng chat either (I) a claim is true because it hasn't been proven false or (2) a claim is fa lse because it hasn't been proven true.

appeal to popularity 1he fallacy of argui ng chat a claim must be true not because it is backed by good reasons, but simply because many people believe it.

appeal to the person The fallacy of rejecting a statement on the grounds that it comes from a particular person, not because the state- ment, or claim, itself is false or dubious.

argument A statement coupled with other state- ments that are meant to support that statement.

argument from evil An argument purporting to sho,v that since there is unnecessary evi l, an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God must not exist.

argument from religious experience An argument of this form: A person seems to have experienced God; the experience must have actually been a genui ne encounter with God; therefore, God probably exists.

aristocracy A society ruled by the best citizens.

atheism The denial of the existence of God.

atheist Someone who den ies God's existence.

lltmau One's soul or self.

axiology 1he study of value, including both aesthetic va lue and moral value.

begging the question The fallacy of trying to prove a conclusion by using that very same conclusion as support.

Bhagavad-Gita 1he most highly venerated and influential scriptures in Hinduism.

Brahman 1he impersonal, all-pervading Spirit that is the universe yet transcends all space and time.

brahmin A priest or teacher; a man of the priestly caste.

capitalism A political economic system that lets the means of production accrue to fewer people through the workings of a free mar- ket. In such a system, wealth goes to anyone who can acquire it in the marketplace.

Cartesian dualism 1he view that mind {or soul} and body are completely independent of one another and interact causally.

categorical imperative Kant's fundamental moral principle, which he formulates as (I) "I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a univmal law"; and (2) "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in chat of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only."

catharsis 1he purging of the emotions of pity and fear by experiencing them vicariously in a theatrical context.

causal closure of the physical 1he principle that the world is a closed system of physical causes and effects.

classical liberalism The view that the state should protect personal freedoms ~~ ,veil as

457

458 Glossary

the right ro pursue one's own social and eco- nomic well-being in a free market w ithout interference from ochers.

cognitive relativism The doctrine char the truth about something depends on what persons or cultures believe.

communism Commonly, socialism within a roralicarian system.

compatibilism 1he view char although deter- min ism is true, our actions can still be free.

composition 1he fallacy of arguing errone- ously char what can be said of the parts can also be said of the whole.

conclusion In an argument, the statement be- ing supported.

consequentialisr theory A moral theory in which the rightness of actions depends sole- ly on their consequences or results.

cosmological arguments Arguments rhar try co show rhar from the fact rhar rhe universe exists, God exists.

cultural relativism 1he view char right actions are chose endorsed by one's culture.

deductive argument An argument intended ro give logically conclusive support ro irs con- clusion.

deism Belief in one God who created rhe world bur left it unattended co run on its own.

democracy Rule by the people as a whole.

deontological (or nonconsequentialist) the- ory A moral theory in which the rightness of actions is determined nor solely by their consequences, but partly or e,uirely by their intrinsic nature.

determinism The doctrine char every event is determined by preceding events and the laws of nature.

dharma The Buddha's system of teachings about the true nature of reality and how co live correctly to transcend it.

distr ibutive justice (or social justice) 1he fair dL~rribucion ofsociery's benefirsand burdens- such things as jobs, income, property, liberties, rights, ,velfare aid, taxes, and public service.

divine command theory The doctrine char God is the creator of morality.

division The fallacy of arguing erroneously char what can be said of the whole can be said of che pares.

empiricism 1he view char our knowledge of the empirical world comes solely from sense experience.

epiphenomenalism 1he notion char mental properties do nor cause anything, bur mere- ly accompany physical processes.

epistemology 1he study of knowledge.

equivocation 1he fallacy of as.~igni ng c,vo different meanings co the same sign ificant word in an argument.

ethical egoism 1he view chat right actions are chose char further one's own best interests.

ethics (moral philosophy) The study of mor- ality using rhe methods of ph ilosophy.

ethics of care A moral perspective chat empha- sizes the unique demand~ of specific situa- tions and the virtues and feelings chat are ce,ural co close personal relationsh ips.

evidentialism 1he view chat we are justified in believing something only if it is supported by sufficient evidence.

fallacy A common bur bad argument.

false dilemma The fallacy of arguing errone- ously chat since there are only two alterna- tives co choose from, and one of chem is un- acceptable, the ocher one must be true.

femin ist ethics An approach co 1nora licy aimed at advancing women's interests, underscor- ing their distinctive experiences and char- acteristics, and advancing the obvious truth chat ,vomen and men are morally equal.

formalism 1he view char arc is defined by its form, rhe structure or organization of its pares.

functionalism The view rhar the mind is the functions chat the brain performs.

genetic fallacy The fallacy of arguing char a statement can be judged true or false based on its source.

hard determinism The view char free will does nor exist, rhac no one acrs freely.

identity theory 1he view char mental states are identical co physical brain states.

incompatibilism The view that if determinism is true, no one can act freely.

indeterminism The view that nor every event is determined by preceding events and the laws of nature.

inductive argument An argument intended to give probable support to its conclusion.

justice The idea that people should get what is fa ir or what is their due.

Kant's theory 1he theory that right actions are tho.,;e chat accord with rhe categorical imperative.

ka rma The universal principle chat our actions result in deserved pleasure or pain in this life or the next.

Ii In early Confucianism, ritual, etiquette, prin- ciple, and propriety; conscientious behavior and right action.

liberalism The political theory that puts primary emphasis on the liberry and rights of individ- uals against encroachments by the scare.

libertarianism (metaphysica l) 1he view chat some actions are free, for they are caused, or controlled, by the person, or agent.

libertarianism (political) The doctrine chat emphasizes personal freedoms and the right to pursue one's own social and economic well-being in a free marker without interfer- ence from others.

logic The study of correct reasoning.

logical behaviorism The idea chat menta l stares are dispositions to behave in a particu- lar ,vay in certain circumstances.

materialism (or physicalism) 1he doctrine that every object and event in the ,vorld is physical.

meritocracy A system of rule by those most qualified co govern.

metaphysics 1he study of reality, an inquiry into rhe fundamental nature of the un iverse and che things in it.

mind-body problem The issue of what menta l phenomena are and how they relate to the physical world.

monotheism Bel ief in one God.

moral absolutism The belief chat objective moral principles allow no exceptions or

must be applied the same way in all cases and cultures.

moral evil Evil chat comes from human choic- es and actions and the bad things char arise from chem.

moral objectivism The view chat there are moral standards char are true or correct for everyone.

moral relativism The view chat moral standards do not have independent status bur are relative co what individuals or cultures believe.

moral theory A theory char explains why an action is right or wrong or why a person or a person's character is good or bad.

morality Bel iefs about right and ,vrong ac- tions and good and bad persons or char- acter.

multiple realizability 1he capacity to be real- ized or insra,uiared in a variety of forms and materials.

natural evil Evil that results from the workings of nature.

nirvana En lightenment: the ult imate aim of all Buddhist practice and the final liberation co which all the Buddha's teach ings point.

objectivism (in arr) 1he vie,v char works of arr have objective properties by which we can judge their aesthetic goodness or badnes.~.

ontological arg ument An argument chat cries co demonstrate God's existence by logical analysis of the concept of God.

pan entheism The view chat God is in the uni- verse and the universe is in God.

pan theism The view that God and the universe are one and the same th ing, a divine W hole.

political philosophy 1he study of political so- cieties using the methods of philosophy.

polytheism Belief in many gods.

premise In an argument, a statement support- ing the conclusion.

principle of induction The presumption chat events char followed one another in the past will do the same in the future, that the fu- ture wi ll be li ke the past.

problem of free will The challenge of reconcil- ing determinism with our intuitions or ideas about personal freedom.

Glossary 459

460 Glossary

proper ty dualism The view that mental proper- ties are nonphysical properties arising from, but not reducible to, physical properties.

propositional kn owledge Knowledge of a proposition.

psychological egoism 1he theory that people always act out of self-interest.

rationalism The view that through unaided reason we can come to know what the world is like.

red uctio ad absurdum An argu,nent of this form: If you assume that a set of statements is true, and yet you can deduce a false or absurd statement from it, then the original set of statements as a whole must be false.

re111he essential Confucian virtues, including be- nevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, respect for others, and human-heartedness.

r ule-utilitarianism 1he doctrine that a right action is one that conforms to a rule that, if followed consistently, ,vould create for ev- eryone involved the most beneficial balance of well-being over suffering.

sa111sara O ne's cycle of repeated deaths and rebirths.

skepticism 1he view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way.

slippery slope The fallacy of argui ng errone- ously that a particular action should not be taken because it will lead inevitably to other actions resulting in some di re oucco,ne.

social contract theory The view that justice is secured, and the state is made legitimate, through an agreement among citizens of the state or between the citizens and the rulers of the state.

socialism 1he doctrine that the means of pro- duction (property, factories, busines.~es) should be owned or controlled by the people, either communally or through the state.

Socrat ic method Question-and-answer dia- logue in which propositions are methodi- cally scrutinized to uncover the truth.

statement (claim} An assertion that somethi ng is or is not the case and is therefore the kind of utterance chat is either true or false.

straw m an 1he fallacy of misrepresenting a person's views so they can be more easily at- tacked or dismissed.

subjective idealism The doctrine that all t hat exist are minds and their ideas.

subjective relativism The view that right ac- tions are those endorsed by an individual.

subjectivism (in arr) The view that aesthetic criteria are purely subjective; the goodness or badnes.~ of a work of arr depends on how the audience responds co it.

substance dualism The notion that mind and body consist of nvo fundamenta lly different kinds of stuff, or substances.

synthetic statement A statement that is not ana lytic.

teleological arguments Arguments that try to sho,v that God must exist because features of the universe show signs of purpose or design.

theism Belief in the existence of God.

theist Someone who believes in God.

theodicy A defense of the tradit ional concep- tion of God in light of the existence of evil.

Upa11ishads Vedic literature concerning the self, Brahman, samsara, and liberation.

utilitarianism 1he view that right actions are those chat result in the most beneficial balance of good over bad consequences for everyone involved.

Veda.s Early Hindu scriptures, developed be- c,veen 1500 and 600 BCE.

virtue ethics A moral theory that focuses on the development of virtuous character.

welfare liberalism A form of liberalism, the aim of which is to preserve individual liber- ties whi le ensuring the general welfare of the citizenry.

CREDITS

............................................ · ----·-------- .. .._ ....................................... ._ .................... --... ·-------· ................. __. ......... __. .......... __. ..... __. ............ _. ...... __. ....................... ........... __._ ..... __.____. ..................... _. ........ .

photo.com/Chris Schmidt

1. 1 Uni\fersa.1

1. 2 Uni\fersa.l

1.3 SuperStock/Sup

1.4 Gianni Dagli

1.5 Corbi,

1.6 Thale, of Miletus: Courtesy of the Yale University Arr Gallery

1.7 Empedocles: Universal Images Group/Getty Images

1.8 Parmenides: DeAgostini/Ge«y Images

1.9 The Print Collector/Alamy

photo.com/Phoco_HamsterMan

2. 1 Distinctive

2.2 O llyy/Shutterstock

2.3 Michael D Brown/Shutterstock

2.5 Uias 51.rachinis/Shutterstock

2.9 Tatfana Makocra/Shutterstock

2. 11 nearandfar/iStockphoto

2. 14 Manin No\-a.k/Shutcerscock

2.18 Phoco of Buddhist monk praying: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chapter 3 Chapter opening phoco Siegfried

Layda/Geuy l mageS

3.1 Allen Graham - PDlmage,/ Shutrerstock

3.2 Kheng Guan TohJShuiterstock

3.3 Christian Darkin/Shutterstock

3. 11 Ft.d.i1/Shutterscock

3. 13 Scala/Art Resource. NY

3.14 Virginia Held

3. 15 Mary W'ollstonecraft: Gl Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

3. 16 H ung Chung Chih/ Shutterstock

Chapter 4 C hapter opening photo

4.1 lukiyano,,. Naralia/frenta/ Shuuerscock

4.2 shiva3d/Shutterstock

4.9 The incelligent human-like machine Sonny from the movie I. Robot: fair use

4.11 Robert Holmgren

4. J 2 Science FaccionlSuperScock

Chapter 5 Chapter opening photo David

Greenwood/Getty Images

5.1 De,ign Pies lmageS/Fotosearch

5.2 Science Faction/SuperStock

5.3 solarseve.n/Shutterstock

Alamy

Chapter 6 C hapter opening photo Horesco

Productions/Getty Images

461

462 Credits

Alamy

6.13 BrainDen.oom

6.J4 BrainDen.com

6.15 J 230plicallllusions.com

iStockphoto

7.J lnstagram: lnstagram

Associates Ltd

7.3 Fearless girl statue:

7.4 Homeless Jesus statue: ASSOCIATED PRESS

7.6111e Dinner Parcy: ASSOCIATED PRESS

7.7 Tri.:cie on tl,e Coe: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation/Art Resource, NY

\'qashington Srock Photo/Alamy

8.2 Chuck Rausin/Shutterstock

8.3 BananaStock/Punchscock

8.4 Universal Images Group/ SuperStock

8.5 OJO lmages/SuperStock

8.61homas Hobbes (oil on canvas), Fuller, Isaac (1606-72) (circle

of)/Burghley House Colleclion. Lincolnshire, UK/Bridgeman Images

8.7 Frontispiece to 'l...eviahan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a. Comon \XleaJLh Ec:desiasticall and Civil', 165 1, by Thomas Hobbes

(1588-1679) ofMalmesbury (engraving) (b&w photo) , English School, (17th century)/Priv>re

Collection/Bridgeman Images

8.8 Image Asset Management Ltd./ SuperStock

are proteCLed by Harvard rublic Affairs&. Communications

8. 12 Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service

8.13 Golden Pixels/SuperSrock

Chapter 9 Chap1er opening photo RubberBall

Produclions/Getty Images

9.3 l'antheon/SuperStock

9.6 Nicku/Shu1terstock

9.7 Silvio Fiore/SuperStock

9.8 Exactostock/SuperSrock

9. 10 Philip and Karen Smith/Getty

Images

Appendix A Photo 1, Carly Fiorina: Commons

Wikimedia/Michael Yadon

Photo 2, Stewart Butterfield: Commons Wikimedfa/nmafa

Photo 3, Sheila Bair: Commons \Xlikimedia/1llatcher Cook for Pop Tech

Photo 4, Katy Tur: Commons Wikimedia/ nrkbeta

Photo 5, Damon Horowitt: Commons Wikimedia./Rcsiren

Photo 6, l.a.rry Sanger: Commons Wikimedia/Larry Sanger

Photo 7, Stephen Breyer: Commons \Xlikimedia/Sceve retteway

Photo 8, Srephen Colbert: Commons Wikimedia/Montclair Film Festival

Photo 9, Angela Davis: Commons Wikimedia/Columbia GSAPP

Photo 10, Lana Del Rey: Commons \Xlikimedia/Harmony Gerber

Photo 11 , Chris Hayes: Commons \Xlikimedia/Joann Jovinelly

Photo 12, Rashina Jones: Commons \Xlikimedia/Stephanie Moreno

Photo 13, Marrin Luther King. Jr.: Commons \'7ikimedia/\Xlalter Albertin

Photo 14, John Lewis: Commons \Xlikimedia/Online Guide co House Members and Sena.cors

Photo I 5. Terrence Ma.lick: Commons \Xlikimedia/Hadean-mind

Photo 16, Yann Martel: Commons \Xlikimedia/Shane Lin

Photo 17. Deepa Mehta.: Commons \Xlikimedia/Ca.na.dian Film Cencre

Photo 18, Susan Sontag: Commons \Xlikimedia/Lynn Gilbert

INDEX OF MARGINAL QUOTATIONS

............................................................ .._ ........... .._ ................................................ __ ......... __ ................................... __. .......... __. ...... __.__. ........ __.__. .................... __. ................... ........ ........... ....... ........... _. .......... ... ... .

This index helps you locate particular quotations in the text's margins and find all the marginal quotations by a specific author.

Adams, Scott, 259 Ainley, Alison, 320 Allen, Woody, 73 Amyl, Henri Frederic, 168 Anderson, Elizabeth, 321 Anselm, 79-81 Antony, Louise M., 320-21 Aquinas, Thomas, 45, 66-67 Aristotle, 3, 176-77, 181, 247, 282,

334, 340-43, 357 Augusti ne, 58, 356 Ayer, Alfred Jules, 147

B Bacon, Francis, 18, 30 Baggini, Julian, 414-16, 420-21 Baier, Annette C., 188 Bair, Sheila, 4 32 Bell, C live, 335 Belshaw, C hristopher, 425 Berkeley, George, 300-302 Bierce, Ambrose, 208 Bisson, Terry, 237-38 Block, Ned, 223 Blum, Lawrence, 20-21 Bombeck, Erma, 223 Brault, Robert, 97 Broughton, James, 207 Brown, Les, 410 Butterfield, Stewart, 432

c Cabanis, Pierre-Jean Georges, 213 Campbell, Joseph, 411 Camus, Albert, 190-91, 408, 422 Capp, Al, 340 Carroll, Lewis, 330 C halmers, David J., 218-19, 232

Chavez, Hugo, 379 Chesterton, G. K., 139 Chinese Proverb, 175 Chuang Tzu, 123 Clarke, Arthur C., 131-33 Clifford, W. K., 99 Cole, Eve Browning, 321-25 Collins, Francis, 78 Confucius, 193-95, 276 Cortazar, Julio, 165 Craig, William Lane, 70-71 Crosthwaite, Jan, 182 Cuppy, \Viii, 220

Darrow, Clarence, 75, 414 Darwin, C harles, 77 Davis, Thomas D., 270-72 Dershowitz, Alan, 109, 167 Descartes, Rene, 212, 285-86,

288-92 d'Holbach, Baron, 246-47 Dickens, C harles, 179, 365 Disraeli, Benjamin, 279 Dockri ll, Peter, 224-25 Douglass, Frederick, 359 Ducasse, Curt J ., 339 Durant, \Vi ii, 2

E. D. Klemke, 423 Edison, Thomas A., 2 13 Edwards, Paul, 421-22 Ehrenreich, Barbara, 387 Ei nstein, Albert, 69, 82, 144, 184, 284,

287, 292 Eliot, T. S., 314 Emerson, Ralph \Valdo, 121 Engels, Friedrich, 381-86 Epictetus, 22, 265

Fiorina, Carly, 432-33 Fodor, Jerry A., 222-23 Forude, James A., 173 Frankl, Viktor E., 407, 418 Franklin, Benjamin, 99

Galileo Galilei, 59 Gandhi, Mahatma, 118 Gardner, Marti n, 338-39 Glaspell, Susan, 39 Golding, Wi lliam, 397-404 Grau, Christopher, 287

Hamilton, Alexander, 370 Hawking, Stephen, 72, 78 Held, Virginia, 184-85 Hesse, Hermann, 414 Hick, John, 88-91 Hobbes, Thomas, 366-70 Hodge, C harles, 148 H ubbard, Elbert, 154, 278 H ume, David, 8, 74-76, 305-10,

346-48 H untington, Ellsworth, 210 H ursthouse, Rosalind, 179 H uxley, Thomas H., 281

Inge, Dean, 25 Ingersol, Robert, 157 Isaiah 5:20, KJV, 91

J Jagger, Alison, 182 James, Will iam, 38, 92, 99-105, 249 Jefferson, Thomas, 146

463

464 Index of Marginal Quotations

Jewish Proverb, 66 Johnson, B. C., 87

Kant, Immanuel, 83, 137, 169-73, 309, 312-15, 318

Ken nedy, Joh n F., 335 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 115 King, Ma rtin Luther, Jr., 355 Kitcher, Philip, 8 1 Klemm, W. R., 256

Lacy, Suzanne, 344 Lao Tzu, 123-25 Le Guin, Ursu la K., 200-203 Leonardo da Vinci, 296 Lewes, George H enry, 26 Lewis, C. S., 62, 65, 2 11 Lichtenstein, Roy, 338 Liebknecht, Karl, 380 Lin, Patrick, 230-31 Lincoln, Abraham, 178 Locke, Joh n,251, 293-99,371-74, 391 Lucretius, 424 Luther, Martin, 262 Luyah, Ha l Lee, 257

Mackie, J. L., 87, 93 Martin, Michael, I 06 Marx, Karl, 381-86 Maug ham, \Y/. Somerset, 66, 87 McCarthy, Cormac, 255 McGi ll, Bryant H., 366 Michelangelo, 333 Mi ll, John Stuart, 46, 157-64, 216 Mi ller, David, 392 Mi nsky, Marvin, 210 Mizner, \Y/i lson, 103 Montague, Ph illip, 45 Montesquieu, Cha rles de, 83 Morris, Richard, 69

Nagel, Thomas, 208, 220-21 Namazie, Ma ryam, 153 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 244 Nietzsche, Friedrich, JOI, 163

N in, Anais, 303 Noddings, Nel, 185 Noss, John B., 195 Novalis, 34 2 N ussbaum, Martha, 2

O kin, Susan Moller, 388-91 O'Rourke, P. J., 244, 377 Orwell, George, 382

Pa ley, \Y/i lliam, 72-73 Pasca l, Blaise, I 06-8 Picasso, Pablo, 333 Pigliucci, Massimo, 108 Pike, Albert, 28 Plato, 3, 5, IO-I I , 47-55, 283-84, 316,

322, 361-62 Poe, Edgar Allan, 351-52 Pope, Alexander, 206 Pugh, Emerson, 219

Rachels, James, 183 Rahula, Wa lpola, 112-13 Rand, Ayn, 254 Rawls, John, 376-77 Reagan, Ronald , 374 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 17 Rowe, Wi lliam L., 84-87, 91, 95,

254-55 Russell, Bertrand, 4 , 8 , 33, 7 1, 150,

280,289, 303

s Sagan, Ca rl, 77, 78 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 262-65, 360,

408, 422-23 Schick, Theodore, Jr., 212, 277 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 222,

248, 413-14 Schrodinger, Erwin, 78 Schulz, Charles M., 7, 114, 409 Searle, Joh n R., 216, 226-29, 231 Shafer-Landau, Russ, 147, 180 Shakespea re, \Y/i lliam, 36, 149, 311 Shaw, George Bernard, 119, 171 Silbersweig, David, 432

Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 242 Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, 61 Smart,]. J. C., 2 17-18 Snow, C. P., 168 Socrates, 3, 8-11, 42, 47-55, 140,

275,278 Spinoza, Baruch, 148, 242 Spong, John, 64 Stace, W. T., 251-52 Sumed ho, Ajah n, 112 Swami Vivekananda, 117 Swinburne, Richard, 87, 97

Taylor, Richa rd , 258-60 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 307 Teresa of Avila, 92 Tertullian, 168 The Budd ha, 68, 111-12 Thoreau, Henry David, 117, 173 T illich, Paul, 11 , 416, 421 Tocquevi lle, Alexis de, 382 Tolstoy, Leo, 250, 335, 4 11-13,

416-18 T rumbull, H . C., 171 T ryon, Edward, 69 Tur, Katy, 433 Twain, Mark, 122

u Unknown, 299 Urlaub, Ivan, 304

v Vanbrugh, Joh n, 151 van l nwagen, Peter, 257 Vaughn, Lewis, I 41, 277 Voltaire, 82, 143, 319, 429-30 von Braun, Wernher, 78

w \Y/aithe, Mary Ellen, 31 \Vest, Rebecca, 323 \Y/hitehead, Alfred North,

16, 149 \Y/ittgenstein, Ludwig, 19 \Y/olf, Susa n, 425 \Y/olls tonecraft, Mary, 187, 321 \Y/right, Frank Lloyd, 347

GENERAL INDEX

..................................... __.__. ............................................. ....... .... ...._.__._ .. ------· .............. .......... __.__. ... ...... .. ...... .......... .............................................. .

Abolitionists, of capital punishment, 160-61

Abortion rights, 391 Above, mea ning from, 416-21,

419j 420/ Abse,uqualia objections, 2 10, 223 Absolute d uty, 173 Absurdity, of existence, 188-91 Active read ing, 30, 32 Act-utilitarian ism

consequences in, 156-58 defined, 156, 198, 457

Addison, Joseph, 347 Ad ht>minem fallacy. See Appeal to the

person Aegisthus, 343 Aesthetics

Aristotle inAuencing, 340-43 defined ,333, 350, 457 Hume inAuencing, 346-48 philosophy of beauty and, 333 Plato inAuencing, 340 va lue, 338-40, 339/ See also Art

Affirmi ng t he antecedent. See Modus pt>nens

Affirmi ng t he consequent, 22 Agent causation

defined ,258, 268,457 libertarianism (metaphysic,,l)

and,258-60 Agnostic, 64-65, 129, 457 Ahimsa {non harm), 116 Al. See Artificial intelligence Ai nley, Alison, 320 Alienation, 380 Aliens, 209 Ana logical induction, 24-25 Ana lytic statement, 311-12, 329, 457 Anatta (impermanence of the self),

l l l-12

Anderson, Elizabeth, 32 1 Anguish, 264 Anicca (impermanence), 111 Anselm (sai nt)

criticism of, 82-83 ontological a rgument of, 62, 79-83 Prt>slt>gium by, 79-82

Antecedent, 19 Antisocial behavior, belief in free will

inAuencing, 252-53 Antithesis, 379 Antony, Louise M., 320-21 The Apt>logy (Plato), 47-55 A pt>sterit>ri a rguments, 66 A posteriori knowledge, 278, 312,

329,457 Appeal to ignorance, 37, 42, 457 Appeal to popularity, 35-36, 42, 457 Appeal to t he person, 33-35, 42, 457 A prit>ri arguments, 66 A priori knowledge, 278, 312, 313-19,

327, 329, 457 Aqu inas, Thomas

argument from motion of, 67-68 biography of, 68 criticism of, 69-71 firs t-cause argument of, 68-71 God and, 44-45, 61, 66-70, 126 meaning from below and, 421 Summa 7het>lt>gica by, 44-45, 66-70

Arbitrariness problem, of divine command t heory, 147-48, 448-50

Argument from evil defi ned,63-64, 129,457 God and, 63-64, 84-87, 126-27,

129,457 ignorance and, 86-87 Rowe's, 84-87

Argument from motion, 67-68 Argument from religious experience,

62-63,92-98, 12~ 129,419,457 Arguments

a pmteriori, 66 a priori, 66 claims in, 15-18 conclusion in, 15-19, 28-32 defined, 15,42, 458 eva luation of, 32 exercises, 43-46, 437-39 invalid , 22, 23 knowledge, 219-21 premise in, 15-19, 28-32 sound, 19 statements in, 15-18, 28-29 strong, 18-19 symbolization of, 19-26 theodicies, 64 thesis supported by, 379-80 in thi nki ng ph ilosophica lly,

14-40, 4 1 valid, 18-21, 23 weak, 18 See also Teleological a rg uments;

specific arguments Arignote, 31 Aristocracy, 361, 395, 457 Aristonexus, 31 Aristotle, 3, 4j 7j 115, 349

aesthetics inAuenced by, 340-43 happiness and, 176-78 Hypatia and, 29 Nict>machean Ethics by, 176-77 objectivism of, 340-43 The Poetics by, 340-43 in The Schot>l t>f Athens {Raphael), 178/ soul and, 2 14 virtue ethics and, 176-78 women and, 320, 322

Art aesthetic va lue of, 338-40, 339/ characterization of, 333-35,

336/-337/ as controversial, 336-37, 336/-337/ defined, 333-35

465

466 General Index

Art (contintted) as expression, 335 feminist, 344-46, 344/-346/ form of, 335 museum, 341 objectivism in, 338-43, 350, 459 as representation, 334-35 subjectivism in, 338, 346-48,

350, 460 Art (Bell), 335 Arti ficial intelligence (AI)

autonomous, 230-3 l and human rights, 224-25 strong, 208-10, 226-29, 230-31

Artworld, 339 Aryans, 117 Assessment of objections, in essay

structure, 443 Atheism

defined,64-65, 129,457 problem of evil and, 84-87 in U.S., 60

Atheism: A Philosophical fustifict1tion (Martin), 106

Atheistic existentia lism, 263 Atheists, 64, 419 Atmt1r1, 118 Atomist ph ilosophers, 249 Authoritarianism, 361 Autonomous Al, 230-31 Auxiliaries, 360 Ax iology, 6-7, 42, 457

Baggini, Ju lian mea ning oflife and, 414-16,

420-21, 420/ What'.r It All About? by, 414-16,

420-21, 420/ Baier, Annette, 188 Bai r, Sheila, 432 Bats, 219-21 Bats, materialism and, 221/ Baumeister, Roy F., 253 Beauty

aesthetics and, 333 Form of, 340 Hume on, 346-48 philosophy of, 333, 349

Begging the question, 38-39, 42, 457 Behavior

antisocial, belief in free wi ll influencing, 252-53

faith and, 107-8 Behaviorism. See Logica l behaviorism

Belief in free will, 252-53 in God, 58-109 ha rd-wired, 63 insufficient evidence for, 99, 102-3 in intercessory prayer, 96 justi fication of, 276 ph ilosophical, survey of, 5 without reason, 98-109, 127

Bell, C live, 335 Below, meaning from, 421-25 Belshaw, C hristopher, 425 Bentham, Jeremy, 157-58, 165 Berkeley, George, 299/

criticism of, 303 empiricism of, 279, 280, 299-303 God and, 303 Lockeand,299,301-2 "Of the Principles of H uma n

Knowledge" by, 300-303 sensations and, 299-303 subjective idealism and, 280

Bhagt1ut1d-Gitt1, 120-22, 457 bhaltti, 122 Bible, soul in, 214 Big Bang, 70-71, 70/ Bigfoot, 233 Bios (biological life of man), 90 Bisson, Terry, 237-38 Block, Ned, 223, 226 Blum, Lawrence, 20-21 Body. See Mind-body problem Body, in essay structure, 442-43 Bourgeoisie, 379-86 Brahman, 119, 457 Brahmin, 457 Brain

consciousness and, 212-13, 215, 2 17-23

mind and, 207-10, 223-29, 231-33 pineal gland in, 215/

Braue New \Vorl.d (Huxley), 242 Brillo Box, 339, 339/ The Buddha, 109-16, 110/, 127-28 Buddht1-Nt1ture (Sumedho), 112 Buddhism

Buddha and, 109-16, 127-28 complex ity of, 110 dharma in, 111- 16, 128, 130, 458 dultltht1 in, 111-16 Five Precepts of, 116 Four Noble Truths of, 111-16 God, ph ilosophy and, 109-10, 11 l,

114-16 history of, I 09-16

in India, 110-l l karma in, 110, 113-14, 130, 459 nirvana in, 112-16, 114-16, 128,

130, 459 Noble Eightfold Path of, 114-16 overview of, 109-16 and science, 114, 115 Temple of the Dawn and, 113/

Bunyan, Joh n, 347 Butterfield, Stewart, 432 Byrd, Randolph, 96

c Camus, Albert

existentialism of, 189-92, 197, 408 meaning of life and, 408, 414 morality and, 189-92, 197 "The Myth of Sisyphus" by, 189-91

Capita lism defined,379,395,457 socia list t heory and, 379, 380

Caring, 142, 181-88, 197 Carroll, Lewis, 330 Cartesian dualism

criticism of, 212-13, 215-16 defined,20~236, 457 identity theory and, 207-8, 218

Caste system, 117, 120, 121 Categorical imperative

defined, 171, 198-99, 457 in Kant's theory, 171-75

Catharsis, 340-43, 350, 457 Causa l closure of the physical, 215-15,

236,457 Causa lity, 307-8, 307/ Cerebra l commissurotomy, 213, 215 Certainty

of Descartes, 288-92, 292/, 326 of Locke, 293-99

Chalmers, David J., 218-20, 219/ Character

morality based on, 175-81, 197 in virtue ethics, 175-80

Child ca re, 388-91 Childhood, religion acquired in, 59, 61/ China, 192-95, 197-98, 223, 226 Chinese Room thought experiment,

226-29 Chisholm, Roderick, 258 Chuang Tztt, 123-24 Claim. See Statement Clarke, Arthur C., 131-33 Clarke, Randolph, 258 Classical liberalism, 374-75, 395,

457-58

C lassic utilitarianism, 157-58 C lass struggle, 379-87 C leanthes, 73-76 C lifford, W. K.

insufficient evidence for belief and, 99, 102-3

Ja mes and, 101-2, 102-4 C lon ing, human, 144-45, l44-45f Cognitive relativism

criticism of, 277 defined, 277,329, 458 problem of knowledge and, 277-78

Cole, Eve Browning, 321-25 Comedy, 343 Communism

defined, 379,395,458 Manifesto of tht Comm,mist Party

and, 381-86 socialist theory and, 379-87

Community, 360, 371-72, 393 Compatibilism

Consequence Argument rejected by, 257

criticism of, 244, 255 defined, 243-44,268, 458 free wi ll, determinism and, 250-55,

268, 458 Hobbes and, 250 Hume and, 250-51 libertarianism (metaphysical) and,

255,257-58 Locke and, 250-51, 254-55 overview of, 267 Stace and, 251-54 traditional, 243-44, 250-55

Competition, 367 Composition, fallacy of, 39, 42, 458 Computers, strong Al and, 208-10,

226-29, 228f Conceivability arguments

of Descartes, 212-13 aga inst identity t heory, 2 18-20

Conceptualized experience, 314-19, 315/, 316/, 317f

Conclusion in arguments, 15-19, 28-32 defined, 15,42,458 in essay structure, 444 identi fied, 29-32, 44-45, 437-39 indic,itor words, 17

Conditional premise, 19 Confucius, 123, 192-95, 192/, 197-98 Conscience, 138-39 Tiu Conscious Mind (Chalmers),

218-19, 232

Consciousness brain and, 212-13, 215, 217-23 divided, 213, 215

Consent, in socia l contract theory, 356, 364, 37 1-74

Consequence Argument, 257, 267 Consequences

in ethica l egoism, 140, 143, 165-69 Kant's theory and, 141, 169-70 mora lity based on, 155-69 in utilitarian ism, 140, 143, 155-64

Consequent, 19 Consequentialist theory, 140, 143, 155,

199, 458 Conservatism, 26, 143 Considered moral judgments, 143-46,

168, 173 Controversial art, 336-37, 336f-337f Copernicus, 314, 315f Cosmological arguments

Cra ig's, 70-71 defined, 61, 129, 458 for God's existence, 61, 66-71,

126,458 Kalam, 70-71

Cra ig, \Vi lliam Lane, 70-71 Credulity, pri nciple of, 93, 94-95 Criteria of adequacy

defined, 26 mora l, 143-46, 149-50, 196 Swinburne and, 77 types of, 26

Critical reading, 30, 32 Critique of Purt Reason (Kant), 83,

312-15, 318 Crosthwaite, Ja n, 182 Cultura l relativism

argument for, 153-54 defined, 149, 199,277-78,329, 458 infallibi lity problem of, 151-52, 278 mora l progress and, 151-53 mora l relativism and, 149, 151-55 problem of knowledge and, 277-78 social reformers and, 152-53 women's rights and, 152-53, 152-53f

Curie, Marie, 421

Dalai Lama, 114 Danto, Arthur C., 339 Dao, 123-24 Daoism, 123-26 Darrow, C larence, 28/, 75f

determinism of, 27-28 as pes.~imist, 414

General Index 467

Darwin, C harles, 13 Data, theory and, 143-46 David, 335 David, Jacques-Louis, !Of Da Vi nci, Leonardo, 335, 338, 343 Davis, Thomas D., 270-72 Dawkins, Richard, 63 Dead hypothesis, 100 Death

euthanasia, 156-57, 157f penalty, 160-61, !60-6lf rebi rth and, 113-14 of Socrates, 9, !Of, 47-55

Declaration of Independence, 356, 356/, 371

Deductive argument, 42, 458 defined, 17 examples of, 17-19

Deep Blue, 209-10, 209f Defi lements, 113 Deism, 65, 129, 458 Demea, 73 Democracy

defined,360,395,458 Plato opposing, 360, 364

Denying the antecedent, 22, 23 Denying the consequent.

See Modus tollens Deontologica l t heory, 140, 141, 155,

199, 458 Dependent premise, 28 Descartes, Rene

biography of, 290-91, 290f certa inty of, 288-92, 292/, 326 conceivability argument

of, 212-13 despair and, 265 Discour.re 011 the Method of Rightly

Conducting the Reason by, 212 divisibility argument of, 213-15 doubt of, 284-87 dream argument of, 285-86 God and, 289-90, 292 innate knowledge and, 285 Meditations on First Philosophy by,

213,285-86,288-92 principle of clarity and distinctness

of, 289-90 rationalism of, 279, 281, 284-92,

292/, 295 skepticism of, 285-87 substance dualism of, 206-7,

211-13, 215-16, 230, 234-35 Ste also Cartesian dua lism

Desert, 357, 359

468 General Index

Design arguments evolution and, 80-81 for God's existence, 61-63, 62/,

72-77, 80-81, 127 Hume critiquing, 73-77 Kant and, 83

Desire, 112 Despair, 264-65 Determinism

compatibi lism and, 250-55, 268, 458 Darrow's, 27-28 defined,241,268,458 d'Holbach and, 246-47 fatalism compared with, 245 free will problem and, 27-28, 241-45 indeterminism and, 242-43,

246-50,266-67 James and, 249 libertarianism (metaphysical) and,

244-46, 249-50,255-60 "A Little Omniscience Goes a Long

Way" and, 270-72 science and, 243, 247-48, 250 See also Hard determi nism

Dewey, John, 320 Dharma, 111, 120-21, 458 d'Holbach, Baron, 246-47, 247/ Dialectic process, 379-80 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

(H ume), 73-77 Diffidence, 367 "The Dilemma of Determinism"

(James), 249 "The Dilemma of the Divine Command

Theory" sample essay, 448-50 Disbelief, 64-66 Discourse on the Method of Rightly

Conducting the Reason (Descartes), 212

Disembodied existence, 212-13 Distributive justice, 357, 395, 458 Divine command theory

arbitrari ness problem of, 147-48, 448-50

defined, 146-47, 199, 458 God in, 139, 146-48, 199, 458 as moral theory, 139, 146-48, 180,

196, 199,448-49,458 in sample essay, 448-50 virtue ethics and, 180

Divine right, 364 Divisibility argument, 213-15 Division, fallacy of, 39, 42, 458 Doing Philosophy (Schick), 212-13 Doubt, of Descartes, 284-87

Downward causation, 232 Dreams, 93, 276, 276/ Dttkkha (suffering), 111-16 Duty

absolute, 173 Ka nt and, 183 morality based on, 169-75, 197 to opinion, 102-3 virtue ethics and, 175-76, 178-80

Eagleton, Terry, 424 Eastern religious traditions, 109-22,

127-29. See also Buddhism Edwards, Paul, 421-22 Efficient cause, 67 Einstein, Albert, 65, 145, 284, 287, 292 "Embodiment and Epistemology"

(Antony), 320-21 Emotions

ethics and, 137-38, 182-85 tragedy invoking, 340-43

Empedodes, 13, 13/ Empiricism

of Berkeley, 279, 280, 299-303 defi ned,278,329,458 feminist, 322 of Hume, 279, 280, 303-10, 307/ Kant and, 311-19, 315/, 316-17/ of Locke, 279-80, 293-99 morality and, 170 problem of knowledge and, 278-80,

293-3 10, 307/, 326-27 skepticism in, 280

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edwards), 421-22

Engels, Friedrich, 381-86 En lightenment, 246-47, 304 An Enquiry Concerning Human

Understanding (Hume), 305-10 Entitlement, 359 Enumerative induction, 22-23 Epicureans, 41, 159, 417 Epicurus, 3, 159, 178/ Epiphenomenalism

criticism of, 216, 232 defi ned,210, 236,458 mind-body problem and, 210-11 property dualism and, 232-33

Epistemic justi fication, 98 Epistemology

defi ned,6,42,275,329,458 feminist, 321-22 Ka nt's revolution in, 314-15,

315/, 318-19

questions, 6, 276 traditiona l, 321-22

Equality genderand,388-92 Hobbes and, 366-67 justice as, 357, 359, 363, 363/ of opportunity, 377-78 organ transplants and, 363, 363/ in political philosophy, 357, 359 Rawls and, 357

Equal liberty principle, 376-78 Equivocation, 36-37, 42, 458 An Essay Concerning Httman

Understanding (Locke), 251, 293-99

An Essay on Free Will (van Inwagen), 257 Essay structure, 441-44. See also

Philosophy papers Essence, ex istence preceding, 189-91,

262-65 Ethical egoism

arguments agai nst, 167-69 consequences in, 140, 143, 165-69 defined, 140, 143, 199,458 as moral theory, 140, 143,

165-69, 458 psychological egoism and, 166-69,

460 utilitarianism and, 165-66

Ethics defined, 6, 43, 136, 199, 458 emotions and, 137-38, 182-85 fem inist, 181-88, 197, 199, 458 morality distinguished from, 137-38 in Nicon1achea11 Ethic,, 176-77 overview of, 136-48, 196 of strong AI, 230-31 See also Virtue ethics

Ethics of care criticism of, 185, 188 defined, 142, 182, 199, 458 femin ist ethics and, 181-88, 197 as moral theory, 142-43, 181-88,

197, 199, 458 The Ethics of Care (Held), 184-85 Eudaimonia (happi ness), 176 Euripides, 34 3 Europe, belief in God in, 60 Euthanasia, 156-57, 157/ Euthyphro (Plato), 147, 449 Evidence, insufficient for belief, 99,

102-3 Evidentialism

defined, 99, 130, 458 James repudiati ng, 99-106

Evil argument from, 63-64, 84-87,

127, 129, 457 atheism and, 84-87 free wi ll defense and, 64, 87-88 God and, 63-66, 84-91, 127,

129, 133 moral, 84, 130, 459 natural, 84, 130, 459 necessar)', 64 problem of, 84-9 1, 127 soul-making defense and, 88-91 suffering from, 84-87 unnecessar)', 64, 66

Evil and the God of Love (Hick), 88-91 Evolution, design arguments and,

80-81 Examined life, Socrates and, 3, 8-11,

14, 40-41 Existence

absurdit)' of, 188-91 disembodied, 212-13 essence preceded b)', 189-91, 262-65 God's, arguments for, 61-63, 62/,

66-83, 126-2~ 129-30,457 persona l, recognition of, 291

Tiu Existence of God (Swinburne), 97 Existentia lism

atheistic, 263 of Camus, 189-92, 197, 408 defined, 188-89 of Sartre, 189, 262-66

"Existentialism Is a Humanism" (Sartre), 262-65

Explanation defined, 25 in inductive arguments, 25-26

Explosive O rdna nce Disposa l Robot, 230-31, 230-31/

Expres.~ion, art as, 335 Extension, of physical th ings, 211 External mean ing, 410-11

Fact, fa ith creating, 104 Faith

behavior and, 107-8 fact created by, 104 living b)', 107 pragmatic, 99-108 reason and, 65-66 Tolstoy's, 4 17-18

Fallac)' appea l to ignorance, 37, 43, 457 appea l to popularity, 35-36, 43, 457

appeal to the person, 33-35, 43, 457 begging the question, 38-39, 43, 457 composition, 39, 43, 458 defined,33, 43,458 division, 39, 43, 458 equivocation, 36-37, 43, 458 exercise, 439 false dilemma, 37-38, 43, 458 genetic, 36, 43, 458 identified, 45-46 slippery slope, 39, 43, 460 straw man, 33, 43, 460

Fa lse d ilemma, 37-38, 43, 458 Fam ii)'

power relationships in, 388-89, 390/ responsibilities, 388-91 si ngle-parent, 388-89

Fatalist, 245 Fate, 245 Father, God as, 90 Fear, 340-43 Feminism

concerns of, 319 criticism of, 391-92 justice, political ph ilosoph)' and,

387-92,394-95 Miller and, 391-92 O kin and, 388-91, 389/

Feminist art, 344-46, 344/-346/ Feminist empiricism, 322 Feminist epistemology, 321-22 "Feminist Epistemology and Philosoph)'

of Science" (Anderson), 321 Feminist ethics

defined, 181, 199, 458 ethics of care and, 181-88, 197

"Feminist Ethics" Qaggar), 182 Feminist perspective, on knowledge

Ainley's, 320 Anderson's, 321 Antony's, 320-21 Cole's, 321-23 criticism of, 323, 324 problem of knowledge and, 3 19-25,

327-28 "Feminist Philosophy" (Ai nle)'), 320 Feminist postmodernism, 322-25 Feminist standpoint t heor)', 322-24 Fiction

"The Good Brahmin," 429-30 "A Little Omniscience Goes a Long

Way," 270-72 Lord of the Flies, 397-404 "The O nes Who \Val k Awa)' From

Ornelas" (Le Guin), 200-203

General Index 469

"The Oval Portrait," 351-52 "The Star," 131-33 "They're Made O ut of Meat"

(Bis.~on), 237-38 Through the Looking Glass, 330 See also Narrative

Final draft, of philosophy paper, 447 Fiorina, Carly, 431-32 First-cause argument, 68-71 First draft, of philosophy paper,

446-47 First Mover, 68, 69-70 First Noble Truth, 111-12 Five Precepts, 116 Fodor, Jerry A., 222-23 Forlornness, 264 Formalism, 45, 335, 350 Forms, 282

of art, 335 of Beauty, 340

Four Noble T ruths, 111-16 Fourth Noble T ruth, 114-16 Frank, Anne, 174/ Frankl, Viktor, 424 Free acts, 251-54 Freedom

Sartre's, 261-65, 268 va lue of, 241

Free will bel ief in, 252-53 compatibi lism and, 250-55, 268, 458 defense, evil and, 64, 87-88 incompatibilism and, 243, 244-45,

254-55 libertarianism (metaphysical) and,

244-46,249-50,255-60 "A Little Omniscience Goes a Long

\Va)'" and, 270-72 science and, 243, 247-48, 250, 256 See also Problem of free wi II

Fruitfulness, 142 Functiona lism

criticism of, 223, 23 1, 235 defined,209,236,458 identity theory and, 222-23 logical behaviorism and, 222-23 mind-body problem in, 209-10,

222-23,235 Fundamental ideas, 2 7he Fundamentals of Ethier

(Shafer-Landau), 180

Gandhi, Mahatma, 417/, 421 Gardner, Martin, 338

470 General Index

Gaunilo, 82 Gender, equality and, 388-92. See also

Feminism "Gender and Bioethics"

(Crosthwa ite), 182 Gender-structured marriage, 388-90 General assent, 294 Genetic fullacy, 36, 43, 458 Genuine option, 99-100, 102 "Ghost in the machine," 211 G illigan, Carol, 183 Girl with a Pearl Earring, 335 G lory, 367 God

Aquinas and, 44-45, 61, 66-70, 126 argument from evil and, 63-64,

84-97, 127, 129, 457 argument from rel igious experience

and,62-63, 12~ 129,457 belief in, 58-109 Berkeley and, 303 cosmological arguments for, 61,

66-71, 126, 458 Descartes and, 289-90, 292 design arguments for, 61-63, 62j

72-77, 80-81, 126 difficulty recognizing, 97-98 in divine command theory, 139,

146-48, 199, 458 divine right and, 364 evil and, 63-66, 84-91, 127,

129, 133 experience of, 92-98, 127 as father, 90 in "A Little Omniscience Goes a

Long \Vay," 270-72 meaning oflife from, 409-10, 409j

416-21, 417j 419-20/ morality of, 87 nature of, 108 ontologic"I arguments for, 62, 66,

79-83, 127, 130 Pascal betting on, 106-9 Paul's experience of, 93/ purpose of, 89-90 theodicies and, 64 See also Rel igion; Religious

experience God, philosophy and

arguments for existence, 61-63, 62j 66-83, 126-2~ 129-30,457

belief without re,tson in, 98-109, 127 Buddhism and, 109-10, 111, 114-16 overview of, 58-66, 126-27 in ph ilosopher's quest, 59-64

problem of evil in, 84-91, 127 "The Star" and, 131-33 theism and religious experience in,

92-98, 93j 127 Goldi ng, W illiam, 397-404 "The Good Brahm in" (Voltaire), 429-30 Good will, 170-71 Government

beginning of, 371-72 end of, 372-73 functions needed from, 370-71 pervasiveness of, 355-56 rebellion against, 371, 375

The Grand Design (Hawking), 72/ Grau, Christopher, 287 Greatest Happiness Principle,

158-59, 162 Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

(Kant), 170-71 Guardians, 360

Hallucinations, 276 Happiness

Aristotle and, 176-78 eudainionia, 176 in Greatest Happiness Principle,

158-59, 162 meaning of life d istinguished

from, 409 in uti litarian ism, 157-64

Hard determi nism defi ned, 243,268,458 of d'Holbach, 246-47 Sartre and, 265

Hare, R. M., 422 Hawking, Stephen, 72/ Hea lth care, 378 Held, Virginia, 183-85, 183/ Herodotus, 341-42 Hick, John

Evil and the God of Love by, 88-91 Hume and, 89, 90 and Rowe's criticism of, 91 suffering and, 89, 91

Hinduism, 116-23 Bhagavad-Gita, 120-22 origins, 117 schools of, 122-23 Upanishads, 118-19 Vedas, 117-18

Hitler, Adolf, 15j 149-50 Hobbes, Thomas

biography of, 365, 365/ compatibilism and, 250

equa lity and, 366-67 injustice and, 387 justice and, 366, 369-71, 375-76 socia l contract theory of, 365-70 See also Leviathan

Homer, 343 Hood, Bruce, 63 H uma n cloning, morality of, 144-45,

144-45/ H uma n rights, Al and, 224-25 H uma ns, natural condition of, 366-70 H ume, David, 350

aesthetics influenced by, 346-48 on beauty, 346-48 biography of, 304-5, 304/ causality and, 307-8, 307/ compatibi lism and, 250-51 criticism of, 77, 375-76 design arguments critiqued by, 73-77 Dialogues Concerning Natural

Religion by, 73-77 empiricism of, 279, 280, 303-10, 307/ An Enquiry Concerning H11man

Understanding by, 305-10 Hick and, 89, 90 infinite regress and, 69 Kant and, 311-12 on perceptions, 304-6, 308, 310 principle of induction and, 308-9,

329, 459-60 reasoning argument of, 74 self and, 111 skepticism of, 304-5, 307, 310-12 socia l contract theory criticized by,

375, 376 Of the Standard of Taste by, 346-48 subjectivism of, 346-48 women and, 320

H ursthouse, Rosali nd, 179 Huxley, Aldous, 242 Hypatia

biography of, 29, 29/ in Tiu School of Athens (Raphael),

178/ Hypothesis

dead, 100 live, 100, 106 rel igious, 99-106

Hypothetical imperative, 171

!, Robot, 225 Ideas

perceptions as, 295-99, 304-5 sensations and, 295-99

Identity theory Cartesian dua lism and, 207-8, 218 conceivabi lity arguments agai nst,

218-20 criticism of, 218-2 1, 230-31 defi ned, 208, 236, 458 functionalism and, 222-23 See also Mind-body identity

Ignorance appea l to, 37, 43, 457 argument from evil and, 86-87 veil of, 376

Imitation . See Representation Tiu Imitation Game, 227 Immortal soul, 214 Impartiality, 137, 158, 169, 183, 184-85 Impermanence, 111-12, 113 Impressions, 304-6 In ti Different Voice (Gill igan), 183 Incompatibi lism

defi ned, 243,269,459 free wi ll and, 243, 244-45, 254-55 libertarianism (metaphysical) and,

255,257 Independent premise, 28 Indeterminism

defi ned, 243,269,459 determi nism and, 242-43,

246-50, 266-67 India, Buddhism originating in, 110-1 1 Indicator words, 17 Induction

analogical, 24-25 enumerative, 22-23 principle of, 308-9, 329, 459 problem of, 309

Inductive argument analogical induction, 24-25 defi ned, 18, 43, 459 enumerative induction, 22-23 examples of, 18-19 inference to the best explanation,

25-26 Industry, modern, 384-85 Infallibility problem, 149-51, 278 In ference to the best

explanation, 25-26 In finite chain, of Movers, 67-71 In finity, logica l contradictions of, 71 Inherent va lue, of persons, 173-74 Injustice

laws of nature and, 369-70 in politica l philosophy, 387

Innate knowledge, 282-84, 283-95 Instagram, 334/

Intell igent design, 61-63, 62/, 80-81. See also Design arguments

Intercessory prayer, 96 Internal mea ning, 410, 421-25 Introduction, in essay structure, 441-42 Invalid arguments, 22, 23 Irises, 335 Island, greatest possible, 82-83, 82f

J Jaggar, Alison, 182 James, Will iam

biography of, 248, 248f Clifford and, 101-2, 102-4 criticism of, 106 determinism and, 249 "The Dilemma of Determinism"

by, 249 evidentialism repudiated by, 99-106 genuine option of, 99-100, 102 pragmatism of, 99-106, 248 on religious experience, 92 religious hypothesis of, 99-106 The Will to Believe by, I 00-106

Judge, known and ind ifferent, 373 Justice

defined,357,396,459 distributive, 395, 458 as equa lity, 357, 359, 363, 363f feminism and, 387-92, 394-95 Hobbesand,366, 369-71,375-76 laws of nature and, 369-70 Lord of the Flies and, 397-404 as merit, 357, 360-63 Plato and, 10-11, 357, 360-62,

360/, 393 political philosophy and, 355-59,

356/, 358-59] 393 in T/,e Republic, 10-11, 360-62 retributive, 357 social, 387-92, 394-95 social contract theory and, 364-78 utilitarian theory of, 357

]ttstice, Gender, and the Family (Okin), 388-91

Kalam cosmological argument, 70-7 1 Kane, Robert, 258 Kant, Immanuel

biography, 313, 313f criticism of, 318-19 Critique of Pure Reason by, 83,

312-15, 318 design arguments and, 83

General Index 471

duty and, 183 empiricism and, 311-19, 315/,

316-I7f epistemology revolution of, 314-15,

315/, 318-19 Grottndwork of the Metaphysic of

Morals by, 170-71 Hume and, 311-12 moral theory of, 141, 143, 170-75,

197, 199, 459 Plato and, 3 12-14 problem of knowledge and, 280,

31 1-19, 316-17/, 327 rationalism and, 312-14, 318 respect for persons and, 173-74 skepticism and, 280, 312, 318 on stamp, 17 If utilitarian ism and, 173 women and, 321

Kant's theory categorical imperatives in, 171-75 consequences and, 141, 169-70 criticism of, 173-75 defined, 141, 199, 459 as moral theory, 14 1, 143, 170-75,

197, 199, 459 Karma, 110, 113-14, 121, 459 Kasparov, Garry, 209-10, 209f Kaufma nn, Walter, 3 Ki ng, Martin Luther, Jr., 355, 421 Ki ngs, divi ne right of, 364 Kitcher, Philip, 8 1 Klemke, E. D., 423 Knowledge

arguments, 219-21 forms, 275-76, 303,304 innate, 282-84, 283-95 a posteriori, 278, 3 12, 329, 457 a priori, 278, 312, 313-19, 327,

329, 457 propositional, 276, 329, 460 situated, 321 See also Epistemology; Feminist

perspective, on knowledge; Problem of knowledge

Kushner, Harold, 66

Labor, sexual division of, 390, 391 Lao-Tzu, 123-26 Law, mora lity and the, 141 Law of conservation of

mass-energy, 2 16 Laws of nature, 368-70 Lawyers, women as, 391

472 General Index

Legal moralism, 141 Le Guin, Ursu la, 200-203 Leibn iz, Gottfried, 269 Leviathan, 366, 371, 372 Leviathan (Hobbes)

frontispiece to, 367f laws of nature in, 368-70 natura l condition of man kind in,

366-70 peace in, 368-70 political ph ilosophy in, 365-70 war in, 368-69

Li, 193, 459 Libera lism

classical, 374-75, 395, 457-58 defined,374,396,459 welfa re, 378, 396, 460

Libertarianism (metaphysical) agent causation and, 258-60 compatibilism and, 255, 257-58 Consequence Argument of, 257 criticism of, 257-60 defined,244, 269,459 determinism and, 244-46,

249-50, 255-60 free wi ll and, 244-46,

249-50, 255-60 incompatibilism and, 255, 257 Libet and, 256 overview of, 267-68

Libertarianism (political) classical liberalism

resembling, 375 defined, 375, 396,459 paradise, in U.S., 380

Liberty, 368-69, 370-71 Libet, Benjamin, 256 Life

bios, 90 examined, 3, 8-11, 14, 40-41 length of, 412j 422 mea ninglessness of, 410-16, 412f moral, consistency with facts of,

145-46 private and public, 387-92 purpose of, 419 zoe, 90 See also Meaning, of life

The Lift of Teresa of]enis (Teresa of Avila), 92

Lin, Patrick, 230-31 "A Little Omniscience Goes a Long

Way" (Davis), 270-72 Live hypothesis, 100, 106 Living \Vith Darwin (Kitcher), 81

Locke, John, 293f Berkeley and, 299, 301-2 biography of, 375, 375f certainty of, 293-99 compatibilism and, 250-51,

254-55 criticism of, 296-99 empiricism of, 279-80, 293-99 An Essay Concerning H11man

Understanding by, 251, 293-99 injustice and, 387 political philosophy and, 356 social contract theory of, 371-75 Two Treatises of Government

by, 371f women and, 320 See also Second Treatise of Government

Logic defi ned, 7, 43, 459 of ontological arguments, 79 questions, 6

Logical behaviorism defi ned, 207-8, 236, 459 functionalism and, 222-23 mind-body problem in, 207-8

Lord of the Flies (Goldi ng), 397-404 Love, parental, 90 Lucretius, 423-24 Lying promise, 171-72

Machine-universe analogy, 74, 75 Mackie, J. L.

on God's morality, 87 The Miracle of Theism by, 93

Mahabarata, 115-16 Majority, act of, 371-72 Man, natural condition of, 366-70 Manifesto of the Comm11nist Party

(Marx and Engels), 381-86 Marriage, gender-structured, 388-90 Martin, Michael, 106 Marx, Ka rl, 379f

influence of, 379 Manifesto of the Comm11nist Party by,

381-86 socialist theory of, 379-86

Materialism bats and, 219-21, 22 1f defi ned, 207, 236, 459 as false, 210 property dualism and, 232-33 zombies and, 2 18-19, 220f

The Matrix, 287, 287f Matters of fact, 303-4, 306, 312

Meaning from above, 4 16-21 from below, 421-25 external, 4 10-11 interna l, 410, 421-25 meaning of, 409-10, 414, 4 16

Meaning, of life from above, 4 16-21 Baggi ni and, 414-16, 420-21, 420f from below, 421-25 Camus and, 408, 414 defined,409-10,414, 4 16 God's plan for, 409-10, 409j

416-21, 417j 419-20f happiness distinguished from, 409 interna l, 410 length of life and, 4 l 2j 422 meaning of meaning in, 409-10,

414,416 morality distinguished from, 409 optimist's view of, 4 10, 416-25, 417j

419j 420j 426 overview of, 407-10, 407j 409j 426 as personal, 408-9 pessimist's view of, 411-16,

412j 426 philosophy and, 407-10, 407j 409f for potter, 407-8 quiz, 427, 427f from religion, 409-10, 409j 416-21,

417j 4 19-20f suffering and, 4 13-14

Meaninglessness, of life, 410-16, 412f Means of production, 379-81, 384 Meditations on First Philosophy

(Descartes), 2 13, 285-86, 288-92 Meno (Plato), 283-84 Mental discipline, 114-16 Merit

justice and, 357, 360-63 organ transplants and, 363, 363f

Meritocracy, 360, 396, 459 Messerly, John G., 424 Metaphysics, 4-6, 43, 459 Metaphysics (Taylor, R.), 258-60 Metz, Thaddeus, 424 Michelangelo, 335 Middle Way or Path, 114-16 Mill, James, 165 Mill, John Stuart

biography of, 165, 165f Greatest Happiness Principle of,

158-59, 162 The Sttbjection of\Vome11 by, 165 uti litarianism of, 157-63

"\Vhat Utilitarianism Is" by, 158-63 women and, 165, 320

Mi ller, David, 391-92 Milton, John, 347 Mimesis. See Representation Mind

of bats, 219-21 bra in and, 207-10, 223-29, 231-33 conceptual processor of, 316-17,

316-17/ intu ition of, 291-92, 292/ objects conforming to, 3 15-18 as properties, 230-35 See also Software, mind as

Mind (Searle), 216, 226-29 Mind-body identity

conceivabi lity arguments and, 218-20

criticism of, 218-2 1, 230-31 theory of, 207-9, 217-21, 235

Mind-body problem defined, 206, 236, 459 epiphenomenalism and, 210-11 in functiona lism, 209-10, 222-23,

226-27, 235 immortal sou l and, 214j 215 in logica l behaviorism, 207-8 mind as softwa re and, 209-10,

222-29, 235 overview of, 206-10, 234 in property dua lism, 210, 230-35 in substance dualism, 206-7,

211- 16, 214-15] 234-35 "The Mind-Body Problem" (Fodor),

222-23 The Miracle of Theism (Mackie), 93 Mitys, 342 Modern industry, 384-85 Modus ponens (affirming the antecedent),

19, 23 Modus to/lens (denyi ng the

consequent), 20-21 Mommy track, 39 1 Mona Lisa, 335, 338, 343 Monotheism, 65, 130, 459 Moral absolutism, 148-49, 199, 459 Moral common sense, 143-46, 168,

173-74 Moral conduct, 114-16 Moral criteria of adequacy, 143-46,

149-50, 196 Moral disagreement, 149-51, 153-55 Moral evil, 84, 130, 459 Moral excellence, 178-79 Morality

based on rights, 169-75, 197 Camus and, 189-92, 197 character and, 175-81, 197 consequences and, 155-69 defined, 136, 199, 459 divine command theory and,

139, 146-48, 180, 196, 199, 448-49, 458

duty and, 169-75, 197 empiric") basis of, 170 ethics disti nguished from, 137-38 God's, 87 of human cloning, 144-45, 144-45/ impartiality and, 137, 158, 169, 183,

184-85 and the law, 141 mean ing of life distinguished

from, 409 as normative enterprise, 137 overview of, 136-48, 196 political philosophy and, 365 principle of respect for persons and,

173-74 properties of, 137-38 reason-based, 137-38 religion and, 146-48 Socrates and, 147

Mora l judgments, considered, 143-46, 168, 173

Mora l life, consistency with facts of, 145-46

Mora l objectivism, 148-49, 154-55, 199, 459

Mora l obligations, 139 Mora l ph ilosophy. See ethics Mora l problem-solving, resourcefulness

in, 145-46 Mora l progress, 150-52, 151-53 Mora l question, 103-4 Mora l relativism

cultural relativism and, 149, 151-55

defined, 149, 199, 459 infallibi lity problem of, 15 1-52 overview of, 196 subjective relativism and, 148-51

Mora l t heory consequentialist, 140, 143, 155,

199, 458 considered mora l judgments in,

143-46, 168, 173 criteria of adequacy in, 143-46,

149-50, 196 data and, 143-46 defined, 139, 199, 459

General Index 473

deontological, 140, 141, 155, 199, 458 divine command theory, 139, 146-48,

180, 196, 199, 448-49, 458 ethical egoism, 140, 143, 165-69, 458 ethics of care, 142-43, 181-88, 197,

199, 458 Kant's theory, 141, 143, 170-75, 197,

199, 459 scientific theory ana logous to,

142-46 types, 140-46 utilitarian ism, 140, 141, 143,

155-64, 460 virtue ethics, 142, 175-80, 460

Moral values, 139 Morris, Richard, 69 Motion, argument from, 67-68 Motivation, right t hought and, 116 Movers, infin ite chain of, 67-71 Mult iple persona lity disorder, 213 Multiple realizability, 209, 236, 459 Museum, 341 My Confession (Tolstoy), 411-13, 416-18 "The Myth of Sisyphus" (Camus),

189-92

Nagel, Thomas, 219-21 Namazie, Maryam, 153 Narrative, "The Tria l and Death of

Socrates" as, 47-55 Natura l condition, of ma n, 366-70 Natura l evil, 84, 130, 459 Natura listic theories, 77 Natura l selection, 80-8 1 Natttral Theology (Paley), 72-73 Nature

of God, 108 imperfections in, 74-77, 75/ laws of, 368-70 state of, 366, 371, 372-76

Necessary evil, 64 "The Need for More Than Justice"

(Baier), 188 Needy, assisting, 357, 359, 359/ News, philosophy in, 34 Niconiachean Ethics (A ristotle), 176-77 Nielsen, Kai, 422 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 415 N ihilists, 411 Nirvana, 112-16, 130, 459 Noble Eightfold Path, 114-16 Non-art, 333-35 Nonconsequentialist theory.

See deontological theory

474 General Index

Normal species functioning, 378 Normative, 137 Noumena, 317 Nozick, Robert, 359

0 Obama, Barack, 381 Objections, assessment of, 443 Objectivism, 338-43, 350, 459 Objects, conforming to mind, 3 15-18 Obligation

moral, 139 theories of, 141-42, 175-76, 178-79

Ockham's razor, 77 O'Connor, Timoth)', 258 Odys,ey (Homer), 343 Oedipus, 34 2 "Of the Principles of Human

Knowledge" (Berkeley), 300-303 Of the Standard of Taste (Hume),

346-48 "Of the System of Man's Free Agency"

(d'Holbach), 246-47 Ogilby, John, 347 Okin, Susan Moller

femi nism and, 388-91, 389f justice, Gender, and the Family by,

388-9 1 Omniscience, 270-72 "The Ones \Vho Walk Away From

Ornelas" (Le Guin), 200-203 "On the Sufferings of the World"

(Schopenhauer), 4 13-14 Ontological arguments

Anselm's, 62, 79-83 defined, 62, 130, 459 form of, 66 for God's existence, 62, 66, 79-83,

127, 130 logic of, 79

Opinion duty to, 102-3 psychology of, 103-4

Opportunity, equa lity of, 377-78 Optimists

about mea ning oflife, 4 10, 416-25, 417/, 419/, 420/, 426

Edwards, 421-22 Tolstoy, 4 11, 416-18 Warren, 4 19

Orestes, 343 Organ transplants, 363, 363f Original position, of Rawls, 376-77 Outline, of philosophy paper, 446 "The Oval Portrait" (Poe), 351-52

Overridingness, 137 Ovid, 333

Pain, 222-23, 297-98 Pa ley, \Vi lliam, 61-62, 72-73 Panentheism, 65, 130, 459 Pantheism, 65, 130, 459 Papers. See Philosophy papers Pa rental love, 90 Parks, Rosa, 421 Parmenides, 13, l 3f Pasca l, Blaise, 106f

criticism of, I 08 God and, 106-9 Pensees and Other Writings by, 107-9 wager of, 99, 102, 106-9

Paul (sai nt), 93f Peace, in Leviathan, 368-70 Pensees and Other \flritings

(Pascal), 107-9 Perceptions

Hume on, 304-6, 308, 310 as ideas, 295-99, 304-5

Persona l, as political, 390, 390j 392 Persona l existence, recognition of, 291 Persuasion, 15 Pessimists

about meaning of life, 4 11-16, 412j 426

Darrow, 414 Schopenhauer, 413-14, 414f Tolstoy, 411-13, 416-18

Phenomena, 317 Philo, 73-76 Philosophers, quest of, 2-7, 40, 59-64.

See also specific philosophers Philosophic"l beliefs survey, 5 Philosophical method, 2 Philosophy

aesthetics and, 333 arguments in, 14-40, 4 1 of beauty, 333, 349 bias in, 320-23 careers in, 431-36 as college major, 43 1-36 good of, 2-4 immediacy of, 2 main divisions of, 4-7 meaning ofl ife and, 407-10,

407/, 409f in news, 34 in politics, 35, 35f as quest for understanding, 2-7,

40, 59-64

reading, 27-32 reasons in, 15-27 th inking philosophically in,

14-40, 4 1 See also God, philosophy and;

Politica l philosophy Philosophy and Feminist Criticism

(Cole), 321-23 philosophy majors, 431-36

ca reers for, 431-34 salaries of, 4 34-36

Philosophy of Religion (Rowe), 84-87, 95

Philosophy papers fi nal draft of, 447 first draft of, 446-47 outline of, 446 resea rch for, 445 revision of, 447 sample, 448-50 steps of, 444-47 structure of, 441-44 thesis statement in, 442-43, 445-46 topic selection for, 444-45 writi ng instructions for, 444-50

Ph)'sica lism. See materialism Ph)'sics, quantum, 69, 71, 243, 247-48 Pinea l gland, 215f Pity, 340-43 Plato, 7 f, 28 lj 349

Academy of, 360f aesthetics influenced by, 340 The Apology by, 47-55 democracy opposed by, 360, 364 Ettthyphro by, 147 Forms of, 282, 340 H)'patia and, 29 inAuence of, 9 justice and, 10-11, 357, 360-62,

360/, 393 Kant and, 312-14 Meno by, 283-84 propositional knowledge and, 276 rationalism of, 279, 281-84,

281/, 312-14 The Repttblic b)', 10-11, 360-62, 360f in The School of Athens (Raphael), l 78f Socrates and, 8-11, 47-55, 147,

283-84,326,361-62, 449 substance dualism of, 207 "The Trial and Death of Socrates"

by,47-55 women and, 320

Pleasure, sensi ng of, 287-88 Poe, Edgar Allan, 351-52