Here it is, our regular Friday diet of suggested readings for the weekend:
Julian Baggini at The Guardian reviews “Hands: What We Do With Them — and Why,” by Darian Leader, a book that asks “What if, rather than focusing on the new promises or discontents of contemporary civilisation, we see today’s changes as first and foremost changes in what human beings do with their hands?”
Lots of people think that philosophical thought experiments, like the infamous trolley dilemma, are irrelevant mental masturbation. Turns out, your actual life might depend on them…
Wendy Werris penned an article for Publishers Weekly where she described her very rough two weeks working for Barnes & Noble. Though it’s hard to imagine why on earth she was expecting something different.
The European soccer championship is entering its final phase, but this summary of famous philosophers’ take on sports events and what they teach us about life applies equally well to the Olympics, the SuperBowl, and the (so-called) World Series.
Heard about Brexit, right? Here is Sir Patrick Stewart’s take on it, in turn inspired by the famous Monty Python sketch, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”
Finally, indulge me if I publish one of my own Plato Comics (TM), but let me clarify just in case that it obviously reflects my own idiosyncratic opinion, and that it is meant just for fun. So, no need to “reply” to it, it ain’t an argument…
Footnotes to Plato 
Massimo,
“What practical use is much of science?”
Are you serious? Science has doubled our lifespan and and made life about a million times easier for the average human. Now you go. Philosophy has…. made progress within itself?
Name a scientist who has done as little for the world as Kant and I’ll agree with you. That scientist was useless. I won’t call them “great” just because they tried.
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I hear dive bar crickets.
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Science is built on failures! Try … try again …and so is all philosophy not just natural philosophy.
As pointed out Einstein failed to understand QM, to find a unified theory (he likely was headed completely in the wrong direction, but we don’t know), His failures are jmay be as an important as his successes…
Your going to say Ptolemy wasn’t great because he was wrong? Or Aristotle?
“If I’ve seen farther it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants”
–Newton (who stood on the ‘mistakes’ of Kepler and Copernicus and made a few blunders himself.
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https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x864e7b0052dc7d07:0xfe0aa910d647bdcd!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e115!4shttp://www.perryvermeulen.nl/hungry-and-thirsty-oswald-related-places-to-visit-in-dallas-and-new-orleans/!5sozzie+rabbit+fort+worth+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e1!2shttp://threeshotswerefired.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ozrab.jpg&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPl-bK-9fNAhVHwWMKHU5UA6wQoioIcTAK
–Cockroaches too …
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Hi Coel, sorry but words have meanings, and I asked him a pointed question which he has to answer. I did not supply the answer. According to his stated descriptive theory if the people of Texas thought their system was the best then it is the best? Yes or no?
He seems to be saying no, which appears inconsistent with his theory.
If you want to play a game where you say criteria X means it is best, then X exists and you argue it does not mean something is best while throwing up your hands and saying “but only in my opinion”, you undercut credibility in both arguments.
On the absurdity of the death row thing, my guess is you wouldn’t find it so absurd if you were the guy on death row, particularly if you were trying to file appeals or work for your pardon but have had this suspended due to ill health.
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Hi Dearth,
“No, Texas does not nurse death row inmates back to health to be humane. Nice try. Actually no. Pathetic try. They do it so that those immoral scumbags can know that society killed them not nature.”
Proof?
“And they got this idea from Kant.”
Proof?
“This is Kant’s most direct contribution to society.”
Really? Sweet. Proof?
Oh yeah and while I’m on the subject of proof I want the quote from Kant where he says that if the world is ending we have to ignore our kids in order to kill prisoners.
“And please stop trying to represent my philosophy.”
That’s funny, perhaps you can point out where I said what your philosophy was, other than ill conceived (basically ad hoc). My point is that you have been inconsistent in what you say, and so have treated it by asking you pointed questions… and yet I see no answers.
“It means both, even if we are pleased by different things. Because it is subjective not objective.”
So answer the question, if the people of Texas thinks it is the best then it is the best for the people of Texas. Right? And there is no objective or normative force you can bring to bear on it beside opinion, and no reason to get all hot under the collar (or that we should get all hot under the collar) that they think it’s the best.
“But I’ll bet dollars to donuts you agree with me that nursing death row inmates back to health only so they can know they died by revenge… , is not a good thing.”
Well you’d lose that bet, and not because I am a Kantian. But because I am a consistent moral anti-realist who has no idea what you mean by “not a good thing.” I certainly wouldn’t use that language.
By the way neither would Kant. From what I understand he explicitly differentiated between punishment and revenge, so you are not representing his philosophy right (sort of like with Hume). Hypocrite.
Oh by the way, to Massimo you were asking (irrelevantly) what philosophers have contributed and cite people like Einstein as people that have made real contributions. Are you aware that Einstein credited Hume more than Mach for his most important scientific theories?
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Garth,
You have amply shown that there is little point in answering you since you do not take other people’s arguments seriously. But here we go:
“Are you serious? Science has doubled our lifespan and and made life about a million times easier for the average human. Now you go. Philosophy has…. made progress within itself?”
The overwhelming majority of scientists who have ever lived have done nothing at all to better humanity. That’s just an undeniable fact.
As for philosophy making progress, I’ve just published a whole damn book on the topic on this very blog. As you can see, your questions are not really serious.
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Hi Synred, are you kidding? In the future all the customers at Walmart will be robots too!
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Everyone,
The general tone of discussion has gotten quite toxic here recently. Take it three notches down immediately, please, or I will begin suspending or blocking people. Thanks.
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Synred,
Critical difference. Scientists have more than doubled our lifespan, and made life better and easier in uncountable ways. Philosophy has…. made progress within itself? Created capitalism? Enabled neo-liberalism?
Aristotle was great. Kant was not. Because Aristotle was way righter and less wronger and Kant was way wronger and less righter. You can disagree if you like. But please stop acting as though my position is that great philosophers don’t make mistakes. They do. Hume was great. Made some mistakes. Bad philosophers make more mistakes and more critical mistakes. Like Kant for example. Aristotle – deserved giant. Hume = deserved giant. Kant = not deserved giant.
Philosophy has giant shoulders to stand on. But Kant is not one of them. The problem is that philosophy seems to just want to stand on all the shoulders as it watches humanity usher in the anthropocene. It doesn’t want to use those giant shoulders of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, et al to answer any important questions. It doesn’t want to take the best of the best and throw out the garbage and help us fix the mess we are in. It wants to continue to revere it all, like religions do, and watch us all from the ivory tower.
There have most certainly been giants in philosophy and they were all wrong about some things but were right enough on extremely important things that we can settle a lot of unsettled debates. In 2500 years of philosophy there does exist all the great ideas we need to help us solve the vast majority of the many critical problems we have in our world. Most of those great ideas came very early on in philosophy. Like, more than 2000 years ago. Just like Coel, I basically think Hume and Darwin finished the most important part of the job.
Philosophy is the answer. But it has yet to fulfill that purpose. And it is distressing to see both Massimo and Dan telling us that answering the most important questions is not philosophy’s job. It’s not? Well then we’ll do it without you because we have no choice. Just stop complaining about your dwindling public funding. See how things hang on your own dime. We’ve got problems to fix and we need operational answers.
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Hi dbholmes,
Quite obviously “no”. The whole point of subjectivist ethics is that it makes no sense to label something “the best” — a value without specifying who the valuer is.
You’ve lost me; I see no inconsistency.
But he isn’t playing any such game. The whole point is that judgements of what is best can only be the subjective opinion of a person (or the consensus of a group of people) and it makes no sense to discuss “what is best” in the abstract without identifying the person or people who would be making that judgement.
If there were appeals underway or legal process to be gone through, then sure, it makes sense to give the prisoner medical care. But, as garth says, that really is not the rationale for the system.
Another symptom of the same thing is that those implementing capital punishment usually make stringent efforts to prevent the prisoner committing suicide in the run up to the execution. Which is pretty weird.
Lastly, a note on the Kant debate (which I am staying out of owing to not knowing much about Kant’s work). Garth has clearly asked about impacts on society, and the replies have been about impact on philosophy (which, in the case of Kant, is obviously huge). Thus those replying are presumably treating it as obvious that a large impact on philosophy then propagates to a large impact on society, or they are assuming that a large impact on philosophy is sufficient in itself to qualify as a large impact on society.
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Hmmm, I guess I could have extended my analogy that the obnoxious kid at the club for boxing enthusiasts keeps mouthing off:
“What’s so great about boxing? It’s not a real self defense like Krav Maga or Jiu-Jitsu. What have the Queensberry rules ever done for anybody in a real fight?”
Again, exhibiting little to no knowledge of the field, and zero interest in the main focus of the club.
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Sorry Massimo, I posted my last reply before seeing your post asking everyone to chill out. You can delete it if you want.
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Hi dbholmes,
Continuing my last answer, and speaking for garth! (he can correct me if I’m wrong).
No, wrong. The statement “… then it is the best for the people of Texas” is misconceived and meaningless. (Unless all one means by “then it is the best for the people of Texas” is “then it is what the people of Texas think is best”, in which case your sentence is a tautology.)
Correct. In ethics there never is anything other than people’s opinions.
Yes there is a reason, namely the fact that garth dislikes it. People do care about morals. They do care about how society it, and they do often want to change it to be more to their liking.
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BTW Kant is widely regarded in academia as one of the greatest *moral* philosophers of the modern era. Of the 3 moral frameworks most talked about in academic ethics Kant owns one of them. He continues to be taught today a one of the greatest moral philosophers of all time. This is the “greatness” I am challenging. Where is the rebuttal? Everyone here seems to agree with me that he is not.
This seems more like a “I can call my dad that but you can’t” type of thing.
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Hi Synred, are you kidding? In the future all the customers at Walmart will be robots too!
Yes, and then we might as well do away with their ‘bodies’ too! Every think inside Amazon. Shipping will be really cheap. Not even drones will be needed. Indeed why bother to make the ‘shit’ anyhow when you can just trick the AIs into thinking they got it. And they can all have ‘jobs’ not making ‘shit’ to make ’em feel better about themselves.
Brains in virtual vats all the way down! Time for a night at ‘Ozzie Rabbit’.
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You can disagree if you like. But please stop acting as though my position is that great philosophers don’t make mistakes
If if quacks like a duck… However, I follow Massimo suggestion and stop responding or indeed reading.
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Hi Coel,
“Quite obviously “no”. The whole point of subjectivist ethics is that it makes no sense to label something “the best” — a value without specifying who the valuer is.”
Right. And you can go right back to the quotes I gave from him. They weren’t my words. He did not qualify right, wrong, better… which is why I stated on what I might agree, depending on what he meant… and then he said what he said (which waffled on the qualifications).
Which we can then run to his heated commentary on Texas. And my questions.
The apparent inconsistency being that he seems to be arguing that we should think they are not doing what is best, indeed that Kant has them doing something very wrong, when apparently he should be fine with us saying they think it is best so it is best (for them). Kant is best (for them)!
“But he isn’t playing any such game.”
I wasn’t saying he was playing such a game, I was saying you were (albeit on his behalf). You don’t seem to be following what I am saying, so I think I will drop out at this point.
People can see the quotes and what he is arguing and decide for themselves whether the questions I raised are legitimate or not.
“But, as garth says, that really is not the rationale for the system.”
Proof?
“Another symptom of the same thing is that those implementing capital punishment usually make stringent efforts to prevent the prisoner committing suicide in the run up to the execution. Which is pretty weird.”
Taking away the prisoner’s control over their own life seems strange? I’m not huge for executions but preventing them from killing themselves would seem to be one of the few actual strands of justice in cases involving murderers. It’s not like they let their victims choose if, when, or how they should die.
“Lastly, a note on the Kant debate (which I am staying out of owing to not knowing much about Kant’s work).”
I know some of his work, but not enough I can criticize the man, or laud him. I don’t agree with many of his theories, including some that Dan feels are pretty important. So this is not my fight.
My opinion is that (given his clear dearth of knowledge on Hume) he also lacks enough knowledge about Kant to criticize or laud the man.
In that case, like you or me, it would make more sense to remain silent. It’ll be interesting if he can come up with the evidence for all of his claims against Kant.
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Hi Coel,
“Unless all one means by “then it is the best for the people of Texas” is “then it is what the people of Texas think is best”, in which case your sentence is a tautology.”
Yes that is what I meant. I guess I should have said “best TO the people of Texas” to be more clear.
“Yes there is a reason, namely the fact that garth dislikes it.”
You just broke my sentence into two halves in order to make that criticism. The first half mentions his opinion, and so I left it out of the second half to avoid redundancy. I thought the meaning was plain.
Your breaking my argument into separate sections and even my sentences into smaller pieces to create points you can criticize once again suggests there is no reason to continue this argument.
People can see the quotes from him, and my questions and make their judgement on their validity.
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Hi dbholmes,
I may have lost track of exactly what was said. Perhaps you could give the quotes that you think show inconsistency?
Or not that you “should” think that, but that garth *wants* you to think that.
… something that *garth* feels is very wrong.
Why on earth should he be fine with that? The whole point of a subjectivist position is to reject such a conclusion.
That’s very deontological, rules for rules sake! It’s not a moral system I would approve of. Let’s take a real example of this attitude:
Brits will know who Ian Brady is. He will never be released from jail (his crimes are way too bad for that), and he will die there. He wants to die and has attempted suicide several times. The authorities go to great lengths to stop him. They think that justice demands that he live out his natural life. He has tried refusing medical care and he has tried going on hunger strike. But — and this is the good bit — he is regarded as criminally insane, and therefore not competent to decide on his own medical care or to refuse food. Thus he has been force fed. Yet he will never be released and wants to die. What is served by forcing him to go on living? I find this “rules are rules” attitude of the authorities repellent. I think we should hand him a syringe containing a large overdose of morphine and let him kill himself if he so wishes. That overdose is what we’d do with a rabid dog. If we regard him as criminally insane then we should have at least that much pity for him; yet we don’t, we are treating him worse than a rabid dog. Yes, his crimes are the vilest imaginable, but that doesn’t excuse us.
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Hi Coel, as I said I will not be extending arguments over another commenter.
But we can talk about me! 🙂
“That’s very deontological, rules for rules sake!”
Hmmm, I’m not quite sure how you got that out of what I said, which is about what aspects look like justice. If it matters I view ethics and law as two very separate animals. We can of course link one to the other, but it isn’t necessary, and arguably more conducive to a free society if we don’t.
The legal system which is often called the “justice” system, rarely serves what I would consider justice. I was simply pointing out that a killer not being allowed control over how they die would seem to hold some aspect of justice. It doesn’t take a deontologist to recognize that aspect.
I am unaware of Ian Brady. I’ll assume the worst. At best this seems like a practical issue and not an ethical one. It does seem rather silly to be doing what they’re doing, but not enough to upset me.
There have been similar cases with people in the US, with people demanding that they be executed (and admitting they have killed people) when others are arguing that capital punishment is wrong and so they shouldn’t be.
Well if they want to die… why not?
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Speaking to those here who are actually interested in learning things, let me just observe that many of the contributions I attributed to Kant are clearly social goods. He is one of the crucial thinkers that contributed to the classical liberal tradition, on which all modern Western governments are based. His paper “What is Enlightenment?” and his grounding of the inherent specialness and dignity of the individual are a key part of Enlightenment political thought. And that had a *huge* social impact.
Similarly, the conceptual tools I listed in my second post have advanced the sophistication with which we investigate moral questions. That also has had a huge social impact.
Just wanted to make sure that some actual knowledge pierces through the verbal fog. Oh, and rest easy. Long after everyone here is dead, buried and forgotten, Kant will still be at the heart of any philosophy education and so long as there are universities there will be philosophy education of one kind or another. What philosophy has *least* to worry about is random, ignorant, anonymous people on the internet, no matter how much they bluster and threaten.
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Garth:
Really? When and where?
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Dan says:
“let me just observe that many of the contributions I attributed to Kant are clearly social goods.”
Like what for example? More unsupported claims from… authority?
“He is one of the crucial thinkers that contributed to the classical liberal tradition, on which all modern Western governments are based.”
Like what for example? This is suspiciously vague. In fact it is completely void of actual content. Specifically what idea of Kant’s contributed to what good elements of these awesome modern governments? So far you’ve still said nothing.
“His paper “What is Enlightenment?” and his grounding of the inherent specialness and dignity of the individual are a key part of Enlightenment political thought.”
How so? The best of the enlightenment happened long before Kant. And there is no philosophical grounding for the inherent specialness and dignity of humans. He’s wrong. It’s not grounded in anything. We can only decide we want human rights and create laws with armies to back it up. There is no grounding for human specialness beyond the desire of individuals to pronounce and defend such a thing by force. And this was already being done long before Kant, and it didn’t get any more grounded by Kant’s ideas.
“Similarly, the conceptual tools I listed in my second post have advanced the sophistication with which we investigate moral questions. That also has had a huge social impact.”
What social impact? Another empty claim. If Kant improved our ability to investigate moral questions and advanced our sophistication in that respect where is the result? Is there more consensus on morality now thanks to Kant’s conceptual tools? Where is this resulting social impact of Kant’s ideas. Be specific.
These are all just empty claims with no specifics connecting to any of Kant’s actual ideas. Just vague “He has contributed to the sophistication with which we investigate moral claims which has had huge social impact”
So you say. But what social impact specifically? What specific ideas of Kant’s contributed to them? You’ve got some huge blanks to fill in.
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Actually, the likes of the above assume that all things have answers, that all answers are more non-trivially interesting than the questions that lead to them and much more. So, to the degree either said something like that … ask the wrong question and you get the wrong answer.
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Socratic,
Ask Massimo and Dan yourself if they think it is philosophy’s job to answer important questions. Massimo says it’s not about answering questions but posing questions and developing conceptual frameworks within which to discuss those questions. Dan has also indicated even more strongly that philosophy is not and should not be like science in that way. It no more answers questions than art does.
But don’t take my word for it. Ask them yourself if it’s philosophy’s job to provide answers to the most important questions. I personally think it ought to be. But they seem to disagree. I’d love to find out I’m wrong about this one.
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DB,
“And you can go right back to the quotes I gave from him. They weren’t my words. He did not qualify right, wrong, better…”
They are pre-qualified by my well known philosophical stance as being my opinion and preference only. This is what Coel has pointed out to you numerous times. When anti-realists or anti-objectivists use words like good, bad, better, right, wrong, they mean in their opinion only. They are talking about the way they would prefer things to be. But as I pointed out, you actually agree with me on most right/wrong, good/bad distinctions. As do most people. i.e. Fair is good. Unfair is bad. Virtually everyone agrees with this.
As for what actually is fair and unfair? Now we have to get into the facts about the way the world actually is. We are born with our morality. Facts about the way the world actually is affect what actions those innate moral intuitions cause.
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/elie-wiesel-nobel-laureate-holocaust-survivor-night-author-dies-87-n603006
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As I keep saying, the language gets in the way. If people would just say “This is how I would like the world to be …”, or “I really think that most people would be happier if …” instead of the ambiguous morality language, then the meaning would be crystal clear.
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Hi Robin:
“As I keep saying, the language gets in the way. If people would just say “This is how I would like the world to be …”, or “I really think that most people would be happier if …” instead of the ambiguous morality language, then the meaning would be crystal clear.”
I suspect people don’t say those ‘simple’ things because that’s _not_ what they do mean. They want something more in ‘morality’. Something more universal. Something that would exclude quite horrible worlds that some people do want.
I don’t have an answer. But I don’t think the problem is that people don’t say what they mean, it’s that they don’t know what they mean.
Stir Coca!
-Traruh
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