Here it is, our regular Friday diet of suggested readings for the weekend:
So, despite one of last week’s picks, it may be too early to declare the demise of Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar.
Using analogies properly: we need to go back to Aristotle and Wittgenstein.
The dangerous non-science of Freud and Jung, seen through the eyes of Jung’s wife.
“The world,” we read in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip, “came about through a mistake.”
If best options are panpsychism and consciousness-as-illusion, I fear philosophy of mind is stuck in a rut.
Are you smart or rational? (No, the two are not the same thing.)
Bad science is the result of importing the market model into academia.
Footnotes to Plato 
Hi Imad,
I don’t think any of the authors would dispute this characterisation. They’re not saying we’re all irrational, they’re just saying we’re often more irrational than we might suppose, at least in certain contexts.
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The confusion between processing issuea and rationality issues is right there in the article where they say that people have fallen prey to the conjuction fallacy.
But this would not be the case if they had misunderstood the question. If they were misled by the misdirection then their answer contained no fallacies with respect to the question they thought they were answering.
They would only have been prey to the conjuction fallacy if they had understood the question correctly.
And, as I pointed out, if the question had been asked without the “personality sketch” then most likely most people would not have employed that fallacy.
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Realism is a red-herring, regardless, insofar as there can be such a thing as expertise with regard to subjective matters. The Wine critic for the Wine Spectator has far greater expertise with respect to wines than I do, and Clement Greenberg, the art critic, had far greater expertise with respect to art than some random person you’d pick off the street.
Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” gives a good example of how one might account for expertise, with respect to things that are subjective.
http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL23.html
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I never thought that human beings were primarily rational to begin with. That’s a conceit of philosophers — and rationalistic scientists — and is the reason why so much philosophy has dealt so poorly with questions of human nature, as much as it would like to think otherwise.
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I agree DM.
Singer actually a few years back was not a realists but roughly had the same set of views. I think his realism only commits him to make the case that you are simply mistaken in how you ought to behave versus here is my system, I’m going to try to convince you to follow it because this is what I find appealing.
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Also, I’m listening to the meaningoflife video that Dan linked (great discussion!) and it reminded me that we haven’t actually have had many moral philosophers comment or write essays for your blogs Massimo. I know plato’s footnote is not scientia salon where guests write in but perhaps we should bring in Singer or others to write about their views on morality? Or maybe in a video discussion? Just a thought.
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Imad:
Are you saying that Singer was not a Utilitarian and held roughly the same views? Or are you saying he was a Utilitarian, but not a moral realist. If the latter, could you explain how someone could be a Utilitarian, without being a moral realist?
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Imad: continued — One could have many substantial moral positions similar to a Utilitarian — as Hume does — without being a moral realist. But I don’t see how one could be a Utilitarian without being a moral realist. For one thing, the Utilitarian has a conception of the intrinsic good. That means he must at least be a “value realist.”
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Panpsychism can’t tell us anything about consciousness and is not philosophy of mind. It is metaphysics, specifically an onto-theological claim on the nature of Being as such. It’s hardly a breath away from Spinozan Deism. It’s real ground is the ‘not reasonable to believe’ argument – such as in ‘it’s not reasonable to believe that the universe could be so complicated without prior design’ or ‘it’s not reasonable to believe that the Egyptians could have built the Pyramids, it must have been aliens with higher intellect/technology,’ etc.
I stopped reading Stern on analogies when he started ragging on Stewart and Oliver – neither the daily Show nor Last Week Tonight are “fake news” (that would be Fox), they are openly comedic and satiric in nature. The reason they are something of a scandal is because their staffs do much better research into the background of the issues lampooned than most supposed news sources. Stern doesn’t understand comedy, and he doesn’t really understand how analogies – and similes and metaphors, which he is also complaining about – function in either daily conversation or public discourse.
Hambrick and Burgoyne: “It is, of course, unrealistic to think that we will ever live in a world where everyone is completely rational. But by developing tests to identify the most rational among us, and by offering training programs to decrease irrationality in the rest of us, scientific researchers can nudge society in that direction.” – Ha. Haha. Hahahahahaha….
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Yeah, EJ, this caught me too:
“But by developing tests to identify the most rational among us, and by offering training programs to decrease irrationality in the rest of us, scientific researchers can nudge society in that direction.”
I can’t think of much worse. What’s fascinating is that someone would find this appealing. Sontag’s warnings about the “hypertrophy of intellect” and the blunting of sensibility in “Against Interpretation” seem really prescient now.
I also suspect that there might be some disagreement as to who counts as “most rational among us.”
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Hi Dan,
Yes, if you read Singer’s updated notes in the new edition of the book “The Expanding Circle”, he mentions how he stop being a preference utilitarian and takes a quasi-utilitarian position closer to Parfit’s triple theory, which he considers to be objective view in contrast to his previous subjectivist views.
Now I’m not a philosopher much less a moral philosopher so I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of this topic but based on my (limited) readings on Singer, it seems like his preference utilitarianism was subjective unlike other forms of utilitarianism because it relies on subjective preferences rather than intrinsic good. He just made the claim that we add up the preferences and try to maximize them, not as an objective fact but as a way of approaching ethical problems and decisions that need to be made.
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Hi Dan,
I think you answered your own question.
I’m not a moral realist. But if I need to consider which act I prefer from a moral point of view, I will usually adopt utilitarian criteria. I am therefore a utilitarian in practice, and from where I’m standing that makes me a utilitarian.
“the Utilitarian” isn’t a monolithic position. There are variations on utilitarianism just like anything else.
I think what you are referring to here is “utility”. This is what I would call it, rather than “intrinsic good”. Utility is a pretty generic placeholder concept, from where I’m standing, and the utilitarian is free to substitute whatever notions that utilitarian considers to be desirable. Since I’m not a moral realist, it doesn’t have to be very specific. Vague notions of general happiness and well-being will suffice. I am rarely faced with questions where I have to nitpick too much.
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DM: Utilitarianism is a normative moral theory. Why should anyone care what you “prefer”? I don’t see how you get any “oughts” out of your way of framing the matter, and as a result, what you are describing is not a normative moral theory, which is what Utilitarianism is.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/
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Bad science isn’t always the result of importing the market model into academia, but importing the market model has resulted in (and basically guarantees) bad science.
I hardly recognize the field anymore.
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Imad: Preference Utilitarianism is not subjective. It simply replaces utility — welfare — with the interests of the parties. One still has an obligation — normative — to honor those interests. What it does, however, is dispense with the idea of an intrinsic good.
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DM: Now, if you mean “prefer” in the sense of Preference Utilitarianism, then that’s a different matter. But your post did not suggest as much.
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“But by developing tests to identify the most rational among us, and by offering training programs to decrease irrationality in the rest of us, scientific researchers can nudge society in that direction.”
And I’m sure those training programs will be just as cheap as college.
Science as business model.
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dbholmes: It’s always hilarious to see technocrats so deadpan and clueless in their advocacy of technocracy. The lack of self-awareness and cultural history is just astounding.
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I’m enjoying the exchange between Robin and DM because I see merit in both views. The point of contention seems to reside in DM’s statement, “In the language of the authors, processing errors = irrationality,” and Robin’s skepticism regarding it’s adequacy. I’m trying to formulate my own thoughts, but running into some difficulties. To me, the irrational by definition is inexplicable. To employ rationality to explain what is believed to be irrational seems to address the nature of rationality more than the nature of irrationality. So, Linda’s decision may be demonstrative of the “conjunctive fallacy,” but in what sense does providing a “rational” argument for Linda’s “error” merit the conclusion that she is not smart or has engaged in irrationality? Late last night, I found my wife slumped over in her desk chair. She was asleep. I woke her and said, “I think it’s time for you to go to bed.” And she replied, “Not yet.” “Why?” I asked. “Because I don’t want you telling me what to do.” Non-responsive? Process error? Irrational?
Re the Gnostic Gospel of Philip, best reader comment: “Do I really put off cleaning the bathroom because I am blinded by my conception of its possible perfection?”
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Dan,
I’m partly just describing the way I have seen Singer describe it. However, I think there are others that think the same. This not a perfect source but a quick Wiki search on Preference Utilitarianism brings this up:
“Since what is good and right depends solely on individual preferences, there can be nothing that is in itself good or bad: for preference utilitarians, the source of both morality and ethics in general is subjective preference.[3]”
That is from someone criticizing Singer’s views but at the very least, it seems like some people do consider the view subjective. Maybe it depends on what specific claim one wants to make about the preference that makes it objective or subjective.
If your just offering up a framework where everyone’s preference counts equally because that is a convenient (efficient, effective) way of moving forward, your committed to subjective preference utilitarianism. However, if you want to go further and say there is some deeper story about why everyone’s preferences must be held in equal value, I suppose you take a objective preference utilitarian view.
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Imad: Yes, Preference Utilitarians eschew the idea of a single intrinsic good. But the honoring of peoples’ preferences — subjective though they may be — is still an objective moral obligation on this view.
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Singer doesn’t say he’d “prefer” you not to eat animals. He says it is morally condemnatory. Singer doesn’t say he’d “prefer” you to give away all your wealth, until you are at a subsistence level of life, he says you are obligated to do so, and in the strongest of terms.
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Hi Dan,
Agreed.
I’m not saying anyone should care what I ‘prefer’. But most people, broadly, ‘prefer’ the same kinds of things, e.g. health, well-being and happiness for as many people as possible. So within a community of people who ‘prefer’ the same things, we can discuss what norms are most compatible with those preferences.
To be clear, I am talking about preferences in a broader sense than the personal. For instance, I might personally prefer a policy which gives me some kind of benefit, but in a broader sense, I might recognise that this situation does not accord with my moral preferences. For instance, I might personally prefer my relative to get a kidney rather than someone who needs it more urgently or is more likely to survive, but I might morally prefer that kidney recipients be those who need them more urgently or who are more likely to survive. I might personally prefer to enact revenge on someone who has wronged me (and so do so), but I recognise that this is incompatible with my moral preferences, with how I think people “ought” to behave.
I don’t “get” any oughts. My “ought” is simply defined by my moral preferences. When I say “You ought not kill”, what I mean is that “Your killing does not agree with my moral preferences”. Moral anti-realists use the language of oughts all the time and this is what they mean.
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Dan you maybe right that perhaps a utilitarian claim cannot escape making a stronger normative statement. I’m just trying to relay what I have read about Singer and what he has said about his views.
However, I don’t think he was trying to say either “I prefer you don’t eat animals” nor that “it’s an objective fact that eating animals is wrong”. I think he was trying to say why he personally beliefs eating animals is wrong and trying to convince others of it, getting them to share his intuitions by relying on preferences as a unit of analysis. As far as I know, he never makes the stronger meta-ethical claim but like I said, he does explicitly say he was subjectivist about morality.
I’ll post a quote when I get home later today directly form the book where he talks about why he struggled with an objective morality earlier on and why he doesn’t now.
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DM: I see no reason to use the language of obligation at all then. And certainly, on this view, such statements have no normative dimension whatsoever. They are purely descriptive.
In other words, you are describing a situation in which there are no morals. That’s fine — and I might even be inclined to agree — but be fully aware of what the implications and consequences are.
I also do not agree with you that “most people, broadly, ‘prefer’ the same kinds of things.” If that was the case, moral theory would never have emerged and we would have remained entirely within the virtue-theoretical tradition. Moral theory — in which ethics becomes more like law — emerged precisely because with the rise of modern nation states, one could no longer rely on a broad array of common shared values.
Sure, most people care about well-being, happiness, and the like, but this is only an illusion of agreement, as they disagree wildly over what these things consist of.
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Imad: I don’t see how one can interpret the moral vehemence of “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” in the way you describe. Nor “Animal Liberation” or “Practical Ethics.”
Singer is one of our most vehement moralists. The idea that he thinks he is just expressing his preferences is incongruous not just with the substance of his work, but with its tone.
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There is a way to connect to the science of consciousness:
consciousness.arizona.edu
It is science, partly. 🙂
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Hi Dan,
I think you have too narrow a conception of what “normative” means.
A norm is a standard. Or what people ought to do. Or what they are obliged to do. All of these are compatible with my framework. My framework is the standard by which I make moral judgements. “Ought” and “obligation” in my language refer to what I think my moral preferences dictate that people should do.
A norm doesn’t have to be objective. Different communities have different norms. My norms are shared by those in the community of people who generally agree with me. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that these norms apply only to that community, so I’m not really a moral relativist. I can judge people in other communities (e.g. ISIS) to be morally lacking, which just means that they fail to meet the moral standards of my community. I disapprove of their actions because of this perceived immorality.
Note the word “broadly”.
Exactly. They broadly agree.
Some people disagree wildly on some specifics, sure. I disagree wildly with an Islamist about whether homosexuality is morally permissable, but on many deep principles, such as a preference for happiness and well-being and intellectual honesty, we might actually agree. It’s just that (I would say) a failure to apply these principles consistently has lead the Islamist to believe that the evidence is for a God who will reward his society with well-being and happiness (in the afterlife if need be) if homosexuals are put to death.
I’m stretching, I know. I’m just saying that we can find commonalities even between the most radically different people, and often (as in the case of ISIS), what we have is a failure of rationality on some level, not so much a disagreement on the deepest principles.
But whether or not we can find these commonalities between everyone, it doesn’t matter. I’m just saying that when I’m talking about morality to most people, most people will not take exception to the view that it is more desirable to have a world where people are happier and healthier. There will be disagreements, but more often than not those disagreements will arise out differing empirical predictions (such as whether being raised by gay parents will harm a child in some way) or because somebody isn’t reasoning correctly. As long as we can find this common ground, we can have a sensible discussion about morality. We can look for evidence to answer the empircal questions, and we can argue philosphically about the different conclusions we might reach from our shared premises. It is possible that, given this shared ground, someone will actually turn out to be wrong, in that their conclusions are not consistent with their declared premises.
Besides, even if nobody shared my views, I could still have normative views, which just means that I have views about what people ought to do, which just means that I have moral preferences about what people do.
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It’s been many decades since I’ve read Bentham, but I seem to recall there was at least a suggestion, at the beginning of Utilitarianism, that its basic principles were already implicit in actual practice, and that Utilitarianism merely promised clarification and perfection by application of ‘scientific’ methodology. If so, then originally Utilitarianism would not be a moral realism but a scientistic justification for, and institutionalization of, existing practices. However, such a Utilitarianism would be unsustainable due to objections from any number of positions taken by those who felt the then current practices somehow disenfranchised them, or injured them, or oppressed them. (Malthus’ argument that the poor should be allowed to die off is this kind of Utilitarianism, and one can imagine the poor and their advocates not being too happy with it.) If I’m remembering the matter aright (and I might not be, perhaps Dan could clarify the history here), it should be clear why Utilitarianism would mutate into a claim of ‘good’ as an identifiable value separate from what any one individual or group would wish it to be.
In America, most political arguments are in fact Utilitarian in one sense or another – and really can’t be otherwise. A politician is always arguing that he or she represents the most important interests of the greater number of the electorate – how could they not?
My general point is that it’s easy to see why understanding Utilitarianism might be somewhat difficult for some (including myself). I don’t say that to defend it, but because I find it somewhat confused, with a checkered history, even though politically inevitable in a diverse population with democratic aspirations.
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Dan:
You deploy ‘”rationalistic” to say scientist are not rational?
Of course, we are not completely rational. That’s the very reason for science in the first place. It is an attempt to produce a social correction mechanism. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. I like to think it usually works out in the end, but the end can be a long time coming.
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