Rationality

The Is-Ought/Naturalistic fallacy has come up a number of times in my intro classes this semester.  First, it’s worth pointing out that I have had trouble finding clear definitions of these things – even the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy goes so far as to mention that the definitions are not agreed upon amongst professional philosophers.  The problem I have in mind, though, is basically this: It is a mistake to think that something is morally permissible just because it is natural and it is a mistake to think that something is morally wrong because it is unnatural.

So stated it seems clear to me that those are mistakes and should be avoided.  One reason is that ‘natural’ is not a well-defined term or, at least, it is certainly not used consistently by the ‘folk’.  The go to example would be homosexuality – some conservatives think it’s unnatural and might thereby conclude that it is immoral; some liberals think it’s natural and might thereby conclude that it is moral.  The uses of ‘natural’ are different in each case.  The former might be not much more than a synonym for disgust (i.e., it’s gross, so it’s unnatural), while the latter might be an appeal to the observations of homosexuality in non-human animals.  I don’t think either interpretation of ‘natural’ warrants the conclusions drawn.

The second reason against such arguments is the fact that counter-examples abound.  I might find the sight of a needle puncturing one’s skin (e.g., to administer a flu vaccine) to be gross and unnatural, but I wouldn’t thereby consider it immoral.  I might notice that in their natural habitats chimpanzees throw their feces at one another, but I wouldn’t thereby consider such acts morally permissible in human beings.  Thankfully these kinds of examples suffice to curtail the use of similar arguments among my students (e.g., we naturally eat meat, so it is morally permissible).

However, there is a deeper problem that is not so easily resolved.  The “is-ought fallacy” is not quite the same as the “natural, ergo moral” arguments above.  In short, the claim is that it is a mistake to derive an ‘ought’ statement from an ‘is’ statement, that ethical conclusions cannot be drawn from factual statements.  It is not as clear to me that this is really a fallacy – perhaps a topic for my next post.

I’ve had lucid dreams before and they are always interesting experiences, but a couple of days ago I had one that was especially noteworthy.  I can’t recall much of the detail, but it doesn’t much matter.  I remember peeling what seemed like a hard-boiled egg but which turned out to have some kind of an embryo in it – upon seeing what it was I think the bizarreness shocked me into going lucid (the realization that something one is experiencing cannot possibly be real will sometimes throw one into lucidity).  As is often the case when I go lucid things started to take on a kind of glimmering fuzziness that made it hard to focus.  I imagine this sensation might occur in the real world when one’s pupils have been dilated and everything looks too bright, or if you have bad vision like me, when bright objects or lights take on an a luminous aura when you aren’t wearing glasses or contacts.  The first thing I tried to do in the dream was to bring the world into focus – I was trying to open my eyes wide and, alternatively, to squint in order to see things clearly.  This, of course, was folly.  I had the sudden realization while still dreaming that I was trying to use my eyes to see, but that my eyes were closed and the objects of my perception were all in my head – that I was seeing things without using my eyes!   I then found that by relaxing my dream-eye (is this my mind’s eye?) things would begin to focus.  At this point, as is often the case, the stress of being consciously aware of my dream led me to awaken.

I’m not a huge fan of using the Matrix to explain metaphysical notions, but soon after I woke up I recalled a pertinent scene from the movie.  There is a point where Neo and Morpheus are training in the matrix and Neo is exhausted and sweating profusely.  Seeing his struggle, Morpheus says something like, “you think that’s air your breathing?”  in an effort to get Neo to realize that he wasn’t and shouldn’t be trying to overcome the seeming ‘physical’ obstacles since the things he was experiencing were non-physical.  This was exactly my experience in this particular dream – I couldn’t cope or take control of the dream world until I realized that I wasn’t seeing ‘things’ at all and I wasn’t using my eyes to see them.  It was quite extraordinary.

I’ve gone semi-lucid a number of times before, but on the occasions where I am completely lucid I find it very difficult to stay asleep.  Lucid dreaming, though, is a skill, believe it or not.  Practice can enable one to go lucid more frequently and learn to control one’s dream world.  I’m still a novice, but it sure would be a fun skill to master – opening endless possibilities, like seeing without seeing.

aka: Stop beating the dead straw-man!

Skepticism has to be one of the most widely misunderstood views in all of philosophy.  It is understandable that the folk-concept of skepticism (i.e., the average everyday person’s concept) is somewhat vague and generally wrong.  However, I recently came across a journal article (that was actually published) which summarized arguments (from a book by the same author) that allegedly refute skepticism, but the arguments only serve to knock down the folk-concept-derived straw-man of skepticism.  What bothers me is not that the average person may think about skepticism along these lines, but that someone published a book on it!  Needless to say the author is not a philosopher, but when you go out of your way to get your ideas published you should at least run it by someone who works in the relevant field.  Anyways, I thought I’d present the bad arguments and explain what’s wrong with them because, well, someone should.

Before “refuting” skepticism the author explains his position:

“critical realism”: a world exists independently of human minds (realism), but sifting, judging, and discerning (critical) are often required in the knowledge process.  This sifting enables us to discern between appearances (mirages, optical illusions, dreams) and the way things are, between truth and falsehood.

I take this to be almost everyone’s metaphysical position, I have only heard it referred to as “direct” or “naive” realism.  We all believe that there is a real world and that our perceptions are generally reliable.  This position (as presented by the author) is question-begging; to say that we have knowledge about reality because we can discern between appearances and reality is already to presuppose that there is a difference between the two (i.e., that there is such a thing as ‘objective reality’).  Anyway, the author presumably has an argument for realism and that is a fine position to take.  But problems arise as soon as he attempts to describe skepticism. He writes:

[T]he skeptic often wrongly assumes that if another alternative is even logically possible, then you should question your beliefs, no matter how well-grounded. But this just doesn’t logically follow at all! How is it the case that if it’s possible I’m wrong, therefore I am wrong?

The “logically possible” alternatives to which the author refers are things like Descartes’ evil demon scenario, or the possibility that you are really in the Matrix, etc.  However the skeptic does not use these possibilities in order to make you question your beliefs, nor do they claim that since you could be wrong, you are wrong.  The skeptic has all of the same beliefs that you do regarding regular everyday things.  The possibility that you could be wrong only shows that you may not, in fact, know what you think you know.

[The skeptic argues that] we can’t distinguish between plausible and ridiculous views, but that position is clearly silly. [...] there’s no reason to reject what seems so obvious to us in favor of less-obvious alternatives.

This passage is where the author comes closest to getting skepticism right, and naturally he misses the point entirely.  The skeptic’s claim simply is that all of our evidence is compatible with an infinite number of possible metaphysical explanations about reality.  One possibility is that our perceptions correspond to reality – that when we see a chair, there really is a chair that exists in roughly the way we believe that it does.  Another possibility is that an all-powerful evil demon is toying with our minds and there is no chair at all.  One view seems plausible to us while the other seems ridiculous – but can we distinguish between the two?  Obviously not; there is no way to check for evil-demons and there is no way to check for ‘actual’ chairs.  All we have in the way of evidence is the conscious awareness of our own perceptual states; the whole point of the skeptical scenarios is that they are 100% compatible with the whole of our evidence.  Yes, it would be silly to believe that the demon-possibility is not only possible but actual, but no one believes this (skeptics included).

[S]kepticism tends to eliminate personal or moral responsibility since it systematically ignores or evades truth, which is a crucial component of knowledge.

Here, again, the author nearly makes a good point.  The skeptic never claims that our beliefs about reality are false, only that it is impossible for us to know that they are true.  This is the fundamental problem that the skeptics are trying to point out: truth is indeed a crucial component of knowledge, yet it is the one evading us (not the other way around)!  The skeptic neither ignores nor evades the truth (whatever that would mean), since we do not have access to anything resembling objective truth.  As for the odd claim about skeptics being immoral, I have never known a skeptic to make any claims beyond the realm of epistemology, so I’m not sure where the author is coming from on this point (unless he takes skepticism to entail moral relativism).  I will just say that one does not need to be certain that they know appearances correspond to reality in order to believe in and act according to some concept of moral responsibility.

At the bridal shower, one of the games was “how well does the bride know the groom?”  And Nicole had to answer a bunch of questions about my favorite things (she passed with flying colors!).  Anyway, I randomly remembered Blake’s poem, which is easily my historical if not all time favorite:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

I probably first liked this poem just because it’s about tigers, but it really is something special.  There is, of course, also another version of it, which I believe was created by Sam: “Tiger, tiger burning bright / Burning forests down at night”.  Less artful, yes, but vastly superior in comedic value.  I picture this particular tiger as Smokey the Bear’s sworn arch-enemy.  But Smokey was kind of overweight, if I recall correctly, so he’d better just let the tiger keep on burning.

I just added some links to the right.  Wedding info has some tidbits and stuff about us and the wedding party (but the registry link on that page only goes to Bed Bath and Beyond).  The wedding map has all kinds of useful info – location of Cullen’s, places to stay, places to eat, places to have fun… and be sure to “rate” the map 5-stars (Nicole put a lot of thought into it!).  The registry links should take you directly to our registries (not just the main page of Macy’s or whatever).  We’re getting warm-feet (excited) and are looking forward to seeing everyone soon!