Nussbaum On Utilitarianism And Sidgwick

“Utilitarianism can be usefully characterized (following an analysis proposed by Bernard Williams and Amartya Sen) as involving three ideas. First, consequentialism: The right choice is the one that produces the best overall consequences. Second, sum-ranking: The way we aggregate the satisfactions of different persons into a social whole is simply by adding them all up (rather than, say, by focusing on getting the worst-off person as high up as possible, or by insisting on some constraints on how unequal people can be allowed to be). Third, some substantive view of what the good for a person is, such as pleasure, or the satisfaction of desire. Sidgwick, like Bentham, opts for pleasure, though he is much more sensitive than Bentham to the difficulties involved in comparing different pleasures of the same person and the even greater difficulty involved in comparing the pleasures of different people.”

Further:
“Utilitarians typically commend the choice of pleasure as the goal by pointing to the alleged ubiquity of the pursuit of pleasure (not the best and surely not the only way to justify a central ethical value, one might have thought). They then encounter a difficulty: If what each person pursues, and should pursue (according to them), is maximal personal pleasure, how are we going to defend the view that the right goal for society is the greatest happiness of the greatest number? And how, having defended the view, are we going to convince people that it is that goal, rather than the egoistic goal, that they should pursue, since for many people pursuing overall happiness will involve personal sacrifice? Mill had a lot of difficulty with the philosophical argument, and he needed ultimately to depart from strict Utilitarianism in order to solve it to the extent that he did; but he was optimistic about the social process, believing that civic education could produce people who really did think of the happiness of others as an integral part of their own happiness. Sidgwick was hung up on this problem all his life; he called it the "dualism of practical reason,” and in the end he believed that he had failed to solve it--unless life after death should turn out to produce a coincidence between personal happiness and service to others. But he made much more headway than his predecessors on the philosophical side of the issue, with his probing work on ethical methodology and his defense of a perspective of impartiality ("the point of view of the Universe") as the right place from which to make ethical judgments. (Schultz rightly notes that Sidgwick owes a considerable debt to Kant, although it is scarcely acknowledged, and to the Kantian idea that one must not favor one's own case but rather must test one's own actions by thinking about how they would look as universal features of the world.)”

From Martha Nussbaum, ‘Epistemology of the Closet’ in The Nation June 6, 2005.

Sophie’s World

Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World has been adapted into a Norwegian television series. For those unfamiliar, Sophie’s World is the story of Sophie’s introduction to philosophy via a series of lectures delivered by a dog (in brown envelopes). The novel combines history of philosophy with simple introductions to some of the key thinkers within the guise of an elaborate post-modernist novel (think Umberto Eco). It isn’t Gaarder’s best novel, though it is quite novel.

SBS will be screening the series on Fridays, starting this week, at 8.30 pm.

Am I a Master?

When reading Neitzsche, it is human, all too human, to entertain, for a moment, or longer, it can last years for some but should only last five minutes, the idea that you are a master. That you are, by nature, a master, and you are only being held back by X, Y and Z. That if only such and such would change, then I could take my rightful place as the arbiter of right and wrong. All this amounts to is what everyone else thinks, "If only everyone would listen to me." If I were king for a day. This is an understandable and forgivable fantasy. It is painful how long it takes for some, but everyone must realise, eventually, that if they were, by nature, a master, they would already be arbitrating to everyone what is right and wrong. They would have already seized the day, seen the lay of the land and worked it to their advantage to be the one on top, saying do this do that, being in control and letting people know what to think. If they were masters they would not have spent their time constructing debates, winging and whining from their misfortunate locale - they would have already commanded. All it amounts to, these people who think that if only they were born at the right time and place, if the world was different, like the recent neo-nazis at the Uni of Newcastle, if only the world were constructed for them, I'm saying, all it amounts to is just that typical slave fantasy of imagining what it would be like to be the master. A master is a master. Anyone who imagines or wishes they were is just like everybody else, a slave with a fantasy of a better life that could be - a nobody, vanishing in the dust of time.

If you are worried about the dusts of time, let me ask - what do you care for them? The dust of time does not care for you, so what do you care for them? Who do you love? Where does meaning reside? Let who cares for you be the summation of your significance. Before my grandfather died he said that what matters is having somebody who understands, and you don't have to explain.

Foucault And The Iranian Revolution

‘What Are the Iranians Dreaming About?’, by Michel Foucault, from Foucault and the Iranian Revolution.

BBC’s Greatest Philosopher

The BBC has published its shortlist for the Greatest Philosopher. The twenty nominations are …

St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Epicurus, Martin Heidegger, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Karl Popper, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Schopenhauer, Socrates, Baruch Spinoza, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Contributor’s Blogs

Samuel has undertaken a renovation of Philosophy Hurts Your Head, which you might like to drop by (leave him a comment so that he feels as though someone reads his Blog). Over at Hypomnemata I am in the slow process of posting my notes from Schopenhauer’s On the Suffering of the World, which will be supplemented (shortly) by notes from Wittgenstein, Kant, Mill, and Plato.

Articles Notice

A few articles - on Marx, Heidegger, and one by Pope Benedict XVI - that you might be interested in …

Wheen – ‘On Capital’ (Francis Wheen’s Karl Marx is probably the definitive biography of Marx, and one of the easiest philosopher-biographies to read).
Monaghan – ‘The Case of Theresa Schiavo'.

And lastly, a couple of articles; the first, ‘In Search of Freedom; Against Reason Fallen Ill and Religion Abused’, by Pope Benedict XVI, the second, ‘Of Reason and Faith: A Reply to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’, a reply by Stephen Bronner.

The Journal Of Military Ethics

The current issue of the Journal Of Military Ethics is a special issue on jus in bello. Given recent discussions around here on the ethics of armed conflict, I thought that there might be a couple of you who would be interested in reading the papers.

Notre Dame Reviews

There a few reviews from Notre Dame that Reader’s might like to have a look at.

The first is a review of Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction. Also worth looking at are Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Peace Talks – Who Will Listen?.

Question – On The Public Jury

There have been two court decisions in recent weeks that have been debated in the Court of Public Opinion. The first was the ‘Corby Verdict’, the second the ‘Jackson Verdict’. The announcement of the verdicts, guilty and innocent respectively, has turned every man and his dog into a ‘juror’, espousing verdicts of their own.

The question that needs to be discussed, especially in this age of the incredibly democratic ‘vox pop’, is whether anyone who has not been privy to the court proceedings and the deliberations of the jurors is actually in a position to comment on any court decision at all?

[It is requested, by The Editor, that contributors and commentators abstain from posting their own verdicts and concentrate on the issue of whether they are actually in a position to make such claims in the first instance.]

Question – ‘Oz’ And Ethics

In the episode of Oz that screened on SBS last night Keller confessed to ‘ordering the hit’ on Schillinger’s son. The order was made by Beecher, in retaliation for Schillinger’s son, Hank, kidnapping and murdering Beecher’s son, whom Schillinger suspected when Hank’s body was discovered. Schillinger’s suspicion led him to order the murder of all of Beecher’s family, which commenced with the stabbing of Beecher’s brother, and was only averted by Keller’s confession to a crime that he did not commit.

Was it noble for Keller to confess to a crime, that he did not commit, to prevent the retaliatory murder of innocents? Or should Beecher have been made to pay for his crime?

Foucault And The Ayatollah

An article, from the Boston Globe, on Michel Foucault and his time in Iran covering the Revolution.

Saugstad On Post Modernism

Andreas Saugstad, in ‘Thoughts on postmodernism’ for the Independent of Bangladesh, makes an attempt at defining ‘postmodernism’. Saugard’s definition lies in a series of ‘trends’ that distinguish the post modern from Descartes, as a ‘historical phenomenon’.

While the article is poorer for its brevity, and its lack of founded and substantiated claims, Sugstad does make the apt observation that “Postmodernists have given us many ideas which are important, we should try to understand postmodern thinking and learn what we can from the postmodern approach” – it is a shame that this observation seems obvious enough to be redundant.

Eco And Existentialism

The Miami Herald’s review of Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Apparently it has an ‘existentialist’ undercurrent since “Eco uses [the protagonist] Yambo's condition to raise all sorts of philosophical questions, specifically about the big-e Existentialist notion that being is becoming. Existentialism, you may recall, was the school of thought that reached its zenith in the occupied France of World War II. One idea behind the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and others is that a person's identity, his essence, isn't innate but rather is determined by the choices he makes”. Further, “Yambo is a classic Existentialist hero in that he has no essence other than what he is able to recreate for himself using the material possessions around him. He soon returns home to his wife and his rare-books business but his memory has become a pastiche made up of far-flung literary allusions and the swatches of poetry that come to him through the fog of his amnesia”.

[You will have to sign-up for the Herald’s on-line services to gain access to the article.]

The Socialist Worker On Sartre

‘Jean Paul Sartre – philosophy of freedom’, or what Socialists can take from The Existentialist. [Wasn’t Garcin, in Huis Clos, a socalist?]

Kant Texts

A collection of texts about Immanuel Kant, from Germany.

Philosophers Index …

Philosophers Index – the bane of the philosophy student’s existence, the first stop for researching any essay and the greatest hindrance to that research (so many articles that appear to be exactly what you think you need, and that turn out to be in volumes of journals that have disappeared from the Library in the past fifty years, or in the only issue that the Library didn't buy) – has finally been put to interesting use. Enwe’s Metablog has run the names of a number of philosophers through the Index and tallied the number of outputs. These are the results.

I was shocked to see that Kant topped the list ...

Living Philosophers

Brian Leiter has compiled a list of living philosophers that one should know about, as taken from Honderich’s Companion.

I’m offering this list up as an interim measure until I complete (and post) the 'Chronology' I have been compiling (at the instigation of Ms Wallin) over recent weeks.

Editorial Notice – 10th June

Have added links to several Blogs, reaffirming the Editorial commitment to connecting to the widest range of philosophical discussions.

Hedonism and the Post-Darwinist World

I recently re-discovered a web page that I had come across once some years ago and forgotten about, The Hedonistic Imperative. Seemingly run by the mysterious ‘Dave’, this extensive site details a plan to “eradicate suffering in all sentient life”, complete with philosophical justifications. While the sheer bulk of material can be overwhelming and the approach can seem piecemeal, there is an interesting parallel between this and the situation laid out in the end of Atomised. It is also an interesting flip side to Rowan’s discussion of why we might want a “fake” world that is perfect; Why not just make the real one where we are all perfectly happy? I do admit that this is not really the kind of serious material that some of the contributors and editors here normally peruse, but if you are looking for a somewhat wacky read, this is it.
And you thought that utilitarianism was dead.

A Question Regarding Common Morality

Philip Stratton-Lake, in a review of Bernard Gert’s Common Morality: Deciding What to Do, writes: "In this book Bernard Gert aims to describe and justify common morality. Common morality, as he understands it, is the moral system that most thoughtful people implicitly use in arriving at moral judgements. According to Gert this system is based on five basic harms -- death, pain, disability, loss of freedom, loss of pleasure. From these five harms we get ten moral rules that capture the core of common morality: 1. Do not kill 2. Do not cause pain, 3. Do not disable, 4. Do not deprive of freedom, 5. Do not deprive of pleasure, 6. Do not deceive, 7. Keep your promises, 8. Do not cheat, 9. Obey the law, and 10. Do your duty. The first five rules prohibit inflicting the five basic harms directly, whereas the second five prohibit actions that cause those same harms indirectly. So the first five rules are basic, and the second five derivative (although Gert does not describe them in this way)."

Is there, really, anything more to ethics?

The Oxford Companion To Philosophy, Second Edition.

Oxford University Press has released a second edition of its highly informative and practical doorstop The Oxford Companion To Philosophy. It is alleged to have fifty more pages than the first edition, which was published in 1995, which apparently amounts to about three hundred new entries.

Honderich’s ‘Preface’ is available on-line.

Notice – ‘Questions On Hostage Taking’

A link to ‘Questions On Hostage Taking’ has been made available in Nota Bene.

An Interview With Umberto Eco.

From the London Telegraph – so it is light – as part of the publicity for Eco’s new novel.

Reviews: Plato, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein

A couple of new reviews from Notre Dame. Firstly a review of Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan’ Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in Plato's Symposium, I wasn’t going to post this but then there was the announcement about honours coursework for next semester … Secondly a review of John Gibson and Wolfgang Huemer’s collection The Literary Wittgenstein.

There is also this review of a new biography of Kierkegaard.

Cogito ‘Sonsuzluğun Sınırında: Immanuel Kant’.

The Turkish journal Cogito has published an edition dedicated to the bicentenary (last year) of Immanuel Kant’s death. It is apparently around five hundred pages of material. The downside to this is that the online content is in Turkish(?). Paper copies are alleged to have the non-Turkish original texts in parallel.

The Dissapointment Problem.

There is a choice between E and F. E will either suffice or disappoint. F will disappoint. If you choose F, you know that you will be disappointed. If you choose E you may be satisfied or disappointed. Do you choose F knowing that you will be disappointed, and thus not be disappointed with your choice when it disappoints, or do you choose E?

‘I hate socialists’ – A Problem.

Firstly context; was accosted today by members of the Socialist Equity Party who were prophesising the coming Revolution. As I escaped their rhetorical pronouncements, I thought ‘I hate socialists’. This sentiment is probably enough to get me killed.

The problem is that I have no idea what I actually meant. ‘I hate socialists’. Does it mean that I hate the two individuals who were trying to convince me that the only solution to all the world’s problems is to end capitalism? Does it mean that I hate all the individuals who may be described as socialists? Does it mean that I hate ‘socialists’ as a category of people, while feeling nothing toward the actual people who are members of that category? Or do I hate the ideology that these individuals qua socialists espouse?

Am not quite sure myself, but if anyone can clarify my intentions it might be appreciated.

Discussion topic - why should we choose reality?

This is all too confusing. I can't take this any more. Anyway, several weeks ago, dreams were being discussed at the club meeting, and somebody mentioned a case where an individual chose to remain in a state of vivd dreaming than wake up for a prolonged period. This reminded me [of] an article written about The Matrix, but seems relevant. Likewise Nozick's experience machine. So I was thinking, maybe if people were to peruse said articles, there may be some stuff worth discussing on why we should choose reality over non-reality at the next meeting. The Matrix article and the Nozick (actually I couldn't be arsed finding it, so hopefully Martin or the like will be).

Paul Ricoeur, 1913 - 2005.

Paul Ricoeur, distinguished French philosopher noted for his phenomenology, died on Friday 20th of May.

Here is a collection of obituraries.
Le Monde (Christian Delacampagne, in Frech).
Inside Higher Ed (Scott McLemee).
The Guardian (Associated Press).
The Guardian (by Jonathan Rée).
The Telegraph (London).
WorldChanging.

From the Blogosphere there is In Medias Res, and Articoli filosofici's collections (which are mainly in Italiano). Also worthy of a look is Ricoeur's Kluge Prize Acceptance Speech (from December 2004).

Karl Marx's Manifesto On Modern America

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Freeman and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and proletariat, in a word oppressor and oppressed, stand in opposition to each other and carry on a constant fight. In the information age, in which knowledge is power and money, the class struggle is fought between the educated elite and the undereducated masses."

- From 'Karl's New Manifesto'.

Philosopher's Carnival, No. Fourteen.

The fourteenth Philosopher’s Carnival is presently being hosted at Mumblings and Grumblings. There are about eighteen posts on a variety of topics.

BBC Poll – Who is the Greatest Philosopher?

The BBC is presently conducting a Poll to elect the greatest philosopher. While this sort of thing, I think, should not be determined democratically, the bits and pieces that the BBC has compiled seem worth a look.

Articles Of Interest - 29th of May 2005

Another set of random articles that people might like to take a look at … including one for Mr McCool!

Simon Singh on ‘What The Bleep Do We Know’.
Gary Jason on ‘Deconstructing Post-Modernity’.
Tom Clark on ‘How to be a religious atheist’.
Mirko Bagaric On ‘A case for torture’.
And, especially for Mr McCool, Natasha Walter’s ‘Why I was wrong about porn’.

Two Reviews

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has published reviews of two books that I think some of you might be interested in. The first is a review of David Rodin’s War and Self-Defence, in which Rodin examines the legitimising analogy between personal self-defence and national self-defence. The other, which is slightly more arcane, is The Cambridge Companion To Arabic Philosophy, on one of the less studied periods of the Western philosophic tradition.

Possible Discussion Groups

Two proposals have been made for Discussion Groups to commence next semester. The suggested topics for discussion are the works of Nietzsche and Foucault, respectively.

At the moment nothing has been set in stone (i.e. when the discussions would run, or their structure and focus), but any thoughts on other possible topics or any preferences would be welcome.

A Logical Problem?

"Poor Service = Poor Rail Management" - This was the text of a sticker that I saw on a train this morning. I had probably read it before, but this morning I noticed that there is something logically discordinate about it. I could understand that 'Poor Rail Management' could equal 'Poor Service', but I am just not sure that the inference works the other way ...

Questions On Hostage Taking

There has been considerable media coverage of an Australian-born contractor who has been taken hostage in Iraq, and the attempts to secure his release. This has made evident two questions that probably have not had the ethical discussion they deserve. So, the Editor decided to post them and hopefully commence the discussion. Firstly, can the taking of hostages, in any situation, be justified ethically? Secondly, should the demands of hostage takers be meet?

The University of Newcastle Philosophy Club Annual General Meeting

The Club’s Annual General Meeting was held on the 17th of May.

At the AGM, the following members were elected to the Executive: Samuel Douglas was elected President, Martin Hill and Paula Morrow were elected Vice Presidents, Rowan Blyth was elected Treasurer, Chris Papadopoulos was elected Secretary, and Rose Wallin was elected Clubs and Societies Delegate.

The Editor congratulates those who were elected on their election. The Editor also thanks those who attended the AGM for doing so.

Articles Of Interest

A couple of articles that have come to my attention in the past few days. Do readers think that is a worthwhile service?

Pinker and Spelke, ‘The Science of Gender and Science’.
Campbell, ‘Revenge On Sartre’.
McLemee, ‘The Consecrated Heretic’ (more on Sartre …).

Question – What Is The Meaning Of Life

Melbourne Philosopher has commenced a discussion of the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’. An ever-pertinent question, the Editor has decided to raise it here.

What is the meaning of life?

[Editorial Aside – ‘42’ is, at present, a non-sufficient answer. Any demonstration that ‘42’ is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything will need to establish that ‘seven times seven’ is in fact the question and that the correct answer to that question is not, in fact, ‘5’ – as some ‘Bizarre Sceptic’ might just claim (thank you S. Kripke)].

Reminder: Club AGM

The Annual General Meeting of The University of Newcastle Philosophy Club will be held on Tuesday the 17th of May at One pm in the McMullin Courtyard – between the McMullin Building and the McMullin Theatre.

All Members of the Club are invited to attend.

Notice - What is a good person?

Due to the natural attrition of posts from this front page, the discussion of what is a good person has fallen off the egde.

A link has been added to Nota Bene, for ease of reference, so that the discussion may continue.

Question - What constitutes an evil individual?

The discussion of what constitutes a good person has become a discussion of apathy and the apathetic individual, so a new approach seems to be required. Perhaps the question of what constitutes an evil individual might help ...

What constitutes an evil individual?

Editorial Announcement: 11th May 2005

As a result of yesterday’s Club meeting, two new Forums have been made available.

The first of these is the Open Forum. This Forum is intended as a place where individuals can pose topics for general discussion on Dialectic.

The second is the Club Discussion Topics Forum. This Forum is a place where Club members can suggest topics for discussion at Club meetings.

Links to both these Forums have been added to Nota Bene, where they will reside.

Philosopher's Carnival, No. Thirteen

The thirteenth Philosopher’s Carnival is presently being hosted at Mormon Metaphysics.

Notice - The Philosophers' Magazine, Issue 30

Articles from The Philosophers’ Magazine, Issue 30.

Five intractable problems
Movies and intractable problems
Scare yourself witless on the internet
The Hobbesian State of America
Derrida the Movie: a review
Literary festivals and philosophy
Blogging - Chris Bertram on its merits; Jeremy Stangroom on its flaws
The Soho symposium

A Short Response On The End Of History

Ms Wallin asked “How the hell does the idea of the end of history work??? It's come up a few times now and it seems to be a very random idea. How can history end??!?!” – this brief note is an attempt to answer that question.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine” – R.E.M.

I should start by asserting that I am not a Hegelian. While I have read some Hegel, his work is not really my strong suit and my understanding of his thought is tainted by Feuerbach and Marx. The answer that I attempt here is flawed, and I welcome any constructive comments.

For the philosophers of the German Enlightenment, history equates with progress. We are not really discussing history in the sense of history books, but a broader scope along the lines of the sum total of human action. For Hegel this process is driven by the logic of dialectic – a thesis emerges, its antithesis emerges and they ‘clash’ to produce their synthesis. Hence history can be viewed as a series of theses, antitheses, and syntheses. Hegel is interested in the Master/Slave dialectic, whereby masters and slaves struggle against each other towards a state where both are free from the chains of their opposition (both master and slave are co-dependent and thus cannot be free while their opponent remains). History as progress will end when a fully rational (Enlightened) community emerges, because in this society master and slave will cease to be, and the power struggles that are the engine of history and progress will no longer take place.

Marx takes up the idea of the dialectical process of history. Marx argues – in the early writings, and the thoughts influence all that comes after – that history has been a series of periods defined by a binary opposition between the ‘propertied’ and ‘working’ classes (the feudal lord versus the serf, the capitalist bourgeoisie versus the proletarian). For Marx, capitalism is a synthesis whose antithesis – communism – will cause a conflict (the proletarian revolution) that will eventually result in the end of history (a state that Marx never quite got around to providing a description of…).

It was thinking along these lines that led Francis Fukuyama to pre-emptively declare in 1989 that history had ended. His reasoning went that the failure of the USSR meant that liberal democracy, as it exists in the West amounts to the rational state that Hegel predicted, since it has triumphed over Marxism. While we had not entered the final end state, Fukuyama thought that we were close enough to claim that ‘progress’ was over and forward movement would only be incremental, not monumental.

How does the end of history hypothesis work? Well, if history is progress, and progress is governed by a dialectical logic, there must be a point where no further progress can be made and the end of history is the moment that the final synthesis emerges. This is not to say that nothing will happen after this point – life and so forth will continue, it is just that there will be no developments.

The major problem with the idea, as I see it, is that the dialectical engine will never stop driving, and that there will always be sufficient struggle to keep history progressing.

Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting of The University Of Newcastle Philosophy Club will be held on Tuesday the 17th of May, 2005 at One p.m., at a location to be announced.

All Club members are invited to attend.

Question - What is a good person?

A Visitor to Dialectic raised the question “What do philosophers consider a 'good' person is? Is it simply someone whose good deeds outweigh their bad deeds?” – it is pertinent question worthy of discussion whenever it is raised and so the Editors would like to present it for open discussion.

What is a good person?

Spiked Magazine – Einstein Survey

As part of the celebration of the centerary of Einstein’s publication of the equation E=mc2, the United Kingdom’s Spiked Magazine has conducted a survey of two hundred and fifty individuals on science. The results are available here.

Notes On Games And Life - Unabridged

Prelude
i. “Will my number come up eventually? Like Love is some kind of lottery, where you can scratch and see what is underneath. It’s ‘Sorry’, just one cherry, ‘Play Again’. Get lucky.” (Bright Eyes. ‘Waste Of Paint’ on Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep You Ear to the Ground (2002))

ii. “I have known what the Greeks do not know, incertitude.” (Jorge Luis Borges. ‘The Lottery in Babylon’ in Labyrinths (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 55)

Games
iii. Game – “Contest played according to rules & decided by skill, strength, or luck” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Fifth Edition, p. 502)

iv. Game (Philosophic) – “this term includes but is not limited to contests and sports. To play a game is to attempt to achieve a certain state of affairs using only those means permitted by the rules” (Robert M. Martin. The Philosopher’s Dictionary, Third Edition (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002), p. 133)

The toss of a coin
v. “they are betting on the toss of a coin, in the following manner: GUILDENSTERN … takes a coin out of his bag, spins it, letting it fall. ROSENCRANTZ … studies it, announces it as “heads” (as it happens) and puts it into his own bag. Then they repeat the process. They have apparently been doing this for some time.

The run of “heads” is impossible, yet [Rosencrantz] betrays no surprise at all – he feels none.” (Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), p. 7)

vi. “The law of averages, if I have got this right, means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the air for long enough they would land on their tails about as often as they would land on their – ” (Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, p. 8)

Game Theory and The Prisoner’s Dilemma
vii. “a game is a choice situation where more than one individual is choosing and where the choices made by the participating individuals determine how well the other individuals’ choice turns out.” (Martin. The Philosopher’s Dictionary, p. 133)

viii. Áthamas and Báttus are being interrogated in separate cells by the Inquisition. They are accused of collaborating in a crime, but the Inquisition lacks the evidence necessary to convict them. The Inquisitors offer Áthamas and Báttus, individually, the same deal: if one of them confesses their guilt, and agrees to testify against their co-accused, he will be banished. If they stay silent, while their co-accused accepts the deal, it will be their partner who is banished while they are imprisoned for ten years. If both the co-accused confess, they are told, then both will be imprisoned for five years. While if neither confesses, the Inquisitors admit, the Inquisition will be unable to secure a conviction and both Áthamas and Báttus will be freed, though their property will be seized. Áthamas and Báttus are left with the choice to either ‘cooperate’ – that is remain silent – or to defect and confess their guilt to the Inquisitor.

ix. Payoff matrix for Áthamas and Báttus

Cooperate Defect
Cooperate Property seizure, Property seizure (2,2) 10 years, Banishment (4,1)
Defect Banishment, 10 years (1,4) 5 years, 5 years (3,3)

The numbers in brackets represent each player’s ranking of the options from most preferable (1) to least preferred (4)

x. Perhaps the solution is for Áthamas to confess and accept either being banished or imprisoned for five years …

xi. “Such a scenario postulates a lack of enforced co-operation; and to avoid the undesirable outcome, the actors in the drama need to be forced into co-operation by a system of rules. So it has been argued that we can find in this dilemma a basis for the generation of the institutions of morality – or, at least, of prudent co-operation. But that conclusion is challenged by others who point out that the same choice-theoretic problems also arise with ends that immoral or prudentially harmful.” (Ted Honderich [Ed.]. The Oxford Companion To Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 719)

xii. “One way to express the paradoxical implications of prisoner’s dilemma-type situations is to say that when its conditions apply, rational agents do less well than irrational.” (Neil Levy. What Makes Us Moral? Crossing the Boundaries of Biology (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2004), p. 63)

Rock-Scissors-Paper
xiii. In each bout a player must adopt one of three strategies, choosing to play either ‘rock’, ‘scissors’, or ‘paper’. Rock blunts scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper wraps rock; in each case the dominate neutralises the subordinate.

xiv. Payoff matrix for rock-scissors-paper

Rock Scissors Paper
Rock 0,0 +1,-1 -1,+1
Scissors -1,+1 0,0 +1, -1
Paper +1,-1 -1,+1 0,0
(‘x,y’: ‘x’ equals player on the left, ‘y’ equals player above)

xv. “a player adopting the pure strategy ‘Rock’ will lost in the long run, because his opponent will catch on and play ‘Paper’. A player adopting the mixed strategy ‘1/3 Rock, 1/3 Scissors, 1/3 Paper’ will break even.” (John Maynard Smith. Did Darwin Get It Right? (Harmondsworth: Penguin), p. 206)

xvi. How often does the future course of events rest on the strategy employed to win a game of rock-scissors-paper?

Conclusion
xvii. “These things always happen …” (Jon Brion. ‘Strangest Times’ on i (heart) huckabees (2004))

xviii. So, heads-or-tails or rock-paper-scissors?

[This post is the unabridged text from which Martin's contribution to Opus 3, 2005 (p. 11) was drawn – Editor.]

The Idiocy of Post Modernity

I recently came across the observation that “Post Modernism, in its adolescent attempt to ape the clever and witty in modern art, has shown itself to be lost in a cul–de–sac of idiocy” (source); with revision to ‘post modernism, in its adolescent attempt to ape the clever in modern philosophy, has shown itself to be lost in a cul-de-sac of idiocy’ I think we have a fitting description of this ‘paper’.

Stanford Encyclopaedia On Baudrillard.

The death of Derrida last year raised, among others, the question of who would take the position of the ‘First Man of French Philosophy’ – a position that in recent years had passed from Sartre to Foucault, who in turn passed it to Derrida. Among the contenders were Bernard Henri-Levy and Jean Baudrillard.

Baudrillard is one of the key ‘post-structuralist’ thinkers, his argument at one point being that society (in the contemporary West) had collapsed in on itself from the structures that had once supported it, and become the mass of ‘mass culture’. A parallel to this collapse was the decline of meaning, which has seen actual events transcended by simulations and simulacra, to a point where even the conflict of war had been replaced by its simulation (a position Baudrillard appears to have revised since September 2001). The style that he employs to convey this ideas is unusually idiosyncratic, and his prose can border on the obtuse.

The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy has just published its entry on Baudrillard. Hopefully the extensive entry – twenty-two pages, the usual SEP length yet seemingly long for someone like Baudrillard who has a habit of writing rather short works – will go some way toward making Baudrillard’s volumous corpus opera somewhat more accessable.

Post Script - There is a link to an ammount of Baudrillard’s work on the links page and I intend to post a few notes on the entry in the next couple of days.

Singer and Singer – The Moral of the Story: An anthology of Ethics Through Literature

Peter Singer, and his wife Renata, have published a new anthology: The Moral of the Story. Leslie Cannold, in her review in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Spectrum, claims that it will be the sort of volume that will be returned to again and again.

Cannold’s thoughts on Singer himself, in the review, prove interesting. Cannold observes that with “the exception of Alain de Botton, Singer is without peer when it comes to picking the right topic and penning erudite and accessible prose steeped in casual references to philosophical debates on similar issues dating back thousands of years” – it is an observation that I would like to challenge. While de Botton is definitely accessible, I would not claim him to be erudite, since it always feels bland, contrived, and pretentious. Claiming that de Botton is the better of the two is simply misguided, Singer clearly is (this said even with my disdain for Singer and my enjoyment of de Botton). To even try to compare them seems somewhat pointless, since Singer is first and foremost an academic and an intellectual while de Botton is yet to amount to anything much more than a sophist. I am also yet, in my limited reading of Singer, to find him making casual references – his style always strikes me as well considered, and each reference is purposeful (unlike de Botton’s collections of attributions and quotations, jumbled together in a vain attempt at de Montaigne).

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy – New Online Journal

The first issue of JESP is now available on-line. Given the rising costs of paper journal subscriptions, alternative on-line journals (with free content) should be supported as much as possible. The articles in the first issue deal with instrumental rationality …

Coleman On Globalisation And Ethics.

The University of Western Australia recently hosted a lecture by Dr Peter Coleman, a visiting Chair, on the topic of globalisation.

Coleman’s argument seems to be the way to redress the negatives of globalisation is through the ‘globalisation of morals’. He is, like most on the subject, aware that the processes of globalisation have both positive and negative impacts, including the impact that globalisation has had on nation states (a topic that Habermas has written an interesting work on). Coleman claims that these processes pose three challenges I) to adequate global governance for the common good, II) to a sustainable environment, and III) to solidarity with the poor and developing world. Coleman’s solution to these problems is to reinforce the notion of community, and the concept of nation that is derived from it, and from these notions to attempt to construct trans- and international consensus on other issues.

There are two main problems with this ‘modernist’ system of thought. It is ‘modernist’ because it seems to invoke the Kantian ideal of perpetual peace, though a consensus derived from rationality. Firstly, it fails to realise the complexities of the contemporary political environment – there is too much idealism in a mix where realism is better suited – where international consensus is hard to build unless it proves politically advantageous; gone are the days when many nations would rally to a global agreement, simply because it was a global agreement. Secondly, the very notion of globalising morals seems problematic – how do you develop an international consensus on such diverse things as norms? Even within the western world there are staggering differences between nations on which norms are acceptable, and these go beyond simply liberal-conservative divides. It is here that the challenge of solidarity with the poor of the developing world falls down, since the norms of contemporary society make it difficult for most people to have solidarity with the poor of their own nation, let alone the poor of other nations.

Schizophrenic Nightmares Come True - The Chip In Your Brain

Having a computer chip in your head controlling or monitoring your thoughts and actions is a cliched type of schizophrenic delusion, just like thinking you're Jesus Christ. But now this paranoid delusion has become reality.

Neuroscientists have successfully implanted a chip in the brain of a quadriplegic.(footnote 1) Its 100 gold sensors detect neural signals and feed them through wires thinner than a hair out through the scull to a computer interface. The quadriplegic can direct a mouse cursor by thought alone. Similar experiments have monkeys moving robotic arms by the power of thought. A large plug in the skull is the current uncomfortable and risky technique but scientists hope to develop wireless in the near future.

The focus of these developments is on enabling disabled people to regain the use of their limbs or cybernetic replacements - mechanical arms and legs. Feasibly the brain, remarkably adept at learning and coordinating movement in the world, could manipulate any kind of machine. You might be able to drive your car, fly a plane, hack into NASA, tell the security door your password, drive a tank on the other side of the world or fire off nuclear bombs on a bad day - all by thought alone. This is all focused on output from the brain and will probably in fact be used benevolently with useful cybernetic devices. In the current model there is no input from the chip back into, and influencing the brain.

But some related papers advocating this technology suggest it can be used to help not only physically disabled people, but people with depression.(footnote 2) The obvious suggestion is that such a chip could detect depressive activity in the brain and generate input to the brain to 'correct' it. If this is possible, then it is easy enough to see that people with schizophrenia might also be treated this way. The terrifying twist is that if someone fears that a computer chip has been implanted in their brain controlling their thoughts, the treatment for this might be to implant a computer chip in their brain to control their thoughts. So if you are worried that the military-industrial complex has already been using this technology since the 50's - watch out, they might cure you, or maybe they already have.

(This is leaving aside the whole question as to whether people with mental illness are in fact 'sick' and need to be 'cured' or whether they just have an artistic temperament, or think differently. While I acknowledge that some people might need help, and possibly treatment, I have serious concerns about over diagnosis, especially for depression. Statements are made by health authorities saying 1 in 5(footnote 3) or similar numbers suffer from depression or mental illness - to me being depressed is a perfectly sane reaction to this world.)

The good news is that while it is, in principle, easy to give people enhanced cybernetic motor control - it is very difficult for this technology to control emotions or types of thought, and practically impossible to report what someone is thinking. The brain is quite adept at learning the consequences of various neural activity and adjusting the links in its network to produce the right output. As babies we learn to move our limbs in an almost trial and error way. Our brains learn that certain activity produces certain limb movements and when learned, the successful configuration of connections and weights in the neural network is retained - though remains flexible as we need to respond differently to the changing world around us. To the brain it makes little difference if what responds to it's activity is a flesh and blood limb, or some robotic device.

Inputting to the brain to control it's activity is a different story. There is some degree to which this is possible. Electromagnetic fields have been applied to mentally ill patients' brains with some success, and the corresponding changes in brain activity at a broad scale are visible using brain scans. Mood changing drugs that affect the brain chemically have been with us for a long time. The point is that these are very general applications and effects and, in principle, they can only ever be general.

The neural networks of our brain do not store specific thoughts or functionality in localised easily discernable sites. The information in a brain, and it's functioning, is distributed widely across many nodes, or neurons, synapses, axons, dendrites and so on. To put this more simply, when someone thinks of a horse, there is not a particular compartment of the brain that corresponds to 'horse'. A whole series of activity and associations takes place, throughout the brain, and this activity constantly changes as the 'meaning' of a horse constantly changes in it's nuance and in different contexts. Thinking about a horse may be localised to some broad region of the brain, but this region would also be active for countless other thoughts and actions. Also, the configuration of one person's neural network when thinking of a horse, built up over time, may be entirely different to somebody else's regardless of how similar their response is, so that even if such a thought could be localised in one person, this does not apply to anyone else so it is just not feasible to attempt to detect it in anyone.

Remember also, that the brain naturally strengthens those network connections that are good and inhibits those that are bad (even if we have learned to do things we know are bad for us, it is because we derive some sort of satisfaction from them, or it is the way we have learned to get by in the world, whatever the social or cultural influences may have been). The brain will naturally inhibit inputs it doesn't like - though this applies to signals direct from the chip to the brain it leaves open the possibility of an overwhelming flood of brain affecting chemicals which cannot be resisted.

If delusional thinking is marked by a degree of over activity in some part of the brain, this could be detected by such a chip, which when processed through a program could lead to another component either outputting a certain type of drug, or some how changing the electrical activity in that broad area of the brain. So, in principle, it is relatively easy for a chip to gather output from the brain to control cybernetic devices, but difficult, though possible, for these chips to even broadly affect mood and types of thinking.

This potential is certainly something we should all be worried about, but it remains that yours and my thoughts, in their details as you and I experience them, remain our own. While the chip in my brain might one day tell the Pentagon I'm feeling kinky, no-one will ever know I am day dreaming of riding a horse in the Swiss alps while wearing a little French maid outfit.

1. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=braingate&btnG=Search&meta=
Braingate
http://www.nicolelislab.net/NLNet/Load/index.htm

2. http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/85/98694.htm?printing=true

3. http://www.spinneypress.com.au/190_book_desc.html
and
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/numbers.cfm

A Problem Regarding Violence And Creation

There is a growing volume of scientific data that points to intra-species violence (that is violence between members of the same species) being a phenotypic trait of Homo Sapiens (hereafter ‘humans’). How can this be rectified with the notion that God imposed suffering on man (apologies for the use of the masculine here) for the Original Sin of Adam?

I shall posit that there is no possibility of rectification, and that this is problematic for Christian theology.

(The argument here set out is only a first attempt – apologies for any error before I begin – and one that I have a slight intent to return to and develop, so any comments will be appreciated.)

The argument, as it has been presented by a visitor here, seems to run that God (the Judeo-Christian conception – seemingly more post-Protestant than Catholic) created Adam qua man as a perfect being free from suffering and death, and granted him free will. Adam then, under peer pressure, committed the sin of disobeying God (which seems to have been the only possible sin in Eden) – this event having been made possible by free will. God then punished man by casting him from Eden and into suffering. It is claimed then, that much of the suffering caused by man is a result of his free will.

This account does not appear to stand up to basic scientific scrutiny. Violence has been seen to be – however contentiously – at least partially hereditary; that is individuals born into families with a history of violence are more likely to be violent. This has given rise to an argument, much debated, that violence is genetically caused; and that there is a gene or group of genes that increase the likelihood of violence, and that in the right environment these genes will manifest themselves as phenotypic traits.

If humans are indeed phenotypic beings, with our individual phenotypes resulting from the interaction between our genes and our environment, this raises the question of how we came to be such. I will take it as beyond a reasonable doubt that human beings have genes – since I am yet to hear a Christian argue contra this – and for the purpose of the discussion acknowledge a creationistic view that God created man as a genetic being. Herein this account there lies a problem – if God created man he did so with a gene for violence because in both Genesis accounts God leaves man as created (except for the removal of a rib or two in one of the accounts) after He completes creation. Simply, when man is forsaken to this world, God is not recorded as interceding and inserting another gene into man for violence before sending man on his merry (?) way. So, it must be asserted that God engineered man with a gene for violence.

God need not have inserted this gene from a biological standpoint. It seems pointless to make the claim, as I fear some may want to do, that God had to insert a gene for violence because of free will – the claim is simply nonsense. In fact, if God had inserted a gene for violence, violence ceases to be an issue for free will. How is this? If a trait has a genetic basis, it is likely to become active regardless of the will of the possessor – I may will to have blue eyes, but I possess a gene that results in brown and my will can do nothing about my actual biology on this issue – and can be said to be ‘determined’. Effectively, if God implanted a gene for violence then God has caused man to be violent. I take this position to be one that few, if any, Christians would consent to yet it seems the only logical one given the evidence.

The options that appear are either to concede the error of creationism and acknowledge that the flawed evolutionary theory that we currently possess (which are being developed) are better at explaining this issue and thus are paradigmatically better, our to concede that God has caused violence by implanting a gene for it and the consequences that this must have for theology.

Some may rally to the cry that violence is a product of environment. This would be a valid claim were it not for the data from higher primates that seems to show them capable of intra-species violence. This does not sit well with creationism at all – either God gave the apes a gene for violence or they must also have committed their equivalent of Original Sin and been cast from Eden as well. Of course, the tendency to employ violence has been demonstrated to have evolutionary advantages, and can actually be considered evolutionarily valuable, which would amount to an explanation of violence in apes as well as humans, without recourse to a deity …

To restate the question – how can the scientific data pointing to violence having a biological basis be rectified with creationism?

US Science Conference Prank

Simply couldn't let this one slip by ... Three guys develop a conference paper generator, they submit two papers, one is accepted! The rest is here.

There really is nothing like a good prank now is there.

Editorial Announcement: 15th April 2005

Those of you whom are regular visitors to these pages may have noticed a few changes to the Blog. These are part of the on-going Editorial process, and intended to make the Blog a more friendly place for Contributors and Visitors alike.

Simply, the List of Blogs has been updated to include a few new blogs (as part of our on-going attempt to maintain a nearly definitive list of the philosophy blogs on-line), which has meant that the List of Philosophical Links has been moved, and given its own post after the style of several other Philo-bloggers. Further, you will now find a post containing a means of contacting us in the new Nota Bene section; it is going to be here that Posts with on-going streams of discussion will be listed as they threaten to fall of the main page as well as other Posts Of Note, such as the Dialectic Tables Of Contents (which has finally found its way on-line) and the Fragmenta.

It is hoped that this changes will improve the Blog, in you – the Readers – interests.

The Editor.
Post Script, If you have any helpful comments feel free to leave them here. Many Thanks.

Peter Singer Appointed Time’s Influential Philosopher

Peter Singer, controversial utilitarian, has been appointed this year’s influential philosopher by Time Magazine (Time, April 18, 2005, p. 97). It is an interesting appointment to succeed Jurgen Habermas, and one likely to encourage some debate.

Arthur Caplan’s blurb on Singer is brief, pointing only toward Singer’s significance. But it does provide an insightful grasp of the relationship many of us, who are inclined towards ethics, have with Singer’s work (and him, by implication). Caplan writes:

It is easy to demonise Singer … since his theory points toward conclusions
that some find morally repugnant … Those who scorn his views can
rarely produce an argument about why he is wrong – they simply don’t like
his conclusions. But ethics is all about arguments, not moral pronouncements …
he is a man whose reasoning merits consideration by everyone. There are few
philosophers, living or dead, about whom that can be said.

Caplan and I agree in disagreeing with Singer, but I am willing to concede that his arguments are always worthy of careful consideration. (I am one of those who has been trying to pull apart his arguments for the moral consideration of animals so that I can maintain my carnivorism in clear conscience, ever since Singer turned me into a vegetarian for a couple of weeks in 2002). I am also drawn to his arguments regarding infanticide and euthanasia.

I would like to open this post up for a discussion of Singer’s corpus.

Golding On The Existence Of God

Given the discussion in these parts over the past days, weeks, has revolved around God - His ontological status - it is perhaps fitting that Richard Swinburne has seen fit to prepare a second edition of his The Existence of God.

Here is the Notre Dame review, by Josh Golding ... Goldings observation that the best the theist can do is establish the 'objective probability' of God is apt; it is important for those who bandy proofs around here as if they are conclusive to remember that they are oft at best only logically sound, and that it is only when definitive and conclusive emperical evidence is established that the arguments may be considered valid - (there is the old observation that the Ontological Argument has never converted anyone) - and that until then it rest on the theist to prove existence and not vice versa.

Philosopher's Carnival, No. Twelve

Inessentialism.org is presently hosting the Twelth Philosopher's Carnival. Wide range of material submitted, and references to several posts on themes that are presently under discussion here ... worth checking out if you want access to some different perspectives.

Dialogue? What dialogue?

For those who attended the horror that was the Christians and Sceptics 'Dialogue' on last thursday, all I can say is :"Ow, I think I just ruptured my spleen". (someting I said a number of times during the actual event).

If anyone would like to continue (or actually start) the debate/dialogue regarding the question "Do we need God?" or our favorite "Does God exist?" or the more relavent"Is it reasonable to beleive in God?", please feel free to make this the forum in which to do so. I would suggest starting a new thread/post for each indivdual question, so as to make the collection of replies neater and more coherent.

With regard to the event itself, I have this to say: Both side were poorly organised. The Sceptics especially so. The NASA (Newcastle Adventist Students Association) speakers spent much of the time pedalling account that a decent first year philosophy student could have refuted, or at least made a fair reply to. The Sceptics howerver, were not equipped to deal with even these somewhat elementary arguments. It would seem that NASA came out on top on the day, but only because their speakers were better at playing to the crowd. Don't be so smug guys, it was not a great victory.

So to everyone out there: If you want to have a real argument about God (or anything else) that might actually be a challenge, bring it on.

That thing about God

For those who can't get a copy of Opus here is the article in full.

Arguments Over the Existence of God. Part 1.

During O Week, the Philosophy Club was just one group on campus handing out a number of different flyers. Of the hundreds that were handed out, we received back a handful of written reactions. It is my intention to reply, as it were, to these responses, mainly by pointing out how they are not adequate solutions to the issue at hand.

The bulk of the responses were to a flyer that quoted David Hume explaining what is known in philosophy as the ‘Problem of Evil’. Here is what Hume had to say on the matter:

“If the evil in the world is from the intention of the Deity, then he is not benevolent. If the evil in the world is contrary to his intention, then he is not omnipotent. But it is either in accordance with his intention or contrary to it. Therefore the Deity is not benevolent or not omnipotent”(Hume, Dialogues Concerning Religion).

The problem is easy to see. By this argument, an all-powerful being that allows tragic, painful and unpleasant events to occur is not benevolent. If a being means well, and would bring about a different state of affairs, but can’t, then it is not omnipotent, that is to say it is not an all-powerful being. Both these attributes seem central to what people tell us that a supreme being is like, which is why this problem never seems to entirely go away.

One of our first respondents wrote:

“This assumes that God is unable to use the evil in the world to his good ends.”

This response falls short of a solution by a very long way. It might well be true that God could use evil events, actions or means to his good ends, as the response seems to suggest. But this an omnipotent being, right? He could have used good means to achieve his ends. Or bizarre chicken-dependant means. Or no means at all, since an all-powerful being could just attain their ends directly by willing them to be so. Hume assumes nothing; he just asks why an omnipotent being would choose such objectionable methods.

A more comprehensive attempt was fielded by one of our blue-shirted faithful brethren:

“But what if the Deity’s cheifest desire was not benevolence – but love. Then he must allow free will for us to love. Similarly, his will is that we have our own will. This means we can endeavour for or against him – our choice. Since we work against him there is evil in the world.”

This is a better effort. The appeal to ‘free will’ has been a standard response to this problem for a long time now. In one form or other it is at the core of many of the most enduring attempts to solve the problem. But does it work? At a glance it is pretty good. If we have a choice, then it seems plausible to suggest that these choices are not always going to be the right ones and people are going to suffer as a consequence. God has to let us be free to be bastards to each other. But think a bit more. There are a lot of things we aren’t free to do, such as levitate on command, digest quartz, or transform into wild animals. Some thinkers have suggested that since we are already not completely free there is nothing contradictory about having free will and not being able to hurt (physically at least) our fellow beings. On top of this it is worth revisiting the first response. It may not be logically incoherent to suggest that a really omnipotent being could have made us so we never made the wrong choice, yet were always still free. At the very least God could intervene occasionally, by giving the occasional evil dictator a premature, but painless death. If I could intervene to prevent a violent crime, with no danger to myself but didn’t, people would consider me a monster or an idiot. The question in many people’s minds is this: If it is wrong for me to not intervene, then why is it not wrong for God?

Arguments about ‘free will’ and how it relates to this problem are somewhat unresolved. Questions to consider would be: Is the ‘free will’ humanity possesses proportional to the suffering that it experiences? Is the freedom of one particularly nasty person, eg Stalin or Hitler, worth more than the suffering of the millions of victims they were responsible for?

There is one area, however, where this response clearly fails. Natural evils. I would have thought that so soon after a natural disaster, I would not see anyone fall into that trap. Sure, we could admit that us having our own free will could be responsible for us being crappy to each other. But it does not account for the suffering caused by earthquakes, and any number of other natural phenomena that we do not, (for the most part), have any control over. Our ‘free will’ and the pain and heartbreak these events can cause have no relation whatsoever, and hence is no defence.

For the same reasons, the following response is also inadequate:

“Maybe individual human discretion just gets in the way of her benevolence and omnipotence.”

Maybe. But how exactly could one “get in the way of” a supreme being that is credited with creating our entire universe? I apologise for any offence caused by using a quote that assumes the gender of God; if I had written it myself, I would have said He/She or She/He etc. If God does exist, then maybe it is a She. But it has no effect on this problem.

The last response I want to look at was to our “Babel Fish” flyer. This entertaining bit of logic has its origins in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. For the uninitiated, the Babel fish is a fictitious animal; if you stick one in your ear you can understand any language you hear. I can’t believe anyone took it seriously enough to write back. Any way, here is the argument, adapted by myself from the radio script:

I. God refuses to prove that he exists, as proof denies faith, and without faith He is nothing.
II. The Babel fish is so useful that it is unlikely to have evolved by chance, and hence must be the work of God.
III. The Babel fish therefore, can be taken as proof of God’s existence.
I. Since God refuses to prove that He exists; proof of His existence constitutes a proof of His non-existence.
V. God does not exist.
(Adams, D. “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).

The response consisted of the person critiquing each point in turn, and I will follow their lead:

“I – Gods creation is proof of his existence. He has advertised his existence. Faith means to know something and believe it.”

Creation is only proof of his existence if you already believe in him. If you don’t, it might not be so convincing, especially in light of the problems encountered by people during their existence. Creation can only be considered proof of God’s existence if it can be proven that He/She at least caused it, and if it can be shown that there was no other way that it could have come about. There are plenty of accounts that explain how the universe began that do not mention God.

As for faith, this is a tricky area. Knowing something and believing something are two different things. Millions of people around the world seem to ‘know’ things via faith in the way that is implied here, and they can’t all be right.

“II & III – Can’t argue with that”.

They certainly got that bit right.

“IV – See I.”
Sorry, still doesn’t work If God says that He will never prove His existence, and then does, three things are possible; He has at least gone back on his word, He isn’t as omnipotent as his advertising has led people to believe, or He doesn’t exist.

“V – Does so.”
Now we get down to the guts of the matter. In my experience, this is where most arguments with the faithful about the existence of God (or whatever) end up. Which is about what I expected.

In the end there is no clear winner. Believers will stand up and say that everything is ok because philosophers can’t prove that God does not exist. And they are right. But remember, in the same way that I can’t prove that God does not exist, they can’t prove that He (or She) does either. Keep that in mind next time someone tries to give you a pamphlet.

If you feel I’m mistaken in my reasoning, or just feel the need to argue, please go to the club website, http://uniofnewphilosophyclub.blogspot.com/ , and tell us what you think.

(References available on request)
-Sam Douglas.
22/2/05

Douglas On The Existence Of God

Samuel Douglas has had his essay 'Arguements over the existence of God' published in Opus Issue 2, 2005. (Opus is the University's student magazine). Copies are available around the campus (there are stacks in the Auchmuty Foyer).

Given that the piece was born of an attempt to engage the various Christian organisations in discussion, this post is being made available to anyone who would like to comment on Samuel's piece, or who would like to make any - rational - comments on the general topic of God's existence.

Also, a reminder that the NASA debate will be held on Thursday (details).

Ethics And Weapons of Mass Destruction

NDPR has just published a reivew of what looks like an interesting anthology on ethical perspectives regarding weapons of mass destruction. The review is available here.

Reading Wittgenstein's Investigations

Have come across two group readings of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

The first, which seems to have made it as far as Section 110, though seems to have ended abruptly at this point, can be found here. The second, from Studi Galileiani, has only recently commenced and made it as far as section 2.

The quality of both is varying, but it is the web and you do seem to get that.

Question - 29th March

The Schiavo case, as it presently plays itself out, raises the fundamental question of whether a family’s desire to keep their incapacitated relative alive should over-ride that person’s right to die?

Any thoughts, comments?

Adorno as Antidote

"No one was better than Adorno at dissecting the psychic and emotional brutality of capitalism’s regimes of commodification and the increasing pressure it exerts on individuals to define themselves through consumption. This, he argued, led to the compulsion to shut off one’s capacity for empathy, whether with working people whose labor produces commodities (how could we shop at Wal-Mart otherwise?) or those whose homes, lives and futures are being sacrificed in the name of a market-friendly abstraction called “Iraqi freedom.” ... Adorno examined the phenomenon of highly commodified mass culture not to get people to read Beckett rather than go to the movies (although he clearly wished we would)."

From an article in In These Times

On Sorcery

There has been a proposal, to be found over at Doing Things With Words, that the entire discipline of Philosophy be renamed Sorcery. Now, am not so sure about that, but I do quite enjoy one of the implications which would be the replacement of the world 'philosophy' with the word 'sorcery' (and its vice versa, the replacement of 'sorcery' with 'philosophy').

This would result in having to retitle a great many books, a point that has already been vaguely recognised, with suggestions of Russell's The Problems of Sorcery and Wittgenstein's Sorcerous Investigations. But why stop there ...

I would like to set down a challenge to see how many titles we can rename simply by replacing 'philosophy' with 'scorcery' and their varients. I suggest, to commence

Boethius, The Consolation of Sorcery (and by implication De Botton, The Consolations of Sorcery)
Derrida, Margins of Sorcery
Hegel, The Sorcery of Right
Hume, Sorcerous Essays Concerning Human Understanding (using the early title of the Enquiry)
Russell, History of Western Sorcery
Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Sorcerous

A Discussion on Wittgenstein ...

Being aware that Ol'Ludwig is gnawing away at the back of some of the minds around here - mine included - thought that it might be useful to link to this discussion taking place over at Thoughts Arguments and Rants on Interpreting Wittgenstein ... It appears to have little to do with meaning scepticism, though I did see Investigations section 201 mentioned somewhere, or thought that I did ... The question that I sort of have is in virtue of which fact can we be sure that anyone actually means 'Wittgenstein' when they 'Wittgenstein'? Could they not actually be talking about 'Kripkenstein' - a creature that seems to feature in a lot of the literature I have been reading lately.

Anyway, am going to return to wading through Blackburn, McGinn, and Wright on Kripke on Wittgenstein (the most fun way to spend a public holiday ...).

Debate: Life's Great Questions

The Newcastle Adventist Students Association is holding a public debate.

The topic: Are religious people kidding themselves? Is belief in God just a crutch? A product of wishful thinking? On the existence of God and whether humanity needs a supernatural person called God.

Sceptics Team Leader: Dr Colin Keay
Christian Team Leader: Dr Sven Ostring
Moderator: Dr David Dockrill

Time: Thursday 7th of April, 3 to 4.30pm
Location: CT202

The Philosophy Club is not affiliated with NASA, or any religious organisation on campus, we support any activity that increases the level of intellectual discussion. The Club encourages those members who can attend, to do so.

A couple of links from Houyhnhnm Land ...

Thought that these links might be of interest to different people ...

Regarding Jonathan Swift; his book Three Sermons, Three Prayers and his Thoughts on Various Subjects are both available on-line.

A recent post, from Philosophical Fortnights, on 'How philosophy gets done'.

Thanks should go the the Houyhnhnm for the links.

The Person Game

This blog is unique - it appears to be some sort of competition, one that recalls Borges' Lottery ... Apparently the contestants were given 'persons' (in the lose non-philosophic sense of the word person) and allowed to determine where these persons lived. This done, the controllers of the game allocate each of the players points based on how the controllers think that the person is going.

Desert-Island Philosophers

A meme, that can be traced back to Blogosophy, is haunting the philosophy blogs, and is now appearing here ...

The question has been asked: 'Which five philosophers works would you take with you to a desert island, given that you are probably going to be trapped there for a very long time?' To make the process of selection as easy as possible, you can take with you their complete works (however they may be concieved ...).

My list would probably be:
I. Michel de Montaigne
II. Niccolo Machiavelli
III. Michel Foucault
IV. Albert Camus
V. Bertrand Russell

(I get the feeling that I possibily would not be the sort of person that you would want to meet after some time on an island with these as my company ...)

Now, who would constitute your desert island five?

And still it continues....

I've just read this snippet on our ABC site this morning on how the "Intelligent Design" argument is being dug up again, as an alternative to evolutionary theory. I'm not sure I even want to get into this debate, but this presentation of pseudo - scientific speculation as being in the same league as more rigorous theory, in order to prop up a backward and at times oppressive worldview is more than I can stomach.
In any case, (as Martin will inevitably point out), intelligence of a "Designer" is not so much the issue as benevolence. The existence of an intelligent designer might explain some biological facts (though I seriously doubt this), but please pause and take a look at the world around you. If you were omnipotent, do you think you could do better? Without answering several other important questions, this push for the acceptance of an intelligent designer does not come within spitting distance of putting a christian god on the map. Rather it indicates something much more ominous, an intelligent designer that is not so benevolent.

On Terrorism

Friday, the Eleventh of March, marks the first anniversary of the terrorist attack in Madrid. Several organisations around the world are holding discussions on the topic of terrorism to mark the occasion, including a summit in Madrid.

To mark, in our own way, the event we request that contributors and others post their thoughts on terrorism here and engage in the discussion.

Winn On Beauty

Winn wrote the following as part of a piece on beauty:
"Extreme physical beauty, wherever it turns up, is an unnerving thing. It can appear anywhere -- on a street corner, at a restaurant, at the movies, in the park. Beautiful people stop us dead, bewitch, torment and bewilder. I got waylaid at the Legion of Honor the other day by two 19th century paintings of beautiful women.
Art licenses us to stare -- in museums, at the theater, the ballet, especially at the movies. But there's also something in our puritan constitution that makes us skeptical, suspicious, even a little ashamed of our bedazzlement. Shouldn't we value deeper and more lasting things and regard appearance as a fleeting, transitory apparition? Beauty may be truth (and vice versa), as Keats famously said. But when it shows up too clearly in human form, we don't really trust it, or our responses."

McLemee On Defending Derrida

The discussion commenced in the wake (and obituaries) of Derrida's death continues; in this case it is a discussion of his legal theory. This discussion draws attention to theory developed in a 1989 lecture by Derrida, and its use in understanding the Bush Administation's legal thought.

Honderich On Being Persona Non Grata

Ted Honderich has written another work on terrorism. Here Honderich discusses his own unpopularity - which stems from the arguments he has made in recent years on the subject of terrorism - and the lessons that he has learned from it.

The article raises the question of since when has Honderich been "Great Britain's outstanding progressive philosopher"?

Dawkins On The Giant Tortoise

Richard Dawkins, in promotional mode for his latest defense of evolution, looks at the evolution of the giant tortoise in this essay, the first of three, published in the Guardian.

Sample On Evil Spirits

In England recently a documentary was screened during which a young man, who claimed to be possessed by evil, was exorcised while scientists monitored "the man's brain with electrodes to see whether the procedure has any measurable effect". Sample breifly looks at the psychology and the mystery.

Petals Around The Rose

This is a little intellectual challenge for you all - it only took me ten attempts before I gleaned the rule, can any of you do better? If so record your rolls in the comments. (Thanks to Melbourne Philosopher for the link).

Robinson On Phil In One Syll

David Chalmers has posted part of Denis Robinson's attempt to reduce philosophy into words of one syllable. The project is in its early stages ...

Dirda On Love

An interesting, pre-Valentines' Day, survey of literature on Love.

Holt On Intelligent Design

Another contribution to the Intelligent Design argument(s) that seem to have popped up everywhere lately ... This time published in The New York Times Magazine.

Prowse On Durkheim

An interesting article on Emile Durkheim, from Prospect magazine.

Pink On Revenge of the Right Brain

"In a world upended by outsourcing, deluged with data, and choked with choices, the abilities that matter most are now closer in spirit to the specialties of the right hemisphere - artistry, empathy, seeing the big picture, and pursuing the transcendent ... Liberated by ... prosperity but not fulfilled by it, more people are searching for meaning. From the mainstream embrace of such once-exotic practices as yoga and meditation to the rise of spirituality in the workplace to the influence of evangelism in pop culture and politics, the quest for meaning and purpose has become an integral part of everyday life. And that will only intensify as the first children of abundance, the baby boomers, realize that they have more of their lives behind them than ahead. In both business and personal life, now that our left-brain needs have largely been sated, our right-brain yearnings will demand to be fed."

This is from an article, published by wired, that should give hope to most of you who are fearful of a world with no place for creativity ... though may disappoint those of you who long for revolution.

Unger On 'All the Power in the World'

Peter Unger has posted the drafts of six chapters from his forthcomming All the Power in the World (Oxford University Press, 2006[?]). According to David Chalmers , who has made his way through the papers, "There's a lot of interesting material in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics in this huge manuscript (almost 900 pages), including the defense of a strong form of Cartesian dualism".

1st Week News from the President.

Well, what a week. I'm sure that all of the executive ant the other volunteers that helped out at our O - Week stall are glad that the hard work is over, allowing us to get on with the leisurley task of our honours year.

There have been some developments over the week reguarding this forum. Any member of the University of Newcastle Philsophy Club, that would like to contribute to the blog need only email either myself, Martin or the club eddress, to be added as a contributor. This applies equally to all members of the club, no questions, end of discussion. People who are non-club members that wish to contribute will be dealt with on a case by case basis. All contributors, reguardless of their position, will be subject to editorial control. Innapropriate behavior, material or deliberate plagarism will not be tolerated.

On a happier note, we have figured out the details of our weekly meetings. As things stand:

1:00 - 2:00 Tuesdays McMullin Courtyard: 1st year study group.

2:00 onwards Normal weekly meeting (same location, etc).

Since I'm on campus most days, I would also encourage members to attend the NUSA free lunch on thursdays, for more informal disscussion. I will usually be there, and what more reason do you need?

Once again, I am overwhelmed by the unprecedented interest in our club, and our discipline this last week. There has been a great deal of interest from many of the religious organisations on campus who seem interested in opening up dialogue, which will be very intersting. It will be an exciting year, I have no doubt of that.

-Sam Douglas.

Apres O-Week

An apology for the glut in recent content. O-Week took up more time than any of us thought.

This written, O-Week has been a considerable success. The Club signed up over seventy members, well beyond our expectations and beyond last year’s total membership. We would like to say thank you to all of you who joined.

Please maintain the enthusiasm that you showed when joining, and we look forward to seeing you at out first meeting (the details of which will be here posted shortly).

O-Week Welcome

The University of Newcastle Philosophy Club would like to welcome all first time visitors to this blog.

The blog was commenced early in January as part of the Philosophy Club’s attempts to provide various forums for philosophical discussion. As such, it has been founded as a companion to the Club’s now quarterly journal, Dialectic.

It is intended to be an open forum for members of the Philosophy Club to discuss and debate ideas, and a forum that is open to the greater community.

The blog is still being constructed, a painstaking process, which should soon be completed.

Please feel free to comment on any of the posts, and to browse through our limited archive.

Fresher Reading List

The following list consists of the ten works that it may be worthwhile for First Year students, philosophy students or otherwise, to read.

- Comte-Sponville, André. The Little Book Of Philosophy (William Heinemann)
- Plato. The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin)
- Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics (Penguin)
- Epicurus. The Essential Epicurus (Prometheus Books)
- Descartes, René. Discourse On Method And Meditations (Penguin)
- Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince (Penguin)
- Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Oxford)
- Marx, Karl. The Portable Karl Marx (Penguin)
- Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus (Penguin)
- Foucault, Michel. The Will To Knowledge, The History Of Sexuality: 1 (Penguin)

Note: The brackets indicate available editions.

Orientation Week

The University of Newcastle Orientation Week begins on Monday 14th of April.

The University of Newcastle Philosophy Club will be operating a stall as part of the Union Clubs and Societies Fair.

Rowlands On Camus and Desperate Housewives

Mark Rowlands made the following observations in an article on the American television show Desperate Housewives:
"Philosophy is all around us, in the culture we inhabit, in the television programmes we watch and the magazines we read. All of us are the authors, producers, directors, stars and guest stars in various philosophical questions, issues, disputes, conflations and confusions - even though, most of the time, we have no idea of this. If you live life, and ever think about it, you're a philosopher ... Albert Camus, the French existentialist and chronicler of the human condition, knew all about desperation. He took, as a leitmotif for human existence, the myth of Sisyphus, a mortal who had offended the gods; his punishment was to roll a huge rock up a hill. When he reached the top, it would roll back down, and he would have to begin all over again. And that was it - for eternity. What seems so unfortunate about this isn't that the work is difficult. The real horror lies in its sheer futility. There is nothing that it aims at, and nothing that could count as its fulfilment."

Politics In The Pub - February 2005

For those Novocastrians interested, the first Politics in the Pub will be held next week. The details are as follows:

Topic: Moral Minority? Mixing Politics and Religion in the Australian Context

Speakers: Bishop Roger Herft (Anglican Bishop of Newcastle) and Dr Jim Jose (Senior Lecturer in Politics, The University of Newcastle)

6: 30 pm, Tuesday 15th Feburary at the Hamilton Station Hotel, Beaumont Street

res Cogitans On Philosophy

res Cogitans is a recent addition, like ourselves, to the philosophy blogging community. This post on the appropriate enviroment for philosophic discussion seems to agree with certain Novocastrian practices ...

Chalmers and The Matrix

For various reasons, The Matrix has been a text for philosophical study in these parts - and probably will be again this year if the list of proposed courses is to be believed - with one of the key sources of secondary material being whatisthematrix. David Chalmers, who contributed to the Matrix Philosophy project, has made this recent post.