Month: May 2009

From an Old Journal: On the Meaning of Life

The germs of these thoughts came to me while climbing the Allan Blackman trail to Circlestone Ruins in the Eastern Superstition Wilderness in May of 1998.

Does it matter whether life has an ultimate meaning or not? Someone might be satisfied if he has a good chance of attaining middle-sized happiness: peaceful days, restful nights, an adequate supply of health and wealth, satisfying employment, a loving spouse, friends, progeny, long life, and the like. Why not rest our hopes in what is known to be possible rather than in what is not known to be possible, such as immortality, the resurrection of the body, the visio beata, entry into Nirvana? Why hanker for what is beyond our mortal scale? Why not accept the finite? Are we not just a particularly clever species of land mammal?

Continue reading “From an Old Journal: On the Meaning of Life”

An Objection Against Frankfurt-Style Examples (Peter Lupu)

 (Comments in blue by BV.)

1) Frankfurt-style examples are intended to be counterexamples to PAP.

PAP: A person S is morally responsible for intentionally doing X at t only if S can intentionally refrain from doing X at t.

BV: The following formulation better captures what Frankfurt actually says in his 1969 J. Phil. article, namely, "a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise."

PAP*:  A person S is morally responsible for intentionally doing X at t only if (i) S intentionally does X at time t, and (ii) S could have intentionally refrained from doing X at t.

Assumption: I assume that intentionally refraining from doing X is identical to intentionally doing some Y, where Y is not identical to X.

BV: Do you need this assumption? The assumption appears false.   If I refrain from doing one thing, it doesn't follow that I do some other thing:  I could do nothing at all.  If I refrain from smoking a cigarette during the next ten minutes, it does not follow that I do something else during that period.  I take it that not-doing-X is not an action.  It is an action-omission.  If 'X' and 'Y' range over action-types, then not-doing-X is not identical to doing-some-Y.

2) A Frankfurt-style example is going to be a genuine counterexample to PAP just in case it entails the antecedent of PAP as well as the negation of its consequent: i.e.,

(I) S is morally responsible for doing X at t;
(II) It is not the case that S can intentionally refrain from doing X at t.

BV: Note that (II') corresponding to PAP* is

(II') Either it is not the case that S intentionally does X at t, or it is not the case that S could have intentionally refrained from doing X at t.

3) The following are two claims I shall prove:

Claim 1: Any Frankfurt-style example that is interpreted to entail (I) and (II) is inconsistent: i.e., it also entails the negation of either (I) or (II).

Claim 2: Any Frankfurt-style example that is interpreted as entailing (II*) instead of (II) is consistent but is not a counterexample to PAP.

(II*) It is not the case that S can behave in a manner other than X at t.

But, (II*) is not the negation of the consequent of PAP. Hence, (I) and (II*) do not refute PAP. Therefore, standard Frankfurt-style examples are either inconsistent or they are not genuine counterexamples to PAP.

4) Suppose a Frankfurt-style example (choose your favorite example) entails (I) and (II).
4.1) Then such an example includes a backup mechanism that is capable of directly causing S to do X at t in the event S intentionally refrains from doing X at t. But the very existence of such a backup mechanism entails

(III) S can intentionally refrain from doing X at t.

Because if (III) were false and S could not intentionally refrain from doing X at t, then there would be no need for a backup mechanism.
4.2) (II) and (III) are contradictories.
4.3) Therefore, the assumption stated in (4) must be false.
4.4) This proves Claim 1 above.

BV:  I agree that (II) and (III) are contradictories.  But (II') and (III) are not contradictories.  So even if you succeed in refuting your PAP, you haven't refuted Frankfurt's PAP*.  If I haven't blundered, it seems that the debate now shifts to what exactly the Principle of Alternate Possibilities is.

5) Suppose that a Frankfurt-style example entails (I) and (II*).
5.1) As before, such an example entails (III) as well. But, now, notice that as long as we maintain a sharp distinction between behavior and action, (II*) and (III) are perfectly consistent.
5.3) Therefore, the supposition stated in (5) does not lead to a contradiction. Frankfurt-style examples that entail (I), (II*), and (III) are perfectly consistent.
5.4) But notice that none of these propositions; i.e., (I), (II*), and (III) contradict the consequent of PAP. Therefore, consistent Frankfurt-style examples are not counterexamples to PAP. This proves Claim 2.

6) Since this holds for any arbitrary Frankfurt-style example, we can state the following:

(*) Every Frankfurt-style example is either inconsistent or it is not a counterexamples to PAP.

7) The only potentially vulnerable move that I can see in this argument is the claim that the existence of a backup mechanism entails (III): S can intentionally refrain from doing X at t.
7.1) But, how can the proponents of Frankfurt-style examples deny such an entailment? The very point of Frankfurt-style examples is that the existence of such a backup mechanism (however it is described) is feasible and that its sole purpose is to insure that in the event S intentionally refrains from doing X at t, then the backup mechanism induces S to do X at t. Thus, the rationale of such a backup mechanism presupposes that S can intentionally refrain from doing X at t; but this just is (III). Hence, any Frankfurt-style example entails (III).

Questions: Their Raising and Their Begging

To raise a question is not to beg a question. 'Raise a question' and 'beg a question' ought not be used interchangeably on pain of occluding a distinction essential to clear thought. To raise a question is just to pose it, to bring it before one's mind or before one's audience for consideration. To beg a question, however, is not to pose a question but to reason in a way that presupposes what one needs to prove.

 Suppose A poses the question, Does Allah exist? B responds by saying that Allah does exist because his existence is attested in the Koran which Allah revealed to Muhammad. In this example, A raises a question, while B begs the question raised by A. The question is whether or not Allah exists; B's response begs the question by presupposing that Allah does exist. For Allah could not reveal anything to Muhammad unless Allah exists.

The phrase 'beg the question' is not as transparent as might be hoped. The Latin, petitio principii, is better: begging of the principle. Perhaps the simplest way to express the fallacy in English is by calling it circular reasoning. If I argue that The Los Angeles Times displays liberal bias because its reportage and editorializing show a left-of-center slant, then I reason in a circle, or beg the question. Fans of Greek may prefer hysteron proteron, literally, the later earlier. That is, what is logically posterior, namely, the conclusion, is taken to be logically prior, a premise.

Punchline: Never use 'beg the question' unless you are referring to an informal fallacy in reasoning. If you are raising, asking, posing a question, then say that. Do your bit to preserve our alma mater, the English language. Honor thy mother! Matrix of our thoughts, she is deeper and higher than our thoughts, their sacred Enabler.

Of course, I am but a vox clamantis in deserto.  The battle has already been lost.  So why do I write things like the above?  Because I am a natural-born scribbler who takes pleasure in these largely pointless exercises.

Call it What it Is!

In the swimming pool the other morning, conversation drifted onto the topic of recipes.  One lady who hails from Texas proceeded to give me her recipe for what she referred to as cornbread 'dressing.'  In my preferred patois, 'stuffing' is the word, not 'dressing.'  And so in our little conversation I kept using the 's' word.  In mock irritation she finally replied, "It's dressing; call it what it is."  She was not really irritated, but she was serious that things should be called what they are.

Thereon hinges a philosophical point, one which of course I did not pursue with the matron.  The point is that people often succumb to what Rudolf Carnap at the beginning of Chapter 12 of An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science calls "a magical view of language":

Many people hold a magical view of language, the view that there is a mysterious natural connection of some sort between certain words (only, of course, the words with which they are familiar!) and their meanings.  The truth is that it is only by historical accident, in the evolution of our culture, that the word 'blue' has come to mean a certain color. (116)

As between 'stuffing' and 'dressing' there is nothing to choose; neither captures the nature of their common referent.  The incantation of neither has the power to conjure up the edible reality.  Both words stand in a merely conventional relation to their common referent.

The confusion of words and things is a mistake to avoid.  A cognate mistake is the notion that there are such things as true definitions.  Definitions merely register our free decisions as to how words will be used.  Questions of true and false arise only after we have fixed our terms.

So is religious language based on elementary confusion? "Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name." "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Or is the Carnap point superficial like so much in Carnap?

 

 

Are Biological Functions Observer-Relative?

The following three positions need to be distinguished:

  1. There is design in nature, and a complete account of it is impossible without recourse to a cosmic designer such as God.
  2. There is intrinsic design in nature, and it is wholly explainable in naturalistic terms.
  3. There is no intrinsic design in nature: all features that exhibit design, purpose, function are observer-relative, and the only observers are themselves denizens of the natural world.

Theists who rely on design arguments subscribe to (1), while some naturalist philosophers come out in favor of (2). (2), however, involves the claim that there is intrinsic design in nature, a claim that is far from obvious, and is arguably inconsistent with Darwinism. The point of Darwinism is that what looks to be designed, in reality is not, but can be accounted for in terms of mechanistic, non-teleological processes of random variation and natural selection.  If we are using the term 'design' strictly and without equivocation — and thus not confusing 'design' in the present sense with 'design' in the sense of pattern or shape — then nothing can exhibit design unless there is a designer responsible for the thing's design.  If someone were to say that natural selection designed birds' wings so that they can evade their predators they would be gulty of a two-fold fallacy: first, the fallacy of hypostatizing natural selection, and second, the mistake of supposing that birds' wings exhibit an intrinsic designedness.

Continue reading “Are Biological Functions Observer-Relative?”

Asics

Why are Asics running shoes so called?  After purchasing a pair on Saturday I was pleased to discover that Asics is an acronym for anima sana in corpore sano.  The standard tag is mens sana in corpore sano (A sound mind in a sound body), but Msics doesn't quite make it acronym-wise.  I am not enough of a Latinist so say whether anima sana in corpore sano occurs in any classical author. 

If water is the philosopher's drink (Thoreau), and running the philosopher's sport, then Asics may be the philosopher's running shoe.  But the mileage on my Asics Gel-Nimbuses is still too low (8 miles) to say for sure.  So far, they seem very good in terms of stability and cushioning.

A good running maxim: "Trash your shoes before they trash you."  Frugality has its limits.

The Concept of Design

To move towards a resolution of some of the questions posed in the comment threads to recent posts it is necessary to back up and try to clarify some of the fundamental terms in the debate. One of them is 'design.'

Our starting point must be ordinary language. As David Stove points out, "it is a fact about the meaning of a common English word, that you cannot say that something was designed, without implying that it was intended; any more than you can say that a person was divorced, without implying that he or she was previously married." (Darwinian Fairytales, p. 190, emphasis added.) In other words, it is an analytic proposition that a designed object is one that was intended in the same way that it is an analytic proposition that a divorced person is one who was previously married. These are two conceptual truths, and anyone who uses designed object and divorced person in a way counter to these truths either does not understand these concepts or else has some serious explaining to do.

I should think that Richard Dawkins has some serious explaining to do. Consider the subtitle of The Blind Watchmaker. It reads: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design.

Now I think I understand that. What Dawkins will do in his book is argue how the modern theory of evolution shows that the natural universe as a whole and in its parts is in no way the embodiment of the intentions and purposes of any intelligent being. Thus a bat, a piece of "living machinery," is such that "the 'designer' is unconscious natural selection." (p. 37) The scare quotes show that Dawkins is not using 'designer' literally. What he is saying, putting the point in plain English, is that there is no designer. For if there were a designer, then he would be contradicting the subtitle of his book, which implies that no part of nature is designed. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, on the same page Dawkins says the following about Paley:

His hypothesis was that living watches were literally designed and built by a master watchmaker. Our modern hypothesis is that the job was done in gradual evolutionary stages by natural selection.

But now we have a contradiction. We were told a moment ago that there is no designer. But now we are being told that there is a designer. For if the design job is done by natural selection, then natural selection is the designer.

Now which is it? Is there a designer or isn't there one? Dawkins cannot have it both ways at once.  If there is no designer, then natural selection cannot be the designer.  What this contradiction shows is that Dawkins is using 'design' and cognates in an unintelligible way.

Some will say I am quibbling over words. But I am not. The issue is not about words but about the concepts those words are used to express. I am simply thinking clearly about the concepts that Dawkins et al. are deploying, concepts like design.

If you tell me that design in nature is merely apparent, and that in reality nothing is designed and everything can be explained mechanistically or non-teleologically, then I understand that whether or not I agree with it. But if you tell me that there is design in nature but that the designer is natural selection, then I say that is nonsense, i.e. is unintelligible.

One cannot have it both ways at once. One cannot make use of irreducibly teleological language while in the next breath implying that there is no teleology in nature. The problem is well expressed by Stove:

. . . ever since 1859, Darwinians have always owed their readers a translation manual that would 'cash' the teleological language which Darwinians avail themselves of without restraint in explaining particular adaptations, into the non-teleological language which their own theory of adaptation requires. But they have never paid, or even tried to pay, this debt. (DF 191)

The Belief in Libertarian Free Will as a Life-Enhancing Illusion

William James famously characterized the true as the good in the way of belief. But is knowledge of the truth in every case life-enhancing?  Does knowing the truth always contribute to human flourishing?  Or is it rather the case that to live well with ourselves and others, to be happy, to flourish, requires the maintenance of certain life-enhancing illusions?  Nietzsche raised these questions and he may have been the first to raise them.  They are hard to dismiss.

Consider libertarian free will (LFW).  It is a difficult notion.  Many find it incoherent.   Suppose it is.  Then, whether or not determinism is true, LFW cannot exist.  Compatibilist construals of free will, however, do not seem to supply an adequate notion of moral responsibility.  Suppose this is so, and that only LFW supplies an adequate notion of moral responsibility.

One might then be tempted to adopt the position Saul Smilansky calls "illusionism." This is the view that the illusory belief in LFW is positive and useful.  "Humanity is fortunately deceived in the free will issue, and this seems to be a condition of civilized morality and personal value." See Free Will, Fundamental Dualism, and the Centrality of Illusion, sec. 3.2.

 

An Argument for Libertarian Freedom of the Will

First the argument in nuce, then a detailed explanation.

P1. I am morally responsible for at least some of my actions and omissions.
P2. I cannot be morally responsible for an action or omission unless I am libertarianly free with respect to that action or omission.
Therefore
C. I am libertarianly free with respect to at least some of my actions and omissions.


Continue reading “An Argument for Libertarian Freedom of the Will”

World’s Oldest Blogger Logs Off for Good

Maria Amelia Lopez, thought to be the world's oldest blogger, has died at the age of 97.  More here.  Her entry into the 'sphere occurred at a young 95 and appears to have given her a new lease on life.

I was reflecting just this morning on how enriching the World Wide Web has been for so many.  Without it, I would never have met Peter Lupu, the noble Philoponus, or Michael Valle, to mention just three who live within striking distance.

We should honor those whose intelligence and creativity and hard work have made it possible.  Tim Berners-Lee for example.  But how many have heard of him?  Instead, we hear ad nauseam about worthless nonentities whose empty celebrity is their only claim to fame.  Pick your favorite Hollywood airheads and Washington, D.C. politicos.  How about Nancy Pelosi?  She is both an airhead and a politico.

If You are a Conservative, Don’t Talk Like a Liberal!

I saw Michael Smerconish on C-Span one morning. His conservative credentials are impressive, but he used the word 'homophobe.'

I've made this point before but it bears repeating. We conservatives should never acquiesce in the Left's acts of linguistic vandalism. Battles in the culture war are often lost and won on linguistic ground. So we ought to resolutely oppose the Left's attempts at linguistic corruption.

Continue reading “If You are a Conservative, Don’t Talk Like a Liberal!”