#funlosophy

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Are humans obligated to better themselves?

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

Stuck indoors, unable to leave our homes, a lot of people are taking up activities to keep themselves busy. This could be doing exercise to get or stay in shape, or hobbies such as learning a new language. These activities could be described as forms of self-improvement, working to make ourselves better in one way or another.

No-one is likely to describe this as anything but good, but is there a moral obligation to strive to improve ourselves?

It could be said that if we fail to develop ourselves, something valuable is going to waste. This could be called our ‘potential’.

Immanuel Kant believed in categorical moral imperatives: things are either universally right, or universally wrong. One such moral imperative was to not treat people as a means to an end, but as ends in themselves. This wasn’t limited to other people, but also to oneself.

He would argue that everyone has an obligation to better themselves, and to do our best at all times. Otherwise we’re treating ourselves as a means, and not an end – by not maximising the potential of being a conscious being, you are using your consciousness just as a means to satisfy baser needs.

Kant also thought the only way to make a better world is through self-improvement. He stated that we can never truly know if someone else is happy, whether they deserve to be happy, or how to make them happy. So, if we can’t improve others, to make a better world we have to improve ourselves, as it is only ourselves that we can have any certainty about. We’d then let this change ripple out into society. If we believe creating a better world is a moral obligation, then through this argument, self-improvement should be, too.

A number of philosophers have disagreed with Kant on these points.

Robert Paul Wolff dismissed his views on self-improvement simply as overly ‘moralistic’ – too rigid, and too morally judging of other people.

Others have argued morality deals with interactions between people, and so no-one can be immoral towards themself. From this point of view, spending an idle life devoid of development may still be viewed as robbing something from society, but takes the bite out of Kant’s argument of self-improvement as a duty to yourself.

Finally, the idea of self-improvement for the good of society feels problematic in its inherent egoism.

So, the lazy among us can relax knowing we can argue against Kant’s promotion of self-improvement as a moral obligation. That is, if you bothered reading this far, as learning about philosophy could definitely fall under bettering yourself.

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Childhood - What are these little people?

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

Since the dawn of humanity, people have been making children. Many of these children, when they change into adults, then continue the cycle by making more children. These days children can be found across the globe, and philosophers have long opined about the value and values of childhood.

The most common view of children is as adults-in-progress, immature humans working their way to full personhood. However, is this completely true?

Though contemporary philosophy and other fields such as psychology and neuroscience are now making progress, philosophy has historically been undecided on how people learn of the world and its ways. Descartes believed humans hold all the required resources for gaining knowledge of the world within their brains. On the other hand, Locke alleged the human mind starts out as “white paper, void of all characters [and] ideas”, and that reason, rationality and knowledge come exclusively from experience. Both seem a bit too rigid to be plausible – perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the two stances.

Regardless of the how, childhood is definitely a time of development, and our formative experiences serve as the foundations of our personalities (in as much as we have them).

There is a theory that our personalities are not the deep, fixed objects of identity we tend to think of them as (“I am me; this is who I am”) but are instead rickety structures based entirely on previous decisions. Early in our lives, we make a decision about something, almost arbitrarily. The next time we face a similar dilemma, our brain recalls the previous decision and thinks, “This is what I chose last time, so this is the sort of thing I do – I’ll do the same this time”. From there we build up an identity, constructing the ‘type of person we are’ solely on past decisions. If this theory is true, and personality is a construct made up entirely of previous decisions, childhood is even more important to the formation of our selves than people often assume. It is in childhood we’ll face the first instance of many ‘types’ of issues and dilemmas, and our first choices could be the literal foundation of who we become.

However, viewing childhood merely as a period of development towards adulthood, Full-People-in-Training, neglects certain important points. If children are just incomplete adults, not the finished product, why can some children produce art that is more conceptually imaginative and aesthetically valuable than they’ll be able to when they attain adulthood? If childhood is a period of mental immaturity, how can children possess a greater aptitude at learning languages than adults, the supposed mature, final product?

A number of contemporary philosophers stress that childhood should not be treated only as a preparation for being an adult; they argue childhood has an intrinsic value of its own. The relatively responsibility-free time afforded to children for play and social interaction is often cited as important for acquiring skills for adulthood, but it could equally be said to be important for skills used as a child.

Alison Gopnik dispels the idea that children are merely incomplete adults when she describes how adults and children’s minds are of equal complexity and power, though organised in very different ways, serving “different evolutionary functions”. She goes so far as to claim “children and adults are different forms of homo sapiens”. They certainly seem like a different animal to me.

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Post-Apocalyptic Repopulation – A Moral Obligation?

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

The end has come and gone! Atomic blasts swept the Earth clear of civilisation’s trappings. The oceans leapt from their places and flooded the land, then boiled off under the glare of a catastrophic solar storm. Zombies shambled in hordes, before being hunted by mutant animals, who were in turn wiped out by a super disease and giant locusts from space. Then fossil fuels ran out.

Whatever the cause, we now find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where only a handful of humans have survived. Our question today is, are they morally obligated to repopulate the world?

I’ve previously considered the philosophy behind Spider-man’s catchphrase that, “with great power comes great responsibility”. The thrust of this is that those with the power to help can be said to have a moral responsibility to do so. In our post-apocalyptic world, the surviving humans have the power to make more, so could be said to have such a moral responsibility (provided we assume this is ‘helping’).

Also, in the same way we respect the dead (people who no longer exist), we could be said to have moral obligations towards potential, future people (who don’t exist yet). Despite their current state of non-existence, we often feel the weight of our moral responsibility to them. This is why we make sacrifices and changes in our lives to combat global warming and suchlike; we hope to create a better world for them. By this logic, surely choosing to prevent people from existing by not taking actions to repopulate the world is no different from letting existing people die?

The obvious objection to this, however, is that if the survivors choose not to make more people, then no people will ever exist to be wronged. We can argue that fighting climate change is a moral obligation to potential future generations, but that’s with the expectation that they will exist. Deciding not to repopulate the Earth nullifies that.

Some people argue that life and species have intrinsic value, and so should be preserved. We may not have the moral obligation to keep any particular dingo alive, but it can feel like we have a responsibility to prevent their total extinction. Does this extend to the human race?

Natural law theory dictates that our foundational moral obligation is to uphold and conform to the natural order. This preservation of the status quo would mean obligations to generally preserve life, including procreating, to maintain ecological balance. Of course, this argument might be moot, given that the ecological balance could have been damaged or changed beyond recognition by whatever apocalypse the world has just experienced.

The arguments discussed so far have all been based in Utilitarianism – roughly summed up taking actions that benefit the whole. A problem with this could lie in our apocalyptic situation – can the survivors be said to be doing the right thing bringing people into a world where the quality of life could be terrible for the majority? Is dooming generations to suffering a morally applaudable act?

Finally, a counterpoint to the Utilitarian view is the Individualist take on things. This concerns the idea of inviolable individual rights, which should take precedence over any other obligations. Whether to procreate could be said to always be solely the choice of the individual, and any coercion in this regard to be morally wrong, a violation of their sacred individual rights.

From this point of view, no moral responsibility can actually exist, as it is entirely down to the personal preferences of the survivors themselves.

Of course, fingers crossed this all remains purely academic for a very, very long time!

Send in your thoughts on a postcard of Mad Max or Immanuel Kant.

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Staycations

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

Can’t go abroad on holiday? Can’t even leave the house this summer? No worries: holidays, along with existence in general, are resoundingly relative!

First, it’s possible you’re not actually on ‘staycation’. Our everyday speech and the terms it comprises form a natural or ‘ordinary’ language. Natural language has evolved organically through common use, rather than being constructed for the purpose. Constructed languages follow logic precisely, and should therefore be perfect communicators, within their prescribed constraints. Ordinary language, on the other hand, has presented philosophers with the joys of ambiguity. The very purpose of a word is to signify one particular thing, and not any other. However, thanks to the inconsistency of humans, and therefore our language, we have words with multiple meanings. ‘Staycation’ is an example of this: the Cambridge dictionary defines it as either holidaying in your own house, and not leaving it, or holidaying somewhere in your own country, rather than abroad. So whether you’re on staycation or not is relative.

The second issue for us to consider is that holidays, or indeed holiday destinations, may not exist. Solipsism is the philosophical theory that the only thing you can be certain of in this universe is your own existence. Sure, you’ve seen photos of the Riviera, but you can’t prove it’s actually there. Your mother-in-law said they had a lovely time in Costa Rica, but she may be no more than a figment of your imagination, or a devious simulation. As René Descartes said, “cogito ergo sum” – the only thing you can know for sure is that you exist, because you’re thinking about it right now. All else, including going on holiday, should be held in doubt. You can’t miss what doesn’t exist!

In Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, he contemplated motion. He defined motion as “the transfer of one piece of matter or of one body, from the neighbourhood of those bodies immediately contiguous to it and considered at rest, into the neighbourhood of others”. Without getting properly into the crunchiness of relativity, we can still say this means movement is dependent on your frame of reference. If you’ve decided to ignore the previous paragraph, insist on believing in a universe outside your own mind, and wish you could be going somewhere in it on holiday, have no fear. With the relativity of motion in mind, we can say no-one’s staying anywhere. You’re not languishing at home, you’re cruising through space on Charabanc Earth, which offers daily sightseeing trips of space and the Sun, yearly excursions around the Sun itself, and longer adventures of around 230 million years around the supermassive blackhole at the centre of our galaxy. All your things are already packed, you can use your own toilet, and there’s no customs to deal with! Best holiday possible.

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The Lotus-eater Machine

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

Sitting around in lockdown, staring at the same ten walls (or however many interior walls your house has), escapism can be a very appealing pursuit. There are many forms of escapism, but here we’ll be looking at a theoretical, sitting-in-one-place, ultimate method of escaping the humdrum or suffering of life in this world.

In the Homeric epic the Odyssey, Odysseus and his intrepid chums stumble across a land populated by the ‘lotus-eaters’. These guys do nothing more than sitting around eating from the Lotus plants that grow there, which puts them in a continual blissful state where the problems and cares of the world melt away into total insignificance. Odysseus was a stick-in-the-mud and stopped his men from partaking in the local culture, whisking them away to the next land, where they would be eaten by a cyclops.

Imbibing narcotics as a form of escapism is clearly something people have been enjoying for thousands of years, but the idea of ‘lotus-eating’ has been applied to philosophical discussion: to what extent would people choose to escape real life?

Robert Nozick put forward the idea of a lotus-eater machine, which he termed the ‘Experience machine’, a device that people could plug into that would simulate a perfect and happy existence. He was using the thought experiment to refute the philosophical concept of hedonism, especially in classical utilitarianism, but we’re going to focus on the aspect of escapism. The concept didn’t originate with Nozick, of course; the idea of an experience machine that simulates a better existence to real life has been the topic of science fiction at least as far back as the 1920s, and the conclusions drawn are often reflective of society at the time.

The main thrust of the thought experiment is, would you choose to plug in?

Our lotus-eater machine will perfectly simulate a blissful and wonderful life, with enough realism that you won’t be aware of its artificiality while you’re plugged in. Life will be exactly what you want it to be – the lotus-eater machine will be programmed to precisely your desires, and you will be ‘pulled out’ at ten-year intervals to check you’re still happy with the program. Each time you are plugged back in, you will have no memory of these checks, or indeed the outside world at all. The simulated life will be a perfect and fulfilling existence, free from regret or real-world-homesickness at least while you’re plugged in. You won’t see your friends or family, or interact with anything that actually exists, but the facsimiles in the simulation will be completely believable, quite possibly improved.

So, by indulging our escapism, exchanging the harsh realities of life for an ideal existence, are we losing anything? The world within is simulated, but as real to our minds as the actual world. Since the only thing we can be sure of in this life is our own experience, would this life actually be any less ‘real’, despite its artificial beginnings?

Consider whether you would choose to plug in. Would your choice be different if you were aware it was a simulation, and that the real world waited outside? If you object to the idea of living in a false reality, can you pinpoint what exactly you would be missing? If it’s “real interactions” or “real struggle and achievements”, are you sure this would matter if your mind was convinced all experiences in the machine were real?

Finally, imagine if, as you were reading this, you were suddenly woken, to find yourself sat in a machine, a technician standing before you. They explain that you have spent the past X years in their simulation machine, presenting a better world than the real one. They give you the option of leaving and heading into a world that would presumably be far less pleasant than the one you’ve been experiencing, the one you thought was the ‘real one’. Or, the technician says, you can plug back in, and continue to enjoy the life of the lotus-eater. What would you do?

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The epistemology of Jesus’ empty tomb

From “Funlosophy”, a series of articles for a newsletter.

In the Biblical story of Easter, Jesus’ resurrection is described. His body was placed in a tomb carved into rock, and a huge boulder placed over the entrance. After three days, He returned to life, the stone rolled away and He left.

Mary Magdalene was one of the first to find His tomb was empty, discovering He had risen.

But what if Mary Magdalene had accidentally gone to a nearby cave, mistakenly thinking it was Jesus’ tomb? She’d see the entrance to this cave unblocked, and Jesus’ body absent from within. She would come to exactly the same conclusions as if she’d gone to the right place.

If she’d gone to the actual tomb and seen the actual evidence, this would be what is defined in epistemology as ‘knowledge’.

Despite having gone to the wrong place, her conclusions are correct. This is known in epistemology as ‘true belief’ (this is a philosophical definition of ‘belief’ and does not relate to religious faith). It’s not knowledge, as she hasn’t seen the actual tomb, but it is belief, as she believes she’s seen good evidence.

If she’d gone a day early, Jesus still in His tomb a little way away, her seeing the random cave and assuming Jesus had risen would be defined as ‘false belief’ – she believes something that is wrong.

However, in this what-if scenario Mary Magdalene went to the wrong cave, but at the right time, so this is a case of true belief. This leads to a question that has been discussed at least as far back as Plato and is still disputed to this day: is knowledge more valuable than true belief?

People’s knee-jerk reaction tends to be that knowing something, supported by accurate evidence, is more valuable than being right by chance. However, this can be hard to argue, without resorting to claiming it’s better “because it just is!”

If the outcome is the same, and, more importantly, correct, does it matter that the method for getting there could just as easily have failed?

To give a simpler example, imagine you wonder what time it is, and look at a clock. The time is 4 o’clock, and the clock says it is 4 o’clock. However, what you don’t realise is that the clock has stopped, and always shows 4’o clock.

As it stands, your assumption that it’s 4’o clock is right, but for most of the rest of the day, you’d be wrong. This, then, is true belief – you’re right, but without reliable evidence it’s not knowledge. You believe it’s the end of the workday, and clock off, and no-one will complain, because it was indeed the time you thought it was.

We’re considering only the cases where, by chance, the desirable outcome is achieved – the times it fails aren’t true belief, they’re false belief, so not what we’re discussing. With this in mind, can you find a good reason to argue that knowledge has more value than true belief, given the outcomes are identical?