Philosophy: books and discussion

[TimMason]

I think we're dancing around the concept of "universal morality" vs "relativistic morality". I am on the relativistic side myself.

I suspect that there may be a way round that one. As I said before, one can see 'morality' or 'ethics' as conversational. So far as I know, all human groups have this kind of conversation. But not all human groups are putting, or have put, the same questions on the table at the same time.

There is no morality outside of conversation, outside of dialogue - like the dialogues we're having here. To expect there to be one, overarching, moral conversation that covers everyone, everywhere, and at all times, is absurd. There is, and cannot be, a universal moral code: if there were such a thing, then there would be no conversation. We'd be zombies.

Where does the conversation come in? Why claim that 'morality' is dialogical? Well, people who have observed how children's minds develop know that there is a stage at which the child talks to herself. Watch her playing with a toy, or working out a problem of any kind: she talks - not to you, not to anyone else in the room with you, but in a conversational tone that implies the existence of a conversational partner.

In fact, you will sometimes notice that the child switches roles: she may speak in one voice for herself, and in another for her doll, for example. She will talk to her doll in her mother's voice, using the same kind of injunctions, suggestions and comments that her mother often uses with her.

Then, at some stage, the child ceases to do this. At this point, the conversation has become internalized. The mother - and other significant people in the child's life - have become incorporated. The conversation is now fully internal.

We continue these internal conversations all our lives. Some of them are purely technical: how to do this, that or the other. Others are moral: judgements about behaviour, our own and that of others. We enlarge them, to take in others. But the conversations are always embedded in social relationships, whether real or imagined. They are always local.

Because of this, the attempt to distinguish between local and universal is bound to fail. When we attempt to posit a universal rule, or to identify a universal basis for rules, we are stepping outside the realm of the possible.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by Ea

I was thinking about suffering of other species than our own. I could see a point in relation to food animals, as the quality of meat definitely is affected by how the animal is treated. But I'm less sure about whether relieving suffering in general helps anything. I wondered if you have an example of that?

It depends on your relationship to the other species. I would not expect you to be directly affected by the suffering of some animal if it was somehow isolated from you. But I do think that your life would be affected if your neighbour beat his horses every day and you had to constantly hear their cries. Or if your local plant life was suffering from a disease and there was no green in your world. Or a disease was ravaging the local small animal population and going outside meant hearing their cries, stepping over their bodies, smelling their corpses. How would those change your quality of life and therefore impact you and those around you?

To some killing a 5000 year old tree may be insignificant: Prometheus

But, it still makes me sick when I think about it. Killed the year before I was born - and for nothing. But has influenced me ever since I learned about it.


Troy

[Ea]

Originally Posted by tdmsu

I wonder what value one who purposely inflicts suffering gains? Perhaps some sort of justice? But does that apply to food animals?

With regards to food animals I would say it's a side effect as themain purpose is (I presume) to produce cheaper food.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by TimMason

But the conversations are always embedded in social relationships, whether real or imagined. They are always local.

Because of this, the attempt to distinguish between local and universal is bound to fail. When we attempt to posit a universal rule, or to identify a universal basis for rules, we are stepping outside the realm of the possible.

I can agree with that. A persons morality is relative to the local conversation he is a part of. It may be interesting to define "local" in that context.

Also, does that imply that morality is a group effect? And there is no morality for a singular individual?


Troy

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by TimMason

...We continue these internal conversations all our lives. Some of them are purely technical: how to do this, that or the other. Others are moral: judgements about behaviour, our own and that of others. We enlarge them, to take in others. But the conversations are always embedded in social relationships, whether real or imagined. They are always local.

Because of this, the attempt to distinguish between local and universal is bound to fail. When we attempt to posit a universal rule, or to identify a universal basis for rules, we are stepping outside the realm of the possible.

I'm a bit confused by the distinction (if there is one) between internal technical conversations and internal moral conversations.
Are the results of both purely local - so there can't be universal rules for anything?

[TimMason]

Also, does that imply that morality is a group effect? And there is no morality for a singular individual?

I think so. I think Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of there being a private language might hove into view here.

[TimMason]

Are the results of both purely local - so there can't be universal rules for anything?

I guess you can summon imaginary others to *any* conversation. What would Aristotle say about the mess in the Gulf of Mexico? How would you teach Plato to ride a bike? And so you could project rules about how oil companies should behave, or about how to push the pedal with your foot rather than your hand, that would be clear to a Greek philosopher. But these are imaginary situations. Their universal nature depends on a whole series of 'What if ...' suppositions - including your being able to speak Attic Greek. My wife can: I'll ask her to write out a road bike manual for Greek philosophers.

[TimMason]

I'll ask her to write out a road bike manual for Greek philosophers.

She says "No way."

[TimMason]

Pain.

In a world in which there were no pain, people might undertake risky activities that would end in their death or injury. They might harbour fatal diseases, and not see the doctor in time to do anything about it. They might repeatedly bang their heads against the wall and incur irreversible brain injury.

Can people seek pain deliberately? Obviously, masochists do so. But you don't have to be a masochist. Athletes will put their bodies under considerable stress in order to win the game. No pain, no gain. For myself,when I have back pain I do certain exercises which involve my going into the pain, moving so that it becomes more acute. After I've done this, the original pain is lessened: I have bargained a few instants intense pain against a longer period without chronic pain.

Can I want another's pain? Again, the world of sports suggests that I can: the trainer subjects the athletes under her benign control to painful exercises. In warfare, an officer may send his soldiers into situations that are bound to end in their deaths.

These examples involve arguably willing subjects. What about the unwilling? Well, we accept that a country may conscript soldiers during wartime, and even that people who try to avoid conscription should be punished. So clearly some of us, at least, are willing to agree that pain inflicted against someone's will is morally justifiable.

What about inflicting pain on animals? Obviously since time immemorial humans have done so. It is said that hunter-gatherers demand the permission of their prey before thrusting their spears into its body - although Colin Turnbull reported that the rainforest peoples that he spied on had no such compunction. Nevertheless, it is probably true that we are far more brutal to the animals we eat than our uncaged ancestors were. Most people probably manage to remain unaware of our daily holocausts.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by TimMason

She says "No way."

Originally Posted by TimMason

I guess you can summon imaginary others to *any* conversation. What would Aristotle say about the mess in the Gulf of Mexico? How would you teach Plato to ride a bike? And so you could project rules about how oil companies should behave, or about how to push the pedal with your foot rather than your hand, that would be clear to a Greek philosopher. But these are imaginary situations. Their universal nature depends on a whole series of 'What if ...' suppositions - including your being able to speak Attic Greek. My wife can: I'll ask her to write out a road bike manual for Greek philosophers.

I'm having problems with the definition of "local" too.

I think by "local" you are intending to say the effects of the conversation are limited to the participants of that conversation. This seems correct to me.

Would you agree that reading Plato & Aristotle affects our understanding and brings them into our conversation?

Or would you say that the limited, one-way communications channel precludes the possibility of "conversation" thus they have no impact on our morality?


Troy

[Ea]

Originally Posted by troymc

It depends on your relationship to the other species. I would not expect you to be directly affected by the suffering of some animal if it was somehow isolated from you. But I do think that your life would be affected if your neighbour beat his horses every day and you had to constantly hear their cries. Or if your local plant life was suffering from a disease and there was no green in your world. Or a disease was ravaging the local small animal population and going outside meant hearing their cries, stepping over their bodies, smelling their corpses. How would those change your quality of life and therefore impact you and those around you?

That's interesting examples and some that affect the individual rather than the species. I was thinking of things that would affect directly, physically, and more at species level, but these are all fundamentally sentimental reasons, and would only affect you if you'd learned to empathise with animals or appreciate green - which most of us living in the western, modern culture has learned, but I'd say it's a purely cultural thing, which may change again.

Originally Posted by troymc

To some killing a 5000 year old tree may be insignificant: Prometheus

But, it still makes me sick when I think about it. Killed the year before I was born - and for nothing. But has influenced me ever since I learned about it.

While I read the article, I was struck by the thought that the tree only got its "meaning" or significance, i.e. that it was so very old, exactly beacuse it was felled, or killed. If it hadn't been, it would have been another old tree with no special significance and you wouldn't feel for it as you do.

I guess I have grown more cynical as I get older. I think that the earth will survive with or without humans, just as it has survived so many other changes.

I think I can sympathise with the feeling of loss of 5000 year old tree - but in the big picture I don't think it's worth worrying about. 5000 years is a long time for a human, but a blink in the eye for the earth, and even less for the universe. We are bound by human-sized thinking.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TimMason

IHow would you teach Plato to ride a bike?

The question implies that the time difference is irrelevant.

I would put him on a bicycle without pedals and when he has learned to stay in dynamic equilibrium - for one so smart it will take less then 10 minutes - I would put the pedals on. I could do that without a single word spoken.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by Ea

That's interesting examples and some that affect the individual rather than the species. I was thinking of things that would affect directly, physically, and more at species level, but these are all fundamentally sentimental reasons, and would only affect you if you'd learned to empathise with animals or appreciate green - which most of us living in the western, modern culture has learned, but I'd say it's a purely cultural thing, which may change again.

In some ways that is true. But they can also impact us on a species level if you think of ecological balance. The majority of our oxygen comes from algae & forests. So the suffering of the trees due to global warming, infestation, deforestation, etc. impacts our atmosphere, directly impacting us - same with algae suffering due to oil spills, pollution, etc. Birds are a major controlling factor of insect populations - if the birds suffer they will fail to thrive, the insect population will boom and we will suffer - disease, crop damage, etc.

Originally Posted by Ea

While I read the article, I was struck by the thought that the tree only got its "meaning" or significance, i.e. that it was so very old, exactly beacuse it was felled, or killed. If it hadn't been, it would have been another old tree with no special significance and you wouldn't feel for it as you do.

No, I have to disagree with you here. I think the tree was even more valuable alive. Is Methuselah just another old tree? Is Eugénie Blanchard just another old woman?

This seems like a question of intrinsic values. Does an object have value in and of itself? Or does it only have value once we acknowledge it and give it to it?

hmm...maybe I'm not such a relativist after all....

Originally Posted by Ea

I guess I have grown more cynical as I get older. I think that the earth will survive with or without humans, just as it has survived so many other changes.

I think I can sympathise with the feeling of loss of 5000 year old tree - but in the big picture I don't think it's worth worrying about. 5000 years is a long time for a human, but a blink in the eye for the earth, and even less for the universe. We are bound by human-sized thinking.

Oh I definitely agree - the Earth will be fine either way. The question you bring to mind is whether or not we value our place on it. And whether we place any value on respecting the other living things we share it with.


Troy

[Ea]

Originally Posted by troymc

In some ways that is true. But they can also impact us on a species level if you think of ecological balance. The majority of our oxygen comes from algae & forests. So the suffering of the trees due to global warming, infestation, deforestation, etc. impacts our atmosphere, directly impacting us - same with algae suffering due to oil spills, pollution, etc. Birds are a major controlling factor of insect populations - if the birds suffer they will fail to thrive, the insect population will boom and we will suffer - disease, crop damage, etc.

I was thinking about finding an example along the same lines. Bee populations are declining at the moment and that has a direct, negative impact on fruit plantations. The most recent suggestion of the reason why, is the wide-spread use of mobile phones (can't remember the exact explanation, sorry). I.e. bees suffer, and fruit and vegetable production decline as a result. Algae on the other hand.... are not a good example, because they are so numerous and versatile that you can always find some that thrive whatever the conditions are - one algea population will suffer -> another will thrive. The blue-green algae that can be such a nuisance to humans, were in its heyday (eons ago), a great contributer to creating the atmosphere we enjoy today (as far as I remember from what I've read).

Originally Posted by troymc

No, I have to disagree with you here. I think the tree was even more valuable alive. Is Methuselah just another old tree? Is Eugénie Blanchard just another old woman?

This seems like a question of intrinsic values. Does an object have value in and of itself? Or does it only have value once we acknowledge it and give it to it?

hmm...maybe I'm not such a relativist after all....

But you wouldn't have known that that exact tree was that old. Imagine if you had seen it and had not known about its age, would you have felt anything except what you might feel about any tree? I'm not sure we talk about the same notion of "value" here. What I meant was that the knowledge about its "specialness" made it significant, gave a special meaning - but ironically, that knowledge wouldn't have come to light unless the tree was felled. If I met Eugenie Blanchard and didn't know her exact age, yes, I am sure I would think she was just another old woman (at least age-wise). We humans tend to value that which stands out, which makes it visible and different. But we can't put value on it unless we are aware of the difference. Hence, "Prometheus" wouldn't have had its special value before you knew about its age. Now, that you know about its age - yes, it's easy to argue that it would be more valuable alive.
But had you not known about its age, how could you have argued that it was more valuable alive?

Originally Posted by troymc

Oh I definitely agree - the Earth will be fine either way. The question you bring to mind is whether or not we value our place on it. And whether we place any value on respecting the other living things we share it with.

As far as I can see, we - as a species - don't put any value into respecting the other living things we share the earth with, and I don't think we value our own place on it either. It's really only when our own survival comes into play that we react. As a species.

That's actually a good, general question; what can we say about our morality as human beings, based on our actual behaviour rather than - or compared to - our convictions?

[TimMason]

Are the results of both purely local - so there can't be universal rules for anything?

OK, I probably dodged this one. (Although the point I wanted to make is the one that Beppe followed through). Let's see if we can distinguish between technical knowledge and moral knowledge.

Technical knowledge can be seen as a series of If ... Then statements, something like a computer programme. If you want to bake a cake, then you do this, this, and this. If you follow the programme correctly, there is a measurable and predictable difference to the world. If something goes wrong, either the statements were mistaken, or you didn't follow them correctly, or the world entered an unexpected space/time discontinuum.

Moral knowledge is not of this kind. The results of your behaving according to your moral code are not predictable, nor do they have a regular effect upon the world. Morality, like art, is essentially unconstrained by instrumental considerations. That's why we are suspicious of certain approaches to religion: giving a coin to a beggar because that will earn you a place in heaven is, we feel, hypocritical (which is why grace is preferred to works).

Would you agree that reading Plato & Aristotle affects our understanding and brings them into our conversation?

I can't read either Plato or Aristotle: I don't have the Greek. Even those who do have the Greek argue about the meanings of key terms, such as 'katharsis' (or at least, that is what Malcolm Heath says in the introduction to his translation of the 'Poetics'.

Most of the texts that we know have come to us through the filter of Roman Catholic theology. Our understanding of what Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and so on said is still wrapped in theological garments. That's part of what I meant when I said that our moral conversations are post-Christian.