Debating, philosophy and gender equality

Yet again philosophy has proven to be a wonderful, useful subject for everyday life. 

We were debating today at Dame Alice whether space travel was worth it. My position was yes and most people agreed with me, which was somewhat disappointing as I prefer to challenge people's assumptions. But I could feel the philosopher in me working like crazy. Every point that was made I was evaluating. I was making connections in interesting places, it was all great. It was a bit slow towards the end as most people agreed so there wasn't much to say and the arguments from the opposition were often weak, so it wasn't too hard. But nevertheless the philosopher side of me was properly working today and I do feel like I'm actually a philosopher now. Compared with last year, my thinking is so much clearer and I am much more critical of the views of others. (Still not critical enough, I think, but I'm working on it!)

In short, yay for philosophy.

But another point about the debate was the difference between the girls and the guys. In the audience, the gender mix was about equal so you would probably expect there to be an equal number of points from both genders, especially brought up as we are in a girls school that paints a very 'girl power!' view of life. Not so. The argument was mainly conducted by the guys, I was the only girl that spoke more than once. And the few points that the girls were making seemed so pathetic. For example:

"Well, if we go into space, what happens if we meet aliens and they like attack us and that's bad." (Not verbatim, but it was as ineloquent as that.)

See also:

"TV shows like Star Trek are making us think that we can do things that we'll never be able to do, so we shouldn't spend money on it."

And:

"We never aim to produce the good side effects [mobile phones] that space travel provides, so we shouldn't do it."

They just make me want to cry! They're almost too bad to counter! We are supposedly seen as man's equal now but we can never be equal if we continue to be quite so pathetic. Yes, pathetic! You cannot say that women should have the same jobs as men but also that they should be allowed to go on pregnancy leave whenever they like. We shouldn't be equal when it suits us. If we ever want to be considered equal to men then we've got to stop acting like such blonde, hair-flicking air heads and stand up for ourselves.

Maybe philosophy has enabled me to see what idiots people are?

Brothels, prostitution et al.

So this is about philosophy of ethics. I feel like arguing with someone but nobody wants to play, so here we go. Also, I'll try and be brief as I really would like to be asleep soon.

The source is really Stephen Fry visiting a brothel in America. In that state (I don't know where, I only saw a very brief glimpse of the show) brothels were legal so I asked dad what the rules were in this country. He didn't know so we looked it up.

It turns out that it is not illegal to pay money for sex. So prostitution is allowed, right? To a certain extent. The problem is, it's illegal to advertise that you are a prostitute, kerbwalking, etc. So this all means that the women always get prosecuted, never the men. I just thought that was terrible.

There are two potential solutions to this problem. Firstly, we could do what Sweden (I think) did. They made it illegal for men to visit prostitutes and by doing this they criminalised the men, rather than the women. The sex industry dropped dramatically. However, I believe that in all likelihood it just made it more difficult for many women to earn a living. Also, if they find themselves in any trouble they have nobody to go to for help, as they would be prosecuted.

The other solution, the America solution, is to make prostitution illegal but only if it's organised correctly, probably in a brothel. I think this really is the best solution. Primarily, it looks after the women. Instead of being out there and alone, they are looked after by the law. The problem of women trafficking is greatly reduced, as there would be proper checks in place to ensure the women were happy and not being forced anything. It gives them the oppourtunity to report anything bad that happens to them and allows them financial stability to a certain extent. By sweeping it under the carpet, it makes it much harder to locate individuals who are suffering. We should drop the squeamishness and face up to the fact that sex is a growing part of our society. Only by doing this can we protect the women who really have no choice.

I'm not saying I approve or disapprove, it's largely irrelevant. But to take the example of abortion, which I dislike in most cases, when it was illegal far more women died through backstreet surgery. This is exactly the same issue. We don't have to like other people's lifestyle choices to recognise that they deserve to be looked after. Prostitutes have a terrible time of it and at the moment in our society they are very vulnerable, as nobody is prepared to speak up for their rights.

Yes, I am prepared to go on a march to London on this issue.

More ethics in oots and a ramble about 'goodness'

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0679.html

Ah, Order of the Stick! A world where everything is seen in black and white terms of good and evil; what an excellent place to find ethical issues.

So today the lovely V (the gender of V is ambiguous, I shall refer to her as a her, though the technical term is hir) gets sued by her mate because she is never at home because she's too busy saving the world. In today's strip, V chooses to continue her journey to save the world from destruction rather than go home and oppose the divorce. 

Because I did not have my philosophy head on at the time of reading, I felt that V should go home and apologise to her mate immediately. The world was not going to end right there and then and V could easily have teleported over there to apologise. At least then she could explain to her mate why she wasn't going to attend the trial and that she was sorry for being away a lot (and accidentally luring a dragon to their home that nearly killed their children). All the people on the forum (they dislike the mate, which could have something to do with this) thought that V was doing the right thing in sticking to her quest and a few brought up the possibility of V sending an apologetic message. I did expect more objections. Almost everyone in English with Antigone thinks that Creon is wrong to put the state before his immediate family. Oddly, my views seem to be exactly opposite to most; I thought V should go home to her mate but that Creon was right to stick to the law.

This has just reminded me of the test we did ages ago where it tested how consistent our views were. I was the most confused of my friends, but I can't remember quite how confused. It would be interesting to take the test again after a year of philosophy. I would hope that I am more consistent now than I was.

It has also reminded me of an issue that I can't decide whether I want to donate to ToK or philosophy because it involves ethics. I'll probably talk about it in ToK and then come back and blog about it here, then I can get other people's reactions. The line between ToK and philosophy is terribly blurry when it comes to ethics.

Actual interesting philosophy

Today Lizzie - and there's no other word for it - accused me of being 'good'. (In a nice way, of course.) What was that supposed to mean? There's no doubting that I try to be good, though most of the time I'm not actually sure what this involves. I don't have a philosophical criteria for assessing my actions to see if they are good or not. But how can I go around even trying to be good if I'm not even sure what I'm aiming for? 

My 'goodness' mainly consists of this: Considering the effect the action will have on other people. If something will make them happy, I'll consider it. Obviously, I won't go to any lengths to make people happy (the exact length to which I will go is under debate) but I generally take the course of action that will make people happy, even sometimes (not always, I can be very selfish depending on my mood) if it will make me unhappy. It's not altruism, not by a long way. It makes me happy to make other people happy and people are friendly to me because I am in return. It's not a perfect system, of course. The big philosophical problems are still just as problematic as ever, but I think they are under every system because there is no right answer. But this is the philosophy I've always lived by and it works for me. I'm happy in a eudaimonia-type way and this I attribute mostly to the above.

As an example, when I was little, I always found that teachers were much more likely to relax the rules (regarding pretty much anything) for me than for most of my classmates. Because I was generally very reliable and usually made them happy (by handing homework in on time, etc.) they didn't mind so much when I forgot my homework.

It's very difficult to write anything very personal about ethics without sounding awfully big-headed. This is the system I try to live by, it generally works and I am quite happy. I muck it up all the time but it's nice to realise that I do actually have a philosophy that I can strive towards. (Oh, that's the other thing that makes me happy: striving really hard at everything that comes along, but that's not so ethicsy.)

This is a high culture blog! I discuss ethics and ancient Greek literature!

Existentialists fight over 'meaning'

So I actually have time to write in my philosophical journal today, rather than using it as a productive method of procrastination. And was there any burning inspiration that hit me? Nope. Isn't it funny how the mind works? I did think of something though.

On the subject of meaning and existentialism. We were doing presentations related to the Theatre of the Absurd today and one of the topics was existentialism. So of course all the philosophers in the room dived in and talked about that. (I'm exaggerating; only Lizzzy and I did, but Hessie talked about the differences between exi and her topic [absurdism].) Something interesting that both Hessie and Lizzzy brought up as being notably existentialist was the way that there was no real meaning in your life. However they both went on to say you had to make up your own meaning. I think this is a result of the video we watched and may be Kirkegaard's brand of exi. (Please correct me on this if I'm mis-remembering.)

This was another one of those "Sartre wouldn't agree with that" moments. He would call people that made up their own meaning cowards/scum, especially if it was that there was a God and they were meant to do their bidding.

I didn't bring this up in front of the whole English class (I think there were a bit intimidated by our knowledge and ability to discuss the topic that they found confusing. It's sad because they seem to consider philosophy as something that philosophers do and that you have to have a lot of specialist knowledge to understand it. It's totally against the whole point of our paper 3 stuff! Having lots of knowledge about other philosophical theories is almost a by-product of doing philosophy; there's no point in debating ourselves round in circles without looking at the thinking other people have done for us. I really think we should correct this view! I think I'll probably be shot if I suggest this to the rest of the class but I think we ought to be given a chance to explain why we enjoy philosophy and that it's not just remembering what people thought. LONG digression, sorry!) but I talked to the philosophers later and they both said that they talked about the finding your own meaning bit because they preferred to think of it like that, personally. Fair enough, I say! We had a lovely little conversation about the differences between types of existentialism.

I really do think of us as philosophers now. To think that I used to worry about what to write here! Being a philosopher is amazing, having fellow philosophers is even more so. I feel a sense of team spirit among the philosophers, more profound than in any other lesson. I suppose we've experienced a lot together, we've chased ideas and undergone some radical thinking changes. I'm proud to be a philosopher!

Also,

I MISS MARGIE! 

Thoughts on assembly

Just noting my thoughts about the assembly this morning. (Whilst simultaneously procrastinating about my English homework; two birds + one stone?)

I don't know if you were there, but Mrs Marriot was talking about joining extracurricular activities and how great they were for developing your personality in the right way and teaching you things that school cannot. Educating you in a different way. This is fine and, having participated in the judo team for several years, I am a strong believer in the power of teamwork, even in a non-team sport. The team spirit we had when the judo club was at its height members-wise was incredible. Sadly, many people have left and this spirit is only preserved in the few of us that are left. Anyway, back to the point: I agree, sports are great. 

However, Mrs Marriot went from saying that we should all cooperate in sports to develop our character to saying that we should be selfish when it comes to academic work. I was a bit shocked at this drastic leap. Why should we be selfish when it comes to schoolwork and not sports?

Is it because our academic work actually matters in the long run? Was she saying that sports are good fun but don't really matter? What about the professional athlete? Should they be allowed to be selfish in their sport because it is important to them? Does it therefore follow that sports don't actually make any difference to our personalities, as was previously claimed, if we are capable of being selfish in other areas of life? Doesn't altruism permeate all areas of life? Shouldn't it? 

These were the questions that came to me at the time but I think what she really meant was that we shouldn't 'collaborate' with others in our school work. I think she was trying to discourage this idea. Which makes sense, of course, but I don't think this means we should be selfish in our academia. We frequently work together in understanding problems (especially maths!) and explaining concepts to each other. We'll debate to gain a deeper understanding about a topic, work through examples together and give critiques of each other's work to improve. Surely this is a form of collaboration and is good and wonderful and maybe sometimes even altruistic? (Whether that is possible or not is a whole different topic for debate. I'm actually fairly cynical and don't believe much in altruistic acts. They can happen, but true altruism in humans is rare.)

I'm nitpicking, really. But I was confused at first (thinking too much, probably) and I hope nobody else has gone away with the sense that they should never help anybody with schoolwork. 

Ooh, Sartre would disapprove of that

All this existentialism is getting to my head. Seriously. So we are all sitting in ToK; everyone has brought in a source that they think deals with ToK-related issues. (I brought The Truman Show, as a consequence, we're talking about starting up a ToK film club.) Hannah brings in the first source which was a newspaper article about a woman killing her children to make her husband's life a misery. She said this was not logical. (I disagree, but that's something else.) Obviously nobody thought this was a very good idea but it just struck me that Sartre would disagree with us.

He would say that the woman took action to change her life and because she chose to do it, she was acting morally. She didn't talk herself out of it by saying that she couldn't kill them because it wasn't in her nature to be a murderer, she did what she chose to. Interesting, Sartre.

I think where he would have not been so happy is that now she is pleading to not have been in her right mind when she did the thing. This is presumably so she gets let off with a lighter sentence. However, according to fellow ToK-er, Lizzie, she was planning to kill them the day before but she took her children shopping and they had such an nice day she thought it would be a shame to spoil it. So she did it the next day. This sounds like it has been a little exaggerated for the media (another ToK issue in itself) but it would have redeemed her in Sartre's mind. He might have still been a little cross with her for telling people it was unplanned, though.

His theory produces such contradictory results to those we expect from a moral philosophy. He doesn't condemn this woman for killing her children and even thinks it is better that she planned it beforehand. Whenever I begin to think that there might be something to his ideas, a practical situation like this comes along and makes it sound so plainly 'wrong' in the normal view of things that I go back to thinking he was a bit mad.

But most philosophers are, if I'm honest.

Mixing disciplines

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6626935.ece 

An interesting article my parents pointed out to me in The Sunday Times. I don't read it much but they sometimes point out articles to me. 

It seems that Scruton doesn't approve of the mixing of science with philosophy; I had always assumed that it was a good thing. If I have a question to answer I usually like to draw on as many sources as possible and consider all the evidence, isn't that good practice? Science can contribute to the philosophical debate by adding points to the mixing pot of the debate. If you are looking for the 'right' answer, whatever definition of right you want, then you should consider every possibility, not disregard some because they are not related to your discipline. I like philosophy for this reason, I get to consider things from different angles.

Perhaps as scientific knowledge increases philosophy, like religion, will decrease. That would be sad. But if we find something that proves that we are all puppets in an endless display of entertainment for some higher powers, what is there left to consider? If science answered all of our questions, what would we do? I don't know, and these thoughts are making me want to go and sabotage science to keep the idea of philosophy alive.

Luckily, I don't actually think that philosophy will die. To return to the analogy of religion, we can't get rid of that, no matter how irrational it may seem in the age of science. I think there will always be a space for philosophy, as if we answer one question, another is bound to be raised. We will always be able to think of something we don't know.

I still don't think Scruton is right. Maybe science will be able to prove some things but there will always be something to philosophise about. 

The 'Ick' Factor

The 'ick' factor! (Sometimes called the 'yuck' factor, but I personally prefer 'ick'.) What is it? It's that feeling you get when you are faced with something that your gut reaction tells you is gross or very bad.

I have an example of this that I think is quite good. In a slightly off-topic English lesson I suggested that to control the population growth we could kill people over a certain age. Now, it might have been the way I phrased it (I'm still casting around for a word that sounds slightly less barbaric than 'kill', but it was better than 'brutally murder') but most of the people in the room were immediately horrified at the suggestion. Now, I wasn't exactly thinking that anyone would fully support this idea straight away and I'm not actually advocating it as a viable solution, but I didn't expect quite the violent reaction I did get. Most people wouldn't even consider it as a concept.

This is the ick factor. Your brain just rejects an idea immediately on the grounds that it is too wrong to even be considered. This gut feeling is often considered fairly valuable in making moral decisions. We like to rely on our gut decision to tell us what to do. But should we?

Should we live our lives on the basis of some feeling that we don't understand? Or should we measure out the arguments and weigh them up as philosophers? It is surprising how many people don't weigh things up. Also, I'm not convinced that the gut decision is as intuitive as we usually believe. If it was then surely I would have the same gut feeling of horror as my English class. No, I think it's mostly down to outside factors like family or society. Even if we are born with certain basic gut feelings, like not murdering people, I think that these are actually overridden when we are older by the ideas of society. In the case of murdering people this simply strengthens the gut feeling (if it is there originally). And I'm still not convinced that my pantheic views come entirely from myself, even though I was brought up going to a Catholic church. It's impossible to know.

Anyway, returning from my anthropological ramble, I think it's rather more sensible to use reason in making moral judgements than gut instincts that may or may not have come from our society. The problem is that we (or certainly I) don't understand where they came from, so I wouldn't feel like my life was built on very stable foundations.

That said, I struggle to see why you would rely on reason for any area of knowledge. But I do know why I feel like this. (Drifting through ToK into psychology. I don't know much about psychology and I haven't got any further philosophical points to make but I would like to explain how I explain my bias towards reason to myself.)

Dad did this test years ago called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator that purports to explain why we see the world as we do. It classifies people into types based on their answers. The categories are: 

Extrovert (E)/Introvert (I)

Sensing (S)/Intuition (N)

Thinking (T)/Feeling (F)

Judgement (J)/Perception (P)

I came up as INTJ. My dad is the same and it's true, I am exactly like him. The older I get the more I realise how in-line our thinking is.

I don't really think much of this test, apart from the two categories thinking and feeling. They're basically equivalent to the terms reason and emotion in ToK. In our house we often use the categories T and F to describe things. So when dad was choosing which car to buy he was being a T because he was weighing up all the strengths and weaknesses but mum's input was distinctly more F - what colours do they do?

**At this point I was interrupted by having a discussion with my parents where they forcefully argued that being an F was not a bad thing (I tend to use it jokingly as an insult) and you don't have to be a T about everything. But I kinda think you do, for important things. I don't doubt that emotion influences my judgements but I think I would be able to reach clearer conclusions if I could remove that bias.**

I thought of some more philosophy. If we listened to the ick factor all the time we'd still have African slaves, men keeping women at home and shunning homosexuals. If you listen to your emotions over reason, you risk accepting false ideas about where you start from that can have drastic implications on your life, as in the examples above. At the time, people were horrified at the thought of black people being equal to white people, they were feeling the ick factor and are now thought to be mistaken. Reason, people! If you think about it properly, you can check what you base all your arguments on.

I really need to think of some arguments for using emotion in various areas of knowledge before I have to do a ToK essay on it and completely fail at presenting an equal view.

Re-interpreting songs

"Pennies in a well; a million dollars in the fountain of a hotel." ~ P!nk, Crystal Ball.

I love this song, it's so pretty! (Very aesthetically pleasing, but that's another subject.) The song is originally about luck and how we make wishes by throwing coins into wells but it reminded me of something else. My head is full of Singer and his stupid book, which I finished today. I call it a stupid book, but I actually found it very enjoyable. The 'million dollars in the fountain of a hotel' reminded me of how much the affluent nations give to each other as opposed to the poor. It's true, we spend money on completely trivial things like luck when we could be helping other people.

I found 'The Life You Can Save' interesting in several ways. Although it was primarily a philosophical text, the philosophy was combined with psychology and statistics, both of which I found interesting to read about. I like that Peter Singer didn't isolate the philosophy of the issue because I think it's a mistake to believe that the philosophical side alone will persuade people around to your way of thinking, as he does. Philosophers can logically deduce something but the average person will not radically change their life because of a logical argument, no matter how flawed.

The philosophy was good too; I found it frustratingly sound when trying to pick holes in his arguments. The analogy of the drowning child is a good one, especially when combined with the psychology of why we feel more for the drowning child than the millions of suffering children in Africa. Issues such as distance, being able to name a recipient of the help and feeling hopeless about the situation were considered. The conclusion being that although these factors do affect our judgement, we should try not to let them.

I have to say, my favourite idea of the book was not the final conclusion where Singer stated what he thought was reasonable to give. Yes, this may be true but I think that a different proposed idea would be more effective. I love the idea of having an opt-out system where a tiny amount (I suggest 1%) of people's wage gets automatically donated to a charity that the company supports. If everyone did this we would have more than enough money to support developing countries (the final figures Singer gives are massively above what is needed and, in my opinion, highly improbable). People would not be very likely to opt out if it was only 1% and it would also create a good 'culture of giving', as Singer calls it. When you know that your friends are giving and this is normal, it promotes discussion of various charities, etc. I believe this would be far more productive than individual giving because of the community aspect. We would know that our colleagues were giving the same amount as us, so we would not be worried about doing "more than our fair share". Most importantly, however, we would not get the sense of being alone in contributing. Knowing that others are striving towards the same goal as you is fantastic for team building and makes you feel better about the whole process.

I don't know much about how companies or offices are run, but I would like to think that after the culture of giving had been created by the automatic 1% donation, there would be an opportunity to create a group of individuals who gave more of their salary who met on a regular basis to discuss giving and which charities to support. Again, this brings the company together and makes people feel more comfortable with the idea of giving as everything is out in the open. And, I think, more fulfilling.

Honestly, if I was a member of a company I would be right now trying to get something like this set up in the organisation to which I belonged. I think it's a fantastic idea. Peter Singer has done a brilliant job - I wanted to hate both him and the ideas in his book. But he's turned me around and I feel really charitable all of a sudden. I think the figures are going to my head.

Another thing I have learnt today: I cannot type and sing at the same time.

Socrates Could Prove Anything

An unpublished dialogue between Socrates and Adamantius.

S: Hello Adamantius. 
A: Hello Socrates. I love you! 
S: Yes of course you do, for I am God and gods (as I believe in both simultaneously) and I am always right. 
A: Yes, Socrates. Please impart some wisdom to me. 
S: You know that I never teach you things, Adamantius. You must question everything that I put to you so that we can be sure that it is true and sound and just and all that jazz, right? 
A: Yes, Socrates, forgive me and do not smite me for making such a feeble mistake. 
S: It is alright, Adamantius, you shall not be smitten today, 
A: Aww... 
S: I do not understand, your response was not logical. Let us consider society today, would you like that? 
A: I would very much like to hear your views on things. Perhaps later I could lick your boots for you as well? 
S: I am afraid I do not wear shoes. I find them an uncomfortable and oppressive force. Back to society. Do you agree with me when I say, for it is necessary to ask if you agree with the most basic assumptions, that society must have a kind of order? That is to say, not everyone could be as important as everyone else or we would have no rulers or order. 
A: This assumption makes sense. 
S: Then does it not logically follow that some members of society will be further down the social ladder than others? 
A: Yes, this follows. 
S: Therefore we are justified in oppressing the slaves we own and treating them like scum. After all in every society, you must have some people that are looked down upon. 
A: Of course, we must treat them like scum, it is right to do so. 
S: And would it not help greatly to reduce the stress of the people if we put people into this class? 
A: Please expand on your reasoning further. I am too stupid to understand what is happening. 
S: I shall clarify. If we had several classes of society and people could move from one to the other, would the people further up not be concerned about their position? After all, it would hardly be fair if all the people we were treating with respect suddenly were flung down into the lower echelons of society. Therefore it would be prudent to have the classes fixed permanently so that people do not worry about being moved from one to another? 
A: I now understand what you are saying and I agree. 
S: So people who are born into this class can never move out. When we have similar contexts to this in life, do we not mark the categories in some way so that there is no confusion? 
A: Yes, this is often the case. 
S: Then it makes sense that we should do so in this case also. This means that anyone who is part of the category we choose shall be in that category forever and shall be treated like scum. 
A: This follows from what you have been saying. 
S: The easiest identifier is probably skin colour, wouldn't you agree? After all, people can easily disguise their hair colour and even gender but skin tone is surely the hardest to disguise? 
A: I agree. 
S: Would it also not make sense for the scum category to be the smallest possible? After all, although we have agreed the necessity of there being such a category, it does not make sense to have any many people involved, does it? 
A: I would say not. 
S: So what is the least common skin colour in Athens? 
A: Black, of course. 
S: Then it follows that we should, always and forever, treat black people as scum. 
A: I shall revise my life views immediately.

***

Philosophers can be mean. Their 'logical' arguments can lead people to be confused and reach conclusions that are clearly wrong. Not everybody is able to spot these huge jumps in logic that Socrates often uses to batter his interlocutors into agreeing with him. This, if nothing else, is an excellent reason for studying philosophy. Philosophy gives you the skills to think about arguments properly and to question the logic of other people. This means that when holes are left, as in the above example, it is much easier to spot them and point them out. Philosophy gives you the power of thinking in a different direction and the confidence to analyse arguments so that we are able to stand up to intellectual bullies like Socrates. For this reason, I would have practical philosophy or critical thinking put on the curriculum from a fairly early age, perhaps as young as 10. It is not learning facts at a young age that is important, it is learning how to think about the information you are being presented in a critical manner to make your own informed judgement on it. I think a lot of what we are lacking now and why teenagers are thought to be getting more stupid is because they know how to learn facts but they don't know how to think about things properly. Of course, it's important that we can learn facts for exams, which is why I think philosophy should be done as soon as students can cope with it. I have taught judo to many students in the age range 4-12 and at our school I think that philosophy lessons could be started from Form 1.

My opinions have changed a lot in a year. At the beginning of the course, I was confused about what exactly philosophy was and what it could do for me. I was not a philosopher at the beginning of this year. I was an anthropologist struggling to separate the two subjects in my brain. Now though, I realise that philosophy has stretched me in a way that I never thought I could be stretched in. My mind has opened up to different kinds of questions and I am now capable of wondering about 'what makes us human' in an anthropological and philosophical way.

At the beginning of last year, I never even considered that the next statement I will tentatively make. Philosophy just may be the most important subject I ever took. It has done so much more in the way of stretching my mind than any other subject; it's just so different. Other subjects teach you to learn, philosophy teaches you to think. And I love it!

At the beginning of the year I was worried, lost and regretting that I ever took philosophy, much less for higher! Now I look forward to every lesson, whether we're studying Socrates and his wonderful hole-ridden arguments or poking fun at Peter Singer for being such a goody-two-shoes.

I know you're the only person who reads this, Purple Cloud of Wisdom, so thank you for bringing me philosophy and convincing me that it's not the worst subject in the world.

Why do philosophy? It's the BEST!

I hate Philosophy!

April Fool!

I just realised I hadn't fooled anybody today. Mostly because I was asleep when everybody else was bustling around this morning getting ready to go out. Oddly enough, my brother didn't leave anything for me either. 

Anyway, practical jokes of any kind are a curious thing. Yes, they are childish and mostly confined to the pages of Enid Blyton but a surprising number of jokes are played in everyday life if you think about it.

I tease my friends all the time and they tease right back. (For example, I've just told Lizzie that I only want to visit her when she makes brownies... [She is feeling much better! :D]) But we know that there's nothing serious in it. In fact, I only tease people who I'm really close to and I know won't mind. But although it doesn't usually happen to me because I choose my victims/friends carefully, it can get out of hand.

So at summer camp there are lots of drunk men around and they get up to all sorts of silly things. Like shaving off someone's mustache, for example. They all thought it was hilariously funny but I'm sure when Gary woke up the next morning with a thumping headache and half a 'tache the next morning he felt terrible. Typically utilitarian, I find myself wondering whether the joke was worth the sadness of Gary at losing half his mustache. He was quite proud of it but it will grow back. I think it would have been different if he hadn't seen the funny side of it. The others might have repented and made up with him. But they would probably do it again.

It's hard to know where the line between a funny joke and an unfunny joke is. In the end it's safer not to play tricks on people but that's not really going to happen for everyone. So we have to predict whether the person will be upset by it or not. And if they're not we might think about whether we should really do it or just not. See, I think we are often naturally utilitarian. The problem is I don't know whether that's just logical old me or whether everyone thinks like that! But I like to think people do use utilitarianism a lot, especially if they haven't really thought about ethics before. But they use it with common sense, which softens the cold, calculating side of it. Utilitarianism with a human twist? Utilitarianism with common sense?

Random thoughts on different ethical theories

No source, it just came out of my brain; why don't we just have an amalgamation of all of the different ethical theories?

I mean, all of the systems have their merits and their shortcomings. So what we could do when faced with an ethical dilemma is to look at it from three different points of view - Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism and Deontology - and take the average vote.

The problem is, I don't really like deontology so I might be tempted to skip that one. But then I might end up with a tie.

I also realise that this is a rather cold, Utilitarian way of looking at the issue. The idea was that the emotions involved in Virtue Ethics would balance out the 'greatest good for the greatest number' principle.

I was talking to Lizzzy and Margie today and it seems that I'm the biggest supporter of Utilitarianism. Everyone else prefers Virtue Ethics (though I wouldn't take that as fact!) but I find it an unsatisfying wishy-washy system. A couple of reasons come to mind.

Firstly that I have a whole bunch of preconceptions about what people should and should not do from my Catholic education. I don't regret (regret isn't the right word) having this experience because it has made me into a moral person. At a risk of sounding big-headed I do think I am a 'good' person. But this is only because I've blindly obeyed the Catholic rules for however many years and it's now almost habit. And I like being good. Anyway, the point is I have a bunch of preconceptions about rules that don't make any sense. Like that being gay is wrong. (I got over that one.) It just makes me worry that I could be that badly mistaken with other things and think they're virtues.

And the other reason I don't like Virtue Ethics that much is because I'm too logical. The logic of Utilitarianism just appeals. So I don't know whether I like it more mostly because I'm more logical. Does the whole of your philosophical thought depend on how you think? Does that mean we can make huge assumptions about what people will believe? Do I get mixed up between philosophy/psychology/ToK/anthropology? YES!

(I was having ToKish philosophy thoughts yesterday but my brother interrupted with a maths question so I helped him and promptly forgot it.)

Heroes and life as an illusion

"I'm not really here, Parkman. It's an illusion, like life."

~Usutu to Matt. (Heroes, series 3, BBC, 2008)

The idea that life is an illusion has never been particularly startling to me as the concept was introduced to me at a very early age. The idea of "how do we know whether what we see is real?" was one of the freaky ideas that dad liked to talk to us about when we were little. I think he just liked scaring us at the time but he does have a point.

I suppose we can't ever know whether what we see is real. (Right now mum is looking up how much the 'Truman Show' costs to buy on DVD; it is a film about someone who's whole life was a TV show and all the people he knew were actors but he was oblivious to this fact.) I also can't really get to grips with the idea that I could be the only one. I mean, how weird would that be?

For a start, I don't think I could invent half the people around me. They're too crazy! I like to think that my imagination is fairly active but people surprise me far too often. Also, if I had invented the world there would be more rules! People would actually go up the right set of stairs at school without me telling them off, for example. (Hm, there's a point, what are the moral issues surrounding that?) The world would make more sense.

I don't think that it's impossible that the world isn't some kind of weird illusion to keep someone up there amused at how I react to different things. Of course it could be. But it seems like a lot of effort for vague amusement. I just find it highly improbable that this is the case. There aren't really any logical arguments for it, just that it could happen. Well, I could turn into a green balloon dog tomorrow but I still don't lose any sleep over it. (Yay, analogy!) I have to assume that this isn't some elaborate joke by a supernatural being or I wouldn't be able to function in normal society. Sorry, Usutu, I'm going to have to go with the bet that life is not an illusion.

My subconscious attempting to explain anamnesis

The other day I had an interesting dream which was quite related to anamnesis. The dream was that I was looking for something my parents had given to me as a baby. I didn't know what it was and they refused to tell me, saying that I knew what it was really. I was feeling really guilty and I didn't want to disappoint them by telling them I didn't know what it was so I ransacked my room endlessly trying to figure out what the mysterious object was.

This is essentially my brain's way of understanding the paradox of knowledge, when Meno asks how Socrates will find the nature of virtue when he doesn't know what it is. 

I didn't know what I was looking for, but I searched anyway, through a sense of duty.  I was actually really worried that I wouldn't have been able to find it; if I had not resolved the dream I would still be wondering what the mysterious thing was.

Happily, I did find the object. It was a really old French dictionary. (It was actually a present from a neighbour when he finished French A-level, but I didn't let reality get in the way of a good dream!) When I found the dictionary, I felt a sense of elation, like I HAD always known that it was the dictionary that I was searching for. When I found it, it just seemed obvious that I was right.

This has made me reconsider what I think about the theory of anamnesis. I am still extremely skeptical about the theory, but less so than I was. I think that the feeling that you always knew something does exist, but probably not in the way Socrates thought it did. Maybe intuition? 

Should you let your evil twin brother die?

Source 

Order of the Stick (commonly shortened to oots) is a web comic that parodies Dungeons and Dragons type games. It features a cast of characters that go around adventuring and smiting evil. This episode centres around Elan, a kindhearted but foolish bard, as he decides whether to let his evil twin brother Nale fall to his death. The two sides of the argument are humorously portrayed as a devil and an angel. I'd like to look at his dilemma from the three perspectives we have thought about so far.

Deontological

From a deontological perspective, this case seems pretty simple. Elan should not let Nale fall to his death as killing is an evil act in any circumstance. Applying the golden rule, if everyone went around killing people there would be nobody left. Clearly Elan should save his brother.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a bit more difficult to decide. On one hand, taking Nale's life would cause  considerable distress for his girlfriend, Sabine. However, she would be the only one affected by his death as Nale is not in contact with his family and does not have any other friends that would care about him. Also, if Elan did let Nale die, he would probably feel very guilty about it, especially considering it was his twin brother, which would be another bad consequence. However, if Elan lets Nale die it could be considered to be a good thing in many ways. Firstly, Nale would no longer be trying to kill Elan or his friends. In this case, the death of one person to save six other lives could be justified. Also, if Elan was thinking about the situation in this manner, his guilt would be reduced due to justification of not saving one life to keep six others. From a utilitarian perspective, it would be acceptable to let Nale die.

Virtue Ethics

This is difficult to apply in specific situations so I will appeal to Elan's character in general. He has shown himself to always try and be good. His alignment is good (a feature of Dungeons and Dragons is that you choose to be good, evil or neutral at the beginning) and he tries to do good actions. It could be said that any course of action Elan takes at this point is good, as he is a good person.

You will probably be pleased to know that Elan did save his brother in the end, on the proviso that Nale promised to surrender. However, Nale did come back to be a recurring villain, causing all sorts of problems for The Order of the Stick. It may have been more convenient to kill him but I'm not sure that convenience is worth a life, even an evil one like Nale's.

Note: Good and Evil are very much black and white in the Dungeons and Dragons world, which is interesting. Most people stick to their alignment pretty well but how do they decide what's right or not? There are often conflicts between characters and the pursuit of goodness. I must remember to write about Miko and the problems she caused in her blind quest for goodness. She was crazy.

Respect

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me"

But to what extent should we respect other people's views?

Usually, we are very accepting of what other people like to believe. We accept all kinds of people on the grounds that we would be discriminating against them if we didn't. Usually this is a good thing; homosexuals and people of most religions all been the subject of cruel treatment from society at one point due to their way of life. This has now been almost abolished due largely to awareness about discrimination. This is lovely! However, I think there's a line and I also think we don't know where it is.

Ok, so we've established that discriminating against someone because of what they believe is bad. But there are also circumstances where it can be accepted for good reasons and their lifestyle should not be tolerated. For example, if someone believes that they should hijack a plane because their God is telling them to, do we let them? Of course not because that would endanger the lives of all the people on the plane.

These two cases seem pretty clear cut. It seems "obvious" to us that you should respect homosexuals for their lifestyle but not allow religious groups to kill because they believe it's right. But where can you draw the line?

Where? I don't know.

The big difference between the two cases is the effect the actions have on the other people in the situation. In the hijacking situation, many innocent people die, which is a BAD thing. But two men living together does not harm anyone. Maybe the only way to really judge is by trying to forsee the consequences the action will have on other people and deciding whether the action is worth the consequences.

I love Utilitarianism. =)