Some Ponderings on Morality

Does Morality Come from Religion?

It is a commonly held preconception that having, or practicing a certain (as those who hold this conception tend to attribute it to one specific form) religion or belief system is the foundation for the makings of a good person. Although this is not a thesis that can be wholly and conclusively disproved, due to the fact that it deals with issues of belief, rather than knowing, I believe that it can be shown that this conception is highly improbable and, in fact, this very preconception has led to 'immoral' acts in the past. For one, if, say, one religion holds an immutable belief that sexual relations are immoral and will cause one to face severe consequences of some sort, while another religion holds an equally strong belief that sexual relations, in the correct context, are holy and are an intrinsic part of worship for them—then there seems to be a direct conflict between the two beliefs. If these two hypothetical belief systems—let's assume that they are equally prevalent and equally strongly believed by similar population segments—are taken as being true, and it seems that we cannot deny that they are at least true to their believers, then either one belief system is true and the other is not, neither are true, or the preconception that practicing a certain belief system gives one morality is untrue. These seem, at least at initial thought, to be the only possibilities.

The first option seems improbable. While believers of one system may be very attached to their own belief system, their reasoning behind their beliefs seems to come from within that system itself, thus rendering it invalid. Keeping this in mind, it makes sense that very different and even opposing beliefs can be justified in such similar manners. Since the reasoning for religious belief systems almost always comes from within the belief system, the arguments for why a certain act or belief is right or wrong can follow a very similar format and come to very different conclusions by simply pulling whatever evidence is needed into the argument from within the lore of the belief system. Taking this into account, it appears to the unbiased observer that choosing a 'right' belief system is quite arbitrary and thus it's not very likely that the solution to the above mentioned conflict lies in one or the other belief system being truly 'right.'

The second option, that neither are true, implies that no one organized belief system is true. This would seem to imply that there is no morality, since morality, when traced, seems to come from organized belief systems. For example, if an individual was asked, “Why do you believe that you are a good person?” it would not seem unusual for them to reply that they go to church every Sunday, they are loyal to their family, or that they give money to the poor. However, it would be hard to argue with a reply that stated that a person was good because he spent his Sundays working to help others, that abstains from having a family because he is aware of his incapability personally to support one, and who prefers not to give money to the poor because he believes that it demeans them. It seems that each of these individuals has an organized belief system that guides their actions and allows them to believe that they are 'good' human beings. They both seem to be right, at least in the sense that following their personal belief systems does lead them to qualify as 'good' people based on their belief systems. However, their belief systems are contradictory although they both seem to appeal to some sense of 'morality.' It doesn't seem fair to condemn them both to being untrue and it seems that the flaw may come from the belief that morality does come from organized belief systems. This leaves the third possibility—that the preconception that morality comes from certain belief systems is untrue. This would mean that all the beliefs detailed thus far could simultaneously exist and be a part of morality without contradiction. They would not necessarily all be 'good'--the decision of what is good is a separate discussion and brings many more complexities to the table—but they could each be evaluated separately and could compose multiple personal morality's without contradiction.

The Trouble with Relativism (with a historical aside about believing contradictions) - Anonymous

In thinking about what Nagel was trying to communicate with regard to subjectivism, he raises a familiar issue.  It is often the case that subjectivists, no matter the subject, will dogmatically say that there is no objective way the world is.  Yet, in defending the view of subjectivism, they take a very objective stance.  This seems similar to the problem relativists have in their commitment to the idea that there is no true or false, no right or wrong.  Obviously, the statement that "everything is relative" is itself proclaiming an unrelativistic "truth."  This is why Nagel is trying to drive home the point that people who hold radically subjectivist views do not really understand what they are doing -- because holding those views is a kind of acknowledgement of the objective way the world is.  Again, similarly, holding views of relativism, which are assertions of truth, is completely contradictory to the spirit of relativism.  It seems to me, then, impossible to make any claims or assertions at all about the world being either subjective or relative. And perhaps if it is sort of logically impossible to assert a certain point of view, that might help guide us in considering the strength of that view.  By "logically impossible" I mean the kind of fallacy like "p and not p."  The conclusion "p and not p" can never be true.  (By the way, I just googled whether the words "logical impossibility" can ever be used together and I see that this idea is actually controversial.  Apparently, David Hume held that the impossible simply cannot be believed or conceived, but Moritz Schlick claimed that "while the merely practically impossible is still conceivable, the logically impossible, such as an explicit inconsistency, is simply unthinkable."  Moreover "an opposite philosophical tradition, however, maintains that inconsistencies and logical impossibilities are thinkable, and sometimes believable too."  Apparently, Hegel holds this view.  Interesting.)

Scepticus and Olive

Scepticus: I have a question for you, Olive. Are the only things about which we can have certain knowledge are the contents of one’s own mind? Is it possible to have knowledge of the external world?

Olive: Interesting. I will approach this question with another question – is there anything that we can be 100% sure that exists only in our mind and does not exist in the external world?

Scepticus: You tell me.

Olive: My initial reaction is to say no. It seems to me that everything we think about, even our dreams, is connected to the external world. What if I think about a dog? I know of dogs through my experience of them – seeing them, touching them, smelling them, etc. This is obvious.

What if I make up something? Imagine an object that I will call… a needge. It is green, solid, and travels through walls when I push it with two fingers. Even though this needge is completely fictional, it stems from my experience of the world. My experience of green, walls, movement, fingers… Now I have never experienced a solid object pass through a wall. Is this idea in my mind and not in the external world?

Scepticus: Why, yes it is!

Olive: But if I had no knowledge of walls, movement, what it means for an object to pass through another, etc, would I be able to conceive of an object passing through a wall?

Scepticus: Well, perhaps not. But does the needge’s origin is in the external world matter? Can’t we just say that the needge’s ability to pass through walls is in your mind and leave it at that?

Olive: Think about it this way – imagine that you never had any sensation. From the moment of conception, you were completely deprived of any sensory input. Could you conceive a needge? Could you even think at all?

Scepticus: pauses. No, you couldn’t conceive of a needge. But this doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t think. I just don’t know what you would think of…

Olive: Sensation is the conduit for thinking, Scepticus! No matter how much you explain to a child who is blind, and has been so for her whole life, about the redness of an apple, she will not understand it! She cannot even imagine it.

Scepticus: A blind child, sure, but what about a man who lost his hand in an accident? I read that people who lose limbs experience phantom sensations. Obviously, there is no object-prompted sensation. So phantom sensation must exist in the mind!

Olive: True, these sensations do exist in the mind, but again I ask of the poor person deprived of any sense experience. Would he have phantom sensations?

Indulge me for a moment, while I approach the issue of knowing the external world from a different angle. What if, when you sense something, you are not necessarily sensing the “object”, but rather your experience is that of your senses. You do not experience anything other than your senses. Therefore, everything you experience is contained within your mind.

Scepticus: What about the object that prompts sensation?

Olive: I liken this to a pool of water. Suppose that you are standing in a shallow pool. A few feet from where you stand, a pebble falls into the water. This creates ripples, which after a moment splash against your legs. You experience the rock through the ripple’s effect. This is like sensation. The object that you sense through the ripple is the rock. Your experience of the rock is the ripple. Therefore, your knowledge that the rock has fallen into the pool is indirect.

Scepticus: You are saying that we cannot have knowledge of the external world?

Olive: We rely on the external world for experience. We can have knowledge of the external world, but it is always within the context of our own bodies and minds. Essentially, I am creating a distinction between sensation and the object. In common speech, when I say “This snow feels cold” we interpret that to mean “The snow is cold.” What I’m saying in reply to “This snow feels cold” is “My experience of my sensation is cold.”

Is it possible to have a ripple without a pebble? I think that this question is closely related to your question about phantom sensations. A phantom sensation would be a ripple without a pebble. But in real life I think that it is more nuanced that this. The only way you can have a phantom sensation is because you used to have a limb.

So, do we have knowledge of the external world? I am answering with both yes and no. Yes, because without the external world I doubt we could think at all. No, because our knowledge is indirect. We only know the "contents" of our body.

The Hen/Egg Debate and Admirers of Theories

"It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory-if we look for confirmations." This is Popper's first conclusion in section I. I could not agree more that if one is looking for a confirmation, then it won't be difficult to find one. I think that if one "admires" a theory or hypothesis, he will perceive everything in light of that theory and will be searching to verify the theory. One begins to form his observations based on the theory, and not the contrary. This reminds me of the images of the dog and of Jesus that we looked at in class. Once we saw the intended images, we could not avoid our eyes drifting to the them. I think that admirers of a theory experience a similar phenomenon: once they believe something to be true, they will always be able to find verification and will always be zoned in on the theory. Thus, I agree with Popper that "science must begin with myths" (26). I think that science begins with a myth, then one forms a hypothesis or theory, and then observations follow. It seems to me that the "earlier kind of observations" are encompassed by the myth. And in the scientific approach, one will actually look to refute his theory with the "later kind of observations," although the admirer will be racking up support and looking for confirmation of the theory.

Of Grue Emerapphires, Bleen Sappheralds and Other Oddities

Ok, folks, here's your space to discuss Goodman's New Riddle of Induction.

Very briefly, the problem Goodman identifies is that any set of observations can justify any prediction about the future whatsoever, in which case, no set of observations really justifies any prediction at all.

The argument runs as follows. For any predicate, P, for which you have observed n positive instances--and hence expect P to be true of the n+1th instance--it is relatively straightforward to construct another predicate, P*, such that the n observed positive instances of P are also positive instances of P*. In which case, one can equally well expect P* to be true of the n+1th instance. However, P* is defined such that the n-1th instance cannot be both P and P*. Furthermore, we can repeat the reasoning, coming up with predicates P**, P***, etc., so that the n+1th instance will have any property at all. So, the n instances provide no more reason to expect the n+1th instance will be P than it does to expect P*, P**, P***, etc. In which case the n instances provide no reason to expect anything in particular.

That's the general formulation of the argument. It is easier to follow using the (now classic) example of the predicate "grue". An object is grue, recall, just in case it is either observed by some date t and green or unobserved by t and blue. Now, all emeralds observed by this date (whenever you're reading this) have been green, and using induction in the familiar way, we expect then next observed emerald to be green. But, having just defined "grue", it is clear that every observed emerald has also been grue. So, using induction in the familiar way, we should expect the next observed emerald to be grue. But, if we treat the time at which you--gentle reader--read this as t, then if the emerald is grue, it will be blue, not green. So the emeralds we have observed to this point provide no more reason to expect the next observed emerald to be green than grue--hence, blue. Furthermore, we can define predicates "gred", "grorange, "grellow", "grurple", etc. such that, by parity of reasoning, we have just as much reason to expect the next observed emerald to be red, orange, yellow, purple and so on. It follows that we really don't have any reason to expect the next observed emerald to be any particular color.

But of course this is absurd. Emeralds we have observed to this date do give us reason to expect the next to be green, and they give us much more reason to expect this than to expect the next emerald to be blue, red, orange, etc. (Nor do they provide reason to expect the next observed sapphire to be green, or blue, etc.--but this is a further development of Goodman's argument.) That is why Goodman's New Riddle is a paradox: an unacceptable conclusion reached from apparently acceptable premises via apparently acceptable reasoning.

The challenge is to come up with an explanation of why past observations of emeralds justify our expectation that the next will be green, rather than blue (etc.). That, it turns out, is surprisingly difficult to do.

The Copy Principle (aka, Hume's Sword)

The Copy Principle is David Hume's version of the old empiricist slogan, "Nothing in the mind that is not first in the senses" (Locke's "Tabula Rasa"). [Aside: it is more accurate to treat this as an anti-nativist slogan, but many empiricists have in fact accepted some claim along these lines, so we'll ignore the inaccuracy for the time being.]

Specifically, Hume thought that every idea we have (indeed, every idea we could have) is either (a) a copy of some impression or (b) constructed wholly from ideas that are copies of some impression. 

Two notes: First, remember that we're talking about Hume here, so in this context the term "idea" refers to a subset of, for instance, Locke's Ideas. Here, "idea" means, roughly, concept or thought.

Second, I assume that Hume did not think that the Copy Principle just happened to be true of all of our ideas--I take it that he thought it was true of any idea we could, in principle, have as well.

Hume used the Copy Principle to discover the limits of what the human mind could meaningfully think. For if one cannot, at least in principle, trace an idea back to the impressions from which it was copied, then it was not a meaningful idea at all. At best, it is just a copy of some sound we have heard. Since meaningful thoughts can be built only from meaningful concepts, all meaningful thoughts are wholly composed of ideas that can be, in principle, traced back to impressions.

Using the Copy Principle, Hume argued that traditional metaphysics (of the sort offered by, for instance, Rene Descartes) was littered with meaningless concepts, concepts such as Cause, Substance, and Self, which could be traced to no impression. Philosophy, insofar as it deals in meaningful thought at all, must be confined to experience (or what can be "constructed" from things we have experienced).

The Copy Principle is a substantive and important thesis. What do you think of it? Is it plausible? Can you think of counterexamples? Where does Hume get the principle? What reasons does he offer for it? (Think of "Hume's Fork" here, and think about on which prong the Copy Principle might be found.) And how are we to assess Hume's use of the Copy Principle against apparent counterexamples? Is there any non-question begging way to use it?

Reflections on the Primary-Secondary Quality Distinction, and Our Ideas of Them

In previous posts, I've offered explanations of the Primary-Secondary Quality Distinction and our Ideas of Primary and Secondary Qualities.

But now it's time to scrutinize these ideas (if you'll permit the pun!) a bit.

In particular, I want to consider:

(1) Why should believe any of this?

(2) Why is it important or significant?

Let's start with (1). To make progress on this question, I think we'd better distinguish a number of more specific questions that are mashed together in (1). Here are some of the more specific questions we might ask:

(I) Why should we believe that there are any Primary and Secondary qualities, as those qualities have been defined?

(II) Granted the definitions of Primary and Secondary qualities, why should we believe that the examples given of each kind really are instances of those kinds? In particular, why believe that color, sound, scent, etc. are Secondary qualities? Why not suppose they are Primary qualities?

(III) Why should we believe that our Ideas of Secondary qualities do not resemble any quality in objects?

There other questions we might list here, but the above is plenty for this post. Having noted question (I), I'm going to set it aside--I think it loses much of its interest once we've answered (II) and (III). I'm going to begin with question (III), since I think question (II) is easier to answer once we've answered question (III).

So, why should we suppose that our ideas of secondary qualities, such as color, sound, taste, smell and so forth do not resemble any quality in the object? I'm going to focus on the case of color for two reasons: first, it will simplify the discussion; second, it is the most controversial example (and so, if we can make the case with respect to color, we can make it for the other qualities as well).

It is important to remember that your idea of color--or, to be more precise, your idea of a specific instance of a specific color, e.g., your idea of the color of the apple (or whatever) you are seeing right now--is the color as you are currently aware of it; the quality apparently "out there" on the apple. That is your "idea of color". It isn't a very natural usage these days.

Indeed, it isn't a very natural think to think, is it? After all, isn't that color "out there" on the apple just the property red? Well, not according to advocates of the view we are discussing. According to them, the apple as it is in itself, apart from any particular way of experiencing it, isn't colored (in the way we usually think of things as being colored) at all.

One reason is simply that appeals to color, as such, do not appear to play any essential role in explaining anything about how objects interact with other objects. Sure, we appeal to color in everyday explanations--"Why did you buy that shirt?" "I liked the color"--but when we want to get technical, when we want a full explanation, appeals to color drop out of explanations in favor of talk of wavelength distributions, behavior of electrons, and neural activity. (I am not claiming that we can explain everything about color perception, by the way!) If we take Ockham's Razor seriously, we shouldn't believe in properties that play no role in our explanations, then we shouldn't believe that color is a surface property of objects (notice that I am not quite claiming that we shouldn't believe in color at all).

A second argument is this. All object-surface we perceive as colored are, ultimately, composed of atoms. But atoms, of course, are not colored. It is, furthermore, difficult to see how a colored surface could be built up out of ultimately colorless parts. So object surfaces aren't really colored. They simply appear colored because of the way they affect us (via the light they reflect--light which is not itself colored either). Strictly speaking, this argument commits the Fallacy of Composition. Still, insofar as it really is difficult to see how to make a colored surface from colorless parts, this argument creates a challenge for anyone who would maintain that color is a real property of surfaces of objects.

I suspect that most people who doubt that color is a property of objects are persuaded by some version of an argument that we can the "Argument from the Contingency of Color Experience". It goes something like this. The way we experience the color of an object is dependent upon three things: the character of the surface of that object, the character of the light reflected off of it, and the character of our perceptual systems. Change any one of these enough, and the object will appear to have a different color. (Of course, there are problem cases even here: objects that appear black; cases where there is no surface at all--the night and daytime skies; films; and colors of light sources, but let's set those aside for now.) However, it seems to be a contingent fact (a fact that might have been otherwise) that we have the perceptual systems we have, and that the light in our environment has the character it has. Moreover, had we lived in an environment with different ambient light, or had we developed different perceptual systems, we would have different beliefs about the colors of objects--and these beliefs would have seemed perfectly natural to us (as natural as our actual beliefs seem). In light of this, it can seem to quite unlikely that we just happen to (a) have the right sort of perceptual systems and (b) live in a world with just the right sort of ambient light so that the true colors of objects are revealed to us. Why should both (a) and (b) be so, given that things (it seems) could have been otherwise? Our inability to explain this can make our ways of experiencing the colors of objects seem quite contingent--a kind of historical/galactic accident--and this, in turn, can undermine our confidence that we perceive the "true colors" of objects. If you combine this line of reasoning with the arguments offered in the previous two paragraphs, skepticism about the view that objects are colored can begin to seem quite plausible.

Other arguments could be offered for the view that objects are not really colored in the way we ordinarily think they are, but I think I have said enough to convey the overall drift of the arguments.

Now let's recall the point of offering these arguments: it was to answer question (III), above. I think we can see that the arguments offered provide an answer to that question. For if we accept that objects are not colored in the ways we perceive them to be colored, then it follows that our Ideas of Secondary Qualities do not resemble any property in those objects.

Now let's turn to question (II), which is relatively easy to answer at this point. If you accept that no property in objects resembles any of our Ideas of Secondary Qualities, then I don't think there's any reason to maintain that color (sound, smell, taste, etc) is a primary quality. The only reason--so it seems to me--to think that color (etc.) is a primary quality (a property the object has "in and of itself") is to suppose that objects possess colors in just the way we experience them. It is hard to see why you would call any other property color!

Of course, you might say that we should call a property of an object a color because it is a property of the object that causes us to experience it as colored--but that is to say that the property is a secondary quality. And this is just what Locke and many others are claiming. Once you give up the view that color is a primary quality, the only way to continue to maintain that color is a property of objects at all is to treat color as a secondary quality, a quality that objects possess because they cause us to perceive them a certain way.

So much for questions (I), (II), and (III), and hence for question (1). Let us, at long last, briefly touch upon question (2): What is significant about all of this?

This post is already far too long, so I'll try to be brief. The most obvious reason this view about secondary qualities and our ideas of them is important is that, if true, it shows that our experience is, in a fairly straightforward sense, systematically misleading. Experience presents objects and events as having properties that they do not really have. (That said, it is interesting to try to think how experience could be otherwise, particularly if you accept the view that objects are not really colored.)

A somewhat less obvious consequence--though it is one that many early modern philosophers inferred--is that we are never immediately aware of objects outside the mind. The immediate objects of awareness, on this view, are something like mental images ("Ideas"). For if the qualities we are aware of--color, sound, scent, etc.--are not qualities of objects outside the mind, then they must be qualities of objects in the mind. At any rate, this is how many have reasoned.

Now, once one has inferred that the immediate objects of awareness are ideas, it is a short step to Veil of Perception Skepticism about our ability to know anything at all about the external world. For if we are never immediately aware of anything but our ideas, it can be hard to see how we could ever justify any claim about the nature--or existence--of anything other than our ideas.

Ok, enough already! Let's hear what you think. Are the arguments offered above any good? Do you have other arguments for the claims I've discussed? Objections? Counterarguments? Let's hear it!